DD getting worse at hitting

[SoftballMama]

I recently posted a question in the pitching section and one of the replies mentioned this:

"I have had a few parents who let the coaches change things and their daughters started to develop poor mechanics. And then the coach asks the parents why the pitcher is not performing as well as they did when they tried out for the team."

This has happened to my daughter with regard to hitting. DD came from 8U rec ball to 10U ASA. IMO, she needed practice seeing the ball sooner with the faster pitching, instead they started tweaking her swing. Now she is really messed up. They tell her to squish the bug and throw her hands at the ball - all things she knows are not right. She has basically become the worst hitter on the team. The coach doesn't really have an explanation for it other than that DD has lost confidence. (which is true)

Sluggers - your advice to me in the pitching forum was smile and nod - but it is much harder with hitting because coach's eyes are constantly on DD for the duration of her batting practice at the tee or the plate. (the coach doesn't walk away like in pitching practice to look at other pitchers) Any different advice here?

Has anyone had this experience of getting worse? If we leave there is no other playing option until september rec league begins. Is it better to stay and get to play or should we leave and hang out at the academy, return to rec ball in the fall and look for another asa team for next year?

In all fairness, the other girls are succeeding under the coach's regime and the team is doing well. The girls are wonderful. And we do like the coach's instruction regarding pretty much everything else.

 

[amanda_cake]

As a coach, if I have a kid that is hitting well... I leave them alone. If she gets up there and sees enough fast pitches, she will adjust. Might take a couple of buckets through the pitching machine, but she will adjust to the speed. I would have left her alone. Talk to the coach, try reverting back to whatever she was doing before... tell him to give you a couple of weeks to see if it works. What works for one player doesn't always work for all of them, she might need to do her own thing that she learned from the softball academy. I definitely think you should ride out the season however.

 

[stephanie]

someone on here said this and I relayed it to my DD, who is also 10U and a pitcher: she needs to stop acting like a pitcher when she's the batter.
???
ok..As a pitcher, she's throwing strikes, seeing them travel, going over the plate, and sees them as strikes and balls... As a batter, she may be trying to do that too. But she's the batter now. She may need to stop trying to call the pitches in the box; instead she needs to see the ball as if it can be hit or not. If it can be hit, she swings. If not, she doesn't. There are no strikes and balls. Once I explained this to my own DD, her at bats have been much more enjoyable...

 

[Lozza]

I think next year you need a new team. The coach is probably wonderful. But he doesn't work for your daughter. He's trying to mess up her pitching and is ruining her batting. What is she getting out of this?

I would tell her to get the negative talk out of her head. If she HAS to bat like he tells her, then she needs to stop thinking of it as wrong. Try it, and try it honestly. My personal motto all my softball career is that I'll try anything once. If it feels good and works I'll continue with it. If it doesn't, I'll do the old smile and nod and continue doing it my way. (my personal fave is that ALL slap bats need to start showing the bunt. To me I might as well have my coach yell 'Lauren slap bunt please!')

 

[fastpitch]

I have no idea how your daughter swing looks like but sometimes as a hitting coach tries to rebuild someones swing the hitter takes a step back before going forward. A successful 8U swing may just not be successful at 10U. That being said, if you are working on her swing with someone knowledgeable outside these practices I'd just let the coach know that someone else is working on her with hitting and if he can focus on helping her somewhere else like fielding or throwing or how to play X position.

 

[SoftballMama]

Thanks everyone - this is all very level headed advice - and very calming! We really do try to communicate with the coach - and ask our dd to do so also if she is asked to do something she doesn't understand or something she thinks contradicts the hitting skills she is learning at clinics. The coach is very receptive to this, but sometime assistant coaches are not on the same page. We just worry that the different viewpoints seem to be affecting her confidence. If it gets too bad, we will go back to rec ball and wait for another opportunity for club ball at a later time.

Stephanie - I like your comments. I am definitely going to talk to my dd about what you mention.

 

[stephanie]

let me know if it helps!

 

[Amy in AZ.]

Can we see some video? We'll give you an unbiased view.

 

[redhotcoach]

I was working with DD one little part of her swing. I felt she had a little too much shoulder angle. So she has fixed that....and picked up a huge weight shift to her front side. In two weeks went from hitting bombs and hitting any pitch she liked to striking out 50% and having to beat out ground balls the other 50%. I can get her back in batting practice, but she came forward again next day in game. Like Amanda said, I should have left it alone.

 

[SoftSocDad]

Hitting was always one of the strongest parts of my DD's game, but she grew a lot over the past year, didn't do any off-season work (we hit the cages twice all winter), and wasn't hitting well when practice began this spring.

I felt that she just needed more reps with her new body, but the coaches were obsessed with getting her to change her style (just as they'd tried a year ago, but she refused), so she had a rough start to the season. With the bigger bat, the coach method (which is to rest the bat on the shoulder until the pitch) just wasn't working for her...or for any other girls on the team either. Girls would get into the ready position too late, especially on coach pitch. Can't explain why, but our 8u coach was obsessed with her own speed.

At any rate, I made the executive decision to move her to a lighter bat and the next time we hit the cages, she was a whole new batter...or rather, she was back to her old self. For the rest of the season, she only struck out once, and was on base every other at-bat.

I'm biased - and know virtually nothing about the mechanics stick sports - but her swing always appeared naturally beautiful to me. Even if it wasn't technically perfect, against this level of competition, she's gotten a lot out of it. So far, her private instructors seem to be saying that everything is good, but they want her to finish higher. I don't know who's coaching her this fall, but I hope that they'll leave her swing alone.