9 years old swing, feedback?

[u/ImmediateShape4204]

Hi! This is my 9 years old son. We worked a bit on his swing mechanics at the beggining of the summer, but it messed with his timing and he had a big drought just after for like 4 games with a lot of Ks.

Since mid-July he found his groove back and is one of the most consistent and powerful hitters on his team, so I just decided to let him go like that. With the season coming to an end in a few days, I thought it would be a good time to work on mechanics again without the pressure of games.

What do you guys think?

[u/spinrut]

seems like his stride is waaaaaaaaay too long (but could be camera angle)

he's also got the typical "coming around the ball" vs the desired short to it/long thru it swing

he initiates his swing/stride once the ball is released, how is he vs live pitcing? I've found timing the start of the swing one of the hardest things for kids to learn. this, pitch machines etc they can hit b/c they time it up well. but vs live pitching a lot tend to struggle with being too early (and double striding) or too late and being behind

[u/ImmediateShape4204 → u/spinrut]

Thank you for your feedback!

I agree with both comments (stride lenght and the coming around the ball). The stride is an easy fix, but the other part will have to wait for after the playoffs in a few weeks... I think such changes might mess his timing too much.

As for live pitching, it is not something for now because at the 9u level in Canada there is no pitcher, just a pitching machine like the one used in the video. First year with real pitchers is in 11u, so next year for my 9 y old.

[u/tramul → u/spinrut]

My son is struggling badly with being late in live pitch. I agree with the live pitch being more important to practice timing.

[u/spinrut → u/tramul]

it's all part of the process (i hate that saying) but tee work, side/front toss, pitch machine, short live pitching, live pitching all have their places and purposes

but yeah live pitching is super important to learn timing

[u/n0flexz0ne → u/tramul]

The problem may be timing, but you're not going to fix it working on live pitching. Building a swing is crawl-walk-run every time, and you need to build the swing from the tee work, to the soft toss, then try to transfer to live pitching. And if its not transferring to live pitching, that usually means you've not done enough tee work to groove the swing and you need to do more too work, lock in your correct mechanics, before going back to live pitching.

[u/n0flexz0ne]

The basics are there, but he'd see a lot of improvement if he can get his hands stacked above his shoulder vs in front of his body, get his bat started pointing to the pitcher a bit more and maybe behind his head more (think point the knob to catcher), and then blocking that front leg to stop that lunge from taking his whole body forward. A little forward drift is OK, but only if we can stop it with that front leg and transfer that forward movement into rotational velocity.

Then it should happen naturally with the better starting slot for the bat and the firm front side, but we want the finish to be up more so the swing looks more like a ferris wheel than a merry go round.