Posted by: skip (piks5@sbcglobal.net) on Wed May 2 05:26:59 2007

> >>> Jack,
>
> What is the best way of soft tossing at the bag? In real soft toss, I'm kneeling close to the batter and just flipping it up in the air a little bit. Same thing with the bag? Or more of a line drive so the batter has to more or less line up his swing path with the location (top, middle, bottom) where the ball hits the bag?
> Skip <<<
>
> Hi Skip
>
> First, I will place below a post from the Archives that gives some background to the other readers on he purpose soft-tossing at a bag. – Its main purpose is to help the hitter retain in the cage, the swing mechanics he developed working with the bag. Therefore, I start with a very soft toss at the bag. This allows the batter to start setting his timing with a moving ball.
>
> If the batter retains sound initiation and contact form, I then check his soft toss swing without the bag. I continue increasing the pitch speed (with and without the bag) until (hopefully) he exhibits the same sound mechanics with live pitching as when practicing with a bag or tee.
>
> Jack Mankin
> ##
>
> Posted by: Jack Mankin (MrBatspeed@aol.com) on Sun Oct 3 13:10:57 2004
>
> >>> Batting Tee Man
>
> Yeah, sure you do. Batting tees are nonsense. Garbage. Hitting is a resonder skill. You have to have an initiator, or you aren't hitting. The swing that masters hitting off a batting tee while bear no resemblance to the game swing. It's called specificity of training. Batting tees are worse than not swinging at all. <<<
>
> Hi Melvin
>
> I do not think that practicing with a tee (or heavy bag) is nonsense or garbage. I would agree that the swing mechanics a batter acquires while working with a tee could be very different from his game mechanics as I point out in the post below. A hitter may develop two completely different sets of swing mechanics. One set of mechanics is triggered from seeing a moving ball and the other from a ball setting still on a tee. Having different mechanical swing programs triggered by, or responding to, what the eyes see can obviously present a problem. However, it also has a benefit.
>
> With many batters, the swing program initiated from seeing a pitched ball is so strong that it is very difficult to make substantive changes to these core mechanics . For this reason, I have found that linear hitters usually adapt to rotational batting principles much quicker while working with a heavy bag, rather than in the cage. Much time is then required to retain (or burn-in) these new mechanics while progressing from the bag through soft-toss to live pitching. --- A confirmation from frame-by-frame video analysis at each stage is most helpful.
>
> Jack Mankin
> ##
>
> Re: How to stop a player from reaching for a pitch
> Posted by: Jack Mankin (MrBatspeed@aol.com on Tue Sep 28 11:56:33 2004
>
> >>> I have a 10 yr old player with very good all around hitting mechanics. Unfortunately, over the past 2 weeks he has developed a bad habit when he is at the plate in that he is reaching for the ball during his swing. I have worked with him recently off the Tee and his mechanics are great, but when he gets in a game or practice he begins lunging/reaching for the ball during his swing. Is there any drill/product out there that can help us out?
> Thanks in advance. <<<
>
> Hi Rich
>
> The change in your son’s mechanics from the Tee to live pitching is quite common. I have also found that many hitters exhibit very different swing mechanics in the box from the swing they use working with the Tee or Heavy Bag. Seeing a live ball triggers swing mechanics they are most accustom to which overrides the Tee work. It can take many hours of work to burn-in a different set of mechanics. --- See if he can maintain his Tee (or Heavy Bag) form with soft-toss before progressing up to live pitching.
>
> Lunging is a product of relying too heavily on bringing the back-side forward to swing the bat. Bringing the back-side forward is natural with all hitters. Therefore, I have the student concentrate on rotating the lead-shoulder back toward the catcher by contact. I have found no problem with the student lunging forward when concentrating on rotating the lead-shoulder back to the 105 degree position (15 degrees passed facing the pitcher). This requires extending the lead-leg to drive the lead-side back rather than moving forward onto the lead-leg.
>
> Jack Mankin

Jack,
Thanks for your response, which makes sense.

As a coach, I too have always noticed that live pitching can trigger a quirk/defect in a swing that wouldn't show up in T-work, or soft toss, or sometimes even BP.

How about, if in addition to soft toss at the bag, I stand 15 ft in front of the bag and simulate (without a ball) a pitching motion at the batter, who then swings at the "pitch", but hits the bag.?.

And if I tell him the count and the location (or a game situation) on each pitch, he'll stop thinking about the swing, and his mind will go into its game mode, where he swings instinctively and unconsciously, and then we'll have an on-the-bag freeze-frame dry run for how he'll really incorporates the new swing mechanic under live conditions. Maybe I'll randomly make him "hold the swing" on the bag, to see what we've got at contact.

By the way, my 12u, who has bought into this swing bigtime, and was always a reliable line drive singles hitter, smoked a line drive home run last night, his first ever. The swing's the thing. It allows him to initiate a quick-to-the-contact zone swing with a heavier bat, and, even more important for him, puts him on a much better and more reliable swing path for hitting both line drives AND gappers, than did his old (nice looking) swing.,which was instinctively more or less rotational but lacking the refinements that you illustrate so clearly. Thanks.

A question: since the last two thirds of the rot. swing is dominated by a pull with the bottom hand and de-emphasizes a push with the top hand, could this result in a more reliable and also more accurate swing path for the following reason: it's easier to pull something in a straight line than it is to push it. Try pushing a kid's wagon in a straight line. It doesn't work. Perhaps not directly analagous, but seems logical to me.

Skip