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Hitting mindset
CRUSH IT!
"The green light is on!"
My approach
CRUSH IT !!!
"The green light is on!"
xyzdude wrote:My approach
CRUSH IT !!!
"The green light is on!"
At the younger, developmental stages I strongly agree with this approach - think swing on every pitch. I think that in most cases, you really need to be deliberate and teach young softball (female) players to be aggressive. I'd much rather have to teach an older player who is aggressive at the plate to be more selective than to try and teach a passive player to be aggressive. I would share this aggression first approach in pretty much all phases of the game including base running and fielding and throwing.
Once they get older, it is pretty easy to teach situational hitting and to harness the aggression. We did drills during the off season to increase our hitters plate coverage - which can address a player who falls in love with pulling the ball all the time. In these drills, we would work with the players to expand their swing zone on in and out pitches and be selective on up and down pitches. We rarely cared about strikes and balls, we were more interested in pitches you can hit and pitches you can't. Of course, this is different for each player. We found this approach made us more able to work with a wider variety of swing types and did not put us in the position of having to "change" every hitters swing to meet our preferences. As a coach, this was one way to deal with each player also having a hitting instructor. Of course, every once in a while we had to suggest to a player that they change hitting instructors, but that's another subject.