Quote: “A bat at its widest is 3 ¾ inches in diameter; some pitchers throw the ball more than 90mph; and the distance from the pitching rubber to home plate is 60ft 6in. This means the batter has 2/3 of a second in which to uncoil and get good wood and full body into the pitch. And not all pitches come straight in - they dip, float, soar, and drop.” - Rod Carew -
How difficult is hitting? Well, the quote above pretty much sums it up. Rod Carew is considered one of the best hitters of his era and this is how he viewed hitting. Hitting is the single most difficult thing to do in all of sports. You are considered to be a good hitter if you fail seven out of ten times - no other sport will allow you to have a 30% success rate and still be considered great! So, in seeing the rate of failure in hitting you can realize how important it is for hitters to have a positive mindset! At LSU, we talk about a couple of things to put our guys in a positive state of mind.
One area we focus on is Quality At-Bats (QAB). We want our hitters to focus on QABs instead of batting average! By concentrating on QABs, our hitters stay in a much more positive mindset rather than focusing on batting average. A QAB can be achieved in many ways - a walk, a ten-pitch at-bat, moving a runner from second base to third base with no outs, a line drive out, etc. We strive for our hitters to have a .500 QAB average. This gives them a much better success rate and keeps them in a positive state of mind even when they sometimes make an out!
We post a weekly chart with a QAB winner and the QAB .500 club - our guys compete with each other and it is a great asset to our program. If we have a team QAB average of .500, each player will reach all of his goals individually, and we will reach all of our team goals. This system allows our guys to build confidence as hitters, which is another area of the positive mindset we emphasize.
We want all of our hitters to exude confidence. When our guys step into the box, no matter who they are facing on the mound, we want them to know they are going to have a Quality At-Bat. This is not something that happens overnight, obviously. It is something we preach on a daily basis. Our guys gain confidence from their preparation. Their preparation in the cages, in the weight room, on the field, etc. will allow them to succeed! Our guys believe they have done everything possible to prepare them for each particular situation. They have visualized themselves succeeding in each situation before it actually happens. Each one of our hitters deserves to have success due to their hard work and preparation!
In the game of baseball all hitters will struggle at times and it is very hard for them to stay in a positive mindset. If you have hitters who believe in themselves, believe they are good hitters, and exude confidence, watch out! They will exceed all expectations and you will end up with a great offensive team!
