Hitting Tips Against Intermediate Pitching

[coach52]

Ok, so being new to coaching softball at the high school level (I was previously a high school baseball coach) I have learned, adapted, and reinvented my approach to hitting for this season. I was a hitting instructor for baseball and fastpitch softball, and have been around the game of fast pitch softball enough to (I hope) have a good grasp on what I am supposed to be teaching the girls.

Recently however, when my team went and faced several pitchers with a little more zip, they are having a hard time catching up to the pitch and barreling it up.

So, I have a few questions. Several of my key approaches that I really try to make the ladies focus on in the cage, off the tee, during soft or front toss are as follows:

1) Keep your hands at about head (chin) level and in tight to your chest, to avoid casting your hands into your strike zone

2) Use your hands to throw the knob of the bat at the ball, to help quicken your hands and force the barrel around

3) Keep the hands and bat head as level as possible (a lot of the girls I inherited tend to 'chop wood' and we have gotten a lot of ground balls about 10-15 feet away). This means watching whether the bat head dances or is sticking straight up.

4) Cutting down on the stride to the plate, and focusing more on just a small step (a lot of my girls have long strides which affects their eye level, and is one of the reasons why I think we are constantly underneath)

Those are just a few off the top of my head. Do you agree or disagree? I am always looking for advice and I know everyone here is more knowledgeable than I am. Any tips or extra advice would be fantastic.

Also, any other drills that we can incorporate to help quicken our bat speed? We have another big game this Saturday against another all conference pitcher.

Thanks everybody!

 

[coach52]

Yeah, we have revved up the machine to get the girls more prepared, but with a team made up of zero seniors (roster is mostly juniors and freshmen) it has been difficult. The problem I am facing is that at a small school where I am at (Class A out of a 5 Class system) is that a lot of these girls haven't played travel ball or played on daddy's team who have really taught them very little.

Are the ideologies and concepts I am employing good moving forward with these girls? Are there any other 'tips' to give them? I agree, the HS season is far too short (and even off season conditioning) for them to really grasp the concepts, get the needed time to employ them, and then utilize them in a game.

 

[David Carter]

Yeah, I would not try and come up with a technical solution for a team problem. If you don't have a pitcher that can throw live that fast you have to just use the cage. We always keep the machine speed at about as high as we think we will see all season and use that as our set speed.

and yes that does lead us to the biggest problem we have, playing rec, against quality pitching we do fine it is the girl throwing 10mph slower than everyone that for some reason we just can't wait on over the years once at regionals and nationals this has been one of our biggest issues but I'll take it over not catching up to faster pitching because there is little chance of adjusting to something you have never seen before in one game.

 

[Osric]

One of our coaches got a Zooka pitching machine. We started using this as a confidence booster last fall when we faced some pitching that was about 5mph faster than we were used to. Once the girls got the timing down, their confidence soared and we were able to really start laying into the pitchers by the end of the season. So much of hitting is just confidence. If they see someone fast and think "I can't hit her", then they won't.

By the end of the season in a 12U division, the entire team could consistently hit 50-55mph from 40 feet away. Two girls could still hit with the machine cranked up to 68mph at 40'. Once they found out that they could do it, they wanted to see how fast they could go.

 

[CoachKevin]

Ok, so being new to coaching softball at the high school level (I was previously a high school baseball coach) I have learned, adapted, and reinvented my approach to hitting for this season. I was a hitting instructor for baseball and fastpitch softball, and have been around the game of fast pitch softball enough to (I hope) have a good grasp on what I am supposed to be teaching the girls.

Recently however, when my team went and faced several pitchers with a little more zip, they are having a hard time catching up to the pitch and barreling it up.

So, I have a few questions. Several of my key approaches that I really try to make the ladies focus on in the cage, off the tee, during soft or front toss are as follows:

1) Keep your hands at about head (chin) level and in tight to your chest, to avoid casting your hands into your strike zone

2) Use your hands to throw the knob of the bat at the ball, to help quicken your hands and force the barrel around

3) Keep the hands and bat head as level as possible (a lot of the girls I inherited tend to 'chop wood' and we have gotten a lot of ground balls about 10-15 feet away). This means watching whether the bat head dances or is sticking straight up.

4) Cutting down on the stride to the plate, and focusing more on just a small step (a lot of my girls have long strides which affects their eye level, and is one of the reasons why I think we are constantly underneath)

Those are just a few off the top of my head. Do you agree or disagree? I am always looking for advice and I know everyone here is more knowledgeable than I am. Any tips or extra advice would be fantastic.

Also, any other drills that we can incorporate to help quicken our bat speed? We have another big game this Saturday against another all conference pitcher.

Thanks everybody!

Coach, don't mean to sound like a know-it-all, but IMO #2 and #3 are "old school" methods. Do some serious research on hitting and see if the elite hitters throw the knob of the bat at the ball, or have a level swing. I think you will find that they don't. Yesterday I took my ACE test for ASA and noticed Coach Candera explaining hitting, he was showing a level bat, yet when you look at Team USA during the Olympics (which Candera was the coach) none of the players hit with a level bat, Shiggy's shows some of them hitting off a tee and again no level bat. Soooo make your own decision.

 

[coach52]

Coach, don't mean to sound like a know-it-all, but IMO #2 and #3 are "old school" methods. Do some serious research on hitting and see if the elite hitters throw the knob of the bat at the ball, or have a level swing. I think you will find that they don't. Yesterday I took my ACE test for ASA and noticed Coach Candera explaining hitting, he was showing a level bat, yet when you look at Team USA during the Olympics (which Candera was the coach) none of the players hit with a level bat, Shiggy's shows some of them hitting off a tee and again no level bat. Soooo make your own decision.

I definitely will. Do you have any suggestions or tips to compensate or replace these methods?

 

[robertc3]

I definitely will. Do you have any suggestions or tips to compensate or replace these methods?

You can start in the technical hitting section. Lots of good information in there along with helpings of collegial and not so collegial debate.

 

[CoachKevin]

Coach52 let me poise a question to you. In teaching the level swing (meaning shoulders level and bat parallel to the ground), how do you instruct girls hitting balls at their knees or low and outside pitches?

 

[coach52]

Coach52 let me poise a question to you. In teaching the level swing (meaning shoulders level and bat parallel to the ground), how do you instruct girls hitting balls at their knees or low and outside pitches?

That's a good question. I always teach the girls that the point of keeping their hands level is to avoid chopping at the ball and getting underneath the ball. I can't tell you how many coaches I had when I was younger that would preach to swing the bat like you are chopping wood. I firmly believe they have to keep their hands up, even when pitches are lower, but adjusting the bat head. By training to keep their hands level, even on low pitches, they are more apt to drive the ball hard on the ground as opposed to letting the hands dip and popup.

I searched Youtube and this was the closest example of how I teach them to hit:

Rotational Hitting Drills From Mike Epstein Hitting (Part 1 of 2) - YouTube

 

[X pitcher]

Move them up in front of the plate and they are in fair territory and will see the ball speed and less movement. They will all improve at making contact and be able to play small ball or smack it and get unearned runs from errors by just putting the ball in play. A pitch at the knees in front of the plate is a ball when it crosses the plate. Your girls will be doing whatever they want with belly high grooved pitches if they are patient and selective.