Posted by: Jeff Pennington (jpennington1@nc.rr.com) on Fri May 3 09:44:56 2002

Help! I coach 7-8 Y/O's in a machine pitch league. I have a particular player that has excellent swing machanics for an 8 Y/O. His swing developes excellent batspeed. Problem is he swings late almost every pitch and therefore strikes out more than he really should. I have plenty of remedies in by bag of tricks but can't seem to develope a drill will help a late swinger. Any Help?

You've hit the nail right on the head. He is a good athelete, has a better than average glove for his age, just simply swings late. I can prompt him by saying "ready..swing" at the right time and he hits it very solid. When I'm quite he goes back to swinging late. I'll try the wiffle ball drill you mentioned along with some visualization of hitting the ball "out in front" Hopefully its not an "eye-hand" coordination problem and he simply needs more time in front of the machine. Thanks!!