Hitting Tips: Grab the Bat
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Your grip on the bat will be anywhere between the knob of the bat (the bottom part) and the top end of the tape or rubber grip before the barrel of the bat. Choking on the bat means you are moving your hands further away from the knob and closer to the barrel.
There are reasons to “choke” and not to “choke”, and your decision to choke or not should really depend on what style of hitter you are, and how good of a hitter you are, along with the situation. when you step into the batter’s box – how many men on base and on which base, how many outs, how many strikes, etc.
The benefit of not choking is that your swing will generate more power. if you’re a home run hitter, you won’t often drown. The swing, when you’re not choking on the bat, is looser and gives you more power. Also, not choking means you have a longer bat, giving you the ability to have more reach to hit outside pitches or pitches to the outside edge of the plate.
The benefit of the choke is that it stabilizes the bat, since you’re holding it closer to the barrel. The bat isn’t as loose and the swing is more controlled. Plus, it’s making the bat lighter in your hands, since you’re holding it closer to the heavy part of the bat. Being a shorter bat, with the hands higher up, the swing also becomes a faster swing. When you choke with the bat, you get a more stable swing, remove some of the natural wave that occurs in the very loose swing of a non-choke grip, and are “more likely” to land a base hit.
Even batters who don’t drown naturally often drown by the time the count reaches two strikes. At that point, they are willing to take some of the power out of the swing and instead swing to hit the ball and just get on base. Choking will give them more of that stability and increase their chances of hitting the ball for a base hit.
Some say that instead of choking, you can achieve the same benefits by using a shorter bat. The consensus, however, is that the same problems persist even with a shorter bat, and the choking benefits are not achieved to the same degree using a shorter bat, unless you choke on the shorter bat.
Bat Drag and Bat Lag
Bat Drag and Bat Lag are confusing concepts. First of all, Bat Drag is bad and Bat Lag is good.
Let’s start with Bat Drag. Bat drag is bad. Bat Drag means you are dragging or pulling the bat with your arms and swinging the bat using your hands and arms, rather than holding your hands on your shoulder and rotating your hands and shoulder as a single unit.
If you swing with Bat Drag, it doesn’t mean you won’t hit the ball. Bat Draggers can be decent hitters, especially against slower pitches, but your hitting will be much better if you work to eliminate drag. By dragging the bat, you are not putting your body mass into the swing and you are not getting optimal bat speed through the swing.
On a batter with Bat Drag, it is common to see the batter’s elbow on his upper hand come out in front of the knob of the bat. That causes the batter to drag the bat through the zone.
Bat drag can be caused by poor mechanics, and hitting drills can train the hitter to adjust their grip and stance, and swing to eliminate drag, or it can be caused by using a bat that is too heavy. In such a case, if the hitter changes and uses a lighter bat, he could very well eliminate drag just like that!
Bat Lag, on the other hand, is good. Bat Lag is when the batter begins his forward motion with the knob of the bat, without letting the knob drop or sink first. The knob stays in front of the back elbow, the elbow of the upper hand, and then as the knob of the bat moves into the hitting zone, the barrel of the bat lags behind. Eventually, the barrel of the bat is thrown forward through the strike zone.
To hit well, the batter’s hands HAVE to lead the swing. The hips and hands drive the swing, not the arms and not the hips and shoulders.
