By Eric Johnson
Front toss is one of the easiest ways to get quality swings without needing someone to throw BP. For those of you who have never done front toss before, all you have to do is put an L-screen about 8-10 feet away from home plate in the cage. You want the feeder to sit behind the large part of the L-screen (think the vertical line of the L), and throw balls underhand to the hitter. Before you start, talk to your coach about any safety precautions he wants you to take. Ask your feeder to make sure that his tosses are firm. You don’t want him to just lob the ball in to you.
Basic front toss will get you plenty of quality swings. But there are also a few good variations on front toss that will help you break down different aspects of your swing.
Dry Front Toss
Dry front toss is a good way to check your launch position. Every few pitches, tell the feeder to act like he’s going to toss the ball, but to hold on to it instead of releasing it. When the feeder does that, freeze immediately.
Check your weight. Have you drifted onto your front foot? Is your front foot still closed? What about your front hip? Check your hands. Did you load correctly? Did you wrap your bat back around your helmet? Are your shoulders square? Did you try to start your swing by flinching your front shoulder and front hip (bad), or did you fire your back knee and back hip (good!)? These are just a few of the things you should be thinking about every time you freeze on one of these dry front tosses.
Hard In/Soft Away Front Toss (Mix)
“Hard in/soft away” is the best way to mimic real pitching when taking front toss. The by-the-book way to go after a hitter is throwing fastballs in and off-speed away. Have your feeder mix firm pitches on the inner half of the plate, with must softer pitches on the outer half of the plate. Make sure that the feeder doesn’t get stuck in a pattern – you want to have to adjust to the pitch just like you would in a real game.
Check in with yourself after your swings. Make sure you’re reacting quickly enough to get the barrel of the bat to the inside pitch. Also, make sure you don’t get too off balance on the soft, outside pitches. Try to go gap-to-gap with all the pitches.
These two drills will make the most out of your front-toss in the cages. Remember, always go for quality over quantity. You can get more out of 30 quality swings in the cage – 10 regular, 10 dry, and 10 mix – than you will get out of 100 swings of each if you are just swinging for the sake of swinging. Take your time, understand your swing, and take each swing with a purpose.
NOTE: Some coaches are moving away from front toss, because the feeder throws the ball underhand, so the angle of the ball as it comes to the plate is different than when a real pitcher delivers a pitch. That is to say that when a pitcher actually throws you a pitch, it comes at a downward angle toward the plate. In front toss, the ball moves at an upward angle coming out of the feeder’s hand. Some coaches believe that this is a crucial difference that could mess with a hitter’s swing. If you have any doubts, talk to your coach about what he thinks of front toss. Underhand front toss worked perfectly well for me, but if you don’t like it, try having the feeder throw overhand, using a short, quick motion (like throwing darts).
