With Little League practices underway, I thought it would be a good time to talk about getting back into the “swing” of things during BP and cage time.
(See what I did there?!?! I’m so hilarious; just ask me.)
While the pre-season is a great opportunity to tune up our player’s swings from a mechanical standpoint, it’s absolutely crucial that we also start to work on their mental approach at the plate so that they are comfortable and confident by the time games start in a few weeks.
When developing a solid Little League strategy at the plate, I like to talk about the 2 types of “being aggressive” that all successful hitters possess.
- Be aggressive with pitch selection
- Be aggressive with bat speed
Pitch Selection: Most young hitters are waaaay too selective about what pitches they decide to swing at. They are so worried about swinging at a “ball” - usually because if they do swing at a bad pitch an adult will get upset with them - that they often don’t swing at all, or wait until the last possible second to swing resulting in consistently being late.
Teaching kids to swing at “strikes” and not swing at “balls” is a very poor strategy, and here’s why:
If we’re going to adopt the “only swing at strikes” strategy, then we first must clearly define what the strike zone is.
So, go ahead, in your head right now, take a few seconds to describe the strike zone.
You probably said something like, “it’s the belly button to shins and the width of the plate.”
Or maybe you have a bigger zone in your mind and said “chest to ankles and between the batter’s box lines.
Both are good descriptions. And both are wrong.
The strike zone is…whatever the umpire says it is.
That’s not an indictment of Little League umps and their abilities. It is simply a fact. Every umpire (including in the Big Leagues) has a different strike zone and especially at the amateur levels of the game, umpires are often inconsistent with their balls and strikes calls.
So if we are asking a young hitter to decide whether or not to swing based on the strike zone, we’re actually asking them to read the umpire’s mind, and to do that in the span of literally milliseconds while the ball is in the air heading from the Pitcher to the Catcher. That's a recipe for disaster!
Trying to read the umpire’s mind causes indecision and passive hitting, as a player watches pitch after pitch go by in an attempt to figure out what's a called “strike" and what isn't.
A much more effective and easier question for a hitter to ask himself while the pitch is in the air is not “is that a strike?” but rather “can I hit that?”
If the answer to “can I hit that?” is “yes” or even “maybe,” then swing!
With this strategy hitters will now be swinging confidently at more pitches. And when they take more confident swings at a greater number of pitches, they get more hits.
Will they be wrong sometimes and swing at pitches they couldn’t hit? Absolutely! Big Leaguers do too! But swinging at a bad pitch is a small mistake; not swinging at a good pitch is a big mistake.
This is also a great method for young hitters to start understanding what their hitting zone is. I can’t tell you how many thousands of times in a hitting lesson I’ve watched a kid not swing at a hittable pitch because “it was outside” or "it was low" only to then be encouraged by me to swing at the exact same pitch next time. When they then hit it, simply as a result of getting out of their comfort zone, they realize they had the ability all along and just needed permission to try!
Whenever we’re hitting at practice let’s empower our players to make confident decisions that lead to MORE swings, not LESS swings.
Bat Speed: Many hitters in Little League do not swing the bat nearly as fast as they could, out of fear of swinging and missing. Â
This is normal - nobody likes swinging and missing and striking out - but if their attitude at the plate is “don’t miss, don’t miss, don’t miss” they will take very cautious and defensive swings that might lead to weak contact more often, but will not ever result in a hard hit ball.
We need to teach our kids that not only is swinging and missing totally normal in baseball and nothing to be embarrassed about, but that swinging and missing is actually a feature of a winning hitting strategy.
Think about it; could we teach kids a hitting strategy where they never struck out? Absolutely we could. We would just practice bunting 100% of the time. No strike outs, no swings and misses, but also no balls that do anything but dribble in front of home plate.
(I’m absolutely not opposed to bunting as a legitimate strategy at the higher levels of the game, but even in High School and beyond, bunting is a seldom used tool. Kids need to be taking as many swings as possible to help with their development and enjoyment of the sport so please never ask a Little Leaguer to bunt!)
On the other hand, if we teach an aggressive attitude at the plate where players are empowered to swing hard and are encouraged to swing and miss as a result of increased bat speed, we’ll create hitters who develop the ability to drive the ball into the outfield.
This will be my 9th season coaching Maddux at RHLL and now that he’s in Majors he’s very comfortable and confident at the plate, but when he was Rookies and Minors (and still learning the mental side of hitting) the only in-game piece of advice I gave him before his at-bats was this:Â
“Try to hit the ball into the Outfield.”
I never said “put the ball in play” or “don’t strike out” or “wait for your pitch” or “only swing at strikes.”
"Try to hit the ball into the Outfield" was a simple, short sentence that primed his brain for aggression: the only way to hit the ball into the Outfield is to swing the bat hard.
Did he swing and miss? OF COURSE!
Did he swing at bad pitches sometimes? OF COURSE!
Did he strike out? OF COURSE!
All he still does! Those are all things that will continue to happen regularly as long as he plays baseball.
But have I ever uttered a single word to him after those “failures” that would discourage future aggression? Absolutely not.
So as we work with our kids in the cages, during scrimmages, and at their first practices to get them ready for the season, let’s make sure that we’re teaching an approach at the plate that creates fearless and aggressive hitters, not scared and passive ones.
SWING HARD, HAVE FUN!