14 year of two videos hitting ... opinions?

[fivepotsogold]

Taken today:
9th grader in a high school fall ball game
(pitching fine, 3 hitter (3 nice hits last inning) (no BB) and we won 14-0)

This first resulted in semi hard line over 2nd baseman:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcLOv0eh7qU


The second resulted in a decent grounder up the middle:
YouTube - K2 midground.AVI


Neither particularly hard hit .. but not striking out nearly as much as she used to.

Looking at RVP ...

 

[fivepotsogold]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcLOv0eh7qU
First hit

 

[Chris O'Leary]

Neither particularly hard hit .. but not striking out nearly as much as she used to.

Looking at RVP ...

She looks athletic and strong and somewhat successful despite a not great swing (especially at the start).

Looks like someone who is being held back by bad instruction or cues.

What was she taught?

 

[cshilt]

The biggest issues I saw is that she is dropping her hands and her lead elbow is too low. Her elbows are not working together to maintain "the box". She also doesn't appear to be driving through the ball, stopping her swing at the extension point. I see improvement on the bat drag issue from the pictures you posted earlier.

Refer to this clip on Benji for the elbows working together.

 

[fivepotsogold]

To cshilt ... the "bat drag" pictures were my 12 year old.
(I have three daughters)

This is my 14 year old pitcher.
She has had very little in the way of batting instruction (early on it was kind of turn hips, knob to the ball) ... but now high school and she wants to step it up in batting and pitching.

She does not show the same hunger/determination at the plate as she does on the mound .. a lot less confidence at plate.

 

[fivepotsogold]

OK .. think I fixed link:

First one is line drive over second:
YouTube - K1 line

This one is grounder up midde:
YouTube - K2 midground.AVI

Will play High School indoor for winter ...filling in on HS fall Ball team..playing 14U travel (tournament at FPN Oct 23rd and Glens Falls NY Dec 18th)

Yes we are guilty of not getting her the instruction she requires at this point ...doing the best we can on limited budget and 4 other kids!

Probably try the RVP and get Hillhouse dvd ...

The 12 year old also plays on same 14U travel team (but also plays premier soccer) she has bat drag going on a bit ...loves the neck high fast ball and hits those very well.
The 6 year old loves battin practice...also have two boys too!

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

The second resulted in a decent grounder up the middle:
YouTube - K2 midground.AVI

Basically what we see here is a “disconnected” swing without “coil” and “stretch”.

The primary and secondary sources of force generation in an advanced swing are virtually absent in this swing.

It isn’t like we could point to one or two little things that she could do better on. She’s currently doing little correct. IMO, the kid needs to learn a complete hitting system from scratch. I don’t know about your HS, but a swing like this would be challenged at the JV level in our area.

I’ve got to be honest …. She has a long road in front of her if she wishes to play at a high level. With good instruction … once/wk, a healthy diet of practicing, and some competition where she could burn in and demonstrate improved mechanics, she could be playing at the Varsity level in our area in 2yrs time …. But that would require sincere dedication on her part, the availability of good instruction, and a travel team where she could face a regular diet of good pitching.

 

[fivepotsogold]

To FiveFrameSwing: a little more negative than necessary ... guessing you need a hug.

But since I have no illusions that she is struggling (even though she is getting weak base hits and gets the most walks on the team). On base % is over .500 .. we realize that your "critique" is needed for her to get better ...

She does have other skills (such as a being a very good pitcher, very good outfielder with a serious gun for an arm) so she will play HS ball this spring.

Trying to do this from home is difficult. Doing the best we can to get help and will work very hard to get better ...

 

[Chris O'Leary]

The stuff FFS pointed out is way down on my list of things to work on.

I would talk to her about the idea of explosiveness and hitting the crab out of the ball. She is very tentative at the start of her swing and that makes her swing very slow to get up to speed.

 

[PEPPERS]

Poor mechanics can works to a certain point, then the good pitchers will exploit the weakness in a swing. I don’t know what part of the country you are from I would suggest a good hitting coach, we go to hitting camps with Alabama coach Murphy. I purchased his videos which has some good drills to help with some of the problems I see.

I agree with one statement made on this forum if you can throw you can hit, you advised she has a strong arm and if she can throw she probably has good throwing mechanics, maybe all she needs is to utilize those same mechanics for throwing in her swing and a good hitting coach can help her accomplish this.