Getting Better Means Being Uncomfortable
“We know through science and studies that, when you challenge the guys in their work, they’re going to perform better on the field.”
According to TrackMan data, the average Major League fastball buzzes at 93.3 miles per hour.
In the NCAA, the average fastball is 88.9 miles per hour. And, as I type this, video of Vanderbilt’s Jack Leiter hitting 99 is circulating on Twitter.
Across the country, high school pitchers are bringing it at 80.4 miles per hour on average. At PBR’s Super 60 event, 32 of the 34 high school arms were at 90 or above.
No matter the level, the baseball is coming to the plate with a heavy dose of mustard.
This is great if you are a pitching enthusiast. Velocity is increasing. The higher the velo, the more bats missed. Yeah velocity. But what if you are one of the unfortunate hitters trying to redirect the flight of Leiter’s fastball?
Suffice it to say, nobody is going to get better at facing those fastballs by pounding 40-mile per hour lobbed cake balls in the cage. To get comfortable facing those high velocities, you have to train uncomfortably and endure failure.
When the Philadelphia Phillies hired Joe Dillon as their hitting coach, he introduced the team to high velocity pitching machines.
Training would begin with the machine at 60 feet, at 95 miles per hour. Hitters take a few swings at home plate and then take a step closer to the machine. After a few more swings, they take another step closer. In all, hitters take seven steps toward the machine. Once they hit that seventh step, they began moving backward to the plate until they reached their original starting point.
“Basically, as they step up, they’re taking away time and space,” Dillon told MLB.com’s Todd Zolecki. “When they step back, we’re giving it back to them. They’ve got to figure out what to do with the time. Every time they swing, they have to adapt and adjust, because the timing is going to change, the trajectory is going to change -- all the different things change, right?”
Those 95 mph fastballs become 130 or 140 mph. That’s not comfortable. Yet when they return to their starting point, the 95 mph fastball doesn’t look so bad. The Phillies went from 12th to 7th in weighted on-base average versus fastballs following Dillon’s addition to the staff.
“The point is making it tough,” Dillon said. “We know through science and studies that, when you challenge the guys in their work, they’re going to perform better on the field.”
Minnesota Twins’ catcher Mitch Garver uses similar training as a way to remove the slack in his swing, making him more efficient to the point of contact.
Garver struggled to hit for power. He hit for contact but somewhere in his mechanics, the power drained. He went to work with private hitting instructor Jason Columbus after the 2018 season.
Columbus had him hit off a machine everyday with some variation to the sessions:
Columbus put the machine 35 feet from home plate, instead of the normal 60 feet, 6 inches. He set the speed at 75 miles per hour, which felt like 100 — or faster — from that distance.
Columbus moved the pitching machine to different positions, even extreme angles. He’d put it in direct line to where the second baseman or shortstop would stand, though much closer at 35 feet. Columbus wanted him to trust his swing with no wasted movement.
To drive the ball Garver needed to eliminate anything that cost him kinetic energy. Reducing the reaction time helped him tightened his movements -- it was a way to self-organize and solve the issue with minimal instruction.
By placing the machine at extreme angles, it makes the game environment easier. Training against pitches coming from behind your front shoulder and almost out of peripheral vision is going to be uncomfortable. It will, however, make facing a right-handed pitcher who throws off the extreme third base side of the rubber less uncomfortable.
Both the Phillies and Garver demonstrate a training environment that is challenging but not necessarily beyond a player’s skill set. There’s a fine balance between blowing hitters up and fostering a learning environment. It is important because learning is maximized when the challenge and the limits of a player’s existing skills intersect. This is considered the state of flow.
CJ Gillman, a former Air Force assistant coach and current hitting instructor in the Cincinnati Reds organization, describes how the Reds create conditions to push hitter’s into a flow state.
“The environment that you set up needs to make your hitters better. For us, that looks like velocity and hitting mixed pitches and setting up machines in a way that can replicate the game a little bit,” Gillman told the Cincinnati Enquirer.
“We’re looking for failure for our guys. Now it’s a balance. It’s the right amount of failure every day in practice, but we’re looking to create environments that are going to force growth with our guys. We don’t want to go out and hit 40-mph (batting practice) every single day and then try to walk into the game and hit Max Scherzer and Clayton Kershaw.”
The right amount of failure is very important to the learning process.
When a person is unable to accomplish a task -- such as hitting a 130 mph fastball -- studies suggest that the brain recalculates to solve the problem the next time. It maps out solutions for the body. Even as a player in training is missing, that individual is still improving.
Too much failure can be detrimental. To combat this, one Minnesota Twins’ hitting coach said about 20% of their batting practice time is dedicated to “feel good” rounds. Hitters sometimes need to watch the ball fly -- and positive feedback reinforces confidence and motivation, two factors that will keep a player coming back to train in uncomfortable environments. So don’t rush to eliminate that soft BP training altogether.
Designing this environment is easy. Make practices or training sessions uncomfortable by introducing drills or activities that target skills just beyond existing capabilities. As was the case with Mitch Garver, there is also the added benefit of helping improve mechanics more than any verbal cues a coach could give. Last, remember that failure is growth but reinforce confidence with occasional “feel good” rounds. Be challenging but be balanced.