Learn to hit properly

[TG Coach]

Learn to hit properly. Work hard it it. Spend a lot of time on tee work. Move the tee around. Do a lot of soft toss. Take BP until you have callouses. Do bat speed drills. Improve your upper body strength.

Light bats and thick handles are only short term kiddlie ball solutions. If a kid wants to stay in the game, starting at 13U he's going to have to learn to hit on the sweet spot and swing a bat heavy enough to drive the ball hard. Taking short cuts will lead to an early end to the player's game.

At 13U a kid is better off hitting .200 with a -3 bat than .400 with a -8 bat. With the -3 the player is making the transition. A -8 bat only delays the transition, possibly until it's too late.

[loubiedoXCHC]

i hit .800 w/ a -8 and about .400 last year as a freshman w/ a -3 bat in the northern nevada 2A div

[TG Coach]

If you can hit with a -3 you're wasting development time with a -8. No way in the world a freshman should be swinging a -8.

Re: Nevada 2A: There are more students in my son's grade, maybe twice as many, than your high school.

[loubiedoXCHC]

no u got it wrong i swung -8 in little league
i swung -3 all last year

[loubiedoXCHC]

the student thing i know i think we have about 35 ppl trying out this year which is pretty good but yea the level of play could be higher adn i plan on playing in reno thi ssummer in some kind of league

[IronManRipken]

Are wiffe ball machines that useful for hitting or are they just an extra thing? Looking into buying one of them wiffle ball machines

[loubiedoXCHC]

we use a wiffle bal machine when our team practices in the gym its an alright thing

[metropop]

I agree with everything on here so far but the team I am with is still young, 9 and under. I have taken the "preventative maintainance" rout with all my players, trying more to keep bad habits from forming than trying to teach a perfect swing at this age. We just do a lot of little drills with wiffle balls, plastic golfballs and soft toss just trying to work on contact and I don't know whether its luck or not, but my kids hit the ball pretty good. Its a pretty safe approach because as the kids get older, they may not have a textbook swing, but a good hitting coach won't have to break them down completely.

I do believe a wood bat, just a regular old $20 wood bat is still one of the best things a kid can take BP with if you would like to see a more technically sound swing develop. Regardless of age, the sweet spot on wood is so much smaller that the kids really concentrate more on making good contact than they do with alluminum.

[BaseballOC2]

about the numbers in schools, i am 14 useing a -3 on my middle school team. we have 2 teams an "A" team and a "B" team, overall 95 kids tried out and i made the "B" team, but when the coaches told me i made "B" they said i was an alternate for the "A" team, and i was borderline "A". this was my first year trying out.