Monday, December 19, 2011
Monday, December 12, 2011
Run Faster - Jump Higher
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Friday, December 9, 2011
CONFIDENCE
Confidence Conquers The Fear Of Failure:
Confidence comes from:
1. Perfect Practice, Practice, Practice!
2. The Knowledge That You Work Harder and Longer Than Anyone Else!
3. By Being In Excellent Physical Condition!
4. Through Strength Training!
Confidence comes from:
1. Perfect Practice, Practice, Practice!
2. The Knowledge That You Work Harder and Longer Than Anyone Else!
3. By Being In Excellent Physical Condition!
4. Through Strength Training!
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Monday, November 14, 2011
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Friday, August 26, 2011
Conditioning & Training
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Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Friday, August 19, 2011
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Pro Hitting Workout with Alex Rodriquez
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…helping individuals and teams achieve success and realize their fullest potential…
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Alex Rodriguez DVDs, Videos & Books -- Championship Productions, Inc.
…helping individuals and teams achieve success and realize their fullest potential…
We carry out this mission by producing high quality, instructional products featuring renowned professionals in every sport and by providing the best customer service in the industry. The foundation of our mission is built on teamwork, personal improvement, a positive attitude, and a commitment to excellence.
Alex Rodriguez DVDs, Videos & Books -- Championship Productions, Inc.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Baseball Pros Swing Analysis - Albert Pujols
Watch how Albert takes his hands back and cocks his hips as he loads to launch his powerful swing!
Baseball Tonight Breaks Down Jose Bautista's Powerful Swing
Check the torque Bautista gets from his core and how he loads his hands..
Monday, August 8, 2011
Baseball - Off Season Training Tips
Many of you have been practcing and playing baseball since January. It's been a long season. Now that the season is winding down, step away from baseball for a few weeks. Take some time to clear your mind and plan for next year.
Stay in shape, however. Run a few 60 yard dashes, do some exercise band work to keep arm, shoulders and core in shape. Some light weights also, but no baseball for a while.
Use your off-time to watch some Major League baseball games on TV. Check the hitters: how do the good hitters load; how do they start their hands; note that the power guys use a Rotational Approach; how do they finish?
Watch the pitchers for mechanics: long arm swing? Stride length; leg lift; check how they develop torque. What do they throw when behind in the account? Ahead in count? Watch the game not as a fan but as a student! Learn form the experience.
Ease back into your baseball routine after a few weeks off. BP, throwing, long distance throwing, ground balls for infielders and lots of core work.
Bull pens for pitchers, long distance throwing, work on a new pitch, sprints and light weights.
Make a list of 2 or 3 areas of your game you need to work on and set a schedule to help you plan when and how you will accomplish those goals.
Take some time off and then begin in earnest to prepare for next season.
Stay in shape, however. Run a few 60 yard dashes, do some exercise band work to keep arm, shoulders and core in shape. Some light weights also, but no baseball for a while.
Use your off-time to watch some Major League baseball games on TV. Check the hitters: how do the good hitters load; how do they start their hands; note that the power guys use a Rotational Approach; how do they finish?
Watch the pitchers for mechanics: long arm swing? Stride length; leg lift; check how they develop torque. What do they throw when behind in the account? Ahead in count? Watch the game not as a fan but as a student! Learn form the experience.
Ease back into your baseball routine after a few weeks off. BP, throwing, long distance throwing, ground balls for infielders and lots of core work.
Bull pens for pitchers, long distance throwing, work on a new pitch, sprints and light weights.
Make a list of 2 or 3 areas of your game you need to work on and set a schedule to help you plan when and how you will accomplish those goals.
Take some time off and then begin in earnest to prepare for next season.
Friday, August 5, 2011
Hitting Tips From Hall Of Fame Coach
Baseball Coaching Tips – Trusting The Hands
We’ve often heard baseball coaches tell their players, “Trust the hands!” and “Throw Your Hands” Is that a good coaching concept?
Our hands are auto reactors. They provide some of our quickest muscle reactions. If we hold our hands up and pop our wrists, we can do that over and over again very quickly. If someone were to throw a punch at us, our hands would quickly and automatically pop in defense.
As in infielder, we don’t have to think about a ball thrown to us. Our hands will react to the direction of the ball and make the catch without having to think about it.
Think of the catcher after he gives the sign to the pitcher. He is taught to frame the pitch. His hands automatically go to the pitch without any thought or direction.
So, the hands are auto reactors. Is this good for the hitter? The answer is: NO! The hitter who allows his hands to react automatically as his first movement towards the pitch will never have full body support.
When the hands go too early, this is when we hear the coach yell out, “Wait on the pitch!”.
Now, let’s apply this to our baseball coaching tips:
1. Coil (Load): The hitter collects his weight on the backside
2. Stride: A linear step towards the pitched ball (30-40% of weight transfer)
3. Body Rotation: Hips rotate toward the ball
4. Hands will then, and only then, execute the stroke
Here is one of our best baseball coaching tips: “HIPS TAKE US TO THE BALL. HANDS TAKE US THROUGH THE BALL.”
So, when we are learning how to hit in baseball, do we trust the hands? The answer is:
Don’t trust the hands. Then, trust the hands. In other words, discipline the hands to wait until we get into the launch position, which is with the hands inside the ball and hips rotated.
Our hands do not initiate the stroke until we rotate to the pitch. They travel in rotation with the pivot, but they do not commit to the pitch until the rotation is complete. This rotated position with the hands still back is what we call the DRIVE position. It is at that time that the hands will launch.
NOW we can trust them. Let them explode the bat to the ball.
One final note. Remember that when we hit, the hands are in a double lever system. That is, they don’t personally go to the ball. They are holding the bat, which goes to the ball. The hands always end up in front of the body. They are responsible for directing the bat to the proper cut line on the pitch.
These techniques are fully explained in our Super 8 Hitting System DVD set, completely demonstrated in a series of baseball coaching tips.
Good luck – hope this helps.
Coach Joe Brockhoff
We’ve often heard baseball coaches tell their players, “Trust the hands!” and “Throw Your Hands” Is that a good coaching concept?
Our hands are auto reactors. They provide some of our quickest muscle reactions. If we hold our hands up and pop our wrists, we can do that over and over again very quickly. If someone were to throw a punch at us, our hands would quickly and automatically pop in defense.
As in infielder, we don’t have to think about a ball thrown to us. Our hands will react to the direction of the ball and make the catch without having to think about it.
Think of the catcher after he gives the sign to the pitcher. He is taught to frame the pitch. His hands automatically go to the pitch without any thought or direction.
So, the hands are auto reactors. Is this good for the hitter? The answer is: NO! The hitter who allows his hands to react automatically as his first movement towards the pitch will never have full body support.
When the hands go too early, this is when we hear the coach yell out, “Wait on the pitch!”.
Now, let’s apply this to our baseball coaching tips:
1. Coil (Load): The hitter collects his weight on the backside
2. Stride: A linear step towards the pitched ball (30-40% of weight transfer)
3. Body Rotation: Hips rotate toward the ball
4. Hands will then, and only then, execute the stroke
Here is one of our best baseball coaching tips: “HIPS TAKE US TO THE BALL. HANDS TAKE US THROUGH THE BALL.”
So, when we are learning how to hit in baseball, do we trust the hands? The answer is:
Don’t trust the hands. Then, trust the hands. In other words, discipline the hands to wait until we get into the launch position, which is with the hands inside the ball and hips rotated.
Our hands do not initiate the stroke until we rotate to the pitch. They travel in rotation with the pivot, but they do not commit to the pitch until the rotation is complete. This rotated position with the hands still back is what we call the DRIVE position. It is at that time that the hands will launch.
NOW we can trust them. Let them explode the bat to the ball.
One final note. Remember that when we hit, the hands are in a double lever system. That is, they don’t personally go to the ball. They are holding the bat, which goes to the ball. The hands always end up in front of the body. They are responsible for directing the bat to the proper cut line on the pitch.
These techniques are fully explained in our Super 8 Hitting System DVD set, completely demonstrated in a series of baseball coaching tips.
Good luck – hope this helps.
Coach Joe Brockhoff
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Friday, May 27, 2011
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Baseball Hats - New Era
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Monday, May 16, 2011
Sunday, May 15, 2011
What Scouts Look For In A Pitcher
This article is reprinted from the August 18, 2010 issue of "Baseball America".
By Conor Glassey
August 18, 2010
Tools are a basic building block of our coverage at Baseball America. We begin assessing players' tools from the time they become prominent high school players, and we continue to do it through college and the minor leagues all the way to the majors. It culminates with the Best Tools feature that we unveiled last week, but we really write about tools all year long.
That makes sense because tools are a basic building block for players as well. Many other factors enter into the equation of whether a player will reach his potential in his career, but without the basic physical skills the player's career will never get started in the first place.
With that in mind, BA assistant editor Conor Glassey spent the past year interviewing area scouts, talking to them about specific aspects of their job, with a specific focus on the skills they look for in players and how they judge them.
Scouting Pitching
When you're watching a pitcher for the first time, what are you looking for?
"First, it's his arm slot. Is he sidearm or three-quarters, high-three quarter or overhand? And then his arm swing in the back. Is it clean in the back? Or is it short and compact? Is it rigid? And then arm speed coming through. Does he have a live arm? That's really the first thing because the guy that has a slow arm, obviously, isn't going to throw very hard. And then his size. Traditionally, you want a guy 6-foot-1 or above, because that's going to give him leverage and create plane on the fastball to home plate. The ability to spin the breaking ball, too, especially a high school kid. He's got to be able to spin either the curveball or the slider." A lot of times there's been guys with good arms that don't have an feel to spin it, but then they get in the minor leagues and not only do they have to have success with getting hitters out, when they're learning a breaking ball, it's tough for them. It's something that I'd really like to see a young high school pitcher have, is the ability to spin the breaking ball with a good tight spin and have some feel for it. A college guy, obviously he better have feel of some type of breaking ball to have any type of success at the college level and then at the pro level, too.
"It's always been about stuff, just pure stuff. Fastball, curveball, changeup—you know, what do those things do now and what are they going to do in the future? The projection, for me, is not so much the body. We all like the big, projectable body and you know what that looks like. But it's not so much that, it's the arm speed. If you want to throw 90 mph, you have to make your arm go 90 mph. It's real simple, but that's the biggest thing I look at if I think they're going to project and get those pitches to get better. The second thing is, and I'll go to my grave with this one. I follow all the guys I've scouted with this and that's if they are strike throwers in high school, I don't care if they're throwing 85 mph, but if they're strike throwers in high school, they're going to continue to be strike throwers. But if they're not, they are not going to become strike throwers. I don't care if Houdini works with them or some combination of Leo Mazzone and the other best pitching coach in the world, whoever that might be. If you don't throw strikes at a young age, you're not going to learn how to throw them. To me, that's the biggest thing. I've drafted some big arms and they've made it to the big leagues as relievers or whatever, but they're always going to give their managers headaches because they'll be like, 'Can he throw a strike?' "
"You hate to say it, but velocity is kind of the first thing that jumps out at you. There are plenty of kids out here that can pitch but are throwing 80 and that just isn't going to work. I like to see athleticism in the delivery, a repeatable delivery and a low-stress delivery—something where they're not significantly fighting their body to throw quality strikes. I don't like to see a lot of side-to-side movement—pitchers that either throw across their body or stride open and open their front side early. Generally, that creates a lot more stress in the delivery and it's going to hinder their command and their stuff. The ultimate goal this guy has is getting the ball on a straight line to the plate, so if they have that side-to-side movement and creating momentum with their body toward either first base or third base, they have to then fight back to get to the plate and throw strikes. So, as much as guys can minimize that, is certainly a good thing. And you want to see a delivery that works together, the bottom half and the upper half, so a guy's not just throwing all arm. The more athletic the guy is, the more apt he's probably going to be to making these sort of adjustments. If you have a guy who isn't particularly athletic and has a high-maintenance delivery, it's going to become difficult for that guy, as he becomes physically mature, to straighten out his delivery. It's nice when you go in to see a pitcher and then the next day he's playing shortstop or center field or catching and hitting in the three hole. Those are the type of athletes that you're looking for. I feel that if a kid is athletic and shows some aptitude on the mound, then a lot of those delivery flaws are fixable. I tend to think arm action is arm action—the first time you pick up a ball and throw it is generally how you throw and trying to change someone's arm action isn't particularly a successful practice. Most of the guys get hurt or they lose their stuff. It's kind of a fine line where some people have to make a decision: Are they going to continue pitching in a way that is likely to get them hurt, but maintain their stuff, or are they doing to take a risk and see if they can maintain their stuff while changing their arm action significantly?"
"I look at arm action, I look at how clean and easy it is. But it depends, you know, because a lot of relievers in the big leagues throw with some effort. I think it's hard to find starters. Number one, I'm looking for athleticism or a guy that has the ability to repeat his delivery consistently. As long as he can repeat it, there's a good chance he can repeat it with a fastball, which means he's going to be able to locate his fastball. And, if he's a dude, he should be able to locate his secondary pitches also. Starters, for me, should have at least three average pitches or better with plus control. If it's a lefthander, I'll give him a little bit of the benefit of the doubt on the fastball velo if he can paint and mix. The biggest thing though, for me, if you're a starter—especially if you have average stuff—you better be able to command it. You better be able to have some fastball sink or exceptional movement. Because if it's just straight or it's just fringy movement, you don't have a chance, dude—you're going to get hammered. The more movement, the better. That's why everyone wants Halladay because the movement is ridiculous."
"The delivery: how his arm action is in the back and how the ball comes out of his hand. A lot of times we're always worried about, if he doesn't have the prettiest arm action, is that an injury waiting to happen down the road? If it's a clean arm action and the ball comes out good, but the velo might not be there, well you can project that when he gets bigger and stronger, the velo's going to be there because he has good arm action, he's clean. I look where his front foot lands, too. If his front foot lands open—if he's a righthanded pitcher and his left toe is pointing to the first base dugout—that's not good. That's muscle memory and it's hard to get a kid out of that. You don't want to land with an open heel because you're losing velo and you're losing your lower half there. I'm not saying it can't be corrected, but pitching coaches I've talked to say it's hard to get a kid out of it. Unless the kid's blowing 92-94 (mph) already, well then you can live with it. But if he's 88-90, well, he's generic then."
What do you like to see and what don't you want to see when it comes to a pitcher's mechanics?
"For me, as a scout, if I don't see any major red flag areas, I'm OK with the delivery and I know our guys are good enough that they'll tweak him to where he can do things a little bit better, so I don't concern myself with that too much. I'm kind of a big mouth, but I go down the side like everybody else does with a righthanded pitcher—you know, down the third-base line. And when I'm walking down, I always go, 'I'm just walking down here to BS, fellas. I'm not quite sure what to look at down here.' Some scouts will watch a pitcher's mechanics and they'll go, 'See, he got over his front leg!' And I'm just like, 'Let me tell you something. I don't care if he got over his front leg or not, that curveball just went like this and their best hitter just swung and missed at it.' You can go over your front knee all you want, but if you don't have any stuff to get him out, you're not going to be any good!"
Tim Lincecum
"Usually the guys that repeat their delivery better are the guys that are more athletic. For example, Tim Lincecum, who is ultra-athletic. Actually, if you've ever seen him golf, he's a really impressive golfer. When we're talking arm action, ideally you want a cleaner circle. You don't want a stab or a jab, where they're basically stabbing their arm back and it doesn't come out of the glove as a clean circle, because that action, as your body moves forward, is very hard to repeat. Take, for example, Greg Maddux, who had a very clean delivery. How was his command? Pretty good. Jamie Moyer? How's his command? Very good, right? John Lackey—really fluid, easy arm action, but it's always on time, you never see it dragging behind, for the most part. Or a Josh Beckett—power arm, but a very clean delivery in my opinion. Everyone's got a little flaw here and there, but the reason we want those arm actions to be like a clean either full circle, or a medium circle, or even like a Bartolo Colon who had a short circle in his prime, it's because circles are like a timing mechanism and they end up being on time more often than a guy that stabs or stops his arm. You've still got your Rick Sutcliffes who actually plunge their arm down and came back up—there are some exceptions to the rule. But, in most cases, that's kind of the ideal arm action we're looking for and that helps with repeating your delivery and delivering the baseball. So, we can say, 'Hey, this is what we want.' But do you know what the reality is? Along comes a Tim Lincecum who like stabs the ball behind his back and then brings it all the way around—and he can pound the zone with three pitches—and then that goes right out the window. So, there's an ideal model I think we're all looking for, but we're also not going to ignore the guy that has a great feel for repeating his delivery and timing."
"The red flags, mechanically, are a real short arm action in the back. Maybe a low-slotted elbow, when the elbow's lower than the shoulder and just pushing the ball toward the plate, that would tend to create problems over the long haul. And this happens with most players, most of them stand straight up and down, nowadays. They don't get good extension out front and they don't finish the pitch. And I'm talking about finishing the pitch with the hand outside of the knee on the land leg there. They all stand straight up and down and I believe that they do that because it's physically easier to finish the pitch standing straight up and down. But with that, they're not going to get extension and the ball is going to have the tendency to be up in the strike zone more. Extension is the one thing that I don't see a lot of pitchers get out there in the amateur world. And when you do see it, he definitely stands apart."
What kinds of things do you look for that make you think someone will add velocity down the line?
"First and foremost, if he's a max-effort guy and he's already maxing out, he's probably going to go backward. It's kind of like a four-cylinder engine on a vehicle—the harder that it's got to work to go uphill, eventually the guy that's a V-8 can get up the hill a little easier. Loose as in it comes out with a little less effort—it looks like he's playing catch, right? The reason we want those guys is because if they work at a lower effort and they can maintain velocity, they're going to probably be able to go a little harder maybe when they need to or probably be able to maintain that 92-93 mph sinkerball through nine innings without a problem."
"First, it's the eye test. We're looking for tall, lean—I'm not going to say skinny kids, but non-mature kids that three or four years down the road, they're going to get in the weight room to where you can project that they are going to throw harder. If you go out there and you already see a mature kid that's 90-92, well I don't know how much you can project any more in that. But if you get the skinnier kid or the leaner kid with good arm action that's already sitting 89-91, you're going to believe he's going to add more velo to his fastball. As a scout, we're hoping to project on a kid. I don't like going to the ballpark and the 18-year-old senior is already a man and there's no projection there, it is what it is. I think, as a scout, the worst thing a kid can have as a high school senior or even a high school junior is a beard. That's not good. You walk into a ballpark and you've never seen the kid yet, but you walk in and he's got a fully grown beard. That tells me he's mature and there's not projection there. It's all about perception. Perception is 90 percent of it. Whether it's right or wrong, if I walk into a ballpark and I see a kid with a beard and he's just OK, well I can't project anymore. The kid's fully matured. That's one thing for me, I like baby-faced guys."
By Conor Glassey
August 18, 2010
Tools are a basic building block of our coverage at Baseball America. We begin assessing players' tools from the time they become prominent high school players, and we continue to do it through college and the minor leagues all the way to the majors. It culminates with the Best Tools feature that we unveiled last week, but we really write about tools all year long.
That makes sense because tools are a basic building block for players as well. Many other factors enter into the equation of whether a player will reach his potential in his career, but without the basic physical skills the player's career will never get started in the first place.
With that in mind, BA assistant editor Conor Glassey spent the past year interviewing area scouts, talking to them about specific aspects of their job, with a specific focus on the skills they look for in players and how they judge them.
Scouting Pitching
When you're watching a pitcher for the first time, what are you looking for?
"First, it's his arm slot. Is he sidearm or three-quarters, high-three quarter or overhand? And then his arm swing in the back. Is it clean in the back? Or is it short and compact? Is it rigid? And then arm speed coming through. Does he have a live arm? That's really the first thing because the guy that has a slow arm, obviously, isn't going to throw very hard. And then his size. Traditionally, you want a guy 6-foot-1 or above, because that's going to give him leverage and create plane on the fastball to home plate. The ability to spin the breaking ball, too, especially a high school kid. He's got to be able to spin either the curveball or the slider." A lot of times there's been guys with good arms that don't have an feel to spin it, but then they get in the minor leagues and not only do they have to have success with getting hitters out, when they're learning a breaking ball, it's tough for them. It's something that I'd really like to see a young high school pitcher have, is the ability to spin the breaking ball with a good tight spin and have some feel for it. A college guy, obviously he better have feel of some type of breaking ball to have any type of success at the college level and then at the pro level, too.
"It's always been about stuff, just pure stuff. Fastball, curveball, changeup—you know, what do those things do now and what are they going to do in the future? The projection, for me, is not so much the body. We all like the big, projectable body and you know what that looks like. But it's not so much that, it's the arm speed. If you want to throw 90 mph, you have to make your arm go 90 mph. It's real simple, but that's the biggest thing I look at if I think they're going to project and get those pitches to get better. The second thing is, and I'll go to my grave with this one. I follow all the guys I've scouted with this and that's if they are strike throwers in high school, I don't care if they're throwing 85 mph, but if they're strike throwers in high school, they're going to continue to be strike throwers. But if they're not, they are not going to become strike throwers. I don't care if Houdini works with them or some combination of Leo Mazzone and the other best pitching coach in the world, whoever that might be. If you don't throw strikes at a young age, you're not going to learn how to throw them. To me, that's the biggest thing. I've drafted some big arms and they've made it to the big leagues as relievers or whatever, but they're always going to give their managers headaches because they'll be like, 'Can he throw a strike?' "
"You hate to say it, but velocity is kind of the first thing that jumps out at you. There are plenty of kids out here that can pitch but are throwing 80 and that just isn't going to work. I like to see athleticism in the delivery, a repeatable delivery and a low-stress delivery—something where they're not significantly fighting their body to throw quality strikes. I don't like to see a lot of side-to-side movement—pitchers that either throw across their body or stride open and open their front side early. Generally, that creates a lot more stress in the delivery and it's going to hinder their command and their stuff. The ultimate goal this guy has is getting the ball on a straight line to the plate, so if they have that side-to-side movement and creating momentum with their body toward either first base or third base, they have to then fight back to get to the plate and throw strikes. So, as much as guys can minimize that, is certainly a good thing. And you want to see a delivery that works together, the bottom half and the upper half, so a guy's not just throwing all arm. The more athletic the guy is, the more apt he's probably going to be to making these sort of adjustments. If you have a guy who isn't particularly athletic and has a high-maintenance delivery, it's going to become difficult for that guy, as he becomes physically mature, to straighten out his delivery. It's nice when you go in to see a pitcher and then the next day he's playing shortstop or center field or catching and hitting in the three hole. Those are the type of athletes that you're looking for. I feel that if a kid is athletic and shows some aptitude on the mound, then a lot of those delivery flaws are fixable. I tend to think arm action is arm action—the first time you pick up a ball and throw it is generally how you throw and trying to change someone's arm action isn't particularly a successful practice. Most of the guys get hurt or they lose their stuff. It's kind of a fine line where some people have to make a decision: Are they going to continue pitching in a way that is likely to get them hurt, but maintain their stuff, or are they doing to take a risk and see if they can maintain their stuff while changing their arm action significantly?"
"I look at arm action, I look at how clean and easy it is. But it depends, you know, because a lot of relievers in the big leagues throw with some effort. I think it's hard to find starters. Number one, I'm looking for athleticism or a guy that has the ability to repeat his delivery consistently. As long as he can repeat it, there's a good chance he can repeat it with a fastball, which means he's going to be able to locate his fastball. And, if he's a dude, he should be able to locate his secondary pitches also. Starters, for me, should have at least three average pitches or better with plus control. If it's a lefthander, I'll give him a little bit of the benefit of the doubt on the fastball velo if he can paint and mix. The biggest thing though, for me, if you're a starter—especially if you have average stuff—you better be able to command it. You better be able to have some fastball sink or exceptional movement. Because if it's just straight or it's just fringy movement, you don't have a chance, dude—you're going to get hammered. The more movement, the better. That's why everyone wants Halladay because the movement is ridiculous."
"The delivery: how his arm action is in the back and how the ball comes out of his hand. A lot of times we're always worried about, if he doesn't have the prettiest arm action, is that an injury waiting to happen down the road? If it's a clean arm action and the ball comes out good, but the velo might not be there, well you can project that when he gets bigger and stronger, the velo's going to be there because he has good arm action, he's clean. I look where his front foot lands, too. If his front foot lands open—if he's a righthanded pitcher and his left toe is pointing to the first base dugout—that's not good. That's muscle memory and it's hard to get a kid out of that. You don't want to land with an open heel because you're losing velo and you're losing your lower half there. I'm not saying it can't be corrected, but pitching coaches I've talked to say it's hard to get a kid out of it. Unless the kid's blowing 92-94 (mph) already, well then you can live with it. But if he's 88-90, well, he's generic then."
What do you like to see and what don't you want to see when it comes to a pitcher's mechanics?
"For me, as a scout, if I don't see any major red flag areas, I'm OK with the delivery and I know our guys are good enough that they'll tweak him to where he can do things a little bit better, so I don't concern myself with that too much. I'm kind of a big mouth, but I go down the side like everybody else does with a righthanded pitcher—you know, down the third-base line. And when I'm walking down, I always go, 'I'm just walking down here to BS, fellas. I'm not quite sure what to look at down here.' Some scouts will watch a pitcher's mechanics and they'll go, 'See, he got over his front leg!' And I'm just like, 'Let me tell you something. I don't care if he got over his front leg or not, that curveball just went like this and their best hitter just swung and missed at it.' You can go over your front knee all you want, but if you don't have any stuff to get him out, you're not going to be any good!"
Tim Lincecum
"Usually the guys that repeat their delivery better are the guys that are more athletic. For example, Tim Lincecum, who is ultra-athletic. Actually, if you've ever seen him golf, he's a really impressive golfer. When we're talking arm action, ideally you want a cleaner circle. You don't want a stab or a jab, where they're basically stabbing their arm back and it doesn't come out of the glove as a clean circle, because that action, as your body moves forward, is very hard to repeat. Take, for example, Greg Maddux, who had a very clean delivery. How was his command? Pretty good. Jamie Moyer? How's his command? Very good, right? John Lackey—really fluid, easy arm action, but it's always on time, you never see it dragging behind, for the most part. Or a Josh Beckett—power arm, but a very clean delivery in my opinion. Everyone's got a little flaw here and there, but the reason we want those arm actions to be like a clean either full circle, or a medium circle, or even like a Bartolo Colon who had a short circle in his prime, it's because circles are like a timing mechanism and they end up being on time more often than a guy that stabs or stops his arm. You've still got your Rick Sutcliffes who actually plunge their arm down and came back up—there are some exceptions to the rule. But, in most cases, that's kind of the ideal arm action we're looking for and that helps with repeating your delivery and delivering the baseball. So, we can say, 'Hey, this is what we want.' But do you know what the reality is? Along comes a Tim Lincecum who like stabs the ball behind his back and then brings it all the way around—and he can pound the zone with three pitches—and then that goes right out the window. So, there's an ideal model I think we're all looking for, but we're also not going to ignore the guy that has a great feel for repeating his delivery and timing."
"The red flags, mechanically, are a real short arm action in the back. Maybe a low-slotted elbow, when the elbow's lower than the shoulder and just pushing the ball toward the plate, that would tend to create problems over the long haul. And this happens with most players, most of them stand straight up and down, nowadays. They don't get good extension out front and they don't finish the pitch. And I'm talking about finishing the pitch with the hand outside of the knee on the land leg there. They all stand straight up and down and I believe that they do that because it's physically easier to finish the pitch standing straight up and down. But with that, they're not going to get extension and the ball is going to have the tendency to be up in the strike zone more. Extension is the one thing that I don't see a lot of pitchers get out there in the amateur world. And when you do see it, he definitely stands apart."
What kinds of things do you look for that make you think someone will add velocity down the line?
"First and foremost, if he's a max-effort guy and he's already maxing out, he's probably going to go backward. It's kind of like a four-cylinder engine on a vehicle—the harder that it's got to work to go uphill, eventually the guy that's a V-8 can get up the hill a little easier. Loose as in it comes out with a little less effort—it looks like he's playing catch, right? The reason we want those guys is because if they work at a lower effort and they can maintain velocity, they're going to probably be able to go a little harder maybe when they need to or probably be able to maintain that 92-93 mph sinkerball through nine innings without a problem."
"First, it's the eye test. We're looking for tall, lean—I'm not going to say skinny kids, but non-mature kids that three or four years down the road, they're going to get in the weight room to where you can project that they are going to throw harder. If you go out there and you already see a mature kid that's 90-92, well I don't know how much you can project any more in that. But if you get the skinnier kid or the leaner kid with good arm action that's already sitting 89-91, you're going to believe he's going to add more velo to his fastball. As a scout, we're hoping to project on a kid. I don't like going to the ballpark and the 18-year-old senior is already a man and there's no projection there, it is what it is. I think, as a scout, the worst thing a kid can have as a high school senior or even a high school junior is a beard. That's not good. You walk into a ballpark and you've never seen the kid yet, but you walk in and he's got a fully grown beard. That tells me he's mature and there's not projection there. It's all about perception. Perception is 90 percent of it. Whether it's right or wrong, if I walk into a ballpark and I see a kid with a beard and he's just OK, well I can't project anymore. The kid's fully matured. That's one thing for me, I like baby-faced guys."
Friday, May 6, 2011
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Friday, April 22, 2011
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Monday, April 18, 2011
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Monday, April 11, 2011
Friday, April 8, 2011
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Friday, April 1, 2011
Major League Baseball Salaries - 2011
Major League Baseball's Top 15 Salaries for 2011:
1. Alex Rodriquez - Yankees $32,000,000
2. Vernon Wells - LA Angels $26,642,857
3. C.C. Sabathia - Yankees $24,285,714
4. Mark Teixeira - Yankees $23,125,000
5. Joe Mauer - Twins $23,000,000
6. Johan Santana - Mets $21,644,708
7. Todd Helton -Rockies $20,275,000
8. Miguel Cabrera - Tigers $20,000,000
9. Roy Halladay - Phillies $20.000,000
10.Ryan Howard - Phillies $20,000,000
11.Carlos Beltran - Mets $19,325,436
12.Carlos Lee - Astros $19.000,000
13.Alfonso Soriano - Cubs $19,000,000
14.Carlos Sambrano - Cubs $18,875,000
15.Tori Hunter - LA Angels $18,500,000
1. Alex Rodriquez - Yankees $32,000,000
2. Vernon Wells - LA Angels $26,642,857
3. C.C. Sabathia - Yankees $24,285,714
4. Mark Teixeira - Yankees $23,125,000
5. Joe Mauer - Twins $23,000,000
6. Johan Santana - Mets $21,644,708
7. Todd Helton -Rockies $20,275,000
8. Miguel Cabrera - Tigers $20,000,000
9. Roy Halladay - Phillies $20.000,000
10.Ryan Howard - Phillies $20,000,000
11.Carlos Beltran - Mets $19,325,436
12.Carlos Lee - Astros $19.000,000
13.Alfonso Soriano - Cubs $19,000,000
14.Carlos Sambrano - Cubs $18,875,000
15.Tori Hunter - LA Angels $18,500,000
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Tim Lincecum 97 mph fastball | Somax Analysis
Amazing video analysis of Tim Lincecum's pitching mechanics!
pitching mechanics of tim lincecum and joshua fields (slow)
Wow! Look at Tim Lincecum's stride length!
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Pitcher's Exercise - Vanderbilt University Baseball Exercise- Rice Bucket
Rice Bucket Drill strengthens hands, fingers & forearms.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Resistance Bands
Resistance bands by Bodylastics are designed to be more effective than anything else on the market.
Every Bodylastics elastic band includes our amazing quick clip attached at each end.
The clip system will enable you to create many different resistance band resistance levels.
Every Bodylastics elastic band includes our amazing quick clip attached at each end.
The clip system will enable you to create many different resistance band resistance levels.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Jaeger Sports Baseball Long Toss Throwing Program -- Condensed
Long Toss Phase of Jaeger Sports Throwing Program
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Hitting - Baseball Pros Swing Analysis - Albert Pujols
All great hitters load their hips by cocking the front knee.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Baseball Coaching DVD's
Some of the best coaching DVD's available anywhere! Check the wide selection at Championship Products, Inc.
Baseball DVDs, Videos & Books -- Championship Productions, Inc.
Baseball DVDs, Videos & Books -- Championship Productions, Inc.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Hitting - What Scouts Look For
This article is reprinted from an August 2010 issue of "Baseball America".
By Conor Glassey
August 18, 2010
Tools are a basic building block of our coverage at Baseball America. We begin assessing players' tools from the time they become prominent high school players, and we continue to do it through college and the minor leagues all the way to the majors. It culminates with the Best Tools feature that we unveiled last week, but we really write about tools all year long.
That makes sense because tools are a basic building block for players as well. Many other factors enter into the equation of whether a player will reach his potential in his career, but without the basic physical skills the player's career will never get started in the first place.
With that in mind, BA assistant editor Conor Glassey spent the past year interviewing area scouts, talking to them about specific aspects of their job, with a specific focus on the skills they look for in players and how they judge them.
Scouting Hitting
When you're watching a hitter for the first time, what are the things you like to see? What are you looking for?
"The first thing is bat speed—whether it's wood or aluminum—just, how fast can he swing the bat? That'd be the first thing and hopefully we get it with wood and (are) able to determine objectively what the bat speed is. And then his stance, his approach and does he have a feel to hit? Does he have a good knowledge of the strike zone? All those things are kind of objective there and you just kind of look at the hitter. Sometimes those guys will just walk up to the plate and they'll walk up there with confidence and look like they can hit. So, you just kind of piece it all together."
"A lot of what I'm looking for goes beyond what they're doing at the plate. You like to see the athleticism and the sort of body that is going to continue to get better. Guys that physically are what they are when they're 16 years old, it's difficult to project that guy out significantly. It's nice when a guy passes the eye test right when he walks off the bus. If I'm seeing a high school kid, I would hope that I can pick the kid out when I walk up to the field and I don't need to get a program to figure out which kid he is. At the plate, generally I'm looking at the mechanics of their swing and the bat speed that they have. You try to get into pitch recognition and plate discipline and things like that, but that really turns into one of the most difficult things for high school hitters because they're not seeing quality breaking balls and they're generally not seeing velocity."
"The single biggest thing for me, and I write it down all the time, is handsy looseness to the swing. In other words, just that little whip in the bat with the hands instead of the strength. And I know there are different types of guys with the strength swings like (Jim) Thome and (Mark) McGwire, but those guys are different types of birds. We don't see those guys very often. And I think those guys still have the handsy looseness, it just comes through as strength because of their bodies. But that handsy looseness, I've never seen a guy that didn't have that pan out and become big-time major league hitters. It's just that point in the swing where the top hand starts to move the bat. When the top hand starts to bring the bat head through the zone, those hands right there—how fast can they whip that bat? When a pitch is on the way, only those special guys really have that little bit of whip there to really get that bat head moving and get it in the right spot to make sure you square up the ball."
"It depends on when I'm watching him. So, if it's pregame and we're just watching batting practice, pregame is nice—you can learn some things about it, but it's not everything. I don't want to get too excited and I don't want to get too down, either. In batting practice, I'm looking for bat speed, I'm looking at the bat path, I'm looking at his balance, I'm looking at how his hands work—do they work independently, or does he kind of swing with his shoulders? I really like guys that have good hands. I'm looking for a short path that has some pop. It also depends on the position. If I know the guy plays a corner, I'm looking bat and power. I want to see some thump and if you're not thumping it, you better steal a ton of bases—you better be (Carl) Crawford. Once the game starts, I'm looking for a guy that can hit deep in the count, that can hit in situations and that flat-out hits the ball hard often. If you can't make contact, what good are you? That's the biggest thing with hitters—hitters hit. They hit the ball hard."
"We watch how the ball comes off the bat. How much raw power does the kid generate? Does he have some lift to his swing, does he have some loft? If he has some loft to his swing, that tells you with some raw power, he's going to hit some homers. If he doesn't generate any loft, he's going to be a doubles and singles kind of guy. I watch for the way he holds the bat. If he holds the bat back in his palms, then it's going to be a little tougher to hit. It's going to create some tension in his swing and not so much wristy action. It's kind of a negative if they hold the bat farther back in their palms."
Some scouts like it more than others, but what are your thoughts on watching players take batting practice?
"I like batting practice because I think your swing is basically the same as it is in batting practice. Your ability to adjust obviously comes into play when it's game speed, but you can get a good look at a player's pure mechanics in BP. But I think a lot of guys put too much into it. You walk out of there and the kid's missed two or three curveballs by a foot and gets jammed with an 87 mph fastball because he doesn't have enough bat speed and a guy's walking out of there still talking about the batting practice and I'm like, 'Dude, did you see the three freaking at-bats?' It's still about the game."
"You see how a player approaches batting practice. Does he use the whole field to hit? Usually in a batting practice round, the batter will try and go the other way for the first round and then the second round, he'll hit the ball where it's pitched and then maybe the third round he'll show his power to wherever that is, right field or left field. And then the path of the bat—does he hit a lot of fly balls? Does he hit a lot of ground balls? Is he a line-drive hitter? Does he square it up hard? Obviously batting practice pitchers don't throw very hard and you like to see a guy square a ball up pretty hard in BP consistently. A red flag would be a lot of swing and misses in BP or a couple swing and misses and fouling off the ball in the cage. That's a good indicator of hand-eye coordination. So, definitely how he approaches batting practice and how hard does he square it up in batting practice."
"I think it's huge. For me, it's huge. Because in the ballgames, I would say 75 percent of the high school kids we go watch are not getting pitched to. So, to be able to go see BP ahead of time and multiple times, that's huge for me. You can see how the swing works and what type of raw power he has. A lot of times, you like to go when they don't know you're there watching. In my area, kids take BP before the game on the field and I know a lot of places in the country, that doesn't happen."
How many times do you like to see a hitter before you're comfortable putting a grade on his tools?
"For me, of course over a couple of years with a college guy and you hope to see him a couple of times per year. The most difficult thing for me is when I go to see guys out of my area and I walk in on those really good players—guys that I know are good—and they don't have a good day or something and you have to ask yourself, 'OK, what did I see in BP? What did I see in his swings in the game, even though he didn't hit anything?' and then throw a grade on him, that's really tough. I guess the answer is at least a half a dozen times before you feel comfortable. As many as possible, basically."
"Well, I like to see one batting practice to see his raw power, see basically how far he can hit it. One batting practice I'm pretty good with. The more times you can see a hitter, the better. It depends on the game. If you go to a game and the guy gets pitched to and he squares a ball up and pretty much shows you what you think he's got, one game would be sufficient to write him up. But sometimes you might go to the game and he gets walked twice, or maybe he has a poor at-bat on the breaking ball, he waves at the breaking ball and he only gets three at-bats. Maybe it's a lefthanded hitter facing a lefthanded pitcher and the guy struggles off the lefthanded pitchers, so you think he might be a platoon guy and you have to come back and see him against a righthanded pitcher."
"Just once. I mean, you either get that fuzzy feeling, or you don't. If you get that fuzzy feeling, then it's on to the games to see how he takes pitches, how quiet he is at the plate—that's huge for me. You want to make sure his hands don't go forward or he doesn't lunge when he's taking pitches. If he's quiet taking pitches, then you know he's going to be a pretty good professional hitter. If you get that fuzzy feeling one time around, you've got to write him up. Pretty much, you have to, in order to start the process of getting your supervisors in to see him. The longer you wait, the longer it takes your supervisor to get in there because everybody else in the nation wants their guys looked at too. It's a long process to be able to get a kid seen by the people who make decisions."
"I'd really like to see the guy probably three or four games with a couple of batting practice sessions in there. You try and match those high school hitters up against someone that's at least going to pitch to them and potentially challenge them and see them against some sort of level of competition that isn't just someone throwing 75. A lot of the process in getting comfortable with these players is seeing them on the showcase circuit the summer before, so you have that follow number on the guy and you've had the opportunity to see them against some competition and then you go back in the spring and figure out if you got the guy right or you need to make an adjustment on him. With the hitters, I'd like to get as many at-bats as possible. It's certainly easier with the college guys because the matchups are significantly easier. The high school guys, you have to figure out which ones you like and get in and see them."
What are you looking for mechanically in a hitter's swing? What sorts of things are red flags for you?
"A lot of guys talk about a hitch not being correctable, but if a hitch is a timing mechanism, I think it's OK. If a hitch occurs during the swing and causes the bat to be late, then I do think you have a problem on that because that involves their hand-eye coordination when the ball's released and when they recognize it and so forth. So, a hitch bothers me if it's part of their swing and not a timing mechanism but, you know, we've all seen a million guys—the Eric Davises, the Bonds, all that—that hitch, but it's a timing mechanism and that bat's in the right spot when it needs to be. The arm bar doesn't really bother me because I think you can help that if you need to help it, but there's a lot of major league batters that arm bar but then get that bat going out there good enough. I think you can learn to help a guy develop not to do that. I don't know if there's any one thing that I would say 'Wow, that one can't be fixed.' Other than just a slow bat. Slow bat's a slow bat. If you don't have bat speed, I don't think you're going to develop it."
"Maybe a kid—no matter what his stance is, whether it's square or it's open—and he steps in the bucket, maybe he's showing you that he has a little fear of the ball and that kind of raises the yellow flag there. Swinging at the breaking ball out of the strike zone consistently, that may show you that he can't identify the pitch or can't lay off the pitch and that's tough to correct, too."
"I generally like to see guys with fairly calm approaches at the plate. An excessive movement, be it a high leg kick or a hitch with their hands or just anything that can alter the timing and execution of the swing, I don't like. That's not to say there aren't guys that do those kind of things and are extremely successful doing it, but I feel like those guys are the exception and the fact is that when you slow them all down, when their foot's down and their hands are ready to go, they're just about all in the exact same position. It doesn't matter if it's Manny Ramirez with the high leg kick or Gary Sheffield with the bat waggling. You slow down the video and they're in the same spot when they're ready to hit. Getting into that position consistently is a lot harder if you're moving around a bunch. Another thing I really don't like to see is head movement in a swing. You can't hit if you can't see it. So, any sort of thing where a player moves his head during a swing, it's difficult for that player to consistently center the ball against better competition."
By Conor Glassey
August 18, 2010
Tools are a basic building block of our coverage at Baseball America. We begin assessing players' tools from the time they become prominent high school players, and we continue to do it through college and the minor leagues all the way to the majors. It culminates with the Best Tools feature that we unveiled last week, but we really write about tools all year long.
That makes sense because tools are a basic building block for players as well. Many other factors enter into the equation of whether a player will reach his potential in his career, but without the basic physical skills the player's career will never get started in the first place.
With that in mind, BA assistant editor Conor Glassey spent the past year interviewing area scouts, talking to them about specific aspects of their job, with a specific focus on the skills they look for in players and how they judge them.
Scouting Hitting
When you're watching a hitter for the first time, what are the things you like to see? What are you looking for?
"The first thing is bat speed—whether it's wood or aluminum—just, how fast can he swing the bat? That'd be the first thing and hopefully we get it with wood and (are) able to determine objectively what the bat speed is. And then his stance, his approach and does he have a feel to hit? Does he have a good knowledge of the strike zone? All those things are kind of objective there and you just kind of look at the hitter. Sometimes those guys will just walk up to the plate and they'll walk up there with confidence and look like they can hit. So, you just kind of piece it all together."
"A lot of what I'm looking for goes beyond what they're doing at the plate. You like to see the athleticism and the sort of body that is going to continue to get better. Guys that physically are what they are when they're 16 years old, it's difficult to project that guy out significantly. It's nice when a guy passes the eye test right when he walks off the bus. If I'm seeing a high school kid, I would hope that I can pick the kid out when I walk up to the field and I don't need to get a program to figure out which kid he is. At the plate, generally I'm looking at the mechanics of their swing and the bat speed that they have. You try to get into pitch recognition and plate discipline and things like that, but that really turns into one of the most difficult things for high school hitters because they're not seeing quality breaking balls and they're generally not seeing velocity."
"The single biggest thing for me, and I write it down all the time, is handsy looseness to the swing. In other words, just that little whip in the bat with the hands instead of the strength. And I know there are different types of guys with the strength swings like (Jim) Thome and (Mark) McGwire, but those guys are different types of birds. We don't see those guys very often. And I think those guys still have the handsy looseness, it just comes through as strength because of their bodies. But that handsy looseness, I've never seen a guy that didn't have that pan out and become big-time major league hitters. It's just that point in the swing where the top hand starts to move the bat. When the top hand starts to bring the bat head through the zone, those hands right there—how fast can they whip that bat? When a pitch is on the way, only those special guys really have that little bit of whip there to really get that bat head moving and get it in the right spot to make sure you square up the ball."
"It depends on when I'm watching him. So, if it's pregame and we're just watching batting practice, pregame is nice—you can learn some things about it, but it's not everything. I don't want to get too excited and I don't want to get too down, either. In batting practice, I'm looking for bat speed, I'm looking at the bat path, I'm looking at his balance, I'm looking at how his hands work—do they work independently, or does he kind of swing with his shoulders? I really like guys that have good hands. I'm looking for a short path that has some pop. It also depends on the position. If I know the guy plays a corner, I'm looking bat and power. I want to see some thump and if you're not thumping it, you better steal a ton of bases—you better be (Carl) Crawford. Once the game starts, I'm looking for a guy that can hit deep in the count, that can hit in situations and that flat-out hits the ball hard often. If you can't make contact, what good are you? That's the biggest thing with hitters—hitters hit. They hit the ball hard."
"We watch how the ball comes off the bat. How much raw power does the kid generate? Does he have some lift to his swing, does he have some loft? If he has some loft to his swing, that tells you with some raw power, he's going to hit some homers. If he doesn't generate any loft, he's going to be a doubles and singles kind of guy. I watch for the way he holds the bat. If he holds the bat back in his palms, then it's going to be a little tougher to hit. It's going to create some tension in his swing and not so much wristy action. It's kind of a negative if they hold the bat farther back in their palms."
Some scouts like it more than others, but what are your thoughts on watching players take batting practice?
"I like batting practice because I think your swing is basically the same as it is in batting practice. Your ability to adjust obviously comes into play when it's game speed, but you can get a good look at a player's pure mechanics in BP. But I think a lot of guys put too much into it. You walk out of there and the kid's missed two or three curveballs by a foot and gets jammed with an 87 mph fastball because he doesn't have enough bat speed and a guy's walking out of there still talking about the batting practice and I'm like, 'Dude, did you see the three freaking at-bats?' It's still about the game."
"You see how a player approaches batting practice. Does he use the whole field to hit? Usually in a batting practice round, the batter will try and go the other way for the first round and then the second round, he'll hit the ball where it's pitched and then maybe the third round he'll show his power to wherever that is, right field or left field. And then the path of the bat—does he hit a lot of fly balls? Does he hit a lot of ground balls? Is he a line-drive hitter? Does he square it up hard? Obviously batting practice pitchers don't throw very hard and you like to see a guy square a ball up pretty hard in BP consistently. A red flag would be a lot of swing and misses in BP or a couple swing and misses and fouling off the ball in the cage. That's a good indicator of hand-eye coordination. So, definitely how he approaches batting practice and how hard does he square it up in batting practice."
"I think it's huge. For me, it's huge. Because in the ballgames, I would say 75 percent of the high school kids we go watch are not getting pitched to. So, to be able to go see BP ahead of time and multiple times, that's huge for me. You can see how the swing works and what type of raw power he has. A lot of times, you like to go when they don't know you're there watching. In my area, kids take BP before the game on the field and I know a lot of places in the country, that doesn't happen."
How many times do you like to see a hitter before you're comfortable putting a grade on his tools?
"For me, of course over a couple of years with a college guy and you hope to see him a couple of times per year. The most difficult thing for me is when I go to see guys out of my area and I walk in on those really good players—guys that I know are good—and they don't have a good day or something and you have to ask yourself, 'OK, what did I see in BP? What did I see in his swings in the game, even though he didn't hit anything?' and then throw a grade on him, that's really tough. I guess the answer is at least a half a dozen times before you feel comfortable. As many as possible, basically."
"Well, I like to see one batting practice to see his raw power, see basically how far he can hit it. One batting practice I'm pretty good with. The more times you can see a hitter, the better. It depends on the game. If you go to a game and the guy gets pitched to and he squares a ball up and pretty much shows you what you think he's got, one game would be sufficient to write him up. But sometimes you might go to the game and he gets walked twice, or maybe he has a poor at-bat on the breaking ball, he waves at the breaking ball and he only gets three at-bats. Maybe it's a lefthanded hitter facing a lefthanded pitcher and the guy struggles off the lefthanded pitchers, so you think he might be a platoon guy and you have to come back and see him against a righthanded pitcher."
"Just once. I mean, you either get that fuzzy feeling, or you don't. If you get that fuzzy feeling, then it's on to the games to see how he takes pitches, how quiet he is at the plate—that's huge for me. You want to make sure his hands don't go forward or he doesn't lunge when he's taking pitches. If he's quiet taking pitches, then you know he's going to be a pretty good professional hitter. If you get that fuzzy feeling one time around, you've got to write him up. Pretty much, you have to, in order to start the process of getting your supervisors in to see him. The longer you wait, the longer it takes your supervisor to get in there because everybody else in the nation wants their guys looked at too. It's a long process to be able to get a kid seen by the people who make decisions."
"I'd really like to see the guy probably three or four games with a couple of batting practice sessions in there. You try and match those high school hitters up against someone that's at least going to pitch to them and potentially challenge them and see them against some sort of level of competition that isn't just someone throwing 75. A lot of the process in getting comfortable with these players is seeing them on the showcase circuit the summer before, so you have that follow number on the guy and you've had the opportunity to see them against some competition and then you go back in the spring and figure out if you got the guy right or you need to make an adjustment on him. With the hitters, I'd like to get as many at-bats as possible. It's certainly easier with the college guys because the matchups are significantly easier. The high school guys, you have to figure out which ones you like and get in and see them."
What are you looking for mechanically in a hitter's swing? What sorts of things are red flags for you?
"A lot of guys talk about a hitch not being correctable, but if a hitch is a timing mechanism, I think it's OK. If a hitch occurs during the swing and causes the bat to be late, then I do think you have a problem on that because that involves their hand-eye coordination when the ball's released and when they recognize it and so forth. So, a hitch bothers me if it's part of their swing and not a timing mechanism but, you know, we've all seen a million guys—the Eric Davises, the Bonds, all that—that hitch, but it's a timing mechanism and that bat's in the right spot when it needs to be. The arm bar doesn't really bother me because I think you can help that if you need to help it, but there's a lot of major league batters that arm bar but then get that bat going out there good enough. I think you can learn to help a guy develop not to do that. I don't know if there's any one thing that I would say 'Wow, that one can't be fixed.' Other than just a slow bat. Slow bat's a slow bat. If you don't have bat speed, I don't think you're going to develop it."
"Maybe a kid—no matter what his stance is, whether it's square or it's open—and he steps in the bucket, maybe he's showing you that he has a little fear of the ball and that kind of raises the yellow flag there. Swinging at the breaking ball out of the strike zone consistently, that may show you that he can't identify the pitch or can't lay off the pitch and that's tough to correct, too."
"I generally like to see guys with fairly calm approaches at the plate. An excessive movement, be it a high leg kick or a hitch with their hands or just anything that can alter the timing and execution of the swing, I don't like. That's not to say there aren't guys that do those kind of things and are extremely successful doing it, but I feel like those guys are the exception and the fact is that when you slow them all down, when their foot's down and their hands are ready to go, they're just about all in the exact same position. It doesn't matter if it's Manny Ramirez with the high leg kick or Gary Sheffield with the bat waggling. You slow down the video and they're in the same spot when they're ready to hit. Getting into that position consistently is a lot harder if you're moving around a bunch. Another thing I really don't like to see is head movement in a swing. You can't hit if you can't see it. So, any sort of thing where a player moves his head during a swing, it's difficult for that player to consistently center the ball against better competition."
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Baseball Strength & Conditioning - Cressey's Favorite Exercises
Shoulder strengthening and conditioning exercises by Eric Cressey, renown baseball trainer.
T NATION | Cressey's Favorite Exercises
T NATION | Cressey's Favorite Exercises
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Baseball Instruction DVD's
The Nation's #1 Source for Baseball Coaching Instruction!
Welcome to ChampionshipProductions.com, a division of Championship Productions, Inc.
Every person at ChampionshipProductions.com & Championship Productions is directly tied to carrying out our mission, which is:
…helping individuals and teams achieve success and realize their fullest potential…
We carry out this mission by producing high quality, instructional products featuring renowned professionals in every sport and by providing the best customer service in the industry.
Coaching DVDs at Championship Productions
Welcome to ChampionshipProductions.com, a division of Championship Productions, Inc.
Every person at ChampionshipProductions.com & Championship Productions is directly tied to carrying out our mission, which is:
…helping individuals and teams achieve success and realize their fullest potential…
We carry out this mission by producing high quality, instructional products featuring renowned professionals in every sport and by providing the best customer service in the industry.
Coaching DVDs at Championship Productions
Friday, January 28, 2011
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