Improve Your Baseball Swing with a Batting Tee
Practicing your baseball swing off of a tee will help to improve those line-drive mechanics that produce at the plate. Of course, the objective for this drill is to get the baseball bat from a comfortable resting point to the point of contact as efficiently and as accurately as possible. The ball is always set up at the ideal point of contact in the hitting zone for an inside, down the middle, or outside pitch. Undeniably, this will train your muscles to remember the right swing for those various points of contact because it is something that should be done repetitiously everyday. You will develop an excellent, but more important a consistent swing. Getting set up in a position to swing at the ball with authority will be automatic.
Placing the tee at every point in the strike zone is very important to maximize the drill. Don't forget, when working on hitting to opposite fields, you want to let the pitch move further into the strike zone before making contact. This is the reason that you place the tee on the back portion of the plate. Place the tee right over the plate to simulate a pitch down the middle and work on hitting the ball straight up the middle 'through the box'. Improving your ability to hit any type of pitch and increasing your plate coverage is the objective.
As far as the height of the tee you should change it back and forth from high to low, allowing your body and hands to feel the various points of correct contact. Typically, you want to raise the tee as high as possible in your strike zone because it will force you to keep your hands up and 'strong' throughout your swing. It can help to prevent any unwanted dropping of the hands and back shoulder. Picture your shoulders as an 'airplane' trying to land. You would want the wings of the plane to be level as you hit the runway and it is the same for your shoulders when hitting a baseball. If you find yourself striking the tee at all or popping the ball up off the tee, it is a sign that you are dropping your hands or shoulder or both.
Joe Rodgers is a batting instructor that emphasizes stationary drills to develop the propermechanics to be a successful batter.
Published February 18th, 2008
Filed in Recreation
