Progress in hitting is not one good swing, one good round of BP or one number. Coach Bass measures it the way he coaches: by evidence, over time.
Consistency is the measure
The hitter can duplicate it in multiple at-bats.
That is Coach Bass's definition of being consistent. One good swing or one good at-bat is never treated as proof that development is complete. Progress is judged by consistency over time.
Duplicating something is only progress if it is the right thing. Watching the hitter is still what tells Coach Bass what the hitter is duplicating, and whether it is something he wants preserved.
To be good, you have to hit every day. You are looking to be consistent.
Daily work is for consistency. Daily does not mean identical: what the hitter works on can change with the evidence.
Learn, adjust, compete, and look again
Progress runs in a loop: learn the action, train it, adjust it, take it into competition, look at the new evidence, and learn and adjust again. Development does not end at batting practice; it does not matter what you do in BP if you cannot do it in the game.
The real measure is the hitter. Coach Bass wants a hitter who knows what he is trying to do, understands why he is doing it, can recognize when he is not doing it, and knows how to work on it.
Success is not dependence on a coach or a system. It is a hitter who increasingly understands his own swing, knows how to train, can make adjustments and can compete with those adjustments in games.
Every swing can improve
Every swing has something that could be better. That is part of hitting and part of the game. So the question Coach Bass asks is never whether a swing is good or bad. It is what the hitter should work on first, from the evidence available. There are no grades, verdicts or good-and-bad labels.
When the evidence supports a first correction, start there. When it does not, do not guess: work through the Coach Bass fundamentals of hitting while gathering more evidence. As new swings, at-bats and training come in, reassess and find the next thing that can be better.
New video is the evidence
We will adjust the drills based on the videos that they upload.
Each new video answers five questions:
- What is the hitter doing now?
- What is working?
- What still needs to be better?
- Did the thing we were training improve?
- Should the work continue, be adjusted, or should the hitter move on to the next focus?
Drills never change just because a video arrived; the evidence has to support the change. If a video does not show enough to tell whether the hitter improved, Coach Bass says so instead of inventing a change. And the history is kept: video, evaluation, focus, drills, new video, comparison and adjustment stay visible over time.
When the drills do change, the hitter and the parent are told why, and what the new video showed.
The game is the test
BP performance alone is never proof that a correction or a development plan is working. Game performance is the test. The loop runs from game evidence, to what needs work, to training it on purpose, and back to the game to see whether it actually improved.
What doing well really tells you
A parent saying the hitter is doing well does not tell Coach Bass how the hitter is actually doing. Watching the hitter does. For a hitter who is doing well, the development focus is being consistent.
Honest about what improved
Honest coaching applies to progress too: recognize what the hitter is doing well without empty praise, name what can be better, and never invent a change the evidence does not support.
Tools for keeping the record
Two free Coach Bass tools help families keep track:
- Quality At-Bat Tracker: track quality at-bats using your own criteria, mark each one, and see each hitter's QAB count and QAB%.
- Player Goal Tracker: your own measure, starting value, target and date, with dated check-ins, so you see the change from the start and how far there is to the target.
Inside the Coach Bass membership, Swing Video, At-Bats and Goals & Progress keep the hitter's videos, at-bats and goals in one place.
Where to start
Start with evidence: one complete game at-bat, filmed from the side, for a Free Hitter Scan. The report gives the first thing to address, and its What Could Not Be Determined section is honest about the limits of one at-bat: it says what it cannot see.