Unlock Your Softball Potential: Membership Benefits for Collegiate Players
- Perry Husband
- Mar 4
- 6 min read
Updated: Mar 8
Are you a collegiate softball player looking to take your game to the next level? Unlock your full potential with EV Softball Lab's exclusive membership benefits designed specifically for players like you.
Every article on softball hitting seems to include the terms Exit Velocity and Launch Angle. Exit Velocity is the speed of the ball off the bat, not to be confused with bat speed. While there is correlation between bat speed and ball Exit Velocity, they are very different. We will tackle Exit Velocity in another post, this one is the Launch Angle argument that has been ongoing for more than a decade now.
Launch Angle is the trajectory of the ball flight off the bat. It is a simple metric but has caused a lot of discussion in softball. Analytic proponents believe that hitters can control their Launch Angle. They made the observation that really hard hit balls at about 25 degrees to 35 degrees produce very high numbers. This amazing revelation led to thousands of articles and the brilliant idea that every hitter should swing up to make sure to get below the center of the ball to create the ideal Launch Angle. They were sure that the trajectory off the bat was entirely under the control of the hitter, or at least to a very large degree. The craziest part, everyone in baseball and most in softball went along with it.
There are some problems with that theory, one is the bat is round and the ball is round and the hitter has no idea whether they will hit a flyball, groundball or a line drive.
The hitter
The hitter really has no idea what the Launch Angle will be because there is a round bat hitting a round ball. This entire argument about the hitter controlling Launch Angle is based on not realizing that the ideal Launch Angle is 'an accident'. No hitter is good enough to hit 35 degrees all the time. Trying to aim at 25-35 degrees is ludicrous, leading to super high Ks, pop ups and weak GBs. Aiming up at 25-35 degrees creates constant miss hits because the bat path is not lined up with the pitch path. This has lead to the massive increase in K's and pop ups, but also increased weak groundballs in MLB but also collegiate softball. The more up the hitter aims, the worse it gets.
There are very few things about hitting that the batter controls. You can do everything perfect and hit a missile 100/100 line drive right at someone for an out. You can also be completely early or late with horrible mechanics and get a fisted gork to win a game. Hitting is a Guess, a very wise man once wrote about this idea. You can’t control contact with a round bat and a round ball. If you make contact in fair territory, there are only 3 outcomes possible. (1) Perfect Contact where the sweet spot of the bat hits the exact middle of the ball (2) The bat misses below the center and creates some type of flyball
(3) The bat misses above the center of the ball and creates some type of
groundball.
That’s it, like death and taxes, hitters will always hit a certain amount of flyballs, groundballs and line drives. For decades, the breakdown at the MLB level has been 47% groundballs, 37% flyballs and about 20% line drives, every year. It varies a small amount here and there, but that is the breakdown.
Instead of trying to force yourself to hit nothing but 35 degree flyballs, how about just going along with nature? Get the barrel traveling in line with the pitch and let things happen as they will. By aiming up to hit the perfect homerun, hitters’ barrels are not in line with the pitch so their margin for error is tiny. Early and they top the ball, late and they pop it up or they swing and miss. This is why we are seeing K’s break records every year, weak groundballs and pop ups or homeruns.
This is one of the big secrets of the best offense in softball history, the Oklahoma Sooners. When the football coach of the Sooners, Brent Venables went to speak to the girls during one of their World Series games a couple of years ago, an ESPN announcer asked him what he said to them. He told the interviewer, and I'm paraphrasing, "I wasn't sure what to say to them. They may be the most dominant team in all of college sports right now. I want them to come talk to our guys." It was something to that effect, but he was just reiterating how dominant they had been.
JT Gasso said to me that 40% of his team's hits are hard groundballs and low line drives. That's someone who is taking advantage of nature. The ball will go up down and in the middle, the question is how to control that. The answer is you can't and don't try. Just pick the right aiming point, somewhere around 10 degrees, and let the fact that about 80% of all your contact will be miss hits, above and below the center of the ball and there is nothing hitters can do to change that. Hit as many 10 degree balls as possible, knowing that the groundballs will be harder and the flyballs will be harder, resulting in a lot of hits on the ground and HRs in the air.
s
The alligator image was designed to show what happens when your swing path is not in line with the pitch. The bat is usually coming from underneath the line of the pitch and so there is one point when the timing is perfect and perfect contact is made. Just a few inches early or late and the ball is miss hit up or down, usually very weak contact. The more upward the swing plane, the wider the jaws of the alligator contact, or the wider the ‘spray’ of the balls up and down.
When the swing plane is in line with the pitch, the jaws of the alligator are tighter, making a pie shape that is tighter. You can’t fully control the round/round contact, but you can control the spray up and down to a degree. To sum that up, you can’t control contact 100% but you can control the spray up and down by getting the barrel into a head on collision with the pitch.
You are controlling what you can control and letting the nature of the round/round contact happen as it will. The Launch Angle upward swing plane set hitting back 10 years at least, IMHO.
When I’m working with a pitcher or a college softball pitching coach, I want to face 9 hitters with that upward swing plane because they simply can’t hit certain pitch combinations. More on that in another post…………kills on the field. From personalized training programs to exclusive access to online courses, our platform is tailored to meet the needs of collegiate softball players striving for excellence. One of the key benefits of joining our membership is the opportunity to work with top-notch coaches who have years of experience in the sport. Our expert instructors will provide you with valuable feedback and guidance to help you fine-tune your technique and enhance your overall performance. Additionally, members gain access to a library of resources, including drills, workouts, and practice plans that can help you stay ahead of the competition. Stay updated on the latest trends in softball training, nutrition, and injury prevention through our exclusive content available only to members. Moreover, our membership includes discounts on training products and services, providing you with additional savings as you invest in your development as a player. Don't miss out on this incredible opportunity to unleash your full potential as a collegiate softball player. Join our membership today and take your game to new heights. Unlock a world of possibilities with EV Softball Lab.
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