The hardest part about hitting a baseball isn’t mechanics, it’s timing.  I say all the time, there are a handful of guys in the big leagues that I consider to have perfect swings.  With a perfect swing, you would think a guy would hit .700 or .800.  Of course that doesn’t happen, so there has to be something more difficult than achieving perfect swing mechanics.  That something, is timing.  Many hitting coaches will say that players either have timing or they don’t.  That is an easy way out for the coach who isn’t preparing their players to learn timing and how to make timing adjustments.  Here is a brief break down of how I work timing in a progressive matter with students.
Tempo – Tempo is the controlling of the body during the stride.  A very common reason why players come out of their mechanics is they can’t control their bodies during the stride.  This is an area that has to be taught.  Quality tempo often starts with a slow, controlled rhythm.  If a player has poor rhythm, he will often have fast tempo.  Good tempo means the player can control his body, and maintain a hitting position regardless of pitch speed or location.  Pitchers are constantly trying to pull hitters out of their hitting position.  Good hitters will maintain their hitting position regardless of the pitch.  Plus, the stride is the recognition part of the swing.  Controlling the body out to foot down helps the hitter stabalize the head and see the ball better.  Hitters have to do this without the varaible of a moving ball first.  Basically, the back quadricep or back knee controlls the stride pace.  After we load the inside part of the back knee, the hitter has to maintain tension in the back leg all the way to foot down.  Even though a player looks centered at foot down, I like to feel more tension in the back leg than the front leg.  A few of my drills for this that have become popular for tempo are called “pitcher’s knee lift” off of a tee, as well as the “feet together, glide and hit” drill.  Both of these are meant to slow the body’s progress forward while maintaing tension in the backside.
Start time – Start time for hitters is one of the most incorrectly taught areas of the swing.  A player’s stride start (in a traditional stride) will match up to the pitcher’s release (I have hours of video to verify this)  This will hold true in front toss and live bp as well.  It is true, I’d rather have a student error early with the stride rather than late, but either error will cause mechanics to break down.  This is one of those areas that needs to be drilled to perfection.  The fastest bat speed will happen when the swing works in one fluid motion, with the stride foot coming down and the swing following right after it.  Students that start late, will rush tempo and everything will come forward early and out of sequence.  Players that stride too soon (so often incorrectly taught at even a high level of baseball) kill the body’s momentum all together, where the player often has to re-fire from a dead stop.  9 times out of 10 in this approach, the player will re-fire from the top, out of sequence, because the leg momentum has been killed.  I do several drills for start time and will put some of them up on the site in the future. (They are also on our drill DVD “Building the Major League Swing”)
Contact Points – First students have to learn the difference between inside and outside contact points and how that affects their timing.  We do this on the tee first (for mechanical purposes) then move to the front toss drill. I will sequence drills where I work on one side of the plate only to let the player match up the mechanics to the timing, based on location.  The next step in the progression is to alternate inside and outside pitches with the player knowing where the ball is going to be.  The player has to be able to get timing right when they know where the ball is going to be before they can timing right when they don’t know where the ball is going to be.  Finally, we will go inside and outside contact points at random, making the hitter recognize and react with proper timing.  Keep in mind, it is not necessary for every outside pitch to be hit to the opposite field and every inside pitch to be hit to the pull side.  Those are just guidelines.  If timing is perfect, then that may happen, but generally if the hitter is going from middle to the correct gap, then he is in the realm of correct timing.
Off Speed Toss – A feeling of maintaing tempo and body control must be achieved to have success on the off speed pitch. In this series, I will throw all slow change ups with the goal of the hitter maintaining his center and keeping his hands back until the ball enters the hitting zone.  To help hitters in this drill series I use the cues of “slow timing,” “oppo gap approach”, or “getting beat deep” rather than out in front.  Again, a hitter has to be able to hit off speed pitches when he knows they are coming before he can do it when he doesn’t know they are coming.  These cues help the hitter settle into his front leg slowly, maintaining center the best as he can (keeping leverage with the front knee remaining inside the ankle), and track the ball to the hitting zone.  Next, I will alternate speeds which alternates the hitter between “fast timing” and “slow timing.”  Then I will go at random, making the hitter recognize the pitch out of his “look fastball and adjust” approach.  The last and most difficult drill in the progression is “fastball in, and off speed away,” which gives the hitter the greatest differences in timing.
Extremes in Velocity – I will cover this further in a later post, but this means that if a hitter faces an extremely fast or slow pitcher there are physical and mental adjustments that must take place.  I will get into the details of “affective velocity” later, but the basic prinicple is that if a pitcher can throw the fastball by a hitter, then the hitter must start his load/stride processs sooner to maintain his tempo.  The worst thing that can happen to a hitter that faces a faster pitcher, is to try to “speed up” himself.  That makes the pitch seem faster than it already is, and forces mechanics to break down.  The extremely slow pitcher is an “oppo gap” mindset to help the hitter get the ball see the ball to the hitter’s zone.  So many hitting coaches will say, “Stay back!” but that is said so often it isn’t forceful enough to the brain.  By thinking a specific place on the field to hit the ball, it makes it easier to slow the body’s tempo down and track the ball to home plate.  The ball doesn’t have to be hit to the opposite field in this approach, it is just a mindset.
Since the beginning of our great game, pitchers have constantly tried to find ways to disrupt a hitter’s timing.  It is the ongoing personal battle between hitter and pitcher.  If you are going into that battle unarmed, and without the necessary information and preparation, you make an already tough job, nearly impossible.  This can lead to frustration by the hitter that has spent so much time “grooming” his mechanics.  In preparing for a successufl at bat, the first step is getting the tempo correct, and working your way through timing drills in a progressive manner.
Come back soon to the blog series on “Preparing for a Successful At-Bat” and read about our next topic – Vision Training.