Every once in a while I like to post these full post practice conversations we have so parents get a little insight. In one of these, I'm doing most of the talking and the other one Sean is the leader. What is funny is, we talked zero to each other about the practice we wanted to run and the points we wanted to emphasize. However, the sessions we each ran this week were very similar as you can tell from these videos. At one point I even start laughing because one of our players attended consecutive nights and was hearing the same thing twice, but from a different mouth.
The emphasis of the week was "barrel control". If you can't control the barrel of the bat off a tee and during front toss, it's going to be really hard to consistently hit line drives in games. We did some situational hitting (hit and runs, groundballs, runner on 3rd hitting) to try and work on this. Sean also did some specific count hitting (3-1, 2 strike, etc.). Here's are the conversations from the end of practice. You will probably see bits of these posted on Instagram at some point.
1/15/25
[https://videopress.com/v/NopgR7XI]
1/16/25
There was a lot covered here but these are some of the highlights:
Situational Hitting - Runner on 3rd, Less than 2 Outs
A lot of coaches are teaching players to try and elevate the ball to drive in the run with a sacrifice fly. That would work, but if that is what we are trying to do, we're leaving ourselves little margin for error. If we're trying to hit a flyball and we get a little too far under it, we hit an infield pop up and don't get the job done. To the contrary, if we're thinking about using the middle of the field and staying above the baseball, a groundball to SS or 2B gets us our RBI. It doesn't even matter how hard we hit it. It could be a 14 hopper to SS and it still works. Also, if we miss a little below our focal point, we still hit a flyball that is deep enough.
With the infield in, this approach should not change. We talked about how little range infielders have when they get brought in. Unless you hit a ball directly at an infielder, he's unlikely to field the ball. Even if he does, it's likely that we can still score on the play because he'll have to set his feet back toward home plate. I tell players in this situation to "use the middle of the field". There are so many options out there for you to drive in those runners from 3rd.
3-1 Count Hitting
You're going to have coaches tell you to "do damage" in these counts. Understand that "do damage" does not mean "swing harder". I am telling players a lot, the best way to hit the ball for "damage" is to make sure you're on time and on the barrel. If you're both of those things, you're likely to find more gaps. Over swinging will cause you to use bigger muscles that we don't want to use through our swing. We'll be more tense and our swing will slow down. A slower, less accurate swing will lead us to missing those 3-1 pitches that should be in a gap.
2 Strike Hitting
There are a lot of different approaches with 2 strikes. The range is basically from "we don't care if you ever strike out" to "you better prevent the strike out at all costs." I would definitely say our group approach is somewhere in the middle. If you're never striking out, but also never hitting a ball hard with 2 strikes, I view that as a problem. If you're striking out 70 percent of the time you have a 2 strike AB, that is also a problem.
From an approach standpoint, I think it's important that you don't get too in between as a hitter. That means you have to be "well timed" (not perfectly timed) to either a fastball or a breaking ball. Otherwise you're basically just hoping you walk or somehow get a flare to fall in somewhere.
I told players you should be looking for one (FB or Breaker) and adjusting to the other. In our sessions play around with each approach and see what you like. I personally liked to look for what I thought I was most likely to get and then adjusted to the other. In high school this normally meant looking for a breaking ball and fighting off the fastball. When a guy starts throwing 95mph you might not be able to do that. Play around with approach at Extra Hacks and see what works best for you.
