Form vs. Function

My kid is hitting great against average high school pitching. She has no hitting coach, just a natural hitter. Mucho power, out of park home runs over 215' fence, I taped it. 12 singles and 10 extra base hits in last 41 at bats. Does not have classic form at all. I believe she is not reaching her full potential. Questions... get hitting coach or leave her alone?

well it depends...only video would be able to tell, maybe she already has good form and you only want to emphasize the positive and make small adjustments, but maybe she is just very strong and coordinated and can overcome form flaws at this level. Does she play 16U travel ball? if so how does she do against good pitchers there?

A 16 yr old who is strong and athletic given bat technology and mediocre pitching can do just fine, at some point though if your mechanics are not sound you will never be able to be consistent against good pitching.

mm'spapa said:

My kid is hitting great against average high school pitching. She has no hitting coach, just a natural hitter. Mucho power, out of park home runs over 215' fence, I taped it. 12 singles and 10 extra base hits in last 41 at bats. Does not have classic form at all. I believe she is not reaching her full potential. Questions... get hitting coach or leave her alone?

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Depends on what your DD's 'goals' are . To just play in HS (22 for 41 is really good.) or to play in college. Still it depends do you think DD will struggle against good pitching in HS,TB or college. If you post DD's swing chances are pretty good that most will have you second guessing the 'leave her alone' part.
My DD plays in college and I still can't 'leave her swing alone', but that's just me.

High School can vary from rec league to a very high level of competition.

I've seen quite a few "natural" players that excel at limited level of competition. As the level of pitching increases, there comes a point where the real flaws in their swing are exposed, and their production heads south in a hurry. Just as top pitchers work to continue their development, hitters hoping to be successful against those pitchers also need to continue their development. This usually involves instruction outside of team activities.

A related story...A player came to our team (first year 12U TB). She was a tall and strong girl, with a long looping swing. Against average TB pitching she struggled. Progress in getting her swing sorted out was slow, but improvements were happening, and she was starting to have some success. Unfortunately, her parents' patience ran out, and they pulled her off the team, claiming we ruined their DD..."She was such a good hitter before she came to this team!" I guess they didn't recognize the competition level difference between 10U rec and 12U TB.

I watched Hunter Pence adjust to a Clayton Kershaw curveball last night and hit a 370' line drive over the wall. Hunter has his own style.

If anyone can GIF it, it's worth a look.

Looks like your pretty standard elite level swing to me, this is old but because he has sound mechanics he can make adjustments he is back, loaded and separated ready to go before anything starts forward this is the key to making adjustments and a fairly common flaw we see here in hitters that are good but not great, if you have started leaking forward already you can't undo that and its harder to make an adjustment

Found something a little later and even though everything seems different he gets into his front foot landed stance and it looks fairly standard with just a little less bat angle than most more up and down.

final note and I don't think people see this enough if you are ready and I mean really ready to unload your swing it happens incredibly fast and even more so for Hunter he actually plants his foot and then reaches back even more then starts forward look how close the ball is and he has not started his hands forward yet and you can see he is still coiled and has not released hips either

Recap: SF 4, LAD 3 | MLB.com

Take a look. :18 Mark.

I think that little reach back after foot plant actually helps a lot it looks almost like a hitch in his swing but seems like he used it as a timing mechanism