Hitting With Power — Train With a Purpose

Exit velocity is the number coaches can see without arguing. If he wants to hit at the next level, that number has to improve. Hitting power is a combination of barrel speed and hitting behind the baseball. You can see it in BP when the ball jumps and continues to carry further than you would expect.

Don’t go into a workout just to get some swings in. Have a purpose. A target. A count. Once his swing starts to break down, end the session. When you have just twenty minutes to hit, tee work is the simplest routine to go to. The rounds are on the Development page.

Power comes from his body’s sequence, not from muscling the bat with the hands. His hips lead and the barrel needs to accelerate and stay through the ball. You don’t see pitchers get their arm in front of their hips. Hitting is the same idea in the other direction.

A heavy bat is one of my favorite tools and will tell the truth faster than a lecture. He cannot swing 44 ounces by leading with his hands. That’s the point of the drill — not to look like a strongman but get the barrel moving.

People love to argue quality versus quantity. The truth is quality only shows up because of quantity, as long as the swings are taken with intent. He’s going to take bad swings — that’s part of learning. The kids who live in the cage have fewer of them because they show up every day and they swing like it matters. The best hitters I’ve been around were cagerats. They had a routine and they could get their best swing off more often.

Your job in the yard is not to rebuild his swing every night. Pick one purpose and hit until he is tired. The movement pattern sticks later than you want it to. Don’t get frustrated. He’s young. Coordination comes in waves. You may not see any improvement and then one day he makes a massive jump. This is because it all finally “clicked.” The exit velo numbers by level are in The 3 Measurable Tools.