Pitching vs Hitting

Pitching and hitting are complete opposites of one other in that their objectives are adverse to each other. Basically, whatever the hitter is trying to do, the pitcher is trying to not let them do that. Consider these examples.

1. Pitchers throw riseballs to get hitters to pop up, and dropballs to get hitters to ground out. Therefore, it is the goal of a hitter to swing higher than normal to hit a riseball, and lower than normal to hit a dropball well. In fact, if a hitter were to over-compensate and hit a riseball on the ground for example, it is likely the pitcher won't throw that pitch for a strike again. If a hitter is able to get her bat over top of a riseball, she will be fully capable of hitting it square, and over the fence.

2. Both pitchers and hitters have bad games. A bad day to a hitter is one that he cannot hit pitches that he normally hits well. Whereas a bad day for a pitcher is one where he has no control over his pitches. He throws pitches that normally paint the corners of the plate either miss the plate completely, or worse, go down the middle. The best pitchers don't have very many bad games, and don't miss over the plate very often. They are able to throw "marginal" strikes which are thrown a ball off the plate, or ones which curve on then off the plate. Their mistakes are usually pitches thrown off the plate, where the hitter can't hit them. Conversely, the best hitters are consistently able to hit these marginal strikes hard, and don't often mishit pitches thrown over the plate.

Note: Most of the hits we see are a result of a poorly thrown pitch, one that is left too far over the plate, and a mistake by the pitcher. Average hitters are able to hit a pitcher's mistake, great hitters are able to hit pitches that are thrown well.

3. Pitchers and hitters both have strengths and weaknesses. A pitcher's best pitch is one that she gets ahead with, it is one she is able to throw for a strike. A pitcher will win the game if her best pitches are thrown well throughout the game and the other team is unable to hit it. The distinct advantage that the pitcher has over the hitter is that she is able to decide which pitch she wants to throw and when. The hitter is therefore in a reactionary role, and must react to whatever the pitcher throws. The way she chooses to react is the art of hitting.

A hitter's weaknesses can be classified into 2 types, physical and mental. Physical weaknesses are often considered to be "holes" in a hitter's swing. Dividing the strike zone into 4 quadrants, inside, outside, high and low, depending on the efficiency of the hitter's swing will cause them to hit pitches thrown in certain quadrants harder than others. Every hitter has strong and weak quadrants, and no hitter hits every pitch well. What separates a great hitter from a good one is the ability to adjust to the pitcher when she is trying to throw to the their weakness.

A hitter's mental weaknesses are related to her physical weakness. A mental weakness is when a hitter doesn't recognize her physical weakness. Again, no hitter can hit every pitch well, therefore it is a poor approach to an at bat to try and hit every strike. Smart hitters only choose to swing at pitches which they know they can hit well, and swing at their weak pitches when they have to. What separates the great hitters is the recognition of their own weaknesses, and the ability to formulate, and execute their plan of only hitting their own good pitches in an at bat. A hitter will be successful if she is able to recognize and/or anticipate when a pitcher is throwing to her strength/weakness, and even more successful when she is able to force the opposing pitcher to throw to her strength. By doing so, the hitter shifts the roles between her and the pitcher, and is now in a less reactionary position. She then only has to react to 1 or 2 pitches, essentially shrinking the strike zone, and the pitcher has lost the advantage of being able to throw whatever she wants.

Note: If you have any ideas on how to force a pitcher to throw a certain way, post a comment!

Throwing "Bows"

Did you ever think that someone's hitting problems could be due to their body shape? Try this test on yourself, straighten your arms out in front of you with your palms facing up as shown in Figures 1 a) and b). Notice how in Figure 1 a) the subject's arms form a straight V shape, while in b) the subject's elbows are more inverted, coming closer together when their arms are straight.

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b)

Figure 1: Example of straight elbows a), example of inverted elbows b). Click to enlarge images.

But what does this have to do with hitting? Well, someone having inverted elbows will be more likely to slot their back elbow incorrectly. As your hips start to rotate and your elbow starts to slot, your back elbow should come in close to your body with a small gap between your elbow and torso. From a side view, you should see your hands lead your elbow as shown in Figure 2 a) through f), or the blue dots (hands) are always leading the red dots (elbow).



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Figure 2 a) - f): Hitter 1. Frame by frame beginning of swing. Representation of properly slotted elbow, with hands leading elbow. The blue dots mark the hitter's hands and the red dots mark the hitter's elbow. The green dot marks the bat head, and the yellow line marks the height of the bat head. Click to enlarge images.

If you have inverted elbows your elbow is more likely to lead your hands as you slot them, because this position feels more natural. As shown in Figure 3 a) through f), the red dot starts to lead the blue dot as the hitter starts to bring her hands forward.


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Figure 3 a) -f): Hitter 2. Frame by frame beginning of swing. Representation of an incorrectly slotted elbow. As the hitter starts her swing, her elbow (red dot) drops in to her side, and leads her hands (blue dot). Green dots mark the bat head and yellow line marks the height of the bat head. Click to enlarge images

There are several ill effects of letting your elbow lead your hands. First and most importantly, it causes your top hand to go away from you over the plate creating a circular swing, also known as casting (refer to older post). Notice in Figure 2 f) how straight Hitter 2's front arm is, resulting from her top hand going away from her body. Also, from what we know about casting, it doesn't allow the hitter to reach forward to the pitcher with their top hand, also known as extension. Instead, the hitter's swing is "cut off," and her top hand rolls over early as shown in Figure 4 a) and b). Notice the yellow line marking the height of the bat head, and how high it comes up upon rolling over. In fact, from one frame to the other, the bat head raised almost 14 inches! Now imagine if a hitter rolled their wrists earlier in their swing, closer to contact, how hard it would be to hit the ball!


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Figure 4: Subsequent frames of Hitter 2's swing after contact. Lack of extension due to casting. The red circle in b) shows the top hand rolling over causing the bat head to raise up, marked by the yellow line. Click to enlarge images

Figure 5 a) through c) below show Hitter 1's extension. Due to properly slotting her elbow, her top hand is able to face up and reach toward the pitcher.

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b)

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Figure 5 a) - c): Hitter 1 frame by frame after contact extension. Notice how the hitter's top hand is facing up in all 3 frames. Click to enlarge images

Also, dropping your elbow into your side, as seen in Figures 3 c) and d), causes to bat head to drop considerably. In fact, comparing Figure 3 c) and d) (Hitter 2) to Figure 2 c) and d) (Hitter 1), the bat head drops approximately 5 inches more in Hitter 2's swing than Hitter 1's. This downward momentum thus makes it harder to hit higher pitches. Since momentum is a vector quantity (mass x velocity), Hitter 2's hands must overcome a greater downward momentum than Hitter 1 in order to adjust to the higher pitch, as shown in the schematic in Figure 6.



Figure 6: Schematic of vector addition of momentum. Properly slotting your elbow causes the bat head to have less momentum in the downward direction, therefore less momentum to overcome to hit the high pitch.

There is also another reason why one would slot their elbow incorrectly, with or without inverted elbows. If a hitter rotates their hips too slow, their upper body naturally wants to help them out in order to be in the right position to hit the ball square. The most efficient way that your arms can move your hips is by dropping down lower, aka dropping your hands and tucking your elbow into your side. The most efficient way to move an object is to apply force closest to the center of mass. By lowering your hands and bringing them closer to your waist, the centripetal force applied during swinging is therefore acting on your center of mass more efficiently. The result is that that hitter has opened her hips, but an incorrectly slotted elbow, back to square one.

So how does one fix this problem? Try taping a football on the inside of your bicep as shown in Figure 7, and swing as normal. The football prevents your elbow from getting too close to your body, and making it harder for your elbow to lead your hands. View the 3 swings in slow motion here, you should be able to see the hitter's hands leading her elbow.


Figure 7: A football taped to a hitter's inner bicep prevents her elbow leading her hands. Click to enlarge image

Slapping

As a left-handed hitter, being able to execute all 3 levels of offense, hitting, slapping and bunting truly makes one an all rounded player and that much harder to defend against. And contrary to popular belief, slapping and bunting aren't exclusive to faster players.

Even having 2 out of the 3, hitting and slapping for example, can cause headaches for the opposing defense, due to the fact they can't play in one spot. Playing a power hitter is easy, back everyone up and expect a deep fly ball. With a power hitter who also slaps, you can't assume a hard hit all the time, you also have to defend a high bouncer, by keeping the infield in. A shallow infield and a regular depth outfield creates a larger space between them, allowing bloopers to fall more often. A shallow infield also makes it easier to hit grounders past the infielders who have less time to react. Probably the most important and valuable aspect of slapping is that it moves the defence and makes them think. Showing slap in early at bats opens up for hits later in the game. Even an unsuccessful slap, makes the defense aware of it and they will position themselves accordingly for next time. It sure makes life easy when a defense is expecting you to slap when your plan is really to hit instead.

As mentioned before, anyone can slap! Just as anyone can hit, bunt, catch and throw. Much of slapping successfully comes from being able to read the defense and choosing to slap at appropriate times. These times would include, when the middle infield is playing deep, and the corners are playing in. Leading off an inning with a slap could also be effective when the defense isn't expecting it. If there's a fast runner on first base, a slap will hold the shortstop in their position for longer, allowing for an easier steal. As well as if there's a runner on third with less than 2 out, a high chopper with the runner going on contact can yield an easy run.

An ideal slap is one which first bounces close to the plate, because bouncing closer to the plate makes for a sharper downward angle, and therefore a higher bounce in the air. The higher the ball bounces in the air, the more time you have to run to first base. A good slap will take 2 seconds from the time it first hits the ground to travel its maximum height and fall back down again. Then, we have to add in the time it takes the shortstop to field the ball, transfer and throw (approx 1.4sec). This gives a total of 3.4 seconds which is generally a slow time from home to first, especially with a moving start. Therefore as a general rule, if you can make the ball bounce twice before the shortstop can field it, you have a pretty good chance of getting a base hit.

Many of the same concepts applied to hitting are the same for slapping, except the goal is different. Slappers want to hit the ball into the ground, and hitters want to hit line drives. Therefore, it is a good idea to teach slappers to have a split grip with their bottom hand a little bit choked up from the end of the bat and the top hand just above the grip. This gives them a different feel than that of a regular swing, keeping them from trying to hit the ball too hard. Remember, a slapper is trying to SLAP the ball down and make it bounce as high as possible so they have time to run to first base.

A major difference between slapping and hitting is that slappers move through the box. It is important to move through the box SLOWLY, and DO NOT RUN. Remember, a well slapped ball will give you plenty of time to run to first base. You do not want to run through the box for two reasons, it increases the relative velocity of the ball, and it takes too much momentum towards the pitcher.

Relative velocity is like vector addition, the faster you move at an object moving at you, the faster it seems to be going. In fact, if you were running 3 mph at a pitch going 65 mph, its relative velocity is 71 mph, adding double the velocity you're running at. Like if you were riding a train, looking out the window you see another train flying by, it seems to be going pretty fast. However, if you were standing at the train station and saw the same train go by, it wouldn't be seem to be traveling as fast.

Momentum is also a vector quantity, mass times velocity. The more velocity you have moving through the box and at the pitcher, the more energy and steps it will take to overcome your inertia to run to first base. These are the slappers that make an "S" curve to run to first. An average home to first time is 3.0 sec, and an average female runner will take 14 steps to run to first base, making each step 0.21sec. Therefore, the two extra steps to run in an "S" instead of a straight line will increase your home to first time by 0.41 seconds, which could be the difference between a base-hit and an out.

A good slap in real time should look something like this. Analysis of it is to follow.

Footwork should start at the same time as the pitcher starts her motion. The front foot steps back to make a 90 degree angle with the back foot, lining up the front heel with the back heel as shown in Figures 1 and 2 below. This 90 degree angle starts to open the hips and shoulders just like hitting.

Figure 1: Side view. First step back by front foot, toe pointing forward with heels lined up making a 90 degree angle. Click to enlarge image


Figure 2: View from behind of first step back as pitcher starts motion. Click to enlarge image.

At the same time as the front foot steps back, the top hand slides up the bat just above the grip as shown in Figures 1 and 2 above. Notice her hands also move over the plate and off of her shoulder. This puts her hands in the right position to hit the ball to the shortstop. If her hands stayed by her shoulder, if would cause her to pull the ball.

Next the back foot comes forward with heel to toe step (important) to the front corner of the batter's box closest to the plate as the pitcher releases the ball. This step is quite big because the slapper wants to stay low to be able to slap the low outside pitch, where slappers are often thrown. Just as the front foot lands, the ball should be just about to the plate. And since the slapper's hands are already over the plate, they have a short distance to move to slap the ball into the ground. From here, you just need to make contact with the ball and start running! This is why the heel to toe step is important, it allows a smooth transition from making contact to running to first base in a straight line.

Note: It is unnecessary to hit the ball hard when slapping. The whole idea is to bounce the ball close to the plate so it bounces high enough in the air to be able to run to first base.

As discussed in an earlier post, the reasons for opening up to the pitcher to hit the ball are the same for slapping. Completely opening up your hips and shoulders to the pitcher will yield better results in hitting the ball to the shortstop by giving you the biggest window possible to hit the ball, much like extension.

Being able to slap the ball to the shortstop while being completely open to the pitcher and hitting the ball out in front of the plate is achieved by proper hand, and bat position. Your top hand's palm should be facing up with your wrist cocked back, so the bat is always angled toward the shortstop. Just like hitting, having your hips and shoulders open to the pitcher allows your top hand to keep from turning over and hitting it at the pitcher. A good drill is to go through the motion of a slap without a bat but instead a ball in your top hand. Practice "slicing" the ball into the ground at the shortstop, like skipping a rock. Make sure your top hand is always facing upwards as shown in Figure 3 below, so your hand always stays under the ball. As you release it, the ball should spin with a vertical axis in the clockwise direction. The drill is shown here.

Figure 3: Proper hand position for slapping. Palm is facing up and underneath the ball "slicing it". Keeping your wrist cocked back keeps the bat angled towards the shortstop.