Backspin Tee’s: They Work
As coaches we see a lot, we should know more about a players “swing” than they do, simply because if we shared everything we saw we would inundate players with too much “information” they wouldn’t know where to start or have time to feel the adjustments from the previous suggestion.
But, coaches insist on constantly “over coaching” intentionally, or unintentionally.
We’ve seen the benefits of creating different environments for players that help them develop quality movement patterns outside of traditional coaching cues and styles.
One of those environments is a tee that holds the baseball upside down that only allows you to see and hit the bottom of the ball. Using external cues and adapting the balls/bats with different masses. Players are forced to self-organize without needing the white noise of a coach correcting every swing, or every few swings with limited direction. If you put a player on a backspin tee and leave him alone, he’s going to get better.
We use the Backspin Tee to help players self-organize to hit more line drives but we first have to build context. It’s not just hitting the bottom of the ball, it’s about being on plane with the pitch. The average fastball in the MLB descends towards the hitter between 5 and 7 degrees, which means if hitters are perfectly on plane, and they hit the center of the ball or “cut it in half” so to speak, the ball will travel back “up” between 5 and 7 degrees which results in a ground ball. While many ground balls get through the infield, it’s important to understand the best ground balls still go “up” first, and of course to hit a line drive then the ball has to go even more “up.”
However, if hitters want to stay on plane as long as possible, then they wouldn’t necessarily want to change the attack angle (the angle in which the bat approaches the baseball), so therefore that leaves accuracy of impact on the baseball, as well as with the bat, meaning where we hit the baseball and with what part of the bat will control the result.
Tee work for me, has always been about the swing. While front toss and batting practice has always been about timing a players very best swing.
Because we value timing so much, and understand that timing actually effect mechanics more than mechanics effect timing, we don’t overvalue tee work in young hitters like most coaches do. However, we believe that the Backspin Tee is such a great tool because we are able to show players how to use them, and give them a series of expectations that they can warm up with prior starting a one-on-one session and it also makes a great “station” in a group setting because of the small amount of supervision required. It also, challenges them to be more consistent with their swing path and with all of the possible adaptations mentioned above, such as using plyoballs, and weighted bats, it keeps players much more engaged than traditional tee work in general.
There are plenty of promises made by all kinds of companies and products. The Backspin Tee guys have certainly upheld their promises. Lifetime warranties on cones, and creating a product that will make players better. Although like anything else, perspective plays a large part, if you don’t know the best way to use something, why or what the benefits are, it’s tough to get the most out of any product. I hope this sheds some light on the value of the Backspin Tee, and some additional uses to those who are already using this tee.
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