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James: Joe, to youth level. In your opinion, what do you think it takes to be a good hitter?
Joe: James obviously, at this level, we are just looking for each player to be comfortable at the plate. To swing and to have a decent swing at the plate and what we call hand and eye coordination to make contact with the ball.
James: Can you use that work comfortable – being comfortable at the plate?
Joe: Well I talk about being comfortable at the plate, he has to be able to stand in a position where he is addressing the pitcher and he has to be relatively comfortable and balanced in his approach to hitting a baseball.
James: What you did the batter key on? Are we looking at the pitchers hat or are we looking for his bell buckle – what are we looking at the youth level? What should you stress as a coach?
Joe: As a coach, you should stress eye contact and picking up the baseball from the moment it is visible from the pitchers hand. From the moment the pitcher begins his wind-up, his eyes should be directly focused on that baseball.
James: When you say made with contact, we want the bat heat out of the ball, is that what you are talking about making good contact?
Joe: Well there is a sweet part on most bats. Obviously it is the top part of the bat – the bat head. We are not stressing the location of hitting a baseball. Now, we are talking about good contact.
James: And the swing, anything you could mention about the swing? Is it from shoulder to shoulder? Is it a swing that is coming down? What type of swing are we talking about at this level?
Joe: We stress a nice level shoulder to shoulder swing. A basic swing, very fluent from start to finish, not a swing where our play is going to accelerate real quickly and come for the ball where hi is going to try and swing up on the ball because all of these will take away from your basic stance.
James: Two more things come to mind. Let us just say that you have an eight year old, a nine year old not making contact with the ball but he has a good swing. As a coach, is that acceptable?
Joe: We tent to focus, even though he does have a good swing, mechanically, he may be not seeing the ball. He may be moving his head. He may not be focused in certain areas so we try to stay with the basic swing. The swing we do not look the change but we want to see if he can pick up the ball at a – put a location or train him to see the ball sooner.
James: Joe at this level, it seems that we have covered a lot of basic fundamental techniques and skills. Is there any much more that we can add to that to become more advanced at a particular level?
Joe: Not at this level James. If we have the fundamentals down and each player becomes very comfortable with these fundamentals and confident that he can perform, when we get to the next level, there are other things that we can take. At this level, if a player is fundamentally sound, they will take him and prepare him for the next level.
Jim: If you had to mention one thing, besides one thing is of course hitting – is concerned of the youth level, what would that emphasis be? What should a coach stress?
Joe: The basic point that the coach should stress at this level is that if he can develop a fundamentally sound batting stance from head to toe, that ball play will have some success.
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