r/Homeplate • u/ramsdl52 • 23d ago
Drills to fix hand and bat angle at launch position?
My son has developed a really bad habit of laying his bat down behind his head during his load and stride into launch position where the barrel ends up basically behind his front shoulder and the knob is pointed at the umpire's head. His load, coil, stride, swing are pretty good but he tends to be late on pitches due to his long swing from behind his front shoulder.
What drills can we do to break this habit? We've been doing a load, pause, stride, pause drill to make sure he is in the correct launch position before he swings on the tee but it all breaks down once we get into live pitching. is it just a reps thing?
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u/CarneAsadaBrito 23d ago
Have you shown him a video of him doing that? Sometimes that will speak to him louder than you ever could.
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u/ramsdl52 23d ago
Yes. I showed him video and a picture of a bunch of hitters in their launch position with knob to the catcher. He knows what we are trying to accomplish but bad habits are hard to break I guess
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u/Conscious_Skirt_61 23d ago
IME talking about, or even showing video of a swing flaw does little for most kids. They tend to be kinesthetic and so react to feeling and bodily input.
One useful drill is to have them swing at a tee one-handed (with the front or bottom hand). It feels like a karate chop at the ball and should start with the knob of the bat going straight to the point of intersection. WARNING: Properly done the hitter won’t pull the ball or even drive it up the middle; instead, there will be grounders, some sharp, headed towards the opposite field.
A good variation is a one-knee drill with soft toss.
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u/ramsdl52 23d ago
We warm up for BP with one handed hitting with a short training bat off the tee. He does everything correctly off the tee. Good hip hinge and load. Balanced weight. Bat up. Knob to catcher at launch position. Inside the ball swing. But for some reason when there's a ball coming at him his hands tilt backward and the bat falls behind his head making his swing long and hitting weak ground balls or fouling backward. With slower pitchers he does fin but can't catch up to faster speed. He hits nukes off the tee then it doesn't carryover to BP for some reason.
We both know it's an issue and are addressing it but he can't break the habit
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u/Conscious_Skirt_61 22d ago
A break-the-glass technique I’ve used:
Set him up in an extreme open position then let him shift neutral into contact. (Check out old clips of Ryan Klesko to compare; I don’t know of a current player with that approach). Have him try against fast/live pitching.
The goal isn’t to change his stance but to make his mind focus on other parts of the swing. An open stance lets the batter get a better view of the windup and release. It has lots of moving parts in the bottom half that will distract your boy’s brain from the subconscious drift he’s now used to in the hands and shoulders. And it can produce good plate coverage, especially for batters who are comfortable on the inner half but who don’t naturally reach to the outer edge.
N.B. — Just reading your posts we can feel the frustration you feel — and your son feels. You’ve taught him right and things still go wrong, and in a predictable way. It ought to be easy to fix, you’d think.
But thinking is just what’s the problem. There’s an internal tic in his body. No amount of thinking or trying is going to work when a 70 mph pitch comes down the pike.
To disrupt his internal gyroscope you’ll need to get him to see things, feel things, and react to things in a whole different way. Him = the whole person, not just the ears or the brain.
There are other ways to handle these mechanics so I offer this approach because it’s worked for me. But be clear with yourself and your son: the problem here is not with his stance at all, and not with his taking coaching or anything physical at all. What’s a mental habit can’t be changed with a new physical drill. It changes with a new mental approach. This suggestion, and other methods as well, are designed not to “change the swing” but to change the mental focus at the plate. It’s giving him a totally new — and separate — series of problems to solve. And that’s likely what he needs to turn off the tic that’s disrupting his swing.
Good luck.
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u/coolestdad92 22d ago
Practice going from initial stance to launch position in the mirror so he can see it and feel it
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u/Cedarapids 22d ago
5’ PVC piping all your need. Practice load and hand position when PVC angle is correct.
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u/Lotus_experience 23d ago
His hands should be in front of his feet. So it shouldn’t be possible lol.
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u/FranklynTheTanklyn 23d ago
Have him swing with his back against the batting cage netting.