Common Swing Flaws - Pitch Selection
Welcome to the first installment of a series on hitting and some common issues I see when coaching young athletes. This is the first time I have done a series of blogs before and I’m excited to take a deep dive into the complicated world of the swing.
First and foremost, I want to be clear that there is no perfect swing. There is a perfect swing for each individual athlete, yes, but no two swings are the same. In fact, my swing is considered by many to be a bit unorthodox, which I love, but I do believe my swing and hitting process in general are perfect for me. I mean, it helped me hit over .500 in the Olympics. I say that not to be an egomaniac, but just to prove that what works for some doesn’t work for all, and finding YOUR best swing is what matters. Belief in your process will propel you towards confidence at the plate, which in turn will lead to more and more success. This was my pathway to success at the Olympics and is still my pathway in the pros. This series is designed to address some of the more common issues I see, while providing feedback on what can help. It is not a cookie-cutter approach. It is not set in stone. It is meant to be fluid, flexible, and dynamic in your own journey. Let’s get rolling.
Common Hitting Flaw #1 – Pitch Selection.
“Your eyes can’t hit what your eyes can’t see. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” – Muhammad Ali.
This quote has been one of my favorites for a long time and it translates from the boxing ring to the batter’s box seamlessly. Your eyes can’t hit what your eyes can’t see. We have to see and react at an insanely high rate just to have a chance at making contact. In fact, your reaction time on a 65mph pitch is about .375 seconds. Less than half a second. That’s all you have. Pitch selection is hard for that reason alone.
So often, I see hitters with sound mechanics, but because they love their swing so much, they want to swing at everything. We must see the pitches we want to hit, then be able to get our best swing off on the mistakes that the pitcher makes. Trust me, she will make them. Our job is to not miss them. But how can we make sure that we are making the most of the milliseconds we have so we can see a good pitch that we can do damage on? Here are some of the ways I have been able to have better pitch selection over the years.
Elite Hand Eye Coordination. In my opinion, this is extremely undervalued and overlooked when it comes to teaching the swing. Our eyes and our hands must be in sync. At the core, this is what it means to make contact. Check out this video of Barry Bonds explaining hitting as “catching the ball with your bat. Our mechanics mean absolutely nothing if we cannot simply see the ball and hit the ball. If you have been to one of my Halo Effect Softball Clinics, you have probably heard me talk about how playing ping pong growing up helped me develop quick reaction times and elite hand eye coordination. I would often put up one side of the table as a wall and just blast the ball back and forth for hours. Foundationally, that hand eye coordination, coupled with bat control, has allowed me to climb into the pros and find consistency. A pitcher can’t throw me anything that I don’t feel like I will find some way to get my barrel to the ball. I recommend picking up ping pong as a hobby, but there are a ton of other drills you can do to help hand eye coordination as well. We have a lot in the RISR app that will help you right away. The better your hand-eye, the better your pitch selection. Why? It creates time for you to decipher what is a good pitch and what isn’t. If I’m quick and coordinated enough, I can wait longer before making a decision, and THAT is a critical advantage in the batter’s box.
Slow and Early Load – Aaron Judge has taken off in the past couple of years because of this. He starts his load earlier, waits and hangs creating tension, and then unleashes that on the baseball, sending it 400+ feet on most occasions. Starting your loading earlier gives you more time to select a good pitch. Nothing is rushed, everything is smooth. Watch this awesome cage session he has with MLB Network’s Harold Reynolds. There are a ton of great nuggets in here about elite hitting and you should watch the whole thing, but he talks about his load around the 9:40 mark.
Have a Plan – To be great at pitch selection, you must step into the box looking for something specific, even if that means you are just sitting on a mistake, which is often my approach. Check out Derek Jeter explaining what pitch he was hunting his entire career. The mistake. If we get into the box without a plan, we are prone to the pitcher’s best stuff, the off-speeds, the pitcher’s pitches right on the corners. To hit mistakes, you have to look for mistakes. Just for fun, check out this video of all 62 of Judge’s homeruns last year. I want you to notice the location of all those pitches. Hint: it’s a lot of middle/middle mistakes. Have a plan, don’t miss them.
Pitch selection is a cornerstone for all elite hitters. Swing at the mistakes, let the other stuff go. Create time by having elite hand-eye coordination and starting your load a little bit earlier. You will have more success if you swing at the right stuff. Don’t overlook it. Rather, over-emphasize it.
Swing hard.
Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.
