You want to know how to hit a baseball with more power?

Well, before we do that, I'm just going to go ahead and leave this epic blast for your viewing pleasure. Take your time, watch this video, wipe the tears from your eyes, and then we'll get down to business.

It's a thing of beauty, the way Bonds turns on that pitch.

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And, yeah, I know, steroids etc... But I'm just going to pretend that those years in baseball when Bonds, McGuire, and Sosa were turning baseballs into dust, were just gifts from the Baseball Gods above. 

But let's assume that you're not blessed with the pure swing of a Mike Trout - or the freak, once in a generation talent, of Bryce Harper (who was doing this when he was in High School).

​What can you do to add some power to that swing of yours? Well, besides hitting the weight room, Here's a few tips to add a few feet to your tape measure shots.

Learn to Turn on an Inside Fastball

Dustin Pedroia is listed at 5'9" and 175 lbs. That's pretty small for a pro ball player. Yet in 2008, his MVP season, he slugged .493 with an OPS of .869 - so how does a guy that small hit with so much power?

Because he absolutely feasts on inside fastballs - especially ones that are up in the zone. Because of this, he is able to generate a lot of power to his pull side.

Take a look at the chart below.  It shows the location of pitches where Pedroia is hitting for the most power (slugging). The trend is pretty clear.

This can be a really hard thing to do for a lot of people (myself included). But there are a few things to keep in mind when trying to accomplish this.

Catch Up with High Heat

They say when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Well I say, when a pitcher gives you a high fastball, put it in the bleachers.

Pitchers hate to leave balls up in the zone - and for good reason, they get crushed. But sometimes pitchers get cocky and think that they can beat you up there with their velocity. This is where you make them pay.

Why is it easier to hit a baseball with more power when it is up in the zone? Because it allows your bat path to stay flatter, increasing your ability to hit the ball just under center, which generates a lot of power. 

So how do you catch up with a high fastball?

Keep your Hands Back

A lot of younger players struggle with keeping their hands back during the "loading" phase of their swing. As they start to take their stride their hands will either drift forward, drop down, or do both.

The problem is that you've just drained a lot of power from your swing by doing this, not to mention probably shortened the amount of time that your bat will be on the same plane as the ball (which is key to making good, hard contact, consistently).

Antonelli Baseball breaks this idea down in the video below.

Stop Squishing the Bug

ATTENTION TEE BALL DADS: Please stop teaching your kids this.

I don't know who started this trend, but I remember playing Tee Ball and hearing this all the time.

I can understand why it's taught - sometimes kids don't understand the role that their lower half has in the baseball swing (although some kids will just get it naturally). So when you want to get a kid to use his hips more, you tell him "squish the bug" so that he'll open up during the swing. 

Here's the problem. When you spin your foot like this, you wind up putting all of the weight on your back leg - and it never gets transferred forward. Transferring your weight forward and through the ball is HUGE in creating power and bat speed. 

Are these guys "squishing the bug" at contact?

In fact, often times when a professional makes contact, their back foot isn't even on the ground, that's how much force is being driven through the baseball...

Rich at the Baseball Barn has a great video explaining these principles. Check it out below.

What about you guys? What other tips can you offer up to increase the power in your baseball swing? Post in the comments below.

Tee Work. Two dreaded words in a young baseball player's vocabulary. 

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I remember going station to station during high school baseball practice and feeling underwhelmed by the work that I was getting in on the tee.

I mean, the ball's just sitting there - if I don't have the hand eye coordination to handle this by now​ then I may as well just give up.

So I'd go through the motions. Hit three to four dozen balls off the tee and move on to something more exciting like actual live pitching or at the very least soft toss.

This Was Me Being Dumb and Having Bad Coaches​.

​The truth is, knowing how to go about tee work is half the battle. And knowing the specifics of what you hope to accomplish during your work can go a long, long way.

​MLB coaches and players know this, which is why they still do it on a daily basis, but especially during spring training when the pros are trying to get their swings back in check.

In this clip from the MLB Network, Curtis Granderson and Kevin Long (The former Yankees and now Mets' batting coach) break down some of the mistakes that Granderson made in the past during his tee work. They also touch upon what they hope to accomplish as they're getting their work in.​

The Key Tee Work Takeaways

And there you have it, simple tee work from a pro.

By the way, the Tee they are using in this video just so happens to be the tee that I recommend as one of my favorite hitting resources, here.​

It really should be simple - how to hold a baseball bat, that is. 

And, generally, it is simple, especially if you've been playing the game for a while. Most people don't give it that much thought. "Grip it and Rip it", they say. ​

But, lately, there's been two schools of thought on the proper way to grip a bat. And it seems like no one can get on the same page.​ 

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Box Grip vs. Door Knocker Grip

​Let me just get this out of the way before breaking these two different grip styles down: Either way is fine. In my opinion, it's more about a level of comfort than anything else. And if you're getting the results you desire, than there's no problem.

So, let's not get too stressed when discussing the pros and cons of both ways to hold the bat.

However, if you feel as though you're not hitting the ball as hard as you could be, you may want to consider something as simple as switching the way you hold the bat. Okay, here we go...​

"Box Grip"​

As you can see, the reason this style of holding a bat is called "box grip" is that it resembles a box with both pairs of your knuckles forming the sides.

This grip is very common among players of all ages and skill levels, and it's often the grip that feels the most natural​. 

This is the bat grip that I had for the majority of my playing years.​

And honestly, it's the grip that you'll see the most often in video and images of professional baseball players. Especially the power hitters. This grip may be your best option for generating the most power from your swing. And power is good.

It accomplishes this because it promotes more torque through the swing by keeping your back elbow up, plus it's harder to roll your wrists over during or before contact. It accomplishes this because it makes it easier to keep the palm of your top hand facing up when making contact. That's all good stuff during swing mechanics.

But power isn't everything, and you may find that you prefer a different bat grip.

"Door Knocker Grip"

This bat grip gets it's name from the way your "door knocking knuckles" line up vertically on the bat handle.

I had not heard of this style until I was in my twenties. But one of my teammates started praising it as the "correct" way to hold a baseball bat.

I'm not sold on that, exactly, but I gave it a try. And I liked it.

It's a very comfortable grip that keeps the bat handle close to your fingertips. It gives me a lot of bat control, which for a contact hitter like myself, is key.

And that's who I feel this grip is more beneficial to - contact hitters. It gives you just a tiny fraction more of bat control, which could be the difference between a ground ball to second base, or a line drive up the middle.

As I said before, either one of these grips is acceptable, regardless of whatever else you hear on the internet. Experiment with what feels more comfortable to you. You may find that somewhere in between these two grips is what works for you. So be it. 

The Most Important Things To Remember When Holding A Baseball Bat

Regardless of which school of a bat grip you fall under, there are some things that all coaches and players will agree on when it comes to how to hold a baseball bat.

Keep the Bat out of the Palms of Your Hands​

​If your baseball bat is buried in the palms of your hands, you are strangling it! Stop you murderer!

Actually, the only thing that you're murdering is your batting average.

Because when your bat is being held that deep in your hands, you're making it very hard to make the split second adjustments necessary to barrel up a pitch that can be breaking any number of ways or headed for any number of areas in the strike zone.

Letting your fingers control the bat allows you to have much better bat control.

Keep Your Grip Loose

​Much like the aforementioned tip, keeping a loose grip on the bat improves bat control, but more so it increases bat speed, which increases power.

​Loose muscles are fast muscles - and when it comes to a baseball swing, there are a million fast-twitch muscles involved in making the bat whip through the zone.

Next time your on the field, or in the cag​e with a tee, do this little test and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Take a hack while holding the bat as tightly as possible.

Then take a hack with as loose of a grip as you can (without losing grip of the bat obviously).

Notice a difference? Of course you do. The ball should jump of the bat when you're holding it loosely as opposed to merely ​thumping lifelessly off the bat while over gripping it.

Your batting grip will naturally tighten as needed as your swing progresses. Just keep it loose at the beginning of your swing and you'll have a much quicker bat.​

How To Hold A Baseball Bat - What The Rest of the Internet Says...​

eFastball.com has a great breakdown on this exact subject. ​It's full of lots of quotes from players and coaches - some of which are quite contradictory.

Check out this video from ​Antonelli Baseball

And, lastly, this video from Don Mattingly, which flies directly in the face of what many baseball experts on the internet preach when it comes to holding a baseball bat.

So Which Grip Do I Use?​

Well, believe it or not, if you couldn't already tell by my lack of a true position on the topic - I use a grip slightly in between the two. Which I suppose is a grip that has been referred to as the "Rings Grip" elsewhere on the internet.​

Which style of grip do you prefer? Leave a comment and let us know!