The soft pitch drill is one of the best baseball training drills out there and please never go short. It’s a great time saver for breaking a bad habit, picking up a good habit, or just keeping your baseball swing if you’re in a good rhythm.
Let’s say you like to coach baseball and you want to break a bad habit that one of your hitters has suddenly gotten into. He can take around 300 swings for the baseball batter’s muscle memory to take over and break the bad habit. For you to hit this player with enough pitches to get 300 swings would take a long time. Even if you went to the park every other day and threw 50 pitches a day at the batter and they were all strikes, it would take a couple of weeks. Now you can see the big advantage if you can achieve the same thing in just a day or two. I would prefer my player to have problems for a day or two instead of two weeks. That’s great.
Remember, you don’t have to be in a baseball slump to practice your swing. It is simply one of the best training drills in baseball and do yourself a favor and use it very well.
Some Benefits of the Soft Launch Drill
- It doesn’t even require a ball field or glove.
- You don’t need someone to pick up all the balls in the outfield.
- The person who “soft pitches” the batter doesn’t even have to have any baseball skills, so they can have anyone hit a “soft pitch” for them. Please don’t take this the wrong way, but your grandmother can throw you gently. I say this with total respect.
- The soft pitch only requires a bat, some baseballs, a fence, and an optional plastic bucket or two.
I know more than one person, including my 17-year-old son, who has a garage setup with thick carpet attached to the garage wall and acting as a fence. Then he can pull gently at any time of the day or night. It can be ten degrees outside or even rain or snow. You can still make your swings.
Regulation balls are not necessary and you can use a softer type of ball to practice damage control in your garage or even in your backyard if you choose to throw it softly there. (And you’ll stay on good terms with your neighbors if a batted ball goes over the fence.)
Using non-regulation baseballs will not detract from the benefits of the soft-pitch drill, since the swing is the same no matter what type of ball is used for the drill.
Many players, coaches, and parents use this drill incorrectly. There are many variations and I have tried many of them.
my favorite method:
- You stand about 12 feet from a hitter who is about 8 to 10 feet in front of a high fence.
- Be very careful. Be sure to avoid fence areas that have posts or the batted ball may come right back at the batter. Make sure the fence you’re hitting is high enough! The person doing the “pitch” needs to make sure they are in a very safe position so they don’t get hit by the batted ball.
- Your angle with the batter should be as if he is in the batter’s box and you are in foul territory just outside the foul line. In other words, if he’s a right-handed hitter and you pitched to him softly, imagine you’re positioned along the first base line, slightly into foul territory. Stay very safe out of the way so there is no chance he can get hit by the batted ball.
- Squat, kneel, or sit with all the baseballs you want to use by your side. A plastic bucket is very useful to sit in and an extra bucket to hold the baseballs is also very useful.
Three easy steps involved:
- Holding the ball underhand, show the ball to the batter.
- Drop the hand with the ball toward the floor and pause for a full second or two. (At this point, the batter should “charge,” lifting the hips, hands, and elbows.)
- Gently toss the ball to the batter so that it has a slight arc up and then down. He points to his back hip, or to a different spot if you wish, and the batter hits the ball against the fence. He repeats with the remaining baseballs.
It is very important that this exercise is never rushed. The purpose is to have a good swing repeated many times until the hitter can do it while he sleeps. It’s one of the best baseball training drills for getting a hitter to break a bad habit or develop a good habit through repetition.
Once again, be very careful about where you are when you throw the ball to someone. And make sure there is nothing in front of the batter that could cause the batted ball to come right back at the batter.
The amount of time spent breaking a bad habit will be an absolute minimum because you can launch a hundred balls in no time!