Over the years I have worked one-on-one with a lot of young players and have seen many youth league baseball games. One of the biggest fears for many of these players to overcome is the embarrassment of striking out. What this leads to is a mentality of “It’s good enough to just make contact.” More often than not the result is a weak grounder to the infield. As parents we do our best to be supportive by saying things like “It’s ok Bobby, at least you put it in play.” As encouraging as that statement is, the result is not good enough.
We don’t want to hit to it, we want to hit through it. The ball that is. When all a player is concerned with is contact, they tend to slow their bat down so they can just get any piece of the bat on the ball. The more bat speed you can generate, the harder you will hit the ball and that is the whole goal when you are at the plate- hit it so hard that you knock someone’s clothes off! Just like the batters do to Charlie Brown in the Peanuts comic strip.
How is this accomplished? The first step is the player having confidence in themselves and believing that they will hit the ball when they swing at it. The second is working off of a tee. Listed below is a double tee drill that will help. The goal is to hit through both balls. This will maximize a player’s extension and help them finish their swings.
Double Tee Drill
1.) Set up two tees, one in front of the other with a ball on each. If using the average black rubber tees make sure to turn the front one around so the front of both home plates are touching each other.
2.) Set the hitter’s body up so that their front foot is in line with the shaft of the back tee.
3.) Hit back ball first, then front ball in one fluent swing to work on finishing through the ball.
