I had a parent ask me the other day to evaluate his high school son at the end of a lesson.  The player has a great future in the game – he’s a Division 1 talent, but I said in my evaluation that he’s prepared, he has a great swing, but now he has to execute the plan.  You see success or failure goes beyond mechanics.  There are players in the big leagues that I wouldn’t dare copy the mechanics of in a teaching situation.  Hunter Pence and Derek Jeter are two of them.  Mechanically, they have some big issues – but the guys can really hit.  Heck – Jeter has 3,000 hits!  But, that shows, hitting goes beyond having a mechanically sound swing.  The bottom line is that great mechanical swing keeps your bat in the zone longer and gives you more leeway for errors in timing.  Timing, not mechanics, is the toughest part of the swing.  So in your preparation this time of year, if you are working mechanics only, you are preparing to fail (Unless you are having a tee competition with the other team).  There is a lot that goes into getting ready for a live at-bat.  This is why big league players go to spring training for 30 days.  They are working on all the things I will talk about below.
So, my lessons, switch gear in January, and we focus less on mechanics and more on timing, tempo, approach and at-bat preparation.  I always say that I want your mechanical issues fixed from October through December, because in January I don’t want to have to talk a lot about mechanics.  We’ll tweak things as needed, but at this point you have to work on the next phases of the swing.  So, in the next few weeks I’m going to go over, in detail, the next segments of my hitting plan as we transition into the season.  It starts in this order:
1) Timing and Tempo
2) Vision prep
3) Off speed recognition
4) Counts and Approach
5) Adjustments to different types of pitchers
6) In  At bat adjustments
7) Before game and On Deck approach
8  Situational Hitting
These are the 8 things I drill to prep for the season.  As you can see, this goes well beyond just mechanics, and really separates guys who can hit and players who fail to hit.  Stay tuned!