I’ve thought about this one for a long time. Not only how I’d build out swing decisions protocol, but how would one get around the practicality of actually scaling it out? There’s limited time in the DSL & at an affiliate. So rolling out something that eats away at the schedule or increases workload on players is not ideal. Taking those things into consideration and keeping with my current understanding of the eyes, the brain, pattern recognition, & the vestibular system; this is my Thought Experiment for Swing Decisions.
Check The Hardware
This entire process would have to begin with a comprehensive eye exam. Let’s make sure the hardware is operating properly & efficiently before we even move on to anything else. The hard part with this is a comprehensive eye exam that includes a visual field test, pupil dilation, corneal topography, & color vision testing is going to take 45-60 mins per player. Why does this matter? If a players eyes can’t dilate properly, night games & shadows are going to be extremely difficult to see the pitch during. Color blindness could impact a hitters ability to read seams or see spin. Colorblind individuals might experience lower contrast between the seams and the rest of the ball. This can make it harder to notice subtle changes in seam movement that indicate spin direction. Only testing the hitters would significantly reduce the time for testing. Plus I understand the reluctance from various entities of a test of this magnitude. However, this is a thought experiment so we can continue to speculate in hypotheticals.
This is going to sound elementary, but it needs to be addressed. I still believe you cover first principles & then scale up. Is the hitter visually tracking the ball? Which eye is his dominant eye & does it have a clear view of the incoming pitch. Gaze tracking is a simple way to measure this. I think you’d be surprised how often hitters pull off the ball or have bad starting points for their gazes in the pre-pitch.
The Lost Art of Reading Spin
It’s one of the largest perceptual cues available during the pitch. However, I believe it’s also become one of the most overlooked skills in hitting. Being able to read spin & seam orientation of the incoming pitch. I constantly see on social media, posts about pitch shapes. In talks with hitters the question most commonly asked after velocity is about the shape of the incoming pitch. Rarely do I hear anyone mention what the seams look like or what the spin of the pitch looks like. The brain is constantly searching for patterns to connect the dots & make predictions of upcoming events. That’s a large reason why I think foamball use has its place, but should be reconsidered. I’m not saying I’m against foamers, I think it should serve a clearly defined purpose for a hitter. Foamers decouple the shape from reading the seams. It also has different deceleration & flight patterns. Which in theory could recalibrate internal models of expected in game pitch flight. So like every training tool in hitting there’s a trade off to it.
The short explanation is mixed BP should be a staple of daily work for hitters. Constantly learning & improving the skill to read seam orientation & spin of different pitches. Even a fastball mix would be beneficial. The thrower could keep it simple & do all fastball BP but mix in a 4-Seam, 2-Seam, & a Cutter. Pick a pitch & learn to execute an approach. Visual decision making based on visual cues & execution of said strategy is a skill that needs to be developed & maintained. This would make the skill set of the coaching staff more important. Hiring coaches who could throw quality BP with the ability to mix & locate pitches would be of the upmost importance.
Prime The Vestibular System
I know the first question normally is, “What is the vestibular system & what does it have to do with hitting?” Click this link to watch a short video on what the vestibular system does and what is the Vestibular Ocular Reflex. Knowing that the vestibular system is responsible for eye stabilization, I see it as another underdeveloped skill that could easily be improved. I won’t bore you with all the details, but there’s a very easy way to improve vestibular function & prime the system everyday. I think it should be part of the daily activation routine.
Emotionally Neutral In the Box
As I’ve learned more about how information travels through the brain it was eye opening to learn that information goes through the limbic system first. The limbic system attaches emotions to the information before it ever arrives at the prefrontal cortex. This means emotional responses can be triggered & actions initiated before the brain fully processes the situation rationally. To keep this short, we will look at a few easily explained scenarios.
If a hitter is too excited or “over-arousal” occurs, it can make him more impulsive & more likely to make bad decisions. Too much caffeine can push someone into this “excited” state.
Anger can significantly impact visual decision-making by narrowing focus & leading to more heuristic-based choices. Specifically, angry individuals tend to attend more to cues that support their existing biases or desired outcomes, & may overlook alternative information. This can lead to quicker but potentially less accurate decisions.
There’s a lot of skill to hitters who always remained calm in the box. Hitting in different emotional states compromises your ability to make decisions. Having built a relationship w/ your hitters & walking them through how to better process information in collaboration w/ your mental skills department is very valuable.
Conclusion
I know what you’re probably thinking, “He didn’t even talk about in game situations or a single metric!?” Being able to define a good & bad swing decision is already pretty clear. This was a thought experiment on how to prepare hitters to make those daily decisions. There are numerous evaluation tools for assessing chase rates, quality ABs, & swing decisions. My question is, how to we improve it or make it worse? Why does a hitter’s decisions tend to not improve as their career progresses? I don’t know, maybe we still haven’t asked the right questions.
Baseball Thought Experiments 