I think she has a little of the torso forward due to where the ball is tossed. I like the swing! It’s pretty tight. I like the front foot synced with the upper stretch rearwards. If she can duplicate this swing live she’s gonna be really good.
Have her swing and miss OVER a few balls on front toss. At her age, most kids take their hands to the ball. This causes the hands to be level with the ball at contact. Due to gravity, the barrel will almost always be below the hands at contact. Hands leveling with the ball is a mechanical flaw...
She needs to change her approach against slower pitching. The adjustment is to think hit the ball oppo. Almost like a two strike approach. This will allow her to wait a tick longer. The pop up is caused by contact being too far out front. Thinking hitting it oppo doesn’t mean she will hit oppo...
The goal of teaching this is to get to a floating forward, fully stretched position before pitch release ON EVERY PITCH. If they can do that, bombs are coming!! But the first step is to get comfortable with the foot up early. Progress from there once they are proficient with that. Give the “Go”...
Teach the hitter to get the foot up on time first. Tell them to do what they feel is necessary to slow the ball down. If they still can’t get on time with the machine I will have them swing BEFORE I even put the ball in the machine. Swing and miss early! You’ll be amazed at how many kids...
I can guarantee that the kids swinging when the ball was in the mitt did not have the front foot up before pitch release. Those are the ones that can benefit from using the machine with the emphasis on getting the foot up. I do it multiple ways. I’ll give the “Go” command (which means to foot up...
Agree with everything you said. I find it useful for teaching the foot to get up before seeing the ball which is a weird feel for players that struggle with being late. Not a whole lot more than that.
Timing begins with the front foot getting up. There are mechanics involved with teaching the front foot to get up. Not getting into that lol!
The pitching machine has to be used appropriately. The main reason I use the machine (when I don’t have a live pitcher) is to learn to get the front foot...
Yep! Most critical element of hitting. Has to be reinforced in front toss. They have to get comfortable with the front foot being up before the ball is released.
In my neck of the woods, best players play varsity which typically consists of older players but if a 7th or 8th grader is one of the best she plays varsity. JV is majority 8th-9th graders and we have middle school of 7th-8th graders only
Read this thread. It’s not the end all be all on timing. Lots of variables when it comes to timing but this thread is a start. Timing can be mental and mechanical.
Calling them out is easiest. At the end of the day you do what is best for you and your team. Don’t worry about folks that say calling numbers out loud is annoying! You have to work wristband calls in practice. Stage it. Put a runner at 1B and call stuff. Hammer execution also. Put runners at...
Real Talk: Stop taking practice swings where your hands go down to your waist! Practice swing taking your hands across your chest or neck! All the other stuff doesn’t matter 😉