Different Hitting Philosophies

[CycloneSoftball22]

A friend of mine and his DD are currently at a Ralph Weekly / Tim Walton Advanced hitting clinic. Below is something that he just posted on FB that I think indicates how different hitting philosophies can be (Even amongst the top D1 coaches):

"Ralph Weekly just asked Tim Walton how UT could learn to hit 100 homeruns. Tim told him he didn't think UT could because Ralph isn't willing to let his girls strike out."

 

[COACH SLIM]

HaHaHaHa! I find that interesting and funny. I am sure that their hitting philosophy will prevent you from striking out. I messed my daughters swing up seriously 1 year by taking her to a reputable hitting coach whos philosophy was totally different from her original hitting coach. I learned alot but it didnt help her swing.Both coaches were reputable. I see both swings at the highest levels.

 

[Steve Huff]

A friend of mine and his DD are currently at a Ralph Weekly / Tim Walton Advanced hitting clinic. Below is something that he just posted on FB that I think indicates how different hitting philosophies can be (Even amongst the top D1 coaches):

"Ralph Weekly just asked Tim Walton how UT could learn to hit 100 homeruns. Tim told him he didn't think UT could because Ralph isn't willing to let his girls strike out."

This reminds me of what Dusty Baker said when coaching the Cubs: and I paraphrase, "I don't like bases-on-balls, it just clogs up the bases for the power hitters!"

 

[Ken Krause]

I've seen lots of kids like that -- kids who don't strike out much but don't really hit the ball hard either. It's a careful, fearful swing.

As a hitter, you only get so many at bats in a career. Why waste them being conservative as a rule? Unless there's a specific reason not to, take your best swing and do some damage.

 

[7smom]

My DD went the U of Northern Iowa camp in December. Part of the camp was a focus on strength training where their weight trainer had the girls working through some weight routines to give them a taste of what the college players do. Before they took them into the weight room they had a talk by two kinesiology professors (both former baseball players) who are researching hitting. Being a scientist I was really interested in the scientific approach. They described to the girls the difference between bat speed and bat quickness. If you have a "quick" bat they explained, you get the ball quicker and therefore have more time to see the ball and therefore are more likely to make contact. These hitters are often the lead off type hitters who don't hit with as much power. The reason they don't hit with a lot of power is that the power comes from bat speed, or how fast you can get your bat moving to contact. The relationship is inverse with bat quickness- so if you have a "fast" bat you will hit a lot more home runs but may sacrifice in the BA department. Their goal is to increase bat speed without sacrificing the quickness by making the players stronger. They had very interesting graphs to show various players bat speed and bat quickness values and then displayed their batting averages and power numbers. I found it really interesting. So my thought is that some coaches have different philosophies on what they want from some players vs. others. For example, for your leadoff hitter how much bat quickness or contact are you willing to sacrafice to increase her ability to hit homeruns?

 

[Steve Huff]

7smom, your DD didn't learn 35 new hitting drill variations, but she learned something that might impact her more. This was an excellent post, and very relevant. The kinesiologists approach is very good.

 

[SBFAMILY]

If you teach hitting you are always learning new methods to teach and different drillls. I just got Mega softball drills hitting by John Tschda and he has some interesting methods.

 

[PEPPERS]

If you teach hitting you are always learning new methods to teach and different drillls. I just got Mega softball drills hitting by John Tschda and he has some interesting methods.

If you go to You Tube search for John Tschda hitting drills you can see examples of his drills.

 

[Mr T]

That's some riseball!!

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

That's some riseball!!

Obviously at this point in his career, he didn't have a handle on the flight path of a riseball.