Observations From the World Series: Observe Game Conditions
This is part two of a three part post on observations from the 2012 World Series.
Hitting Slumps - Pitch Selection
We talked the other day about timing. If your timing is off in your approach, your consistent hard contact will suffer. Coaches will say a lot of things to help hitters get out of slumps. “Swing at the first pitch,” “Don’t let yourself get to two strikes,” “Be aggressive,” “Take until you get a strike, see some pitches.” What does all this stuff mean to a hitter? The bottom line, your hitter may be swinging at bad pitches or letting good pitches go by. Once you get into your season and you feel your timing is good, pitch selection is the now the key.
What Gets You In A Slump - Timing
You have waited all winter for Opening Day. It has now come and gone and you are 4-5 games into your season, and hitless. What was childlike anticipation has turned to frustration. If I have said it once, I have said it a thousand times, there is a reason major league spring training lasts 6 weeks. It takes hitters that long to get adjusted to the pitching.
Baseball Thinking 101 - Fielding
Instinct is when anticipation meets opportunity. If you can anticipate the play before it occurs, your chance of being successful greatly increase. What exactly does this mean? Think ahead. Plays happen fast and knowing the situation ahead of time will allow you to execute the proper play.
Advanced Outdoor Practices
Once your team has gotten used to being outdoors, it’s now time to focus on getting them game ready, that means going over game situations and scenarios. Depending on the age of your team will determine the different types of scenarios that you will want to practice. The older the team, the more intricate you can get.
Different types of game situations are:
Outdoor Practice Basics
If your team has been practicing indoors for the past few months, chances are you have done a ton of drill work to get your team in shape: Ground balls, throwing drills, pitching drills, hitting drills. Your space was limited, so you made the best of it, in perfect conditions. Outdoor practices now need to prepare your team for game situations and imperfect conditions.
Indoor Throwing and Arm Strengthening
For teams that are practicing indoors, it is important to continue to strengthen the players’ arms. If there is not enough room to throw long or you are faced with a poorly lit facility, you may have to be inventive. You can still utilize this indoor time to gain arm strength. You want to have your players’ arms game ready by your first game.
The Hitting Position - The Hands
The hitting position is the moment your stride foot lands and you are about to swing the bat. This is one the most key positions in hitting. For major leaguers, regardless of how they set up in their stance, they are all within inches of the same position at stride landing. If the most successful hitters in the world do this, you have to say there is a reason for it. It puts their body in the best position to maximize both power and speed. For this blogpost, I will focus on the hands because young hitters tend to struggle with this the most.
Hitting Quick Fixes - Hand Positioning
The quickest fixes you can make are the ones you can control, and that starts in your stance. Lots of times kids get into bad habits just by where they start their hands. If their hands are too low, they may have a big uppercut swing. If they start too high, they may chop down too much. If you find your hitters struggling with consistent hard contact, watch their hand placement in their stance. The biggest adjustment here is the kids have to remember where to place their hands. They can control that, but they need to practice it.
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