You Gotta Have Fun!

It seems like this almost goes without saying. I mean baseball is a game and we started playing this game because we love it and it’s a lot of fun. The problem is that the farther we progress up the ladder and the farther we get away from the innocence of our childhood we tend to forget why we play this great sport. It starts to become more about other things. Our ego (or how good we are or how good our kid is), making a particular team, reaching certain performance goals, getting a scholarship, winning a championship, or any number of other things that takes us away from the game in it’s most natural and purest form. All of these things take us away from the real reason we started playing in the first place. We have this belief that I’ll enjoy it when I reach this level or that level or I’ll enjoy it when I get a few more hits or reach a certain statistical plateau. Parents will say they’ll enjoy it when their child gets to college or signs a professional contract. The problem is this way of thinking prevents us from ever enjoying it or having fun when we play. As Dr. Wayne Dyer says it puts us in a state of, “striving yet never arriving.” There will always be another level to reach, higher stats to obtain, all star teams to make, hits to get, and so on. Parents and athletes alike forget to have fun and enjoy where they are at in this moment and as a result the playing career ends and we’re left looking back wishing we could still play thinking we should have enjoyed it more. Wether your career is over at 18 or 45 if you don’t take time to have fun and enjoy it right now you never will.

This mentality can affect performance as well. When we are in a state of joy this is the most optimal state of allowing. In this state the subconscious easily communicates to the body and allows the athlete to play “in the zone”. In this state athletes are completely free from negativity that hampers their performance. So not only will you enjoy playing more but having fun will actually increase your performance giving you the ability to repeat your mechanics more often. As a wise man once told me, “You don’t have fun because your having success, you have success because you’re having fun.” At your next game make your goal to have as much fun as possible. Tell yourself that regardless of what comes your way during that game you are going to have fun, enjoy every moment of getting to play and watch how your performance increases.

The Two Strike Approach

Many times I hear athletes and parents alike wanting us to work on the hitter’s two strike approach. Usually this occurs when the hitter has been striking out and they mistakingly believe that doing something different when the hitter has two strikes on them is going to help them cut down on their strikeouts or become a better hitter. The way I see it however is that strikeouts occur earlier in the at bat, well before the hitter even gets to two strikes. When I hear of one of my athletes striking out consistently everyone wants to tell me what happened with two strikes. They tell me about the umpire, or the pitch the hitter swung at, or they blame it on the hitter being too passive. All of this is fine and good but they are missing where the strikeout really happened. Sure strike 3 is what sticks out in your mind but the question they should be asking is what happened earlier in the at bat that allowed the hitter get to two strikes? Was the hitter’s approach bad? Did the hitter not trust their approach? Did the pitcher make some good pitches? Did the hitter get balls to hit but broke down mechanically and fouled the pitches off? These are the questions the hitter, coach, and parent should be asking. I mean, once you get to two strikes hitting is a difficult thing to do. According to www.theoleballgame.com major league hitters hit just .187 last year with two strikes. These are the best hitters in the world and their numbers drop drastically in ALL two strike counts. If you want to cut down on strikeouts then its imperative that you put more balls in play earlier in the count. Watch the best hitters in the major leagues. Doesn’t it seem like they almost never have two strikes on them? Doesn’t it seem like the less accomplished hitters almost always have two strikes on them? This is because better hitters have a better approach and better mechanics. So when they get a pitch to hit they usually put the ball in play.

That being said it is inevitable that you are going to get to two strikes in certain at bats throughout the course of your season. So once you do what should you do? Should you choke up on the bat? Should you “shorten your swing”? What changes should you make in two strike counts? My answer might surprise you but my answer is: NOTHING. Don’t change a thing. Don’t choke up, don’t “shorten your swing”. Take the same swing you normally take, after all your goal is still the same. You’re trying to put a mechanically sound swing on a hittable pitch. Sounds crazy right? But think about it, how many times with less than two strikes do you really swing and miss? I would venture to say that if you’re like most hitters you swing and miss more often at two strike pitches then you do at pitches with less then two strikes. You probably got to two strikes by fouling pitches off or taking pitches, and now you have two strikes on you and you swing and miss. So basically, in our effort to not miss we are actually creating the result we don’t want. I once heard Tony Gwynn (who was one of the toughest players in history to strikeout) interviewed about his two strike approach. While I don’t remember his exact words he was asked what he changed with two strikes? He said, “Nothing. Why would I spend all this time practicing to hit one way and then when I have two strikes on me do something completely different?”

The strikeout has been completely vilified. It’s the ultimate shot to a hitter’s ego. Most hitters would rather get their bat sawed in half then strikeout. We’ve seemed to forget that it’s just another out. We’ve also forgotten that there is another player out there 60 feet 6 inches away whose job it is to get us out. Whose out there intentionally trying to not allow us to hit the ball. Sometimes he’s going to do his job, sometimes you are going to do yours, it’s just the nature of the game. But because the strikeout is so damaging to our ego we do everything we can to save face. As a result we tense up and don’t allow our swing mechanics to be executed. Subsequently we swing and miss more often and create the result we were hoping to avoid. This season in fact the Tampa Bay Rays were determined to cut down on their strike outs. They hired a new hitting coach and one of the things Manager Joe Maddon liked was that the hitting coach believed that strikeouts weren’t bad. As a result he has eliminated some of the player’s fear of striking out and so far this season their strike out totals are far lower then where they were this time last year.

Similarly, striking out looking has become this thing that we just can’t have happen. We are taught from a young age that whatever we do just don’t strikeout looking. Onlookers tend to assume that a hitter who strikes out looking didn’t have any fight in him. They have this attitude that hitting in a game is as easy as hitting in batting practice and that you can just reach out and make contact with any pitch thrown at you. As a result hitters are afraid to strike out looking and have a tendency to expand their zones with two strikes too much. They flail at pitches way out of the zone because after all, “I didn’t go down looking.” I’m not saying that if a player is consistently striking out looking that it isn’t a problem. If most certainly is, however if that is happening then there are issues going on earlier in the at bat as well. But people it’s not as big of a deal as we make it out to be. Sometimes the pitcher will make a great pitch with two strikes. I mean if he can make a great pitch that freezes us with one strike why couldn’t he do it with two? Sometimes the umpire will expand his zone or give a pitch to a pitcher. There are many reasons why a hitter could strike out looking so everyone needs to relax. Parents and coaches who make too big a deal over this either A) don’t know the game or B) played the game but have forgotten just how difficult hitting is (I always think it’s funny how when parents and coaches get older and further removed from their playing career how they seem to have always struck out less and less. A crappy former high school player will say things like, “I never struck out looking.” Yeah sure guy. I remember seeing video of one of my coaches playing and he would freak out when we struck out looking. In the game we saw he struck out twice in the same game looking. He seemed to be more relaxed after we saw that video).

In order to cut down on strike outs we need to no longer fear it. We need to maintain our approach throughout our entire at bat and make adjustments to it when we see how pitchers are pitching us. Once we get to two strikes however we need to stay consistent with what we are trying to do. Understanding that even though we are now looking for a pitch in a bigger area our goal remains the same. Allow the pitch to enter the hitting zone and execute a mechanically sound swing. If you are striking out consistently don’t focus on what’s going on with two strikes, focus on what’s going on before you have two strikes. Make your adjustments there and you will put more balls in play earlier in counts which will ultimately reduce your number of strike outs.

Swinging at the First Pitch Breaking Ball

It’s one of the first things we’re taught as hitters as we begin to move up the ranks. Never swing at a first pitch breaking ball. God forbid you pop it up, or ground out when you could have waited around and hit the fastball. In fact not much seems to send coaches into a frenzy as much as when one of their hitters makes an out on a first pitch breaking ball. “What are you swinging at!” you’ll here them say, as they jump around in the third base coaching box, “What kind of a hitter gets out on a first pitch breaking ball!!?”

But, is it really as bad as everyone thinks? Could it possibly be beneficial to swing at a first pitch breaking ball? While it’s pretty well known that pitchers aren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer they are smart enough to have figured out that hitters don’t generally like to swing at first pitch breaking balls. So they view it as an opportunity to get an easy strike especially on the more accomplished hitters. I tend to see this in my hitters every year. They start out at a certain level of performance. Usually pretty good hitters but are still getting a good number of fastballs. As they grow and develop and ultimately begin to produce better and better results they start to get a good diet of breaking balls. Usually they get in a hole early with the first pitch breaking ball then tend to chase the only fastball they see which is usually intentionally thrown out of the strike zone and are then finished off with a number of breaking balls. Unfortunately this is the price of success. This is what happens when you become a great hitter. So for hitters who have reached this level of performance I recommend looking for and swinging at the first pitch breaking ball.

Remember that there is a distinct difference between an 0-0 breaking ball and a 2 strike breaking ball. Since the pitcher views it as an opportunity to get an easy strike he’s not going to risk throwing that pitch out of the zone (pitchers get in trouble for throwing first pitch breaking balls for balls just like we get in trouble for popping them up). As a result that first pitch breaking ball is going to be a looper. Something with a little bend in it that is going to drop right down the heart of the plate. It’s not going to have nearly the bite that the two strike breaking ball will have and the pitcher usually feels pretty comfortable throwing this pitch since he knows that the hitter will read breaking ball out of the hand and since the count is 0-0 will immediately give up on this pitch because we’ve been taught to never swing at a breaking ball 0-0. Now the count is 0-1 and we are pretty much at the mercy of the pitcher. 0-1 and 1-0 are very different counts. The first pitch doesn’t just buy you one pitch but it buys you two since if you are up 1-0 you know that he’s not going to want to go 2-0 and will give you something to hit. If he doesn’t and you get back to 1-1 you are still feeling pretty good since 2-1 is not a count a pitcher wants to be in either. On the flip side is the pitcher gets you to 0-1 he has two pitches to work with. He can afford at that point to get a little nastier and take more risks as a 1-1 count for him can easily go to 1-2. If he starts 0-1 it gives him the feeling that he’s in charge just like a 1-0 count does for us. So if you are consistently taking a first pitch breaking ball you are most likely always starting your at bat down 0-1.

Remember that the first pitch breaking ball is just a slow looping pitch so it is usually screaming “hit me, hit me”. If you begin to see the pattern that pitchers are trying to start you off with a first pitch breaking ball feel free to go up there looking for it and swing at it. Eliminate any idea of the fastball from your mind and once you read breaking ball hit that thing hard. You will only have to prove your willingness to hit this pitch once as once you do pitchers won’t want to loop one in there first pitch and you will go back to getting more fastballs. Don’t allow the pitcher to get the upper hand simply because your stuck in old patterns of thinking. It’s okay to swing first pitch breaking ball as long as you were looking for it and as long as that’s what your approach was.

How to View Your At Bats

As hitters we have a tendency to only view our at bats in the terms of success or failure. When we get hits we feel as though we had success and that everything is okay and we don’t get hits we feel like we failed and that something must be wrong and need to be fixed. Unfortunately viewing our at bats in this way doesn’t allow us to grow and develop as hitters. If, for whatever reason, we are consistently getting hits we get easily lulled into a sense of false confidence. We take the hits at face value and assume that everything must be working. Our swing and mental approach must be sound since we are having success. We aren’t motivated then to look deeper at our performance and as a result don’t learn, grow, and fix minor flaws that could come back and bite us in the future.

The flip side is viewing our inability to get hits as failures. With each at bat that we don’t achieve the goal of getting a hit we place more and more pressure on ourselves and as a result become more and more mentally blocked which takes us further and further away from achieving the success we desire. As frustration builds it negatively effects our confidence until we simply assume that our lack of success is a direct reflection of our level of skill. As a result we are not in a position to learn and make the simple adjustments we need to make to create the results we desire.

It’s important to understand that success and failure don’t exist. They are nothing more then labels we place on the results that we produce. Every at bat, wether it’s a home run or strike out is nothing more then a result you produced. They’re nothing more then an opportunity to learn, adjust, and grow. In order to become the hitter you desire to become it’s imperative that you resist the urge to label your at bats as successes or failures. See your at bats as opportunities to learn more about your opponent and yourself. Viewing your at bats in this way will eliminate the emotional fluctuation that comes with success and failure. This will allow you to develop as a hitter at a much faster rate. Remember that there are millions of reasons as to why you could be getting hits or not getting hits. None of which are directly linked to your current skill level. Seeing you at bats as an opportunity to learn will allow you to increase your level of performance and become a far greater hitter then you could ever imagine.

The Importance of Your Base

There's a lot of confusion out there about just how wide a hitter's stance should be. Some believe that a player should have a wider stance, some believe it should be more narrow. But then why is it a wider or narrower stance works for some players but not others? I mean if wider or narrower is better then shouldn't it work for every player? The truth is the width of your stance or your base is different from player to player. There are many factors that determine just how wide your base should be. Your height, weight, center of gravity, age, overall body strength, all go into determining what the proper base for you is. So that's why we can't just have players widen up their stance or narrow it up, it's all based on finding that optimal width for each player.

So why is this important? Well, first of all the proper base allows a hitter to be in their strongest position at the point of contact. When the bat gets to the point of contact the body and the bat will merge as one as long as the body and the bat are in the right position. This all starts with the base. If the base is weak then the hitter won't be nearly as strong at the point of contact which obviously affects a players performance. The second reason that the base is important is it allows the hitter to repeat their swing more often. A weak base makes the hitter more susceptible to mechanical breakdown. Think of the foundation of a house, it the foundation is weak then it really doesn't matter how well built the structure is, if the foundation is weak then the structure is weak as well. The same is true about your swing. If you have a weak base you will be less likely to repeat your mechanics. As a result you will experience inconsistent performance. So how do you determine what the right base is for you. Attached is a video describing a simple test you can do to determine your proper base. Anytime you begin to experience a drop in performance immediately check your base first. Sometimes the most basic fix will get you back in the groove.

Albert Pujols and Mark McGwire

Attached is a great video of Albert Pujols and Mark McGwire discussing hitting. In the video you can hear Albert talking about a couple of great points. First of all you can hear him talking about "staying inside" which I believe is one of the most over used terms in hitting because to creates a lengthened out bat path. You can hear him say that he is more focused on going down to the ball as opposed to "staying inside". The other thing he says that I really like is when he is talking about moving a runner over. Too many times coaches and hitters a like simply give up at bats by thinking that a groundball to the right side is what you are trying to accomplish in that situation. It's important to realize that a groundball to the right side should be considered a worst case scenario. What a hitter should be trying to do is drive the ball into the gap in right center. You can clearly hear Albert discussing this in the video. Finally check out how even when Albert is demonstrating his bat path to Mark how he uses and really extends with what is his top hand. To me this shows how important Albert considers this hand in the swing. This video is great because many proponents of the "rotational hitting theory" who want a hitter to swing in an upward plane use Albert as an example. However this video clearly shows that during his swing Albert's intention is to drive down to the ball.

Opening Day 2010

With Opening Day on Sunday we get the opportunity to watch the greatest players in the world perform over the next 6-7 months. One thing I’ve noticed with many of the athletes that I work with is that they don’t take the time to really sit down and watch the game. I would highly encourage everyone who is interested in becoming a better player to make watching games a habit. A player can really learn a lot by watching games but you really have to know what you are looking for. Many times when players watch games they’re just looking for homeruns or how hard a particular guy might be throwing. But the game of baseball has so many nuances to it that there is so much more to watch. Begin to watch how the players carry themselves, notice their effort levels, their positioning. Watch how pitchers pitch guys in different situations, see if you can pick up a pitcher’s tendencies, what pitch do they go to when they are ahead in the count. Watch how quite hitters are at the plate, see if you can pick up their approach. Watch how their approach changes during different situations. Begin to watch more games and when you do try and pick up on these different nuances. Watching and beginning to recognize these things will help you improve as a player.