How many times have you told your hitters to "watch the ball"? You've said things like "keep your eye on the ball", "really watch it", "pay attention Cindy", "don't turn your head", on and on. But none of it seems to help. Learn a great drill that will help your players really watch the ball for the first time!

Recently I got this email from a coach: "I have a player that when she hits the ball is as good a hitter as there is. But she doesn't hit it consistently and she admits that she never sees the ball when she swings." Sound familiar? I work with hitters all the time and while they might have nice swings, they don't use them on good pitches. As coaches we seem to struggle with how to help our players practice the judgment and vision part of hitting so we just spend time practicing their swing.

Having a good swing is important, but knowing which pitches to use it on and actually looking at the ball soon enough and close enough to gain information from it are the difference between hitters that hit in drills in practice and those great hitters that hit great in games.

So here's a great drill that will help your hitters start to really "see" the ball when they swing at it. It's fun and challenging and can be done either indoors or outdoors:

Hitting Disk Pitches

• The drill involves a tosser and a hitter
• The tosser (can be a coach or another player) stand about 10-15 feet in front of the hitter and tossing either real or softy softballs.
• The hitter has a hitting disk in her hands instead of a bat.
• The hitter gets into her stance as if she were hitting in a game, and the tosser tosses (underhand but not the whole windmill motion) the ball over the plate.
• The hitter swings and throws the hitting disk at the ball trying to actually hit the ball.
• This drill will really show the batter where her swing is going, how late or early she is in swinging at the ball, and how much she needs to really watch and focus on the ball.
• Hitter's will struggle at first but will eventually hit the ball with their hitting disks.
• Work in pairs (one tossing and one hitting), with your whole team doing this drill all over the field at the same time. Do 10 and then switch with your partner.