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VERY OT: Omaha baseball hitting coaches

Nope. His parents paid $3,000 (ish) to play on his Hosey's Heroes youth baseball team. The team was a mid-level AAA team at the time. Hosey was not a coach however but would offer access to his lessons for more money. It was during those lessons Hosey was not very engaged.

Same kid left Hosey's team and is now one of the top hitters in the state in 8th grade (I know, I know- it's 8th grade 😀) playing on one of the top Majors teams paying about half as much money. So I'm predicting same kid will be playing JV (instead of Reserve) as a freshman for one of the top HS programs in the metro next spring.
3,000 to play youth baseball?

Amazing!

I used to "feel bad" charging 100 dollars per kid for a 4 day basketball camp.
 
Jeff Leise is one of the best hitting instructors in Omaha. At last check, he was $50/half an hour. ETC, StikeZone or UBA all have instructors that should be more affordable than Leise. Some better than others obviously. But they should all have the basics on correcting major flaws in swings. If you do take your son, please encourage him to go with an open mind. And most instructors are open to the fact that every players has variations in their swing. One size fits all does not work with a baseball swing!

Otherwise, I do NOT recommend hitting endless amounts of balls into the nets in the offseason, unless you know the swing is good to go. All BP does with a bad swing is reinforce bad habits. One of the players on our team has been hitting endlessly in the off seasons, way more than others on our team, yet he still has the worst swing on the team....
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.
 
I coached several little league teams and this one came from the stands constantly. Kids would lift one elbow, then the other until they couldn't even move, much less swing. If you watch pros, you often see the elbows actually down close to the body. I give up.
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?
Right_Hander_MLB_Hitters.jpg
 
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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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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?
Right_Hander_MLB_Hitters.jpg
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 long
 
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

 
No clue, but good luck to him! What HS? All I can say about hitting coaches is that my sons never had one. We just put up a cage in the basement and hit a million balls all year long. I knew guys that took their sons to a hitting coach for 30 minutes once or twice a week and I never understood what that could possibly accomplish. I've got one at a JUCO and one a sophomore in HS. Maybe email the Prospects and see who they recommend, their connections can't hurt.
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.
 
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Agree, I think it depends on the kid's baseball ambitions. If this is just to make a 9th grade baseball team, and the kid doesn't dream of playing after high school, then don't waste your money. If your kid has ambitions to play post high school, then getting with a good hitting instructor can help find and fix the holes in their swings.
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.
 
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trevor cissell at strikezone.

Im a former HS coach and had players who couldn't even hit a beach ball at the beginning of the year see trevor and by the end were one of our top hitters.

Im a pitcher so hitter was never my strong suit
We’ve used Trevor in the past he seem like a good guy so he’s definitely one we’re looking at again.
 
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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.
Where did he play select ball through over the younger years? Some programs have connections to certain coaches.
 
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.

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.
 
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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!
 
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
 
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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!
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!
 
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!
Gretna east...in two-three years will be really good.

Next year, could be rough.
 
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If this is just to make a 9th grade baseball team, and the kid doesn't dream of playing after high school, then don't waste your money.
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.
 
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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!
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.
 
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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 just met the Gretna East head baseball coach a few days ago. Seemed like a great guy!! Good luck there!
 
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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.
If East turns into the next Elkhorn North, that would be great! That program got it together quickly!
 
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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. 😂
 
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