Hitting for power

[harry]

First of all I would like to start off by letting you guys know how much I have appreciated reading the post on here, very informative and lots of good discussion. I wanted to get some other opinions on my sons hitting. He is 9 playing fall rec ball, he seems to be fundamentally sound in his hitting, weight shift, hips rotate and lead hands, he has been one of the best hitters on his team both spring and fall. He makes good solid contact and hits great for average mostly ground balls and line drives. My question is what do you think he needs to do differently in order to hit more for power, I realize this may be a loaded question and one everyone would like to know the answer to. Another thing I have noticed is that he seems to swing very level, I have heard good and bad should he have more of an up swing? I guess I have rambled on enough, and I am not worried at all with the way he is hitting just curious on you guys thoughts....Thanks

[kls_hittingacademy]

Is he swing level with the ground or with the pitch?

[korp]

The upward swing is to be on the same plane as the ball basically. Since the ball comes from the mound you should think of hitting the ball in the same plane going in reverse. Power comes with strength + bat speed. As the body matures you can naturally start to hit for power if you have the right makeup.

[fungo22]

Can you post video of him swinging, preferable in a game, but live-arm BP would be OK? We can't really answer your "where to go from here" question based on your description. We need to see his swing.

[TG Coach]

If a nine year old his a good hitter I wouldn't mess with his swing. He'll gain power just by growing. When the kids mature and the playing field levels, power comes from hitting pitcher's mistakes not overpowering the ball. If your son is hitting hard line drives I'd leave him alone.

[harry]

TGCoach, I was thinking along those lines, he is a tall skinny kid and it has been fun watching this year as his coordination and determination has come together and I agree in time the strength and power will come. I am trying to catch up with all of the information out here now things have changed since I was his age.

[Deemax]

He is 9 playing fall rec ball
Get the Worth Lithium ion senior league bat 28/18. It will add power.

My son is 8. He used his teamates Worth LI and started hitting the ball 20-30 feet further. I was shocked. Unfortunatly the bat costs around 250.

[TG Coach]

Get the Worth Lithium ion senior league bat 28/18. It will add power.

My son is 8. He used his teamates Worth LI and started hitting the ball 20-30 feet further. I was shocked. Unfortunatly the bat costs around 250.

You appear to be a knowledgeable and sane poster. Would you pay $250 on a bat for an eight year old? When my son was eight I preferred he try to crush the ball with a $25 bat from WalMart. Then I knew it was about swing mechanics and not the bat. I emphasized line drives over hitting moon shots. The kids with the expensive bats hitting moonshots didn't have great mechanics. Complacency caught up to them later (about age eleven). It was just about the time I was tired of hearing from the dads what great power hitters they were and where they would play college ball.

The first time I spent over $200 on a bat was for an EXO freshman year of high school. The first time I spent $100 was LL majors for an Omaha ($110) and an F2 ($120). During middle school I got good deals on -3 bats ($140 for a Liquid Metal).

[Deemax]

tg

Would you pay $250 on a bat for an eight year old?

No. But I am looking for a used one... 100 dollar range.

[azmatsfan]

From my observations of ball players from ages 8 - 10, the "power" hitters are either hitting pop flys into the outfield that will be caught once they move up to the next level, or they have bat drag and crush the slow pitching, but can't catch up to the fast pitchers. If they don't break this habit, they'll struggle at the next level too. I'm with TG. If he's hitting line drives I wouldn't mess too much with his swing.

[shake-n-bake]

Pay attention to how he finishes his swing.

If your kid can hit and is making good contact, I'm sure you know that more kids cannot than can. Changing his swing can open up a real can of worms. My son isn't a great hitter. He has good power, but for some reason doesn't consistently put all the fundamentals of a good swing together at once. It becomes very frustrating to tweek something, praise him for executing that correctly, only to have some other piece of his swing then needing adjustment. It becomes something like an informational overload for him. Combine that with some better quality pitching and he went from hitting +.500 to some horrendous slumps that killed his playing time during the AS season. Luckily he can pitch and that kept him in ballgames.

I threw him a lot of batting practice for the remainder of the summer, had him hit almost entirely with wood, and really empasized the position that he should be in when he finishes his swing. It felt like we were giving working backward a try. So far this fall season his hitting is so-so, but the pitching has been very good. He's only struck out once in four games, but hasn't hit one on the screws yet either. There's been a lot of weak ground balls and bloop singles with some sharply hit foul balls.

I know he's seeing the ball very well and his swing looks good, but the results aren't what you'd look at a kid his size with that swing and expect. I think I'm going to try and get some video and post it here and see if there's something that others might see that I'm missing.

[hellborn]

Boy, at 9 I think I'd be really happy with consistent sharply hit liners and grounders. If he keeps playing and starts really rocketing those liners as he gets stronger, he'll start thinking about what those balls would look like going over OFer's heads and the wall. That would be the time to give him plenty of extra BP or some hitting coach time to work on lofting some of those meatballs. At 9, he might exaggerate the thought of adding a little upswing to the point of losing his ability to make good contact on a consistent basis.

[TG Coach]

At 9, he might exaggerate the thought of adding a little upswing to the point of losing his ability to make good contact on a consistent basis.

This can happen at any age. Last year at 5'4" my son hit several homers on legit size fields. He would hit the ball 300+ down the line. He did hit a 365 foot flyout on one field. I told him he would be scary when he grew. He grew seven inches between seasons. This year at 5'11" he hit one homer at the end of the summer. It was after he stopped trying to hit everything out of the park. He screwed up his mechanics overswinging. He still hit well. But he could have been better. Coming around the ball had him hitting soft line drives and long flies that could have been BB's and rockets had he just drove the bat through the swing zone. Altering his swing got him off the sweet spot on the bat some of the time.

But try telling a kid who's leading his team in batting average his swing is messed up. I had a former pro tell him at the end of the summer. He's now working on fixing his swing.

[hellborn]

This can happen at any age. Last year at 5'4" my son hit several homers on legit size fields. He would hit the ball 300+ down the line. He did hit a 365 foot flyout on one field. I told him he would be scary when he grew. He grew seven inches between seasons. This year at 5'11" he hit one homer at the end of the summer. It was after he stopped trying to hit everything out of the park. He screwed up his mechanics overswinging. He still hit well. But he could have been better. Coming around the ball had him hitting soft line drives and long flies that could have been BB's and rockets had he just drove the bat through the swing zone. Altering his swing got him off the sweet spot on the bat some of the time.

But try telling a kid who's leading his team in batting average his swing is messed up. I had a former pro tell him at the end of the summer. He's now working on fixing his swing.

Good example.
Can you give more details as to what flaws your son developed and how he's trying to fix them? By "coming around the ball", I'm assuming that you mean he was pulling off a bit and maybe ending up with his weight way back, but I'm not sure I'm right.

[TG Coach]

Good example.
Can you give more details as to what flaws your son developed and how he's trying to fix them? By "coming around the ball", I'm assuming that you mean he was pulling off a bit and maybe ending up with his weight way back, but I'm not sure I'm right.

Early in the spring he was opening his hips and shoulders too soon. This started his hands forward too soon. He lost power by not having his hands at the proper "locked and loaded" point. His timing was off. It was a combination of JV pitching being less challenging than travel the previous fall and trying to prove he belonged on varsity (one of last two cut) by hitting for power. We got around the opening too soon by changing his stance. He went from open and striding to wide, even and only lifting his foot. This kept his hips in place longer, which kept everything else back.

Then he came up with a new flaw. He started coming around the ball (long swing) trying to pull and crank everything. If I was defensing my son against right handed pitching (hits left) I would have placed everyone on the right side except a third baseman for the bunt. The best I can describe this is he would start his hands through properly. Then he would push them away from his body and pull the ball. It had two effects. One, it decreased bat speed. Two, it caused some of his swings to miss the sweet spot. At the end of the summer I showed him all the marks from below the sweet spot to the label.

The weird thing is he never did any of these things against lefties (hit left). Because he's seen so few lefties compared to righties through the years (now a soph), he'll keep his shoulder in, hands in and drive the ball up the middle. His hardest hit balls this year were line drives up the gap the other way off lefties. Therefore, the first fix has been to have a lefty throw him BP so he'll swing properly on a repetitive basis. He's playing high school soccer and only has so much time. In a couple of weeks he'll take a hitting lesson one night a week. Paying for lessons is a combination of I don't want to fight him about hitting (15yo know it all stage) along with an opportunity to see another hitting instructor at work. I might learn something.

Now I'm thinking, "Imagine how he'll hit now that he's growing and his swing will be straightened out." I've learned my lesson. I won't say it to him. He's always worked hard in the past. He has to keep thinking the game is difficult.

[hellborn]

Thanks for the explanation, TGCoach.
Best wishes to your son for future baseball success!

[harry]

Appreciate the advice guys I felt like I should let him keep hitting and just give him time if he stays at it I feel like the power will come. Thanks again

[bigredmachine#1]

if his mechanics are good leave him alone and tell him to hit the crap out of the ball. don't fill his head with all the mechanical mumbo jumbo. also, any $70 to $100 aluminum bat will do just fine....keep everything simple...