soft toss

Comment by Eugene J Bleecker II on December 1, 2009 at 2:40pm

mine keeps skipping but it's because of the transfer of video....Go to my youtube channel to watch with no skips

Comment by Don Ervin on December 2, 2009 at 6:09pm

Eugene, your soft toss videos are very informative, right down the pipe, I would if you do not mind like to make a couple of comments.
The two ball is great for eye to quick ball pick up, very necessary to making good hard contact, I am a rotational hitting person, not to criticize but I do not see initial rear, negative load up rotation in your video clip, which I learned from Ted Williams many years ago, although there is a bit of linear movement during the full execution of rotational approach movements.
Proper rotational approach movements allow for the hitter to acquire nice body rhythm throughout the whole rotational movement starting with the initial rear, negative rotational, knee, hip, upper body and hands movement to the launching position with the very short stride step being executed at the same time, no dead stopping of the hips only the upper half and hands at launching position, this movement also serves as a timing mechanism, the hips then rotate forward, which is a positive movement leading the way for the upper half and hands to follow at the right timing moment bringing the knob, and hands down in close past the belly button with the barrel brought down to, into and through point of contact and into a level plane with the downward flight of the ball, one has to make different bat approaches and bat angles on different ball levels, one should learn to produce great hand, wrist and bat barrel torque by pulling the bat knob back towards the catcher and flicking the top hand wrist forward into the ball at and into point of contact, bottom hand knuckles pointed down, top hand knuckles pointed up, the wrist flick is what everyone has always referred to as wrist action.
When the upper half and hands are prematurely committed out over the front foot the head is the culprit, when one prematurely moves the head in any direction the batting approach and balance are negatively effected, get batters in their stance with a bat in their hands in their launch position, turn cap backwards, hold tightly on to the bill so they cannot move their head forward, have them then attempt to move the head and weight forward out over the front foot, no can do. throwing, hitting approaches to pitched balls etc. should all be executed with body rotational rhythm which creates directional fluid body movement, motion.
Let me know what you think.
Don Ervin
kom_ervin@yahoo.com

Comment by Eugene J Bleecker II on December 2, 2009 at 6:34pm

I appreciate the comments Don. Although, because you are not able to see from the side angle there is definitely a rear load. If you take a look at one of the other videos from a side angle you will see that I am a rotational coach as well making sure that my players get their hands back to a quality load launch position while shifting weight back minimally. I like my hitters, especially my young hitters to stay balanced as much as possible and I don't teach against linear movement but I like to get into that with more advanced hitters. If you take a look, you will notice that at the Major League level many of hte best hitters in Baseball both pivot on the back side AND get up on the toe, sometimes in the same at-bat. The reasoning for this is due to gearing up for 97 and looking for the hard stuff or sitting on a pitch/location or a specific pitch in a specific location. A-Rod for example, may times will even lift his back foot off the ground because he is stepping into a pitch but in the same game, he will stay more balanced on the back side and pivot on the ball of the back foot. He hits homeruns both ways but when he is not sitting on a specific location/pitch he must remain more balanced as a hitter to adjust to offspeed pitches or pitches on the outer half. I work on that weight transfer more with my older students and the one you happen to be watching is one of my more advanced hitters but I have had him since he was 13 and HAMMERED balance into him young.
I love your assessment that different pitches in different zones have slightly different swings and in fact I talk about that in my hitting DVD called COMPLETE HITTING. If you go to my youtube channel you can find a section called "9 Zones 9 Swings". I designed this section to put it into the mind of hitters everywhere that making contact with balls in each zone is slightly different ie. hitting a ball up and in is a more of a level swing than hitting a ball low and in. Hitting a pitch low and away is different than hitting a pitch low middle because you need to let the pitch travel deeper in the zone and extend the hands more to the opposite field. I want my students to know and understand that they are going to have to work on hitting pitches in every zone to truly be successful and Complete Hitters, hence calling the DVD Complete Hitting. Many young hitters like to go in the cage and very dedicated students of the game may even swing every day, but if they are not working on different things they are not making strides towards becoming a great hitter. Although they may get better at one particular aspect of hitting ie. guys working on pull ALL the time(most common) they are not working on having a Complete Swing.
Here is a link to "9 zones 9 swings"
http://www.youtube.com/user/ProGripBaseball#p/u/4/5SQXFiH-foY

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