Soft Toss
This Article
Describes a Hitting Drill, Soft Toss, Intended to Help Coaches Analyze and
Enhance a Player's Swing Without Throwing a Full Batting Practice.
In each of our practice session we
always have 3 hitting stations running hitting drills for ¾ of the total time of
the practice. We will have a
wiffle ball pitching machine throwing golf size wiffle balls (A Grand Slam
Pitching Machine), we will have a pitching machine or a coach throwing full
batting practice and we will have a player hitting soft-toss using our Tru Toss Soft
Toss Machine.
Soft-Toss is a
hitting drill designed to allow the player to hit a softly thrown (underhanded)
ball into a net or a fence. The
coach or the Tru Toss Soft Toss Machine is positioned about 6 feet from the
player and on a slight angle in front of the hitter. The player takes their normal stance,
the coach or machine tosses the ball, and the player strikes the ball into the
fence or net.
The soft toss drill allows
coaches to look for proper swing mechanics and to help a player improve their
baseball hitting technique in several areas.
I always look for the following:
1) Is the player in the proper
stance (athletic stance, comfortable)?
2) Are their hands in a natural,
comfortable position?
3) Are their feet comfortable and
not open or closed to the plate?
4) When they swing do they have a
trigger mechanism in their legs?
5) I check to be sure they are not
over striding (6 inches max) and that they are hitting the ball with their front
hip directly above or just slight in front their front foot.
6) I check the grip and second
knuckle alignment to be sure the bat is being held the right way.
7) I check for flat hands when the
ball is struck (the palms of the hands should be on the top and the bottom of
the bat, like an axe when chopping wood).
8) I check the angle of the swing
into the ball – I like to see a downward swing or flat swing at best. Uppercuts lead to a lot of ground ball
outs and not fly balls like you might think.
9) I check for a proper follow
through (I like to see the top hand be released, but it is not
required).
10) I look to see that the front foot
stays pointing at the plate when the swing occurs and that the weight on the
front foot moves to the outside part of the foot. The back foot should have the laces of
the shoe pointing in the direction of the pitcher and end up on the toes. There
should be no weight or pressure on the back foot if the weight shift has
occurred properly.
11) I check to see that the player is not
straining to hit the ball and that the ball is going straight into the
net.
12) The BIGGEST thing I look for is that
the player’s head does not move during this drill. The head should stay still and the eyes
focused on the ball. A player
should be able to do this successfully in this drill and in other batting
practice drills to ensure they can do it in a game!
The reason I
like the Tru Toss Soft Toss Machine is that I can study the baseball hitting mechanics of
our players better from a little bit of a distance. I am not focused on throwing the ball to the
hitter so the baseball hitting fundamentals are my only concern. I also feel a little safer being away
from the action of a swinging bat and a hit ball! I have also seen players ask to take the
machine home with them for a couple of days to work on the drill by
themselves. My heart soars when I
get this request!
Enjoy your soft toss
drill – it will lead the way to great baseball hitting mechanics and baseball hitting
fundamentals!
