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My daughter is in 12U fastpitch, and is currently trying out for travel teams. I got feedback from the coach of a team she tried out for today, and it included the following statement:
"I am worried about her hitting mechanics, it appears she has been taught the typical power baseball swing, which doesn't really translate to softball in my opinion. I bet she crushes the slower pitchers. I feel she might struggle with the faster pitchers we will be seeing."
Now, I am not an expert on hitting mechanics. At all. Her hitting coach says this is BS, and there is nothing wrong with her swing. From a cursory examination of what's on the Internet, it looks as though the use of "baseball swings" is controversial.
too me it depends on whether she wants to be a hitter with a good on base percentage or a power hitter with a good home run percentage .. i have played slow pitch softball and baseball .. baseball in which i was an average hitter with not much power because the ball was just simply too hard to get good contact on and i concentrated on just making contact with a swing of about 80 % effort .. slow pitch softball i was a home run hitter and i swung with 100 % effort .. it seems your daughter swings 100 % .. have her slow down and concentrate on contact hitting ..
Thanks for the reply! I don't think she's gotten that philosophical about it at this point, but it certainly makes sense to consider your point. She, at age 11, wants to crush the ball all the time, but getting on base more frequently is good too.
when i played both baseball and softball, i was a power hitter in my younger days. i once hit a dudly limited flight softball, supposed to be limited to 350ft, over 500ft. when i played in little league, i was the first player in that age group to ever hit a home run, that season i hit three of them, should have been four, but the umpire ruled one a ground rule double despite the ball flying over the cones that were set up, oh well.
that said, as i got older, and my timing went off, i found that i was more successful hitting the ball where the fielders were not. for instance as a right handed hitter, most people shaded me towards left field. sometimes the right fielder would also shade towards center field, sometimes not. and that usually left a gap either down the right field line, or in right center, and that is where i would time my swing to push the ball. i found my on base percentage went up, and my power hitting percentage didnt suffer because i usually hit a lot of doubles as a result.
as for your daughter, not being able to see her swing, and not knowing what kind of hitter she is, its difficult to tell you how she should alter her swing, or even if she should. hitting a ball is an art form, be it power hitting, or average hitting, it comes down to what her hitting style should be based on her physique, and ability.
since you have a hitting coach for your daughter, they are probably the best one to determine your daughters mechanics, and if your daughter is successful doing what she is doing now, then she should keep doing it. dont make any changes unless she needs to.
one more thing, hitters sometimes run into hitting slumps, it happens to the best of us. in fact for about ten years i never hit more than about .125 and my home run production went way down. a lot of the time i would hit the ball right at fielders, or close enough to them that they could make a play on the ball. however i kept doing what i was doing, because to change suddenly would not bring me any better success, until much later after laying off the game for a number of years, and the rethinking my approach to the game.
The coach has a point due to how compact the game is. Now I am not sure just how much a "baseball swing" your daughter has, but generally most baseball players will lift there foot a good 3-5 inches and try to extend their arms as much as they can, which doesn't work in fast pitch. Most every successful softball player has a compact, "slap-hitting" type swing. Some use their hips more which generates the power, some use their arms more which helps with hit placement.
At your daughters current age I don't think it matters how baseball-like her swing is, but in high school (usually around 16U) when the pitchers start generating more speed and movement, a quick swing is going to be very important.
My daughter is in 12U fastpitch, and is currently trying out for travel teams. I got feedback from the coach of a team she tried out for today, and it included the following statement:
"I am worried about her hitting mechanics, it appears she has been taught the typical power baseball swing, which doesn't really translate to softball in my opinion. I bet she crushes the slower pitchers. I feel she might struggle with the faster pitchers we will be seeing."
Now, I am not an expert on hitting mechanics. At all. Her hitting coach says this is BS, and there is nothing wrong with her swing. From a cursory examination of what's on the Internet, it looks as though the use of "baseball swings" is controversial.
Can anyone offer an opinion?
I feel that I'm fairly qualified to answer this. My oldest daughter was a good fastpitch hitter and played on the state champion 14 and under team.
As a baseball player who played in college, many years of amateur, and coached/managed baseball up until 8 years ago, I've seen many effective styles of hitting.
Most baseball swings involve too much foot movement and arm extension to be effective in fastpitch softball. The pitchers mound is approx. 15 feet closer in softball and even in their young teens, the better pitchers can really crank it. The ball gets to the batter very quickly.
Her coach emphasized to the players the method of "squashing the bug" with your front foot. You're not lifting the left foot, but shifting your weight to the front foot while rotating your hips during the swing. It's very important to be more compact and controlled in your swing not only because of the speed, but you also have only a split second to react to change-ups. Not only can pitchers throw fastballs that rise and can ride into you along with breaking balls, they are usually taught really effective change-ups. If you don't have a compact swing, you won't be able to keep your mechanics together to react to these change-ups.
I've seen many girls (my daughter included) screw themselves into the ground after having timed the fastball and then have delivered to them a change-up thrown with exactly the same pitching motion as the fastball.
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