In practice for hitting.. Live or machine???

[Rocketech1]

Yes to live pitching. No other hitting drill can replicate the movement of live pitching, period.

Front toss, from behind a screen is second best.

Tee work, third best.

Regarding TCB balls. They DO NOT cause wrist injuries. I have been using then for at least 4 years with thousands of reps and have never had a batter complain of wrist injuries. This is another DFP fallacy perpetuated by a few misguided members. Same argument they use to scare pitchers to not have the glove hit the thigh; brush interference causing injuries, etc....

 

[Doug Romrell]

I hate pitching machines for batting practice! Why? Because they don't mimic the pitching motion the batters must face in a game. The batters aren't able to get their timing down like they are when I pitch from out in front behind a screen.

 

[KCM]

I am a firm believer in the TCB heavy balls. Now of course we do not hit more than 3 atomic and about 20 heavy a day per batter.
Also a firm believer in the pitching machine has its place in batting practice but it is not the center or the end result of practice. Get lots of reps at a high speed is the pro. No matter what we do nothing replaces live pitching and I most defiantly have this in our batting practice days. We are fortunate to have 4 good pitchers and they all get their turn. To pitch against a total of 12 on the team with 4 pitchers that does not equal to a lot of circle time for any of them. They also use this as pitching practice because nothing else can replace the pressure of having a live batter in the box.

To each their own though as for coaching skills and their drills. What may work for one team may not work for another.

 

[riseball]

I hate pitching machines for batting practice! Why? Because they don't mimic the pitching motion the batters must face in a game. The batters aren't able to get their timing down like they are when I pitch from out in front behind a screen.

True. But if you have several players who cannot take an outside pitch backside, it is hard to beat a machine for a hundred reps per player to address the issue in a very short period of time. Machine pitch comprises only about 10-20% of our hitting practices.

 

[Huskerdu]

I use the heavy balls to warm up before games where most of the time space is limited. I've never used them in practice. I like for the girls to get full swings hitting with full effect. I pitch to them myself live...and I'm not too proud to say, I have pitching lessons so I can use the windmill motion.

I like my Atec machine and I bought a generator just for it, but it is a circus production to haul, unpack, Set up calibrate, then keep it dialed in... Sometimes it's not worth it...

 

[Candice Beards]

We have a vast variety of drills for hitting just curious how many people/coaches use pitching machines on a regular basis? We all know hitting is a timing thing so I try NOT to incorporate to much machine work. I do not use my pitchers in practice to throw to my girls not wanting to risk injury. I just feel like when myself or the other coaches pitch we are just serving up meatballs and thats not helping the girls either. Just seeing what everyone else is doing.

Thanks!!

Understand not wanting to risk injury! I have gotten hit by my own pitchers multiple times. But my coaches loved to do live, it was better to see out of a pitchers hand and we could get our timing down for our upcoming games. We also did stand ins where we would not have a bat or anything just a helmet and we would have the pitchers pitch and we would have to guess the pitch. I got really good at being able to tell whats the spin looks like on a curve or a screw. Also good work for pitchers to!

 

[JAD]

I have seen a lot of "cage hitting phenoms" who can wear out machine pitching in a cage, but cannot hit their weight against live pitching. Get a good L-screen and move up close enough to simulate the pitching speeds your players expect to see during a game.

 

[Coach Zoomy]

we get the field 1 to 2 a week for practice, so when we hit this is essentially my method also except for the TC weighted balls, never seen them used. if the younger girls are pitching working on mechanics ect, ill make sure they get at least 2 buckets in the cage that's at least 50 higher speed swings, soft toss and tee work. this coming year we also use a hit stick, (broom stick size bat with the golf ball size whiffle type at 12 feet or so thrown from strait on this has increased my daughters and sons accuracy this off season. sometimes maybe 2 T stations or Pepper game instead of 2 stations. I like to not only use the chop swing pepper game but same Idea and practice bunts and slaps. I'm new to Fastpich and am open to Ideas if anyone has some feel free to fire back with some friendly advice

 

[SCDad]

I am a believer in pitching machines at least at younger ages to work on mechanics and to get a lot of reps in. If you are wanting to do batting practice and vary the speeds and location look at buying a Sling Pitcher. Plan on either buying the protective screen for it or us a soft toss screen. It will allow you to move the ball to all zones and even curves at time. You can also work with catchers with it , do pop flys, and other catching drills.

Agreed.

When my DD was young (5 to 12 years old) she lived in a batting cage. Started early with a softball machine. Graduated to a 40 mph baseball machine. And finally mastered a 60 mph baseball machine around 11 years old.

This gave her a distinct advantage to developing a tight, quick, powerful swing, against a high speed ball she would not see in practice at those ages.

After 12 years old, we hardly ever visited machine pitching again. Front toss against a skilled coaching pitcher who moves the pitch location, and speeds, became the best hitting tool. Occasional against live pitching, but as others note, live practice hitting is very hard to do because the good pitchers need to save their arms, and not pitch extended batting practice.

So that is my experience and recommendation. When young use the pitching machine to accelerate the players learning curve. Hitting speed machine pitches when young will eliminate the excess motion in a swing. After the players has mastered speed, she needs to learn to adjust timing and location. In effect slow down a little adjusting to a wide variety of speeds and locations.

This upper level of hitting advancement is done by live pitching and front toss by a good hitting coach.