"Approach" is the baseball word for "strategy" at the plate and while I put the finishing touches on a "Masterclass" I've been preparing for all Little League parents and coaches to help their player be more confident and aggressive at the plate, I thought I would share a sneak preview one of the key lessons that we'll cover in that course.
One of the biggest challenges all Little League hitters struggle with is making confident decisions about whether or not to swing at a pitch; they have to process critical information (speed and location) in literal milliseconds while also often worrying about being "wrong," or swinging and missing, or the strike zone. This is true for Minor players facing kid pitch for the first time all the way through Major players facing hard-throwing 12 year olds. The root causes of the fears that paralyze young hitter's thought processes are covered in depth in the course, but in the meantime...
One of the best ways to help our hitters prepare to make the split decision whether or not to swing is to get their mind ready to swing before the pitch is even thrown. There is a simple trick to do this and coolest thing is...they already know how to do it!
If your ballplayer has ever taken batting practice (obviously they have), then they've already mastered the best pre-pitch thought process!
Before the ball is put in the machine or before the coach has even thrown the ball, every hitter during batting practice is READY TO SWING. Their "I'm going to swing" switch is turned "On."
Why? Because it's "just batting practice."
In batting practice, they are not worried about making a bad decision and they aren't afraid of swinging and missing. There's no count and no strike zone. They are completely ready to attack every pitch before it's in the air.
This is 100% exactly what their mindset should be in the game before the pitcher throws the ball; they need to turn their "I'm going to swing" switch ON!
With the switch already ON, they are in "attack" mode and ready to swing.
If the pitch ends up being unhittable, it's really easy to turn that switch OFF at the last second, and not swing.
But more importantly, they'll already be prepared to swing when it's a good pitch!
Unfortunately, most kids turn their switch OFF before the pitch is thrown. There are lots of reasons for this that we'll dive into in the Masterclass but I'm sure you've seen this often: they are waiting to see where the ball is thrown before even starting the process of swinging. Or they just assume it's going to be a bad pitch because the pitch before it was bad. Or, or ,or. There are lots of negative thoughts that can easily creep into a player's mind, and all of them turn that switch OFF.
Unfortunately, if that switch is OFF, it's nearly impossible to turn it ON at the last second and still have enough time to make contact, so many hitters do not even swing at good pitches, are extremely late, are very tentative, and/or not aggressive.
If they simply took their "batting practice" strategy to the game and told themselves "I'm swinging at this pitch" before it's in the air they will be much better prepared to swing on time and aggressively compared to when they've told themselves "I'm only going to swing if it's good." That's an OFF to ON strategy rather than an ON to OFF strategy.
Will they sometimes swing at bad pitches. 100% OF COURSE!
So does every guy on TV getting paid millions of dollars.
Swinging at a bad pitch every once in a while is an excellent tradeoff for being on time and aggressive way more often.
Share this with your ballplayer before his next game and if you're interested in the Masterclass on youth hitting approach, shoot me an email so I can keep you in the loop for when I'll run that live on Zoom.
SWING HARD, HAVE FUN!