Jon Doyle has an article on it

i tell my hitters to not miss the fastball.

quote:

Originally posted by hp75:
i tell my hitters to not miss the fastball.

that seems to be the consensus since all these hitting gurus with super slo mo video cant figure out how to swing a bat

Johnny Damon was saying the other night that when he was up he was "looking" for a slider. That's good advice in my opinion is to "look" for CB's in certain situations.
Now, how do you hit it?
I was taught to "wait till it breaks". In other words let it get deep and you'll recognize whether it's a hanger or if it's gonna snap off.Even if it snaps, with 2 strikes you can stay down on it and "drive it up the middle or away". My son did it all summer in 13u travel ball.He lets it get deep, it'll break and as it's dropping he slaps it over 2nd base or up the middle.
Also, he seems to read it out of the pitchers hand really well. He tells me that a "good 12-6" is obvious because it appears to "go up" out of the pitchers hand. Keep in mind, that with 2 strikes he's "looking" for this pitch. He looks for a cb and slaps a fb into the 1st base dugout.
He works from behind MOST of the time because he usually takes the 1st pitch(not my advice) and seems to just miss or foul off "his pitch" to wind up 0-2, so he sees a lot of cb's. And as far as taking the 1st pitch, I will say that most pitchers are trying for the outside and low pitch to start, and that is a "pitchers pitch" and not the one a good hitter is looking for.

I know this is a HS question, but I wanted to share my view on the differences on HS/College vs. pro ball regarding the curve ball. HS/College games aren't scouted/charted as heavily as pro ball. Usually, the best scouting report you'll have in HS is what you see that day or what the pitcher did last year. Pro hitters have much more info/data to work with, so "looking for a pitch" is really an educated guess and not a flat out guess.

Pitch recognition is critical with all pitches. If you can't see it, you can't hit it. Spin is usually the best indicator for the CB, but some will also come out of the hand higher than a fastball, as others have already mentioned. The better pitchers will have consistent deliveries and hide their pitches well.

After pitch recognition, the curve ball presents two specific issues a hitter must deal with - timing and movement.

Curve balls are slower than fastballs, so you'll have to practice hitting balls coming in at various speeds. Set up an L-screen 15-20 ft from home plate and have the ball flipped the ball underhand inside/outside at various speeds. Take a lot of swings (think thousands, not hundreds) specifically letting the ball travel/get deep and staying inside the ball. Don't allow yourself to roll over more than a couple times in a row - change your mental approach if you do.

The movement aspect of a curve ball can make it difficult to know if the pitch will be a ball or strike. A curve will often start as a ball and finish as a strike, or start as a strike and finish as a ball. You need reps to develop the discipline swings at strikes and taking balls. A two-wheel pitching machine can simulate a curveball if you don't have somebody to throw them to you consistently.

You often hear coaches saying, "Hit it the other way," but you still have to hit the ball where it is pitched. The verbal cue to hit it the other way speaks more to the timing aspect (letting the ball get deep, staying inside the ball) than it does to the movement. If its inside, stay inside the ball and pull it. If its outside, stay inside the ball and drive it the other way. If you've worked hard to establish your timing, you can just focus on seeing the ball and hitting it where its pitched, just as you would any other pitch.

One last thing... you can't bail out! If a curveball is thrown at you (righty vs righty, lefty vs lefty), it should break back toward the plate. When I was a sophomore in HS, a senior told me to "stick my front shoulder on it" which helped at the time. If you see a pitch coming at your head and you think its a fastball, why wouldn't you move?! This just takes some getting used to and is a pitch recognition issue, and even a great curve ball can freeze you up. You'll see MLB hitters lock up on Baseball Tonight's "That's Nasty" segment all summer long.


And a video for fun - walk-off home run I caught on video this summer. Hanging 1-2 slider that stayed up and over the middle. Whoops. For the timing aspect, watch when and how (soft/quiet) he gets his front foot down. (Maybe he should have hit that the other way?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0r1vRM0kts

A question... The "good" curveball. Who practices hitting against the "good" curveball? It's not normal to see a good one thrown in BP. Truth is, the only time you practice against the "good" curveball is when you get to see one (and other than pitching simulators using a machine that can throw good curveballs with real baseballs) the only time you will see one is in a game. That is one of the major reasons why many players can't hit the curveball.IMO

Maybe a poor analogy, but you could say it is the same principle as hitting Rivera's cut fastball. The only time you see it (like he throws it) is when you're facing Rivera. It's hard to prepare for something like that.

Tewks, good post. The outside pitch is hit the other way, not off-speed. You work with players hitting offspeed the other way because it is usually an outside pitch.

A strong player can pull the outside pitch with good results but not many. Some players crowd the plate and the outside pitch becomes a middle pitch, they don't have to hit it the other way.

A couple of keys I teach...
1. Don't go to the curve ball, let the barrel feed to it.
2. Don't match the bat speed with the ball speed, explode on it.
3. Run hard to first when you skim the top of the ball to the infield.

quote:

Originally posted by PGStaff:
A question... The "good" curveball. Who practices hitting against the "good" curveball? It's not normal to see a good one thrown in BP. Truth is, the only time you practice against the "good" curveball is when you get to see one (and other than pitching simulators using a machine that can throw good curveballs with real baseballs) the only time you will see one is in a game. That is one of the major reasons why many players can't hit the curveball.IMO

Maybe a poor analogy, but you could say it is the same principle as hitting Rivera's cut fastball. The only time you see it (like he throws it) is when you're facing Rivera. It's hard to prepare for something like that.

PG, well put. I agree 100%.