Posted by: Jack Mankin (mrbatspeed@aol.com) on Tue Apr 20 11:38:40 2004

>>> My son had this problem too. What I did to help him is: 1st make sure his hands aren't getting too high past the top of the strike zone. 2nd with the soft toss drills make sure your putting the ball far enough in front so he has time to "flatten" his swing. Also see if the balls he hits in soft toss go level into the net/fence. 3rd Make sure he's hitting the ball far enough in front of the plate, this should make him hit the ball while the bat is on a level (or slightly higher) plane....give him time, and be patient when he slides back. Tom Waz <<<

HI Tom

Welcome to the site. Thank you for your interest in helping young hitters. “Chopping down” with the bat makes it difficult to make consistent contact. I would agree with you that getting the plane of the bat-head to bottom-out and be on a slight up-swing is important. This allows the plane of the swing to align with the plane on the incoming pitch.

However, having the batter make contact farther out in front of the plate may allow the bat to flatten out, but it also results in promoting linear extension mechanics. In fact, I caution coaches not to toss balls out in front of the batter that force them to reach out with arms in order to make contact. To reinforce good rotational batting principles, the batter must be able to rotate around a stationary axis and make contact while the back-arm is still in the “L” position (not extended at contact). * Note: For pitches from the middle-in, the extension of the back arm occurs after contact during the follow through.

The “chopping down” type of swing plane occurs when the downward arc of the bat-head starts out in front of the batter. In order to generate the correct swing plane, the bat-head must begin its downward arc back behind batter. It then bottoms-out and is on an up-slope at contact while the back-arm is still in the “L” position.

Jack Mankin