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.
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…
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.
In my post about Sports Motion video software, I mentioned that I travelled to Europe to speak at the European Baseball Coaches Association (EBCA) Convention. It was held in Vienna, Austria in December of last year, so it’s about time I made an official update about it.
The convention is sponsored in part by International Sports Group, and I was invited to speak by ISG team leader and fellow presenter, Tom O’Connell. Each year, ISG helps organize and carry out a full roster of international conferences, and going on the trip was a great experience.
Made the post about Derek Jeter hitting the inside fastball, so here is Ryan Howard on the same topic. He explains his hitting approach and swing thoughts for pitches on the inner part of the strike zone:
One of the best points in there is that you shouldn’t be trying to swing at the ball too far in. There’s just not much you can do with it. Also a good point in your cage and batting practice is to work in the gaps and stay primarily in the middle of the field.
Back in the summer of 2006 there was a college player I worked with a handfull of times after he played his freshman season at a very competitive Division 1 program (they won their conference this year and competed in the NCAA baseball tournament).
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.
Bob Alejo is the strength and conditioning coach of the Oakland Athletics. This video from the strength power hour is from the 2007 NSCA sport-specific conference and he gives some baseball training tips, drills and exercises that address these areas of hitting:
This video comes from softball site fastpitch.tv and deals with how changes in bat weight effect bat speed, batted ball velocity, and batted ball distance. Fairly simple test – use radar to measure bat speed of different weighted bats (imagine that!). They could have just hit balls off a tee and measured the ball exit speed (like this), but I suppose getting actual calculations assuming a more constant environment are more controlled. Here are some conclusions:
the light bat gets swung the fastest
faster bat speed helps hit the ball farther
1 mph bat speed translates to about 4 extra feet of distance
Here’s another video interview (link to previous post) with New York Yankees’ hitting coach, Kevin Long. This one is from Yankees Magazine during spring training of 2008 and includes some impressive praise from players (including Hideki Matsui, Jason Giambi, Robinson Cano and Jorge Posada) and especially manager, Joe Girardi. There’s also footage of guys like Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, and Johnny Damon.
This gives some good insight into the thought process of both players and coaches. There’s also a little info in there about the Yankees’ pre-game batting practice routine (similar to the David Wright bp video).
This is a video from last year where New York Yankees hitting coach, Kevin Long, talks a bit about hitting in situations, such as runners in scoring position, and working with new players in the middle of a season.
Over at Baseball Analysts, I have an interview – “Commanding the Commodores” – with Vanderbilt baseball’s pitching coach, Derek Johnson. This is one of the posts that got lost in the shuffle as I reconfigured the site, and it definitely deserves a repost. Derek is outstanding at what he does, and I highlight some of the accomplishments of the Vanderbilt staff within the article.
David Price is naturally a topic of interest, as well as fellow 1st round picks Casey Weathers and Pedro Alvarez. The interview is mostly pitching mechanics, training, mentality and preparation, but there’s also a before and after video showing improvement of Alvarez’s swing for those of you out there like myself. Enjoy!
New York Yankees’ shortstop, Derek Jeter, is well known for his ability to stay “inside” the ball. This video gives his quick explanation on what he does with his swing to handle the inside pitch:
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