In my experience in hitting, coach & working with hitters, studying & watching hitters(great and no so great), and in my continuous study & educational pursuit of the art of hitting, I have determined that there are 4 things that make a GREAT hitter. FOUR CRITICAL THINGS. Leave just one thing out and you can forget about greatness. Be absent of two or three or all four and your going from Good, to Average, to Poor, to finding another easier athletic endeavor.
These 4 things are…Potential, Technique, Work Ethic, and Mental Approach. Let’s discuss each and their importance in being a great hitter.
1. Potential: This one I have no real control over as an instructor. If a hitter does not have the potential to hit like Alex Rodriguez, then I cannot make him/her hit like Alex no matter what I teach them or no matter how bad they or their parents want that. No more than Hank Haney (Tiger Woods’ swing coach) can teach any given golfer the same stuff he teaches Tiger and by doing so make that player Tiger. It can’t be done. The only real control I have as an Instructor is to help a hitter hit to their own potential whatever that is. It may be an outstanding Rec player. Maybe that’s your potential. OR Maybe a really good select player or a top high school player, a top College prospect, or maybe a pro prospect. Potential does come in varying degrees that is for sure. Some may even seem to have the ability to stretch their potential, but I would submit to you that the potential they reach was always within their own God given potential. Some players have the desire to be great and I’ll talk more about desire later in this article. However, if the potential is not there then I’m sorry, neither will be greatness.
2. Technique: When good technique is put together with good potential, good things definitely will happen for a hitter. Some players with tremendous potential and natural ability can have horrible technique and still do very well. However, in my opinion, even though they may be good they are NOT reaching their true potential without good technique. Players with average to below average potential with bad technique certainly shouldn’t expect much. Conversely, players with average to below average potential can expect to be much better and have the ability to make great strides toward their own personal potential with good technique. So what technique can help hitters reach their personal potential? In my personal opinion, it is the technique used by the best Major League and Collegiate hitters. What technique is that? That depends of what you call it. At Mike Epstein Hitting, we call it Rotational Hitting. Some people have a problem with that term for whatever reason. Mostly because they haven’t a clue of what it really means or what we specifically teach from the beginning of the swing to the end. But they “assume” and are wrong. Okay, so call the technique what you want if it makes you or someone else feel better. Call it The Big League Swing. Call it a Hybrid Swing. Call it weight shift hitting. Call it whatever you want, but we teach the technique of the best Big Leaguers and Collegiate players. It should be noted that some current and former players from these categories have no clue what their true technique is/was and have no clue how to actually teach it either. So having some big name and/or former big league player teach you is not necessarily the answer to learning the greatest hitting technique. For you or any hitter to reach their potential, a hitter must have good technique/mechanics.
3. Work Ethic: Along side work ethic is something I mentioned earlier and that is desire. Without desire, there is no sustainable work ethic within a player. A hitter MUST have the desire to be great and because of that they MUST work hard at reaching their potential. I have seen many players with loads of potential and have taught them the best technique and yet they don’t work at it. They wonder what’s wrong with them, or the technique, or with me. I say this to every hitter I work with, “There is no SHORTCUT to being good(and certainly not great)”. It takes work and it takes it for an extended period of time. In fact, it takes work until the day they stop playing the game. The best hitters in the world are Major League ball players. My question to you is… How often do they take batting practice? If you answered “Every Day”, you are pretty much right on. Is there a day off here and there? Sure. But for all intents and purposes, they take BP EVERY DAY! Why do they do this? They are already great. What do they need to work on it for? I’ll tell you. Because hitting is a lifelong pursuit. One never has “it” figured out permanently. If the best players practice every day, then why do some hitters I know want to take a “lesson” and then just show up for games and expect to be good?!? It’s inexplicable. Yet I see it all the time. I have a personal saying that I have adopted as my own personal hitting slogan. It goes like this… Practice Hard, Hit Harder! Work, work, work. Take a break and then work some more. Only then should a hitter expect to be their best.
4. Mental Approach: Without a solid mental approach going to and at the plate, a player can only ever expect to be good, but not great. How a player thinks in the batter’s box and prior to getting there is what can make a good hitter a great hitter. There are two aspects to the mental game. The first is in relation to Confidence, Focus, and Composure. The second aspect of the mental game, which I will cover first, is as it relates to “thinking along with the pitcher”. At Mike Epstein Hitting, we believe the best mental approach in this aspect lies in anticipating pitches. Having a plan, using acquired information (either from observation or from teammates), and anticipating pitches. There is much more to it and to cover than I want to go into here. I recommend getting a copy of Mike Epstein’s book The Mental Side Of Hitting and READING it. The reading part is somewhat crucial. Another crucial part is applying what you read. I know one young hitter who has read this book SIX times and guess what, IT SHOWS! The other side of the mental game is equally as critical and that is a player’s confidence, focus, and composure. Again, there is more to it than I want to cover here. My recommendation is two fold. Get a copy of the book “Heads Up Baseball” written by Ken Ravizza and Dr. Tom Hanson. Stop by
www.PlayMyBestBaseball.com for more on this area. I highly recommend these things but there are others schools of thought on having a quality at-bat or being a thinking hitter etc. There really is some good information out there on this and those hitters that want to reach their potential are the ones who will seek it out, dive into it, and apply it. And again, I’ve seen many hitters that short change themselves by selling short my recommendation on how important it is to have a solid mental approach at the plate. I tell them to do it and it goes in one ear and out the other. Meanwhile, they want me to just help them to perfect their technique to make them better and to reach their potential. They won’t and I can’t if their technique is already solid. Get into the mental side of hitting if you DESIRE to be GREAT.
In closing…As the title to this article would indicate, in order to be a great hitter and/or to reach your maximum potential, you must have all 4 of these things. Think about it. What good is any one of these things without AT LEAST one other element? Without one, you can only expect to be good. Absent of two, a hitter will be average AT BEST. With only one element, it’s all but hopeless. Do we even need to consider none? Not really. The good news is that 3 of the 4 are simply a decision. All anyone has to do is to decide to have good technique, a good work ethic, and a good mental approach. Only potential/natural ability is out of your control and mine. If God has blessed you with natural ability, then fulfill you’re potential by deciding to apply yourself in the other areas. Finally…if you DECIDE to leave out one of the 3 areas that are under your control, now you’ll understand the results you’ll get.
Get a good pitch to hit and put a good swing on it! Practice Hard. Hit Harder!
Coach Todd
Mike Epstein Hitting Instructor
The 4 Things That Make A Great Hitter
Author: Todd Thomas
