CAGE VS GAME HITTING!

CAGE VS GAME HITTING!

Now that the season is rolling here in Southern California, you might be noticing that your hitter crushes the ball in the cage and practice but takes really tentative swings (or doesn’t swing at all!) in games.

Frustrating, right?!?

Sure, but totally normal in Little League. 

From Minors all the way through Majors we often see one version of a hitter in practice and a completely different hitter in the game.

The good news is, there’s a really simple mental trick that will instantly help every kid start taking more confident swings in games…let’s dig in.

The reason we see aggressive swings in the cage that magically disappear in the game is extremely straightforward…

In the cage, players are mentally prepared to swing at every single pitch.

In the game, players are mentally unprepared to swing because they want to analyze (or often over-analyze) the pitch first before making their decision whether or not to go for it.

To put in another way:

Every hitter has an “ON/OFF” switch in their brain that determines whether or not they’ll decide to swing.

In the cage, that switch is set to ON. They are ready to hit!

How often do you see even the youngest hitters simply watch pitches go by without swinging during batting practice?

Almost never.

Every kid in the cage, before the ball is even in the air, has decided that they’re going to swing because it’s “batting practice.”

Because their switch is ON…they swing. A lot!

And they hit it. A lot!

In the game, their switch is set to OFF. 

They are worried about the strike zone.

They are worried about swinging at a bad pitch.

They are worried about swinging and missing.

They’ve given themselves lots of reason NOT to swing so they set their switch to OFF before the pitch is thrown. And then, only once the ball is in the air and they decide that it’s a good pitch, do they try to flip it ON. At that point, it’s too late.

By going OFF-to-ON, they either take a half-hearted, defensive, extremely late swing…or they don’t swing at all.

All they need to do in the game is turn their switch to ON; just like they already know how to do in the cage!

With this new in-game mindset, the only decision they have to make is to not swing; not the other way around.

It’s a million times easier to turn OFF their swing at the last second than it is to turn it ON.

I see this all the time with kids in Minors who are still adjusting to having an ump behind the plate and are still figuring out the strike zone.

And I see this all the time in Majors when high velocity pitchers give hitters literally milliseconds to make a decision.

Indecision kills.

Give your kid permission to turn the switch ON in games, and watch how much more aggressive and confident they start swinging.

And as they start to swing more often and aggressively in games, make sure that we never get upset at them for occasionally swinging at a bad pitch. 

If a hitter is worried about making a mistake with their pitch selection, if they think someone will yell at them for hacking at a pitch over their head or in the dirt, they will reset their switch back to OFF, giving them almost zero chance of hitting the ball the way they do in the cage and practice.

SWING HARD, HAVE FUN!

DS