VERY OT: Omaha baseball hitting coaches
- Thread starter Nate004
- Start date
3,000 to play youth baseball?
Amazing!
I used to "feel bad" charging 100 dollars per kid for a 4 day basketball camp.
He's blind and teaches swing down for backspin still. Doesn't understand launch angles or swing planes.
We all have the same amount of bones and muscles in our body. The elite hitters are identical from Babe Ruth to Ted Williams to judge to Harper. Our goal is to maximize the body potential or bat speed. Swing planes are a little different and guys stand and stride different but as far as the swing it's all the same. No different then golf. The key is understanding the movements before the swing and the mental part those are hard to teach the swing is very easy to teach.
Define "elbow up" for me. Granted, these stills are not exactly in the same part of the swing sequence (some have just started the swing - Mantle and Mays; others are at load still), but do you consider these to be generally an "elbow up", "elbow down", or neutral position?
Elbow up is sort of a misnomer in my opinion. When some little kids first start to swing the bat, at the TBall level, their elbows are tucked into their sides and they swing by putting the bat straight out and turning their entire upper body and leaving the lower half stationary. Elbows up is a reminder to lift their elbows and hands into a better starting position. Then it is regurgitated ad nausea by every parent, grandparent and volunteer for the next 15 years.
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A
anon_umk0ifu6vj6zi
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You can see they are “walking away” from their hands to create separation. The elbow being “up” in that case makes that movement very uncomfortable. The whole point of teaching swing plane and launch angle, is to keep the barrel in the zone for as long as possible. If you are chopping down on the ball (trying to recover from the “elbow high” stuff), the barrel isn’t in the zone nearly as longDefine "elbow up" for me. Granted, these stills are not exactly in the same part of the swing sequence (some have just started the swing - Mantle and Mays; others are at load still), but do you consider these to be generally an "elbow up", "elbow down", or neutral position?
It is amazing that with all the technology, hitting coaches, swing theories and so on...that MLB batting average has basically stayed around the same...except for the best times when they let the players juice
MLB Batting Average League Totals | Baseball Almanac
Baseball Almanac researches batting averages in a year-by-year format for each season from both the American and National Leagues.
www.baseball-almanac.com
Pitching has improved much more than hitting has over the last 20 years.
And because of that, hitters basically gave up and said average doesn't matter anymore. If I am going to strike out 25% of the time, my hits better mean something.
He’s at Gretna this year and then will transition over to Gretna East next year. He’s a 9th grader so this is his 1st year trying out for a high school team. I’m honestly not the best at making sure his swing is right. I can feed him baseballs through a machine a lot but we want him hitting good before his tryout, so this is where we’re at.
He has post high school ambitions with baseball but let’s be real he’s a ninth grader so I’m just focused on getting him on a team this year right now, if he’s good a couple years from now then I’ll get more interested in helping him finding him a college team.
We’ve used Trevor in the past he seem like a good guy so he’s definitely one we’re looking at again.
Where did he play select ball through over the younger years? Some programs have connections to certain coaches.
We bought a house a few blks east of Gretna East 11mos ago and I had no idea that school was even there for the first 6 months cause 180 was closed....shocked me...plus all the other houses around it. Had no idea all that was there.
Update: My son made Gretna’s team as a freshman. Not sure if he will be on the Reserve or one of the JV teams yet, but either way it’s been a good evening at our house! His hitting has improved big time since my original post! We ended up going with Elkhorn Training Center’s Caleb Bennett, who got my kid raking in 2 appointments. Well worth the money imo. Can’t wait to see how this season goes!
Way to go Nate, tell your son congrats. As a freshman that bodes well for his future development in the game as he starts the process of becoming the type of player and he hitter he wants to be.
Tell him to keep his head on straight and his eyes level. LOL
Caleb is a bright young man. Played for me and is sharp and quick learner. Glad to see he is helping others get better.
Well my sons Freshmen year is over now. He had a pretty good year though. The people doing the stats were iffy, but I think we figured he ended up hitting .340ish on the year! Can’t wait for next season!!! The kid is going to hit the weight room like crazy over the winter. Oh yeah and he’ll be going to the new Gretna East school next year so that will be really cool being part of their first team!
I think parents just want their kid to succeed while they're playing even if they know their son won't play beyond their current age level. It's worth it to the parents to drop that kind of coin so Jr will (hopefully) have a good 9u season.
Congrats to him on a solid year! I just told my wife that I saw Gretna East will be Class B and I said, "Sounds like the next Elkhorn North." I'm sure they'll be a handful in Class B very soon.
I just met the Gretna East head baseball coach a few days ago. Seemed like a great guy!! Good luck there!
If East turns into the next Elkhorn North, that would be great! That program got it together quickly!
Thanks! He is pumped up for next season already. Hopefully he can build on this year.
Gretna East-I envision all tbose 16 and 17 y/o's driving round and round those roundabouts and all being late for class and lots of insurance claims.
Yeah, I’m not too thrilled about all the roundabouts in the area either. Seems like poor city planning to me…. Hopefully I’m wrong.
I'm one of the few that doesnt hate them but i'm 55....I live a block(ish) east of that school so I drive em frequently...just not sure how kids will handle em.
Yeah the kids are what make me worry as well. Round abouts on the whole are fine.
An update to this thread… Tomorrow my son start’s baseball tryouts for his sophomore season and 1st season at Gretna East. He has gotten so much better since my first post in this thread! His hitting in particular has improved leaps and bounds over last year. His defense is pretty good (he’s a 1st baseman primarily). He still needs to increase his velocity pitching, so that’s something we’ll work on next. We’ve talked a bit about going to some camps this spring and summer. We’ll decide that after we see how things go this year, but right now I feel good about his chances of having a good season.
Oh… And he’s considering playing football this coming fall. That outta be interesting. 😂
Oh… And he’s considering playing football this coming fall. That outta be interesting. 😂
Gretna East finished 20-8, got the overall #3 seed for the state tournament, lost in the championship to #1 seed Norris.
Looks like I pretty much nailed the "next Elkhorn North" prognostication thing, huh? Not that anyone with eyes couldn't see it coming. Class A rosters competing for Class B trophies.
I had my 9 year old (at the time) go to a Creighton hitting camp. Doesn't matter which camp, they're all the same.
Anyway, it was for 2 hours, 1 day only. Talk about a waste of time & money. The first 30 minutes was good, but after 45 minutes, swings start breaking down because they're getting tired. There were about 50 kids there so there was no teaching or correcting swings. It was just rep after rep after rep, which again, gets exhausting & frankly quite boring for kids. We probably could've accomplished more by doing tee work in the garage.
Now, I will say that private lessons have been good, in our case, pitching (haven't done hitting yet). You can get that one on one time where the coach/instructor can really fix what's wrong & teach proper technique.
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