hitting: anticipating vs reacting

[dominik]

Do you teach kids to anticipate pitches (and lay off if another pitch comes even if it is in the zone) or do you just teach hitting strikes not let getting easy strikes by you?

For example you can sit on a certain pitch (for example FB down) and let anything else go even if it catches a lot of plate. Or you can swing at pitches you think that are strikes.

I think both have their advantages. You want to be aggressive and not get behind but you also don't want to make yourself out when you are fooled.
obviously you never want to swing at balls and with 2 strikes defend the plate but how selective should a hitter be with pitches that are in the zone with less than 2 strikes?

[The Uncoach]

Kids could mean anyone from 6-17. Can we narrow down the age, as the answer is much different amongst age group, ability, level of play, etc.

[JCincy]

Swing at strikes. In my limited experience, the pitching in rec leagues is too unreliable to predict the next pitch. Most kids have two pitches that start with the fast ball. They throw either fastball for a strike or a ball.

[dominik]

Kids could mean anyone from 6-17. Can we narrow down the age, as the answer is much different amongst age group, ability, level of play, etc.

I talking about kids with a reasonable skill level who are old enough to have a plan. I would say 12U or older. with 8U players of course a plan doesn't make much sense.

[tg643]

When I dealt with young unskilled players I wanted them hacking at the first pitch they felt they could hit. They may only see one good hittable ball per at bat. I also didn't want them at the mercy of poor umpiring with two strikes. I didn't want them walking if there was a pitch to hit.

Starting with 13U travel (it was an all-star team of the district all-stars) I taught everyone to look for their pitch or take the first strike. At 2-0 and 3-1 they were doing the same thing. At this level we started teaching the skills of the game. If the first two hitters were out on a handful of pitches the third hitter had to work the pitcher possibly taking two strikes. I didn't have them take an 0-1 strike to go down 0-2.

By 14U I taught lefties to look for the hanging curve from a lefty as a start off pitch. Twice our leadoff hitter started games with homers off lefties. If it was 0-2 I told them to think curve but be ready to foul off the fastball. Starting in 14U we started seeing a lot of the same teams by quarterfinals. We charted opposing pitchers. We started seeing pitching patterns that we alerted our hitters. Since many of the coaches called pitches we saw patterns that were consistant regardless of the pitcher.

Starting with LL Majors I brought out a life size chart of Ted Williams hitting zone with the batting averages. I told the kids they had to figure out how their chart would look based on what pitches they hit the best.

[CoachM]

Depends on the count. But for the most part I like to teach them to look for a certain pitch especially when they are ahead in the count.