I'm a 17yo first baseman/outfielder/catcher and I do a lot of tee work to try and improve my hitting. However, I am just constantly hitting into a net, and while I can feel the difference the practice has made, I am getting bored with the repetition of just hitting line drives straight to the centre of the net. Does anybody know of some other drills I could do by myself with the tee and net??
Hitting drills off the tee- something new
Welcome to Discuss Fastpitch
Your FREE Account is waiting to the Best Softball Community on the Web.
Depending on the type net you have....mark your net using colored string, rope with two lines horizontal measured from the floor at 51 and 39 inches. Then a vertical line exactly in the middle and this becomes your hitting zone. Place your tee about 4.5 feet from the net and now can you hit them in the zone? Now move the tee outside to the back corner of the tee and can you make the ball go where it should go? Same applies to the inside pitch. If you have two tees can you drive one ball into the other or does the ball in the back jump over or go inside the ball on the front tee?
Can you hit a ball off a V8 juice quart plastic bottle? That is below your knee cap and you should be able to do it. Use rocks or sand and fill the bottle up half way and then stuff a rag inside it so it does not make so much noise when you knock it over, Drill a 3/4 ' hole in the lid and duct tape the lid in place and see if you can get the ball in the zone. Makes sure when doing tee work you are at least working 8 inches off the plate.
Thanks Howard
Many drills that you can add indoors. Use two T's. One in front of the other 18 " apart. The T closer to the net put at 2" higher than the front. Now hit line drills thru the first ball and make both balls move. Then learn to hit the first ball over the front ball. Next Put the first T as low as you can 5 " in front of the plate and 2" inside of the Strike zone. Place tht other T as high as it goes outside about 5" from the outside middle of the plate. Now hit the low inside pitch and the high outside pitch. Try to hit each as line drives as Howard stated with the marked net. Each drill will teach you to adjust to the pitch and hit a ball where you want to hit it.
What do you mean by this?
At the higher levels of the game a ball that is 5 to 8 inches off the plate is a strike and I have seen it at the ISF and ASA games. If they can not hit a ball at 5 to 8 inches off the plate they are leaving the decision up to the umpire as to if it is a ball or a strike.That includes up and down also! It is the hitters job to determine what they can hit and the only thing I want the umpire to do is call safe or out as we feel our hitters must determine what they can hit. Lisa when doing clinics tells her pitchers it is your job to make the hitters and umpires make decisions on if it is a ball or a strike. Work in, out and up and down and make them make choices. If you throw it in the white it is your mistake! Our hitters do not have a strike zone as we call it our hitting zone and THEY must know what they can hit and if they have not practiced doing it they are subject to the umpires interpretation of the strike zone on that pitch.
Thanks Howard
Thanks guys, this is good and I will definitely try some of these
I bought a couple of the tees that the ball hangs from and the versatility of the tee is great. We hit balls that are low in the zone, high in the zone and some that are perfect pitches. I agree that at the higher levels of play the low strike is really low. The other thing about the hanging tee is the batter is more likely to keep the correct angle of the bat through impact.
Rowdy I use to think the same thing....we found it to be more helpful to mark our net with two horizontal lines at 51 and 39 inches as measured from the ground up and then have one vertical line exactly in the middle of the net. We place the tee about 4.5 feet from the net with the front edge of home plate 2 to 3 inches behind the tee and in the middle of home plate. The hitter then measures off from the back corner of home plate a bat length off the outside corner of the tee for ALL drill work. The 51 inch line is about 26 degrees from a tee that if I recall was 29 or 29.5 inches high and the 39 inch line is 10 degrees and this calculation if I remember it would make the ball at 86 feet which is second base for softball, the ball would be about 8 to 10 feet high and at 51 inches if the world was perfect a ball could be hit 325 feet and we call this our hitting zone and try to make every ball hit stay in this zone. The vertical line indicates lets say if the hitter was right handed the balls landing left of center are being pulled, front side opening, being to linear, casting etc so you have an indication of what is going wrong on every pitch and if you made a correction where did the next ball go.
You can figure it out using a contractor protractor and a 2 x 4. Set the one end of the 2 x 4 on the tee and then the other end is in the net. Now set the the lines at 10 degrees and 26 degrees. We have found these angles to be very productive for our girls over the years.
Thanks Howard
