Training the Swing-No Swing Decision

[ArmWhip]

Hey I mean if you want to have them run laps for swinging at balls in practice that’s probably a great idea.

My idea for the HC is to move the machine back enough so that a good percentage of the pitches are going to be out of the strike zone. Then you set up a line of 4-5 hitters ready to step into the box. The hitters get 5 swings each, if they swing at a ball, they go to the back of the line. If they let a strike go by they lose a swing and go to the back of the line. I want to change the goal/intention of this particular BP session from making contact to learning the strike zone; swinging at good pitches and letting the bad ones go by. In most BP sessions only lip service is paid to discriminating good from bad pitches. By that I mean coach says "swing at the good ones Suzie, let the bad ones go", but they don't learn anything from that.

 

[RADcatchers]

Yes, but I will balance this out by saying that the easiest game to pitch is one where you don't have to throw strikes to get hitters out.

Hitters that can hit a ball hard when it's out of the strike zone are exceedingly rare, like hen's teeth rare.

Hmmm rare?
Going to have to disagree on that.
imo, It is not rare to see batters hit pitches that are out of the zone well.
Plus the bats and rocket ball help!

 

[CoachCeetar]

Hmmm rare?
Going to have to disagree on that.
imo, It is not rare to see batters hit pitches that are out of the zone.

After all...
pitchers are pitching there!

MLB has this data. I can't think of any good reason it'd be much different for softball.

• The Chase Region is where pitchers are trying to get batters to chase. Almost 25% of their pitches are here, and batters swing almost 25% of those pitches, almost always with poor results. But when they take, it's a called ball.

Shadow region is the area along the strike zone, this is the next section away from the strike zone, but not so far out that they're waste pitches.

This season only 2 major league players have positive run value when SWINGING at pitches in that zone. Bobby Witt Jr, and Amed Rosario. Only three players have positive run value in the waste (as in way off the plate) zone, Spencer Steer, Wenceel Perez, and Jake Fraley. Bad hitters.

That's for swinging. But you can get run value by taking pitches too. TAKING pitches in the chase zone is good, because it's a ball, and your chance of reaching base increases significantly. The leaders in MLB are Soto, Judge, Henderson, Carroll, etc. Great hitters.

 

[RADcatchers]

By the way I am glad there are different strategies.
Because there are different offensive and defensive strategies it's nice to be able to figure out how to defeat the other. Good chat

MLB has this data. I can't think of any good reason it'd be much different for softball.

I don't think MLB data applies across the board to all of softball that's played. Particularly in that MLB is the pros playing against pros.

While Softball has a lot of different Talent levels that are facing each other.
There are definitely times of Greater disparity between the pitching Talent level and the hitters.
Much different when a pitcher has either the struggle in front of her or the command against the other team.
Some pitchers end up being like batting practice for some hitters. Like the machine so they can rail on it in games. Or the opposite batters can't touch the ball.


... add that at younger ages we see players that are swinging hitting pitches that are all over the place. (this occurs in baseball and softball) Because that's normal with their beginner league stages.
Point being, They learn they can do it. Then that can get defined as they grow.

 

[RADcatchers]

12U B level team. No one takes or has taken hitting lessons.

They practice hitting once a week over the cold months,

hitting was terrible.

12u B players
On the cusp of deciding how dedicated they want to be.
Your post is about them deciding to swing. But I think the root issue is them deciding if they want/need to practice more. How many actually have a comfortable or consistent-ish swing?

Solution~
Develop swing
See more pitches/ball incomming
= Learn better decision making.

Individual application is possibly the biggest component to skill sets developing.

 

[ArmWhip]

From my experience nothing puts pressure on a pitcher like a walk. If a batter gets a hit on a pitch out of the zone a pitcher can chalk that up to luck. But when a pitcher walks a batter that's on her and no one else (well maybe the ump).

Your post is about them deciding to swing.

I want to be clear about this, the swing-don't swing decision is intuitive and largely subconscious. In my opinion it is largely overlooked when it comes to batting practice and hitting instruction, thus my question, 'how do you train it?' Live pitching can help but it has to be done in the right way, with someone calling balls and strikes. Have you ever seen batting practice where there is any positive feedback to a hitter who works out a walk, it's all about contact. But in a game walks can play a key role. In spite of what some some people say a walk can be just as good as a hit. How many times have you seen a walk come back to bite the pitcher in the butt?

 

[RADcatchers]

From my experience nothing puts pressure on a pitcher like a walk.

... if the standard is you cannot walk anybody at all in the entire game.
imo, that is a pretty critical/ridgid standard.
Yeah there are some pitchers that hold themselves to that standard too.
Pitching is not for everybody.

Game situations seem to put more pressure than just considering walking somebody. The other team scoring kind of pressure.

Would even comment that there are times when letting the pitcher know it's okay to walk a certain batter, or walk the batter in a certain situation, can relieve pressure. Which *relieving pressure can result in a better outcome.

 

[Rolling Hard]

"
Hey I mean if you want to have them run laps for swinging at balls in practice that’s probably a great idea. It will get
Them in shape for soccer."

That^^^^^ is funny.

 

[BigSkyHi]

I would start with timing

 

[Westwind]

I would rather see kids swing at bad pitches than having the "oh, shirt, it's a strike" swing. We all know that swing. It's not yes, yes ,yes. It's let me see, maybe, oh, shirt it's a strike. All arms, no lower body, flailing swing with no drive.
*Worse parental/ coach advice:
3 and 1 count. "Careful, you don't want to swing at ball four. A walk is as good as a hit."
2 and 0 count. "Make her throw a strike."

The last thing you want your players to be in the box is careful. You would rather have aggressively reckless.

Agree. Yes, “get a good pitch to hit” is important but teaching hitters to HIT is what needs to happen first. And you don’t HIT if your goal is ball 4.