I play in several 55+ leagues, 4-5 games a week. All are slow pitch. My batting average (.700 +/-) is good and I don’t want to jeopardize it. The vast majority of my hits are hard line drives and hard ground balls and I spray the ball around well. Mostly singles, some doubles, but homeruns are relatively infrequent.
Always looking to improve, I’d like to raise my slugging percentage, but not at the expense of my batting average. So, my question is this…does my lack of distance relate to the angle at which I swing (which I assume is level) or where the bat is meeting the ball? I don’t think strength is an issue.
Don’t look to me for answers, I went from hitting .650+ as a 20-something with decent power to a steady succession of 6-3 groundouts as i close in on 50.
I would think that you don’t have enough uppercut in your swing to get the distance for homers. Of course, if I tried to fix that, my steady 6-3s would become steady 6 unassisteds.
It’s a lot like golf in that technique is the most important characteristic of the swing. I found, when I used to play softball, that getting the weight shifting from the back foot to the front foot during the swing help my distance quite a bit.
Are your arms fully extended? Not having your arms fully extended takes away a ton of power.
Second thing I’d look at is if you are hitting with just your arms or are you turning your hips too? Have someone take a picture or video of your swing, check to see if your front leg is fully extended, back leg bent, arms fully extended and head down on contact (although if you’re hitting a lot of liners I doubt that’s it).
SDTim, you’ve probably played enough softball to know what it feels like when the ball hits the sweet spot of the bat, so I doubt that’s your problem concerning a lack of power.
My BA hovers around .700 and I average a little over 0.5 HRs per game. The simple way to get more distance is to swing with more of an uppercut. A level swing on a ball coming in at a downward trajectory will result in flat line drives. If you’ve got the strength and the equipment, a really exaggerated uppercut will yield some high, majestic shots.
I mentioned equipment because I simply cannot overstate the importance of the bat and the ball in slowpitch softball. For me, a $100 Worth bat will get me a lot of warning track fly balls and maybe a HR here and there. With a $350 Miken Freak, I can almost guarantee at least one home run per game. The same goes for the ball. There are mushrooms and there are rocks.
It sounds like you have the strength to hit the accidental HR from time to time, so maybe in your next round of BP you can try and take some really exaggerated upercuts and see how much more distance you can consistently get.
I’d be cautious about adjusting your swing; I think if you’ve developed a consistent stance/approach/swing at the plate over a period of time, switching things up when there’s nothing really wrong is just as likely to invite trouble, especially if you’re going to try to hit more home runs – that can mean developing bad habits. YMMV
If you want more power, consider a better bat. You may be thwarted by what your league allows, but the **Easton Salvo *(legal in most leagues) has caught fire in our league: it seems like 75% of the players are using it, which is unprecedented in our league where a number of players use “dirty bats,” bats that have been shaved on the inside for more pop. It is as low as $140 on line, which is a ridiculous bang for the buck. This year’s model seems (to me) extremely handle-loaded, so a 28 oz. feels like a 25-26, so you’re never late on a pitch, will never pop up or hit on the hands. But the ball just jumps off the bat better than any bat I’ve ever used. I found a used Salvo for $80, but it’s two-years old and the weight distribution is more even. Still, I’m hitting the crap out of the ball. I equate my older Easton Salvo to being a hot-but-loyal girlfriend and the latest Salvo model to basically bat porn: fantastic but completely unrealistic. That said, the bat is for real.
*this is a relative matter: weight distribution is from my point of view; others would argue my bat, an older Mizuno Techfire, is just end-loaded.
Don’t think I can do much better with my bats. For leagues which require ASA-Approved equipment, I use a Rip-It Reaper (REAP2 model) and I like my old Demarini F2 on hot days. The Rip-It isn’t available anymore and really shouldn’t have been approved by ASA. For the other leagues and tournaments I use a Combat Da Bomb and the old standby Miken Ultra II.
I’ll try elevating my swing a bit for the next few games. As cautioned, however, I don’t want to screw up what I consider a pretty decent batting average by developing any bad habits just to hit more homeruns.
Speaking of bats, some guys around here are using women’s fast pitch bats. As of the moment, ASA hasn’t caught up with this. They are light and very thin walled. Very hot, but bigger guys won’t get much use out of them as they will break. The Reebok Melee is gving the Mikens and Combats a lot of competition lately.
I’ve got games tomorrow and Saturday. Will let you know how I make out.
Are you sure you’re using a sufficiently heavy bat?
There’s a bizarrely common belief that lighter bats give you more power. That is almost invariably wrong. Most softball players use bats that are too light, and should use a heavier bat, if they want to generate more power.
Hello, your avg and pattern match mine. I dont see a need to change. Sluggers need OBA in front of them. Be the table setter, youre good at it.
The more you try and lift the ball, the more they catch it. I would much rather have a team of 700 1’s and 2’s, then a team of 400 with an odd HR now and then.
I’m not sure I would call it bizarre, more like difficult to properly calculate.
Lower weight=increased bat speed=increased BBS
and
Lower weight=decreased MOI=decreased BBS
Somewhere in there is the sweet spot, but I wouldn’t say opinions on either side are bizarre because most of us don’t know the MOI of the bats we swing (at least all the bats I’ve had only had weight), and most of don’t know the resulting bat speed we can get with various bats.
It’s difficult to suggest how you could get more power without actually seeing your swing. I’ll try to give you some general tips, which you can adopt or deny depending on what you think will work.
I would caution against changing your swing plane, unless it’s totally level. Your swing should necessarily be on a slightly upward plane. But if you’re hitting hard line drives, your swing is probably fine. So I’m going to guess that changing your swing would actually be a bad thing.
If I could only give you one tip, it would this: Wrists. Think of your bat like a bullwhip. As you arrive at the point of contact, you want your wrists coming through the ball to crack the whip. With amateur hitters, this tip almost always works wonders by itself. Use your wrists more. And if you want more power, strengthen your forearms. Power hitters in the majors have forearms as big as some people’s thighs. A shocking amount of power comes from the wrists, and amateur hitters never seem to use their wrists enough.
Here’s an illustrated example of what I’m talking about. Here’s a swing from someone we can probably all agree is a pretty decent hitter, Albert Pujols. As he starts his swing, his arms actually start through the zone ahead of the bat head. Now compare the position of his arms to the position of the bat head in this picture. His arms have moved very little, but the bat head has swung through the zone to the point of contact. That’s because the “pop” part of his swing – from immediately before through the point of contact – is almost all wrists. (Another example – of Ken Griffey, Jr. – here. The lines trace his swing plane – which is slightly up, and maybe even a bit more loopy than a normal swing – but check out where his arms are in relation to the bat head. At the point of contact, most of his bat speed is coming from his wrists.)
With respect to other tipsters in here – who probably know as much about hitting as I do, but have a different opinion – I would suggest that you absolutely do not want to swing up at the ball. In addition to dropping your back shoulder – which itself robs you of power – and locking your hips out of the swing – which also robs you of power – you’ll also run the risk of throwing the rest of your swing out of whack. And it sounds like you’ve got a good swing as it is.
When I wanted to hit with power in college, I would actually raise my arms in my stance a slight bit more, because it enabled me to come down on the ball more. You want to make solid contact just a hair under the ball’s middle, which will give power and a bit of lift. If you’re swinging just a touch down on the ball, that will give the ball more backspin after contact, which will create more lift, meaning the ball with stay in the air longer, meaning you’ll hit more home runs. There should be a very slight difference in your swing plane. And you don’t want to think about your swing plane while you’re swinging, so that’s why raising my arms in my stance seemed to work.
If you’re going for power, don’t think about swinging hard. Think about swinging quick. (When people swing hard, they tend to stiffen up and swing more with their arms. You want to use your whole body to get the tip of your bat moving as quickly as possible through the point of contact. But you don’t want to think too much while you’re batting. You’re naturally going to do it right that if you just think about swinging quick.)
Stand up straighter in your batting stance. Power hitters in the majors typically stand up straighter. If you’re hunched over like Ricky Henderson, it’s more difficult to get your while body into the swing. I was a high average, line drive hitter in high school who only hit a few home runs, and I hit for power in college. There was no difference in my swing. The biggest physical difference was my stance, which freed me up to hit with more power. (There were also mental differences in how I approached an at bat. But you get the point.)
Sure, it’s hard to calculate, but it has in fact been done, and the verdict’s long in; people use bats that are too light to play softball, especially slo-pitch.
The thing is that no matter what the weight of your bat is, you can only swing your arms so fast. If you can take a swing of speed X with a 28-ounce bat, you can’t double it by using a 14-ounce bat.
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If so, I’m curious how you think a softball swing should be different than a baseball swing.
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Depends what you’re playing. If you’re playing baseball or fast pitch, your swing is somewhat different in emphasis from a slo-pitch swing.
In either sport the ideal, perfect swing is generally the same, but if you’re facing fast pitching you must assume a somewhat more defensive approach in some situations, especially with two strikes on you. Simply going for maximum power on every swing is a ticket to Strikeoutville. Yoiu have to take what you’re given sometimes and look to knock the outside 1-2 pitch the other way.
In slo-pitch you can’t be caught late - in fact, most batters swing too early. You’re trying to maximize force every swing.
Fair points, all. And absolutely true. But, as you mentioned, those aren’t really differences in the swing. They’re differences in the mental approach. So I don’t see how they would invalidate my suggestions.
I just wasn’t sure why Omniscient seemed to think my suggestions were invalid because I was coming from a baseball background. As you mentioned, the ideal swing is probably the same. And if anything, it’s more important in softball because you’ve got more opportunities to take an ideal swing, rather than just trying to protect the zone by slapping at a close pitch.
Ok, played a couple of games and took some BP since this posting. Maybe I haven’t given it enough time, but I think I’ll leave well enough alone. Changing my swing didn’t feel comfortable and the results didn’t show enough promise to warrant screwing up my batting average.
Referencing bat weight, I’ve read that the ideal bat is the heaviest you can swing that doesn’t lead to a drop in bat speed after the ball is hit. Without sophisticated equipment I don’t know how the average joe would determine this. Personally, I think most guys would have a tendency to go heavier rather than lighter. For several years I’ve swung both 27 oz (end load) and 28 oz (bal). Comfortable with both. However my end load just broke and I order a 26 oz (end load) to replace it. We’ll see.
The average average, if you know what I mean, in my league is about .525, but we count reached-on-errors and walks as hits (so really it’s a modified on base percentage, although the pitching quality is usually high and guys don’t draw many walks.) This is in a league with a reasonably solid level of defensive skill. .700 averages happen but aren’t typical; a few guys are hopeless, and are around .250. Nobody can be benched, that’s against the rules and the spirit of the league, so it evens out.
.500 as a midpoint is good for slo-pitch; our average score is something like 16-12, which is fun without pressing the limit of the time you have available. If the league batted .700 you’d hardly ever complete a game, every game would be 33-26. While those games happen, it’d suck if they happened regularly.
Curiously, the OBA drops like a stone in the weekend tournaments. I admit I don’t quite understand this phenomenon, but it’s true; I believe it drops to something like .350-.400, and you see scores like 4-2 pretty commonly. This seems counterintuitive to me because the pepple most likely to get fatigued (and in a weekend tournament, you play six games minimum in less than 48 hours, seven if you make a final) are, logically, the pitchers. Yet it’s the batters whose performance drops. Damned if I know why. Pressure? Could be.
No offense, but how is your eyesight? It could be as simple as not tracking the centre of the ball accurately.
Assuming you have a good weight tranfer, hip rotation, and swing. I would guess that you are actually swinging slightly late and making contact with the ball as you swing down on the ball as opposed to out in front of the plate.
As others have said, without seeing your swing it’s almost impossible to diagnose.
