Act like a PRO

In pro ball stud latin players from Florida like Danny Bomback have sick beards and sick hair cuts and bright pink turf shoes and a huge leg kick and shredded out of their mind. The difference between the college and professional game is embarrassing. I watch the college world series and see Vanderbilt get off their bus in their full UNIFORM!  The world series is in a pro stadium they have two clubhouses. The guys should be getting off their bus in vans, khaki shorts, a polo or v neck tee with some sick shades on. Not wearing their game hat either, but rocking a sick Bryce Harper hair cut which I think looks brutal but If I was still playing I would go to the Barber and bring in a picture of Harper and say I want that hair cut because it has hits in it. Everyone complains that the field is too big in Omaha. Its too big because you tell your kids to get their foot down because thats how your coach taught you how to hit. If you took any Rookie Ball professional team and gave them metal bats they would go 56-0 in the SEC and then win the national championship and hit 20 home runs in the world series. The college game is soo boring now because every coach calls the pitches. Pitching coaches need to realize that you already pitched let the kid own his outing and the catcher make his decisions. Once in a while in a big spot I can see but not calling pitches in the 5th inning of a 7-0 game for your team ERA that you think matters. Some dude created a program that creates college spray charts for teams and charges $750 a season and people purchase them. You could buy 4 brand new bats with that money or 3 pairs of franklin batting gloves for each player, or new cleats for your whole team. Give me a break. College pre-game I/O. Get your work in during bp and then let your guys rest before the game instead of thinking you win games during I/O. How many times have you heard a coach say, "Lets set the tone during I/O". Wait What??? Since almost all college coaches just do what their coach did I know that no one knows what to do before the game besides the coaches that played pro ball so I'm going to tell you how. If you want to figure out what the pro's do spend 5 bucks to go to a Lowell spinners game and go to the game at 5pm and watch pre-game and then leave when the game starts because your job is to get the players ready to play but you think your job is to micro-manage them during the game and yell at them when they make an error and make them bunt (which I sometimes see called with a quarter back wrist band now like the sac bunt is a college football play) and call the pitches and move the outfielders according to your over-priced spray charts. No one teaches their guys the game and how to act on the field so College baseball looks like little league baseball and its embarrassing. They make up chants, they make fun of the other team, they taunt the coaches, they pic signs at second, the coaches relay signs from the coaching boxes which is the one thing I do too because none of these coaches teach their catchers how to hide the signs. This shit doesn't happen in professional baseball because that game polices itself. If you act like a jerk or pick signs at second, the next time you come up their is a Rawlings logo engraved in the middle of your back and then you don't give signs anymore. Finally, The College Uniforms are a joke. The big leagers wear Majestic. How many college teams across the country at any level have majestic uniforms? College teams don't clean their shoes and their uniform are dirty sometimes and they don't take the elastic out of the bottom of their pants most the time. You can teach your kids how to act like pros instead of little leaguers. You go to professional games early so you learn what they do pre-game and then you spend 30 bucks a month on a user name and password to MLBTV and you email that password to your players and you write, "watch how they dress and watch how they act when they fail. Pretty tough I know but coaches will spend thousands and thousands of dollars on Radar Guns and recruiting trips.

With Runners in scoring position TAKE YOUR STEAK when the pitcher executes w/heaters away

No one likes homers more than me but Steaks (RBI's) are the second most important stat to me and sometimes you need to recognize the situation and take what you know the pitcher is throwing you not necessarily what you want to hit. Remember each pitcher has comfort zones and like we talked about in the previous post away is a comfort zone for almost all pitchers. As hitters we want to take painted fastballs on the outside corner even when they are strikes until we get to 2 strikes. If a pitcher can paint all game on the outside corner then that pitcher will pitch in the big leagues. The reason you want to take the outside corner heaters is you can't do damage on it unless your name is Mike Trout, Miguel Cabrera, Josh Donaldson, and the handful of other top hitters on the planet. If you aren't in this fraternity of the greatest hitters in world then you can't consistently do damage on the ball on the outside corner, so stop trying to. The pitcher wants you to swing at it. I had a very short professional career some of which I was a starting pitcher. I stunk I threw 85 MPH cutters a bad curve ball and a really bad changeup and relied on the other team trying to hit homers off my mediocre arsenal. One team in particular always lit me up, I mean always, The Quebec Capitales. Their lineup was filled with smart hitters, who had consistent focus and approach. I would paint away and they just wouldn't swing. Drove me crazy and almost every time I missed my spot over the middle of the plate they swung. I was in great shape when I was a starting pitcher and actually led the whole league in complete games that year, but I never threw a cg against Quebec. I once threw 145 pitches in 7 innings of work against them. They never allowed me to have an easy inning. It was mentally/physically draining trying to compete against that disciplined of a lineup. They had one savage Sebastien Boucher who owned me. He never swung when I executed a pitch but when I missed location he killed it all season long and when I gave him nothing to hit he took his walk. In 2012 against me he was 4-6 with a double, triple, 2 homers, and 2 walks. Boucher was an injury away from making it to the big leagues facing a position player that was trying to extend his professional career by pitching. It would have been very easy for him to loose focus on me because I stunk and he was great. However, he was a true Professional Hitter and I never saw him give an AB away. Great hitters believe they can get a hit off anyone on the planet and also just as important they understand that any pitcher can get you out if you take him for granted and loose focus. That quick story brings me to the main point of this post. With runners in scoring position and 2 strikes or with 1 strike off a pitcher that has a great out pitch, if the pitcher has shown you that he is comfortable throwing the ball on the outside corner look out there and just get the barrel on the ball with a 75% effort swing and take your knock through the opposite field infield hole (LHH/6HOLE, RHH/4HOLE) Once you master this the advanced step is to be able to adjust to a mistake off speed pitch in this situation and drive the hanging off speed pitch even with 2 strikes. You have time to do this if you see the ball well out of the pitchers hand and don't give up on the pitch just because it is not the heater away you were looking for. With this approach your one hole is if the pitcher comes hard in on the black. If that happens just try to emergency swing and foul it off but if he freezes you and you strike out just tip your cap to the pitcher and adjust your approach for the next AB. Below is two big leaguers taking their knock with 2 strikes on heaters off the plate away that they took "ugly" mechanical swings on but found a way to get their barrel on the ball and took their steaks through the opposite field hole. 

Hanging Breaking Balls. Hit them Early!

I've heard over and over hitting coaches tell their players to hunt the fastball and lay off the curve ball. However, good pitchers are good because they can locate their fast ball consistently. Especially with the college and high school pitcher they will try to throw their fastball down and away. They will not execute every time but that is their comfort zone. Some will also come in off the plate. This pitch is effective because hitters are taught to look away and react in so they don't have time to react to a pitch in when they are looking away. However, the point of this post is to talk about off speed pitches. To reiterate good pitcher are comfortable throwing their fastball down and away. That's not a pitch you want to hit as a hitter. However, the other comfort pitch for pitchers is the breaking ball (most pitchers) and every once in a while the change up (amateur pitchers don't have a feel for this pitch for the most part). Early in games the starting pitcher has the luxury to throw their off speed pitch of choice in the middle of the plate and hitters are encouraged to take it!!! As the game goes along the pitcher will get a better feel for his off speed pitch and the pitch will get better. The pitch to hit early in the game is not the fastball its the off speed pitch. Hitters should look for it! It is taboo in most hitting philosophies to look for off speed because taking a fastball in the middle of the plate is a cardinal sign. why? I encourage you to sit on off speed pitches early in games. Especially 0-0 (even more with runners in scoring position) and 0-1 after a fastball strike. Set your timing up knowing a slower pitch is coming and know its coming until the ball shows you its not that pitch. The key to hitting the get me over off speed pitch is you want it to end up above the knees and you want to let it travel. You also want to match the plane of the incoming especially breaking ball with an uppercut swing. Have you ever done a curve ball round during batting practice or hit curveballs of a pitching machine during practice. It's not that hard to crush those breaking balls when they are in the zone. WHY? Because you know its coming! Well in the game look for it in certain counts and situations and you can crush it. Because of the spin of a breaking ball if you match plane with your body and bat path the ball goes a long way when you hit it on the barrel. Watch the big league hitters. You can tell even when they don't hit the off speed pitch well that they were looking for it on certain pitches. Hitting approach is something that needs to be talked about more. Start with this simple adjustment and watch how many hanging breaking balls you get to hit especially early in the game off the starting pitcher. One thing Josh Donaldson does with his approach is when he has decided to take prior to a pitch he will take as long as the pitcher doesn't throw him a get me over curveball if they do even when he has decided to take he will swing at it and he hit 6 homeruns last year on hanging breaking balls that he had pre-determined as a take pitch. It works! Try it. Below are all still pictures of big league hitters hitting home runs on off speed pitches. Notice how they set their body up to match plane with the pitch. Big league hitters hit homeruns on off speed pitches every night. They hunt them in certain counts based on pitchers patterns. In the next post we will talk about how you can still hit homeruns on off speed pitches even when you are looking fastball if you set your body up right to adjust to the change in speed and trajectory of the off speed pitch compared to the fastball.

The Shoulders. Track with the front get on plane with the back.

As a hitter your front shoulder is your scope. You should try to line it up at release point like the scope on a riffle. Many hitters over rotate their front shoulder forcing themselves to commit to swinging earlier. A reminder that the biggest thing a hitter can create for himself is time and when you have to commit to swinging early the baseball is not close enough to read if it is a good pitch to hit so you really are just guessing. You want to keep your front shoulder tracking the ball as long as possible. When you eyes tell you its time to swing, instead of "throwing your hands at the ball what you want to do is bring your back shoulder down to the height of the ball. This allows you to "get on plane" or "swing level" You do not want to swing down at the ball. Coaches teach this because they think swinging down is the shortest distance but all they are doing is forcing their hitters to have perfect timing to make solid contact. Here are some still pictures from homeruns last night. Notice how they line up their front shoulder with the ball and then take their back shoulder down to the height of the ball. The shoulder angle is more steep when the ball is down compared to a more elevated location. More to come soon.