Interesting article on what it takes to be a hitting coach in the big leagues:
Hours are spent together inside batting cages hidden underneath the stands, sitting around video screens analyzing the intricacies of a swing and standing around batting cages, where a simple reminder to keep the bat head in the zone longer could be the key to breaking out of a slump.
I will be at the NSCA Sport-Specific Training Conference in Orlando this weekend. I have a short 20-minute “From the Field” presentation on Friday at 12:20, where I’ll talk about overload-underload training and drills for bat speed development. Send me a message if you’ll be there…….
The Bratt Bat has been around for a long time and if you pay attention you can probably see one in the on-deck circle of most major league baseball teams. Although Bratt Bat’s are traditionally used as a warm-up device, I think they can also serve a purpose for learning specific areas of the swing, such as rotation and swing path. Even though these heavy weighted bats are out of the suggested range for use with standard overload-underload bat speed training, they still can be an effective tool for teaching mechanics that generate power and increased bat speed.
Weighted Bratt Bat
The 2009 Perfect Game World Wood Bat Championship is coming up this month – October 22-26 – at the Roger Dean Stadium complex in Jupiter, Florida. I went last year and saw a lot of the best amateur talent in the country, so I’m looking forward to more of the same this year. Here is the tournament description from their site:
This will be the 11th annual WWBA World Championship. It is held each year in Jupiter, FL. Considered by many as the top amateur baseball tournament in the world, it consists of 80 of the top elite travel teams from across the US, Canada, and Latin America. Past champions include Perfect Game USA (1999), Baseball America (2000, 2002), Miami Sluggers (2001), East Cobb Astros (2003, Co-2005), Houston Heat (2004), Chet Lemon’s Juice (Co-2005), Reds Scout Team (2006), Braves Scout Team (2007)
Be sure to leave a comment or contact me if you plan to be there.
In my Rochester posts, I mentioned that I did a two-part interview with a local TV show. They came to Jupiter to speak with myself and another RIT grad who also happened to work at Roger Dean Stadium. When I went back to Rochester to work with the team, we did a follow up and they took some footage of me working with the players.
Here’s a link to the RIT Sportszone site, where you can find the entire episode (Season 8, Episode 2).
I put my segment in the sidebar, and also included a it below in a bit larger size, along with more details about what I was talking about…
Swingtraining.net has joined with Perfect Competition sports performance facility in order to provide comprehensive strength, speed, and hitting specific workout programs in the Southeast Florida area. Perfect Competition already has a well established reputation for their MLB Performance Enhancement program, and now Swingtraining.net will add the most specific hitting training available.
Below is another bat speed training research abstract. This really was one of the best, if not the best, controlled research study that has been published regarding overload & underload training and its effects on bat swing velocity – and it was done all the way back in 1995!
The basics are that 3 groups of 20 college players were trained 4 times per week for 12 weeks under the following conditions: batting practice group, dry swing group, control group. The BP and dry swing group followed this swing training protocol using varied heavy and light weighted bats while the control group just dry swung with a regular weighted bat.
The results say that each group significantly imrpoved bat speed, but that’s a little misleading if you don’t read the whole study. The batting practice group improved 10%, the dry swing group imroved 6%, and the control group improved 1%.
This video from Stack gives a look at off-season hitting training with Philadelphia Phillies’ shortstop Jimmy Rollins. It shows some cage drills and batting practice swings along with some insight from hitting coach, Milt Thompson. Rollins talks a bit about bat speed and his hitting approach, especially in the cage – a controlled environment where you should be working towards perfection. Deliberate practice instead of just mindless hacks.
Pasted below is the abstract from a bat speed training article published by Chester Sergo and Douglas Boatwright in 1993. The italics and red text are emphasis added by me. Read the abstract, but I’ll summarize and make a few points:
- 24 subjects averaged 19-20 years old and were college students practicing in the off-season
- All the training was done with just dry swings, during practice. 100 swings in sets of 20 performed 3x/week for 6 weeks
- Group 1 (regular bat only), Group 2 (62 oz. bat), Group 3 (alternated sets with 62 oz. & fungo bat)
- Each group improved bat speed 8-9%, with no statistically significant difference. Group 1 (8.8%, highest), Group 2 (8.0% lowest), Group 3 (8.2 %)
- FYI the average bat speeds reported for these players began in the low 90’s and ended around 100 mph, measured by some light timing device made by the school’s engineering department
I’ll be on the road again next week, this time heading to Indianapolis, Indiana to visit my alma mater, Butler University. It’s another alumni weekend, so I’m looking forward to seeing old friends and teammates. It will be nice to see the upgrades to the ballpark, which I missed out on when I visited last February.
R.I.T. alumni game at Frontier Field
I’ve been posting some articles about the hitting approaches of major league hitters, and seeing that Ichiro just set the record of 9 consecutive 200 hit seasons reminded me of this ESPN.com article by Jim Caple that came out last week:
“He understands he’s a leadoff hitter and his job is to get the bat on the ball and get on base for the people behind him because he can use his speed on the basepaths,…..All you just have to watch him in [batting practice] to see how far he can hit the ball. But he doesn’t get outside of himself during the game, which is a compliment to the discipline he has to stay in his approach and do what he wants to do.
Ichiro’s swing mechanics and combination of speed & power are surely a unique set of tools, but the point is that he’s figured out what works for him to be successful and fill his role on the team. It’s worth mentioning that there is a lot of value in just that – identifying your own strengths and weaknesses and then building your plan as a hitter around those things. Part of your plate discipline as a hitter is being able to execute what you are best able to do.
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