Reed Ryan

The hitter’s swings, foul balls, and takes give you a good idea of his approach. What do I mean? Fastballs: Is he late on the FB? Where are his foul balls? Pulled foul? Or over the opposite dugout? Or, is he taking them? So, if late, this means that we pitch FB in, up, and expand down. If he’s taking them, he might be sitting strike offspeed. Also, if he’s late on FB, be careful throwing a get me over strike offspeed pitch. You will be doing him a favor. A good question to ask is, where can we go where his barrel can’t square the ball up? Offspeed: is he pulling them foul? Are his takes good or bad? Does his swing look comfortable on the offspeed? Where does he chase? A good tidbit to follow is that we should chase bad swings. The best hitters in the world can make the adjustment pitch to pitch. Most players, especially at the HS and below level, can’t do that. So if he takes a bad swing on a pitch, throw it again. If he takes it, throw a different pitch, then go back to bad swing pitch. Another tidbit is that if the hitter fouls a ball straight back to the backstop, be very careful repeating that, because he just missed it. Many more nuances to this but this is basic food for thought.