Too much tee/soft toss analysis, not enough analysis of hitters under pressure?

[Buttermaker]

Agree machines are limited but I also use a 2 wheel atec that can throw drops, curves, screws so we can practice seeing the movement - but I use that sparingly.

There is another element to hitting - confidence. Reading a book now that talks about how people will blame failures on external things - front toss pitcher is terrible, machine is not working right, coach is dumb, etc but think of successes as internal reasons - IE I am really good! So, people generally do not learn from failures, but learn from successes.

I am not a big tee work or drill proponent - so I do use a machine a lot and will incrementally increase the speed as our lessons move along looking to build off the confidence of the hitter.

Over the years - this success/failure idea is more true than I had realized.

 

[PEPPERS]

JMO I use the tee, soft toss, to work on proper mechanics/sequence in the beginning and continue to use them to maintain. I like the pitching machine also, the cages we go to starts at 40 MPH and goes up in increments by 10 MPH to 70, the machines are old and throw pitches with movement such as balls that rise, curve and drop IMO if you can hit off these machines you can hit live pitching.

I can also pitch at 63 and having a stroke I can not throw as good as I once could, but I can still give some of the high schools kids a run for their money. Funny I can no longer throw over hand very well, but under hand is still pretty good.

IMO an equal amount of tee, soft toss, front toss, pitching machine work and live pitching will/can benefit the hitter, the secret IMO is when doing the work maintain the proper mechanics, complacently, loss of concentration or loss of attention to detail can derail the goal of a high level swing.

DD who I mainly work with now and is playing in college hit 461 last year and so far in fall games is 6 for 8 with 1 home runs and a line drive off the fence so she is not doing too bad.

 

[rdbass]

IMO an equal amount of tee, soft toss, front toss, pitching machine work and live pitching will/can benefit the hitter, the secret IMO is when doing the work maintain the proper mechanics, complacently, loss of concentration or loss of attention to detail can derail the goal of a high level swing.

At DD's practices I follow DD from station to station watching her swing. I will make suggestions and tweaks as she goes along. I don't want her just going through the 'motions'. I like her thinking and make adjustments in her swing as she goes along in practice.

 

[redhotcoach]

I still don't use a pitching machine. I believe that with good mechanics, an aggressive plan, and a good understanding of slow and early, a girl should rarely have trouble with speed. I have been using a tee much more lately to counter instruction that my dd gets that goes against my teaching. Then we work a lot on timing and talk a lot about dancing with the pitcher.
https://tewkshitting.com/improve-your-timing-with-josh-donaldsons-on-deck-process/

 

[redhotcoach]

And Rich, totally agree. I don't pay a lot of attention to analyzing tee swings. We tape most game at bats at a distance that includes the pitcher and catcher. The review includes analyzing what the pitcher was trying to do and how the batter delt with the pitch.