Better Footwork = Better Defense

Footwork is going to be a major point of emphasis in our defensive work indoors this winter.  Here is a video with many different ladder drills to improve speed and agility through footwork.  The better a player gets at drills like these > the better his footwork gets > the better his defense gets.  [Two tips:  1) start with the more basic drills in the beginning of the video, don't be overwhelmed and 2) hold the space bar while the video plays to watch it in “slow motion.”]

Much like our last post noted how a swing is built from the ground up, an athlete in general is built in much the same way. 

In the outfield, it’s simple:  a player’s feet take him to the ball.  If he makes a good read, he must get to the spot quickly.  This requires good footwork.  If he makes a bad read, he must be able to adjust fluidly and quickly.  This requires even better footwork.  Indoors, footwork is easier to practice than reads.

In the infield, footwork may be overlooked, but it shouldn’t be.  Coach Tantillo recently told me the importance of footwork to him as an infielder.  Tommy will tell you he’s not the best athlete.  But hands down, he has the quickest release of any infielder I’ve ever played with.  He told me:

“That’s all footwork.  The only way you can make that throw right away is if your feet are in the right spot.  I don’t have a great arm, but I was able to make the plays because I always got my feet right.” 

Tommy attributed his good footwork to different agility drills, including the ladder drills in the above video.  When better than the offseason to work on these things?

Hitting Biomechanics

The single most important thing I've learned about hitting is the separation of the hips and the hands in the process of the swing.  The hips must fire first, while the batter must keep his hands back as long as possible.

This A) creates torque in the core of the body which greatly increases power, and B) allows the hitter to remain in position to hit an offspeed pitch if initially fooled (hips have fired, but hands are still back and loaded).

To emphasize this point, I found a video in the archives of this blog that highlights the biomechanics of this concept and showed it to our hitters.  I figured maybe hearing the concept in a different way might help make it click for some guys.  The narrator rambles (is boring) at times, but here are the times I found most insightful:

1:55-2:30 > benefits of good mechanics
7:42-9:54 > forward weight shift
10:24-12:28 > sequence: hips fire, then torso then arms then bat
29:46-30:44 > final step of sequence: throwing the hands
13:32-16:37 > whip analogy, graphic representation