The Iconic Craig Counsell Batting Stance A Study In Unconventional Excellence

The Open Stance Approach

Most coaches will tell you to stand more or less squared to the pitcher. That's standard instruction from age ten upward. The Craig Counsell approach sits about four feet behind home plate, hips facing nearly toward the dugout, front shoulder open to the field. He keeps his hands high and loose, weight balanced more on the balls of his feet than anywhere else. The result is a swing that looks like it should fall apart at the hands, which is exactly why it catches people off guard. The mechanics are straightforward once you stop trying to make them look pretty. Feet wider than shoulder-width. Lead foot pointed slightly outward toward right field — maybe ten to fifteen degrees — not straight down the line. Hands come up well above the head at the start of the motion. When the pitcher delivers, the front hip fires open immediately while the back side stays closed a fraction longer. This creates torque through the torso before the hands even begin their path to the ball. The bat stays relatively level through contact rather than dropping into a steep uppercut plane. I learned this through coaching contact high school kids who were getting hit by inside fastballs regularly. The standard closed stance was keeping their shoulders locked over the plate, which meant any pitch that missed the outer half required a full arm rework just to get the bat to the zone. Switching three of my better hitters to an open base reduced their swing length by roughly a half-second and let them check their swing with a simple wrist roll instead of a complete step-out. The tradeoff is that the open stance makes the inner-half approach naturally weaker because the front side is already rotating open. If a pitcher is throwing 85 percent inside, this stance works against you. I had one case where a batter threw his hands too early in the load phase with the open base, which caused him to top every fastball up and in. The fix was simply raising the front heel slightly off the ground during the load rather than keeping the foot planted, which delayed the hip rotation and gave the hands more time to track the ball.

The stance creates a shorter, more compact path to the ball. That is its primary value. You give up some power against away pitches but you gain exposure time and the ability to hit from both parts of the plate without dramatically adjusting your setup. Most players I see adopt this style do so because they are making contact late, not because they want to pull the ball harder. There is a difference. One thing nobody tells you about the transition: your leg kick needs to change. A traditional leg kick from a closed stance throws your center of gravity upward and forward, which conflicts with the open hip motion. With Counsell's base, a high leg kick causes the front hip to close instead of open, killing the torque. The workaround is a toe tap or a minimal rise onto the ball of the front foot. Nothing taller than two inches. That keeps the lower body stable while the hands work independently. I spent about three weeks watching a hitter's bat speed numbers drop by forty percent because he was still doing his old knee raise with the new stance. He stopped lifting the leg entirely and just rolled the front foot forward instead. Bat speed came back in two practices. There are real limitations here. The open stance struggles against elite velocity when the pitcher can location the back door corner. Your front side is already rotating, so a pitch that comes inside and then drops away leaves you reaching and often flipping the bat head. I've seen this break hitters who grew up on the open base when they moved up to college-level pitching. The countervailing approach for that problem is to stay narrow in the base and treat it more like a gap-to-gap stance than a power stance. Keep the hands alive and let the barrel meet the ball on a slightly upward path rather than trying to drive through it.

If you want to install this, the sequence matters. Start with the foot placement and stance width. Get that dialed before you touch the hands. Then work on the front hip opening while the back side holds. Only after those three elements feel automatic do you add the load and swing. Any other order usually produces a golfer's lunge or a swing that starts from the shoulders instead of the hips. I use a tee drill where the tee is placed four inches in front of the hitter and the ball sits slightly forward in the zone. The hitter works the open hip turn on every single rep without swinging fully. Thirty to forty reps, then start adding in soft toss from the side that mimics the pitch trajectory. You should feel the barrel staying inside the hands for the first half of the swing. If the hands lead the barrel, the stance isn't engaging correctly and you need to slow down the hip turn. The data from hitters who've successfully installed this shows a typical increase in on-base percentage between eight and fifteen points within the first season, mostly from better contact quality on outside pitches and fewer strikeouts chasing low-and-away offerings. Power numbers rarely jump dramatically. If someone promises you will add twenty feet to your exit velocity with an open stance, they are not being honest. What you actually gain is consistency and a swing that covers more of the plate with less mechanical overhaul. That is the point.