i have a question about hitting curveballs and offspeed pitches

[baseball2234]

hi, im a freshman in high school and im beginning to see breaking balls more and more often. My question is, do you stride, plant the foot, and then just wait for it? or do you stride and hold your foot up in the air then plant and swing to adjust to the speed of the ball, like ichiro.

[EdmondsFan#1]

I imagine that Ichiro's method would be harder to be succesful with, or else he wouldn't be the only one in the majors who does it that way. He is a absolutely incredibly athletic man, and he can afford to do stuff wrong, because he is Ichiro.

If you stride and then plant your foot and then wait for the pitch you are going to lose power. If you have trouble with adjusting to the speed of breaking pitches I reccomend you have your feet spread far apart (Jim Edmonds / Albert Pujols style) that way you don't have to stride at all, you just rotate the hips. Because sometimes the point of a breaking ball is to get you out front for a lazy fly or weak grounder, by doing this you can't get out in front, the worst thing that could happen would be you got to out in front and missed the ball (which would be pathetic) or you dragged it foul.

I believe that Albert Pujols has his feet spread far apart and taps his foot down and then rotates his hips though, but i'm not sure. But I know he doesn't stride.

[The Kid]

Wait for it longer or stand in the front of the box.

[EdmondsFan#1]

Wait for it longer or stand in the front of the box.

problem with that is, waiting for it longer can be hard when you think it will be a fastball or it's a slow curveball pitcher and you have anxiety. And standing in front of the box might help you hit breaking balls but then it will be harder to hit what your going to see more often, fastballs.

[turnin2]

simply try to learn to pick the ball up better out of the hand, palm up, its FB/CH, if you see the pinky side its a CB/slider.