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take a turn

1/29/2022

The recent passing of Hall of Fame coach, Ed Cheff, reminded me of some great advice he gave me many years ago. Coach Cheff said that one of the most neglected aspects of coaching is that coaches do not practice baseball skills themselves often enough. He observed that while coaches hit buckets and buckets of ground balls and fly balls to their players and throw hours and hours of BP, most are not very good at these skills.

The word “coach” is a verb, an action word. Good coaches know, “Telling is not teaching.” Particularly to this generation who are mostly visual and kinesthetic learners, if you are to be successful teaching it, you must be able to demonstrate it. One of the many keys to Coach Cheff’s success was the number of fielding and throwing reps his players received every day. The difference was that Coach Cheff not only required that he and his assistant coaches throw and hit thousands of balls, he required them to be thrown and hit perfectly – varying the placement, spin, velocity, depth, etc. on every rep.

How many youth coaches do you see that can do this? How many youth batting practice pitchers do you see that throw various pitches in various zones consistently for strikes? Is it any wonder that hitters chase the high fastball with two strikes in games when that is what they see most in batting practice?

If I have one regret in my own coaching career, it is that I did not change places with my players more often in practice – that I did not play a position more often, not just in drills, but in the end of practice scrimmages and game simulations.

Not long ago, at the end of a training session of one of my high school players, I said, “Seth, how would you like to give me an early Christmas present?” He said, “Sure Coach, anything, you name it.” “How would you like to hit an old centerfielder some fly balls?”

And for the next half hour, as he hit me ball after ball, while Seth received some very valuable self- toss batting practice, I was transported back to my youth when I could not wait to get home from school, have my snack, and ride my bike back to the school yard to play baseball with my friends. Most importantly, we both could not stop smiling. I had not experienced such spontaneous joy in my coaching in a long, long time. Seth could see it; I could feel it.

I have a saying that, “A day in coaching without you seeing your players smile and them seeing you do the same, is a day wasted in coaching.” So in honor of Coach Cheff, do yourself and your players a huge favor. Tomorrow, and from now on, stand in and take a turn.

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The Role of a Parent in Supporting a Youth Athlete

1/24/2022

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Parents of a young athlete are understandably excited to participate in the development of their child. Sometimes, despite their loving intentions, parents hinder the development of their athlete and hinder what coaches are attempting to do to train them. How can parents and coaches work together for the mutual benefit of the athlete?

For most purposes, parents should parent and coaches should coach. Parents should not underestimate the value of developing the integrity, character, and work ethic of their child. Good coaches know that a player cannot become on the field or court what they are not in life. A teachable spirit and a growth mindset are condition precedents to maximum athletic and player development. Coaches should also recognize that the more successful they are in connecting with, validating, supporting and educating the person, the more success they will have in developing the athlete. And the more success they have developing the person and the athlete, the more success they will have in developing the player.

Many problems for the athlete can arise when a parent wants to fulfill both roles as parent and coach. Many times, issues with communication and trust at home carry over to the child-player and team. Also, even very successful players do not know how the fundamentals and mechanics of their sport should be done, do not know how to teach them to players of different personalities and learning styles, and what the parent-coach was taught as a player, mechanically and in methodology, is not correct.

The single most glaring deficiency in most players is not a sport skill; it is a lack of athleticism. Typically, baseball players grow up competing in tournaments and having success against, at best, average competition. For many, this illusion is not exposed until a wood bat is put into their hands against pitchers with elite velocity and command of several pitches.

Most leagues and teams do not proactively prioritize teaching athletic skills at all or, if they do, not in a systematic and progressive manner. Most practices do not have an athletic training component programmed into them other than some minimal running, bands, and ab-core work. Coaches mistakenly believe that running fast and jumping high are sufficient athletic skills. Players are deluded into thinking that they are good enough because they are the best on their team or in their league; the truth is, good is never good enough.

Most parents who want to supplement their athlete’s development immediately think of weight training. While there is a time and place for this to be sure, this is not what a young athlete needs most. For most athletes, prior to about 8th grade, what they need is to learn is how to move their body well and to apply force in effectively, efficiently and quickly. Weight lifting should be held in abeyance and activities such as martial arts, rock climbing, trampoline, ice skating, snowboarding, mountain biking, dancing, and body movement should be prioritized outside of their sport. Athletes should be taught and developed to excel at crawling, walking, marching, skipping, backpedaling, bounding, running, sprinting, jumping, hopping and shuffling in all directions. At practice, games of chase, tag, shuttle runs, speed ladder drills and progressively complex dynamic movement routines should be done and progressed year-to-year by youth Leagues. Physical games should include not just action, but reaction as well. Games and drills teaching mental focus are also essential.

If a parent hires a trainer for athletic development, they must be sure the trainer has solid certifications, education and experience and, most importantly, has a track record of success coaching athletes in the same sport the athlete plays. The trainer must understand and excel at programming and teaching the skills that meet the functional demands of the sport. The trainer must be constantly challenged to answer the question, “How will this exercise or drill help me in my sport?”

Essential components of an athletic training session for a baseball athlete include:

Movement prep – foam rolling, manual manipulation, body mobility and flexibility, shoulder and joint stability
Dynamic, agility and/or plyometric movement drills in all planes of motion
Ab/Core exercises progressing to sport-specific work such as med ball throws
Weight training that prioritizes proper form and functional strength more than rapid and maximum gains in absolute strength, e.g., proper use of periodization and attention to the speed-strength continuum
Breathing techniques when training and competing
Post workout breathing and stretching, e.g., yoga
Education, monitoring and accountability for proper nutrition and recovery (hydration, rest and quality sleep)

Parents can assist in the program by:

Making sure the athlete practices proper form at home
Supplementing the movement prep and post workout routines if insufficient time is given to these areas during the training session
Modeling good nutrition and recovery habits themselves
Holding the player accountable for working hard to be the best student in school they can be regardless of the standards and the competition
Assuring the player lives a balanced life with time for fun, chores/job and volunteer work

Coaches and parents must cooperate to mentor the person, athlete and player to achieve their common goal – developing a Champion for Life.

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the keys to hitting off-speed and breaking ball pitches

1/18/2022

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“If you have not seen it often, you can’t hit it often. Pitch recognition, and therefore good timing, is largely built from memory.”

Other than injury, the reason I hear given most often by players for why they do not move up to the next level in the game is, “I can’t hit the change-up or breaking ball pitches.” Here is the process for how to do it.

The first step, as with anything in life, is to shift the player’s thinking from negative to positive, i.e., “I can and I will hit those pitches!” Great hitters do not believe the old saying that the most difficult thing to do in sports is to hit a baseball. They have practiced often and well enough to believe they will do their job against any pitcher in any situation.

Next, we must never forget that the best way for a hitter to get the job done is to get a good pitch to do the job. Swinging at the “pitcher’s pitch” and not a pitch in the hitter’s zone will likely lead to a bad result. Great pitchers have command of their pitches to throw them to look like strikes when, in fact, they are not. Off-speed pitches, by design or sometimes through lack of command, are frequently thrown in the dirt or off the plate. A player would not hit fastballs either if the ones he swung at were not in the strike zone.

So why does this poor judgment about what pitch to swing at happen? Good judgment starts with the proper approach and discipline at the plate. The hitter must swing at strikes in their zone and sometimes must be patient to swing at only fastballs until they must do otherwise by sign or when the pitcher serves up a “cookie” of an off-speed pitch. The hitter must avoid, however, a habit of taking the first pitch simply to “see what the pitcher has.” That first pitch may be, and frequently is, the best pitch the hitter will see because pitchers are taught the critical value of strike one.

Most often, a hitter’s deficiency to hit off-speed and breaking ball pitches is caused by a failure to recognize the type, speed and spin axis of the pitch. When not on the field, visual occlusion apps are a great tool to aid pitch recognition. During practice, many hitters only see fastballs and many times even those pitches are not at the speed they will see in the next game. In short, hitters need to regularly see all types of pitches in all zones at speeds and spin axes that they will see in games. This requires batting practice pitchers and/or machines throwing all types of pitches to all zones from the release point distance the hitter will see in the game so proper timing can be practiced.

A great practice habit for hitters to assist them in pitch recognition is standing in during pitchers’ bullpen sessions. If the pitcher’s control is an issue, the hitter can stand behind a screen or wear their fielding glove to protect himself from a wild pitch. The hitter must simulate the intensity and process they would use if they were facing this pitcher in a game. All of the load, coil/internal rotation, stride and weight transfer mechanics must be done to practice proper timing and the hitter should call out the type of pitch they see and “swing/no swing” on every pitch.

In fact, this lack of game process is probably the most common practice flaw I see at all levels of players. The only time many hitters use their game process is when they are facing a live pitcher. Otherwise, e.g., during tee and toss work, they do not begin by looking out at an imaginary pitcher and go through their normal hitting process. They also do not build into practice drills off-speed pitch designs. In short, batting practice is very predictable without enough randomization.

The single biggest and most critical deficiency in hitting today is the failure to build “track time” into swing mechanics and drills. Almost all hitters at all levels today try to time their stride to the arrival of the pitch instead of striding out early enough to track all aspects of a pitch. This may work well for same-speed fastballs in a cage, but it will not lead to success against the many types of off-speed pitches elite pitchers can command. A hitter’s stride must to be from balance-to-balance and needs to begin just after release point on all pitches - only the front heel getting down and the front leg stiffening are delayed until pitch recognition occurs and the swing begins. Simply put – stride then track, don’t track then stride.

One of the many effective drills I describe in my book is the Pitcher Tee Drill. A coach or player stands at the game release point distance behind a screen and pretends to pitch from the wind-up or stretch varying the arm slot and right-hand and left-hand deliveries. The hitter varies the timing of his swing by whether he sees the palm (fastball), pinky finger side (breaking ball) or pronated thumb side (change-up) side of the pitcher’s hand. The hitter waits to swing an imaginary one-finger snap for a fastball, a snap and a half for a breaking ball and two finger snaps for a change-up, but the stride is made at the same time for all three pitches so the hitter is conditioned to have enough time to track any type of pitch.

Try these tips and you will find that your players will successfully move up to the next level and, when they get there, they will hit for power and average!

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These are the keys to hitting for power and average

1/18/2022

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The average team batting average in Major League Baseball in the year 2000 was .270. This average has gradually gone down to .244 this past season which is the lowest it’s been since 1972. Conversely, 23 MLB teams have set franchise records for home runs since 2017. Why are these teams hitting for power and not average?

Well, with video, I could easily demonstrate that most of the top power hitters today at every level are not setting themselves up for success to hit a variety of pitches in all zones by having a proper stance and posture, a proper grip, getting their hands and arms in the proper positions prior to the start of their swing and by doing a proper weight transfer during their swing.

Players are undoubtedly bigger and stronger than ever so their bat speed and exit velocity numbers generate impressive power when they do make solid contact, but they do not need to make anywhere near 100% contact to hit a home run particularly at the college level when they use an aluminum bat. Sadly, in today’s game for the above-listed reasons, elite pitchers will dominate them most of the time, but hitters are not motivated to correct any of their set-up issues because very few, if any, of their teammates can hit for power and average against elite pitching either.

However, if I had to pick one trend in the past 20 years that has sabotaged hitters’ chances of hitting for power and average it is the failure of players to stride early enough on all pitches to allow them to track the ball well from release point to contact.

Hall of Famer, Tony Gwynn, a lifetime .338 hitter in 20 MLB seasons, explained it this way: “The key is the ball … you recognize what it is and your hands and body take over. I’m going to take my stride and then I recognize the pitch, then I’m just going to stay there until it’s time to swing the bat. When my swing is mechanically sound, my front leg is stiff or solid and I’m deriving my power from the drive of my back leg.”

According to Gwynn, the keys are striding early enough for every pitch to be able to track it from release point, then pitch recognition occurs, the heel of the front foot gets down and the front knee snaps straight back so the front leg can be solid at contact. Power is generated as weight is transferred from back side into a stiff front side by the back leg driving forward a few inches after the back hip is fully rotated and the laces of the back shoe are facing the pitcher.

Study frame-by-frame video of even the most elite power hitters at any level today and you will see this is not what they do. They simply try to time their stride so they get their front foot down as the pitch arrives resulting, most of the time, in them being late getting their front heel down. Consequently, the force of their body’s rotation causes their front foot to spin open, the knee of their front leg to be bent, and the barrel of their bat to drop, i.e., a line drive is turned into a harmless fly ball or pop up.

This habit of striding early and at the same time on every pitch must be built into every practice drill. On every tee, toss or pitch drill, hitters need to stare out at an imaginary pitcher, e.g., not just at the ball on the tee, stride from balance-to-balance after an imaginary release point (the heel of the front foot will still be slightly raised because the back leg and hip remain loaded) and practice tracking and hitting randomized pitches in all zones at game speeds. The habit of most players today is to stride at different times for different pitches so they can hit “cage bombs” off of easily predictable pitches.

One of the many effective drills to build good hitting habits I describe in my book is the Pitcher Tee Drill. A coach or player stands at the game release point distance behind a screen and pretends to pitch from the wind-up or stretch varying the arm slot and right-hand and left-hand deliveries. The hitter varies the timing of his swing by whether he sees the palm (fastball), pinky finger side (breaking ball) or pronated thumb side (change-up) of the pitcher’s hand. The hitter waits to swing an imaginary one-finger snap for a fastball, a snap and a half for a breaking ball and two finger snaps for a change-up, but the stride is made at the same time for all three pitches so the hitter is conditioned to have enough time to track and get his front foot down for any type of pitch.

Simply put, to hit for power and average, stride then track, don’t track then stride.

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Author

Adam Sarancik is the owner of Elevate Sports Academy which mentors student-athletes in physical conditioning, nutrition, career and college counseling, and sport skills. He has spent most of his adult life coaching youth ages 8-22 in baseball, soccer, and basketball. He is a favorite speaker at and director of coaches' and players' clinics. He has also developed several youth baseball leagues. Adam is also a frequently published contributor to the ABCA publication Inside Pitch, Collegiate Baseball newspaper and is a Certified Impact Trainer for The Positive Coaching Alliance.

Adam is known for his comprehensive and innovative practice plans and for consistently developing championship teams and players who excel at the next level.
He earned his Bachelor of Science degree from San Diego State University, his J.D. degree from the University of San Diego School of Law and his Masters of Arts in Teaching from Western Oregon University.

take a turn

The Role of a Parent in Supporting a Youth Athlete

the keys to hitting off-speed and breaking ball pitches

These are the keys to hitting for power and average

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