One of the things I like about Upton’s swing is that he generates tons of power but doesn’t have a lot of “noise”.  Specifically, he doesn’t get far away from a good swing plane.  Here is an illustration of what I mean, just before Upton unloads his swing:

Justin Upton swing plane

Lots of bat speed + consistent swing path = power AND consistency!

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.

— Swingtraining.net Drills Page —

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.

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!