Posted by: Jack Mankin (Mrbatspeed@aol.com) on Thu Jan 5 12:43:25 2012

>>> Scout. Another version of the fence drill is to place a batting tee closer to your body and attempt to make solid contact with the barrel of the bat while swinging. This forces the hitter to bring his hands in and lead with the knob of the bat. This practice of staying inside the ball is perhaps best illustrated by David Ortiz. <<<

Hi Slugger

I agree, the position you describe at the fence would keep the bat-head back and force the hands to be very close to the body while swinging. However, the only time I see a batter with that tight a hand-path is when they were jammed by the pitch. -- I had a couple players from the Astro Organization do the fence drill as you describe - with one major change. Instead of just taking dry swings, we had the try to actually hit pitched balls.

They were hitting balls over 400 feet in BP, but couldn't reach the outfielders when the fenced was added (a pitching screen in this case). It got so bad that they started laughing at each other's attempts to hit the balls. -- In their game swing initiation, they were used to accelerating the bat-head rearward rather than the hands and knob forward.

Jack Mankin