First try SnF

[mikecon]

He's learned to swing. Well done.

I am certain Teach will add. Maybe a bit rushed on the load? Savor it perhaps in making the load a continuous flow into the overlap making the launch the "big meal"?

Thank you Al... I'm loving the process of getting here. I know Matt appreciates the time we spend and the benefits.

Re bold above, YES, DEFINITELY. And well put (I love to cook and eat! ) Teach has made and offered similar observations and guidance. Through the help of all of you, I'm getting better at seeing and 'feeling' these issues/opportunities and understanding how to effect the changes.

Of course, there's still a ton of reinforcement and refinement to keep chasing after.

Begin to use the tool, and start hitting.

In fairness to Matt, the work we've done started in March so has all been in-season and, while he's clearly made progress, his rate of adoption of change has been tempered by trying not to feel completely out of sorts in game situations. I'm OK with that. As Teach has also mentioned on multiple occasions, particularly with a hitter who has had contrary training and a lot of reps to ingrain it, the process we're going through is largely one of replacing approaches and techniques more than it is adding-to or tweaking.

In addition to middle school league, he 'played up' Spring and Summer in the 'A' division of a league of year-older kids, and, in the midst of these changes, held his own pretty well on the year so far...

_G__PA__AB___H__1B__2B__3B__HR__TB___R__RBI__BB__H BP__SAC__SO___BA__OBP__SLG__OPS
62_202_176__69__55___9___3___2__90__54___55__23___ _1____2__32_.392_.460_.511_.972

(Other than all those Ks! But that's another story; one of the things he reconciled in his mind before this season that helped fuel the fires of working through these changes is that we both were clear that the goal of every at-bat was to hit the ball hard. So I was OK with trading some strikeouts for staying true to taking meaningful hacks.)

There is definitely correlation between his progress with HI swing mechanics and his improving results; he got better as he progressed through the HI program. Hopefully that continues.

While I'm very proud and happy about how our efforts have led to some success, I'm only bragging a little ; what I'm hopefully doing a lot is providing a case study about how following through on this process can most definitely lead to achieving goals of improving one's success at the plate.

We both know we have to look forward to more hard work and I can't tell you how much I appreciate everyone's contributions, to-date and prospectively. I've rented a tunnel through this upcoming off-season so we can keep going, keep getting better at this, and have him in a good place for his first high school try-out next Spring.

We have a league double-header tomorrow and a tournament at Sports at the Beach in DE next weekend so hopefully I can capture some video of following your order above.

[Allistair]

Looking good Mikecon! He deserves a 2014 Easton Mako Bat!!!!!!!! LOL!!! Just kidding, I hear that is the most expensive bat pushing in the 450.00 category. But if you get him one, he most definetly be stylin.

[mikecon]

Looking good Mikecon! He deserves a 2014 Easton Mako Bat!!!!!!!! LOL!!! Just kidding, I hear that is the most expensive bat pushing in the 450.00 category. But if you get him one, he most definetly be stylin.

Thank you Allistair.

After about 2 bats a year for the last 6 years I'm sitting on a closet-full as it is! (I keep not getting around to finding some youngsters for the old LL stuff -- assuming it's still on the approved list)

Within the realm of BBCOR, I truly do not understand the continued disparity in the market. As opposed to the old days of employing wild r&d and technology (titanium and new strong alloys for thinner barrels, bouncy composites, etc) for 'hot' performance, nowadays when the rule is to manufacture the bats in such a way that they all perform in the same, dampened, wood-like fashion, how the heck do makers justify hi-tech, hi-cost entrants??? A BBCOR-certified bat constructed of space-age materials and manufacturing methods doesn't make any sense, no? Maybe if the argument was that it's indestructible or something. But kids are gonna want a new bat every year anyway; until they're fully man-sized, they'll need new length/weight. And they get beat up over the course of a long season no matter what it's made of.

My son's current game bat is a bought-in-2013 2012 32.5"/29.5 oz Rawlings 5150 BBCOR that cost me 89 bucks, no tax no shipping.

One thing I haven't done in years is buy the current model year of any bat. It's only occasionally that anything other than the cosmetics of a given make/model of bat changes from one year to the next (with a minute of research one can confirm this for any model one is interested in). And the vendors need to clear their stock of prior years for this year's look so you save 50-90%. Usually the difference in cost is only the different paint job.

So maybe a Mako in 2015.

(But hopefully the whole baseball world will be going back to wood by then)

[MBH400]

Like Ted Williams said, "it's not the arrow, it's the Indian."

[mikecon]

Some clips from Sunday... Looks like he's needing to figure out some timing changes in the interim as he continues to work in loading around and depth -- until he consistently 'tightens it up' enough to be 'snappy' every time, yes?

I'm tempted to put some intent thoughts in his head about looking to pull the ball but I don't want to disrupt the deeper loading and directional change that we're still chasing. So I think I'll just let him figure it out.


Take


Tardy


Ground out


Lined past second baseman


Dropped down RF line


Fouled back


Popped to RF


Fouled off back foot


Fooled but served to center

[Teacherman]

I saw your statement that about your son having more time than he needs....therefore his takes aren't right because he can decide way early.

Your follow up to that was right on....what's he going to do when the pitching gets better?

The problem is.....he isn't doing it right. And fast pitching will not suddenly force him to do it right. Fast pitching will force him to fail.....and after enough failure....he will then learn what to do....and how to do it right. Why wait for that?



The important part of a good check is the rear leg already turning forward. Stretch on display....happening against that leg....even though the swing is checked.

Your son's rear leg doesn't show the sign of driving against stretch in his check above. Without that.....he will make a YES decision....not a NO decision. That lower body must start....it must run....it must continue....it must act as if this pitch is the one....on EVERY SINGLE PITCH.

This is the old pitching machine problem. Why do kids hit so well against an Iron Mike machine? Because they eventually get the timing down. And THEN.....EACH AND EVERY PITCH.....they complete the process. Because THEY KNOW THEY ARE GOING TO SWING. Almost every pitch is a strike. There is no real decision to be made. They've learned the timing. The ENTIRE timing. Their swing timing. Their swing timing against the pitch timing....they execute. Over and over and over. They look like champs. From the time they load until the time they launch....is one continuous movement. No stop. No pause. No redirect. They learn the timing. They duplicate it.

They learn to do that in front toss. It's easy for the tosser to throw a strike every time. They even learn to do it in live arm bp....IF the pitcher throws as many strikes as the Iron Mike.

You must multi-task. You must read while swinging. You can't read then swing. The swing is the ENTIRE PROCESS.....the load and the swing. And great hitters do that against rear side resistance. If you have none....you can't do it. If you can't work something rearward....and instead go forward....you will commit to soon.



Pujols' rear leg opens his hip/leg assembly BEFORE LAUNCH....BECAUSE.....of the stretching process....that he does on EVERY pitch....as you can see in the check swing above.



Chipper has BIG.....noticeable....preswing movements. They all are part of his stretching process. Continuous. Nonstop. He gives a NO decision....because he's deep into the swing at decision time.

[Teacherman]

In these clips.....during bp....he got comfortable. He executed THE ENTIRE PROCESS....timely....every swing.

Didn't do that in the game.

I guarantee....in the bp clips....he was making a NO decision....not a YES decision. In other words....he knew he was going to swing before the pitch was released. He carved out the necessary time to complete the ENTIRE SWING PROCESS....the loading and the swing. He was learning HIS FULL SWING TEMPO....he was learning the time needed to complete the entire process.

But in the game.....it was definitely a YES decision....which left not enough time to complete the process. For the most part....a decision to swing....THEN he started the process. And he did the best he could, trying to execute all he'd learned.....in 'not enough time to do it'....

[Teacherman]

Fear of being late.
Fear of failure.
Game pressure.

In some kids.....and with the pros I work with....lineup pressure....performance pressure.....you perform....or you sit pressure.....keeps them from doing what they HAVE TO DO.

Takes a strong mind....to be willing to fail to get better.

But....think about it. As important as each game and at bat is now....he's a young teen. NOW IS THE TIME FOR THAT FAILURE TO OCCUR.

In a couple of years.....those that didn't go through the failure step....when they were young....get weeded out.

But OH THOSE THAT DID.....they have a lot of fun.

[mikecon]

YES to all of above -- spot-on observations and advice.

He has an idea now about how to let the 'entire process' develop as evidenced in BP swings (and could clearly get even deeper into it -- thinking of working on exaggerating this in BP). He has to allow himself to do this in the game. And it's not a just an issue of the speed of the game because I've seen him do it well in the half-cage with speedy machine pitching. I believe it's a matter of getting it fully ingrained in his mechanics and it's still a matter of trust. Still needs a lot more reps to make it entirely 'normal'.

Something that can't be seen in the clips is he's winding up in a lot of two-strike counts. (Too often this day he'd take a pitch that wasn't right where he'd like it or to let the guy on in front of him steal a base, and then he'd foul back the next one. Then he'd be looking to 'see it long' but without 'trusting' the deep load process -- and so forcing a short-circuited, rushed, 'yes' swing.)

In driving home what's being discussed here, I am going to recommend that he be super aggressive for a while; expand his typical zone even in hitter's counts and take a hearty, fully-loaded hack even with two strikes. Hopefully that will create more, fully loaded 'no' (not stopping) swings -- to your point, even if statistical results suffer in the short term. Migrating the mechanics consistently into the game swing is paramount. (Though I wouldn't be surprised if this more aggressive approach actually affected results positively).

--

On a related note, as I'm sure most do, we track pitches-seen (PS) and the traditional thinking is that a high number for PS/AB is a good thing. What I see, though, is that the best hitters, or the players who have the best results on a given day, have a low PS/AB. In recent history I've come to clearly see that the first pitch of an AB is usually the best, especially at younger ages, where the pitcher is looking to get ahead at the cost of too much plate. That pitch needs to be jumped on. (And it's always been clear that hitting with two strikes erodes mechanics) Outside of special circumstances like a lead-off hitter, getting the pitch count up on a dominant pitcher, late game need to reach base when chasing, etc,... BE AGGRESSIVE.

[Teacherman]

Tell him to swing at every pitch.
If he knows before it's thrown that he's swinging....watch the stretching occur.....just like the bp swings.

His mind won't let him swing at the obvious bad ones....or if he's way too early.
He'll swing at a few bad pitches....while learning....and hit some of them hard.

And he'll hit some absolute bombs.

He'll break down another guard rail.

He'll begin to 'learn' his timing....and his strike zone....on the fly.

Instead of 'working up'......'work back'.

[mikecon]

Tell him to swing at every pitch.
If he knows before it's thrown that he's swinging....watch the stretching occur.....just like the bp swings.

His mind won't let him swing at the obvious bad ones....or if he's way too early.
He'll swing at a few bad pitches....while learning....and hit some of them hard.

And he'll hit some absolute bombs.

He'll break down another guard rail.

He'll begin to 'learn' his timing....and his strike zone....on the fly.

Instead of 'working up'......'work back'.

Aye aye!

[mikecon]

Columbus Day tourney in Delaware got washed so no new game swings to refer to. League DH this Sunday to see where we're at.

Meanwhile, just wanted to share a couple clips from this week that demonstrate what I think is the very best 'drill' to first get the hands working correctly and to continue to fine tune, tighten the pivot, prospectively...



I told him to be more cognizant of 'direction' on this one...

[Al Oha]

Here's a test "final". Can we see a swing against a tee high and outside?

[mikecon]

Here's a test "final". Can we see a swing against a tee high and outside?

Within the context of this 'preset drill'?

[Al Oha]

Sure... Same mechanic involved, right? That's why it's asked...

It will show why Pronk's comment is not true, that you can hold the scap and get the elbow "under".

I honestly believe although we talk about it being the scap, that a choked top hand where the arms and/or palm is gripping the handle, prevents the elbow from getting worked under.