There is no such thing as a bad drill

I am a firm believer that there is no such thing as a bad drill.  “Is this drill good or bad?” is not the best question to ask.  Better questions include:

–Is this drill good for ME? or Is this good for the PLAYER in front of me?

–Does this drill directly translate to the game?

–Does this drill indirectly get the player to where they need to be in the game?

I talked a little about this in the past when I wrote a post called Hitting Drills: Multivitamin vs Prescription.  In that post I said that some drills are like multivitamins – everyone can benefit from them everyday.  General tee work for hitters is an example of a multivitamin hitting drill.  Every hitter can benefit from doing them everyday.  Other drills are like prescription medication that is prescribed to a patient who has a specific problem.  A prescription drug may be exactly what one patient needs to get healthy but if another person takes the same medication, it may kill them.  It’s the same with baseball drills.  A unique (prescribed) drill may be just the answer for one hitter and be destructive to the next. 

There seems to be a lot of people online who apparently have appointed themselves to be the official  “baseball drill police.” Typically, they will post a video of an instructor leading an odd drill with a player and then trash the drill and/or the instructor as being worthless.  I have not been immune to this treatment.  Some of my content/videos have been trashed by these keyboard-coaches too.  Post baseball content regularly and it will happen to you too.

Don’t get me wrong.  It is perfectly ok to question if a drill positively affects a player’s swing mechanics.  Those debates are healthy for coaches and for the game.  However, people often overlook the fact that hitting does not just involve a player’s physical swing mechanics. There is also a mental side to hitting.  Some may argue that this side of hitting is even more important than the physical aspects of the swing.  Because of this, I would argue that there is a big difference between a “hitting coach” and a “swing coach.”  A “swing coach” deals almost entirely with the physical mechanics of how to swing.  A “hitting coach” has to deal with both the physical swing AND the mental side of hitting.  I would argue that most people who call themselves a “hitting instructor” are actually a “swing instructor” because they usually focus only on the physical side of hitting.

In the medical world, multivitamins and prescription drugs both impact people physically just like those two types of drills affect a player’s different physical mechanics.  But there also exists a third option for doctors with regards to medication.  It’s called a placebo.

In the medical/psychology world there is something called the “Placebo Effect.”  A placebo is a “drug” given to a patient that has no medical benefit at all.  In one particular study, patients suffering from severe headaches were given a placebo after being told that this “new drug” reduces headache pain.  36% of the patients reported “improvement in headache symptoms” after taking the “dummy pill.”  This clearly shows the power of the mind.

Think this is just for the medical community?  Think again.

Nearly every true baseball fan has seen the movie Bull Durham.  If you have, then you saw the effect that “breathing through your eyelids” and wearing a garter belt while pitching can have on a pitcher’s mind and then success.  Was “breathing through his eyelids” or the garter belt literally helping the pitcher become physically better?  Of course not.  Like the placebo, the pitcher “thought” it helped him and therefore it did. Superstitions like always putting your uniform on the same way, always stepping into the box with the same foot first, taking the same amount of practice swings before an at-bat, and yes, possibly doing a unique hitting drill before a game all counts as things players routinely do largely because they think they work.

All this is why it is so wrong to outright say that a drill is inherently “good” or “bad.”  It may be bad for you and great for someone else.  It may even preach something that is technically NOT what you’d want a hitter to do in a game. However, if the drill somehow leads a hitter to do the mechanic correctly in the game then it’s all good.  Also, similar to the Placebo Effect, the drill may do absolutely nothing but if the hitter thinks it works and is able to perform better in games after doing it then what’s the problem?

To be a coach at any level, people have to set aside any biases they personally have with any kind of coaching style, philosophy, and/or drills that they deem to be right or wrong. In the end, a coach’s job is to figure out what unique approach is necessary to get the most out of every unique player.

When you think of coaching in that light, there is no such thing as a bad drill.

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