Weighted Bratt Bat

The drill itself is to simply use a Bratt Bat to hit tennis balls from side toss or front flips.  Keep in mind that the bat is not designed to hit baseballs, so it is better to use tennis or wiffle balls.  And another note for you do-it-yourselfers: I like this bat much more than a homemade version from filling an old metal bat with sand because of the difference in the balance of the bat.  The Bratt Bat’s weight is evenly distributed, whereas the old sand filled metal bat is much more end-heavy.

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I’ve found over the years that higher loads tend to expose inefficiency, and this drill is no exception.  The tough parts about hitting with a bat this heavy is that it is hard to execute a normal load with your upper body (hands/arms/shoulders) and it is extremely difficult to control the bat after contact.  Both of these are a result of the weight.  You can see in the finish below how the bat head just wants to take off after contact because of the momentum that has been built up and transferred to the barrel.

Manny using the Bratt Bat

This challenge of controlling the weight and the barrel is what makes the drill effective.  For example, I don’t start off with much more instruction other than to “hit the ball up the middle”.  What typically happens after that is the player misses or severely rolls over the ball on the first swing.  Why? Because he can’t control the bat-head release, or in simpler terms, he doesn’t really know how to ’stay inside’ the ball.  This feedback is helpful – swing it right and you can hit the ball where you want and it will feel more effortless.  Screw it up and feel the weight of the bat, miss, or roll that double-play ball.

So here is the main point of the drill – to use the body and its rotation to deliver the hands and bat through the right path to the right spot at the right time.  Here is a AA minor league player – read more about his swing transformation here and here – taking a full rip with an 100 oz. (yes, 100 ounces) bat:

100 oz. Bratt Bat soft-toss

So for the actual drill I like to take out or minimize the load with the upper body (the player will always make some kind of little move to get going).  One less thing to worry about.  Plus by setting the bat on the shoulder, the bat gets closer to the swing plane that it needs to be on.  And from here the player can just focus in the unloading, or concentric action of the swing.

The Bratt Bat drill forces the turn of the body to do most of the real work.  Not only to be the major force provider in the swing, but also to allow the hands to get to the right place.  Both of the minor league players below started with a tendency to spin on their back foot, which would make them come around the ball in this drill.  With the feedback from the heavy bat, they learned to get their back-side through the ball…and let “the bug” live (sorry, couldn’t resist).

Unloading the Swing

I mentioned using the rotation of the body to deliver the bat where it needs to be – trying to use this heavy bat to hit the ball middle/oppo forces this.  How?  If the player gets long with his hands/arms early in the swing (ie. casts the bat), the bat wants to drop like an anchor because of its weight.  Same thing if the player tries to push the bat too much.  When the bat starts to get too far from the body, gravity takes over.  As the player learns to use his hands and arms together with his rotation, the bat actually does not feel to heavy.  This is efficiency in hitting mechanics.

What to do:

• Use a weight appropriate for the strength-age-level of your player (65-75 oz. for high school, up to 100 oz. for stronger college players and pros)
• Avoid a high volume of swings.  5-10 is enough to get the right feel, then switch back to a regular weight bat
• Avoid trying to swing too hard.  Save that for your overload-underload swings.  Just get the feeling of the drill.
• Focus on hitting line drives up the middle and towards the oppo gap
• Remember this is just a drill and stick to the main principles of swing training for larger numbers of swings

You can find a Bratt Bat available through the Products page, or click here.

before & after

Yes, that is the same guy.  All of our work was done in a 2-week period when this player was on his Christmas break from school.  We got together maybe 8-10 total times over that stretch and took a ton of swings.  No magic weight room exercises or extra forearm or grip strength work here.  Just an initial video analysis, some weighted implements (heavy & light bats), feedback for swing speed and quickness, and some intent to swing faster. 

Not only did he swing the bat with more velocity, but his overall swing was quicker.  He had a better swing plane and path through the ball, he had better weight shift and distribution, better hip rotation, and an overall improvement in the connection and sequence of the different body segments (hips, shoulders, arms, bat).  The mechanics of his swing improved in just about every way.  Well done!

For more before & after swing videos, check out the Results page.

We mainly did some video review and worked on mechanics as I tried to give him the information I thought he needed to put things together and make the most of his talent.  I received this text message at the end of this May:

This is P***** P***** from **U. Just played my last game and wanted to thank you for working with me.  You turned my career around.  This year I hit .365 with 11 HR and 51 RBI.  Thanks.

For more success stories, check the Results page.

I had loosely kept in touch with this player of the past couple of years and I knew he was doing better, but it was nice to receive such a positive message, and nicer to know the he thought so much of the work we did together.  As I mentioned in my post about softball training, these are the types of players who make a coach/instructor look good because they take a few pieces of information and apply them well.  Check out his stats after the summer of 2006 (age 20):

Here is a look at a couple video comparisons we used to illustrate some differences in hitting mechanics…

See the Resources page for more on Sports Motion video software

A quick step one was checking out the swing path:

swing plane comparison

In addition to showing some differences in swing plane, I wanted him to see that he could get “inside the ball” better because his initial move was “around” the ball (like “coming over the top” in golf):

outside vs inside

With this last comparison, we looked at a couple of things.  First, making a better pre-swing move into the ball (ie weight shift) to generate a little momentum and allow for some more time to see the ball.  Second, get the wrists cocked and maintain that angle (ie don’t cast the bat) as rotation begins and the beginning/unloading of the swing is actually launched.

side shot comparison

Big hat tip and congratulations for lots of hard work and a job well done!

Ken Griffey Jr.

“Line up the ‘door knocking’ knuckles” is the phrase I hear most often to describe the correct way to grip a baseball bat.  It seems to be widely accepted, but is it really true?  What is the correct or proper way to grip the bat?

Check out these pics and make your own conclusion: knocking knucles photos

Barry Bonds

There’s a video clip to show the progression, and the text details a number of things:

• increasing bat velocity
• reaction training
• transition from ‘training’ to ‘hitting’
• points of emphasis for mechanics and drills
• strength training

“Immediate things that jumped out to me were immediate disconnection (total arm dominated swing) and swinging straight down. This fell in line with most of the instruction he had received. And I thought it spoke volumes of his athletic ability to have made it as far as AA ball at that point. His bat speed was high 80s/90 at this point.

I showed him the skeleton clips that Paul made to demonstrate swing plane, especially the one demonstrating the 2 planes. I also showed him some simple stuff (ie hitting chapter in physics of baseball) as well as video comparisons of him next to MLB players to demonstrate the need to learn how to use the “big muscles” to deliver bat to ball

We began doing overload/underload training (BOT/BOF with some reaction mixed in). I mainly wanted to get him stronger and show him some results (improved batspeed) early on. Within about 3 weeks he’d gained around 10 mph batspeed.

From there we added in some more hitting drills like side toss and front toss. We would mostly do no stride swings and focus on UNLOADING the bat. We had been using the sp4 mode for reaction training and he could see that the majority of his bat speed was generated from that no stride position based on how well he could unload the bat. So he could focus on unloading and doing it QUICKLY, as forced by the sp4 (ie see light, swing)

Obviously, the 10+ mph was good. He was establishing a MUCH better swing plane. As far as quickness, the big thing I noted to him was in frame 4, where his hands are making their first move to the ball a full frame later in the new swing than the old. He eliminated his bat lag/drag…but you could still see disconnection in there

As spring training got closer, we transferred more from training mode to hitting mode. We’d mix in a couple BOT/BOF sessions mainly for swing-strength maintenance, but most of the SETPRO equipment use at that point was reaction (sp4) to add that visual/reaction stress to the swing. We did vary weighted bats a lot on our hitting drills (soft/front toss) to help maintain that swing strength also. And using the weights for the swing not only helped with strength but gave some added feedback as far as where the bat is in space – the added weight makes it easier to tell if you are dragging or pushing the bat. In simplest terms, the better you swing it, the less you will realize you have a donut on your bat

One big thing that helped as the final piece before spring training was access to an awesome pitching machine. I believe it’s called the Homeplate pitching machine. You can program any pitch at any speed in any loacation and set a sequence of up to 8 pitches. The dial says it goes up to 90mph, but honestly it comes out like upper 90s. In the words of an MLB all-start who hit off of it daily, if you want to know what it is like to face Randy Johnson, hit off of that thing

So that was helpful in replicating a pitcher and live situation as close as possible, while still being able to concentrate on the swing as necessary

The simple routine going into spring training was to use some heavy bats (ie Bratt Bat 100oz) to get loose, take some front toss with the varying weights and then hit. We would use the warm-up as mechanical “check points” so that once he was feeling “right” it was time to just hit without thinking about the swing

Fast-forward, he has a good spring training, sticking with his swing changes even though some changes had been suggessted, and got off to a very good start in the first month of the season, hitting nearly .350 before a season ending injury that required surgery

Double fast-forward to this fall, and our game plan was to keep that same level of bat speed as last year, but get quicker – as quick as possible. First step from there was get stronger in the weight room (based on a protocol from Barry Ross). Big part of this was heavy deadlifts. He’s gone from probably low-mid 200 #s to now well over 400# deadlift. Idea behind it is to recruit as many fast-twitch muscle fibers as possible in the weight room and use the swing training to transfer it to the swing

As far as the swing, we wanted to turn more as a unit – trying to keep the hands connected longer…

His bat speed is where it was last year, but he is noticeably quicker now. By staying connected better early in the swing, I think he is able to transfer more energy. We are still working on shifting into foot plant and timing of the scap. load. I still think he has room to improve in the fishhook department, mainly by just trying to turn longer and not let the bat release. The goal from the start this fall was to produce the same bat speed in less time, and he’s doing so.”

This is a hitter with a history of success, very good success, but is underperforming this year. 

These images are taken from this year and a previous year, front and side view of different swings that resulted in a HR to Left Center on fastballs in similar locations.

Each image on the left side is from this year, 2009.  The shots on the right are from last year.

My lines/angles represent some things I was looking at, but based just on these images, which swing is better?

Credit: Photos by H. Darr Beiser, USA TODAY. Graphic by David Evans, Alex Newman and Kristen Novak, USA TODAY.

So the principle really suggests that, in terms of the swing, the bat is going to be the last thing to come around and its velocity is going to be determined by the summation of forces that have been generated by the body and transferred to the bat.  Nothing new there…

Here is some more information to illustrate the timing of when the bat actually comes around, or when bat speed “happens”:

This graph, from Adair’s Physics of Baseball, shows the velocity relationship between the hands and the bat.  What you see really is that the hands and bat travel very near the same speed during the time when the body is rotating.  From the kinetic chain principle, we know that one segment speeds up when the previous segment slows down, so the bat is going to take off (increase velocity) when the rotation of the body has stopped and the hands change the direction of the know of the bat.  You can see that this happens towards the end of the swing process.

Adair’s book, along with plenty of other sources (including biomechanics studies in golf) indicate that the wrist uncock passively as the time for contact approaches, which again suggests that the hands are not doing much if anything to apply force to the bat during the early portions of the swing.

It would make sense to think that maximal bat speed should be achieved immediately prior to contact, and this has been shown to be so, with values for maximal linear bat speed occuring around 0.015 seconds before contact.  Looks like this:

Of course each segment in the chain is important.  Based on the evidence at this point, is appears that the importantce of the lower extremities and torso is to produce the force and the importance of the arms and hands is to be in the right place at the right time to make sure it all gets transferred to the bat just before contact.

Here is the full article at Baseball Analysts.  It takes into account some sports psychology in addition to mechanics and looks at some statistical changes over the past couple of years.

Peralta’s swing caught my attention when I first saw him in 2005 and this is why

After an outstanding May, I thought Peralta was going to make me look like a genius based on a piece I did on him over the off-season.  Basically just seemed like his swings were consistent but had a vision problem.  He did bounce back this year from 2006, but not quite as studly as 2005.  But he is still 25 and plenty of potential to continue developing…gotta love that opposite field power. 

On that note, a big thumbs up to Cleveland hitting coach, Derek Shelton.  According to the description given:

“As Hitting Coordinator he streamlined the entire Indians minor league organization from the Dominican League to Triple A with all new terminology and approach to hitting”

Mr. Shelton is doing something quite well.  I’d love to talk to him about that “terminology” and find out what their philosophy is all about.

And there’s also a recent article on Peralta at Baseball America and they forsee a shift to 3rd base for him.  Good, less glovey, more smashy.  Looking forward to it. ]]> http://swingtraining.net/mechanics/jhonny-peralta/feed/ 0