Hitting Tip #3 – The Approach

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First, lets take  look at what approach means; To come near, to begin work on.

As the ball comes near us, we are trying to do work on it. Sounds like a baseball word to me.

When it comes to our approach we need to understand trust. Trusting our eyes and trusting our hands. The most important piece to trusting your hands is keeping them back. If we can’t keep them back then we are surely going to be out in front. Our eyes are key in our approach. The eyes make the decision if we are going to attack the baseball or take the pitch. Other factors are involved of course, but we cannot think about them. We have to understand there are only three factors to look at when beginning to trust our eyes;

1. Location

2. Pitch Type

3. Pitch Speed

We need to recognize them in that specific order. If we don’t then it becomes a lock for us to be out in front.

Location lets us determine where that pitch is going to be right out of the pitchers hand. It’s much easier to make adjustments in a location then it is to be looking for a breaking ball and get surprised by a fastball.

Pitch type is recognized shortly after. It allows us to let off speed enter the location we are looking in. If it is a curveball or slider we are able to stay behind it and not be out in front.

Pitch speed comes in last because timing is the hardest thing to keep consistent. Understanding we can’t judge the speed of the pitch out of the pitchers hand can able us to let the ball travel into our hitting zone. It is often the most difficult thing to do but understanding these three steps will slow things down when we are at the plate. Everyone is willing to pull the ball but good hitters use the whole field.

 

—D rob

 

Hitting Tip #2- Hitting With Confidence

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Bottom of the ninth Game 7 of the World Series and your coming to the plate with a runner at third and two outs. What’s the first thing going through your mind?

An open question that can be aswered in a million different ways. But all you need to be thinking about is “Confidence”. What does confidence mean? full of trust; belief in the powers, trustworthiness, or reliability of a person or thing. (Dictionary.com) If you want to be a baseball player you need to take a look at that definition. If you want to be a professional you need to make this word apart of your character.

When you walk over to the bat rack to get your bat to step in the on deck circle you should already be thinking about what you might need to do when you get to the plate. Once that bat touches your hands thats when you need to turn on the switch. The confidence switch. Knowing that every situation that can happen in your at bat you have practiced in the cage. You have failed over and over in the cage to succeed this one time. The one time that it can make you a hero, or the one time you can help your little league team win on Opening Day. Preperation creates confidence. Preperation is the benchmark for our success. If you lack it then you will fail when it counts more often than not. “Success comes when preperation meets opportunity!” How successful do you wanna be?

No two words go better than “Confidence” and “Competition”. The two C’s I call them. I have been around enough baseball players to tell who has it and who doesn’t. You can’t have one without the other becuase they go hand in hand. You can’t be confident but scared to compete and you definitely can’t crave competition and not be confident. Most, if not all the greatest players to ever play the game of baseball had the two C’s. It’s what we yurn for as men. I’m the hitter that the pitcher is looking at as he takes the sign and a confident player looks him back in the eyes and says to himself “bring it”. I’m not gonna go into what a person might say if he was lacking confidence because we don’t focus on the negatives because the mind doesn’t process them. Just because you fail on the baseball field doesn’t mean you fail in life. If you get out so what! If your confident you know you will face that person again and again. Your gonna get beat it’s how you react that makes you a competitor. Take a look in the mirror and look yourself in the eyes and ask yourself “am I doing everything I can to be the best I can?” When you can be honest with yourself limitations put on you by other people don’t matter to you anymore. They can’t see whats inside of you only you can. That’s confidence! Knowing that whats inside of you has worked harder than anyone else and if they beat you don’t get mad just say “it’s alright, you got lucky”.

Back to our situation. Runner at 3rd, bottom of the 9th, Game 7 of the World Series. What are we thinking? Let me hear some of your responses…I will share my thoughts Later today!

–D rob

 

Pitching #1-Pitching with Confidence

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Lets not be nieve about confidence its not something you can turn on and off. It’s a mentality, it’s a way you go about your business, it’s who you become when you step on the mound. Building up confidence for game time starts during our bullpens. Being able to step on the mound with the ball in your hand more confident then the hitter with the bat is half the battle. Trusting your mechanics and the pitches you have worked on eliminate us over thinking. Confidence is built a little at a time through routine. Routine is something we do over and over again to prepare us for game time. All great players have it, you can create it. How great do you wan’t to be?

Let me take you through a “perfect bullpen”. 90 percent of my work is going to be out of the stretch. Why the stretch? Because at some moment in the game I am going to have to make the most important pitch. Those moments come with people on base and Im going to be comfortable with my mechanics out of the stretch. When I have established that comfort, my next move is to get comfortable with my fastball. It’s the foundation of all great pitchers. It’s what were are going to pitch off of. When my fastball is how I want it, I test it’s location. Establishing our extension side (Glove side) is the most difficult because most players fear throwing inside. They always talk about how they will “throw” inside but can you actually “pitch” inside. I can get a bum off the street to throw inside but it takes a pitcher to pitch inside. If I can establish the inside part of the plate not only have I won half the battle with confidence you can give me 3/4 of the battle now. Off speed is next, not a certain pitch in particular but one that you are comfortable with. It’s the pitch that I can go to when there are two strikes on the hitter. Towards the end I can go into the windup and mentally put myself in game mode. A hitter is in the box and it is live. I’m going to get ahead with the fastball to the first couple of hitters, and when they are down I am going to use my off speed to finish them off. After you have gone through these situations you will tell yourself “I am ready”.

 

—K Bueno

 

Hitting Tip #1-Before you Enter the Cage

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Before you enter the cage you need to realize one thing..NOTHING MATTERS!!! The only thing that matters is YOU getting in the necessary work that you need. You have to be able to push your ego aside and tell yourself “I AM going to hit some balls bad today and take bad swings”. The sooner you realize this, getting better has no boundary!

Think of it as this. Once you enter the cage or the training facility it is like entering a Library.You are here to study something you want to know everything about:Our Swing. We want to know how it feels when it feels good and what it feels like when it feels bad. ”The Cage” can make or break thousands of players each and everyday. If you get caught up with believing you can’t play well if my batting practice doesn’t go like I WANT it to your missing the point of hard work and sacrifice. Anyone can hit in the cage when things are going good, but can you go and put in work when all things seem lost? Every time you enter the cage you are sacrificing time and effort towards your hopes and dreams. Focus on what work you are going to put in to LIVE those dreams. What you NEED to do is treat every ball as a problem. Good swings give right answers, bad swings give a response that needs adjustment. How you make those adjustments determine what type of player you are going to be. Baseball is a game of adjustments and if you can’t make them because you are too stubborn or have a bad attitude then this game will not go easy on you. My father used to tell me “Son, hitting is like shining your shoes. You can never do it enough”. That has stuck with me to this day. Gentlemen, our test takes place when the lights come on and there is an opponent standing in front of you trying to keep you from success. What is success you ask? When preparation meets opportunity! Take every chance you get to get better. All the time you waste someone else is getting better.

Dare to be different and to do so we must understand our ego does more harm than good. Log your swings in your mind that feel great and try to repeat them over and over and over. The more times you can eliminate bad swings and turn them into good ones than I guarantee you your swing will be stronger than ever! Strong enough to conquer any test, but don’t be afraid to fail. This game is built on failure. Welcome failure because it gives you an answer on what you need to work on so when that opportunity comes we are prepared and success is ours!

 

—Drob