Practicing Selecting Hitting
Selective Hitting and Adjusting the Strike Zone, the motivation for selective hitting, the definition of the strike zone and hitting zone, and adjusting the hitting zone based of the situation were described. If a team is getting runners on base in scoring position but unable to push the runners across home plate, then situational selective hitting can increase the team's run production. Teaching a batter to adjust his hitting zone based on the pitch count and base runner location can increase a team's run production and turn losses into wins.

Part 3 will focus on effective practice drills and the results from players and teams who have worked to develop selective hitters. 

Putting it all together
First, check the batter's mechanics. The stance is balanced with his feet about shoulder width apart. As the pitch is delivered, the stride is compact and directly toward the pitcher. As the ball leaves the pitcher's hand, the batter's eyes are fixed on the release point, ball rotation, and location of the pitch. As the ball reaches home plate and the swing starts, the chin goes from shoulder to shoulder, the front arm goes "down the wash board," and the hips rotate which causes the back foot to "squash the bug. After the mechanics are in place, time to help the player identify and use his hitting zone.

I do this with soft toss, pitching batting practice from 30ish feet (from behind a screen), and if possible, with a pitching machine. During soft toss and live pitching batting practice, I have a coach call balls and strikes and the batter keep a ball and strike count. The first pitch is usually low and outside or above the strike zone, and only occasionally down the middle or inside to keep the player honest. As the at bat progresses, I ask the player to verbally describe or draw out the hitting zone with their hand. We will have the player run through several at bat scenarios before having him run the last one out.

A word of warning: In order to develop a hitting zone, the player must get a lot of repetitions being a selective hitter. Many coaches will tell their players, "It's batting practice, swing at anything close." This advice is extremely damaging: it teaches the players to swing at inappropriate pitches. Batting practice is the time to develop good hitting habits.

Finally, after the players have developed the mechanics and grasped the hitting zone concept, we progress to situational hitting. A very common situational hitting scenario is for the player to drive the ball to right side of the field with a base runner on first. If the coach is soft tossing to a player during this skills development, a successful hit is right back at the coach's head. For the protection of the coach, we develop this skill using golf ball size whiffle balls (they may sting but will not do permanent damage).

A right handed batter is looking for one of two types of pitches: ball on the outside part of the plate or an inside pitch he can hit "inside out." The key to hitting the outside pitch to right field is to let the ball get "deeper" into the strike zone before the swing starts. For a young player, the hardest aspect of this development is believing that if he purposely waits to make contact with the ball at the middle or back part of the plate, it will not be a Louisiana fastball - "bayou." This confidence is only developed through lots of repetitions.

For a player hitting a inside pitch "inside out," they must learn (or re-learn a bad habit from their younger days) to bring their hands through the swing and drag the barrel of the bat behind their hands and only rotate their hips to face the second baseman at the end of the swing instead of the full hip rotation that has them pointing toward the pitcher.

A left handed batter is looking for an inside pitch he can pull to right. The key for a left hander to pull the ball is to recognize the inside pitch early so they can start their swing early and have the bat contact the ball in front of the plate. Full hip rotation will help the batter get the barrel out in front of the plate.

To develop these skills, we pre-stage the hitters before batting practice at the plate outside the field of play and have a coach soft toss whiffle balls to them. The first few times we do this drill, the right handed batters get outside pitches only and left handed batters get inside pitches only. After mastering this location, we switch to inside pitches to right handed batters and middle of the plate pitches to left handed batters. Next, we tell the batter to drive the ball to right field and mix up the pitch location. Finally, we have the coach describe the base runner's location, ask the player where he wants to hit the ball, and then mix up the pitches: inside, outside, middle, high, and low.

A good middle school athlete would need at least two practices where the pitch location is only inside and two practices where the pitch location is only outside to develop the skills. This means that a coaching staff will have to invest a significant amount of time and energy for even the best hitters can place the hit successfully during batting practice. The investment is high, but a team's ability to manufacture runs during a game, especially a close one, is the reward.

So, what are the results?
First, make sure the basic mechanics are strong, then create the mental approach to batting of the hitting zone, and finally, adjust the hitting zone to the situation.

This method of teaching has yielded phenomenal results for the players and teams I have been involved with over the years. Two young ladies playing tournament softball had batting averages over 0.500 and on-base percentages over 0.700 (yep, 7 out of every ten at bats they reached base). A young man playing tournament baseball raised his batting average from under 0.100 to over 0.400 and would go several tournament weekends without striking out. A Senior Little League team raised the team's batting average from less than 0.100 to over 0.250, with several players batting over 0.400 and the team's strikeout to at bat ratio going from one out of every three batters to one out of every six batters.

Teaching youth athletes to be selective hitters and being patient in their plate appearances takes significant time and energy by both the players and coaches, but the results are definitive and speak for themselves.

Best of luck, and Play Ball!

If you've enjoyed reading this post then please subscribe to my full text RSS feed.