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You probably know that many of the newsletter subscribers are customers for the baseball team web site products that I sell on Rteamsite.com. What you may not know is that I offer team web sites for other sports including basketball, soccer, football and hockey. I use the products for all of my teams and I hope you'll consider supporting QCBaseball by taking a look at the products. If you've never had a team web site you'll find it's a valuable tool to keep your team informed while reducing or eliminating the phone calls. (I just started basketball practice and was able to inform the entire team without having to make a single phone call!) I have other great testimonials from other customers and I think you'll find the stats portion of the web site great for helping you with the competitive side of managing a team.
If you currently have an eteamz web site I think you'll find the products I offer are much easier to use and include no 3rd party advertising. Give it a try by selecting your sport at the Rteamsite product page.
Until next time,
Don Edlin
QCBaseball.com
"People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring."
--- Rogers Hornsby
Excerpt from the upcoming QCBaseball youth hitting manual
At higher levels of baseball you'll hear players talk about coming out of slumps and often the reason they give is not some tweak in their stance or swing, they simply say that they are seeing the ball better. Now if professional players go through stages where they don't pick up the ball well, you can imagine that youth players not only have the same problem but we can safely add that many young players don't even know how to pick up or focus on the ball. The act of tracking the ball from the release of the pitcher's hand to the plate is difficult and a skill that needs to be taught. In addition, vision can be affected by the mental state of the player. Certainly a player doesn't go up to the plate thinking, "I'm not going to watch this pitch closely". Although a hitter would never be thinking that, it is often the result for many players for any number of reasons including: not knowing what to look for; not being focused on what's important; not having the proper mental approach; being concerned about other aspects of the swing or the game. Of all the terminology that is thrown around baseball, one statement that makes complete sense during a game is a hitting philosophy of "see the ball, hit the ball". A player may have a textbook perfect swing but if you put him up to the plate and tell him to close his eyes, he won't hit a thing. So a player needs to know the importance of good vision at the plate and he needs to practice skills that will help him see the ball better.
There are certainly a number of players who struggle seeing the ball because they have poor vision. I talked to a parent recently who said her son had been playing baseball for 3 years and had really struggled the first 2 years making contact at the plate. After the second year he was at the doctor and got an eye exam. Turns out he needed glasses. Third year he was seeing the ball and hitting the ball. Too bad he wasted 2 seasons before he got the problem corrected.
Common Mistakes
Stance - When you throw batting practice to a player do you see both eyes and are they level? If the answer to either one of these questions is no, the player most likely is reducing his ability to pick up and track the ball. In the image on the left (Image v1) the player has his head tilted to the side and although you can see both eyes the head is not turned toward the pitcher as much as in the second photo. If in the photo on the left the player pulls his hands back and turns his shoulder in as the pitch is on the way, he may not be able to see the pitch with his right eye. (See dominant eye below for why this could be such a big problem for a hitter.) You'll see this problem mainly with young players who want to hit with a closed stance but other players can have the same problem. You can see on the picture on the left that the hitter has tucked his chin into his shoulder which has caused a head tilt and obscured his view of the pitcher.
Corrections
To correct this problem you may need to change more than just the head position of the player. Often his stance has put him in a position where he can't comfortably turn his head around far enough to see the pitcher with both eyes. If you just tell a player to turn his head or keep his head in a certain position and it doesn't feel comfortable for the player, he won't stick with it and you'll see him back to his normal head position at the next batting practice.
Any time you work with a player on changing his stance make sure that your primary focus is making the player feel more comfortable at the plate. Our goal in this instance may be to get the player into a better position to see the ball, but we have to be able to accomplish that goal without sacrificing comfort at the plate. It doesn't mean that players won't feel strange for a short period of time when trying something new, but in the end if the player doesn't feel comfortable with his stance, he probably won't give it much of a try.
To give him a chance of successfully making this change we need to work with him on making small adjustments in his stance to make it feel comfortable while getting him in a good hitting position where he can see the ball. Here are some things to check and areas where you can make small adjustments to help a player get comfortable and see the ball.
Release Point - the hitter has his head pointed in the right direction and his eyes on the pitcher; does he know what he's looking for? Where does he pick up the ball? Does he follow the ball or look in the general direction of the mound? Ask a few of your players what they look for and I'm sure you'll get a few different answers. If you are coaching a young team some of the answers will end up being "I don't know". I asked my youngest son that same question the other day and he said he just looks at the pitcher and then just watches the ball when he sees it. Now I've gone over picking up the ball out of the pitcher's hand with him so I was a little surprised that he didn't give an answer along those lines, but I think it helps demonstrate that picking up the release point isn't something you can go over once and then assume a player will remember. Picking up the ball at the earliest possible moment is a huge advantage and something that needs to be practiced on a regular basis. A hitter who is not picking up the ball out of the pitchers hand is losing valuable time in determining the location, speed, and movement of the pitch. Timing is critical to a hitter and the later he picks up the ball the less time he has to determine if he's going to swing and less time to execute his swing. Often these players will swing mainly with their arms or look fooled by a fastball. Their game swing appears different then the swing they use at practice when the pitches are slower. Certainly speed is a factor but often a player simply isn't picking up the ball early enough to adjust to game time pitching speeds. The player appears to be overmatched by the pitcher even though he's capable of hitting that speed of pitch.
There are a few different methods of picking up the release point of the pitcher and I'll cover a few which you can share with your team. As with many things each player will need to find what's comfortable for him. One thing that's important for each player to realize is that they need to know the release point of the pitcher before they step into the batter's box. Each method of picking up ball out of the pitchers hand is dependant on knowing where the hand is going to be before the pitcher starts his windup.
Players should learn various methods and use the method that they feel gives them the best opportunity to pick up the ball as early as possible. As a hitter I tended to use methods 1 and 2 depending on the pitcher. I found that a hard throwing over the top pitcher made method 2 the best for me. While a ¾ delivery pitcher made method 1 the choice for me. I found I didn't like staring off to center field and waiting for the ball to appear as in method 1 but I know other hitters I played with who felt this kept them very focused on the ball and not the motion of the pitcher.
How to Teach - To teach picking up release points I like to have the players try out the different methods and I find this can easily be done as a team activity during practice. Have a coach or parent behind home plate as the catcher and have the players stand behind the catcher where they can get a good view of the mound from near the batter's box. I use and would recommend using tennis balls during this instruction. Start with a coach in front of the mound in the role of the pitcher. Start by explaining method 1 and then throw a number of pitches to the catcher with the players picking up the pitch in the imaginary box. Keep the release point consistent so the players can pick up the ball within the imaginary box. Do the same with the other 2 methods. First explain and then have them try out the method with a number of pitches. After you have made it through all 3, go through and have them try each method again, this time without the explanation. This will give the players a better chance to compare the methods. You can do this a number of times and this is also a good opportunity to get feedback from the kids. Which method do you like? Why? Which method don't you like? Why? If you also have batting practice during this same practice, have this be the focus of the hitting. Tell them to use the different methods during batting practice to "see the ball, hit the ball".
Follow this up at the next practice by having them use all 3 methods when they play catch to warm-up. Then use the same instruction above during practice with a couple of the pitchers from your team. Make sure they don't throw the tennis balls hard, just have them focus on a nice smooth delivery. When a player determines what method he is going to use, it's essential that you remind them to practice using it. It needs to become a habit that they don't need to think about when they step in the box.
Vision Drills
One method to continually work on vision is to mark some of your batting practice balls with round colored circles using a permanent marker. Start players out at a soft-toss station with the colored balls mixed in. When they see a colored ball, they call out the color as soon as they recognize it. When they see a white ball, they don't say anything. The image on the left shows what a colored soft-toss ball will look like to the hitter. You can also add the balls into the live batting practice. Picking up the color during batting practice will be much more difficult as the ball will be spinning at a faster rate compared to the soft-toss. You will need to experiment with the size and number of colored circles to make sure you have a size large enough for them to be able to see. You may find you need different balls for live pitching (See example on right). I would error on the side of making it easier to pick up than harder. You want them to focus on the ball but not worrying about getting it wrong or not being able to see the color. It's a way to help them practice working on their focus, not a test of how many they can get right. The same thing can be done if you use whiffle balls, buy white and a few different colors and mix them in when throwing to the kids. You'll quickly get a feel for how quickly kids can call out the color and you'll know when a player isn't focusing on the release point by how long it takes him to yell out the color.
You may not realize it but almost everyone has a dominant eye. In any sport, where vision is so critical to performance, a player should make every effort not to obstruct the view of the dominant eye.
Why does it matter?
Let's perform a little test to see how the dominant eye, or lack of, can affect our vision. Place your finger out in front of your face at eye level and focus your eyes on your finger. Keeping your eyes focused on your finger line up an object in the distance directly behind your finger. Now close your right eye, then switch and close your left eye while opening your right. For one eye the object in the distance doesn't move and for the other eye it "jumps" over. The eye where the object doesn't move is your dominant eye. So for a right handed hitter with a right dominant eye, a closed stance with the right eye not being able to clearly see the pitcher would pose a problem picking up and following the ball.
"Get in front of the ball", I'm sure you've heard that being yelled across a baseball field or two and if you're anything like me you've yelled it yourself a few times. Now there's nothing wrong with getting in front of a ground ball but an often overlooked skill at the youth baseball level is how to field a ground ball backhanded. Any infielder who wants to continue on to higher levels of baseball will have to learn how to field a ground ball backhanded. Why not get them started early by teaching this important skill and who knows maybe you'll see a few outstanding plays during the season as a reward.
When a backhanded play can be beneficial
Think about the path that a player takes to the ball in order to get in front of it. Often it's a straight or slightly arced line that allows the player to move forward on the ball and get in a good position to field and throw the ball. What about the ball where the player is forced to move backwards in order to try and get in front of it. It may be a hard hit ball or a ball that's simply farther away. What's common with either of these plays is the difficulty of getting in front of the ball in the first place and then add to it the difficulty of getting any kind of momemtum back to where the player will need to throw the ball. Another common result of a play like this is the infielder not being able to square up to the ball and having to try to field it at an angle towards the throwing hand side, where more likely than not, it won't be fielded cleanly, if at all. This is where the backhand plays an important role for the infielder. By fielding the ball backhanded the player is able to stay in more control because he doesn't have to cover as much ground with his feet. He will be able to field the ball with better balance and be much quicker in getting momentum going back to the base where he's going to throw the ball.
If we remove the diving backhanded play there are basically two ways to field a ball backhanded. One with the right foot forward and one with the left foot forward. With either play the same basic principles apply: Bend with the legs, dropping the back leg down in a lunge position; keep a wide balanced base; and focus on trying to catch the ball before it gets to the body. If a player let's the ball get too deep or past their body when trying to make the catch then it can be difficult to reach and can be knocked out of the glove with the player's knee or foot while trying to stop and setup for the throw.
Drills
Young players will often want to bend with the back instead of the legs to field the ball. They need to be taught how to get into the lunge position. During warmup you can help by adding walking lunges to the warmup. Have the players in a straight line and have them step out and drop down into the lunge position and then come back up to a standing position. Then step out with the other leg and drop down into the lunge position. Young players may need to drop their back knee to the ground to keep their balance. You can also have them use their glove hand arm to simulate getting their glove in the correct position while they perform the walking lunges.
For a good starting backhand drill, get players in a circle with a few feet between each player. As the coach you'll be in the middle with a number of balls. Have one player crossover to the throwing hand side and drop down into the lunge postion. Again it's okay if the back knee is on the ground. Roll the ball into the player's glove and then work your way around the circle. Next time around have the player crossover and then take one step in order to drop down using the other leg. Roll the ball into the player's glove.
Once players get comfortable with fielding the backhand from a stationary position you can add movement by using a single line and rolling the ball to the side. Have the players time their movement towards the ball to be in a good position to try and move smoothly into the fielding position and then move into an upright position where they can make a throw.
I hope you enjoyed this issue of the Dugout newsletter. Please feel free to forward this to anyone you believe would enjoy this issue.
© QCBaseball.com, 2007. All rights reserved.
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