Impatience is a common problem for many hitters, which leads to lunging for the ball, off-balance swings and a decrease in bat speed. Coaches always say 'you have to let the ball come to you', but why do they say that? Why do young hitters repeatedly swing early, lunge for the ball and refuse to wait back?
When young hitters start to face stronger pitching (better fastballs), they tend to start their swing earlier to compensate. That early commitment forces the batters hips to break early and gets their hands through the zone so that they are too far in front of the plate if they make contact. Similarly, when hitters get used to significant fastballs, they become crossed up on slower pitching, and curveballs.
So how can this be fixed? No matter how fast the pitcher is throwing, they still have to get the pitch through a relatively small window to be successful. The plate is only 18 inches wide, and usually the strikezone is knees to the letters, so really its not a very big area for the batter to protect. In fact, comparing the size of the goal a hockey goalie has to protect, the strikezone is tiny!
Continuing with the hockey analogy, goalies don't bother blocking shots that are wide of the net, and they don't move forward to bat the puck out of his path. They wait. They defend their crease, and hitters can do the same thing.
Using the defensive mindset encourages the batter to be selective, to wait for the ball to come to them, and helps shorten their swing. Keeping your wait back is another important part of a defensive swing. When practicing hitting off a tee, make sure to keep your weight over your back leg, and remember to squish the bug. Tee work is vital to defending your strikezone, and games like pepper and ping also help you build a powerful stroke. Just make sure to take quality swings EVERY time.
Hitting is a reactionary process. The swing cannot begin until the pitch is on its way, and so the hitter must see, and identify the pitch and react all within a fraction of a second. After developing a defensive swing, hitters can work on becoming more aggressive. Because unlike hockey goalies, batters want to do more than just knock the ball away, ball players want to hit the ball very hard. Hitters need to defend the strikezone, but defend it aggressively! Keeping your weight back and patience will payoff big time.
