Getting Back to Swing Drills – Q&A
Author: Todd Thomas
Question from Keith:
Jake is picking back up on his drills (fence drill, etc.), and looks like he is doing pretty well in soft toss, but when I pitch to him, he is reverting back to separating his back arm when he starts his swing, and his bat and swing plane are flat and his hand path is more linear and close to belt high. Last time we were with you, we worked on getting him to lay the barrel below his hands, and take his front elbow up to get an on-plane. He is not doing that now when I pitch to him. My idea was to do lots of soft toss from directly in front to get him to hone in the right mechanics, and then begin to move me back in the cage to short pitching and then ultimately to normal pitching distance. Do you think that will help?
Answer from Coach Todd:
Sure. I think so. Is he aware of what he is doing wrong or does he only know because you tell him? Try to help him become aware of what he is doing himself. Tell him to draw his attention to where his hands are when he swings and make him show you what they did after each swing. Then tell him to work on changing that(or whatever it is) and to tell you whether he thinks he is improving with each swing and each hit. Are the hits good, solid, and in the direction desired? Then his responses should be positive.
Doing the drills is a great idea. Getting back to some basics when things aren’t going as well as desired is always a good thing. Here is something else to try. Put him in the basic set up postion with the bat touching his back shoulder and his back elbow tucked against his body. You can do this work from either the torque position or batter’s box position or some of both. Take a small hand towel or dish rag and have him hold it against his body with his elbow. Then he should hit while holding it there. Now, it SHOULD drop to the ground BUT, NOT behind him, towards the others batter’s box, or towards or on the plate. Rather, it should drop to the ground out in front of him towards the pitcher when he extends his arms through the ball out in front of him. Call me if you have any questions. Keep me posted.
