Tee Work Makes the Dream Work

Tee Work Makes the Dream Work

The Importance of Baseball Hitting Drills (short video at the end)

Hitting a baseball is known to be the most difficult thing to do in sports. Batting practice, whether alone or in a group, allows for players to emphasize on fundamentals while preparing themselves to hit various types of pitches in differing locations.   

Tee work is not only for novice hitters, even the pros do it daily

Getting the most out of your hitting drills 

There are hundreds of different types of drills that are taught all around the world. While doing the wrong drill won’t necessarily hurt your swing, listening to the wrong advice definitely won’t help you.

Drills have a different impact for every player.

You must identify what piece of your swing needs improvement and look for a drill that focuses and isolates that problem area.

Tee Drills

Tee drills for baseball are critical for off-season. The tee can be used by anyone and everyone and always provides a quality workout session regardless of which drills you do with it.

Basic Tee Hitting:

– Put the tee in the middle of the plate, simulating a strike down the middle. Emphasize on hitting up the middle. For example, if you are working in a batting cage, aim to hit the back of the cage without first hitting the sides or top. (Line-drives only)

– Once you start hitting line drives up the middle consistently, start moving the tee around the plate. Emphasize on pulling inside pitches and hitting oppo for outside pitches. Be sure that the tee placement properly represents where you would ideally hit the ball. For instance, you will allow an outside pitch to travel more, and therefore you will place the tee further back.

–  Another drill you can do is one where you use momentum to generate additional power in your swing. Stands towards the back end of the batters box and bring your  back foot to the front and then softly strides forward. By creating this movement forward, you exaggerate the importance of landing in order to prevent gliding into the baseball. 

–  High/low set-up with a double tee (or using two separate tees) This drill stresses the importance of a level to slightly downward swing. Players use this drill to eliminate a hitch in the swing (from dropping the hands). In this drill two tees are set up with the front tee directly in front of the back tee. While the front tee is about 2” below the back tee, the hitter concentrates on hitting the ball on front tee without hitting the ball on back tee. 

 Things to remember

  • Focus on keeping the front side of your body (shoulder, hip, and foot) square to the baseball.
  • Try to make contact with the inside part of the ball. This will force your hands inside the ball. (Hands before barrel)
  • Keep sound mechanics and work inside and behind the baseball.
  • Use a wood bat that models your game bat. You can also use a heavy wood bat to help build strength and bat speed.
  • Utilize one-handed training bats to master your swing inside and out. We have developed tools that can assist with this and they can be found here.
  1. The Tater Trainer can be used for both top hand and bottom hand drill work. As well as a multitude of other drills with resistance bands to build strength.
  2. The ML19 is perfect for newcomers and is ideal for two handed drills, soft toss, and even live pitching.
  3. The RSD is another short bat that can be used. Typically it is a little heavier but comes with a flared knob which allows players to more adequately control the barrel of the trainer. 

    Check out our video below of some tee work and other hitting drills!

     

     

    There will be plenty more videos to come! 💯💯💯

     

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