Quote Originally Posted by SPMT View Post
I don’t know regarding higher level pitching at any age. Would love to hear c24.

Tony Gwynn said look at the pitchers cap bill or another spot in that area them slide your eyes over.

That’s a part of hitting we don’t hear much about but imo is arguably more important than some goofy swing adjustment.

Also, is it a hard focus on the ball or a soft focus. In shooting guns with a red dot for example, the best shooters talk about target focus and seeing the red dot cross that spot in a soft focus/blurry. This is for fast shooting in a competition or cwb setting. So, to me I would have a very hard focus on the ball it’s closer to what fast shooters do.
There are many different approaches that can work. When I was playing and learning the game, Ted Williams book "The Science of Hitting" was almost required reading. He would probably be extremely upset at some of the approaches today, lol. The man hit 40+ hrs, every year, struckout less than 50 times a year, and walked over 100. The man knew hitting. I taught a lot of his theories to my players. Ted said a lot of hitters go up there with no plan, and if you're not using your brain and have a plan, then you're fighting a losing battle. I wanted aggressive hitters and i always wanted them to have a plan going to the plate. It was always frustrating to put a plan together and then watch them deviate and have a terrible ab, but it happens and you have to teach from that. You have to teach situational hitting as well. I liked my hitters to work counts. 0-0 go up looking for a pitch in your spot and spit on anything else. 2-0, 3-1, once again look for your pitch and not what the pitcher want's you to hit. 2-1, 3-2 have to be a little more aggressive but selective, as well as you're still in the drivers seat. 0-2 gotta work to get the count back in your favor or put the ball in play. When the counts in your favor you have to look to drive the ball not just poke it somewhere. When counts even or you're behind focus on staying up the middle. Always have to know the situation as a hitter as well. Runner on third less than 2 outs, you have to get that runner in, Runner on second 0 outs need to make sure you move him to third no matter what,etc.. These are just the basics. Lot more strategy and training obviously but these are the basics. Biggest thing for me is to keep constant pressure on the pitcher and defense. We ran the bases aggressively and stole tons of bases. We literally ran teams off the field because I even had my slower guys moving. Heck my son who was an average base runner could steal third standing up just about everytime because i taught him how to get that walking lead. If teams know you run a lot it puts their defense in constant motion when runners are on and creates space and holes. I won 2 national championships over the course of my coaching with teenage teams,and of course its not near the level of sec baseball, and I am in no way saying i'm anywhere near the level of SEC coaches, but we faced tons of teams with d1 players and the competition level at the national level is fierce, to say the least. And I'm proud of the players i've put in higher levels of baseball. Here's the caveat, I certainly don't have all the answers and this was just my approach to teaching the game and i had a lot of success with it, but their are others with way more knowledge than me. If you think you know everything you quit learning and baseball is a constantly evolving game and I'm getting old. My oldest son is a high school coach and old school like me. My youngest son is the pitching development director at baseball training facility and he's got all the new fangled, trackman, rapsodo, all the high tech stuff and it's hilarious to hear some of the conversations we have when we're all together. The 2 of them got in one heated discussion about core rotation and i've banned either one of them from brining it up again, lol!

We faced a team in a championship one time with an lsu commit pitching and they were pretty cocky and saying nobody hits this kid. We beat them on a steal of home because he was so focused on the hitter he was in the windup and when our kid took off he balked, lol. Those cajuns flipped out and were dog cussing us. It was hilarious.!

Anyway I just love talking baseball, and i'm sure many don't agree with my views and that's ok because that's what makes baseball so great is that you can be successful with just about any philosophy if taught properly.