More early batspeed?

[_MIA_]

Lolol, I lost my hair, but I waS already vertically challenged anyway. Your DD is going to be a star!

My 5 YO son has taken to telling me at least twice a day for the last 2 weeks that I don't have any hair..my wife thinks that
is funny as he&* for some reason.

 

[julray]

My 5 YO son has taken to telling me at least twice a day for the last 2 weeks that I don't have any hair..my wife thinks that
is funny as he&* for some reason.

It is funny! My dd’s softball career is over, but she won a robotics competition this weekend. Have you seen one of those competitions? It’s intense, like tackle basketball, lol

 

[_MIA_]

It is funny! My dd’s softball career is over, but she won a robotics competition this weekend. Have you seen one of those competitions? It’s intense, like tackle basketball, lol

Yes I have seen them. A guy in my department started something called BotBall which is a Nationwide robotics competition I believe.

 

[julray]

Yes I have seen them. A guy in my department started something called BotBall which is a Nationwide robotics competition I believe.

Cool, this is called First robotics, worlds is in Detroit this year, if it doesn’t get cancelled because of the virus

 

[Work=wins]

Interesting.

 

[Bobby Shirer]

Unless you can tell me that the pros you are referring to have been doing these drills their whole lives, I am going to be very careful about applying their drills to a developing hitter. My guess is that most of these guys could already hit the sh*& out of the ball before they ever started doing a lot of this stuff so the only thing that this tells me is that the drills won't break a hitter who can already hit...

One pro I would listen to is JD Martinez since he actually changed his swing while he was a pro. Maybe Donaldson as well although his swing wasn't nearly as bad as Martinez's was

If you're ever coaching a pro, you'll know what drills to use!

 

[Bobby Shirer]

JD got the majors based upon his natural ability (and I am sure lots of hard work). He has said he was taught hands to the ball and the result for HIM was a swing which was too steep and wasn't working for him in MLB. Whether or not the actual hands to the ball concept was the issue who knows but we do know that he was taught that way and it didn't work for him at the MLB level. Take away some of his ability and you can change the bolded to 12U/14U/16U etc. On the other hand for somebody else that same instruction may have ended up with a HL swing because of the way that person's body adapted to the instruction.

What we do know with JD is what his swing looked before and what the conscious changes to his swing were and what the results are. That is all I am saying. As people who are trying to teach hitters to improve their swing what we really need to see IMO are before and after results from which we can discern whether or not what was done can help our hitters. As I said above, everybody interprets instruction/drills differently so what worked for JD may not work for somebody else but for me it would be a good starting point for a hitter who was having some of the issues JD was having. That said, the instructor needs to always keep the end goal in mind and adapt accordingly while attempting to be sure to toe the line between over instruction and not doing anything (with that line also constantly moving as the hitter progresses..)

I've seen many more young kids struggle with the pros approach of hit down, chop chop chop, than I've seen succeed with it. When they're pointed in the right direction, things get better quickly. And the ones who succeeded with chopping down, improved when they practiced the correct movements.
In my experience, the ones who succeed by practicing chopping, succeed not due to, but in spite of chopping.
It looks like Martinez had the same experience. Donaldson too. Both had pro swings and improved dramatically when they changed their focus and practice routine. Makes me wonder how good the rest would be if they changed?
Also makes me wonder how many didn't rise to the next level because of the chop down approach?
If no one challenged the conventional wisdom we wouldn't be flying, we would think the earth was the center of the universe, and our world would still be flat.
Attaboy!

 

[Rolling Hard]

The rotational path of the bat around the hands dictates that the bat will swing under the hands so staying "on plane" necessitates that understanding. Alyssa gets it.

Does anybody see a difference in her 2 warm up check swings? I think the 2nd one is much better than the 1st. Does she know the difference?

 

[Bobby Shirer]

Does anybody see a difference in her 2 warm up check swings? I think the 2nd one is much better than the 1st. Does she know the difference?

If it was during an at bat, she went on the first one.

 

[julray]

Does anybody see a difference in her 2 warm up check swings? I think the 2nd one is much better than the 1st. Does she know the difference?

The second swing she complete dumps the barrel.. it doesn't match her shoulder plane lateral tilt at all.. however it's just a practice swing. So I would expected to be a little off.. but she does lose the barrel IMO