Pitchers' hitting problems

[Dave D]

Had an interesting conversation with DD last night after her hitting workout. We've done some major retooling of her swing over the winter, and she's hitting really well right now. . .in the cage. She tends to overemphasize her shoulder angle when facing live pitching. Anyway, here's HER observation. "Dad, I think part of my problem with making my (right) shoulder angle so steep is that I'm constantly trying to keep that shoulder down when I pitch, and it just kind of bleeds over into my hitting." Pretty astute observation for a 14 y.o. She also recognized that when pitching, she is encouraged to "get big" at the end of her motion (upright posture, up onto toes, which causes her to occasionally get up onto her toes when swinging.

Like a lot of pitchers, she's also too picky about the strike zone, and gets caught up sometimes picking up spin or movement and gets lulled to sleep at the plate.

So, two things: 1. parents of pitchers--do you see some of those kinds of problems with your DDs? 2. What are some of the things you've done to overcome "pitcher paralysis" or the crossover effects of pitching and hitting motions?

First tourney starts in 48 hours. I'm all a-twitter.

 

["Thunder Dad"]

yes, my 11 y/o pitcher is REALLY picky and it is causing her to let anything that isn't perfect to go by. She is struggling @ the plate where she once was the RBI leader, now cannot seem to get a hit, in a game that is. I try to boost her confidence, hoping it will help, but it apparently doesn't? I try walking away from the field when she is up to bat so that she maybe doesn't feel like she has to impress me, that doesn't help? I feel it also.

 

[PEPPERS]

Had an interesting conversation with DD last night after her hitting workout. We've done some major retooling of her swing over the winter, and she's hitting really well right now. . .in the cage. She tends to overemphasize her shoulder angle when facing live pitching. Anyway, here's HER observation. "Dad, I think part of my problem with making my (right) shoulder angle so steep is that I'm constantly trying to keep that shoulder down when I pitch, and it just kind of bleeds over into my hitting." Pretty astute observation for a 14 y.o. She also recognized that when pitching, she is encouraged to "get big" at the end of her motion (upright posture, up onto toes, which causes her to occasionally get up onto her toes when swinging.

Like a lot of pitchers, she's also too picky about the strike zone, and gets caught up sometimes picking up spin or movement and gets lulled to sleep at the plate.

So, two things: 1. parents of pitchers--do you see some of those kinds of problems with your DDs? 2. What are some of the things you've done to overcome "pitcher paralysis" or the crossover effects of pitching and hitting motions?

First tourney starts in 48 hours. I'm all a-twitter.

I don't think there is a quick fix, it takes time and hard work.

My daughter is a pitcher and at times she has struggled at the plate mostly taking too many pitches although she has a pretty swing. I always taught my girls to think every pitch is a strike and the mind set is yes I’m going to swing, yes, yes, yes if it is a strike or yes, yes, no if it’s a ball. A lot of kids seem to think no, no, yes at the last minute if you think this way, you’re going to be late on a lot of pitches.

Two things she learned here from Hitter and at the Bustos clinic is when at bat take charge of the strike zone don’t let the ump or the pitcher control the strike you as a hitter control what you swing at. To do this you need to work on eliminating any holes in you swing work on hitting balls in every zone and work on hitting balls out of the zone. Low balls, high balls and inside balls and outside balls. She has been on a tear lately, the last 2 tournaments 11 for 12, last tournaments she saw 4 pitches in the hitting zone 3 hits and one foul ball. Every think else was well out of the strike zone especially in the trophy games, and it wasn’t by accident she was hitting that well.

One reason I think, I don’t speak for Howard or Bustos, but is Howard and Bustos teach throwing first is that a good throw takes good mechanics and good throwing mechanics mirrors good hitting mechanics. My daughters pitching coach teaches a pitching motion that has aspects of the hitting motion, some difference. A pitcher throws 50 or 60 pitches in a game and swings well she swag 4 times in 6 games last tournament. It is not unusually to get mechanics confused; you just have to work on the correct mechanics for what every task you are trying to accomplish, it takes 1500 to burn a muscle memory and 10000 to get good at it once she gets it down it should be an automatic reflex action.

 

[Dave D]

Update--things not going well

Thanks to those of you who responded to this thread. Peppers--I agree--not a short term fix. We've been doing everything imaginable to get this kid untracked. As I said before, she's a great cage hitter. Tees, soft toss, front toss, full windmill whiffle pitch--she hits everything right on the screws. Against a pitcher, she just can't seem to get her swing started or keep it on the right plane. Yesterday at practice, I saw something I hadn't seen before--a "double tap", or a second step forward (often "into the bucket") after her original toe tap. She's aware of it, but doesn't seem to be able to keep herself from doing it.

I'm doing my best to stay upbeat and encouraging with her, but we are both frustrated. In 14 tourney ABs to this point, 9 Ks (only 1 looking) and 5 BBs. Anybody got any mind control tricks?

The only thing I can see is getting someone to throw her a couple of hundred pitches until she gets her confidence.

 

[abbygale]

I was getting ready to start another about getting help for my 12 y.o until I saw this thread. Yeah, she's having problems.

She keeps standing up at the end, finishing her swings long and tall like a pitch. Misses the ball by a foot at contact. Pitching is improved. Batting sucks. She is a lefty and you can just see that top hand trying to take over at contact. Heck, even at the start of the swing, you can see it trying to take control. It is like that shoulder is pushing her back hip to fire. The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that it is starting with her initial forward motion. The turned over top hand drill has helped her finishing a swing but I think that she needs to better initiate with her hips and her bottom hand. I'm guessing a lot of one hand bottom drills to start? Maybe duct tape her pitching arm to her side for a week?

Suggestions? Thanks

 

[Chris O'Leary]

Thanks to those of you who responded to this thread. Peppers--I agree--not a short term fix. We've been doing everything imaginable to get this kid untracked. As I said before, she's a great cage hitter. Tees, soft toss, front toss, full windmill whiffle pitch--she hits everything right on the screws. Against a pitcher, she just can't seem to get her swing started or keep it on the right plane. Yesterday at practice, I saw something I hadn't seen before--a "double tap", or a second step forward (often "into the bucket") after her original toe tap. She's aware of it, but doesn't seem to be able to keep herself from doing it.

I'm doing my best to stay upbeat and encouraging with her, but we are both frustrated. In 14 tourney ABs to this point, 9 Ks (only 1 looking) and 5 BBs. Anybody got any mind control tricks?

The only thing I can see is getting someone to throw her a couple of hundred pitches until she gets her confidence.

This smells like a timing problem, and the double tap could be due to her starting her load too early.

When is she starting her load? When is she getting her front foot down? Do you have any video?

In general, she probably needs to see more live pitching.

A client on the baseball side is having this problem. He can hit 95+ in the cage but struggled against 80 at the start of the year because he didn't get his timing right.

 

[Dave D]

Chris--definitely timing (and some kind of mental block, too.) Let me set this up:
Prior to this season, we had her working no-step, or loading before the pitcher wound up. She had marginal success doing that.

Over the winter, we worked to incorporate a step-load-rotate mechanic using her increased speed and strength. I can stand 10 feet in front of her and send tennis or whiffle balls to her--she'll step right into the ball and crush it. flat soft-tossed regular balls from a slight angle, too. We move all around the zone, high and low, in and out. When I throw her a quick pitch whiffle from 25 feet HARD, she can get out quick enough to hit a ball that's about to hit her or take an outside pitch the other way.

In games, it doesn't look like she's getting her hands set quickly enough to get them going forward in time, so she started making her move earlier, and I think that's what led to the double tap (which I saw on a lot of the "model swings" on the other thread). I'll attach a couple of video stills I have of her hitting off a tee (I know, she's too far forward in these shots, but it's what I've got for now.) I'll try to get some video of her this week in practice, both side and pitcher view.

 

[redhotcoach]

That looks like a pretty good swing! Sounds like she could be questioning her own decision to swing, and needs a confidence boost. Your hard whiffle ball throws have no pressure on her to make a hit. A game situation has a lot of pressure to make a quick correct choice, and sometimes especially when you've been in a slump, you don't have full confidence in your own choice.

Also, with her increased speed and strength, her timing needs a slight adjustment. I watched a 14 u baseball tourny this weekend. A huge majority of hitting were ahead of the ball.

 

[tom.guerry]

A good windmill pitcher has mechanics that conflict with both overhand throw and swing, but traditionally some of the best hitters of all time were windmillers.

The conflicts with overhand throw include #1. a preference for keeping the arms well extended instead of getting the elbows bent at about 90 degrees OR using arms asymmetrically with lead arm extended (pointing to target) and throwing arm more flexed. and

#2, difference in weight shift which is back to front in overhand throw and back to middle and up in windmill.

With regard to the swing, good windmillers have a HUGE potential advantage which is that they have extrememly high level lower body action for swinging due to the fact they are used to synching the lower body well with an upper body that dominates by the resistance produced by the rearward arm swing of the windmill.

The trouble is that they may never figure out a better way of resisting. A typical fall back is to learn to "wrap the bat" which makes for a long swing. Ideally what they need to do is turn the handle early as well described here by Wellphyt and others.


The best way to proceed in my opinion is to learn overhand throw and swing together.

The best way to learn the overhand throw with this in mind is using the Hodge approach which stresses good symmetric arm action with elbows bent at 90 degrees (better for throwing heavier objects sich as softball compared to tiny baseball), good arm action sequence and synch with lower body and good weight shift synch.

This will then teach the upper body arm action necessary to provide resistance and control that already fits with good lower body sequence and weight shift.

FFS may still have access to the Hodge throwing info if you are interested. Wellphyt has good swing info including Williams,Epstein.Mankin and H-I among other sources.

 

[Tewks]

A player can get locked in really quickly. Sometimes it only takes 1 pitch to say, "Oh yeah, I know how to do this." The timing, the rhythm, finding the barrel can just click. If she was hitting the ball well before, she'll find it and will be better for working through the failure. What is she thinking in the cage vs. thinking in the game?