kylebee
04-06-2007, 01:15 AM
Ever since I found this site and have read many books, articles, and magazines on baseball coaching/playing, I have been happier and happier with more knowledge I can find and retain while I perform or coach on the diamond. However, baseball is a big part of my life, and trying to get too serious with the kids I coach (13-14 years old, Little League level) usually results in disaster. So, here's what I've been doing / have learned:
1) Holding team practices that have multiple stations to keep the kids busy, all doing simple tasks that translate on the diamond. An example practice will have three stations:
-Cone Drill (agility training)
-Soft Toss (hitting)
-Relay Drill (fielding)
At the end of practice, we'll do some full team drills, situationals, and maybe a scrimmage. If I can find field time, I schedule "optional practices" for the kids who are interested in playing baseball in high school, and we go over more serious stuff - rotational hitting theory, better baserunning, working on different pitches, etc.
2) Pitchers at age 13-14 know how to throw three pitches: A fastball, a curveball, and a knuckleball. Almost every single pitcher candidate I have says they throw these three pitches. When I ask about a changeup, they say "no, I can't throw one" or "I never learned." This is quite discouraging to me, because teaching a good changeup at this age level in Little League is fairly difficult for use in the same season. I think that coaches at ages 9-10 should be starting to teach the kids a changeup as the first secondary pitch and not a breaking ball. We all know that no one type of pitch is worse on your arm than any other, but a good foundation of pitching involves location, changing speeds, and keeping the hitter guessing. Using a curveball as the primary offspeed pitch is disappointing to me, because a lot of the kids have below-average mechanics and are taught to throw a curveball with absolutely terrible mechanics (twisting the wrist as it is thrown, for example).
For any of the younger kids reading this thread, let me tell you this from my experiences in high school and college: When I pitched at the Little League and even high school levels, I could strike out almost every kid with an 0-2 or 1-2 slider or splitter. When I got to college and started facing real batters, that was not going to work, and I never had a changeup in my arsenal.
I tell my pitchers that the primary goal should be to strike out the batter with pinpoint control of the fastball and using the curveball sparingly. Again, for the younger kids out there: If you can strike a batter out with nothing but your fastball and changeup just by moving the location around, that is infinitely more useful and exciting to your coach and to the scouts that might be watching you. Simply defaulting to your breaking ball to get guys out doesn't prove anything - save it for the truly difficult hitters.
3) Nearly all the kids are taught linear hitting mechanics or some variation of them. They are also taught to hit the ball "out in front," so they smash those inside pitches, pulling them for doubles down the line, but on outside pitches, they are either badly fooled or can only hit it off the cap into the dugout. The failure to teach kids pitch recognition and to simply trust their hands by letting the outside pitch get deep in the zone makes for a difficult conversion to high-grade high school leagues. Most coaches (and parents) think that pulling on a ball and hitting it to left-center is exactly what every hit should look like, totally ignoring the entire concept of staying inside the baseball and figuring out just how the kid is supposed to do this with a pitch on the outside corner.
4) (And this is the biggest one) Parents/coaches tell their kids that all the power is in the arms and chest. They point to people like Barry Bonds and say "Look at his arms! That's how he gets the power into the swing." As such, little kids are disappointed and think they can only become contact hitters, hoping to rely on their speed (if they have any) and ability to poke a single through the gap. When I tell kids that the power is generated in the midsection and the legs, it's like an eye-opening experience. When I show them in slow motion the idea of the hips pulling the shoulders pulling the hands around, they eventually understand the real physics of baseball on a basic level: The arms are only along for the ride!
All of this is due to misinformation and/or just lack of education on these topics, which don't seem all too advanced to me. Baseball Love and Jake Patterson have both said in the past that most coaches simply just do not know the general theories of baseball, and that's quite a shame. All I know is that when kids leave my program, they stop "throwing their hands at the baseball," they start walking more because they develop pitch recognition (be patient rather than "be aggressive"), and they start hitting the ball into right-center field.
I can only hope that the high school coach sees these things and likes it, because just like Chris O'Leary says: See what the best players do, and emulate it.
1) Holding team practices that have multiple stations to keep the kids busy, all doing simple tasks that translate on the diamond. An example practice will have three stations:
-Cone Drill (agility training)
-Soft Toss (hitting)
-Relay Drill (fielding)
At the end of practice, we'll do some full team drills, situationals, and maybe a scrimmage. If I can find field time, I schedule "optional practices" for the kids who are interested in playing baseball in high school, and we go over more serious stuff - rotational hitting theory, better baserunning, working on different pitches, etc.
2) Pitchers at age 13-14 know how to throw three pitches: A fastball, a curveball, and a knuckleball. Almost every single pitcher candidate I have says they throw these three pitches. When I ask about a changeup, they say "no, I can't throw one" or "I never learned." This is quite discouraging to me, because teaching a good changeup at this age level in Little League is fairly difficult for use in the same season. I think that coaches at ages 9-10 should be starting to teach the kids a changeup as the first secondary pitch and not a breaking ball. We all know that no one type of pitch is worse on your arm than any other, but a good foundation of pitching involves location, changing speeds, and keeping the hitter guessing. Using a curveball as the primary offspeed pitch is disappointing to me, because a lot of the kids have below-average mechanics and are taught to throw a curveball with absolutely terrible mechanics (twisting the wrist as it is thrown, for example).
For any of the younger kids reading this thread, let me tell you this from my experiences in high school and college: When I pitched at the Little League and even high school levels, I could strike out almost every kid with an 0-2 or 1-2 slider or splitter. When I got to college and started facing real batters, that was not going to work, and I never had a changeup in my arsenal.
I tell my pitchers that the primary goal should be to strike out the batter with pinpoint control of the fastball and using the curveball sparingly. Again, for the younger kids out there: If you can strike a batter out with nothing but your fastball and changeup just by moving the location around, that is infinitely more useful and exciting to your coach and to the scouts that might be watching you. Simply defaulting to your breaking ball to get guys out doesn't prove anything - save it for the truly difficult hitters.
3) Nearly all the kids are taught linear hitting mechanics or some variation of them. They are also taught to hit the ball "out in front," so they smash those inside pitches, pulling them for doubles down the line, but on outside pitches, they are either badly fooled or can only hit it off the cap into the dugout. The failure to teach kids pitch recognition and to simply trust their hands by letting the outside pitch get deep in the zone makes for a difficult conversion to high-grade high school leagues. Most coaches (and parents) think that pulling on a ball and hitting it to left-center is exactly what every hit should look like, totally ignoring the entire concept of staying inside the baseball and figuring out just how the kid is supposed to do this with a pitch on the outside corner.
4) (And this is the biggest one) Parents/coaches tell their kids that all the power is in the arms and chest. They point to people like Barry Bonds and say "Look at his arms! That's how he gets the power into the swing." As such, little kids are disappointed and think they can only become contact hitters, hoping to rely on their speed (if they have any) and ability to poke a single through the gap. When I tell kids that the power is generated in the midsection and the legs, it's like an eye-opening experience. When I show them in slow motion the idea of the hips pulling the shoulders pulling the hands around, they eventually understand the real physics of baseball on a basic level: The arms are only along for the ride!
All of this is due to misinformation and/or just lack of education on these topics, which don't seem all too advanced to me. Baseball Love and Jake Patterson have both said in the past that most coaches simply just do not know the general theories of baseball, and that's quite a shame. All I know is that when kids leave my program, they stop "throwing their hands at the baseball," they start walking more because they develop pitch recognition (be patient rather than "be aggressive"), and they start hitting the ball into right-center field.
I can only hope that the high school coach sees these things and likes it, because just like Chris O'Leary says: See what the best players do, and emulate it.