Mini-Pronk

[Pronk]

The only old clip I had handy was one from about a year ago when he was still 11, and I put him side by side with Soriano. This was when I had no idea about cropping, there is a lot of wasted space in this clip.

Dead start, before we started working in earnest.

[Pronk]

Here was a recent game clip from about 3 weeks ago, which lead us to go back and try to hold that angle longer.

No aggresiveness and thinking he was trying to tip and rip, but wound up laying the bat back being too careful and trying to make contact.




So we did some soft toss, and he was smoking balls into the fence. One issue I see up front is during soft toss the tendency to counter-rotate the shoulder.

[Lclifton]

Pronk,
I see great improvement. As he becomes more aware of what he is doing it will get even better. He will "tighten things up" in a good way.
I have more and will comment later.

-LClifton

[Pronk]

Finally Game clip from this weekend.

He had the only hit of the game until the last inning when we had a guy bloop one. This ball was smoked out over the 2B's head, unfortunately held to a single as the RF got to the ball quickly. He is still letting go of the angle a bit too soon, and improving his aggressiveness will be a constant battle.

[dmac]

Outstanding improvement from the first clip. His rotation is much better and his tip loading is pretty darn good. Keep this up and he will not only rip the ball, but will have a lot of fun doing it. Excellent job.......vast improvement. The first clip he has a dead bat and the lower half rotation is not good......the last clip they are both improved very much. Great coaching by Dad and a great job by the young one of putting it to work in a game.

[Teacherman]

Great clips. Great responses. Great job, Pronk!!

This is what this site is about. New clips. Day after day. Hour after Hour maybe?

A before. A during. (I hate to say "after") On going. The dad learns. He delivers to the kid. And, all the other posters learn.

My $.02 worth.....I think the hands go back too far and he loses the leverage to turn the barrel in his hands. Experiment with it.

You can see "the look" in his swing. Just needs to refine it. "Tighten it" like Loren says.

NOTE: Pronk has used his web space for posting as compared to Attaching clips. The bugs are reducing.

[Pronk]

Great clips. Great responses. Great job, Pronk!!

My $.02 worth.....I think the hands go back too far and he loses the leverage to turn the barrel in his hands. Experiment with it.

Yes I agree. He is still a little uncomfortable controlling the upper body in this manner and likes to let the arms take over. Another issue he has his timing, which is why I gave consideration to HiddenGem's talk of the Ranger hitters getting the lower half out.

[swingbuilder]

Pronk, try having him lower the front shoulder instead of taking the hands back with the arms. See what comes out of it. Other than that the tip looks good the barrel is moving. He will tighten things up pretty quick. Keep us posted with updated swings. Thanks

[swingbuster]

game clip is smoked. We saw that kind of hit start showing up in our games. I love a line drive right back by that pitchers ear.

we hear about hitters being afraid of the ball. We had three JV guys come up in one inning and hit three ropes within 4 feet of the pitchers head. He never got a glove up. I think he was scared to throw another pitch at times

Good job..I see the bat coming back to plane instead of getting pulled forward with both hands

[swingbuilder]

Can you say/ do "cusp".

[Pronk]

Can you say/ do "cusp".

SB are you saying we need to add some cusp? Is this where I see a lack of aggressiveness, can also be described as a lack of cusp?

[Teacherman]

My oldest son is living at home while starting his career with Boeing. He will buy a home or a 2 or 4 family apartment and live in one of them soon. Until then he lives in a finished room surrounded by an unfinished basement at our house. That unfinished basement is our hitting lab. About 2 weeks ago, I heard some "noise" down there and he apparently has taken up softball pitching as a new challenge. He was throwing into the net.

Well, long story short.....when I first went down to watch, he was hitting 48-50mph on the speedchek. An occasional 52 or 53. A week later I observed again and while he was really trying "in his mind", I could see a lack of aggressiveness. A lack of intent. A long duration throw instead of a loading and a sudden change of direction. I discussed cusp with him and he struggled with it but jumped to consistent 53-55.

He's starting to learn how to whip the body and the arm and "cusp" at the right time. He's now consistently 57-58 and hits 60 mph often. Hit 60 mph 4 tmies in a row one night.

Aggressiveness is part of cusp but it's much more. It's the sudden change of direction of the whip. It's the application of all the energy into the bat or ball instantaneously. Not over time. It's the launch and spend. The timing of the load/unload. The ones that are very good at this are so good at it that it looks free and easy. MLB pitchers and hitters are a good example.



This guys cusp just jumps out at me.

[Pronk]

Mini-Pronk

Well just finished fall Pony, pretty good season. 1st time ever that he's been the biggest kid on a team so he's starting to grow. .478 BA, .600 OBP, and .768 slugging so we are going to have to find a new venue. Either play some older kids or sneak onto some Sunday Spring team. The travel program is more developmental with the school and they might not get games going. I had him using a 32-29 bat which is HS weight, he's up to 5-8" or so. Most of the kids on the team used it to get loose. Every game it seemed at least 2 RBIs, batting cleanup, so it was a good confidence season if nothing else.

Now I was busy managing two other teams and not filming swings mostly because I wasn't able to attend a lot of mini-pronk's games. There was a stretch where he was hitting a lot of hard singles and if he hit a double it was because it was a gap shot. Not over anyone's head. I finally taped swing and saw him laying the bat back and not getting separation. A nice line drive hit here:



A couple of weeks later he at least started getting a little more vertical, although he's not pronating the top hand like he does when working with me. Shaky camera work aside, I like the barrel path, though I'd prefer more of an angle on the bat. Trust me the bat speed difference in BP is very noticeable when he has more of a barrel load.




He really needs to learn to get that rear hip moving sooner. To make the incremental improvement we did a lot of Donny's son one handed swings into the heavy bag. Now I can report the last game which I was unable to attend we played the top team in the league who was undefeated and smashing everyone (had all the good pitchers) he ripped one finally with the bases loaded way over the RF head about 270 or so. I had a BP session with him saturday night where we spent a lot of time trusting the barrel load so I can only assume he at least tried it based on the distance however I have no idea. This next two months we'll lock it in. I actually think the barrel load takes care of the late hip which is why the swing seems much more vicious. That is I can spend a lot of time on just learning to turn, or load the barrel more and see if that helps first (because it's an easier fix).


See what I mean about the late rear hip here:

[HYP]

Well just finished fall Pony, pretty good season. 1st time ever that he's been the biggest kid on a team so he's starting to grow. .478 BA, .600 OBP, and .768 slugging so we are going to have to find a new venue. Either play some older kids or sneak onto some Sunday Spring team. The travel program is more developmental with the school and they might not get games going. I had him using a 32-29 bat which is HS weight, he's up to 5-8" or so. Most of the kids on the team used it to get loose. Every game it seemed at least 2 RBIs, batting cleanup, so it was a good confidence season if nothing else.

Now I was busy managing two other teams and not filming swings mostly because I wasn't able to attend a lot of mini-pronk's games. There was a stretch where he was hitting a lot of hard singles and if he hit a double it was because it was a gap shot. Not over anyone's head. I finally taped swing and saw him laying the bat back and not getting separation. A nice line drive hit here:



A couple of weeks later he at least started getting a little more vertical, although he's not pronating the top hand like he does when working with me. Shaky camera work aside, I like the barrel path, though I'd prefer more of an angle on the bat. Trust me the bat speed difference in BP is very noticeable when he has more of a barrel load.




He really needs to learn to get that rear hip moving sooner. To make the incremental improvement we did a lot of Donny's son one handed swings into the heavy bag. Now I can report the last game which I was unable to attend we played the top team in the league who was undefeated and smashing everyone (had all the good pitchers) he ripped one finally with the bases loaded way over the RF head about 270 or so. I had a BP session with him saturday night where we spent a lot of time trusting the barrel load so I can only assume he at least tried it based on the distance however I have no idea. This next two months we'll lock it in. I actually think the barrel load takes care of the late hip which is why the swing seems much more vicious. That is I can spend a lot of time on just learning to turn, or load the barrel more and see if that helps first (because it's an easier fix).


See what I mean about the late rear hip here:

Pronk,

IMO you're right on the barrel load. The barrel being turned rearward with more authority will give more resistance for the hips to work against.

The bottom clip looks like that ball was crushed.

[Pronk]

Pronk,

IMO you're right on the barrel load. The barrel being turned rearward with more authority will give more resistance for the hips to work against.

The bottom clip looks like that ball was crushed.

Yes that one was hit pretty well. An easy stand up 2B. Almost every big hit seems to be to RCF though, so the late hip might be a reason. In BP with me, never anything oppo. Maybe I need to throw harder. (just 20 feet front pitching is all I do).