No video (or accusation vs. anyone here lol), just a thought and question. All of the tee work and soft toss analysis we see on this site is fine and valuable. But I have a new group of 18U girls this fall and I'm very happy with their ability to both look decent and have good, consistent line drive results off tee and soft toss. But they are struggling with high level pitching -- including straightforward speed (ie, plus or minus 60MPH 18U exposure-level pitching).
We put some of the strugglers in the cage yesterday, cranked Juggs up to 70MPH and went to work. Some swing and missed for the entire first bucket and we had to work very hard individually to find the cues and swing thoughts to help them. While we drew on ideas we often see here when evaluating tee swings, they also each required a lot of thought and work that was more practical then purely technical -- and no single approach worked for every hitter. For some we talked about expanding their out-front soft field of vision vs. very high speed pitching. For others it was how to start slow and early yet still have an engaged body ready to make a dynamic move against a very high-speed and challenging pitch speed that would overwhelm them if they weren't ready. Yet others had "old school" problems like a dipping shoulder/upper cut that didn't create a hole vs. soft toss but did against speed. For some we talked about top hand torque and being tight/short to the ball using cues that some here vehemently disagree with lol
I guess this isn't really anything new, but simply a thought that there is a "practical" element even to "technical" hitting work, especially when kids get challenged in the box (which happens at every level and every level step up -- you could argue high level 10U pitching at 35 feet might be the biggest challenge of all). We all know how much mechanics break down when put under pressure of pitch speed and movement. Would be interesting to see more videos here of girls put in that situation and be able learn from how our "analysts" would help them.
We put some of the strugglers in the cage yesterday, cranked Juggs up to 70MPH and went to work. Some swing and missed for the entire first bucket and we had to work very hard individually to find the cues and swing thoughts to help them. While we drew on ideas we often see here when evaluating tee swings, they also each required a lot of thought and work that was more practical then purely technical -- and no single approach worked for every hitter. For some we talked about expanding their out-front soft field of vision vs. very high speed pitching. For others it was how to start slow and early yet still have an engaged body ready to make a dynamic move against a very high-speed and challenging pitch speed that would overwhelm them if they weren't ready. Yet others had "old school" problems like a dipping shoulder/upper cut that didn't create a hole vs. soft toss but did against speed. For some we talked about top hand torque and being tight/short to the ball using cues that some here vehemently disagree with lol
I guess this isn't really anything new, but simply a thought that there is a "practical" element even to "technical" hitting work, especially when kids get challenged in the box (which happens at every level and every level step up -- you could argue high level 10U pitching at 35 feet might be the biggest challenge of all). We all know how much mechanics break down when put under pressure of pitch speed and movement. Would be interesting to see more videos here of girls put in that situation and be able learn from how our "analysts" would help them.
