Baseball Batting Tips: Easy Tweaks for Baseball Hitting
With baseball season in full swing, no pun intended, we thought it would be a fun blog topic to touch on some simple and easy tips for baseball batting. Clearly, having great batting skills is a key to being successful in the sport. We hope this blog is useful for coaches and players alike! Let’s jump into the baseball hitting tweaks and tips! Hey batter batter, SWING!
Let’s just start with a tip that many pro batting coaches and players like to make point of saying; remember that there are many different batting styles and not one is the end-all-be-all right way to do it. Optimize and enhance your own unique batting style, rather than copying someone with a different build than you, or a different stance etc.
Batting is equally a mental challenge as it is physical. Many players tend to psych themselves up when the step up to the plate. All eyes are on you! It’s an intimidating moment in the game for any level player. But, it’s important to keep calm before you step up to bat. Go to a happy place in your mind and take a few deep breaths. Another good way to mentally be prepared for batting is to visualize the outcome you want. Then, after the game go back over what happened. Did what you visualized happen? If not, learn from it! Be cognitively aware of the flaws you made that did not turn your visualization into reality. Think about steps you could have taken differently and implement them in your next game.
A great tip that many likely overlook is to work hard at your strengths. I know many might think it’s important to focus on weaknesses, however a big part of your successful baseball batting is within your strengths. Develop parts of your batting that come naturally to be absolutely perfect, and this will help your game tremendously.
One more tip is to avoid drastic changes. Minor tweaks to your hitting style is where the most success occurs. Remember, there’s not a single right way to bat, so don’t force players or yourself to change so drastically that it’s not recognizable as your natural style anymore.
An extremely common error that many great players make when batting is swing length. Most suffer from having a swing path that is too long. Many pro batting coaches point out this mechanical batting flaw as one players do not tend to realize is occurring. Most players swing slightly upward. This is a simple correction that can help immensely with control of the ball.
Another common error is placement of the batter’s head. The player’s head should be still throughout the swing. An easy mental note to enforce. It’s something that is often a simple solution, player’s just need to become aware of the issue.
One other key point mentioned by pro players is to focus on hip rotation. Tee drills are great for honing in on the correct movement for this. Players should be driving their hip toward the ball and the back knee toward the front ankle. This can be a complex idea for young or more novice players to adjust to, however once the repetitive motion from tee drills becomes part of their muscle memory, it will help with the player’s batting success!
Another common thing most players have heard in their baseball careers is “Go with the pitch”. This is a frequent phrase from many minor and major league coaches when there is an outside pitch; however, this should be something that rings true with every single pitch.
We hope that these tips and tweaks for baseball batting and hitting were helpful in some way! Tell us your best tip in the comments below! Play ball!