"How To" Hitting Baseball Mental Approach to Self-Discipline
The Smarter Hitting Baseball Plan to an At-Bat requires three important steps:
Without a plan, you plan to fail...like one of the greatest hitters to ever live, Ted Williams, said hitting is 90% from the neck up. If you want a thourough examination of the mental part of the swing, please subscribe to The Dugout: Hitting Baseballs from the Neck Up eZine below...
Ted Williams worked his physical swing into all hours of the day and night as a young boy, often waiting for his mother to come home from serving the Peace Corp because he couldn't get into the house. Manny Ramirez, like Ted Williams, is arguably one of baseball's best hitters ever, worked his craft as well, calling for long hours and hundreds of thousands of swings in his earlier days. Before getting into the rest of the Smarter Hitting Baseball Plan, make sure you're putting in a tremendous amount of quality swings. You'll never "arrive" at the perfect swing, but the more concrete you make it, the easier the troubleshooting. With the disclaimer aside, let's get into the meat and potatoes of designing a disciplined mental approach at the plate... THE ASSESSMENT - Drivers, Start Your Engines Referring to the three invaluable steps above, Assessment begins in the dugout when watching today's pitcher throwing or warming up on the mound. Here's what we're doing:
The keys to this part of the Smarter Hitting Baseball Plan is you're looking for a pitcher's tendencies or patterns, AND looking for his/her body language...does this pitcher look goodtoday or a little mopey? The majority of pitchers tip off their future behavior, so this is something to get good at picking up. THE ORGANIZATION - Gladiators Ready!? The second step to a great mental approach is Organization. This is done in the On-Deck Circle, here's what should be happening:
This is where you funnel all the information downloaded into your brain from the dugout to a razor's edge...prune all the unnecessary 80% and keep only the 20% working for you in this AB. THE EXECUTION - The Key to Monk-like Discipline Now for the fun part...Execution. This is where you stop thinking about the swing or scouting reports and apply action to the Swing Smarter Hitting Baseball Plan. Keep in mind, the following approach is predicated on the information you received earlier. What we do is divide the plate into a 2/3 and 1/3 portion, depending on your strength and/or the pitcher's tendencies, when you step into the batter's box you're looking for two things:
For example, Your default Smarter Hitting Baseball Plan should be looking for a fastball with 0 or 1 strike, AND anticipating the fastball 2/3 of the plate in OR away. If the pitch is thrown on the undesirable 1/3 of the plate, then let it go. To deviate off this would depend on the pitcher's routine that given day. Sticking to this default plan like a thick headed knuckle dragger will leave you scratching your head while pitchers back door you (figuratively and metaphorically) all day long. Obviously, if the pitcher has good command of his/her breaking ball early in the count where he/she can throw it for strikes, then switch to looking for a breaking ball with 0 or 1 strike, and look 2/3 in or away depending on where the pitcher is locating it. The bottom line? Remember, the execution part of the Smarter Hitting Baseball Plan all depends on the information you get in the assessment phase, and organizing it in the On-Deck Circle. When you step up to the plate you should only be thinking about two things with zero or one strike:
Anything other than that and you're taking. Return from Hitting Baseball Plan back to SwingSmarter.com Homepage Please enter the Password. |
