Posted by: Kirk (kirk@insurecounsel.com) on Tue Mar 25 19:06:17 2008

I have been coaching little league for a number of years now and this is probably the biggest cause of strikeouts with kids your son's age, particularly early in the season. This website is basically devoted to rotational mechanics and developing batspeed and power in the swing. These concepts are generally too difficult for 9 year-old kids to understand. While your son will like correct the problem all on his own as he gets older, here is my list for trying to accelerate the cure, and believe it or not, I belive starting them on rotational mechanics, can be a big help even if they never get to the point of implementing many of the things discussed at this site.

1. Pitch recognition - 9 year-olds aren't just slow in picking up the pitch, they don't have anything to fall back on in deciding whether a pitch is likely to be a strike. It may seem obvious to adults, but during batting practice sessions you have to force them to focus on what a strike looks like and to develop the ability to identify the pitch early. This is a learned skill. Telling them to look at the release is not good enough. They need more information. For example, if the ball leaves the pitcher's hand and goes 4 feet above the pitchers hat, that's going to be a ball. I go through a little drill of having the players call out balls and strikes while standing at the plate with a bat, but without swinging. The sooner they can make a decision, the better. I encourage them to envision a little backdrop target behind the pitcher and to develop a mental image of where a good pitch would be seen in that target by the batter. Its amazing how that image helps.

2. Contact point - I'd bet good money that if you asked your son to show you exactly where he wants to make contact with the ball, he'd put his bat right over the heart of the plate. Like pitch recognition, you need to drill into 9 year-olds that you want them to make contact out in front of the plate. Tee work and soft toss from 45 degrees on the side is great for this. YOu need to force them to make contact in front of the plate. They will eventually develop their own sense of timing to meet the ball out front, even with live pitching.

3. Stride sooner and begin hip rotation - I can't stand the instruction "swing earlier." You have to remember that most 9 year-olds initiate their swing by throwing their hands and bat out and any hip and shoulder rotation occurs only after the fact just so that they don't fall over. So if you say "swing earlier" they are just going to swing at every pitch, good or bad. Not even a professional could pull back a swing if he really fired it from the top like 9 year-olds do. Then the coach starts saying "don't swing at bad pitches." So then the kid waits a little longer to make sure he or she is not swinging at a bad pitch, but now his stride and swing is late. Thje cycle will never get fixed this way. They need to stride earlier, not swing earlier. Next would be to stride and begin some hip rotation - without firing the swing yet. All of my players gain time when they stride and begin their rotation. The extra time helps then in deciding to swing or not to swing. They can even learn to check their swings. Little leaguers swing at bad pitches all the time and coaches yell at the them for do so, but the problem is really mechanics and most coaches don't even realize it. The players can't stop their swings once they start. If they can learn " stride, hips, and swing," they will delay the actual swing part of the sequence and be able to lay off bad pitches. When I see players swinging constantly at bad pitches, I know the coach hasn't done his job!

4. Post-stride position - If your son strides late, then his swing is also going to be late. I have had good success with taking the stride out of the equation and putting the player in a post-stride position. Assumming the player has devoloped some feel for weight shift and hip rotation through other drills, hitting out of a post-stride position is a piece of cake with no loss of power for kids this age. By putting the player in a post-stride position, you have basically taken the biggest delaying factor out of his swing and he has already completed a component of the swing sequence. When your son says that everybody strides, just tell him "Nomar Garciappara doesn't stride."

5. Patience - This problem is going to go away. It isn't a confidence problem. I have seent he most aggressive, cocky kids do the same thing. Continue to work on mechanics and the problem will go away on its own.

Regards