Hitting grounders

[Work=wins]

I like her load.

The stance is sit which makes you stand. Try standing to make you sit.. Imo, she has no choice but to stand up. Try to get the hip line to match the ankle line vertically in stance. See if that helps.

mimic Hank Aaron’s set up for awhile. Very little knee flex w the chest over the toes. Get the hip and ankle close to vertically inline. She still might need to learn where force comes from. Start small. Video. Post.

 

[Westwind]

Hey, some really great advice on the swing above, and it’s all good!

I‘m going to focus on the equipment. Looks like a flat screen net?

She may be unconsciously compensating for where the ball goes after it hits the net, especially indoors. And it’s pretty far away, so she might be consciously trying to not miss the middle of it.

I‘d grab a big mouth type net.

Way back when, a cat named Howard Carrier posted here as “Hitter”. He was way ahead of his time. I also was trying to fix a spate of ground balls and back then our goal was line drives. Here is what Howard sent me:

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The hitting net is marked with (2) two horizontal lines one line at 51 inches high and another line at 39 inches high, as measured from the floor. The hitting net is also marked with one vertical line down the middle. Paint the 51 inch and 39 inch lines black and paint the middle of the two line red also paint the vertical line black. The Tee is setup to represent a down the middle pitch and is positioned about to 2 to 3 inches forward of Home plate. Tee is set up 4 ½ feet from the net, and 29 ½ inches high. With this setup the 51 inches horizontal line on the net represents a 26 degree angle from the top of the tee, while the 39 inch line represents a 10 degree angle from the top of the tee. If the ball is hit at the 39 inch line, 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 the 51 inch line possible out of the park. Provided the middle of the ball is hit with about a 8 to 10 degree up swing. Always line up off the back corner of home plate the length of a bat. We lay the bat down on the back corner of home plate with the sweet spot on the plate. We stand /set up to hit at the end of the handle of the lay downed bat. ( not tee *see picture of schutt Multi position Tee) as a reference point so we are consistent when determining where the ball hit’s the net when doing Tee work. Difficult to establish bat control without having a place to set up that would make hitting a ball off the tee in a fixed position repeatable in my opinion. When done correctly and when hitting up the middle the ball should hit in the zone and be close to the vertical line.
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I did it with rope weaved into my nets. Things used to be more complicated! Now, you can use the Measure app in an iPhone and get the angles for any tee position. If I did it today, I would use different color paint or string to represent different goals for different tee heights. I would also consider making my target angles slightly higher. After all, a ball hit with 64 mph exit velocity at 36* launch angle will be otf at most college fields…. (We always took the approach that a ball hit that high should be a “mistake”. I might rethink that in 2021.)

I have two daughters, one is 23 and one is 19. I have kept the note Howard sent me since they were little gals playing local tb. That note was easily some of the best info anyone ever gave me, I was a dad that never played ball and was just trying to help my daughters. I have passed it on and reposted it several times, it is really good stuff.

 

[Westwind]

Howard was a pioneer in “Launch Angle” and more importantly “Launch Angle Consistency” before it was even a thing.

Here is one of his students:


In both of these clips, look where the bat starts moving from.

 

[efastball]

Her stride is causing problems.

1. Her back foot is pointing backwards (yellow). It should be pointing directly at the plate. This is prohibiting hip rotation.

2. She is reaching with her front leg, and therefore lands with a straight front leg (blue). It should be very bent. Again, slows rotation. Instead of hiking up the front hip, only pick up the front knee when you move forward.

3. The tee is exactly where it should be (green), at the ball of the front foot, after stride.



This is the result near hip slot. The back elbow should be rotating with the back hip. (her back elbow should also be further down at belt level)

 

[Shelia B]

Like you said, at older ages/higher levels, most grounders are outs, which means they're only marginally better than strikeouts much of the time.

Lol yeah I didn’t say they were much better. Though in my opinion I do consider groundouts to be better than pop ups (by pop ups I mean the hits where the ball goes straight up and doesn’t make it out of the infield. I’m not talking about the “pop ups” that are just long fly balls that the outfielder manages to snag) grounders have the ability to move runners at least. Plus If the hitter is speedy she can beat one out here and there and grounders tend to be the hits with the most chances for Errors. Though I am 100% not saying grounders are a good thing because they’re most definitely not. We’ve been working with DD to hit nice line drives instead of the little infield dribblers.

 

[Bonesaw]

Bonds drill.

 

[Shawn]

View attachment 24545View attachment 24546
In both of these clips, look where the bat starts moving from.

I like the tee drill.

 

[CoachJD]

?

Mila Romano:

Mashing Mila (@mashingmila) • Instagram photos and videos

www.instagram.com

She's 6 now, but she's had videos posted on instagram since she was four. It doesn't hurt that her dad is a former major leaguer.

 

[Westwind]

I like the tee drill.

Y’know, way back when when I saved that video to my computer I don’t think I appreciated how good it was.

She‘s only 5’08”. I know that’s a drill but she can really cover a big part of where a pitcher may think a ball could be safely thrown.

 

[_MIA_]

Mila Romano:

Mashing Mila (@mashingmila) • Instagram photos and videos

www.instagram.com

She's 6 now, but she's had videos posted on instagram since she was four. It doesn't hurt that her dad is a former major leaguer.

Ah..not on Insta and she hasn’t quite risen to the “only first name needed” pantheon of athletes.