Baseball Tips, Lessons, Articles, Podcasts and Instructional Videos
Nearly every catching instructor you speak to, and every published book and article on catching, will point out that footwork is the key to success for a backstop.
However, most of these sources either don’t elaborate on how your feet should be, or they offer information that does more harm than good. [Read more...]
There is a simple, old school hitting philosophy that continues to make a lot of sense for hitters at every level: wait and weight.
This “reminder” has been used by some of the greatest hitters in MLB history. For example, Wade Boggs, Don Mattingly, Rod Carew, and George Brett have all, at some point, admitted that “wait and weight” was something they kept in their mind while in the batter’s box. A fairly impressive group, wouldn’t you agree?
So what is “wait and weight”?
“Wait” is waiting for the pitch to get to you — another way of saying “let the ball get deep”.
“Weight” is keeping your weight back while you’re “waiting” for the pitch. Some coaches say “keep your weight on top of your back foot”.
In other words, one of the fundamental keys to successful hitting is to stay back — refrain from committing to swinging — as long as possible. The longer you can wait for the ball, while also keeping your weight and your hands back, the better your strike zone judgment will be and the better chance you’ll have of hitting the baseball.
Of course, if you see a pitch you like, don’t wait so long that the ball ends up in the catcher’s mitt! There’s a fine line, and it takes hours and hours of practice for you to learn how long you can wait. Next time you are in BP, try it: wait just a millisecond longer than normal before starting your swing. Keep trying to wait longer and longer on each pitch — particularly pitches that are “middle – out” — before committing (pitches on the inside part of the plate require you to swing earlier, or you won’t get the barrel on the ball). Get to the point where you’re almost missing the ball on purpose because you’re waiting so long. Eventually — and this won’t happen in one session — you’ll start to learn how long you can wait before starting your swing.
Trust your hands — they’re faster than you think, particularly when you keep them back and in unison with your weight.
Being from the NY-Metro area, I’m a big Mets fan and regularly watch SNY (the Mets’ cable TV network). This evening one of their on-air personalities, Kevin Burkhardt, was reporting on the Mets’ spring training and one of his big news items was the fact that Pedro Martinez was pitching with his eyes closed.
First of all, this is not a new nor cutting-edge development. Pitchers under my supervision have used “eyes closed” drills going back to the early 1990s, and even then it wasn’t a new concept — certainly nothing I invented but rather a training method that had been handed down from previous generations of pitching “gurus”.
In any case, I’m glad the story came up, because now is a good time to apply the technique. Essentially, it is what it sounds like: you go through your entire motion and pitch with your eyes closed (this should be done in bullpens / side sessions; it should be obvious that you don’t try this in a game situation). If you have solid mechanics, and total control over your body, you should be able to throw strikes. When I coached at the D1 level, and we were working out indoors (preseason) my pitchers were not allowed to advance to breaking pitches until they could throw their fastball and changeup for strikes with their eyes closed. This may sound drastic and a little nuts, but that was my way of confirming that each pitcher’s mechanics were understood, “felt”, and repeatable.
Pitching (or doing anything athletic) with your eyes closed is tied strongly to visualization, but it is also an immediate way to “feel” what the body is doing. With the eyes open, your attention is split by all kinds of distractions — most of them visual. When you are “blind”, and expected to throw to the catcher’s glove, you absolutely, positively, must focus on controlling your body and its movements. Concentrating so narrowly on balance and movement, the mind is less susceptible to outside distractions that could cause the body to fall off course. In addition, if a particular part of your mechanics or timing doesn’t feel “right”, it is a more glaring and identifiable issue with the eyes closed. You will be amazed at how quickly you can correct mechanical issues simply by throwing a few pitches with your eyes closed.
Finally, there is the benefit of self-assurance. Prove to yourself that you can throw a strike with your eyes closed — literally — and you are suddenly armed (pardon the pun) with a supreme confidence to throw strikes at will.
By the way, this method can be applied to batting, though it’s limited to hitting off a tee.
The other day I went to a batting center that included tunnels where pitching lessons were being taught. Over and over I heard the same phrase from the instructor: “drag your back foot!”.
To me that sounded a bit perplexing, and thought perhaps the coach was teaching the change-up. After ten minutes, I realized the coach was using his “drag your back foot” instruction as a means of teaching the fastball.
A few days later I witnessed another pitcher, in another facility, consciously dragging his back foot on all pitches per the instruction of a completely different “pitching coach”.
Now I’m really befuddled.
Perhaps I’ve missed something, but what I have been taught is that you want to do anything BUT drag your back foot if you’re interested in increasing velocity on your fastball. In fact, what you should do on your fastball is push off the rubber with your back foot — much like a sprinter does off the starting blocks — and as a result the back foot should fly up in the air, high over your butt, after the stride foot lands. The back foot pushes, the front foot pulls, and if you get them working in sync, you’ll be using your legs to power the ball (now you know why pitchers do so much running!).
The only time a pitcher would drag his back foot, as mentioned earlier, is on a change-up. If your back foot — or more specifically, your toes — drags along the dirt in front of the rubber as your stride (front) foot lands, then it should help take a few MPH off the change-up. However, that is a pretty advanced technique, and should only be practiced by those who have a very solid understanding and execution of sound pitching mechanics, and whose changeup needs to be just a bit slower.
If I’m missing something with this “drag the back foot thing” — perhaps I’m misinterpreting a newfangled, cutting-edge technique — please let me know in the comments below.
