Barry Bonds is the greatest hitter of all time, listen to him!!!

With the improvement and easy access to video the swing is beginning to change. However, the new issue I am seeing with video breakdowns and all the different color circles and lines "hitting experts" draw to show all the different angles, path, trajectory etc etc is they are making the swing more difficult then it actually is. Who said hitting is hard? Why? At the big league level hitting 300 is impressive but why is that still good at the amateur level? Hitting is hard because hitters make it hard on themselves. I have spent years trying to take what great baseball minds write/say about the swing and simplifying down to a feel that the amateur hitter can understand.

    The greatest hitter to ever live was Barry Bonds. The witch hunt that ended his career and left him out of baseball until this year says that because he may/may not have used performance enhancing drugs we shouldn't talk about how great he actually was.  Everyone (or most) were taking something and Bonds became the bad guy but what he took is completely irrelevant to the fact that he was the toughest out in baseball for over a decade and statistically put up the most impressive overall offensive numbers the game will ever see. http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/bondsba01.shtml

Bonds had the most efficient "short to the ball" swing of all time. The last picture is one I see all the time talking about the proper contact position. That's great but how do I do that? The sexy videos right now are of Josh Donaldson and Bryce Harper. I love watching those dudes hit but I can't do that.  Trust me I've tried. I have no idea how Donaldson adjust his timing with his lower half and alters his stride and foot strike based on approach and pitch execution. I have no idea how Harper literally strides from one end of the box to the other and swings as hard as he can and hits it on the barrel more times than not. My guess is both of them have internal cues similar to this, "I'm the greatest hitter on the planet, everyone came here to watch me hit. This pitcher stinks, if he throws it over the plate I'm going to ruin his day." Why can't you have that mental self talk? No one has to know what you are thinking. Back to Bonds. He used a 34 inch bat but he choked up on it a 32.5 but it had the barrel length of a 34 inch bat. I think more than anything Bonds understood how long he could wait to swing if he stayed relaxed and confident and just tried to be accurate with his barrel. If you didn't throw bonds something he could hit on the barrel he just walked. I also think he understood that the pitcher's job is to throw the ball to the catcher not to home plate so you very rarely saw bonds chase in the dirt because as he says he was just trying to play catch with his barrel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfoXaNZQce4   He says, "the barrel has to become an extension of your arm and you have to keep your hands up. I think he says that because the closer you get your  your top fist to your shoulder the quicker the shoulder can turn the barrel.

The action of turning the barrel is very similar to a boxer. Boxer's do not punch with their hands they punch with their shoulders. The shoulders are the joints that control your arms and your eyes can be accurate with these limbs if the brain gives direction to shoulders for accuracy. Watch tyson punch:

 Thats the same exact shoulder turn a RHH would use to hit a low curveball. Bonds had power to all fields because he let the pitcher throw the ball to him. Even with a 32.5 inch bat if you make the pitcher throw the ball to the catcher thats plenty of bat to cover the strike zone. If you think like Bonds does about just catch the ball with your barrel it will relax your body when you go to hit and if you can't catch the ball with your barrel don't swing its not a good pitch to hit.

"Get your foot down" and the sacrifice bunt are ruining amateur baseball

A coach putting the sacrifice bunt sign on is telling the hitter, "hey I think you can't hit so I am going to make you do what pitchers do in the national league" Then they give you some crap about doing it for the betterment of the team and teaching the concepts of selflessness....blah blah blah etc. Bunt for hits are a good play but the sacrifice bunt in the first 5 innings is a joke. Let your guys swing the bat.  A coach telling his hitter to get his foot down before he swings is also ridiculous on many levels. First, it gives the hitter the impression that all he has to do to have success is get his foot down. Yes your foot has to come down before you swing, but it has become a phenomenon across amateur baseball to yell, "Get your foot down" I remember wanting to turn around to the parent or coach and yell back, "no shit!" Yelling get your foot down at a player is like telling him to put his helmet on and batting gloves before he goes up for his ab. Getting your foot down early actually makes it harder to hit in the GAME. In bp great, get your foot down works because tempo and location a very similar. However, in the game once both feet are down the eyes begin urging the body to swing the bat. While the front foot is in the air the eyes are in tracking mode. The longer you can stay in tracking mode the tougher it is on the pitcher.  If the pitcher is throwing 90mph or slower then front foot should not come off the ground until release point at the earliest, where most coaches make their players have their foot down by this point. Our eyes are very powerful muscles and they control the entire swing. Track the ball with your foot off the ground and relax, your eyes will tell your body when its time to swing. Rhythm, Timing and Style; find how your body moves in rhythm with the pitcher. Don't get confused with the different forms of foot down. Heal down is what coaches mean because there are hitters in the show that put their toe down and then their heal. Toe heal is an timing mechanism that I do not like because it creates issues if you begin the turn with the heal still in the air. Watch the MLB players below to see that each has their own tracking style but none have their heal down as early as it is taught at the amateur level.

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.

Look away and React In Ruins Careers

"Look for something that you have the most time on and react to the thing you have the least amount of time on" The trainer tells his boxer, "Look for the knock out punch but react to the JAB" The teacher says, "rush through the hard questions and take your time on the easy ones." I think you get my point. I'm not sure when or how but in baseball it has become taboo to teach a kid to pull. Going the other way has become the holy grail like you get two hits if you hit a single to the opposite field. Everyone says, "stay inside the ball" even though I still have no clue what that actually means. I honestly feel like pitching coaches have disguised themselves as hitting coaches to make hitters easier to get out. My college coach used to have the last round of bp be an opposite field line drive stick round which even as a 21 year old kid I knew was wrong, like my line drive (as a LHH) to right doesn't count and also it guarantees that my last swing in bp is a bad one. I really like a feel good round to end bp. Once you hit a ball on the barrel get out so you can always end on a quality swing. Coaches are teaching kids to try to hit the ball to the opposite field and I don't know why. Good hitters hit the ball to the opposite field when they are late the right way or taking their knock on the ground through the hole. The worst part about this universal fetish for hitting the ball the other way is it is messing up kids mechanics. The majority of young guys I coach step closed because youth coaches tell kids to look away and react in. I am going to do at least 2 more posts on this topic with video so I am being very vague right now. However, for now I want to address two "fatal flaws" that more guys should try to do. 1. STEP IN THE BUCKET! 2. UPPERCUTS ARE GOOD! Pitching and hitting are very similar with the lower half but in hitting someone said you are suppose to land with a square/ closed front foot. Whoever came up with that must of been a pitcher. Tomorrow and the next day I will get into this more with video proof but this is good for an introduction. I will finish with the simple statement. Whatever your hitting philosophy is make sure that the big leaguers do it too. The biggest misconception I hear over and over is that amateur hitting coaches say, "that's big leaguers.... you can't teach a kid to do that" MLB hitters have to hit the best pitching in the world so their mechanics will work in the amateur world. Coaches are just not willing to teach it. Baseball is the only major sport where hitters look more like little leaguers mechanically then big leagers. This is because most hitters spend their whole career trying to prefect the first swing that was taught to them. The best players in the world are always looking to find a new mechanical edge, are you?