Good Hitting Coaches can
Detect & Correct the Hitting Flaws

- Dave Kirilloff, TheLanguageOfHitting.com

When I take my car to the mechanic, he asks me questions and listens for the sounds I tell him my car is making.  He checks it out and tells me, your car is making those noises because your valves are good, but the main problem is a bad convertor switch.  He fixes it – the car is good.

Like a good mechanic, being a good hitting coach, calls us to probe for the cause, not just a symptom.  But before we get deeper into this essay...  In order to fix, correct, repair anything, the goal or expectation has to be clearly defined. The goal for the mechanic was to get the car smoothly running.

With a coach to his hitter,  the best goal to establish is one that is descriptive. Here it is..

Hit Line Drives into the outfield from LEFT CENTER to RIGHT CENTER during the games. 

Why this goal? Well statistically – if a MLB player can come to the plate can to the plate 10 times and hit 10 line drives, his batting average should be close to .800... I cannot think of a better goal.



How many times have you’ve experienced watching your players take batting practice at 4pm, ripping line drives, home runs, just executing great bat actions?  By 6pm – its  game time, and your hitter’s NOW produce pop ups, weak ground balls and strikeouts. We’ve all have experienced these conditions. 

When I observed how I taught hitting, I noticed other organizations taught the same mundane mechanical system and we all had similar outcomes. I asked myself, what was really separating, consistently good hitters, from so-so average hitters. At this level, they all have sound mechanics!


It wasn’t until the logic of the pitching coach grabbed my attention, and then things began to change.  The pitching coach wants his pitchers to...

• FOOL THE BATTER,
• DISRUPT HIS TIMING, and
• PITCH TO DIFFERENT LOCATIONS. 

As a hitting coach, I measured my success, in the ability to correct game flaws, not practice flaws.  When my emphasis turned to countering the pitching coach – my hitter’s took off.  I placed more emphasis helping the hitter’s managing the timing of the hitting actions as they correspond with the pitcher’s delivery.  For every action /  the pitcher was in .. The hitter needs to counter with his action.  If the hitter is out of sync for just a fraction, everything behind will be off, including the hitter’s spatial awareness.  Pitchers prey on the hitter’s timing and spatial skills.


If you really watch your batter’s rhythm and tempo – in relationship with the pitcher, you’ll begin to see the true essentials for consistent hitting. Timing the pitcher correctly alters the hitter’s mechanics.

From our research hitting is 100% timing. All hitting flaws that occur in games are a result of POOR TIMING of the hitter’s actions in relationship to the pitcher’s. Timing affects the mechanics, spatial skills, vision, balance, breathing pattern, and overall confidence. Look, some of the games most memorable hits like Roberto Clemente’s 3000 hit and Kirk Gibson’s ’88 W.S. home run were a result of great (in the moment) timing, not smooth mechanics.


Depending on the level of Play, the 2 most common traditional hitting flaws are:

1. Poor Recognition
2. Pulling OUT / OFF with the front shoulder

1 Fixing Poor Recognition  

Most eye specialists will teach you how to improve your eye skills.  You’ll practice drills to improve your stereo acuity (depth perception), contrast sensitivity (pick the object out from a background), and visual acuity (vision sharpness).  All of these are helpful to developing the hitter as well as the athlete.  But our research reveals something with greater importance than improving the eye actions.  You see, most (but not all) people who participate in sports, are commonly blessed with good vision skills, but if the athlete is in a POOR position to use his vision skills, the VISION SKILLS cannot do its job. 

Here's an example: Ask an athlete to turn his back to you, when you say 'TURN', toss a ball at him and have him try to catch the ball.  The same time he begins to turn, toss the ball.  It would help to have good vision, but at this point -  what really helps in catching the ball – IS – getting the body under control, then makes the catch.  We all know how important it is to keep the head still while trying to hit. This is my point with vision, the hitter can get his vision skills to work better for him, when his body becomes still or slows down in relationship with the pitcher’s body.

Before any type of an acceleration is sports, the athlete "slows down", then accelerates.  If the batter times his "slow down" moment with the pitchers slow down motion of external arm position, the batter helps to improve his vision skills.  Every hitter -  rotational style or linear style will have some type of head motion during the stride or leg lift.  Getting the body into it’s “slow down” position before it accelerates, with the pitcher’s slow down – or – external arm slot, helps the hitter to maintain better control of his vision skills and assists him in picking up the balls flight angle and spin.

2 Pulling Out / Off with Front Shoulder   

Most coaches can find this common fault, and then proceed to MASS DRILL the hitter into actions unlike that which is used in the game. From biting the sleeve of the front shoulder, or wrapping a strap around the arm / chest, and even worse, standing next to a fence and swing the bat without hitting the fence drill. Most often players open the front side, because they sense the pitch is gaining on them and they do whatever it takes to get the bat out into the strike zone. Sometimes a hitter’s timing is in sync with the pitcher, and still uses too much of his front side to initiate motion. Our research provides the fastest and easiest solution to correcting this problem. This method helps the hitter avoid becoming too analytical about moving his shoulder, elbow, wrist, hips and - oh, by the way - hit the ball. 

The solution rests in the rule: "how you decelerate alters how you accelerate". There are a series of natural hitting positions one returns to during the decelerating side of the swing. These decelerating positions alter the accelerating positions of the swing. Without too many details, have the batter swing through the pitch and bring the barrel into the deceleration side. Tap the bat onto the shoulder and then quickly rewind the bat backwards to a finish where the cap of the bat is pointing towards the pitcher. This natural action is close to what Evan Longoria, Ryan Braun, and Jeff Kent all demonstrate after most hits.


One of the most valuable attributes the athlete / hitter have in his favor is labeled as desire. It’s the "I CAN, I WILL, I MUST" attitude.  Remind the player the he may only get one swing per at bat and he needs to make that ONE swing on – the – money, or else its back to the dugout. Train and condition your batting practice time with INTENSITY and PURPOSE, rather than with mindless, thoughtless, CASUAL swings.  It is better to take 5 minutes of batting practice everyday with a defined goal, intense goal, than to take 50 minutes of casual, hacking and whacking.  Train, prepare, and make yourself aware – for the game's unpredictable pitches!


Editor's Note: Comments added below BEFORE the end of voting were removed so as not to bias other voters. Now that voting is tabulated and authors revealed, we welcome additional insights and opinions.