I want to take this week to get back into the nitty gritty of baseball development. Rather than discussing general topics, I figured now that we are deep into the collegiate fall schedule, it is time to discuss the why and the how behind training hitters.
Training hitters in the past has largely placed a premium on quantity over quality. Historically, the goal of collegiate hitting programs has been to get their guys as many swings as possible. While I think that might have some merit, without direction or guidance, players are simply engraining the swings they already have, flaws and all. Undoubtedly, a repetition focused approach, even if it lacks guidance or instruction, will help players become better at reproducing what they already do; however, this does not raise their performance ceiling.
But considering my earlier post on rethinking fall baseball, the question remains, “what good are we doing as a staff if we are not targeting what each player needs?” In many ways, identifying areas of need for each player is fairly easy. The challenge lies in delegating the time necessary to meet each player’s needs.
This problem, although momentous at first glance, really is not that difficult to solve. “Bucketing” players takes care of the issue. Bucketing is the act of grouping players in similar performance/development buckets. Within these buckets, players will focus specifically on the key performance indexes that are holding them back from maximizing their potential. For example, the players most held back by their swing speed will focus almost entirely on bat speed training. Conversely, those with a swing path issue will work more intently on patterning and swing plane.
Contrary to what you may be thinking, creating these buckets will not change the way your whole practice runs. It will merely change the way your hitting groups work their progressions. Rather than having the entire team follow the same path of on-field shagging, front toss/tee cage, cage batting practice, and on-field practice, the groups will follow their own progression. The general rotations may remain the same, but the specific exercises, drills, and focal points will change with each destination.
Obviously, this requires a little extra organization for each group to ensure they have their own specific plan, but it will not require additional special attention or private work for each group. Rather, each group moves through progressions designed specifically to meet their needs. Without giving too much away in part 1 of this series, I suggest structuring your hitting groups as follows: swing speed/exit velocity, balance/lower-half mechanics, swing plane/upper-half mechanics, and competition/swing decisions.
These groups, although often overlapping, provide some distinctions as to the development goals of the players. Additionally, these groups are not a life sentence. Players will often be moved around from group to group as they either improve in their specific area of need, or if we as a staff identify something that may need some cleaning up.
I would refrain from putting a ranking on any of the groups, but as I stated in my previous post on fall baseball, hitters should be working towards the competition group. We transition players into the competition/swing decisions group once they have demonstrated an engrained swing that we believe can succeed against the top end of our staff and possibly project into levels beyond collegiate baseball. Players remain in the competition/swing decisions group by having continued success. That being said, it is not a demotion if a player is moved from the competition group to one of the other hitting groups. Sometimes a simple tune-up is required.
Before diving too deep into any specific development group in this post, I want to discuss how we actually go about bucketing our players. As described above, we generally operate with four groups. These groups tend to slightly overlap but remain distinct enough to require separate and impactful drill sets to tackle flaws or movement inefficiencies. In order to properly place players in each bucket, we run through a five-day assessment process that includes taking readings on Rapsodo and Blast Motion, capturing video, and assessing batted ball data. This level of detail enables us to confidently rank each player’s greatest needs to help us win and help them improve.
Additionally, these objective measurements enable us to provide numbers and reasoning behind our decisions. Whether this analysis backs pre-existing opinions or shows us something completely new, they give us a starting point to each player’s development road map. We are more than happy to share our analytical process with the players. In fact, we encourage them to offer their own opinions and feedback. If they don’t agree with the plan or if the map we create does not make sense to them, it is extremely unlikely we will get any “buy in.” Moreover, today’s players do not want to operate in the dark. Learning why is a huge part of their growth. Welcoming them into their own analytical process is a nice step in the right direction.
Pairing our objective measurement process with player bucketing makes it rather easy to target the greatest areas of need for each player. In contrast, think about the common blanket hitting approach used by most programs, although not intended to have negative effects, such an approach often forces players to spend unnecessary time in areas that are not supportive of their development. For example, having all players perform an open stance drill may be great for those hitters who struggle to load into their rear hip or continuously miss balls out in front, but beyond those with that specific flaw, their time is better spent elsewhere.
The purpose of this week’s article was to introduce how I believe hitting development should be handled on a college campus. Although I will delve deeper into the weeds with specific swing flaws and programming in my posts over the coming weeks, I aimed to provide a look into assessments, player grouping, and how this sort of model can be effectively executed at the collegiate level.
With upwards of 25 position players on a collegiate roster, maximizing time for each hitter’s development is no small task. Finding the time for personal instruction and private work to help each player maximize his potential is a near impossibility; therefore, using an objective assessment to group hitters based on their performance data will allow for the maximization of time spent in the areas most important to each player. Going forward, I will provide you with information on what to look for in regards to swing flaws and how to set up a program to tackle these issues.
Thank you,
Adam Moreau, MBA, CSCS
Director of Player Development and Recruiting Coordinator
Eckerd College
419-250-7243
Comentarii