Albert Pujols Batting Practice Routine

Okay, so I want to talk about batting practice routines because I think this is very important and I watch batting practice from players of all ages. I see kids as young as coach pitch batting practices and all the way up into professional batting practices to some of the best players in the world and I've talked a lot about different players that I've witnessed during batting practice. I played with Adrian Gonzalez when I was with the Padres. Guy was one of the best hitters, probably the best hitter I've ever played with and his batting practice routine was so disciplined. That's the word that came to mind for me. It was disciplined. Adrian Gonzalez had the ability to hit a ball as far as anybody and I've seen him do it. I've seen him in certain rounds just blast balls to the moon. Okay, but what was most impressive about him is that he had the discipline and he understood what he needed to do to lock his swing in and that's the key about batting practice. Batting practice isn't about let's make this a show. It's not about home run derby. What Adrian Gonzalez did is that he had a plan every day in his batting practice and we're going to talk about and show Albert Pujols' plan in a minute. But Gonzalez would start every batting practice by first round staying inside the ball and driving the ball to left field and he'd hit hard line drives to left field over and over again, allowing the ball to travel, being able to feel himself with a path from the inside. We talk about being from the inside out and so if I'm short and quick and tight to the ball and I can allow myself to be inside the ball, well now I have the ability to cover the entire hitting zone. I can hit balls away, middle and in. I can drive the ball to the opposite field. I can drive the ball to the middle of the diamond and I can pull the ball because I'm already inside. So he would drive the ball first round to left field and show himself like I can stay inside this ball. It doesn't matter where the ball is pitched. They try to come in. He can still do it and then he would slowly shift towards center field. So he'd start driving the ball to center field and then as the rounds went later, I remember late in the round, sometimes the guys would say, hey let's have a little home run derby round, right? And then he would just start blasting balls, like just blasting them. They look like golf balls, right? Now he could go up there every single pitch if he wanted to and just show everybody, hey guys, check out this power and just blast 30 balls out of the park. But he didn't. He used his routine to get him prepared for the game because in the game you can't just say, I'm just going to blast these balls, right? This guy's just going to put a meatball right here. I'm going to blast it to the moon. You can't do that. If that's all you work on in practice, you're going to struggle in the game. And so you need to give yourself an ability to be able to, again, cover all pitches in all areas and use all fields. And certain certain hitters are better pulling the ball than going the other way, right? Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, but he's setting himself up to be able to use all fields and hit all pitches and I think that's really important. And so long story to kind of get us to Albert Pujols because here's one of the best hitters of all time and I understand he's getting older now, but it seems like this move to the Dodgers has kind of reinvigorated him a little bit because he's been hitting better. He looks a little, well he still looks old, but he looks a little younger and a little healthier. And this video has been going around and again a bunch of people sent it to me and it's of him hitting batting practice with the Dodgers. And you can hear the hitting coach, right, as he's hitting. You can hear the hitting coach giving out situations, right? And so he says, runner on second, move him. He says, in the air to center field, hit the scoreboard. Let's listen to it really quickly here so you can hear it and understand that Pujols isn't just up there just swinging at anything, just trying to hit balls, you know, pull side every single swing. He's trying to move the ball around. So let's listen for a second. Okay, so again, why is he doing this? Is Pujols a guy that's going to try to hit behind a runner with a man on second? I mean, maybe he will every now and then, but he's probably going to try to drive the guy in, right? And in a game is he going to say to himself, okay, let's see if I can hit this ball off the center field scoreboard. Like, no, he's not going to. But here's the thing, and I heard Joey Votto say this a few years ago, and I thought it was really interesting, and I think it's very true. Votto said that a good hitter, a great hitter, should be able to hit the ball where he wants. And so he should be able to get up in the batting practice and say, I'm going to drive a line drive at the shortstop. Boom. I'm going to pull this ball into the gap. Boom. I'm going to move a runner over by hitting a ground ball to the right side. Boom, right? Great hitters should be able to do that. One, it shows that you have some barrel control, right? So I can control the barrel, not just up there swinging as hard as I can with no intention of being able to put a barrel on a ball. Like, I've got to be able to manipulate the barrel a little bit. That is a skill that I think most good hitters, great hitters have. That's one part of it, right? Being able to do that. But I also think that you need to have a swing that can make that happen, right? So we talk a lot about path. Path is so important when it comes to having a solid swing. And by having a proper path, what I talk about is, I'm going to demonstrate this as a lefty, is that I need my barrel to get behind the ball. We talk getting behind the ball early. So here comes the ball. I need my barrel to turn up behind the ball. If that happens, right? Now I'm able to flush that ball up, and I'm able to give good ball flight. People talk about launch angle. And then, and some people get, oh launch angle. Every hit, every batted ball has a launch angle, okay? So we're just trying to hit a hard line drive with some carry. I've got to get my barrel behind the ball to give myself a better chance to get that. So it's behind the ball. It's typically slightly up into the hitting zone. It's also from the inside out. Now that doesn't mean we're just trying to slap balls the other way. That just means that when I make this turn with my barrel, my bat should be pretty close to my shoulder. And as it enters the zone, it enters from the inside. It doesn't enter from the outside. If I enter from the outside, then I just cut across everything. I can't use the whole field. I can't drive the ball to the opposite field if it's pitched away. I enter from the inside, and now if the ball's away, I can release it out and drive the ball the opposite field. I start from the inside. If the ball's middle, I release it middle and drive the ball middle. I start from the inside. If the ball's in, I'm already in. I stay in, and I drive the ball to the pull side. And I do so without hooking it. I do so with good ball flight, right? If I'm out here, well now I hit that inside ball. I hook it foul. I'm out here. I hit that ball middle, and I pull it more than I want. I'm out here. The ball's away. I cut across. A lot of times I won't even be able to hit that ball, but I definitely can't drive it to the other field. I'll fillet it the other way, right? And when I get out here, my swing gets long and slow. I'm not short and quick. I need to be quick to the ball, right? And so it's not just about creating bat speed, but it's also about creating quickness, right? And quickness isn't throwing my hands out like this, because I'm not gonna be able to create any bat speed. Quickness is about letting my barrel turn this way, but being from the inside. Whack! So it's right there, and not out there, okay? And when you work on these things in batting practice, when somebody says as a right-handed hitter, drive the ball to the opposite field, or hit a hard ground ball to the second baseman, I have to be inside the ball to be able to do that, right? I have to create a good path. If I don't, if I have a poor path, if my coach says, hey, drive the ball to the right center field as a righty, and I get around with my path, and I keep hooking the ball, that's a red flag that something is going wrong. I need to fix something, right? And so if I don't work on that in batting practice, if I just hit to my strengths, right? I just pull, pull, pull, pull, pull, pull, pull. Well, I'm building in a swing that can only pull, and now I have all these other weaknesses that are going to get exposed in the game, right? And so a lot, some people say to me, hey, I hit the ball great in batting practice, but I can't in the game. Well, look at your batting practice. What does your batting practice do? Is it all hit to the same spot? Do you do the same thing over and over again? Yeah, I hit the ball hard, but all I can do is, is pull the ball down the left field line as a righty. Well, yeah, that might work in batting practice, but is it going to work in the game? Probably not. I mean, unless, there's no way the pitcher is going to throw you nothing but hard fastballs in that you can just spin off and hook down the line, right? And so that's where I think it's important. And some people are like, oh, you're hitting coach trying to tell other pool hosts how to hit. Like, that guy's one of the greatest hitters ever. He is, no doubt. All the coach is doing, he's not just doing it to the pool host. I'm sure this is a Dodgers philosophy. They're just making sure that pit, that hitters don't get lazy, right? You hit batting practice every day. It's hard sometimes to just be like, or I should say it's easy sometimes just be like, yeah, I'm just going to hit. I mean, I'm just going to hit. Everything's done with a purpose, right? And that's all the coaches there is to remind guys that there's a purpose behind it. And also to challenge them a little bit, right? And to make sure that they're mixing things up and showing that they can drive balls to all different parts of the field, control the barrel, and ultimately have a really good path. That's what allows you to do it. So hopefully this makes sense. I saw this and I thought it was really interesting. It's what, you know, I talk to our hitters about this. And if you want to be a really good hitter, try to do this in batting practice. Okay. That's all I got. 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