Offseason woes

Alight here is the deal. Left the fall ball season hitting the ball very well. Seemed to be improving very well during winter practices. Then live pitching and a couple of indoor tornaments started. My first thought is the front leg. She hits off the tee and hard front toss with a strong front leg but when facing live pitching seems to lunge towards the ball. First two videos are her hitting off team pitcher Tuesday and the only video I have of front toss is the last video which isn't very good but it is somewhere to start. Any thoughts some drills to help. She has swung under every pitch and now is 0-16 indoors this year. Thank goodness she is a great catcher to keep her in the lineup. 12u player. Thank you
https://youtu.be/PO2Y-0xeUg4
https://youtu.be/KFotz9v1QCI
https://youtu.be/STlLaA8i2PE

Couple observations...bottom half...little or no weight transfer to front side and collapsing front leg. One we do with players with little weight transfer is getting back leg up on a box 6-8"....that will help them get the feel of not hitting setting back on the back leg.

Second thing is she appears to be casting out with bottom hand, pre maturely extending the lower arm...that makes her swing long and slow and part of why she seems to be swinging late.

A couple good drills are to get a light bat or specialized bat for one hand hitting and have her isolate the bottom hand hitting off a tee without extending the arm until after contact and attacking the inside of the ball....usually do this from a knee with the front leg extended. The hitting discs are also good for this but you can just substitute a ball ...have her stand in her stance without a bat and with a ball held between the palms of her hands and simulate a swing focusing on bottom hand facing down and top hand facing up and think about throwing the ball with both hands towards the pitcher.

Once you have done this for awhile have her pick up a bat still hitting off the tee and set up an exercise mat (the gym style ones that fold in the middle) so that it is about 4-6" away and a little back from the opposite side of the tee. You can also have her do this hitting up tight against a chain link fence with an old duffer bat....but I find the kids will swing harder when its the exercise mat. If the batter continues to cast out she will end up hitting the mat....as she gets better at not hitting the mat move her closer simulating inside pitches while still keeping her hands inside the ball.

She has a number of fairly significant but fairly easily fixed hitting flaws. The trick though is getting her to consistently make the correction and to do it enough off a tee or soft toss that it gets ingrained in the muscle memory. Once you throw in live pitching its much harder to make corrections unless it begins to feel natural.

Notice the front leg:

DD is lowering whole body down level to the ball. Needs to learn how to not lower her whole body down but, how to tilt, bend ect....and deliver the barrel down to the ball. There's other issues....bat on shoulder, not using her hands to 'turn the barrel forward towards the ball'. First things first.....

The two biggest issues I see is the amount of head movement and she is not hitting against a firm front side. Fix the front leg and that will make the head move less, really hard to hit when your front leg is collapsing like that.

Among the other items mentioned it looks like she has a double load. Against live pitching it's hard to get corect timing when doing this. Maybe one of the pros can confirm this or not.

I had a girl that did this and the que "slow (load) to explode" helped a little. She was going early and would take another short quick load to time the pitch. This became a bad habit that she used every time. She eventually left to pursue hockey full time so I never saw her completely kick the habit.

On her "get out", I'd like to see the front shoulder stay above the front hip.

She also shows a DBSF pattern. That needs to be addressed.

The biggest issue I am having is what is happening off the tee and in front toss is different then what is happening during live pitching. We will be adding the drills above to help with the flaws pointed out. Hopefully getting some of these fixed will translate to doing the same thing during tee work /front toss and live pitching. Any other suggestions are welcomed. Thanks

Be careful doing too much drill work without a specific purpose for doing it. If it doesn't translate to hitting a ball from a pitcher then it is not helping (anymore or ever).

Lots of ways to say the same thing but she has a level push swing that will always be dependent on perfect timing to hit the ball out front. She will either be early and lunging or late and hacking.

The trick is finding the approach that works for her.

If you want yet another suggestion try having her do different simple things that she should be able to do with a non-push swing. Example, can she hit fungos, hit oppo, adjust from "normal" front toss to "granny" slow front toss within 2 pitches? It will be an obvious struggle......so then do a drill to work on a flaw and have her try again and see if she notices any difference. Her awareness is the key part of this to make progress.

Enjoy my free advice for what you paid for it

She's very athletic....Love it.....compare the clips above....She needs to get Her movements in order.
She needs to get forward as a whole before allowing the front side to work. Right now She puts the front side to work while standing on the rear leg.
Some would say the action of Her front leg is not connected to Her movement as a hitter and that would be correct.