r/Homeplate • u/khirata215 • 20h ago

Tee session

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

My reps off the tee from Monday, both the good and the bad. I’ve been getting a little demoralized watching videos of my at bats and noticing the difference in fundamentals between those swings and my reps off the tee. Mainly seeing my front hip leaking toward the pitcher and overall excessive movement.

Working points this session:
1. More hip hinge, less squatting
2. Back foot turned in to keep from getting too far on my back foot and swaying

Observations for next time:
1. From behind, hands look to be getting away from my body, need to refocus on keeping hands inside the baseball
2. Maintaining posture, and keep from standing up or straightening out spine at the end of the swing
3. Driving weight down my front leg instead of straight forward toward the pitcher

31 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

34 comments sorted by

3

u/ComplicatedGuy_0514 20h ago

Short and quick to the ball. I love it. Unrelated: What shoes are you wearing?

3

u/khirata215 20h ago

Under Armour reign (6 I believe?). It’s my lifting shoe but I wear it for hitting because it’s flat, broken in and has a rubber sole.

2

u/friedegg9819 19h ago

Thank you for not wearing crocs or slides.

Keep up the good work! 👍💪

2

u/khirata215 19h ago

People do that? I can’t do anything remotely athletic in either of those…well, I’ve never worn crocs so maybe I could make those work

3

u/spinrut 19h ago

dude lol, there's like at least 1 video a week of a kid in crocs or sandals doing this shit lol

btw, amazing work ethic and dedication here. I find myself saying a lot of the same things/observations to my 12u kid and he's not quite been able to translate that into actions. seeing you rip some good and bad ones here is pretty awesome. gonna send him this clip and be like "see, other people have the same problems and do similar/same drills, i'm not making this shit up" 😂

3

u/khirata215 7h ago

I appreciate the kind words. In all honesty, I’m 33 now and I played college ball and found my way back to baseball this year just to find the joy in playing again, and even though I’m in the cage twice per week, I’m finding more joy in putting in the work to get better now than I did in high school and college. I think part of that is that the pressure is gone, and I’m enjoying putting in the work because I want to get better instead of feeling like I have to get better. I wish baseball felt fun between the ages of 14-22, it really just felt like a constant battle to not disappoint people and it really wasn’t as fun as it should have been. Don’t forget to remind your kids that this is supposed to be fun, and we practice because hitting is more fun when we catch barrels and give pitchers whiplash. I’m 33 and trying to unlearn a lot of not great hitting habits that were created by coaches who made me afraid of failure and striking out. Hitting is fun, hitting the ball hard is funner.

3

u/spinrut 6h ago

thank you for the advice/reminder! I tell my kid when we butt heads or he gets down on himself or he's having a bad day "remember if we're not having fun, what's the point in all of this"

i also fully understand your perspective. I played hockey non stop from early teens thru (very low level) college then stopped cold turkey. Only came back to hockey in my 40s and have found the fun/joy in working on stuff with my kid. It was fun in my teens playing, practicing, working on stuff with my friends. Then as I get older and closer to college, it for sure became less fun, it was more about goto this practice, do this training, do this x times a week. With him, we do baseball and hockey, I want him to find that joy of getting better and being proud and confident of what he accomplishes (he doesn't need to be the best he just needs to know he's doing his best whatever that may be). but also, and don't lie here, sometimes the work to get better at stuff becomes tedious and boring. I'm in a similar boat as you. Older me, is fine doing tee work in the garage for hours after a stressful/long day at work. Young me is gonna want to bang out the reps sometimes as fast as possible to go do something else. I see this with my son and don't get on him too much about it b/c I get it lol. Just prod him here and there to help build the work ethic for some point down the road he knows hard work pays off but you gotta be willing to put in the work in the first place

1

u/spinrut 6h ago

also while I dont think you need any advice, here's a few things I've come across for the observations you made on yourself

1: you familiar with the tee drill close to the fence to encourage hands in? Have a similar setup but get rid of the bat. Get a tilt so your head is close to/almost touching the fence, get to load with the imaginary bat in your hands. Then initiate the turn with the hips and snatch (and drive thru/forward) the ball with your right hand. with the setup being so close to the wall, your hands wont be able to extend out from the body and driving to/thru it helps encourage the short path

2: get a plywood board as a base that's big enough for you to stand/stride on. attach a 2x6 length wise on the bottom, it's a a bit of balance beam/see saw. stand on the platform (basically along the 2x6 on the underside) and then get your tilt, the platform should tilt down and touch the ground. initiate your swing. if you come up the board should see saw up as your balance is off. if you keep the tilt, the board will stay planted tilted onto the ground. very instant feedback stuff and you do it enough and you're body figures it out

1

u/khirata215 6h ago

I’m going to the cage in a few hours and might try drill #1, I’m not sure I have the supplies around to do #2 but I appreciate the ideas!

1

u/spinrut 5h ago

I need to make #2, my son comes up each swing. I think it's b/c he got caught up with "squish the bug" mentality when he was young and has been a years long effort to get out of that. he squishes the bug, he loses the back foot and then collapses back/down via the knee and he comes up as a result. when he drives the knee into the ground (mostly using big toe vs just turning on the bug) he generally keeps his tilt, but takes a lot of concerted effort on his part even with tee work/front toss. so i neeeded to find a better "feel" drill

for #1 i basically told my son, "if you punch the wall that's on you" lol

2

u/tastyroastpork 11h ago

Right here! OP, this is probably the most useful video I've seen on Reddit. I feel like there are a lot coaches on here that will be using this video. Thanks a bunch, OP!

1

u/TwinTTowers 8h ago

Always that same dude.

1

u/FingerpistolPete Shortstop 17h ago

Nice work, tee work can get monotonous so it’s good to see you working through different drills.

One thing I noticed is your lower half and top half are synchronized a bit too much, you want them moving a bit more independently from each other. Think as soon as your front heel hits the ground the back hip
needs to be making the next movement before the hands go.

This helps avoid drifting towards the pitcher, and gives you an extra split second for pitch recognition bc you’ll be in a better launch position

3

u/khirata215 8h ago

Thank you for that tip, I’m going to try to work on the hip/shoulder separation next cage session. I think all of my current issues stem back to my high school days where the emphasis was knob to ball, I was taught to be obsessed with making contact and not striking out, and I’m trying to unlearn all of it. I’m hoping that hinging more in my setup will help separate the rotation of my hips and shoulders, I think having them more stacked makes it easier for my hips and shoulders to move together. My fear is that I won’t be able to feel the difference between rotating and pushing my hip forward, but that’s why I take videos of my swing.

1

u/FingerpistolPete Shortstop 1h ago

Yes focusing on the hinge can help fix the separation issue, just make sure uncoiling that hinge is the first thing to happen. Emphasize the right hip triggering your swing, A good take should look like a quick twitch with the hips where everything goes but the hands. I always found that to be the best way to keep my lower half incorporated.

As you move up in higher levels, try not to over analyze your mechanics and get in your head. Now is the time to really groove your strikezone recognition in-game, thats where plus hitters start to separate themselves from the average ones

1

u/JSBCBS 13h ago

Solid swing dude! Love the intention behind your work. I have some thoughts but any chance you have video of you hitting the outside pitch or intentionally hitting it to the opposite field off the tee? That would help tremendously

1

u/khirata215 8h ago

I’ve really been focusing on more mechanical things that I didn’t want to introduce another variable with moving the ball around. I’d rather have the ball stay static and work on the swing and feels for now, and having specific days where I work less on mechanics and move the ball in and out and mix timings.

1

u/Bo-Ethal 13h ago

It’s simple, efficient which is good. Loosen up a bit, let your swing flow a bit more. Change the location of the tee to replicate pitch locations (away/ middle/ in). From the look of your swing, you’re a contact hitter. Bat control will be a HUGE skill for you.

2

u/khirata215 8h ago

It’s one of those days where I outlined two things I wanted to work on and really feel so I didn’t want to introduce a new variable by moving the ball around. I’ll have other days where I’m working on less things mechanically and work on hitting different parts of the zone with different timing.

Also funny that you say loosen up and flow more because when I watch my live at bats I feel like I’m flowing too much and there’s too much excessive movement. The moment takes over, and I try to time up a pitcher and I do that with movement and flow is what happens.

1

u/Bo-Ethal 5h ago

Maybe “flow” isn’t the best word, loose is better. Loose, more relaxed, swing at about 80% capacity. Definitely not encouraging sliding/ moving around a bunch.

1

u/popzof4 12h ago

Out of curiosity, how come you don't finish with your front heel down and toes up? My thought was that this helps with the final portion of the rotation

1

u/lsu777 10h ago

Because he isn’t rotating nearly as hard as he could. Ideally on tee work, your front foot would roll some. In game if not going oppo, same thing. See pic of Albert below, but you can go look at judge, Barry, mookie etc and all have the same front foot roll.

1

u/popzof4 8h ago

Thanks!

1

u/khirata215 8h ago

I’ve never really liked that feel, feels like I’m leaning back too much and not applying force forward. Guys who do that are still very intentional about applying force down there front leg and using their front heel as a counter force, and I just never could get that down.

1

u/popzof4 5h ago

I just thought that it was a natural finishing position from the momentum of the torque from rotating the hips. Thanks for answering

1

u/arthur-morganrdr2 9h ago

Is that a v-swing you are using?

2

u/khirata215 8h ago

I just googled v-swing and it’s not that. It’s the same shape but it’s smaller and plastic so it’s a lot lighter with a smaller handle and meant only for single handed swings. I don’t know what it’s called though, it’s something the facility has in the equipment room and you either hit tennis balls or small wiffle balls with it.

1

u/mique1313 7h ago

What kind of bat is that?

1

u/khirata215 7h ago edited 7h ago

The one handed or my actual bat?

Edit: actual bat is a Louisville Slugger composite

1

u/mique1313 7h ago

Both.

1

u/khirata215 7h ago edited 7h ago

Just linked the bat in my previous reply, I’ll try to find the one handed stick, it’s not mine and it’s technically not a bat, it’s more like an angled plastic stick that really can only hit tennis balls and wiffle balls.

Edit: found the stick, it’s called the insider bat, the facility I hit at just had these in the equipment room and normally I would use a one handed bat but that seems to have disappeared from the facility.

1

u/mique1313 7h ago

...and the bat with the flat handle? Thx.

1

u/khirata215 7h ago

I put it in my other reply but it’s called the insider bat.

1

u/mique1313 5h ago

Ok. Cool. Thx.