A complete swing sequence is a millisecond event. A baseball pitch at 90 mph from 60 ft, or a fastpitch softball pitch at 65 mph from 43 feet reach home plate in 0.66 seconds. Therefore, a player needs to get ready, identify, adjust and swing at a pitch within that timeframe. Understanding and getting the sequence of your swing right is especially important when there is so little time to succeed.
Different players have different swings based on their physical attributes, athleticism and skill level. But the sequence is the same: Stance, Load, Stride, Launch and Swing.
STANCE
It is important to set up in a consistent and comfortable stance. There are as many variations of the stance as there are players. Stances can be wide or narrow based on the relationship between the width between the feet and the width of a player’s shoulders. Based on a player’s feet placement towards the pitcher, stances can be open, close and square. Thus, stances could be wide and open, wide and narrow, narrow and square, etc.
A wide stance is more common than a narrow stance. A player in a wide stance should be relaxed and in comfortable athletic position: feet wider than the shoulder, knees should be inside the ankles, weight on the balls of the feet and slightly bent at the knees and waste towards home plate. Hands should be aligned, griping the bat softly and at the top of the strike zone, the front shoulder should be lower than the back shoulder, elbows should be pointing to the ground, the front elbow should be lower than the back elbow, and both eyes must be looking at the pitcher. A player should have a 50-50 or 40-60 weight distribution on the legs. If 40-60 split, 60 percent over the back leg. The angle and movement of the bat is not important during the stance. It may be beneficial, though not essential, to create a soft rhythmic movement in sync with the pitcher windup to keep the body loosed and create momentum for the load.
Open Stance
The back foot is closer to the plate than the front foot. Players who use this stance feel like they get a better view of the pitcher standing this way. This stance may help with barrel speed and body weight transfer and could benefit players with slower hands. There is a lot of movement in the load and stride phases of the swing though, and it may generate a lot of swing and misses and casting the hands to adjust to an outside pitch.
Closed Stance
The front foot is closer to the plate than the back foot. Players that are prompted to stride out might benefit from this stance since they will stride towards the pitcher. This stance will also generate a lot of movement during the load and stride which may generate more swing and misses and a player with slow hands will find it difficult turning on the inside pitch and might get jammed on the inside part of the plate.
Square Stance
This stance allows the batter to stride towards the pitcher with ease and no or minimal head movement. Since the batter never changes the direction of the stride, he/she can adjust to the pitch plane and location easily. It also makes it more difficult for the pitcher to determine where the hitter likes the ball.
Standing up in the box or back in the box
Ultimately, the box position setup is based on the preference and skill of the batter and the speed and pitch arsenal of the pitcher. A player up in the box must be quicker on the fastball and may get the breaking ball before it is at the bottom of its break. A player back in the box has more time on the fastball but the breaking and curve ball will be deeper in the break.
LOAD
The load begins when the pitcher goes to throw, right before the release point is visible. Load is a negative movement where the weight and the body move from the center to the back or away from the pitcher.
The goal of the load is to get ready to hit by creating a momentum and tension in our muscles. In order to become a good hitter, a player must be able to get to a consistent load position. Batters’ load might differ visually, but the sequence of events is the same. The batter shifts weight back laterally, creates a coil motion on the back hip by slightly sitting on the back leg and rotating the hip while keeping the back knee inside the ankle. As the weight shifts and the hip coils, the front heel or feet is lifted off the ground. The hands, still on top of the strike zone, move back with the weight shift, turning the knob of the bat towards the catcher and creating a 30°– 45° bat angle. The hands themselves DO NOT move independently. The head is steady and both eyes are focus on the pitcher’s release point.
Common errors to look for and correct
Sliding the weight: the player shifts weight by sliding backwards, bringing the back knee over or passed the ankle creating and unbalanced position resulting in an awkward lunge while striding.
Wrapping: the upper torso turns, and the batter wraps the bat behind the back shoulder, while the front shoulder wraps inward away from the pitcher. This tends to create head movement changing the perception of the pitch plane.
Loading down: the hands drop elongating the swing and make it more difficult to hit the ball.
Bad bat angle: if the bat is straight up or the knob is pointing to the ground, the swing will be slower, and the swing path will be long with extreme positive or negative attack angles generating many pop flies and weak grounders. If the bat is too flat, the player will tend to tuck in the back elbow dragging the barrel and slowing the swing.
STRIDE AND LAUNCH
The stride a player takes to get to the launch position is a positive movement where the weight and muscle tension shift from the back leg and hip towards the pitcher. The stride is a timing mechanism to adjust to the pitcher delivery pattern, pitch speed and location. It enables a batter to create swing space and get into position to hit the ball. Players have different stride length and styles based on the position of the front foot when the hip coils during load and the width of their stance. Some start their stride from a narrower stance bringing the front foot high off the ground, others start from a wide stance and just bring the front heel off the ground. No matter the style, the batter should always stride towards the pitcher. As the front foot hits the ground, the batter should be on a wide athletic position and the foot should point towards second base, heel slightly off the ground, front knee bent, soft and tucked in.
It is crucial that when the batter strides, the eyes remain at the same level that they were in the load phase. Moving up from the load position or lowering our body with a long stride, will affect our eyes level and will change our perception of the pitch plane.
A player should get to launch position as the front foot hits the ground, a second load should develop creating a separation between the upper and lower body. Separation occurs as the hip uncoils, the front foot moves toward the pitcher, but the hands and the upper body remain in the loading position. This movement creates more muscle tension in the shoulders, torso and stretching the front leading arm. This muscular tension is necessary to explode with speed and power during the swing. Some players, based on the position of their hands at loading may slide their hands 2-3 inches backwards to complete separation.
Common errors to look for and correct
Lunging: the player slides the weight to the front moving his/her all body at once.
Stepping out or in: it creates all sort of problems with the swing, the batter can get hit or jammed by a pitch and changes the perception of the pitch plane and location.
Locked foot: this is when the player steps with the foot horizontal to the top of home plate. It hinders the rotation of the hip during the swing.
Stretched knees: if a player does not land with soft and bent knees, he/she will not be able to open the hip towards the pitcher completely, nor to adjust to a change in the plane and location of a pitch.
Wrapping: wrapping torso and/or shoulders away from the pitcher, creates head movement changing the perception of the pitch plane and location.
SWING
There are different methods and schools when it comes to create solid and consistent contact with the ball. But the swing steps are the same: Trigger, Approach, Contact, Extension, and Finish.
Trigger
The swing triggers when the front heel hits the ground. This is the signal for the inside of the back foot to push the back knee to the front, which releases the uncoiling of the back hip. At this point, the lower front shoulder and elbow start titling up as the back shoulder tilts down and the back elbow starts moving towards the back hip connecting with the side of the body. The hands tilt with shoulders' movement bringing the barrel behind the back shoulder…
Approach
The controversy about the swing is about the approach or attack angle. Should the swing path come the shortest distance from above creating backspin to elevate the ball or should the swing path take the long route and get in plane with the pitch having more time in the hitting zone? Personally, I prefer swing along the pitch plane, so that is what I teach.
… Then, the back foot, the hip and the shoulders start rotating outwards, moving the back elbow towards the hip but behind the hand, bringing the barrel paralleled to the tilt of the shoulders a below the hands. From that position the barrel is whipped to contact.
Contact
On contact all good hitters look practically the same. When the barrel hits the ball, the barrel should be under the hands, the hands should be palm up and palm down, the upper arm should be connected to the side of the body and bent, the leading arm bar is not quite extended, the front foot towards second base, the hip and back foot towards the pitcher, back shoulder tilted towards home plate. The back knee, hip and back shoulder should be stacked, aligned and balanced. Eyes must be looking at the contact point.
Extension
Extension is what happens from contact until both arms are fully extended. After contact, the upper arm pushes to the front, while the bottom hand extends, leads and controls the launch angle. A positive launch angle or upward extension will generate more fly balls, a negative launch angle or downward extension will generate more ground balls, and a more level launch angle will generate more line drives. The position which the end of the barrel points after extension will determine the trajectory of the ball, i.e., if the barrels points to center field after extension, the ball should have gone towards the center of the field.
Finish
The launch angle might determine where a specific swing finish. Players should try to finish the swing high, but not too high – between the shoulder and ear would be good. Although, it is not really that important to finish the swing with one or two hands after full extension is reached, players should practice finishing the swing with both hands to ensure that the upper hand is not released prematurely on a breaking pitch or a fastball contacted further in front of home plate.
Common errors to look for and correct
Bat Drag: there are three main incorrect movements that makes the swing long, slow and weak: hand casting – pulling the hands away from the body; hands dropping – lowering the hands towards the back hip; and elbow dragging – tucking the back elbow towards the hip in front of the hand.
Open front shoulder: when the front shoulder rotates outwards before tilting towards the pitcher. This movement creates head motion. It generates many swing and misses, and the batter will pull the ball weakly or foul towards the pull-side.
Rollover hands: hands rollover when the player has a bad grip and/or a bad swing path due to improper shoulder tilt and rotation.
Incomplete extension: stopping the swing at contact and/or not fully extend the back arm.
Low finish: the swing finishes towards the hip. It produces too many grounders.
High finish: the swing finishes above the head. It produces too many pop-flies.
One hand swing: batter releases the back hand before arm extension is completed.
Head movement and or tilt: it is a direct consequence of a bad stance, lunging, or an incorrect stride. Keeping your eyes level on the same location with full view of the pitcher is crucial to be able to hit.
Hard Focus: Players locked their eyes on the pitcher from the moment they step on the box. This causes eyes to strain and get tired. Players should have a soft focus towards the pitcher and then, should hard focus on the release point.
תגובות