Category Archives: Hitting
Outs are the clock in softball
“Outs are the clock in softball.” This is a phrase I heard or read earlier in the week. Can’t remember who said it — perhaps my friend and fellow coach Rich — but I think this is a great way to think of outs and what you want to do with them, especially late in the game.
To put it into perspective, let’s think about a different sport that does have a clock. I love football, so let’s look at that.
Let’s say you’re losing by 10 points and you have 2:30 left to play. To tie the game you will need to score twice — at least a touchdown and a field goal. To win you will need a two-point conversion as well.
Two minutes and 30 seconds is not a lot of time, but it’s doable. What it means is you need to score quickly, using as little time as possible, then get the ball back and try again. Ideally you’ll score the touchdown first, which takes some of the pressure off.
There are all kinds of plays you could run to try to advance the ball and score. The smart play is to pass, because generally speaking you can move the ball farther and move it closer to the sidelines to get out of bounds and stop the clock. Also, if you’re unsuccessful the clock stops, giving you more time to plan the next play.
You could also run the ball. But it’s tougher to get the ball out of bounds that way, and a good running play generally goes for about four to five yards. If you have a lot of ground to cover you’re expending a lot of time to try to get that score.
It’s all about clock management. Being able to stop the clock without expending timeouts will give you a better chance of scoring. The clock is your enemy at this point, so you need to conserve as much time as you can.
Now let’s bring it back to softball. Unless you’re playing in a tournament with a time limit, your “clock” is the number of outs. The more of them you use, the fewer you have left to try to score. If you’re in a close game, say down by one run, it may be a good move to trade an out for a run. But if you’re behind by two or more, it may not be such a good idea.
Let’s say it’s the top of the sixth, your team is behind by three runs, and you are the visitors. You now have six outs to try to score a minimum of three runs to tie or four to win. (You also may want a couple more to give yourself some insurance.)
In any case, that’s a lot of runs in two innings. You’re probably going to need every out you can get. What that means is you don’t want to be throwing them away by sacrifice bunting, attempting steals (unless you’re positive you can beat the throw) or using other such strategies. You don’t want to send a runner around third on an iffy play either. You’re going to have to trust your hitters to put the ball in play. It still may not work out, but it’s your best bet. You want to extend the inning as long as you can. That means not using up your outs on purpose.
Of course, one other factor that can have an effect is what the actual score is. There’s a huge difference in offensive potential between being behind 16-13 or 4-1.
In a seven-inning game, both teams start with 21 outs. How you use them from there often determines your fate. If you purposely expend one per inning, and your opponent doesn’t, you’ve just cut your allotted number of outs to 14. That’s a pretty big advantage to hand your opponent for no reason other than you don’t know what else to do, or you’re stuck on a single strategy.
If you were told that the local rules dictated that your team gets two outs per inning while your opponents get three, there’s little doubt you’d either protest or leave the contest entirely. But that’s exactly what you’re doing to yourself when you don’t use your outs more intelligently.
Before you just start giving them away, keep that idea in mind. Outs are the clock in our game of fastpitch softball. Don’t run the time needlessly off of yours.
More on the sacrifice bunt
My pal Rich sent me some information today that further confirms what I said earlier — the sacrifice bunt is way over-used relative to its value.
Here’s a link to an incredible article that really breaks down the chances of scoring with various numbers of baserunners with 0,1, or 2 outs. This is not some guy offering his opinion on the way things should be. It’s an academic type performing a statistical analysis that Billy Beane would be proud of. Be warned — the article (or more accurately academic paper) is long and very mathematical. But it certainly reinforces the points I and others made before.
The basis for this paper is the analysis of the actual outcomes of at bats in Major League Baseball. It talks about how many runs are scored per inning on average in each of the situations. More than that, though, it also breaks it down by who is hitting, i.e. where in the lineup you are. The numbers are a little different for an 8 hitter than a 3 hitter, so this takes it into account. It also accounts for the DH in the American League v. having the pitcher hit in the National.
Let’s take a look at a classic scenario. The leadoff hitter gets on base, and the #2 hitter in the lineup bunts him to second. If you do that all the time, the probability of scoring at least one run is .439. If you leave the runner on first and have the #2 hitter swing away, the probability of scoring is .483. So you’ve actually hurt your chances of scoring by giving up that out to advance the runner.
Ok, that’s the top of the lineup. Let’s look at the #7 hitter getting on and the #8 hitter at bat. In that case, the probability of scoring from second with one out is .379, while the probability of scoring from first with no outs is .393. Hmmm. So why are we bunting again?
Where the sacrifice bunt does seem to make sense is with no outs and a runner on second. But it seems like a lot of softball coaches never give themselves the chance to get in that situation. They knee-jerk bunt as soon as a runner gets on first and regardless of whether a weak or strong hitter is at the plate. They take themselves out of more innings than they create opportunities.
Now I’m sure there are some who will say softball is not baseball, the bases are shorter, the pitcher is closer, blah blah blah. That argument may have been valid 15 years ago, but it’s not anymore. Today’s athletes are bigger, stronger, faster and better trained. Third basemen in particular make their bones by fielding the bunt and making the play, often times getting the lead runner. Hitters put in more work than they used to, and have bats that are a lot hotter than they used to be too. There is a much greater chance that they’ll put the ball in play and get a big inning started. One check of the local newspapers for high school games or the NCAA Web site will show you that the days of 1-0 15 inning nail biters are long past. Offense is all the rage, and those who can’t generate it by swinging the bats are doomed to wind up on the short end of the stick.
As Mike Hanscom pointed out before it’s a little different at the younger ages. But even there, better teams are starting to play the bunt better. You don’t see as many balls thrown away or as many runners reaching base safely as you used to. The expectations are higher.
Does all this mean you should never bunt? No! When the defense is playing back, or you know you’re playing for one run, or the defense has shown it’s a little sloppy on the bunt you should take advantage of it. It’s still a good weapon. But it’s not the be-all and end-all of fastpitch offense, and it shouldn’t be an automatic. If you’ve trained your hitters to hit then let them do their jobs. In most cases you’ll increase your probability of scoring. Not because I say so, but because the numbers don’t lie.
Bunts, outs and strategy
Of all the offensive strategies in the game of fastpitch softball, none is more time-honored than using the bunt as a means of advancing a runner into scoring position. In fact, you could say that offensive strategy #1 goes like this: get your leadoff hitter on base, then have the next hitter sacrifice bunt her over to second.
That’s the way it’s always been. And for many that’s the way it continues to be. Yet there is a question as to whether it really makes sense to automatically lay down the bunt when you get a runner on base with no outs, no matter the quality of the opposing team or where you are in the lineup.
Major League Baseball once did a study on the chances of scoring a runner from first base with no outs v. from second base with one out. It came from the study of 50 years worth of statistics. (MLB and the people who follow it intensely love to make with the stats.) According to Cindy Bristow’s must-have book Softball Strategies, Coverages, Signals & Charts, the chances of a runner scoring from first with no outs are 43%. The chances of scoring that same runner from second with one out are 45%. Is it really worth giving up an out automatically to increase your chances of scoring by 2%? It’s a good strategy sometimes — like when you’re in a tight, low-scoring game where you need to play for one run, when your team’s hitters are being dominated by the other team’s pitcher, or you’re in the part of your lineup where rallies go to die.
But it may not be such a good idea when you’re early in the game and you know you can hit the opponent’s pitcher. Why not play for a big inning by letting hitter #2 swing away? She may advance the runner a lot further than second, and you still have all three outs left to try to get her home. Even if she only gets to second, the chances of scoring go up to 60% with no outs. If she makes it to third, you stand a 70% chance of getting her in. I’d say 70% looks a lot better than 45% — and 60 feet away looks better than 120 feet. After all, from third all you need is a wild pitch to score.
I’ve even seen some teams waste two outs trying to bunt a runner to third. Let’s look at the stats there. Again, with a runner on first and no outs your chances of scoring that runner are 43%. If you expend an out to bunt her to second and then another to bunt her to third, your situation is two outs and a runner on third. Your chances of scoring now have actually gone down. Statistically, you have a 32% chance of scoring — 11% less than when you started. How does that make sense? Unless your team is so horrible at swinging the bat that they have no chance of putting the ball in play, you are better off trying to hit that runner around and in.
If you follow softball 101 and bunt her to second, you’re still better off swinging the bat and using a hit to advance her to third. The chances of scoring a runner from third with one out are 54%. That’s a slight advantage over the “house” for you gamblers. Does it really make sense to give up 22% to get that runner to third? I don’t think so. Half of 54% is 27%, so you’re basically cutting your chances of scoring almost in half by sac bunting the runner to third. Who in their right minds wants to cut their chances of scoring in half? Yes, you might get lucky with a wild pitch now and then. But the higher a level you play, the less likely you are to get that luck. In the meantime, you’ve given up a lot of outs — and potential runs — for no reason.
Bunting is a great technique for advancing runners when used intelligently. I’ve done it myself lots of times. But it can also be a liability. Do the math. Make your bunts more strategic and you’ll generate a lot more offense.
To hit hard, you have to practice hitting hard
Ok, the title statement may seem a bit obvious. But bear with me for a bit while I explain what it means.
Very often in batting practice, hitters will measure success by whether they hit the ball or not. A swing and a miss equals failure, so they’ll do whatever it takes to make contact — even if that means slowing down their bat if they’re ahead.
You can tell them to start the swing later, but that advice doesn’t always translate that well. So what the hitter winds up doing is making a lot of contact in the cage, but what she’s really practicing to do is hit weak ground balls and little infield pop-ups.
One thing I’ve found works to help hitters learn to hit the ball hard is to redefine the measure of success. Instead of letting them measure it by hits, try convincing them to measure it on good swings instead — even if that results in a lot of swings and misses. Keep encouraging hard, strong, fast swings and the hitter will figure out what she needs to do to time it correctly. It won’t be long until those weak grounders and little popups turn into powerful line drives — and even dingers.
Motionview! video analysis software
This is a reprint of a product review I wrote last year for Softball Magazine. The product is definitely worth checking out, so I thought I would post the review up here. Hope you find it helpful.
One of the best and most popular tools for helping player development is video. With a simple camera and playback device (such as a TV), players have the opportunity to see themselves in action and perhaps gain a better understanding of what their coaches mean. After all, it’s one thing for a coach to say “you’re dropping your elbow when you throw.” The player may think the coach means the elbow is dropping to a point just above the shoulder. But when watching the video, he/she can see the coach means it’s dropping to a point just above the bottom of the rib cage.
The camera/TV combination is fine for basic viewing, but it makes it difficult to really get into the topic. Downloading the video to a computer and watching it on Windows Media Player, Apple QuickTime, or RealPlayer is somewhat of an improvement, but those applications are still very limited in their ability to show and explain exactly what’s happening.
Recently I downloaded such a product. It is called MotionView!, a software application from AllSportsSystems. It is a feature-packed program that allows a coach to provide a thorough, multi-point analysis of a student’s performance, either from live or previously captured video.
The version I downloaded is called MotionView! Coach. It is their mid-level product, but it provides everything I (and most coaches or parents) will need.
The drawing toolbar is robust but easy to use. The basic drawing tools include the ability to draw lines, circles, and squares. An extended toolbar adds the ability to draw angles, arrows, freehand shapes and more. You can choose from six different colors, and even change the thickness of the lines as needed.
One interesting tool, especially when working with pitchers, is the ability to add an analog clock face. When you’re telling a pitcher that the hand should be between 10 and 11 o’clock when the stride foot toe touches it helps to be able to draw that clock. Keep in mind a lot of kids these days rely solely on digital clocks, which means they aren’t really sure where 11 o’clock is. But they’ll never tell you. They’ll just nod as if they understand. 
Another handy tool is called the “kite tail.” This one is a bit more complicated because it first requires you to carve out a brief section (called a canister) of your video. Once you have the small clip, though, you can mark each point of a moving object to create a continuous line. MotionView! advances the frames for you automatically. Once all the frames have been marked and you hit the “play” button, the video traces the line, showing the motion. For example, if you mark the tip of the bat during a swing, you can see the whole path the bat takes. The only problem is it doesn’t give you the smooth curving line that’s shown on the Web site. It’s more of a polygon – a series of straight lines that create a shape, Still, you can gain a lot of insight regarding the path of moving object with this tool.
There’s more to MotionView! than drawing tools, though. You can run the video backward and forward, adjusting the speed from regular to slow to frame-by-frame. You can also reverse the view, turning a left hander into a right hander or vice versa. You can open two videos at once for side-by-side comparison, say between your student and a top-level player or a before-and-after comparison, and even synch them together. With the Coach version you can overlay one video on top of another, and export still shots to pass along to the students.
Sounds like a lot for just $85 (with the online coupon). But as they say on all the Popeil commercials, wait! There’s more! There is a built-in timer that shows the elapsed time in the video. You can convert a section of the video into a film strip so you can see the entire movement at once. You can zoom in on sections of the video and adjust the display to different sizes – including full screen mode. You can even type in titles or instructions that can then be exported along with the video.
The download itself is a little kluge. No matter what version you want, you have to start by downloading the free “Lite” version. Once you have done that, if you have purchased a higher level version you have to send an e-mail or go online to request the code to unlock your version. AllSportsSystems is pretty responsive but you still may have to wait a few hours to get your key code depending on the day and time you make your purchase. After I did the download the application started looking for a file that didn’t exist, and would give me an error message. But an e-mail to AllSportsSystems solved the problem quickly. They responded within 12 hours on a weekend, so I give them an A for customer service.
This is an outstanding, feature-packed application that allows you to perform an unbelievable variety of analysis. If you’re a coach looking for a better way to show students what they’re doing, or a knowledgeable player who wants to improve his/her game, check out the MotionView! family of products. You won’t be disappointed.
Understanding the weight shift
Back when I first started getting into all of this, there were two distinct schools of hitting — weight shift and rotational. There were all kinds of debates and arguments over which was better, with many heated flame wars erupting.
These days, thanks to high speed video, the two schools have converged. The current state of the art starts with a weight shift, setting a new center point ahead of the center in the stance, then goes into a rotational movement with the hips leading the hands.
We’ll talk about the latter part some other time. Right now I want to go a bit into the initial weight shift. It starts from the stance, goes into a negative (backward/loading) movement, and then into the forward movement that ends when the front toe touches down.
Sometimes players have a hard time grasping this weight shifting. They might push back a little at the start, but only come back to center. Or they may move very mechanically. Neither really accomplishes what you want.
The movement has to be more flud, like a dance movement. It’s a little push back of the hips (toward the catcher) that rebounds like a slingshot and then goes forward.
The object is not to move the front foot forward. It’s to move the center of gravity — the balance point — forward. Generally speaking the center of gravity resides in the butt, or between the hips. If you think of a little circle with a plus sign in it, it sits in the pelvis. You should see it move forward of where it started. Otherwise you’re not getting the full benefit of momentum into the pitch.
This is very different than the old school of the sport. We used to teach that the stride should be short and soft. Not anymore. That’s not to say you should stomp forward and get all your weight over your front foot. Instead, you should move that center of gravity forward, landing on the toes/ball of the front foot, then drop the heel to initiate rotation.
Hopefully I can upload some video stills or video to illustrate this point soon. In the meantime, hopefully this description will suffice.
Time to put away the squishy bugs and weight back
It’s funny how some things seem to go on and on, despite the evidence to the contrary. One of those is the old notions on how to hit.
Back in the day, the standard way of describing how to go into the launch phase of hitting was to reach the foot forward softly, keep the weight back, squish the bug and swing. If you’re still teaching that, stop. Stop right now. It’s not how good hitters hit, either in baseball or softball.
Here’s an example from a couple of years ago. It’s Kristie Fox of Arizona hitting a home run.
If you slow it down and watch step-by-step, you will see the first thing she does is shift her weight forward, onto her front foot. She establishes a new center point ahead of where she started, and then rotates around it. She is still leaning back a bit with her upper body, but that could be due to the type of pitch.
That’s just one example. Since we’re heading into the college softball season, set your DVR for some Division I games, especially out of the PAC 10. As usual, they’re out ahead of it. But you’ll also see Michigan, Lousiana-Lafayette, and dozens of other schools doing the same thing. The same as major league baseball hitters.
Still not convinced? See what Mike Candrea has to say. You can preview the USA Softball video at SportSkool. Coach Candrea knows a lot about hitting. Between the U of A and the USA Olympic team he’s demonstrated his knowledge and ability to apply it. He used to teach soft stride and keep the weight back. He doesn’t anymore, because he found it wasn’t true or necessary.
Again, if you’re still teaching hitters to keep their weight back because that’s what you were taught when you played (softball or baseball) it’s time to do some homework. High speed video has allowed us to see what hitters really do instead of what we think they do. The best in the game don’t squish the bug or keep their weight back. They drive their weight into the pitch, establish a new center point, and rotate around it.
Great hitting video excerpt on YouTube
One of the problems that seems to come up a lot with hitting is that the folks who are teaching it often make it way over-complicated. They put in a lot of steps, get lost in a lot of minutae, and ultimately leave the hitter more confused than when he/she started.
This video excerpt on YouTube does a great job of simplifying the concept of what is often called rotational hitting — using the big muscles of the body to rotate the body, and ultimately the bat — into the ball to develop more power. Ken van Bogaert does a great job of explaining why you want to use this technique, how it works, and even provides a little info on some drills to help develop this type of swing.
What’s particularly interesting about it is Ken doesn’t use clips of steroid-enhanced athletes to make his points. You can find those all over the Internet. Instead, he shows young baseball players who are still in the learning phase. While their swings may not be perfect, you can see how over time they will be well ahead of other kids who don’t learn these techniques. After all, it’s one thing to teach the enormously gifted how to swing. It’s another to get the same type of results out of the average kid who’s on your team.
The clip is there to entice you to buy the full video. (Fair disclosure: I was a consultant on the video, although I receive no compensation as a result of it.) It’s worth the investment, especially if you’re struggling to learn all the terms and techniques that Mike Candrea, Sue Enquist, and many others are espousing. Ken keeps it nice and simple.
The players shown are all baseball players, but that’s ok. It’s the same swing. The principles apply just as well to softball. I know. I’ve used them myself for years.
Bill Hillhouse and the PCM
I admit I’m a little behind on my softball reading, but I just read a great article on Bill Hillhouse’s House of Pitching Web site. It’s a rant about what he calls the Pitching Coach Mafia (PCM) and how it’s ruining the chances of pitchers to have a great career. He couldn’t be more right on.
Bill is a somewhat controversial guy because he calls it like he sees it, and doesn’t mind it if people don’t like that. As I read the article, though, all I could think was “right on!” He is constantly crusading against some of the bad techniques that are being taught by various instructors who may mean well but shouldn’t be teaching.
One example Bill mentioned is locking the elbow while pitching. I have stood in gyms where kids I knew were taking lessons extended their arms out as far as they would go, locked their elbows, and pushed the ball through the circle. They tend not to continue pitching by the time they’re about 15. Other examples are “closing the door” (slamming the hips closed), exaggeration of the wrist snap, and slapping the leg with the glove. Ouch!
One I’d like to add to that list is touching the shoulder with the hand after the pitch. The reason given for doing it is to make sure the pitcher follows through. But she doesn’t really. A follow through involves bringing the elbow through, not just the hand. Trying to touch the shoulder with the hand is a proven way to develop elbow problems, and it will actually make you throw slower, not faster. It will also prevent you from learning other pitches.
In the article, Bill also talks about the folks who know nothing about hitting but teach it anyway — which is why this post is also classified under hitting. Things like slapping the back with the bat make no sense at all, yet enough girls do it that somebody has to be teaching it. Bill says he thinks the hitting problems are worse because while not everyone feels qualified to talk about pitching a softball, everyone thinks they know how to swing a bat.
Be sure to check out this article, as well as others on the site. He’s a great resource to tap into.
Strength of the arms v. the legs
Last week my friend (and former assistant) John Parssinen sent a link to an article from the NY Times (I think) that explained an important consideration in both hitting and pitching. The article was about some advice that new Cub Kosuke Fukudome was giving to players in the Japanese industrial league as part of his farewell tour.
He was talking about how important it is to use the legs instead of the arms alone. He was talking about hitting, but it applies to pitching and throwing as well. Fukudome told them to imagine someone told them to stand on their hands. How long do they think their arms would support them? Then he said think about standing on your legs. You can do that all day, because they’re much stronger.
Hitters develop more power when they get their legs and torsos involved than when they just swing with their arms. I’ve never understood why anyone would think arm swinging is a good idea, but there are still plenty of fastpitch coaches who teach it.
It’s even worse for pitchers. It frustrates me to watch an otherwise good pitcher throw all arm. Some can throw hard for a little while, but they tend to tire easily. The arms are just not made to carry that kind of load. Pitchers’ arms need to be fast and loose, not tight and muscled up. That’s not to say they don’t need to be strong – they do — but the arm’s strength is needed to transfer power, not create it. That’s basic physiology. At best they can only add to power over the long term.
One last thing to keep in mind: Fukudome was talking to a group of men. Men’s upper bodies are far stronger than women’s. So if men need to use their legs to create power, it’s even more important for women.
Take a cue from Fukudome. Use the strongest parts of the body to create power and you’ll throw/hit harder and last longer. That’s the way Nature planned it.
Life in the Fastpitch Lane 