Hitting: The Role of Vision

Hitters and coaches will diligently spend hour after hour working on the concepts of movement, movement pattern and swing repair. However, what we often fail to do is spend as much time as we should on our vision and "picking up the ball".

How do we accomplish this?

Let the eyes take more control of the end result. In other words, are the patterns we move in directly related to how we see the ball? Yes. As a hitter you need to understand the role of the eyes and how the eyes affect the hitter once the hitter starts to move. For instance, if we pick up the ball late, we will subsequently start our swing too late and "mess up" our movement patterns to catch up with the pitch. Your "picture perfect" swing off the tee and in BP is now out the window. Hitting after all is a 60'6" race, and seeing the ball early will only help to "slow the ball down" in this race and allow your practiced movement patterns (that "picture perfect" swing) to take effect. Why enhance the pitcher's decided advantage (which they already have anyway) with late visual timing?

Let's look at it this way:

The pitch takes about 0.4 seconds from release to crossing the plate. Science has already told us that we cannot even see the ball for the last 8-12 feet of its trajectory, so we have already lost roughly 0.1 seconds (OK a bit less but let's keep it simple!). Thus, the hitter now has 0.3 seconds to recognize the ball, flight, speed, trajectory and end destination of the pitch in the early part of the pitch flight. If we are late in picking the ball up out of the pitcher's hand then we can lose another 0.1 seconds or more to recognize all of those aforementioned parts of a pitch that we need to react to in order to even have a chance! The longer it takes for us to pick up the pitch the smaller our window for success gets. Thus, the paramount importance of having a visual plan that will allow you to pick up the ball as early as possible and "slow the game down".

Here at The Baseball Zone we incorporate a number of visual drills in our Private Lessons, High Performance Programs and Clinics to help erode some of that natural advantage that the pitcher has over hitters. You can do the same thing. Think outside the box. Get creative. Train your eyes and take back that advantage from the pitcher!

For more tips, please visit our Tips Archive