Addressing Swing Decision Issues
Imagine a situation where a a hitter swings at fewer pitches in the zone and more pitches out of the zone. How do you go about addressing this situation?
The key to attack this type of situation in a systematic way of thinking. The first thing that would be needed is to go through the Trackman information is what is the player swinging at? Where are these pitches located? What types of pitches are they? Is the hitter struggling with a particular handedness of pitcher? Velocity or movement from different pitches? Possibly even dig into count or game state. Once the coaching staff can have that type of information, I think that it would have a much better idea of what the actual problem that the hitter might be facing.
The hitter in my mind needs to be introduced to a couple of simple pieces of information that are found and educated on what the issue could potentially be. Explaining to the hitter why he might be struggling and begin to have a conversation around what we both think needs to get done in order to get him back on track or simply for him to improve. This initial conversation would be foundation for any plan that is put into place so it is an important step.
From there the coaches can start to design a system of events that we will incorporate into his daily routine. Let’s say he struggles at laying off slider from left handed pitchers. (Let’s say he is a lefty batter) The system might encourage him to develop practice habits around not only getting the pitching machine set up to face lefty sliders, but to also build in the daily practice of facing left handed pitchers. (Both batting practice and “real” pitchers) The player is a partner in his practice plan all along so allowing him some say as to what is being done is important for the overall success of this plan.
Once we have put a practice plan into action. We might then start to put a game plan into place for the games the player plays in. This might be pitches in which he hits really well, pitches he doesn’t chase. But it could also be putting the player in situations that he is going to be successful. In this situation it might not be best to throw him into a fire against a pitcher with a really strong slider immediately. We might want to have him be in situations where he has small successes before letting him go.
Along the way the player needs to be given feedback from Trackman which spells out exactly what he is swinging at and how he has progressed from his earlier version of himself. Simple plots should be able to get the point across but making it so that he gets that objective feedback is important for this system. We could even start to consider using a Rapsodo during practice for the player to begin to see practice feedback as to what the actual strike zone looks like. Overall the system is one which should be understood by the player with buy in from them. Ultimately as the coach you eliminate your job as the coach so setting up a process allows you to help set up a framework and allow the players natural talent to come out and succeed.
