Criticism on DD hits please

Be careful about the front hip. If intended or not, rotating the front hip off the plate also starts to force the front shoulder off the plate, making moving pitches, changeups, etc on the outside corner harder to hit. The backside rotation should force the front hip off the plate, and the core and shoulders should stay on or over the plate as long as needed.

Gags said:

Usually you want to see a nearly straight line across both shoulders to the hands and down the bat - from the viewpoint in the video, it would probably be more of a zigzag. This may be why she has a low follow through.

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This is the first thing I saw of only two points I could determine. Great job, and other coaches need to understand this principle.

It appears her shoulder tilt is fine at contact or finish by what I can see, but I first noticed the dropping hands. Her load may be getting set a little too early, and some separation from her stance to toe-touch might help that. So her hand-load comes right at toe touch, the hands stay connected to the back shoulder (actually a little beyond), but at that height. Then as the backside rotation begins, the shoulders take the hands to the ball. That will produce the straight line aspect talked about before; shoulders, front arm, and down through the bat to contact.

Never take the hands to the ball with the front hip. That pulls the front shoulder off the plate, diminishing outside plate coverage, which brings up the other point.

There is a process in good hitting I call "upper-body coil". That is when the backside rotation leads the swing, with the backside rotation driving the back hip forward, displacing the front hip. The upper body then follows, lagging behind, similar to bat-lag and wrist snap. Then the hands follow creating a whipping action through contact. This produces improved power.

To do so I would work on a more explosive drive on the stride and back knee turn. There is one thing I can not detect in her swing that is a power and swing speed killer. That is the back elbow leading the hands. When the back elbow comes down to the pant seam, the hands should be stacked vertically, directly above the elbow, not ahead, and especially not behind the elbow. Either kills power! But the late hands create a slower swing also. Check that from the side.


I don't know her age, but over-all I think she looks great.