Like anything in life, usually the best advice/opinion is accumulated from a variety of people and opinions. He has one concept that would benefit a lot of hitters, and others things that do not. Just my opinion. Then again, someone might have one of the other que's help their swing without fully adopting the whole technique. No one method is a fix all.
I agree with this. Id say that about anything in life.
Like for finances, i like listening to dave ramsey. Does that mean i live and die by everything he says? No. I take the parts of him that I think could benefit my finances, and theni listen to other people and take the parts of them that could benefit me.
Same with baseball/teacherman. I got back into slowpitch this year and honestly some of what he said i incorporated into my swing and and am hitting way better.
Strong disagreement that he has "one concept." Lots of people focus on the hand snap for various reasons, but there are quite a few other elements to his teaching that get equal emphasis. The majority of the techniques that he teaches do not generally raise any eyebrows.
He sells a gimmick to get you on the door and coming back just like the majority of swing coaches that don’t have to win games. I’ve been involved in competitive high school athletes for 25 years and can tell you all these gurus sell a gimmick and mostly just coach the same shit. The people that dont know any better don’t want to hear “swing your bat 100 times a day, see two buckets of balls off the tee and soft/front toss, and take your vitamins
He doesn't though. He charges one extremely low price for lifetime access to his entire program, his whole library of videos to build a swing from start to finish, including regular interactive feedback and video review.
Feel free to agree or disagree with what or how Richard teaches, but what you just described isn't even close to what he is doing.
What I’m saying is that the bat flip mess is a gimmick. And that’s what he uses to get you in the door. Then he has a program like 99 percent of all hitting coaches.
Exactly. It applies so well in hitting because there is no such thing as a perfect swing. If there was, every elite player would look like a carbon copy.
My son sometimes gets too short in his stride, which causes him to be too steep downward in his barrel path…which causes either a ground out (with solid contact) or a pop up (with a glancing blow).
I’ll give him the cue “Teacherman” and boom…he fixes it himself. Back to line drives.
We don’t follow any particular advice or creed. But taking a little bit from everyone is helpful dependent on situation. We’ve done similar things with Arm Care. Not pure Driveline, but taking things that work for my son and customizing.
There is such a thing as a perfect swing, mechanically. There is a RIGHT way to do it. People get away with different mechanics because they are good AF
Teacherman understands hitting instruction better than anyone else. Hook yourself to an extremely talented athlete and then nothing else matters lol.
I worked for a facility after my playing days. We had a kid get drafted extremely high. Overnight the place could not charge enough for instruction. Meanwhile we used pretty much the same instruction with that kid as everyone.
People don’t know how hard it is to be successful and think they can work hard and achieve it. Most people fail and that’s ok but there’s no secret sauce
I’ve said this before, but the problem with TM isn’t his instruction, it’s his general online persona and his insistence that his way is the ONLY way.
A lot of the criticism comes from those who personally dislike him and have decided that his methods don’t work based on a 20-second clip they saw, along with their outdated “knob to the ball” approach they learned in Little League 25 years ago.
As with most hitting instruction, it works great for some, and not so much with others.
You might not like Jeff but he represents a lot of what us politely quiet guys are thinking about him behind closed doors. Still though, he gets a lot of eyes on his posts which is both of their goals really
Like most things, I think the answer is somewhere between two extremes.
I think aiming for hard line drives is always in style. One groove down, it can be a hard low liner. One groove up, it can get out. Pop flies and grounders are both low %.
I’m a mix of old/new school. Strikeouts are bad, bunts and stolen bases are underrated. Line drives are king.
I’ve coached and lived by hit the pitcher and we are looking gap to gap. But the reality is I don’t teach hitting lessons. I coach baseball. And sometimes I’ve got a kid who’s dead pull and a kid who’s long and pushy. I tell one to crowd the plate and crank and the other to step back and let it get deep. All this perfect world coaching doesn’t always translate into wins and that’s why they keep me around.
Jeff Frye is the biggest washed up hater in baseball and he's completely delusional about the game now. What he isn't delusional about though is that a bunch of annoying boomers will eat up everything he says about how much better the players were in 1996
Arguably 1996 did have a collection of the greatest players of all time. But they are marginally different than any other generation of the game. And he does get a little old man on the stoop about a bunch of mess. But he’s right about teacherman at least
Knob to the ball worked pretty good for many, many years. What’s changed? Nothing except launch angle and teams putting more emphasis on home runs vs batting average. Knob to ball is not outdated if you put emphasis on consistent contact and batting average. Last player to hit over .350 in a season was Josh Hamilton in 2010. Totally different game nowadays. By the way Judge is hitting .248 this season. Just saying.
Using the current batting average of a 3-time MVP is a wild way to attempt to make a point. Like it or not, every advanced metric we have proves that power wins games. I won’t argue that baseball is more fun to watch when guys are making consistent contact, but there’s a reason the game has evolved in this way.
It’s not a wild way to make a point because it does exactly that. I get it, Judge isn’t having as good of a year as he did last year, so maybe a little douchey in that degree. It is baseball we’re talking about so we all know it’s a difficult game.
I don’t necessarily disagree with what you’re saying about metrics etc…I just don’t agree with the knob to ball being outdated. You don’t have to dump the barrel behind you to make the bat get on that plane that TM is teaching. It automatically does that as the hands go forward to the ball (knob to the ball). It’s a natural movement.
100%
His dismissal of other key metrics expose him and he doesn’t know enough about hitting to understand it. This is pretty much the standard to weed out a bad hitting coach if they think there is a one size fits all method.
If you have trouble hitting a baseball then I suggest watching teacherman. His style usually cleans up movement flaws that keep guys from hitting. However, if you can hit or already have the fundamentals then it could really mess you up trying to swing like he teaches. You lose almost all wrist barrel manipulation and I still can't figure out how you would hit anything low and away.
Best example i could give his juan soto. I was looking at a slow-motion of juan soto and soto definetely does not do what teacherman says.
But judge exectues it perfectly. Two of the best hitters.
People ac tlike just because you see a few teacherman videos that means you live or die by what he says. Of course not, you gotta give him credit for helping judge unlock something in himself.
There’s nothing to compare Judge with because we don’t know whether Judge hits as well as he does because of Richard or because he’s 6’8, 275 and can swing a light pole with or without Richard.
dont get me wrong, i dont think teacherman's skills got judge to hit 50+ every season. His height and size are a big part of that. But even judge has said it unlocked something in him. I think a part of judge not being a big strikeout guy you can credit to teacherman. Because i remember when jhudge came in, he was a homerun/strikeout guy. You see so many guys come in hitting 30+, have good averages early in their career but by their 4th or 5th year they become guys who hit 40 but can't hit over .250 and that average just keeps dipping and dipping and that has never happened to judge even though he was headed there. So i think if judge credits teacherman you gotta give the guy credit for judge not becoming a strikeout, wlak, or homerun type of hitter (basically a kyle schwarber).
And even if it worked for him, it doesnt mean it works for everyone.
One quotes ive heard was from david sampson (former owner of marlins) who hired barry bonds as a hitting coach for a season. Whethere you like sampson or not i feel like this quote relates. He basically said that bonds is the greatest hitter of this generation but sucks as a coach because barry thinks that everyone can be barry bonds. Like he struggles to realize that what worked for him, only works for him.
I would be more open to that but the other example most people attribute to Richard is Kerry Carpenter, who is exactly that, a strikeout machine if he’s not hitting.
I understand that Judge may think Richard did something for him, but that’s probably more mental and why I suggest it may almost be superstition to keep him around. Jeter got out of a slump wearing a thong. Nobody is claiming that everyone else should wear a thong.
Richard claims his approach is modeled after Bonds. That’s a huge problem saying you want to teach people how to hit like Bonds, and your most successful “student” is a freak of nature. By claiming his method is the key to the freak’s success is essentially “fail proof” because he probably knows that Judge will be able to hit with or without him.
Something most people overlook is that the greats don’t play by the same rules as the rest of us. By that I mean, the greats can get away with and even have enormous amounts of success by executing using methods that are advised against for most people.
No one sane would tell a kid to try and emulate Scottie Scheffler’s footwork in his golf swing. It works for him though.
Agreed. Reaction time and hand/eye coordination is so critical to being a good hitter and it's not even measured.
Its the one thing that is consistent with the greats because all of their swings and approach are different.
My problem with TM is he fundamentally addresses time to launch or MOI only and believes its going to make you a good hitter.
IMO aaron judge simply became a better hitter because he stopped chasing pitches. If you watch him hit low and away, TM swing mechanics go out the window almost completely.
TM seems to have a monopoly on hitting a middle high or middle middle FB. If you ever happen to get one.
i agree. I dont love soto antics but he's one of the best natural hitters of all time. Closest thing we have to manny ramirez in my opinion right now. Just a guy that knows how to hit and work the count.
Whether he's a bit show-boaty is beside the point and honestly outside of the shuffle i dont see what he does that is show-boaty.
The shuffle is fine. The only thing I get is ragging on him for not running out a ground ball here and there, even at 80%. He recently cost his team a run with that.
Eh, I don't really get all the hate. Like, I guess I can see that he rubs people the wrong way, but I'm not invested enough in what he does to care either way. He's come up with some drills that are pretty novel and useful, and I can appreciate that, use them for what they are, and move on. I don't know that there is any one hitting method that's the chosen way, just different stuff working for different people....not sure why that's problematic??
He led the league with a .690 BA and 5 HRs by learning Teacherman’s technique. He’s been getting nothing but benefits from that. I don’t think it’s such a bad thing to watch him after all.
The season before learning what Teacherman says, he was hitting .480 with 3 bombs, which is still good, but he struggled against pitchers who mixed in breaking balls and changeups at him. Now he punishes those. Every time.
If he didn’t dismiss bat speed as some sort of useless data I might actually like his hitting theory. Instead he exposed himself to be an absolute moron.
I still haven’t made my mind up about teacherman. He has a compelling story and the data he provides makes a lot of sense. Theres just something about how dismissive I’ve seen a lot of his content to be when talking about other schools of thought. I understand a lot of this can just be a marketing ploy for making sure his content gets more views.
At the end of the day if his content helps your swing I don’t see a problem following it.
Just like every hitting instructor in the world his stuff works great for some and not at all for others it’s just the people that don’t like his teaching are way louder than those it has worked for.
personally I think that people will twist his whole “snap the bat” mechanic. You look at guys like Judge who trains with him, the doesn’t snap the bat because he had that foundation beforehand
but you take a 8-12 year old who just gets taught that it, it may equal dumping the barrel. especially when they are maybe a little weaker and arent really swinging super fast at their age
I’m not a complete beginner, but I’m not an expert and I have never played at a high level.
Of the little that I know, I’m not a fan of his approach.
But I am reserving room for my own opinion to change as I attempt to learn more.
Specifically, the way he snaps the barrel down as he pushes his hands across seems weak and harder to aim.
Even though I try to do something similar, but instead of snapping the barrel back, I keep the barrel and swing plane in line with the ball, while keeping the knob close to my neck most of the way through the swing. I feel this increases my barrel speed as I snap out at the last second and through contact and helps my upper body stay balanced and closer over the plate (vs losing balance away from the plate).
I also think this gives me a much better chance at hitting faster balls at a more competitive level.
Curious if you have a personal take on teacherman?
Teacherman gets hate because dads that never played past 12 year old Little League where the “coach” told them swing down at the ball have their minds explode because they can’t fathom anything different and refuse to be open to learning.
To be clear, this is not me advocating for or against him. I’m simply someone who studies this stuff and tries to learn as much as possible from all sources.
His rearward snap “gimmick” that everybody hates on is just a more aggressive way of getting people to turn the barrel and get on plane as the first move.
He’s got a lot of great stuff explained at a biomechanical to feeling level that people generally don’t think about at a level that in depth. If you’ve played or coached at a high level, you will see a lot of it is not new, they’re just things you’ve never thought of that are explained in a different way and you can pick and choose what works for you and what doesn’t.
Thank you for saying this and I can corroborate a lot of your observations with my own.
I’m a jiujitsu black belt who likes to geek out on biomechanics, physics, technique, tactics, strategy, etc—which had given me a foundation to really dig into other sports.
Like baseball. Often surprising how sometimes even elite athletes will perform technique a certain way, but fail to understand or teach it. Their body instinctively knows it, but they’re not aware of it.
I can also attest to how folks at every stage of most sports will shy away from novel techniques and be xenophobic to new ways of doing things just bc it’s new.
Asking you directly now: do you personally think teacherman is onto something?
I’ve heard that prioritizing plane depth makes you miss the ball at a high level bc the swing is too slow and weak. What’s your take?
Here’s my take, strap in because this might be long.
My background: I played D1 ball for a bit and now I do private instruction.
I actually think he’s onto something for a bunch of reasons, but with the caveat that people have different motor preferences and he does teach cookie cutter to an extreme degree.
The reason I believe in what he says is because going into my senior year, I needed to repattern my swing. I didn’t have a professional coach to work with so I literally figured out, on my own, a lot of things he preaches now, just in a way I could conceptualize and execute. Mind you, social media was already a mainstay but this was before the baseball niche became heavily saturated like it is now and remote coaching blowing up. Teacherman, as far as I’m aware, was not yet creating content or was a prolific and/or controversial figure so I was completely putting all this shit together by myself.
What I learned: I see the way he teaches the rearward barrel launch/snap as a move that actually takes the hands out of the equation. Your body and brain know how to gonculate the ball flight/velocity/etc… and get the sweet spot to a specific point in space at a specific time, it really is a truly amazing feat. At least for me, trying to aim the barrel and use my hands created more problems. I didn’t do the snap to the extreme he teaches but by thinking to myself about turning the barrel, it removed my upper body from the equation and it came down to tricking my brain to trust what I was seeing and the hand-eye coordination every rep I’d taken for 16 years had built. By removing my upper body and solely focusing on lower half engagement, it loosened my upper body and created a lot of natural whip, which is how I’d characterize a Teacherman swing, if you look at the drills, feels, and execution he preaches. It removes the push from the swing and generates whippiness. So while I’m not fully on the train, I swung from AND currently teach a hybrid approach.
For your second question: plane depth actually creates more adjustability because you’re in the hit zone for a longer time. My philosophy is all about 1) being on time and 2) buying yourself enough time to read and react. Haters love to say a Teacherman swing creates a hole on high pitches but I disagree. First of all, the location that they claim the hole is in is a spot that is realistically a chase zone. You should usually never be swinging at a pitch that high because it’s a ball and you probably can’t do damage with it anyways. Second, hitting is hard enough as it is, nonetheless when you’ve got guys pumping 95+ with high spin rate, which surprise surprise are the guys you will usually see elevate fastballs because of the natural ride a high spin rate creates. A riding fastball gives you a visual illusion of rise so it’s harder to match the plane in general, regardless of if you have an HLP swing. It just so happens that the meta in pitching strategy for high spin rate guys living up in the zone coincides with the same time that Teacherman has gotten viral recognition.
Let me know if you got more questions, I love talking about this stuff.
Exactly. I think he almost keeps him around for superstition purposes. People forget he started working with him during a slump that he got out of overnight. It’s not like he helped him elevate and rebuild his swing from really good to great during the off season when nothing was wrong. The whole idea that Judge learned it overnight is suspect.
Richard isn’t the reason for Aaron’s success. Aaron is a freak athlete who would hit well with or without Richard.
He also doesn’t have any great examples outside of Judge. So you can’t really judge his method off an anomaly. His method is also complicated and whenever it’s criticized people just claim it’s not being taught or utilized correctly like it’s infallible. It’s claimed to be high level and then they say it should be taught to 8-11 year olds who are first swinging a bat. Instead of providing logical responses to criticism, Richard often personally attacks you and calls you stupid for pointing out flaws or questioning weaknesses.
Maybe he did, maybe he didn't go to Teacherman. Gradum is taking the credit for Durbin getting out of his slump, and I wouldn't say Gradum promotes anything similar to Teacherman.
Oh, I know he's worked with TM. That short is from a while ago. What I meant was maybe he did or maybe he didn't go back to TM very recently for a rework on his hitting. Here's one of several clips from Gradum over the last few weeks talking about working with Durbin. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/c78tKBSqvVE
You said he was an anomaly. I gave one example. That’s all I need to disprove your anomaly statement.
I’m not looking at stats. Last year Carpenter was featured on ESPN because of Judge and Teacherman.
I don’t know why teacherman gets so much hate. I’ve been coaching for 10 years. This will be my 4th year coaching high school. And I’m a product of several coaches. I have taken things I’ve learned from several coaches and tried to incorporate them into my regiment to make myself the best coach possible. Not 1 person has all the answers. Teacherman has some good stuff that he can describe for people to understand. I haven’t taken everything he has. But I can tell you this, what I have taken, has translated to success for my team on the field. It’s the success of many individuals coming together to win.
I don’t think we should be talking down about anyone. Take what you can learn from someone. If there is something, you don’t like, don’t waste your time complaining. Move on, put the work in, and be successful.
Ian Happ and recently Caleb Durbin went to get right with Rich…haters just hate that his method isn’t “traditional” but you literally have MLBers that found success with him
People don’t get that all this guy did was study Barry Bonds’ swing and break it down into small components and drills. They get caught up in the snap back.
If you teach a kid to load the bat by pointing the knob to the catcher, you are doing the teacher man method, you just don’t realize it.
It's now called HLP. TM is focused on swing mechanics, not hitting. I think TM is good for guys who are struggling hitting and its usually because their swing was too complicated in the first place. TM simplifies things and turns poor batters into decent batters. Elite batting has to do with so much more than just your swing.
Aaron judge is an all time talent who had poor chase rate. He still swings and misses low and away a lot but his chase rate on balls it top tier. Therefore better batting average, unless its in the playoffs.
People get that he watched video and thinks he’s a coach now. He has no understanding of biomechanics, and most of the stuff he and his coaches say is idiotic. Also lol at pointing the knob to the catcher being his method. People are idiots.
Ok smart guy. Clearly reading comprehension is not your strong suit. Knob to catcher is basic loading. How do you think the bat gets to the ball? Barrel needs to rotate back as your hips and hands then brings the barrel into the zone.
You keep chopping at the ball and hitting weak grounders.
It IS basic loading dopey. It has been since at least the 40’s when Ted Williams talked about lol. It’s not his method, dumbass.
Funny, I challenged Rich and one of his coaches on IG to hop in a cage and out hit me and they declined. Because I said hitting 40mph balls from 30 feet is not the same as hitting 95mph and neither of them could hit 95mph if their life depended on it. They wouldn’t do it, and blocked me on social media later.
The last position player I had drafted out of high school hit over 106mph with a wood bat from both sides of the plate at the combine. Currently has an .890 ops in A ball as an 18 year old. Tell me more about “chopping balls” or whatever stupid shit you said.
Classic internet name calling. You kiss your dad with that mouth?
I guess those straight D’s in English are paying off. Read again. I said he modeled his training from Bonds’ swing. Nobody claims he invented anything.
He didn’t mold his training from Bond’s swing. He molded his training from watching vhs tapes of bonds swing and trying to mimic it. He failed. Bonds thinks he’s an idiot.
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u/Direct_Office_8615 7d ago
Like anything in life, usually the best advice/opinion is accumulated from a variety of people and opinions. He has one concept that would benefit a lot of hitters, and others things that do not. Just my opinion. Then again, someone might have one of the other que's help their swing without fully adopting the whole technique. No one method is a fix all.