Back Spin Tee

[Cannonball]

For me, a Tanner Tee is time tested. Believe me, I see them abused every day and they hold up.

 

[Westwind]

https://launchangletee.com/cf-lat
This Tee is something they've been experimenting with. I know they use it with private lessons.
I posted this and accidentlly deleted it so I'll be brief this time-
They were using the Zepp when it first came out. They have introduced us to Axon Fastpitch (Video pitch recognition training), DK swing tracker to follow up on who is doing their homework, but the thing I really like is the HitTrax! They hit live and a computer program on a flatscreen shows them where in the ballpark the hit went, what kind of hit and how far.
Pitching is where they really push the envelope, sometimes inventing a training device for one class and not using it again.

Thanks for the info! There is a local facility that got HitTrax last fall and I need to look into how to access it. That looks very cool and very fun. I’m going to google all the other items right now, lol!

 

[obbay]

For me, a Tanner Tee is time tested. Believe me, I see them abused every day and they hold up.

THIS!!
DD used to belong to a program that had the crappiest Tees and the director would go out and buy some new, cheap tees and be talking about his "investment in new equipment for you kids"- the new tees were often destroyed in a week. For only a few bucks more, he could have been buying tanner tees and not had to keep replacing them!

 

[coach james]

As an owner of 3 tees...
I have a Tanner, a G, and a Jugs...
Believe it or not, I love the Jugs tee. It's lighter weight, has a smoother extension arm, and has a carrying handle built into the base. As a bonus it's about $20 cheaper!!

Sidenote... Backspin on purpose is absolutely BS. In my opinion, backspin is the result of a poor swing. Keep it simple. Get on plane, stay long through the zone, and hit the center of the ball with the sweetest part of the barrel. Collect your trophies, and go get ice cream!

 

[Westwind]

Stay with me here, this is going to be a typically random WW post here. I hope to connect a few dots.

Yesterday I listened to a Baseball Rebellion podcast interview of Coach Lisle. For those who aren’t college softball maniacs, he is the new hitting coach at SC and the team is on fire. One of the things he talked about is that they figured out that a ball with an exit velocity of 65 mph and a launch angle of 26 degrees will clear the fence at their home field.

The above angle is 26 degrees.

I used the compass app on my iPhone to measure a 26 degree angle in my home cage. Where a batted ball strikes the roof of my cage is startlingly “up” or steep at a spot in the roof of my rather low cage that every one of my hitters, and me, and every mom and dad would call a “pop up” in the cage.



This is 18 degrees. This is approximately the angle I have trained into my younger dd since day one. “Hit the back of the cage, hit the top of the cage near the back of the cage”. Younger dd is a good hitter with a typical exit velocity of over 65 mph. When doing tee work, we hit lengthwise in the cage not into a net. I put balls on the Tanner tee, always railroad tracks up and down, “hit the inside seam” and with that 18 degree angle in mind. What are the game results of this training? DD is a gap to gap hitter that typically hits more extra base hits than most but very few home runs by comparison. She is the kid that is hitting balls against the fence on one and two hops. She also hits more ground balls than I would like but she reaches on error because it is hard hit or it gets through. IMHO, if you are playing at upper levels, ground balls are outs. I feel lucky when a ground ball is hit, no matter how hard, and the hitter reaches.

So recently we have been using the backspin tee more, but not exclusively. Her launch angle is slightly higher. So far this spring in 6 hs games she has 12 hits which is consistent with last year. Here is what changed: Nine of those hits are extra base hits and two are otf home runs. Last year, despite leading her team in almost every hitting category she had zero otf home runs the entire season. None, Nadda. A couple of days ago, the game was perfect hitting conditions, she was 4/4 and everything she hit either hit the fence in the air or one hopped the fence. The one ball that cleared the fence was her first at bat and she told me “it felt like a pop-up off the bat”. I think that statement illustrates that what I have been teaching her is wrong or at least a little off! I think that the change in launch angle is the difference and playing with hitting the ball a little lower on the ball with the backspin tee might be the difference for her. Now... is she hitting the ball with backspin? Probably not and if she is, it isn’t intended. And she certainly Is Not chopping down on the ball like people think of with “imparting backspin on the ball” but honestly there really is no way to chop down on the ball with a backspin tee. You absolutely have to get behind the ball to hit it well out of the upside down rubber cup.

Now.... I own two tanner tees and dd has hit likely tens of thousands of balls off them. Tanner tees and similar are really good tees. Tanner Tees got us to where we are. A tanner tee is the first thing a hitters parent should buy. Could we work on launch angle with a tanner tee? You bet. And we will. But, the backspin tee isn’t a bad thing... In the future we are going to continue to use the backspin tee, increase her launch angle, with a goal to decrease ground balls and increase home runs.

I’m sorry that part of my post belongs in the shameless brag section. I hoped only to illustrate a difference in one player. Also, temper my “brag” with this: dd plays at a small hs playing small high schools. I’m under no illusion that dd is hitting top level pitching right now. She isn’t. Yet I still think this minor change will carry over to this summer when she is seeing top pitching.