What's the goal?

cbullard · Jul 18, 2017

I hear some hitting coaches preach hard ground balls or line drives. Others want it in the air. Either way I guess the end goal is to produce base runners. The reason I ask is because DDs team played a game tonight and one of the players hit a hard ground ball that the SS couldn't get to. Her Dad said he didn't like it. "We hit long balls. Not ground balls".

My thinking has always been....hit it hard and get on base.

Am I not the norm?

Rocketech1 · Jul 19, 2017

Unless you are a slapper, the ideal swing plane is one that promotes hard hit, line drives as there is much more fair territory to cover by the 3 outfielders than in the infield which has 5 fielders to field ground balls. Line drives find the gaps for extra base hits and occasionally make it over the fences for home runs. Ground balls do not.

CoogansBluff · Jul 19, 2017

cbullard said:
I hear some hitting coaches preach hard ground balls or line drives. Others want it in the air. Either way I guess the end goal is to produce base runners.

Line drives will produce more base runners than hard ground balls.

_MIA_ · Jul 19, 2017

HR every AB..

GunnerShotgun · Jul 19, 2017

Obviously everyone wants to hit line drives but if you have to error on one side (hitting on the ground or in the air) hitting in the air is the way to go. It's not even a debate anymore.

Hitting it hard on the ground is productive when they are really young. Not so much when they learn how to field.

In summary line drives are the goal but if you are going to miss hit it in the air.

FP26 · Jul 19, 2017

Most of DD's coaches over the years have focused on keeping the ball down in the zone in order to induce ground balls (DD is a pitcher). Seems contradictory that a hitter would also want to hit the ball on the ground...

cbullard · Jul 19, 2017

Makes total sense. Appreciate it. Was just curious.

Gags · Jul 19, 2017

pattar said:
HR every AB..

or as Domingo says:
"errey-tyne"

JAD · Jul 19, 2017

If a players is really fast I would prefer ground balls they can leg out, for everyone else I would look for line drives.

FiveFrameSwing · Jul 19, 2017

GunnerShotgun said:
Obviously everyone wants to hit line drives but if you have to error on one side (hitting on the ground or in the air) hitting in the air is the way to go. It's not even a debate anymore.

Hitting it hard on the ground is productive when they are really young. Not so much when they learn how to field.

In summary line drives are the goal but if you are going to miss hit it in the air.

A common preaching point is that line-drives will average out to be 80% productive, whereas grounders and flyballs will be roughly 30% productive.

Assuming the third base coach hasn't given a particular objective, I like to think of hitting a line-drive to the gap.

Another decent objective is to hit a line-drive that just clears the height of a middle infielders outstretched glove.

Strive for line-drives. A decent target is to hit 50% line-drives ... where 50% are mistakes ... half of those mistakes (25%) should be grounders and half of those mistakes should be fly balls. Having the errors heavily on one side is not a great idea IMO.

What's the goal?

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