Posted by: Torque (roscoethewestie@comcast.net) on Thu Mar 26 13:55:58 2009

> I have an 11 year old who's taken weekly batting lesson for going on 2 years. I'm trying to reconcile whether this is doing any good. On one hand coaches compliment his mechanics, on the other hand he's not very productive compared to his team mates. His batting coach isn't concerned with strike-outs or his in-game performance really. So what's a good measure? How would I know this batting coach is doing the right thing?

The hitting coach may be doing fine. The problem with hitting in a cage is that most hits look like good hits when this may simply not be true. The hitter feels like they are doing a great job, parents and instructors think the same thing. You really can't tell how hard or well you hit until they get on the field to hit and see how hard and how much the ball carries. At the end of the day, it is about performance on the field and in games. Most of the time players hitting in the cage hit a lot softer than they think. Maybe you can suggest to the hitting instructor that form isn't as important to you and you want him hitting and swinging much harder.