What's up guys coach Madden, YouGoProBaseball.com and today we've got
a question from lavish souls and he asks do you have any hitting drills so that I
can stop pulling the ball every pitch yes I do but I'm not only gonna give you
a few hitting drills we're gonna talk about why you may be pulling the
baseball how you can fix it and then I'm gonna give you six hitting drills that
you can use to stay consistent with this but before we get into it I want to say
thank you to a bow baseball elbow baseball is a bat manufacturer in Canada
where they supply premium cut billets to players of all ages they shipped to the
US and worldwide so check the link in the description and see what they got
going on so the first reason I see guys pulling the ball a lot is because
they're they've got bad timing you know they're out in front right imagine if
you're early on everything you're gonna be hitting that ball out in front and
pulling it to your pull side every time right so if timing is an issue you need
to work on your timing so it drills that help with your timing you're gonna be
doing more live front toss live EP live hitting in games and really working on
your timing and trying to get that rhythm in sync with the picture or the
thrower depending on whether you're in a drill or in a game and you're gonna work
on that because if you're hitting the ball out in front too much you're gonna
be pulling every time so work on timing have the mental approach to go middle
opposite field when you're hitting the second reason that I see guys pulling
the ball a lot is they get long in their swing so their hands get out and around
and they're coming around the baseball so they may even be hitting the ball
deeper in they're in the zone but they're coming around with their hands
they're getting long what happens then is sometimes you'll get a bubble in your
swing and you'll have a rollover when you have a rollover or a bubble in your
swing you're gonna be hitting weak ground balls to the pull side all the
time so if you're crushing balls to the pull side maybe look at your timing if
you are hitting weak ground balls to the pull side maybe look at do you have a
bubble in your swing are you rolling over are you getting along with your
hands is your elbow getting away from your body and your hands casting away if
that's the issue then you really got to work on staying connected getting into
slot with that elbow staying connected compact to contact and then extending
through the ball through the pitch where it's pitched - you also have the mindset
hitting the ball back up the middle or slightly opposite field when you're
working on that the third reason I see guys that hit the ball to the pull side
all the time is they're flying open they're flying out right they get here
if this is my batter's box going this way when they start to swing they're
either stepping out we're pulling the head out or pulling the shoulder out and
they're getting out and around the ball if you're doing that obviously that's a
problem that's gonna lead to more balls being pulled to the pull side so we got
to work on that we got to check our alignment we've got to stay more
balanced and under control we got it work again the main thing is having that
mindset hitting that ball middle back up the middle of the field
slightly opposite when you have that mindset you're gonna be a little bit
more successful but now let's get into the six hitting drills that you can work
on to start being a better hitter not pulling the ball all the time
start working up the middle feel slightly up as a field so hitting drill
number one is angled toss I put this PVC pipe here just for reference to show you
guys where the batter's box would be so you can get the idea of the angle so I'm
gonna set up in the batter's box actually normal so if this is my
batter's box here and this is home plate obviously we're not using the tee for
this I'm just keeping it here for reference so you guys get the idea but
we're gonna have a front tosser okay normally your front tosser is straight
up the middle right but for angle toss we're gonna actually angle him off
between home plate and the first base side if you're a right-handed hitter so
he's gonna be about almost 45 degrees maybe even a little bit more towards the
first base side and he's gonna be tossing from there but you as the hitter
are still going to be focused up the middle here so we're not going to be
striding this way to him and trying to go back we're gonna be going up the
middle with our stride but staying close with our front shoulder and then trying
to hit that ball deep in the zone and shoot it right back at him okay so now
instead of having your your front toss are straight ahead he's gonna be more
down the first base line this way tossing to you you're still striding
straight like at the pitcher but then you're staying closed more with your
upper body and trying to stay connected here and shoot the ball right back at
the tosser think about letting that ball travel a little bit staying connected
and then extending where you're trying to hit that ball the second hitting
drill I got for you guys I learned this one
from will Nieves he was a major league catcher great hitter and he came on the
YouTube channel last year I believe it was and he showed us a great hitting
drill where he was opened up when he started and then he coiled back and then
he tried to throw his hands at the ball stay inside stay connected and shoot
that ball to the opposite field if you think about this this is actually very
similar to angle toss he's just creating the angle with his body as opposed to
the tosser creating the angle now this is a drill that you could do off of the
tee as you'll see him do but it's another great one to really work on
staying connected feeling the difference of where you're trying to hit that ball
up the middle or slightly opposite field and it's just a great drill to feel it
and work on it a little bit of an over-exaggeration but it's a great drill
if you work on it and you practice it over time hitting drill number three is
the catch and crush drill I talked about this drill a lot on my youtube channel
it's basically when you get set up and you're gonna have a partner and you're
gonna be hitting a ball off the tee but your partner is gonna throw you a ball
just over the ball on the tee you're gonna catch it you're gonna keep that
front shoulder closed and you're gonna make contact with your backhand it's a
one-handed drill this drill is great for guys who pull the ball all the time
because we really got to focus on keeping our front shoulder closed and
staying in there now what we want to do the only adjustment we want to do if we
got a guy who's pulling the ball a lot we're rolling over a lot or yanking out
a lot we want to take this drill and have a opposite field mindset when we're
doing this drill so instead of just trying to hit the ball up the middle
we're actually gonna try to hit this ball slightly opposite field so we're
gonna catch the ball from our partner take a stride stay close with our front
shoulder take the back hand to the ball and hit it slightly opposite field
that's the only difference in this drill when we got a guy who's
pulling the ball very much now the fourth baseball hitting drill that I got
for you guys we were we're big-time pullers is the PVC drill now I got this
PVC pipe here to show you the batter's box but I'm actually gonna take this out
and I'm gonna use it for purposes of this drill and we're just gonna create
an angle to where we're trying to hit the ball so imagine this was still my
batter's box right here but I'm gonna try to take my hands along this PVC pipe
okay so if I'm trying to hit the ball off of the tee or you could even do the
front toss or even lie BP it's a lot harder than lie BP but off of the tee or
front toss you could definitely do this drill and you're just gonna try to take
your hands along this path right the only difference in a swing when you're
trying to go up the middle up as a field versus a pull swing is you're gonna stay
connected a little bit less and you're going to extend through the ball through
the pitch right so if you're trying to hit this pitch slightly opposite field
you're gonna disconnect from that slot a little bit earlier and you want your
hands to ride the path of that PVC so I'm just gonna get here I'm gonna start
my swing and then I'm just gonna imagine my hands kind of going on that same path
of the PVC this way I'm gonna extend through contact that way as well and I'm
gonna watch the ball fly in a nice line drive fashion that way that's the whole
goal of the drill and it's just kind of a visual gives you a little bit of a
visual to follow and some guys really find this helpful when working on
hitting the ball up the middle slightly obvious feel for hitting drill number
five we can use this tool right here it has become one of my favorite hitting
tools not only for guys who pull the ball but really just to work on a great
swing because this tool right here is going to give you instant feedback
whether you had a good swing or a bad swing and you can use this for a guy who
pulls a ball all the time because when you all you do is you attach it to the
bat here it comes with Velcro it goes right around your bat nice and easy
and then when you shoot the ball off if you're yanking out or pulling out this
way that ball is going to fly that way and you're gonna know so your idea with
this drill this ball is to shoot it right up the middle this is really gonna
focus on keeping you inside the ball and having a good compact swing and shooting
it right up the middle you could also focus on going slightly opposite field
the other great thing about this tool is that if you dump the barrel or get long
or have bad drag that ball is gonna fly off this way so you don't really want to
work too far opposite field with this drill work right up the middle
slightly off this field but it's a great great drill because it gives you that
instant feedback and you're gonna know right away whether you're doing it right
or wrong it's fun it's easy simple and you can get a lot of swings in with this
tool the six hitting drill that you can use to work on not pulling the ball all
the time is the connection ball drill and this is just a ball that you can put
between your bicep and your or arm here because what happens when
guys like I said one of the reasons guys pull the ball a lot is they get
disconnected their elbow gets away from their body their hands get away from
their elbow and they get real long early in the swing right with their arm now if
this ball was in there it'd be flying out right we don't want that we actually
want to make contact still connected we want to have a power L in our arm right
there if we do that this ball is gonna stay in there until after contact so you
just place this ball right here in your arm and you get here and you take your
swings boom and you want to stay connected with this ball until you get
down to contact okay so this is a great drill to work on it you could take full
swings you don't have to stop like I did right there you could take full swings
with it it's gonna pop out eventually as you get extended through contact but
you're gonna be able to tell especially if you put yourself on video if that
ball is popping out early you're gonna know that you're getting too long and
extending early you want to stay more compact get to contact being a strong
position and then extend that's a great way to work on not pulling the ball so
much but hitting it slightly opposite field for up the middle now there are
many many many other hitting drills I've talked about many on this YouTube
channel if you guys are into learning hitting drills definitely subscribe
click the bell so you'll be notified when I put new ones up and you can use a
lot of these other drills to work on having that up the middle opposite field
approach you just have to implement that mindset into the drills as well right so
just know when you're using hitting drills it's for the purpose of trying to
fix something I think of hitting drills as like the prescription meaning if
someone gets sick and the doctor prescribes them something to help them
get better that's what you should use hitting drills for every single hitting
drill is not for every single hitter you're using hitting drills to help fix
certain problems with certain hitters so if you are that guy that's pulling the
ball every single time try v-6 again there are other ones that you can
implement if you use the mindset of the middle slightly opposite field that may
will work great for you in fact I want you guys to leave a comment below and
let me know what are some hitting drills you guys use to work to hit the ball up
the middle slightly opposite field and what are some of your other favorite
hitting drills that use in general leave your comment down below I'd love to talk
to you guys down there of course I hope you like this video
and I will see you guys in the next one thank you so much