Most hitters have a parent throwing them batting practice. Coach Bass's advice for that parent starts with one line: it does not matter what you do in BP if you cannot do it in the game.
BP is not the test. The game is.
They throw to their kid's strengths. Pitchers are throwing at your child's weakness. It does not matter what you do in BP if you cannot do it in the game.
Batting practice should not exist just to make the hitter look or feel successful. When a parent keeps throwing to what the hitter already handles well, the hitter can look great in BP without developing what they need when they compete. Opposing pitchers attack weaknesses, so training has to prepare the hitter for what gives them trouble in the game.
Game performance is the test. A good round of BP is never proof, on its own, that a correction is working.
Parents learn the process too: what is being learned, what to watch for, why a drill is part of the work and what is being changed.
The loop Coach Bass wants parents to follow
- Watch the game: what actually happened in the at-bat.
- Identify what needs to be better.
- Train that on purpose.
- Go back to the game and look at the evidence again.
- Decide whether it actually improved.
Learn what Coach Bass knows
I am going to teach the players how to adjust and train and teach the parent to know just as much as I know. It is about learning how to hit.
The goal is not a parent who follows instructions from a screen. It is a parent who can recognize the same evidence Coach Bass looks at, and a hitter who understands their own swing, knows how to train, can make adjustments and can compete with those adjustments in games.
That is why Coach Bass teaches the whole arc instead of just saying what is wrong and handing over a drill: what happened, what he sees, why it matters, what to adjust, how to train it, what to watch for, taking it into the game, looking at what happened and adjusting again.
What to watch for
Things Coach Bass teaches parents to look for:
- The ball. The ball tells you what the hitter is doing. Foul balls straight up and weak pulled contact are the patterns of going out to get the ball.
- The barrel. The barrel is the tell for the back hand; you do not need to see the hand itself. Watch whether the barrel gets to the ball or drags through the zone.
- The bottom hand. Is the hitter throwing the knob, and are the hands working on their own rather than being moved by body momentum?
- The hands during the load. They stay in place. The shoulder coil can make them look like they move back on video; that is not the hitter taking the hands back.
- The front shoulder. When the swing starts, it should attack the ball. Watch whether it attacks the ball or pulls away.
- When the swing starts. Too late looks like this: the ball almost gets to the plate, then the swing starts.
And if your hitter keeps watching pitches they could have hit, Coach Bass sees that mainly as a confidence issue, not a swing problem.
Be honest, not harsh
I am not a feel-good coach. I will be honest with you. You can get better each and every day. We are striving for perfection.
Honest coaching means recognizing what the hitter is doing well without empty praise, naming what can be better, never inventing criticism the evidence does not support, and never softening a correction just to make it feel better. Honest and demanding, never harsh.
Every swing has something that could be better. That is part of hitting. The question is never whether a swing is good or bad. It is what to work on first.
Hit every day, and let new video decide
To be good, you have to hit every day. You are looking to be consistent.
Consistency means the hitter can duplicate it in multiple at-bats, not one good swing. And when the hitter's training changes, it changes because new video showed something, never just because a video arrived.
Where to start
Film one complete game at-bat from the side and upload it for a Free Hitter Scan. Nothing is released until Coach Bass has personally read it, and the report gives the first thing to address and what one at-bat cannot tell you.
For game day, the free Game-Day Hitting Routine lets you check the steps from Coach Bass's routine your hitter will use, add your own notes and print them as dugout cards.