2 Drills To Help Bat Path

Short to it, long through it. 

That’s one of the first things I heard when I started playing baseball. 

I think I was taught short to it, ‘literally’ swinging straight down to the ball, but that’s a story for another day. 

Hitters at every level of the game are consistently working on their bat path, we will refer to that as “direction” for the rest of this article. 

Having good direction helps hitters improve: 

         1       Timing 

         2       Consistency 

         3       Adjustability 

         4       Power 

You can tell if a hitter has a good path if they can drive the outside pitch with power to the opposite field. For them to do that, they MUST have good direction. 

You can get away with bad direction on pitches middle in. You can’t on the outside pitch. 

Let’s look at what having a good bat path would look like. 

This is a 2B hit into the RCF gap. 

He can’t do this if his bat is coming around the ball. 

What are some ways to help hitters practice this? 

Let’s start with isolating the top hand and the bottom hand. 

The top hand is responsible for getting the bat in the zone early, and the bottom hand is responsible for letting the bat stay in the zone for a long time.

1. Top Hand 

Purpose: Improve the mechanics of back arm

Equipment: L-Screen, baseballs, coach flipping, short bat, regular bat. 

Directions: 

1. Have the hitter get in their stance
2. Grab the short bat with the top hand
3. With the bottom hand, take a regular bat and have them put it into the ground. (This will act as a base for the hitter so that don’t drift forward and overswing)
4. Flip balls over the middle part of the plate.
5. Instruct them to hit each ball up the middle. 

Emphasize to them not to try to kill this ball and overswing. 

You can also do a version of this open stance like Mookie does here: 

The focus is on improving their movement with their back arm, so they have a better game swing. 

If the hitter does have a short bat, you can have them use a regular bat and tell them to choke up. 

2. Bottom Hand

Purpose: Improve the mechanics of front arm

Equipment: L-Screen, baseballs, coach flipping, short bat, regular bat. 

Directions: 

1. Have the hitter get in their stance
2. Grab the short bat with bottom hand
3. With the top hand take a regular bat and have them put it into the ground. (This will act as a base for the hitter so that don’t drift forward and overswing)
4. Flip balls over the middle part of the plate.
5. Instruct them to hit each ball up the middle. 

Emphasize to them to keep their bottom forearm relaxed.

If the hitter does have a short bat, you can have them use a regular bat and tell them to choke up. 

Try those 2 drills with your hitters and watch how much better their direction gets. 

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