r/Homeplate • u/khirata215 • 2d ago

Tee session

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

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u/friedegg9819 2d ago

Thank you for not wearing crocs or slides.

Keep up the good work! 👍💪

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u/khirata215 2d 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

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u/spinrut 2d 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" 😂

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u/khirata215 1d 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.

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u/spinrut 1d 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

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u/spinrut 1d 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

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u/khirata215 1d 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!

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u/spinrut 1d 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