Timing of the positive move can be difficult for youth hitters.  Often times, rather than the advance being taught correctly, I often see youth coaches take it away in a quasi “no stride” approach that makes  youth hitters a synchronizational nightmare (I’ve yet to see a youth hitter in the thousands I’ve worked with, be able to correctly synch up a no-stride approach, but that’s for another day).  The last two weeks my staff and I at Elite Baseball Training have been using high speed cameras and charts to find out when exactly the stride foot has to start, get back down to the ground, and when the swing has to launch to correctly time up a pitch.  The study will be elaborated in a new video training system Elite Baseball Training will launch this fall.  But here is a sneak peak of some of the basic results.

Now to start any study, you have to understand that the results are general guidelines and are affected by a number of things:
Estimated margin of error, (which I’ve factored at +  1.4 ft.), velocity of the pitch, location and height of the pitch, style of the negative move and stride, and bat speed of the hitter.  Even with that, there were a consistent set of parameters that a coach could use when teaching timing.  We filmed and charted about 75 swings over the course of two Cubs games.  The film we broke down on a computer to map out the timing sequence while looking at the charts for pitch speed, location, type of hit and where the hit went.

Negative Move

The part of the study that showed the greatest differences was the timing of the negative move.  Because the negative move differs in style from hitter to hitter, the start time of the negative move will too.  Hitters with a larger negative move, start it sooner than those with a more traditional load.  What was common in the study was hitters that used a toe tap, knee tuck or lift as a negative move, generally started it on the pitcher’s advance.  A traditional load started at pitcher’s footdown.

Positive Move

Again because style differs on the type of stride a hitter uses, timing of the positive move will differ as well.  But one thing that was interesting was that the body’s forward advance (IE the center of gravity gaining ground) was very close to release of the ball regardless of what style a hitter used in the stride.

Footstrike of the hitter

Just like in the previous two segments, footstrike can be dependent on style. Some players do an early stride, and shift to center, while others land more centered.  See the table below for specifics, but the range at footstrike was from 28 feet out of the pitchers hand to 41 feet in.

Launch of the swing

Launch of the swing varied from the ball being 17.4 ft to 20.75 ft from home plate.  Here is a bit of the chart from last night and what it all means.  The recognition part of the swing is during the stride.  If a player only has 2/3 of the ball flight distance to decide to commit the swing or not, then the stride needs to be controlled by good tempo to put the body in a good position to hit at footstrike.  This gives the hitter only .2 seconds in the recognition phase.  Hitting is done on a time line from the pitcher’s start to the contact.  A hitter wants to make that timeline as long as possible while still maintaining momentum and flow in his sequence.  (IE it would be obvious at first thought to stride extremely early and stop, thus to increase the timeline, but if momentum and flow of the hitter are stopped, the hitter has to fire from a dead standstill, often causing the sequence of the swing to be ruined to restart the swing.  There are still some hitting instructors that teach this, much to the demise of their hitters).  Timing is the hardest thing about hitting.  It is much tougher than mechanics, so it has to be taught and practiced correctly.  Most youth hitters start the process when the ball is on its way, which is much too late and ruins the mechanics of the swing.  But as mentioned above, starting too soon can cause just as many mechanical flaws.  Look for our new video training system this fall which will include much more on timing and drills Elite Baseball Training uses to correct timing flaws.

The result was a turn around season.  Coulter received Honorable Mention All-Conference, hitting .314 with 59 RBI’s, which are all the more impressive numbers considering the slow start to the season.  Haverford begins NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional play tomorrow after winning the Centennial Conference.  Stone commented on Coulter, “Justin is a great example of the type of perseverance it takes to make adjustments and become a good hitter.  When I saw him hit, it was a scary resemblance of myself when I was his age.  He is tall and lanky, and tried to dominate his swing with a strong upper body.  We made the mechanical adjustments of cleaning up his negative move and getting him anchored to the ground to use his foundation first. He picked it up really quick.   I think more importantly, we talked about approach, pitch selection, and playing the game from at-bat to at-bat.  Justin has a good future ahead of him.”

Stone and Coulter will continue to hit online through the summer season. Stone added, “All hitters need a pair of eyes on them.  There’s no difference if your standing 4 feet from them in a cage or 1,000 miles away behind a computer screen.”  To get more information on Elite Baseball Training’s Skype lessons, visit us at www.elitebaseballtraining.com/skype-lessons

Great Lakes USA Baseball National Team Identification Series work outs have been set up in Illinois and in the next couple of days, sites for Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota will be finalized.  This is an opportunity for baseball players 17 and under to be tested, evaluated and make the regional team so you can be identified by USA Baseball for the National Team Program, a chance to represent your country.  To register for the workouts go to www.greatlakesntis.com

CHICAGO, IL – Elite Baseball Training announced today that the nationally recognized Future Elite 14U and 15U travel baseball programs will join Elite Baseball Training beginning in July of 2012. The combination of these premiere programs will provide exciting opportunities for the top amateur players in the region, including challenging, position focused training in a structured year-round training program, national-level competition and unmatched exposure to recruiters and scouts.

Justin Stone, president of Elite, stated, “I’m thrilled to join with the Future Elite. We potentially will have 25 of the top 30 players in the state in next year’s program, which immediately will make us a national brand. With this combination, we want to become a ‘one stop shop’ for any national university recruiting in the state of Illinois.”

Rich Ruffolo, co-founder of The Future Elite, added, “You will be hard pressed to find a more committed, baseball-educated group of individuals from top to bottom, working together towards one common goal – success for our athletes.” Mike Ferri, co-founder of The Future Elite, further commented, “Great athletes, great coaches, and great exposure can only lead to great things.”

Elite Baseball Training will be holding invitation only tryouts for national travel teams for its 2013 teams from 12U to 16U in July. For more information on these tryouts and Elite go to www.elitebaseballtraining.com.

About The Future Elite and Elite Baseball Training

The Future Elite, co-founded by Rich Ruffolo and Mike Ferri, as well as coached by former White Sox major leaguer Mark Dalesandro, were ranked #1 in the state of Illinois* and #11 in the nation* at the 14U level in 2011. The current 14U and 15U teams feature some of the top players in the state of Illinois in their respective classes. Nick Dalesandro and Joe Uvelli are rated in the top three of the 2015 class** while Drake Fellows, Michael Ruffolo and Sam Ferri were all members of the Great Lakes Region USA Baseball NTIS Team. The Future Elite plays a national schedule that features tournaments such as the 15U USA Baseball National Championships East and the Perfect Game World Wooden Bat Championships.

Elite Baseball Training, led by Justin Stone, provides professional instruction and exposure opportunities as well as a personalized player development program. Elite instructors include former Indiana State University coach and professional video analyst Justin Stone, former White Sox major leaguer, Rob Mackowiak, and Houston Astros Scout, Dan Puente. Elite also trains and manages the Elite Baseball 15U Travel Team which features 7 of the top 20 players in the state of Illinois** as well as national caliber players from the states of West Virginia and Arizona. This team plays a national schedule that features the Perfect Game 15U BCS Championships as well as the 15U USA Baseball National Championships West.

*Rankings by Travelballselect.com
**Rankings by Prep Baseball Report, Illinois

Bo was a great asset this offseason to Elite Baseball Training.  Bo immediately connected with kids through our classes, camps and lessons and made a big impact with Elite Baseball’s 15U Elite Team, where he served as the off-season pitching coach.  The 15U kids loved him, as he taught them so much on mechanics, grips and pitch selection.  Bo will be missed, and we wish him luck and look forward to his return with Elite in September.  In the meantime, former Toronto Blue Jay farm hand, Dave Sever will be taking over with our pitching lessons at Elite.  Dave has worked with Elite, the last three years and it open for lessons now at www.elitebaseballtraining.com