Think Before You Change Your Swing

Matt Schilling: From the Batting Cage

From doing private lessons at Baseball Factory I have learned an immense amount about the swing, how players bodies move and react and about the adjustments that coaches try and get hitters to make. One thing that drives me crazy is that young players will do whatever a coach tells them to without thinking about it or questioning it. On one hand you expect a kid to listen to his coaches and be respectful towards them, on the other hand you want players to learn and understand their own swing so that they can make the correct adjustments on their own and not always rely on what a coach says. As there is in any sport, there are knowledgeable coaches who give good advice and there are bad coaches who give incorrect information to players. As hitters you need to understand your swing and what makes it good and what makes things go wrong. As coaches we need to explain this to players clearly when trying to get them to make a change.

I often have players come to me and they are doing something in their swing that is odd or out of place. For example, I had a player the other day who was starting with his hands really low, almost down to his waist. I asked him why he did that; his answer was, "because my coach told me too." I then asked him why, what does that do for you, his answer "I don't know?" If I had a dime for every time I've heard this I would be a very rich man. I don't necessarily have a problem with the coach having the kid move his hands down, what I have a problem with is that the coach did not explain to the kid why he wanted him to do this and the kid didn't question it, he just did it. As players we have to understand our swing, as coaches we have to help players to understand hitting and to understand there own swing. Otherwise how can we get angry at a kid for not making the right adjustments?

Players please think before you allow a coach to change your swing. Ask questions of the coach such as:

• What problem will this solve in my swing?
• Why do you want me to make this change?
• What will this adjustment do for me?
• Will this adjustment have any negative effects on my swing?

Once you have gotten these answers, try the adjustment in your practice sessions and see if it makes sense to you and if it helps you. Once you have done this then you can make a sensible choice on whether or not you are going to change your swing.

I had a player in for a lesson the other day who was hitting over .500 through 17 high school games. He had a bad week last week and was 0-9. His coaches wanted him to completely change his stance, hand position, and stride because he wasn't hitting well. When the player came to me for his next lesson he asked me what I thought. I refused to answer and made him tell me what he thought first. I was really proud of him. He said his swing felt fine, that he had chased some bad pitches and had just missed a few others and that he didn't think he should change anything because he had been killing the ball. I forced him to think about his situation and use common sense. When I asked him what his coaches said these changes would do for him he said "They never told me, they just said I needed to change because I was struggling."

The moral of the story here is THINK before you start making changes. I'm not saying that you shouldn't make adjustments, but think about them, understand them and test them before you start changing for the sake of changing. If you can learn to understand your swing and how and why it does and doesn't work you will meet your best coach...


...yourself.

Schilling graduated from Coastal Carolina University, where he was an All-Conference and All-State player while being voted the fourth best second baseman in the country by the Smith Award Group. Schilling went on to coach at Coastal for five years, helping them reach the top 25. He is also a former Associate Scout with the Atlanta Braves.