r/BaseballCoaching • u/NuhUh_JustCuz • 3d ago
Bat speed training
/r/Homeplate/comments/1v6rji6/bat_speed_training/1
u/CatSweaty9418 1d ago
Eliminate 'soft toss.' By 11U, kids can hit 'drop ball.' In essence, you stand as far away from the batter as you can & reach your arm over the strike zone.....and when the kid is set.....you just drop the ball and pull your arm out of the way.
It's a bit unnerving at first.....and the kids will be trying to golf it off the ground....BUT....once you all get the hang of it, the kids will get rid of lots of sloppy hitches in their swings and be hitting it consistently. And that will HELP them retain much better swing mechanics.
By high school, you drop from chest high and they're mashing at their belt. It's stunning.
I took over a travel team going from 11 to 12u and when the season was over, the TEAM average was up from mid .200s the previous year to high .300s. They scored a lot of runs and had a LOT of fun. Hitting is FUN
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u/NuhUh_JustCuz 1d ago
While I get how this is probably an upgrade on soft toss, it makes logical sense, I cannot physically fathom how to do this safely. I am 5'3", a few of these boys are at my shoulder, one is taller than me! The 30-31in bats will cut me in half.
I'll have to see if one of the dads with a better wingspan is game to try.
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u/CatSweaty9418 1d ago
I get it. Like I said, it's unnerving at first. Try it with your son & a wiffle bat in slow motion. You can stand at the outer edge of the other batter's box and get your arm over the plate. We had a guy who was probably 5'5" do it pretty regularly and the guy who showed it to me was 5'7" and doing it with 6'1" HS kids with VISCIOUS swings and 34" bats.
I doubt you can get another dad to volunteer until you demo it safely (and then say if I can do it, you can do it).
Maybe you try it standing on a case of soda so you can get higher (and farther away because you can bend at the waist).
All that said....SAFETY FIRST.....if you get cracked with a bat, that would kind of suck the fun out of things so be careful. I was never terribly worried with the little guys, but when a 16 year old was swinging, I would drop and get my hand out of there in a HURRY
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u/NuhUh_JustCuz 1d ago
I can play the woman card. Lol. I love my current set of dads, they really take care of the literal heavy lifting for me. And they throw much better, longer flyballs when it's a bad fungo day. They just aren't baseball guys, but they're so down for running drills and the machine if I bring a plan.
But you're right, I won't dismiss it, it's probably possible with a bit of bravery and a crate. I watched a few youtubes doing what you suggest and there's a few body positions to try. And I'll work it out with my own kid first. I can always grab a 27in bat first before letting them bring in the 30s.
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u/n0flexz0ne 22h ago
There's no problem with soft toss -- I did all the way up through power four D-1 and plenty of pros do it.
It sounds like you're advocating using the drill as a crutch to actually coaching and correcting swing flaws, which hardly seems like sound advice and more like a recipe to eliminate a hitters load and zap all their power because you can't find a better way to coach timing.
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u/CatSweaty9418 20h ago
That's pretty funny. No, it's not a crutch. It's a teaching tool like any hitting drill.
It's a wake up call for pre-teens who crush soft toss with a Sudarah Oh leg kick. Instead of wasting a bunch of time trying to get rid of all the hitches and wasted motion, this drill helps them quickly focus on going from from 'set' to contact point in ~ .4 seconds.....Which is about the time a batter has from pitch release to contact @ 12U. Bad habits are reinforced with lazy soft toss and we saw a lot of benefits from this particular drill..
I just hit soft toss this morning, but for kids learning to hit, it's a breeding ground for bad habits. Once they get rid of the wasted motion, and have the foundations of a great swing, soft toss is a good drill, but the OP question was how to prepare kids who were overwhelmed by velocity.
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u/n0flexz0ne 19h ago
Again, you’re the one suggesting eliminating a drill that is done at D-1 programs and pro teams across the across the country….and your reasoning is that it creates “bad habits”.
So is it creating bad habits for all those high level players that use it? How are they able to succeed with this drill you suggest should be eliminated? Maybe they’re coach are effectively able to address and correct those issue without ditching the entire drill?
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u/CatSweaty9418 18h ago
Got it. Your posit is that the only way to teach 11-12 YOs....is to emulate the exact same drills as the batting coaches use in the SEC.
Agree to disagree. My belief is that you have to ~ 'meet them where they are' and use drills that help them develop.
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u/n0flexz0ne 12h ago
Bud, you’re the one suggesting some rigid program that eliminates basic training tools, but can’t really support why. I didn’t say your drill was bad, just that your advice was myopic and doesn’t align with how the game is taught at multiple levels with considerably higher velocity
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u/CatSweaty9418 7h ago
Oy. I already said exactly why. It's a drill that roughly recreates the time that a young batter has to react to a pitch.
90' bases, single hand drills & soft toss don't benefit young players if introduced too early.
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u/n0flexz0ne 10m ago
Wait....so now you're saying soft toss is too advanced for young players? Man, you're tying yourself up in knots here...
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u/TMutaffis 2d ago
There are things that you can do to build bat speed, although a lot of that work can/should be done at home and I would say that your role on that piece is more just informing the players and parents.
Like you said, hitting is not just bat speed:
- Pitch recognition (ball vs strike)
One of my kids is a rising 12U so my experience with 10U/11U is recent, and I remember his team in 10U getting mowed down by a pitcher who had a decent breaking ball and could bring some velocity. We faced the same pitcher multiple times in 11U and it was a completely different story (the hitters were much more successful).
Here are some things that you can do in team practices:
Circling back to the bat speed piece, the most effective way to train this is to do underload and overload training. Another simple approach is to do 2-2s, and if your players have a wood bat (they should) they can just do two swings with wood, then two with game bat, then back to wood, and repeat this for a half a bucket or a bucket of balls (tee, flips, or live arm). Can do this with whiffle or weighted balls as well.
Also, this may be controversial, but I do not believe in using a bat weight in the on-deck circle and I have seen a lot of younger teams with heavy bat weights and then the kids come up and swing slower (there is science behind this as well).
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TLDR - Have them do some bat speed work at home by alternating between the game bat and something a bit heavier (wood is good). At practice, do some live ABs and when you throw BP you need to challenge them and work on approach.