Now that the regular season has officially started, I’m getting reports of tentative, indecisive, and cautious swings in games. A player who takes confident and fearless hacks in the cage but all of a sudden tightens up in games is EXTREMELY common, so here’s some advice for hitters and parents alike to improve game performance.
First, let’s look at the most common root causes of tentative, indecisive, and cautious swings.
- Players are unsure whether or not they should swing.
- Players are afraid of swinging at a bad pitch.
- Players are afraid of swinging and missing.
- Players are afraid of getting hit by the ball.
(I'll save fear of the ball for its own separate blog.)
For Minor players who are new or relatively new to kid pitch:
Many times players at this age do not take the confident aggressive swing that you see them take in practice off a machine or a coach because they are still at the very beginning stages of learning what their hitting zone is and what the umpire’s strike zone might be, and they simply need more game/live pitching experience to go through the trial and error process of pitch recognition.
How can you help them during the “get more experience facing kid pitching” phase in Minors?
First, encourage them to swing at any pitch they think they have a reasonable chance of hitting. Yes, this will lead to some wild swings at some bad pitches at first, but the act of swinging helps them start to intuitively figure out their hitting zone on their own. Over time, they will realize they simply can’t make contact at a pitch over their head or bouncing in front of home plate and will stop swinging at those.
We would much rather young hitters swing at TOO many pitches and then dial back their aggression as they get more comfortable than have young hitters swing at TOO few pitches and then try to teach them how to be aggressive when they get older. Developing an aggressive attitude at the plate when they’re young is essential to their development!
The classic “wait for your pitch” line doesn’t work with most young hitters because they haven’t figured out what “their pitch” is yet, and even once they figure out what “their pitch” is, that pitch simply won’t come around often enough and they’ll end up watching a ton of hittable, but not perfect, pitches go by without swinging.
If we are encouraging and celebrating aggressive swings at a young age, regardless of the short-term result, we will create hitters who are unafraid of missing, who are unafraid of occasionally swinging at bad pitches, and who take confident swings in the box.
If we yell or shame or show disappointment when they swing and miss (for any reason), we are wiring their young brains to avoid risk-taking at the plate. I can’t think of many Big Leaguers with cautious bat speed and indecisive decision-making skills, can you? I'm also positive that no coach in the Dodger's dugout yells at Mookie Betts when he swings at a bad pitch!
For Intermediate and Major Hitters facing faster pitching:
While fear of making a mistake and/or fear of swinging and missing are absolutely issues for many hitters at this level, many defensive swings are often caused by TOO MUCH THINKING. Hitters in Intermediates and Majors are usually pretty good overall about knowing what types of pitches are in their hitting zone, but they often overanalyze the pitch location while the ball is in the air and NOBODY’S brain can work fast enough to overcome too much thinking.
Here’s an example that I see all of the time with older hitters in my cage during lessons. I’ll throw a good but not perfect pitch to them and they won’t swing at it. When I ask why they didn’t swing, the response is usually something like, “Well, I thought it was a little too far outside.” TOO MUCH THINKING! Or, "I thought it was a little low." TOO MUCH THINKING!
Especially against pitchers throwing with above average velocity, their brains simply don’t have enough to time go, “This pitch looks close, but it might be a little outside . I wonder if I should swing. Last time I swung at the outside pitch, I missed it so…” Ooops, the ball is already in the catcher’s glove! TOO MUCH THINKING.
To combat overthinking, I teach “Caveman Hitting.”
See ball. Hit ball.
(I think this Summer Camp “Early Bird” tee shirt I came up with for 2019 is pretty cool for a lot of reasons, but it’s also great advice at the plate!)
Because the ball is moving fast and their brains have only milliseconds to see the pitch, decide to swing, send the signal to their body to swing, and then have their body actually move, there’s no time to waste!
See ball. Hit ball.
For parents/coaches with indecisive hitters:
You must give your kids permission to swing and miss. You must give them permission to swing at bad pitches. That does not mean you want them to intentionally swing and miss or take a hack at a pitch in the dirt, but they need to know that it’s 100% OK if they do.
In fact, swinging and missing is part of the optimal hitting strategy.
If we wanted to develop a “never miss, never be wrong” hitting strategy at the plate, we absolutely could! We would simply make our hitters bunt at every pitch. They would rarely miss. And they would rarely bunt at a bad pitch. Great success, right? Of course not.
The goal at the plate is to hit the ball hard. In order to do that, a hitter must swing the bat fast and with confidence. In baseball, when a hitter swings hard at a ball coming at them fast from the opposite direction, they are going to miss and/or make a bad decision a decent percentage of the time. But when they do connect, they have a chance to drive the ball into the outfield.
In other words, the ideal hitting strategy includes swings and misses – it’s an intentional byproduct of their game plan at the plate.
Like with Minor players, let’s also make sure to encourage older hitters to take risks at the plate and make confident decisions on pitch selection, even when we all know it won’t work out some of the time.
If we don’t, they’ll always be late, they’ll always be defensive, and they’ll rarely hit the ball the way that they’re capable of.
With any hitters taking too many pitches, not swinging confidently or who are consistently late, issue this challenge before their next game:
Tell them the goal for their 3 game at-bats is NOT to be perfect with their pitch selection and it's NOT to never swing and miss. Rather, their goal is to take at least NINE aggressive and confident swings in the game. That's it. Don't give them anything "outcome" related to think about. Simply empower them to swing hard NINE times in the next game.
Chances are, they'll hit the ball. But if not, they will have started to get much more comfortable being aggressive, making confident decisions, and learning that they don't have to be perfect...and eventually the hits will come.
Good Luck - PLAY HARD HAVE FUN!