Olivia, 11 Years Old or: "Another season down, another season of random swing mechanics during each at bat"

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Dec 26, 2017
487
63
Oklahoma
My favorite swing was the ball she fouled straight back at the 45 second mark in the second video, timed up nice, very aggressive swing, she just missed it!

This is coming from a dad with a very small DD just like you.........timing, it’s everything for a small girl, was the pitcher she was facing throwing harder than she’s used to? Her front foot and her timing was just a little off, a little late.

Anna was always a mediocre hitter, never consistent! She‘s always been a very good pitcher but not a overpowering pitcher, she‘s a damn good SS with crazy range and a canon of a arm, hitting was where she was lacking!

The Summer between 9th and 10th grade is where it changed, it all clicked so don’t stress, there’s plenty of time! ;) I could write for hours on that transition time!

I’m going to work on some of the things you texted me about, next week, after she takes the week off. Worst case, it will add some more to her routine that seems to be pretty popular here



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Dec 26, 2017
487
63
Oklahoma
... a timing window...

We have a hard time with this. She is having a hard time understanding what it means. She keeps trying to start her move at the same point on every pitch and thinks quicker hands will get her on time.



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Dec 26, 2017
487
63
Oklahoma
Could be as simple as with two strikes she has been told to protect the plate and hence she is expecting every pitch to be a strike and preparing herself to swing on time...

Maybe I should send Ty a thank you card for making her scared to strike out then lol


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Jun 8, 2016
16,118
113
Maybe I should send Ty a thank you card for making her scared to strike out then lol


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You know, I was going to add to my post that maybe she had previously had a coach ( *cough* Ty *cough*) that yelled at her too much for swinging at bad pitches and hence her possible tentativeness with 0 or 1 strike but you somehow were able to turn the yelling thing around to a positive thing so kudos to you 😂
 
Oct 2, 2017
2,283
113
We have a hard time with this. She is having a hard time understanding what it means. She keeps trying to start her move at the same point on every pitch and thinks quicker hands will get her on time.



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IMO quicker hands are not going to get you on time, if the move out is not on time. Timing the move out should be the focus not the hands as a timing mechanism. IMO we want to make the most use of the little time we have when the ball is pitched. The only way to do that is gain ground early. A lot of players think that if you are moving towards the pitcher you are losing time because the ball is coming towards you. So they wait or start later thinking that it will allow more time. Truth is if they wait they are losing valuable time. Just my opinion
 
Sep 17, 2009
1,637
83
We have a hard time with this. She is having a hard time understanding what it means. She keeps trying to start her move at the same point on every pitch and thinks quicker hands will get her on time.



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She is seeing pretty fast pitching there, maybe even at 10U (?) which would be from 35 feet. A high-level pitcher throwing 50 mph from 35 feet is in some ways the 'fastest' pitcher she'll ever face!

Start to explain it like this: the pitch takes half a second to get to home plate and it takes you one second to swing (roughly). So if you wait to see the pitch before you start to swing, what does that mean? You'll always be late. So....you have to start your swing as the pitcher starts her windup. The pitcher moves, you move. Dance with the pitcher. And then WHILE you are starting your swing (loading, starting her move out, whatever mechanics you end up teaching her) you are ALSO READING the pitch. So as Pattar said it is always yes-yes-yes, you ALWAYS start your swing and AFTER you read the pitch you either GO! or STOP! You can even teach her how to stop as a learned skill, basically you just let your arms go limp and take the air out of the swing. Find some good video of takes -- a good take is part of good mechanics.

The other thing is that as she gets better mechanics and takes any extra movements (ie, slack or double-taps etc. etc) out of her swing she'll have a longer time to decide.

See if any of that works for you. It's definitely one of the top live swing issues IMO -- not waiting to see the pitch to start. Many hitters who don't see real speed when they are younger don't even have this skill in high school or in 14/16U. It's one of the reasons I'd encourage young players to play high-level travel....to survive early fast pitching they need to have that running start or they will literally strike out every time -- the math of the pitch speed and late-start swing simply won't work in their favor. Good luck!
 
Dec 26, 2017
487
63
Oklahoma
IMO quicker hands are not going to get you on time, if the move out is not on time...

I don't even think this qualifies as an opinion, really. To me, it seems like a truth that lines up with most hitting philosophies. A late move out, with quicker hands, just puts the hitter even more out of sequence (the hitting gurus on here will have to verify if that's correct or not, as I'm wrong more often than I'm right). I suspect that bigger, stronger hitters can have deceptive results at 12u and below doing that. Olivia doesn't have the physical tools to muscle balls into the grass, however.
 
Jun 8, 2016
16,118
113
So as Pattar said it is always yes-yes-yes, you ALWAYS start your swing and AFTER you read the pitch you either GO! or STOP! You can even teach her how to stop as a learned skill, basically you just let your arms go limp and take the air out of the swing. Find some good video of takes -- a good take is part of good mechanics.
Right. IMO, a good way to determine whether or not a kid is thinking yes,yes,yes or yes,yes,no on every pitch, or if she is waiting to see if it is a strike before doing anything, is does she ever check swing in a game? How about in BP?
 
Oct 2, 2017
2,283
113
I don't even think this qualifies as an opinion, really. To me, it seems like a truth that lines up with most hitting philosophies. A late move out, with quicker hands, just puts the hitter even more out of sequence (the hitting gurus on here will have to verify if that's correct or not, as I'm wrong more often than I'm right). I suspect that bigger, stronger hitters can have deceptive results at 12u and below doing that. Olivia doesn't have the physical tools to muscle balls into the grass, however.

I would think it would only put a player out of sequence if they rushing every thing. Which if you are late then a player is probably rushing and out of sequence. At least I would think that would be the case.

As far as your DD muscling up to get the ball to the grass, its not required. You often hear professional athletes talk about wanting to slow the game down for themselves. Why do they want to do that? Because it allows them to relax enough to perform efficiently the task required. Hence if she can learn to as RichK stated above start early, it slows things down to allow proper mechanics to come through, thus send the ball to the grass without muscling up.
 
Dec 26, 2017
487
63
Oklahoma
She is seeing pretty fast pitching there, maybe even at 10U (?) which would be from 35 feet. A high-level pitcher throwing 50 mph from 35 feet is in some ways the 'fastest' pitcher she'll ever face...

...Many hitters who don't see real speed when they are younger don't even have this skill in high school or in 14/16U. It's one of the reasons I'd encourage young players to play high-level travel...


This was the first fall season of 12s but there are some pitchers in her age class in Oklahoma and Texas (08) that she's been able to face the last couple of years that were hitting and exceeding 50 mph in 10s. In fact, she's the only kid on her team that's parked a ball over the fence and it was against pitching of that caliber (she leaves out the fact that it was a short fence, with an 11" ball, and only about 160', when she tells the story :LOL: ), but it was an opposite field shot that she was, as usual, late on. She just ran into one.

We played all 12A teams in bracket last weekend (which was what we wanted), and 2 of the 3 were second year 12s. They all threw hard but it's all stuff she's seen. Even with slow pitching, she TENDS to be late, which leads me to believe she still isn't understanding that she is starting her move at the wrong place in the pitch (which would then make her late on ANY pitch, although it's certainly easier to make a mistake and still put a ball in play if the pitch is slower).
 

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