Critique / Help Series of Swings
- Thread starter knightsb
- Start date
Welcome to Discuss Fastpitch
Your FREE Account is waiting to the Best Softball Community on the Web.
Great conversation.
When teaching in a gym, with students, saying using matrix drills, Teaching a toe touch, open into heal drop, is just a teaching moment.. Its good to always tell your student, that it is ok, to open, before toe touch, that it is ok, if fooled by offspeed, to "hover",
toe touch. Hover just turns stride, into no stride.
Yes i think we all know that a good flow with no hesitation is the goal, but, %^^% happens.
Degree of tilt. Going into launch, Ideally, i would think that your lean at that time, is your starting place to turn to tilt (i use both words lean and tilt, my students understand me), You can increase your tilt as you turn, for lower pitches, or, as cabrera did with the high pitch, he actully raised abit. His power L, or forearm pinch, the degree at that point also changed, from low to high.
It is not as drastic, of a change as i used to think, (degree of tilt), because, the arms adjust also.
I have never seen a MLB player get fooled that badly. right.
When teaching in a gym, with students, saying using matrix drills, Teaching a toe touch, open into heal drop, is just a teaching moment.. Its good to always tell your student, that it is ok, to open, before toe touch, that it is ok, if fooled by offspeed, to "hover",
toe touch. Hover just turns stride, into no stride.
Yes i think we all know that a good flow with no hesitation is the goal, but, %^^% happens.
Degree of tilt. Going into launch, Ideally, i would think that your lean at that time, is your starting place to turn to tilt (i use both words lean and tilt, my students understand me), You can increase your tilt as you turn, for lower pitches, or, as cabrera did with the high pitch, he actully raised abit. His power L, or forearm pinch, the degree at that point also changed, from low to high.
It is not as drastic, of a change as i used to think, (degree of tilt), because, the arms adjust also.
I have never seen a MLB player get fooled that badly. right.
mann, I agree with what you're saying here. I hadn't really thought of the initiation of tilt ("when" it happens), but it seems to coincide with the stretching of the front-side obliques, which would aid (cause?) the tilt of the shoulders moving the barrel into the plane of the pitch. Good stuff.
Greenmonsters
Wannabe Duck Boat Owner
IMO, its just like bunting where you start the bat at the top of the zone and adjust down from there - the hitter isn't committed and can pull the bat back if the pitch is a ball. The elbow slotting, hands staying up, and the bat tip is moving, but the hitter hasn't committed to the pitch and can read/react/adjust from there to in/out, low/high, or stop and check the swing. It's a multiple bonus well worth the trouble understanding - improved bat speed with no loss in adjustibility combine to allow more time to read/react to a pitch and produce more power.
I consider this post ridiculous! Every player should be taught to lay off pitches that are out of the zone. Lucy usually does. And have any major leaguers ever missed or swung at a pitch up? They are paid millions to lay off pitches out of the zone. Players are paid millions to field every ball. Yet you have made a cause celeb of a player you have never seen play. What I can tell you is that I would rank her as one of the top 10 third basemen in the international circuit, and that includes Jena Leles. Lucy fields rings around her. Why is the rise-ball said to be "the most devastating pitch in softball" by people in the know? Is it because no one ever misses? I have seen much worse swings than this. And this was simply bad mechanics; guessing wrong, or bad mechanics.
There have been two things said here by the HI camp. One is that "guessing" is not part of the process as if every swing makes contact, or every "turned barrel" swing makes contact. Sure! Another is that turning the barrel automatically lowers the back shoulder, preparing it to create a level swing to the ball. Sure! And Lucy just proved it here. There is one big difference between Lucy and Teresa. They have both faced Jenny Finch, Chelsea Thomas, Jackie Traina, and Keilani Ricketts, and Jordan Taylor. Not all of them, but among them. When your girls have played international ball, perhaps I will critique every swing and miss. Because believe me, they had a lot of swings and misses, including Japan, who has won the last two ISF World Championships. In this first video, does this girl demonstrate launching?
[video]http://i48.tinypic.com/2mgk0fq.gif[/video]
There are nine fundamental elements to bunting which I published. One is keeping the bat at the top of the strike zone. What would make you believe that because a girl misses a pitch, it is because she isn't taught correctly? And the girls below? What advice would you two guys give them?
Did you say anything about these girls? You posted the gifs FFS, and you have seen them Greenmonsters! Truly it is bizarre to take A SWING and create an indictment! But here is the fallacy. You have seen Teresa, and Lucy. And they play on the same team, same coaching, same technique, so did Teresa learn by osmosis reading your posts? Well she must have, because Lucy is guilty, and Teresa isn't. No, it isn't an indictment of them, it is an indictment of me. Well too bad! When you are debating how bad her swing is, I will be watching them play in the European Championships in 2013 and the ISF World Championships in the Netherlands in 2014.
[video]http://i52.tinypic.com/2bbcjs.gif[/video]
[video]http://i52.tinypic.com/b8kck7.gif[/video]
The great Bustos!
[video]http://i53.tinypic.com/zitw1g.gif[/video]
Last edited:
Bold: I have been discussing hitting with you. FYI, I am not in the HI camp. Do I like some of the stuff they present? YES.
Also, there is guessing going on all the time. MLB players, college players, high school players etc... guess at pitches. Not all the time but in certain situations.
Everyone swings and misses. Those with high level mechanics and those without. I am basing my assumption that your hitters have a hard time checking late because of the words you use to describe the swing. Also, based off of your comments on the Torres clip when you stated it was compact.
I agree with much of what you are saying here. Your opinion of Torres swing and mine are different. You are coming from a different technical perspective. Show me one of your girls, MTS, Marcus, etc. that is more compact?
Yes, it is ridiculous to propose that no one swings and misses. May I offer up to you that you have never once seen Teresa or Lucy at bat. You don't know if they check their swings. In fact they do. Teresa has a little better eye and is stronger. She checks more. But again, you guys take one photo, which in reality is an indictment of MTS's statement I think it was, that turning the barrel drops the bat in the path of the ball and drops the back shoulder. Lucy did not try to check her swing. She was full out committed. She didn't slow down and speed up. She didn't take a half cut. She came out of her shoes, yet you guys are making the swing fit your agenda, not reality. In truth, though Teresa is a better player, Lucy is a better player than anyone you have ever created, or prove me wrong! Name your girls that play in International competition? Can you address that idea? But one swing of Lucy is an indictment of her skills. You collectively abrogate your legitimacy of authority on the game. And as far as ability to check the swing, I do not agree.
So now I assume everyone will fall in line with your premise, that instead of being incompetent as proposed in these recent posts, the girls instead can not check their swing?
Last edited:
The pitchers job is too upset/ change/ or cause timing and rhythm issues with the hitter and our job as a hitter is to be able to keep our hands back and hit the pitch we like and that does not mean it will necessarily will be a strike! As I have said before the only thing I want the umpire to do is call safe or out and feel it is the hitters job to call balls and strikes as it is their job to train for what balls to hit and adjust for in/ out up or down as to pitches and speeds. Bustos has stated the hardest pitch to hit in softball is the riseball. She teaches them to start high adjust down and start in and adjust out. Some posters need to understand the riseball in softball is a pitch most MLB players don't face. Good example is the Finch video of striking out MLB players.
Last edited:
Steve
Good post
You can tell the guys who work with real live girls and experience the adjustments you need to make as an instructor.
They jump all over Oleary when he is a guy who has worked on hitting with a pro.
I cant say that.
If you make it up this way and end up talking hitting with Howard. Let me know I will stop by if I can.
SL
Last edited:
And the farther the bat barrel is from the shoulder, the more difficult the job will be to get that bat head back in and out in front to hit a pitch up and in. And the lower the start, as in Lucy's swing on that riseball, the more difficult it is not to look foolish like Bustos did against Angela Tincher.
