Your tee is like the friend we all want – it is always there for you, it never argues but still gives you feedback, and it always gets back up after you knock it down. In all seriousness, hitting off the tee might sound boring, but when you’re alone or need to slow things down and truly feel your swing, the tee remains the best option to get your work in. Over time, tee work can even become meditative, a space to quiet your thoughts when things aren’t going well at the plate.
Throughout my career, I have had both good and frustrating experiences with the tee. There were nights when I wouldn’t allow myself to leave until I hit 5 or 10 straight line drives in a row, but I’d mishit the last one and have to start over. Sometimes, it took two more buckets to reach the goal. You learn a lot from hitting through frustration, even if the lesson only sinks in later. On the flip side, some of my most relaxing and enjoyable moments came in the cage alone, headphones on, locked into my swing for an hour.
Besides competing, what I miss most about playing ball is the joy of working on my swing, the daily grind, and the satisfaction of developing my craft. Tee work offers an unmatched opportunity to explore mechanics and thought processes, allowing you to find what truly clicks for your swing. Unlike front toss or BP, the tee gives you unlimited time to think, experiment, and repeat until you dial in that feeling you’re searching for.
Over the years, what works for you off the tee will evolve, and if you move into coaching, your perspective on tee work will shift even more. That has definitely been the case for me. Looking back, I wish I had the mindset toward tee work that I do now. Many coaches would probably say the same from their experience.
As a coach, the first thing I assess when working with a hitter on the tee is tempo. The tee is the only environment where a moving ball doesn’t dictate our timing so that we can slow everything down. Most hitters rush their tempo off the tee, hurrying to warm up and get to front toss or BP. But this sets off a chain reaction: if your tempo is fast off the tee, it will be even quicker during front toss, then even more so in BP—and when game time comes with adrenaline pumping, your rhythm can completely unravel. That’s why it’s essential to take your time. Feel your weight gather in your back hip during the load. Notice where your hands settle. Find your strongest position before initiating your forward move.
There are many ways to improve your swing off the tee—work on being smooth and effortless. Try to take the cleanest, most fluid swing you can. Then, increase the intent with your lower half and see how much force you can generate while keeping your upper body relaxed. Hit balls on a line to the back net or set up a target and try to hit it consistently. Compete against yourself and set up challenges, such as how many line drives you can hit in a row. Try hitting the ball to different parts of the field with the same tee location. These are just a few examples, but this kind of focused, solitary practice is where true adjustments are made—and confidence is built.
The tee isn’t just for warming up or working on a couple of locations. That’s useful, but what changed my entire approach to tee work was a conversation I was lucky to have with Nomar Garciaparra. Early in my coaching career, I sat down with him and some colleagues, and what he shared fundamentally altered how I think about using the tee.
Nomar didn’t use the tee just to fix one part of his swing or to isolate a location. While this was the intent at times, he saw the tee as a tool to address the entire swing all at once while also fixing the flaw you are focused on. Once you know your swing issue, there’s a tee setup that can either expose the flaw or confirm that you’ve adjusted. For example, let’s say your issue is casting—your hands fly out and around the pitch, leading to weak rollovers. Most hitters can still mask that flaw if the tee is set up in the middle of the plate, around the front knee (post stride). Even with a cast, you can hit a back-spun line drive.
But what happens if you move the tee inside, aligned with your stride foot? Now you’ve got a much more challenging task. You must keep your hands tighter to the body to get inside the pitch. If you drift forward, hang back, or cast, you’ll hook the ball or get jammed. However, if you stay inside and drive the ball up the middle, you’re replicating a functional swing. Now, you not only feel the right move—you recognize what it feels like when you deviate from it. This creates awareness of what works and what doesn’t.
There’s more than one way to test for flaws like casting. Another method I like is gradually extending the tee out front. As it moves forward, a hitter who casts will increasingly roll over because they lack extension. Begin with the tee in the middle of the plate, aligned with the stride foot. Focus on hitting line drives up the middle. Then move the tee forward 2–3 inches and repeat. Then another 2–3 inches. Eventually, the rollover will reveal itself.
To fix it, exaggerate your focus. Try to hit that extended pitch to the opposite gap—not because that’s where we want it to go, but because that cue forces your hands to stay in and your extension to improve. You’ll start seeing hard-hit balls with good backspin—and you’ll fix the casting without even thinking about it directly. If you do cast and roll one over, you will know why. The adjustment becomes clear.
This brings me to another reason I love this approach: it helps players get out of their heads. When you’re working through a flaw, it can dominate your thoughts—just like being told not to think about a pink elephant. That pink elephant is now all you can think about. You focus so hard on one fix (e.g., a strong top hand to stop dropping the barrel) that other parts of your swing break down from tension or over-correction.
Let’s flip the script using Nomar’s idea. Instead of obsessing over one mechanic, use a tee location to expose the issue. If you’re dropping your barrel and popping everything up, use a high tee. Try hitting a line drive between the pitcher’s head and the top of the hitter’s eye. You’ve dropped your barrel if you sky it into the top of the cage. Adjust. Maybe even think about hitting a ground ball, and you’ll end up back-spinning a line drive instead.
You’re no longer focused on “don’t drop the barrel,” leaving you susceptible to other flaws, such as getting too tight to control your barrel and hooking the ball. You’re focused on the feel and the ball flight. You stay loose. The adjustment happens naturally. You’re addressing the flaw and the swing holistically—not micromanaging a single body part. This is the point of using the tee location to fix the entire swing while addressing the flaw you know you have.
I’m not claiming this is the only way to fix swing issues or that other approaches are wrong. I hope to offer a new way of thinking about tee work—one that’s more efficient and less frustrating. It requires thoughtful setup and self-awareness, but once you identify the flaw and find a tee location that exposes it, everything comes down to feeling the swing and seeing ball flight.
My final piece of advice: pay more attention to the good swings than the bad ones. Most hitters over-analyze the balls they mishit, but the swings we want to repeat are the good ones. So study those instead with more intent. When you connect on a great swing, pause and think: What did I feel throughout that swing? That awareness will help you lock it in—and make quicker, more confident adjustments moving forward.
Mindful Hitting 