Wood bat Training?

[KobeJames248]

What type of benefits are you seeing ?

For one mishits are more of a pain with a wood bat. I've seen players in game either get jammed or hit a ball of the end of their bat and still hit a decent ball with decent velocity while using their normal metal bats. With a wood bat mishits won't perform that well compared to a metal or composite bat. Not to mention getting jammed or hitting a ball of the end hurts like hell also, then there the added thought that getting jammed or hitting a ball of the end could break your bat. (And a good wood bat is usually $100+ so that's not fun) Usually when a kid gets jammed or caps a ball either their mechanics (bat path) are wrong, not timing the pitch well or they have a lack of plate discipline, swinging at pitches they shouldn't. So a wood bat will expose all of these things. This gives the player instant feedback.

In my experience while training with my brother it helped tremendously. My brother actually has a pretty good swing, a high level swing in my opinion, with lots of power but he lacked discipline at the plate. He knew that he could pull ever ball pitched to him and drive it with some power. He's 5'10 180 and strong as a ox so he was pretty successful. When hitting with the wood bat the smaller sweet spot exposed to him his lack of discipline as the outside pitches that he would pull weren't going as far and ending up being outs. So now he had a better more discipline focus while taking BP and his at-bats during his travel games, that travels over into his high school games. He's gotten better at using the whole field while hitting, he went from pulling every pitch imaginable to hitting balls up the middle and opposite field consistently. He even has added a few opposite field homeruns under his belt.

 

[NBECoach]

For one mishits are more of a pain with a wood bat. I've seen players in game either get jammed or hit a ball of the end of their bat and still hit a decent ball with decent velocity while using their normal metal bats. With a wood bat mishits won't perform that well compared to a metal or composite bat. Not to mention getting jammed or hitting a ball of the end hurts like hell also, then there the added thought that getting jammed or hitting a ball of the end could break your bat. (And a good wood bat is usually $100+ so that's not fun) Usually when a kid gets jammed or caps a ball either their mechanics (bat path) are wrong, not timing the pitch well or they have a lack of plate discipline, swinging at pitches they shouldn't. So a wood bat will expose all of these things. This gives the player instant feedback.

In my experience while training with my brother it helped tremendously. My brother actually has a pretty good swing, a high level swing in my opinion, with lots of power but he lacked discipline at the plate. He knew that he could pull ever ball pitched to him and drive it with some power. He's 5'10 180 and strong as a ox so he was pretty successful. When hitting with the wood bat the smaller sweet spot exposed to him his lack of discipline as the outside pitches that he would pull weren't going as far and ending up being outs. So now he had a better more discipline focus while taking BP and his at-bats during his travel games, that travels over into his high school games. He's gotten better at using the whole field while hitting, he went from pulling every pitch imaginable to hitting balls up the middle and opposite field consistently. He even has added a few opposite field homeruns under his belt.

Do you think you could get a similar reaction by using a 14" outseam softball and a regular bat?

 

[lancer360]

What's the purpose of this? Most hitting aids are destructive.

It is used for one handed training, usually off the tee. Here are some drills that Camwood recommends. It can be used to isolate strength training for each hand as well as working on arm/hand pathway. One handed starts on 23:45.

 

[KobeJames248]

Do you think you could get a similar reaction by using a 14" outseam softball and a regular bat?

I don’t know to be honest, wouldn’t be a bad experiment , I do believe it depends on the bat though. Might work with a one piece bat.

 

[efastball]

It is used for one handed training, usually off the tee. Here are some drills that Camwood recommends. It can be used to isolate strength training for each hand as well as working on arm/hand pathway. One handed starts on 23:45.

Just as I suspected. This drill is destructive and stupid.
1) He is using a two tee setup. First red flag warning. This is not a pro bat path at all. This is a hands to the ball, youth path with a negative bat/launch angle. IOW, it teaches you to swing down, not up with the angle of the pitch.

2) The front arm/hands dont push the hands to the ball in a pro swing.

3) The hands are merely used to hold onto the bat for dear life. In a pro swing, you should actually try to keep the hands near the rear armpit as long as you can hold it.

So, this one-handed drill and bat are backwards and destructive.

I have never seen a one-handed drill that was not destructive.

 

[uncdrew]

Personally I'm a fan of doing things as similar to game experience as possible. There are thousands of excellent fastpitch hitters who have never swung a wooden bat. I don't think it's needed to become a great hitter.

If there is a specific reason targeting a specific issue one specific girl has, then sure. But as a blanket statement? Nah.

Just my 2 cents. I'm no expert and if others want to use wood bats go for it.

 

[Westwind]

^^^^^Read this above please before you embark on heavy bat training!^^^^

I think that one thing to watch for with any heavy bat training is training the hitter to commit to every pitch too early.

Also, I hear over and over that heavy bats build bat speed. I don’t believe that is the case when it isn’t done right. And most aren’t doing it right.

If you are going to do wood or heavy bat training, combine it with light bat training, which imho will yield better results anyway. Trey Hannem’s excellent Half Bat is one example.

One more thing- better be damn careful using high speed machine. You better know what you are doing and you better watch your hitters closely. This screws up more hitters than it improves. If improving hitters was as easy as setting a machine to a speed that only high level D1 hitters see, there would be no such thing as hitting coaches or hitting forums. DD had the opportunity to hit with one of the best hitting coaches in the country. He used his machine to lob perfectly shaped 25-30 mph pitches about 30 feet. I had never seen an instructor use a machine that way, and it was excellent.

 

[uncdrew]

Slightly off-topic, but related to Westwind's post above, one girl that I coached would come to practice saying that she worked really hard in the batting cages with the machine set to 50 mph. After congratulating her and chatting a bit, I asked her why, and she said her dad did it.

I kindly told the dad we wouldn't be seeing any 50mph pitchers for a few years and dialing it down to 40mph would be better for her. He didn't agree. For other reasons, they got kicked off the team (and a few others after that, I've noticed).

 

[Orange Socks]

DD has a Pink Louisville Slugger wood bat. 32". She swings a 34-10 Ghost. I had her use the wood bats during warm ups in TB. She had not picked it up in 2 years. She hadn't been squaring the ball up lately and I wasn't seeing that snap in her swing. Her team had a road game a couple of weeks ago and while the team was eating breakfast at the hotel, I brought the bat to her. This right here kids is a slump buster!!! She has been hitting .500 for the past 6 games! I told her that I would like for her to take a few swings with it in the dugout before she hops in the on deck circle. At minimum, take some swings off the tee during pregame.

In baseball, they have all kinds of swing weights and training aids in the on deck circle to help prepare them before they step in the box. In softball, they are not allowed to have a donut. Remember the days of swinging with 2 bats???

 

[Westwind]

Great example of a good use of a wood bat!

And I know for a fact that someone like Cannonball knows how to use a wood bat to get more out of hitters and his dd was an absolute bomb dropper.

What scares me is the 12u dads that want to have their kid take 312 cuts a night with a wood 33” Louisville Slugger.

Keep in mind that both my kids are good hitters, both swung wood LS bats as well as a 33” Camwood and hit a heavy bag and off a tee with a 40oz Swing Mechanic. We also used various knob weights. I’m just saying that weighted bats alone are not the only solution and I saw more short term progress with bat speed with the Half Bat than anything else.

I have also seen a lot of great hitters that have never used any training bat of any kind.