Pitch Recognition and Decision Training

This year I decided to experiment with pitch recognition and decision training. This will be a DIY guide for programs that are on a tight budget. I would love some feedback if there is a better way to do it.

First, we need the setup which includes a hitting machine (you could also throw, but I like our machine), bad baseballs with seams coming out, and we also need different colored duct tape. I personally used the colors blue and red and I chose these colors because from what little I know about our eyes is that they pick up distinctive colors differently. This hypothetically means that our eyes will work harder to see one color more than the other. I could be way off here, but most of my guys mentioned to me that the red baseball was easier to see and it seemed slower than the blue baseball.

When I introduce drills for hitters I like to have progressions and regressions — I think this comes from my personal training background. I have found that when trying to individualize hitting for each player, there needs to be progressions and regressions for drills.

Progression 1: Red baseballs, Blue baseballs, and regular baseballs

This drill is very simple. The colored baseballs and regular baseballs are mixed up and chosen at random by the coach feeding the machine. Each color will have a designated direction the player needs to hit the ball. Red goes opposite field, blue goes pull side and regular up the middle. You can change this per round or per day. It seems fairly easy, but the taped baseballs are usually a little slower and can have some nasty movement. Also, the coach is only suppose to show the ball briefly, then put it in the machine. Players have to pick up the color and then hit that ball to the direction where the color is designated. Along with pitch recognition and decision training, this drill also adds an element of adjustability. If the ball is inside but they have to go opposite field, they will hopefully learn to adjust their body to still try and do the objective and barrel it up.

Progression 2: Red baseballs, blue baseballs, and regular baseballs with an overload bat

This drill is essentially the same exact drill as Progression 1, however, different weighted bats usually initiate panic when direction of a ball is required. To increase difficulty, you can pair handle-loaded bat with the red baseballs and the barrel-loaded bat with the blue baseball. If they get the objective, they have to switch bats and objectives. For example, handle-loaded is paired with the red baseball which is opposite field objective. The barrel-loaded is paired with the blue baseball pull side objective.

Example: When a player is currently holding the handle-loaded bat and a blue baseball is pitched, the player should be taking that pitch (not swinging). Then on the next pitch, if a red baseball gets pitched the player’s intent should be to hit the ball opposite field. Once the player achieves that objective, they pick up the barrel- loaded bat and if a blue baseball gets pitched they take it because the objective changed, make sense? If this sounds complicated don’t worry it starts making more sense when doing the drill. But imagine as a hitter going back and forth between bats and objectives and still trying to pick up the colored baseballs to hit it.

Progression 3: Red ball = hot zone, Blue ball = cold zone

We are lucky to have a hitting rapsodo this year, which will help with this progression. This will be one of the drills we do often going into the spring season. Each player will have their hot and cold zone rapsodo report according to their wOBA and EV. Now the player has to hit the colored ball if it goes into their zone. To make it easier, the red baseballs are for hot zones and the blue baseballs are for cold zones. If the blue baseball goes into a hot zone they take it, and if a red baseball goes into a cold zone, they take it.

Progression 4a: Swing only if the ball goes into your hot zone (should be all regular baseballs)

Even though this progression is the last one. It might be easier after going through progression two and three. This time the player only swings at the ball that goes into their hot zone. The reason that this is the last progression is because now every ball that comes out of the machine is a regular baseball. The player has to really focus on where their hot and cold zones are and be ready to pull the trigger or take. This will really help if you are a coach that gives 0–0 and 3–0 green lights to their hitters because hitters should only be hunting their hot zones in those counts.

Progression 4b: Swing only if the ball goes into your cold zone

This is the exact same drill as progression 4a, but now we are trying to work on the players weaknesses. Progression 4a works and hones in on the player’s strengths while Progression 4b works on what the player has trouble hitting or hitting hard.

The reason for having Progressions 3, 4a and 4b in the spring is so that we have a ton of data that we have collected in the fall to get the most accurate reading on hot and cold zones for each individual player. Another reason for having these progressions is to spend time working on movement patterns and swing deficiencies in the fall. By the time spring comes around, we have about two and a half weeks until our first game and now their entering the season with their swing. We need to make sure we can enhance decision- making for that swing.

Try it out and let me know what you think and where it can be improved. I am not sure my eye/vision science is correct or sound by any means, but there might be something to it. I hope you enjoyed this quick read and added another element to your player’s training.