What's up guys, Coach Madden, YouGoProBaseball.com and I'm here with Antonelli from Antonelli
Baseball.
Finally.
Got down here.
People have been asking for us to get together and we're here.
We're here.
I'm glad you're here.
Thank you for coming.
Thank you for having me.
And we're going to talk about the 4 big misconceptions in hitting today.
Let's do it.
And I want to hear your take on some of them.
The first one is getting your front foot down early is that a good piece of advice, bad
piece of advice, what's your take?
Yeh sure, so I think you hear this all the time with coaches, youth coaches, get your
foot down early.
Anytime a guy fouls a ball back or maybe takes a pitch it's always because the front foot
isn't down early enough.
Let's go back, there's a couple of different things I think you've got to cover.
The first thing is there's a bunch of different ways to stride and so the front foot is going
to get down at a little bit different time for every hitter.
So if you've got a guy like Josh Donaldson who's going to have a bigger stride, He's
going to typically get his front foot down when the ball is about half way to the plate.
That's what you typically see with guys with normal strides so if you've got a guy with
a leg kick like a Donaldson or you see just more of a typical standard stride, usually
the front foot is going to get down when the ball is about half way.
But you're also going to have some hitters who are a little bit different.
If you think about like an Albert Pujols who kind of just does this move and he just kind
of puts his toe down.
Or like a Curtis Granderson who will put his foot down really really early and now he's
going to keep getting loaded and keep getting ready, they're going to get their foot down
a lot earlier but sometimes coaches see that and they say "see, you've got to get your
foot down early.
You should have your foot down before the pitcher even starts his windup or release
the ball".
So, it's a little bit of a case by case basis.
Some guys again are going to get down when the ball is half way.
That's perfectly fine.
That's what you actually typically see.
The foot will get down when the ball is about half way to the plate and that's when the
swing is really going to launch but again if you've got a guy like Pujols who's going
to put his foot down a little bit earlier, that's fine too.
The thing that you'll notice is even when they get their foot down for guys like a Pujols
or a guy like Granderson, they're still loading even though their foot is down.
So they're not swinging, they're not just putting their foot down and just stop everything
is dead, momentum is dead, I'm not getting loaded anymore, they don't do that.
They put it down, they keep getting loaded and now they launch at almost that same point
when the ball is half way to the plate.
So, what you don't want to see, what youth hitters do when they hear "oh I gotta get
my foot down early" is they get their foot down, the pitcher hasn't even released the
ball and now they're just stopped.
They're not getting pulled back, they're not getting loaded anymore and now it's "wait
for the ball to come" and just try to take an arm swing.
That's where you get in trouble.
So, I'm a firm believer that you can get ready too late obviously if the ball is past you
and your foot is not down, that's a problem.
But you can also get ready too early.
Have my foot down so early where my momentum stops, I'm not getting pulled back or loaded
and now I'm basically have to start the swing from a stand still.
I can't create anything with that either.
Timing and momentum is in my opinion is everything in hitting because as a pitcher I'm trying
to mess up your timing and your balance.
So, that's huge.
Quick piggy back off that, what was your stride?
So, it's funny because, let's say this, I changed a couple times during my career.
I was almost always a wider guy with my foot down.
I'd do that little tap with my toe but again if you watched me I put my foot down but I'd
keep loading and then when my heel dropped that's when I would go.
So, that's how I typically did it.
Now, when I got to the Major Leagues actually they wanted to give me a leg kick and one
of the reasons was I think they thought that I was getting down too early it's funny that
we're talking about this and so I started to try to do a leg kick and I just couldn't
figure it out because I'm used to, I think you're used to a certain rythm and my rythm
was always this boom and hit and now all of a sudden I'm trying to do this and I just
couldn't figure it out.
So that's why I don't try to tell anybody "you have to stride like this, you have to
get your foot down at this time".
All I tell them is that they've got to be ready to go, the swing has got to launch when
that ball is about half way there.
Now whether you want to do this or whether you want to do this, that's up to you and
then if you're too late, if you notice that a guy is too late because some guys don't
get their foot down on time and they are late.
I don't always tell them "get your foot down earlier".
I tell them "you've got to get this foot off the ground sooner.
You have to be ready to launch the swing when the ball is about half way there".
So, now instead of thinking "oh I've got to get my foot down and start right here" I'm
just thinking "ok, when do I got to get this foot up" depending on what my load is and
what my stride is do I have to get it up here, do I have to get it up a little bit later?
So now I'm able to kind of look at the pitcher when I'm on the on deck circle and figure
out when do I got to get ready.
When do I got to get my foot up so that I'm on time getting it down.
Three things that stood out to me from what you just said right there, rythm, timing,
and momentum.
I think that pretty much sums all that up.
Have that good rythm, that good timing, and good momentum.
The second misconception that I want to talk about is don't drop your hands.
You hear coaches all the time "don't drop your hands, keep your hands up, keep them
high".
What do you think about that?
Yeh so I think there's different ways just like there's different ways to stride, there's
different ways to load.
So I'm never going to personally take a hitter and just because their hands are lower say
"hey you can't do that man you've got to keep your hands up" because there have been plenty
of really good hitters that load with their hands dropping a little bit.
So you'll see all different stuff.
You'll see some hitters that just kind of go and pull straight back right here.
You'll see some hitters that start to pull back here and all they do is stride and they're
back already.
You'll see some guys that really tip the bat this way and then go and you'll see some guys
that pump the bat down low.
You've got like a Barry Bonds, you know Barry Bonds used to pump his hands down and then
they'd come up.
Josh Donaldson they're kind of here and then they come up.
So there's all different ways to do it and so my thing is as long as when you're starting
to move forward whether they're going down or just back, whatever they're doing they
have to eventually if they go down they will eventually start to come back up as I'm getting
right here and getting stretched but I don't tell a player "hey you can't go down there"
because who am I to say that when there has been plenty of hitters that go down.
Just like there is hitters that go here.
They do all different types of things.
But they've got to be eventually pulled back right here when you're about to launch the
bat.
So that has a lot to do again with rythm, timing, and momentum as well.
It all kind of ties in kind of swinging from the ground up through your kinetic chain,
right?
Absolutely and that's why I wouldn't change, I'm not going to change a guy that has done
this his whole career.
We'll get a lot of players.
A young player comes up through our system and they're a great hitter and they get ready
by doing this.
Everything is predicated by having this move in their swing and I've seen some coaches
that will watch a guy can absolutely crush balls, be an amazing hitter, and if it's a
coach that just said "oh no you can't drop your hands" then they say "that might work
now but it's not going to work at the next level" that's the big thing right.
Well, I've seen plenty of guys have it work at the next level so I'm not going to take
this guy and tell him that he can't drop his hands just because it's one of those old school
things you can't drop your hands.
If this is how his swing works and he's successful, I don't take that out of it.
I just let him do it.
Now, if I feel like it's causing issues, maybe they're not getting back up here, maybe they're
dropping and they're just swinging from here and they're not finally getting pulled back
up here, then you can work on it.
But just the whole idea of dropping the hands to get loaded I don't think is a big deal.
I wouldn't change that just for the sake of changing it.
Right and just to touch on what you said about the coaches.
You know one thing I learned later in my career which I wish I learned earlier was you're
going to have 100 different coaches and they're probably going to tell you a lot of different
things.
Once I learned to listen to everyone, try everything, but it's ok to get rid of stuff
that is not working or doesn't make sense to you and then keep the stuff that is good
because you're going to have so many different coaches especially at the youth level down
here in florida these guys are playing pretty much all year round so they might have 2 or
3 different coaches, they've got private trainers, they've got mom and dad, maybe grandpa is
giving them advice.
All this different advice once you can, instead of trying to change your swing every single
time someone tells you to do something, think about it, try it, feel it, see what it feels
like, if it's working maybe stick with it, if it's not, get rid of it.
It's ok, that's the process that you need to go through in learning over your career
and developing your own swing which is great I agree with everything you just said there
again it goes back into timing, rythm, and momentum and swinging from the ground up.
The third misconception I hear a lot is swinging down at the ball, like you've got to swing
down to the ball, get short to it and get right to it.
Now, before we get into that I also want to say that we're not trying to bash any coaches
out there, especially youth coaches.
A lot of you guys are volunteers, you're putting in hard work, and you're trying to teach what
you know.
So we're just trying to explain through our experiences, Major League hitter here, Minor
League pitcher, what we know to be true of the game.
So we're just trying to help and I don't want it to come across like we're trying to put
out like we know everything.
We're just trying to let you know what has helped us throughout the years.
So, what is your take on swinging down to the ball.
Right.
Well, let's start with this and we were talking about this earlier.
I always talk about feel versus real.
So most, in my opinion, most hitters feel like they're swinging down on the ball.
That's the feeling that they get and most hitters when they show you, if you go talk
to a Major League hitter, a lot of guys will show you not only down to the ball, but they'll
keep going down until they make contact.
Now this is the feel that a lot of players they feel and one example of this is one of
my first years with the Padres I was watching Adrian Gonzales, a great hitter right, amazing
hitter, and I heard, I watched him hit and I heard him talking to guys and he was talking
about dropping the head down on the ball and he was showing this move of just literally
being almost straight down to the ball and so I watched him talk about that and then
I'm watching him hit and I'm saying "it doesn't look like he's doing exactly what he's showing
us" and that's usually what you see with most players is that, most really good players
is they show one thing and they do something else.
So feel versus real.
Feel versus real.
Real is not always what you feel so I'll start with that.
When I watch, I just put on video and I'm watching all the best hitters, what I feel
most guys do is they get the barrel behind the ball early.
So the ball, I always tell our guys, the pitcher is standing on an elevated mound, he's throwing
overhand to a catcher that's squatting.
So the ball has to come down.
Ok.
Every ball is going to come down.
So as a hitter what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to get on that same plane as the pitch.
The only way to do that is I've got to swing my barrel when I come through the hitting
zone I've got to be slightly up through the ball.
Ok.
Now, this is pitch dependent like if you get a ball that's down and really away sometimes
that doesn't happen.
You won't be, you might not see the bat perfectly behind the ball, but in general I feel like
you're typically going to see the barrel get behind the ball, get in the hitting zone early,
and then move on the same path through the ball for a long time.
So if I can do that, I tell the guys like we have this hitting window right here and
the more area I can cover, the earlier I can get in here and stay there, well now my consistency
goes way up.
Because when the pitch is being thrown I don't know the speed, I don't know where it's going,
I don't know any of that.
I'm reading it as it comes in.
So if you think about the pitch path from about here to the catchers mitt, I have to
hit it on one of these pitch points.
I don't know which pitch point it's going to be.
If I was that good we'd all hit 800 if we knew exactly where we were going to make contact
every single time.
I'm not good enough to be that perfect all the time.
So I need to give myself some margin for error.
So if I can get in the zone early and I'm in the zone back here and I just happen to
be late "oh I messed up, I thought I was going to be here but I hit it right here" I can
hit the ball that way and I can hit a line drive.
If I'm on time I can hit it there.
If I'm early I can hit it there.
So, I'm giving myself a chance to cover all of those pitch points.
Now, if I don't do that, if I'm either really down through the ball, so again the ball is
coming down and I'm coming down, well now that window just got shrunk to about this
big right here.
So now my timing has to be super perfect.
If I'm not perfect I foul the ball off, or I just miss it.
Ok.
So that's why I think one of the common denominators of all the really good hitters is being in
that hitting window for a really really long time.
The more down you are or the same thing can happen if you lose your barrel and you're
really up, well then same thing, you don't stay in that window for a long time.
So it's not just too steep of a swing, it can also be a swing that you kind of lose
the barrel and work up too much.
Alright.
So that's the main point and then the last thing I'll say real quick is if my goal is
to hit in a launch angle which is the big thing right now.
Some people will bash launch angle because they hear launch and they think like guys
are just trying to hit home runs.
All we're talking about is ball flight and we've talked, I've talked about that forever,
before launch angle was even a word, coaches were talking to us about ball flight.
So, if you're trying to get a hit, you're trying to hit a line drive with some carry
the ball is going to be in the air.
If I can hit the ball in the air, a line drive with carry, I'll have more base hits.
No one can debate that there's more base hits on balls that are over the infielders heads,
line drives that get over the infielders heads, than just hitting ground balls.
So I get more base hits but it's really hard to hit a double on the ground.
It's really hard to hit a triple on the ground unless I hit it right down the line and I've
never seen anyone hit a home run on the ground.
So if I want to hit extra base hits I've got to hit the ball a little bit in the air.
If I want to do that, the ball is coming in slightly down and I'm swinging like this on
it well then if I hit above the center of the ball I'm going to smash it into the ground.
If I hit below the center, then I usually will kind of clip the ball and the ball goes
up in the air but it's like a flyball to shallow right field for a right handed hitter.
So if I want to drive that thing, the ball is coming slightly down, I'm coming slightly
up, now I'm able to impact it more squarely and if I hit just below center I'll hit the
ball in the air but it won't be straight up in the air, now I get some carry, and if I
hit it above center, I might hit a ground ball but I've got a better chance of hitting
a hard ground ball not just smother a ball into the ground if I'm too steep on it.
So that's what I always talk about.
Get in the zone for a long period of time and being on the same path so I can impact
it squarely and get some good ball flight on it.
One of the biggest things I see with young hitters is they don't, it's hard for them
to get on that plane because of what I call the body angle, their tilt, I believe you
call it posture is what you use because I'm a big Antonelli Baseball YouTube subscriber
fan which by the way you guys need to go check out his YouTube because he's got some really
great stuff on there.
So if you haven't yet, I'll leave the link down below where you can subscribe to his
channel but I think that's one of and we don't have to elaborate on it in this video because
we're going to talk about it in another video so definitely go check that video out but
that's a big thing is kind of setting that body angle or posture to make it easier to
get on that swing plane.
Sure.
So the fourth misconception or thing that I hear a lot which I want to hear your take
on is you'll hear coaches a lot say "keep the shoulder closed.
Stay closed longer.
Keep the front side closed" what's your take on that and how does it really work?
Yeh so the move that I see a lot of players working on is this move where they take the
knob kind of to the ball and coaches don't want this shoulder to open.
So again and it's not just up in my area although I see that a lot up in my area but wherever
you go you'll see a lot of players trying to do this.
They think that this is staying closed because you always hear "stay closed, stay closed"
anytime again anytime a ball is fouled off or a ball is popped up, you'll hear either
"stop dropping your shoulder" or you'll hear "stay closed.
Oh he's flying open.
He's flying open." and so they want to make this move right here well if I don't let this
shoulder turn and I just try to keep it closed and I try to do this move, well then I'm only
literally hitting with my upper body.
So I can't create very much bat speed at all and also typically when guys swing with just
their upper body you can kind of see I'm doing it right now, the bat doesn't get behind the
ball so I start coming in really really steep at it.
So if I want to make a good turn and we talk a lot about getting into position, pulling
back and getting into position, but then once this launches and my barrel starts to work
this way, well as that happens my upper body has to turn.
So this is allowing me to use the ground as you talked about, use the ground, be in really
good sequence, and that's how I'm able to create a whole lot of bat speed.
Again I can't do that if I don't let this shoulder get out of the way.
Literally my body has to clear a path for the bat to work into the zone and again I
see this happen so much players trying to stay on the ball and they're just fighting
against themselves.
They're literally getting in their own way to get the bat there, instead of just let
the swing happen and turn, get out of the way, and as long as you stay over, that's
what I tell the guys, there's a difference, this is not pulling your shoulder out or pulling
off the ball.
Pulling off the ball is when you come out of posture, you come up out of your swing,
this would be pulling your shoulder out or coming off the ball so if a player is doing
this, then yeh you can say "we've got to keep your shoulder on" but we don't keep our shoulder
on by doing this.
We keep our shoulder on by staying over the plate in good posture and then turning and
literally I tell the guys we want to feel like we're staying over the plate.
Don't come up away from the plate.
I want to stay over the plate like that.
Now I'm on the ball.
My shoulder moved but I'm on the ball.
So there's a lot of as we talked about with the stride, hands, and shoulders, a lot of
misconceptions but if you really start to break it down just look at what Major League
guys are doing.
You'll never see a Major League guy try to fight with his shoulder in there and do that
move.
It just can't create enough bat speed, can't get on path, you're not going to be successful.
That's great.
One of the things I tell my young hitters is to do is to swing around an axis.
So once they understand what body angle or posture is, they create it, now I'm telling
them to just stay on that axis, your spine is the axis and you're just swinging around
that axis.
So that's great, man that's golden information.
If you guys want to hear more of what Matt's got to say, definitely go check out his channel
man.
I'm super excited that he's here and we've got some great videos for you guys so check
those out.
I'll leave some of those videos over here.
Don't forget to subscribe to YouGoPro and Antonelli Baseball and we'll see you guys
in the next video.
Thanks man.
Thank you.