One of those hitting cues that has been around for years is “take your hands to the ball,” or its cousin “take the knob of the bat to the ball.” The idea is to give hitters something specific to do to get online with the flight of the pitch as it comes in.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t really work. Unless you’re planning on hitting the ball with the knob of the bat — what I call “pool cuing” the ball — taking your hands or the knob of the bat to the ball actually puts you in a poor position to hit the ball. It leads to dropping the hands among other things, and actually does more to take you off-line than put you on line, particularly since it will cause the barrel of the bat to be above the hands rather than below.

A better cue is to tell hitters to take the fat part of the bat (the barrel) to the ball. It sounds simple, but it makes perfect sense. Of course, there are several things that occur prior to that point, but when it comes to how to take the bat to the ball, the focus is on the fat part. Do that and you’ll find you hit a lot more.