MS made TB swing worse

sbmom19 said:

DD always had an adjustment period when going from HS pitching to TB pitching and back while she figured out the timing. She is a power hitter so she also had to adjust bat angle a bit. BA would suffer for a little while and then she would get back in the groove.

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Thanks, I will tell her that.

There was not one girl on our MS team who did not play travel. When dd was in 7th grade, she played TB, MS and rec. I did find her having to adjust from rec pitching to a fast TB pitcher. Brought her to the batting cages to keep sharp.


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Cyder517 said:

Brought her to the batting cages to keep sharp.

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That sounds like it might be the best thing to do, thanks.

I would definitely tell her batting coach that she's having problems adjusting to timing. We did with ours and she worked in three speeds of pitches: fast, average and slow. It's helped her tremendously against the slower pitchers since that's who she was having the most problems against. It also helped her with off speeds from faster pitchers.

Bob516 said:

Thanks, but I told my DD to talk to her batting coach for suggestions on how not to drop her back shoulder. I don't know enough to give any advice.

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You seem pretty convinced that dropping the back shoulder is a flaw. As RDB mentioned earlier, what happens with the back shoulder is largely dependent on pitch location. If you watch video of the best hitters in the world, it is pretty common that rear shoulder gets lower than the front shoulder during the swing. In my experience, "don't drop the rear shoulder" is a frequently misused cue. That said, if she's lowering the rear shoulder too early in the process, it could be an issue, but that kind of move is most often a side-effect of another flaw in the swing.

As for MS ball, this was my observation from last year...

All of the teams were a mix of 12U-14U TB, rec, and newbie players. Those teams that had TB pitchers were at an advantage, especially if they were 14U. We saw some other decent pitching from 14U rec all-star players, too. Unfortunately, our only pitchers were not-very-good 12U rec level, and we only had 2 TB players. It made for a very rough season for us. My DD and the other TB player continued to swing the bat the same as they do with their TB teams, no matter what kind of pitching they were facing. Both of them crushed all season.

A good player with a good swing has the ability to be successful no matter what kind of pitching they are facing. One thing I have found to help some young hitters is to give them a goal of making a good swing, rather than just making contact. Make a good swing, and the results will take care of themselves. No matter the pitching speed, the swing should always be sudden/explosive.

Eric F said:

One thing I have found to help some young hitters is to give them a goal of making a good swing, rather than just making contact. Make a good swing, and the results will take care of themselves.

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Makes perfect sense. I will tell her that, thanks.

Bob516 said:

Makes perfect sense. I will tell her that, thanks.

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One of the things I do with all of the hitters I work with is to get them to pay attention to how the swing feels in their own body, and pay attention to how adjustments make things feel different. Once they start to improve their body awareness, they can start recognizing for themselves when things are right or wrong, and are more able to make their own adjustments to get things feeling the way they should. With this is place, on deck and in the box, I ask them to do their best to make swings that feel right.

This isn't addressed to the original poster but in general if a player is worried about getting "worse" by playing with "lesser" players they probably aren't that good to begin with. Not sure Jenny Finch, Mike Trout, Lebron James or Tom Brady worried much about "getting worse" when playing with less than top level talent. They were probably more worried about hurting someone...

RichK said:

This isn't addressed to the original poster but in general if a player is worried about getting "worse" by playing with "lesser" players they probably aren't that good to begin with. Not sure Jenny Finch, Mike Trout, Lebron James or Tom Brady worried much about "getting worse" when playing with less than top level talent. They were probably more worried about hurting someone...

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Valid point, but we are talking about kids. I have seen it happen many times where young players will lose some of their refined skills when they aren't being challenged. Swing mechanics, especially, will often drift when not diligently maintained.

Eric F said:

Valid point, but we are talking about kids. I have seen it happen many times where young players will lose some of their refined skills when they aren't being challenged. Swing mechanics, especially, will drift when not diligently maintained.

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I agree with this, and even more so with pitchers. I have seen more than one pitcher play rec ball and travel ball during the same time frame. In some cases, all they need to do at rec ball is throw the ball hard and down the middle. But if they try that in travel ball, the outcome would be much different. From a hitting perspective, I have seen numerous travel ball players struggle with weaker pitchers. But IMO, those players were not great hitters to begin with. The difference in pitching quality uncovered a flaw in their swing that they may not have known about otherwise.