Mighty-Pronk

[Pronk]

Trying to get the kid coiled more. When I see Adrian I feel like the pelvis gets aligned to the SS due to the degree to which he can coil around. I realize the back foot in Mighty is often pointed in so his load around would never be as extreme as Adrian in terms of what it looks like at load.

That said he's been working more at coiling back. Then you see a leak in the front side, my question is this. Is he scared here? Meaning not too old and now facing HS pitching, I feel like he isn't getting all stretched back as he could. Or is the Forward Momentum killing it? I still see rear leg winning, lowering COG etc. Is he still more AGAINST, than AROUND?

[Pronk]

John is in one of those sponge modes where he's really into it all the sudden. Tonight at 11:30 after we were looking at a bunch of clips (huh???) for fun he literally said I want you to tape me taking some dry swings lefty. He's been testing the waters and claims he's smashing the ball lefty before games. We have this one dad who's Mr. Baseball knows everyone from PR to South Fla, for Cent. fla. Has his kid playing on all kinds of teams really wants him to make it next level. (our best hitter in games, but a really small kid not blessed with speed so he'll have to bust his butt). Anyway he comes running up to me really pissed off the other day wondering why I don't have John batting lefty because he was watching BP and was incensed that I was holding him back. I'm like shit bro I didn't even know he was messing with it again. I think have a clip of him trying live arm from me yesterday lefty, but I haven't chopped it up I was focused on Steven's clips sunday at the cage.

Anyway I always get the background out of the way don't I?

It's not often your kid tells you to get the camera, watches the clips and says you should post these. I think he's waiting for me to say yes, son go for it. Now as an underaged freshman playing varsity, I hate to throw him out there hitting lefty but hell he's not lighting it up righty, so maybe we should give it a shot. Right now he wouldn't get a lot of play time if this were regular season, and we might not have the numbers for JV, so if he doesn't get better it could be a long season next spring.

One more thing this is now two days before move, boxes everywhere I literally found the only place we could swing and tape without smashing something. I am literally stradding the deadlift bar (steven doing 325 for 5 reps now) trying to record. So if it's a bit messy so be it. The rogue fitness plyo box is right behind him, bucket of balls and the power cage is just to my right.

My opinion. Barrel and hands load seems so much more natural and less forced. He says he feels his "scalp" better from this side. I know it's a wiffle, but screw it, it's late. I see a better attack oppo. We might need to review sticking the ass out a little to see if he can get some sit.




On these I mentioned to try to envision going to LF ala Adrian:




Finally one last cut.

[Teacherman]

This is a very good sequence.

Compare....



Both sons can learn greatly from this new swing.

On the left, John loads it back 'into', holds it, moves out, bleeds the corner, pushes to swing.

On the right, John stretches 'around' the ball of the femur, as he moves out, continually, maintains the corner, then whips. Watch the rear arm appear behind him AS his front leg/hip turns open. The front leg and hip is responding to the stretch 'around' and 'behind' the ball of the femur to 'balance' the system. The movement is JUST in the rear hip socket. The lower back pull back is constant....continuous....followed by the scap pinch....allowing the still loaded hip to be turned forward by the rear leg.

This is NOT the front side working. The front side is responding to the stretch around the ball of the femur.

[Stealth]

I want some bp swings lefty, and soon!

[Pronk]

No lefty swings but new cage up sort of. When I stick wood in his he doesn't look anything like that wiffle lefty. Screwed up somewhere on the net and it's about 3 feet short but hell we can use it for now. Just need to start restringing I guess.

He is really, really struggling but we didn't get this going until late, so it was just BP. I feel like he's swinging from behind the corner. I say that because while he did open slightly on the inside pitch, he didn't spin out like we've seen in the past. Well my feel based on the hard wood hits was he was turning it more behind the corner (the one pitch was inside not sure about that one). I feel like the leg beats the hip due to back hold. I am not sure the coil is deep enough. That may take a little time, not sure. Drastic improvement over the weekend though in contact point. Everything in game was wayyyyyy out front.

Might try an experiment with Longoria's start with the feet more narrow to see if we can deepen the coil. Wide-setup seems to benefit the guys who get down into it like Pujols. Whereas if I am barking out to stay tall on the backside, now that look at clips with his feet so wide it makes it tougher to deepen the coil. Who knows, it's worth a try.

Tewks if you are watchin' does a taller setup usually imply the feet aren't that wide?

[Tewks]

Getting wider will make you lower, but for balance you'll probably need to bend your legs more. If you narrow, less knee bend will probably feel more comfortable. Can. You try to get him to take a swing without moving back at all... Just lift and go. Don't let the shoulders slide back.

[Pronk]

No video but John went 6-6 today. 2-2 in the JV game (though thrown out at 2B trying to take 2). Then went to his Babe ruth game and was 4-4 with 3 crushed doubles, and a hit in his first hit lefty swing since he was 8 and smashed one up the middle.

I don't get it, if you watch the practice swings in the cage.... compared to his brother.... it's not even close, yet he just seems to have a nose for the ball. Builder calls that intangibles....(I don't even post because I know what's wrong and drives me nuts that we can't get the back arm vertical)

Trust me we do not rest on game success, this kid hits a lot and lives for playing. We try like hell in the cage, and he struggles to get that elbow under, too much momentum/push, but I wonder if it's relaxing a bit in the games? Need to tape a good hit one day and see.

So far in 6 JV games he's 7-14 with 3 walks. Total OBP of .588. Big deal right? You have to understand we are playing way the hell over our head. Our varsity coach wants to build up the program to compete with the baseball factories at the other privates. So you take John and a couple of other good freshmen who might not quite be varsity ready and make a JV team. So that way varsity carries 9-11 kids and JV about the same, we are a small school and lose kids to football, and other activities.

Problem is we had to add some 7th graders to make a team and it's brutal, the poor kids just aren't ready to hit HS pitching. So we get killed almost every game because are playing schools with 2-3k students and more kids on the Frosh-JV-Varsity program than we have boys in the school. We are getting closer, lost 3-1 today against a top program but most games are rough because we have so few hits. So naturally John's ABs seem that much better in a dad's humble opinion.

As a team we have 21 hits and John has 7 of them over 6 games. Team BA is .150 because thankfully some have had some kids get some swinging bunts. The only other two kids with multiple hits both play varsity as well as JV because they are pitchers. So my point in all this is, I am getting a little cranky at the lack of respect. He never gets asked to dress when they could use another player. Then I heard one of the assistants telling the dad of one of the kids who swings between JV and Varsity.... "imagine what these guys will be like in 3-4 years, names off, 6 of John's classmates, never mentions mine at all and then says how good these 7th graders will be to round out the roster". I wanted to jump in and say are you fucking kidding me dude? How could my kid be so off your radar you dumb shit he's the only one here that isn't overmatched right now. However I kept my mouth shut, but damn at some point, I am going to speak up. Constant theme here it seems.

I don't mind him playing JV right now he needs field time and as long as Steven's elbow is gimpy, there is no position for him on varsity anyway. I do mind, that you just skip over his name all the time talking about this "great class". They continually ignore performance instead of just going by who looks like the best athletes and some of these guys are physiologically two years older (meaning puberty two years sooner). I seem to be the only parent not constantly in the coach's ear, and that's how I want it, but damn they keep pissing me off.

These hits are ropes, not swinging bunts. Some of the kids he hit against were STEVEN's teammates in travel ball and the boys are almost three years apart (although only two grades).

Ahhh hell with it, I'd be better off blowing steam at BM than whining here but it's like therapy.

[Pronk]

Not the greatest contact but what the heck. Man if I can somehow teach Out-From he'd be on his way.

60 FPS so it looks a little slow. Haven't checked shear force yet. He's worked hard on not striding quite so far, and he has a little pulling back against the stride it looks like. Gosh these teams we are playing seem so freaking big. John still has little boy legs. 6'0" 135. These big school JV kids are Steven's size. Absolutely not one JV pitcher at any of these schools over powering him. I just don't think his legs are ready for Varsity though he seems to hit farther than about half of them.

[Stealth]

Steven should watch his little brother..........

[Pronk]

Steven should watch his little brother..........

Hey that could be changin' soon. We shall see. Steven does think his little brother is being overlooked by the staff.

[Teacherman]

I see a move toward this in his right handed swing....



The change isn't big....can be bigger....but I see a subtle move toward the pattern.

[LRS]

I see a move toward this in his right handed swing....



The change isn't big....can be bigger....but I see a subtle move toward the pattern.

This John / June / Garage clip
Is huge for me
I'M Crawlin In to his wrists and scap @ the poke frame(s)

SUPER HUGE WHERE & WHAT I've been missing !!!!!!


H.I. ROCKs !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THANKs JOHN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LRS

[Pronk]

Fall soccer started so we lost about 3-4 kids and another had a fractured elbow so JV was cancelled and the top 5 were called up so John got a varsity start. Unlike his brother he got a hit, bwaaaaaaaaa. John is still a little scared at this level, but I think he'll settle in. He's about 6'1" at this point and was 134 at the Dr. the other day getting seen for strep. He said it was down 5 lbs. because sick but skinny skinny, no testosterone flowing yet. My wife was making fun of me that "he's passing you up" as we were leaving church and he points to steven and said "he's my next victim".

Of course height doesn't hit the ball or make plays, but he's been errorless and made a ton of plays despite being slow compared to who he replaced. The thing is his knack is solid and despite not playing much outfield was catching everything in sight because he gets a quick read, so he's actually better than a couple of the more athletic kids, but it will take a while to impress the coach he just sees him as not ready. He's right partially but I think we'll see him emerge at some point.

Here is what I call a scared swing, he wants to hit badly, but doesn't want to get hit, and swings at what appears to be a well-inside pitch and totally pulls left. In the cage he doesn't spin like that. Still a vicious cut looking to drive it.




And the hit he drove it to RF even though the crappy clip I took loses the ball. Plus frame-by-frame it looks like it's all pull all the way and the swivel was late so it sliced to RF? can't tell really I just know that's where he hit it. We only had three hits and this was the only one in the air. Really cool when Steven is at 3B throwing guys out to him at 1B. First hit on varsity I think. Maybe in the very first summer game in June he got one but was o-fer all summer, and played JV in fall.

[Stealth]

Showing up big brother - I love it!

[Pronk]

I did manage to grab one clip, John hit this ball pretty hard right after Steven's double, and the air head ran to 3B instead of letting the kid throw across first. Grrrrrr.... John still hitting stuff out front almost fully extended arms.