by Kevin Goodman, Iowa coach and hitting instructor

When working with hitters of all ages, I start with the firm belief that all hitters can hit the ball… they can all put the ball into play. I know this to be true because I have yet to meet the hitter who strikes out 100% of the time and I cannot remember games in which I have seen the pitcher strike out everyone. Knowing this, I tell all my hitters that hitting a baseball IS NOT the hardest thing to do… GETTING A HIT IS! Then I proceed to tell my hitters that "if we can accomplish these 'things', you will INCREASE your odds of getting a hit. That is my philosophy of hitting. So when presented with this opportunity to participate in Webball’s 2009 Hitting Challenge, I went and visited with hitters whom I have worked with, and to a hitter, these 3 things were what they came up with...

1. LOAD-N-GO. Create momentum for the swing.
2. PUSH… PUSH and SWING THROUGH THE BALL! Push on the start and push your hands, using your hips and shoulders, through the ball as you SWING the bat and
3. HIGH HAND FINISH. Let the end of the swing be the end of the swing.

If my hitters can master these 3 things, they will increase their chances of getting a hit and do things they have only dreamed about doing!

1 Load-n-Go  

The load/gathering of momentum for the swing is where 80% of not getting a hit can be blamed and 99% of why someone was able to get a hit.

Why do I put such a high number on this?

Simply put, this is where the process of hitting starts, so we if we get this wrong, nothing else really matters. This is where timing starts and ends in hitting the pitch as the swing will take over from the moment our front foot heel drops and the rear heel comes up. I want my hitters to create momentum by moving their spine or center of rotation (COR) back as they stride and separate the knob of the bat from their front foot as they stride towards the pitcher to increase the distance from the knob of the bat from their front foot, creating a stretch effect on the torso or core muscles and this action will cause their front shoulder to come inside their front hip creating torque.

This will create 2 forces in which to develop hand speed/bat speed. It is truly like stretching a rubber band when the hitter strides and separates the knob of the bat from their front foot.  As I explain to my hitters, if you pull a rubber band back 6 inches and it travels, say, at 40 mph, it takes .5 seconds to get back to my fingers that are holding the rubber band. If we can take the rubber band back 12 inches and we can still get it back to my fingers in .5 seconds because it is now travelling 60 or 70 mph, wouldn’t we want to do that?

That is what stride/separation can do for a hitter. Because this requires better timing with the pitch, most coaches don’t like to deal with it. Too many things can go wrong, but the high level hitters, for the most part, do it. That is why a hitter that isn’t very big can drive a ball when a much bigger player cannot.

The goal is for the hitter to get their hands back into a good hitting position as their front inside part of the foot (defined as the pad of our big toe) touches the ground. If the hands get back early and the foot gets there late, we get out of rhythm with the pitch and the swing will be late. If the hands get there late and the foot gets there early we killed our bat speed because the hitter failed to get a good stretch.

2 Push and swing through the ball

So now we have our hitter’s inside part of the front foot down, the hands are back (separated), and we have more weight on the back foot than the front foot because our COR is still back, we are now in a good hitting position.

From here I want my hitters to PUSH the COR forward, (pushing off the back foot, just like when a player throws the ball, this causes the rear heel to lift) as they put their front foot heel down, turning the front foot towards their back heel, this allows the hitter to simultaneously open their front hip as the shoulder remains somewhat still.

We do not want the shoulder going at the same time as the hips do. I stress to my hitters, "push on the start!" I want to stress that the start comes from pushing off the back foot. We push our hands not the hips. This starts the swinging process. The back heel comes up as the hitter pushes the COR back to a new balance point and the hitter is instructed to PUSH the knob of the bat towards the direction they are going to hit the ball.

I want this action to be very explosive and if we get a good stretch, the hands are off like a rocket…going forward, and now the shoulder is starting to rotate. The sequence is hips, shoulders/ hands. We mostly work on balls up the middle so that knob faces the pitcher and the end of the bat goes towards the catcher.

I call that 6:00. At that point we want the hitter to swing the bat from 6:00 to 12:00. When the bat gets to the point of contact, on balls up the middle, end of the barrel is now pointing at 3:00, the chest and pelvis should be facing 1:30, in effect facing the pitch. Because of the momentum we have created, we have generated good bat speed and now we use our hips and shoulders to help push the hands through the ball as the hitter continues to swing the bat towards 12:00.

By doing so, the hitter is now supplying power with bat speed at the point of contact. This is extremely important to hitters if they are to increase their odds of getting the ball through the infield or hit gap to gap. Players who have never hit doubles are now hitting doubles and players who have hit only doubles are now hitting them over the fence. You take a guy like Dustin Pedroia, who is around 5'7 and weighs all of 160, 170 lbs, who generates a lot of momentum in his swing to the point he looks as if he lunges badly, can now do what a guy like Scott Rolen does. This gives an ordinary player a chance to do some extraordinary things! And if a player can build up that "good run for it", the swing will take care of itself.

3 High Hand Finish 

The hitter who uses momentum and properly uses their hips and shoulders to drive their hands through the ball will have no problems completing the swing. I want the hands to go as far as possible stressing a high hand finish. That allows as much hip and shoulder rotation through the ball to occur. If the hitter does not achieve a high hand finish, they are cutting off their swing.

To do otherwise would be like telling your pitcher to finish with their hand by their chest. Most pitching coaches want their guys to 'reach' for their opposite side back pocket… down by their hip below their belt. By achieving a high hand finish over or near the top of the shoulders, my hitters are effectively "reaching for their back pocket". If a hitter does not get there, they are cheating their swing… their finish.

It is not quite the end of the swing. I use a batting cage net to make the analogy of stopping my body as I walk to the net and once there, I stop, therefore ending my swing. But if I continue to walk into the net until it stops me. That is when I have completed my swing, because I can no longer go further in towards the other side of the cage. I want my hands to finish as far away from the point of contact around my body as I can to deliver as much force as I can to the ball. Let the end of the swing be the end of the swing!

Momentum, push and swing, and finish, three things every hitter needs to know to better their chances of doing what it is they really want to do, drive the ball. If the hitter can do that, drive the ball, increase the exit speed… it could be the difference between the shortstop getting to it and not getting to it. Hitting it to the track or getting it out of here.

Hitting a baseball isn’t hard, GETTING A HIT IS!

Comments submitted below prior to end of voting (April 26, 2009) were deleted.