Understanding Rhythm and Timing

A very important part of any hitter is understanding what your rhythm and timing is. Rhythm and timing are words that are commonly used around the baseball diamond, but rarely does anyone stop an explain it. I have found through many lessons that explaining and practicing rhythm and timing is extremely crucial to a player's success and to a player's understanding of hitting. Rhythm and timing are different for every player, but this article will use Josh Donaldson's rhythm and timing as an example.

Donaldson says his rhythm is the first movement he makes, shown below

Now this is different for every player. There can be a lot of moving parts to your rhythm, there can be very little movement to you rhythm, whatever you need to do in order to get your rhythm is up to you. But you need to know what your rhythm is so you can repeat it every single time. I once asked a player to show me his rhythm. This player told me that his rhythm was wagging the barrel over his head `by cocking his wrist towards the pitcher. But when he took a swing he cocked his wrist back behind him towards the third base dugout causing the barrel to wag dugout to dugout, essentially the opposite of what he thought he was doing. Being aware of your rhythm and perfecting it is crucial to a great swing.

The second part is the timing. Donaldson describes his timing as the forward move towards the baseball. In other words reading the baseball as the ball is coming into the hitting zone is timing. This is where the hitter decides if this is a pitch that he or she should swing at. The hitter needs to process what type of pitch it is and if the pitch is a strike or a ball. If it is a pitch you want to swing at, then you let your swing take over. This is the process of timing.

I have personally found that having a slow rhythm works best for the vast majority of my hitters. Players who have a quick rhythm generally lunge at the ball and therefore get disconnected and don't read the ball as well. Players who have a slow rhythm generally stay connected, have an easier time reading the ball and swinging at good pitches. I tell my players to stay slow, read the ball, and then explode. Those three steps define good rhythm and timing.