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Working With The Beginner Windmill Pitcher
by Dave
Thursday, August 04, 2005
The single most important position on the softball diamond is pitcher. Pitchers control the pace of the game and have more to do with the team's success or failure than any other player on the field. Kids recognize this very quickly and soon begin clamoring to pitch. But pitching is something which takes an incredible amount of work. You have to earn the right to pitch by working through hours of drills and improving your skills.
To me, there are two ways to teach windwill pitching. One starts at the beginning of the motion, the other the end. I have seen the results of both methods and far prefer teaching from the end. The beginning of the motion is less important and learning windmilling from this point is often confusing to someone who has never windmilled before. So here, in order, are the steps I find useful:
Step 1 - The Grip
Before we discuss the snap, a brief mention of the grip is in order. Beginner pitchers focus on throwing straight pitches and that's all we'll discuss in this article. In order to throw a good straight pitch, you need to have a good grip on the ball. Depending on the size of a your hands and the ball being used, you should get as much of the laces as possible.
Holding the ball in the palm of your hand, you should grip the laces with your four fingers across the longest part of the seams. Then, your thumb should likewise be closed on a seam. The last segment of the four fingers should be just beyond the laces - they should be right around the inside of the last knuckles. The other lace will probably be about midway to the end of the last segment of the thumb, or, if your hands are bigger, about in the same position on the inside of the last knuckle.
Step 2 - The Snap
The snap is critical to throwing straight, fast pitches. Standing straight with your shoulders and hips square to your catcher (about ten feet away) and the arm holding the ball hanging at your side, cock your hand backwards so the palm is facing the ground. Now snap only your wrist forward until the palm is facing the sky. Now try this while releasing the ball right at your hip. Your arm should remain motionless as if it were pinned to your side. You are only looking for wrist action. You should be trying to get the ball to spin. If it doesn't spin rapidly on release, keep trying with that being your objective. If you cannot get the ball to spin, you are holding on to it too tightly and not letting it roll off your fingers. The thumb releases first but this should occur naturally.
Repeat this drill often and if you don't have a catcher available, reach across your body with your glove hand and snap the ball into your glove. Ten to twenty snaps is a good drill for beginners, more if you need it. Familiarize yourself with this technique as you will be doing it to warm up for the next decade even after you are playing professional softball! Every throwing session should begin with some snaps. If you are playing in a game and cannot get a real chance to warm up, throwing snaps into your glove can get you at least part of the way there. Also, when you are on the mound in a game having some troubles with your mechanics, snapping the ball into your glove will be an excellent way to center yourself and clear your head.
Step 3 - The Follow Through
Performing the same snap drill we just discussed with your arm pinned to your side, allow your arm to come forwards and up by bending at the elbow as you snap. You do not want your arm to swing backwards to begin. The only motion of the arm should be forwards. Your finishing point should be with your elbow pointing at your catcher who should be standing a little further away now since you will probably be throwing a little harder.
You can also begin to bring up your pitching hand side knee with your arm. When actually pitching the full motion, you will be pushing off with this side's foot and as you come through with your pitching hand, your leg will also be coming forwards. The momentum of your knee coming forward is part of the weight shift which gives you power. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.
You can practice this drill without a ball if a catcher is not available. If you have either a pitch-back or net available, practice this drill throwing into that. Just as with the snap, you want to make sure you are getting rapid rotation on the ball. You want to over exaggerate your motion by really pointing your elbow. Make sure it is pointing at the target when you finish. Do ten to twenty of these. This also is a good second step when warming up.
Step 4 - The Arm Circle, Phase One
It is very difficult to swing the arm in a complete circle and release the ball with a proper snap at the right moment. For that reason we have broken the circle down into two parts, the last half followed by the full circle. The release point is right next to your side as you did in the snap drill.
Before we get to the actual arm motion, let's just briefly discuss two terms, open and closed with respect to the hips and shoulders. Open means your hips and shoulders are square to third base if you are a righty, or first base if you are a lefty. Closed means your hips and shoulders are square to home plate. Pitchers generally begin closed, open in the middle of the motion and then close right at the release point.
Stand sideways to your catcher or net with your glove arm facing the target. Your feet should be shoulder width apart. If you are on a field, your pitching-hand foot will be on or near the rubber and your glove-hand foot towards home plate. Raise your glove hand with your arm straight and pointing at the target. Your pitching hand is raised directly over your head. Your shoulders and hips should be open. Now swing your arm downwards to the snap point while simultaneously closing your hips and shoulders and releasing the ball next to your hip. Your arm can be slightly bent over your head to begin but must be totally straight as you swing it down to the release point. Next you follow-through with your elbow pointing at the target. When you close your hips and shoulders, bring your throwing side knee forward too. This should be timed to come forward with the throwing arm but will likely happen without much effort.
The arm circle is where about half the speed of pitching comes from. Much of that comes from this second half. This drill is probably your most important one and, therefore, you should perform much more of it than the previous or following ones. Some young pitchers actually pitch with only this motion. At this stage of the game, you really don't care what comes before this second half of the circle motion. I suggest doing at least 50 of these pitches when practicing with beginner pitchers. Actually, early on, you really don't have to do anything beyond this point. To work your beginner pitcher after the first lesson, do ten snaps, ten snaps with follow through, and then fifty pitches with this half circle motion. You can do this for weeks without needing to progress further into this article.
A few words about patience are appropriate at this point. I emphasize again that it is very difficult to swing the arm in this half circle and find the right release point. You should expect long hours of balls being bowled or flying way over your head. I've told you in previous article not to worry about pitching strikes, especially early on. That is more true here than anywhere else. It takes a long time to become a decent pitcher. If you get frustrated with your daughter's inability to get the ball even close to you during this drill, try it yourself. It's not so easy, is it? Eventually a girl will learn to release the ball at the right moment. It is extremely important at this point to be patient. Loads of repetition are the key. Do not try to throw a strike. If you do that, your arm will begin to shorten - bend at the elbow to just get it over. This is wrong. The arm should be perfectly straight. The hand and wrist do the releasing.
One variation on this half circle drill is to remove the legs from it by kneeling on some sort of cushion like a base with your pitching-hand leg and glove-hand leg stretched towards the target. This is simple enough and provides the opportunity to focus on the closing of the hips and shoulders. You start just like when you were standing but now you are kneeling. Your shoulders and hip start in the open position and close as you come to the release point.
Another variation while standing is to take a step before swinging the arm downwards. Standing sideways to the target with feet together, take a step at the exact moment your raise your glove hand to the target and your pitching hand over your head. Perform the rest of the motion as before. When you close your hips and shoulders, remember to bring your throwing side knee forward too.
With each of these three drills, the emphasis must be on closing the shoulders and hips. I cannot over-emphasize this as it is the key to sideways control and getting enough torque to throw the ball hard. You can do all these drills in different sessions to mix things up and avoid boredom. But there is no reason to feel that you must do all of these half-circle drills in a single session since they are all really after the same aspect of pitching. Adding the step in the last variation can be used later as it is a little more advanced than the other two and can confuse the young pitcher causing her to not close down.
Step 5 - The Arm Circle, Phase Two
The next step in learning to pitch is to start with the arm hanging at the side. The objective here is to move the arm in a full circle with a single motion but that's not how to start drilling. First start standing on, or as if on, a rubber with feet side by side, hips and shoulders closed. Then step forward with the glove-hand foot while opening the hips and shoulders. Simultaneously point the glove-hand to the target and lifting the pitching hand above the head in a straight-arm swinging motion. But stop at this point and hold the position as in the last half-circle drill. Now complete the motion and throw. You should stop and hold the middle position for a count of three or longer. You are getting used to doing the full windmill but doing so in the controlled circumstances of stopping half way.
One of the key elements of pitching is balance. This drill requires the pitcher to remain balanced throughout. There are just so many moving parts in pitching that it is difficult to keep them all together. If at any point balance is an issue, slowing down the overall motion is a good way to address things. Coming back to this point and stopping half-way is advisable if balance issues pop up with the full motion.
Once you have worked through stopping the motion at the half-way point, you can move forward by simply not stopping. At first finding the release point is a little difficult. Be patient, you will find it. If you have difficulty finding the right release point, go back to stopping at the half-way point. If you still have trouble, don't despair. Just go back to the beginning and start the overall process with the easiest drills. Experience of throwing windmill will teach you to find the right release point. The more you do these drills, the better you will get and eventually, one day, things will just click for you.
Step 6 - Legs
Now, assuming you are able to pitch a full windmill as we have instructed you, it is time to add leg power to the motion. Your legs are the strongest part of your body and these add most of the real power that is not added by your arms. Basically you jump forward while performing your windmill but this is more difficult than my words make it sound. So let's break it down into drills.
The first of these drills is called the "side leg drive" and you begin it with one foot on the rubber and the other right next to it. Your shoulders and hips are open, arms hanging and knees bent. Now step hard forward with your glove side foot while lifting your glove to the target and swinging your hand over your head. Stop at this point like you did in previous drills. Now complete your motion and throw the ball. You should gradually push harder with your back leg to gain more and more momentum. It is almost like the crow hop you take when you are throwing a ball overhand. Again balance is critical. If you have trouble balancing or with any other aspect, go back to the appropriate beginning drill and work up to this point again. Like in other drills, once you are successful doing this while stopping your motion half way through, do it all in one motion.
The second drill is a "front leg drive" which begins with both feet on the rubber, shoulders and hips closed, arms hanging at your side. Bend your knees and lean forwards slightly so you could see your ankles if you chose to, but keep your eyes on the target. Now push off with your throwing side leg while stepping forward with the other. Your hips and shoulders fly open. Again stop at the halfway point, hold, then finish by closing down and releasing the ball. Work this until you are comfortable doing it in a single motion without stopping. If you look back at the previous drills, you are really just take a bigger step. You are doing this by pushing off harder. Your legs drive you forward.
Step 7 - Wind Up
With all this in mind, you are ready to do the full motion. I don't so much care what goes on at this point as you are really already pitching. But since the wind up is where it all begins, I suppose I should address a few key points. The first of these has to do with where you start your feet. Technically, you should start with both feet on the pitching plate or rubber. I've watched many pitchers at high levels not do this. But it is probably best to start out that way since you never know when the powers that be will decide to enforce these rules.
Standing with both feet on the rubber, you take a short step back with your glove-side foot. I've seen pitchers take very long steps back and I've seen some take almost none. The important aspects here are balance and comfort. Don't take a big step because you think it is necessary. It isn't. This part of the motion has little positive benefit to the pitch. But it can seriously derail you by throwing you off balance.
Many pitchers begin their motion with almost comical movements. The head bobs up and down, or they begin to shake and quiver like some rock and roll dancer. I believe there is a lot of wasted motion in the beginning of a wind up since the real power begins with the pitching side leg. It is important to keep the head somewhat still and the eyes focused on the target. So don't get into a habit of jerking your head around or trying to start your engine with big movements. Simply step back while keeping your balance.
As you step back, your arms should come up in front of you. Your hands come together and then separate as you begin to step forward with your glove-side leg. Freeze here for a second. Your body position should be slightly bent forward as your arms swing down but you must maintain balance. You should now be in roughly the position you were when we did the "front leg drive." And that's really all there is to the motion.
The pitching rule book says not only that both feet should be on the rubber at start but also that the hands should be separated and the pitch begins when the hands come together and then apart. You must avoid double pumping where you swing your arms together, then they come apart and then they come together again. One swing up, one swing down, "front leg drive," and throw. But don't forget to snap up and point your elbow at the target!
Another rule you should be made aware of is the "crow-hopping" rule. Crow hopping is technically illegal and this is defined as when a pitcher does her leg drive then replants her pitching-arm side foot before releasing the ball. It is OK to drag the back foot but you cannot replant it and push off. In don't see how this can actually benefit a pitcher but it is an important rule to consider even if it is never enforced! If you get a chance to watch Cat Osterman pitch, you may see her crow hop. I know I've seen her do it and not ever get called. But never-the-less, you should be aware of the rule. And since there is no benefit apparent to me in crow-hopping, you should avoid it.
Putting It All Together
We've actually already pulled the whole motion together but I want to make one point here. That is, you should always do some of the lesser advanced drills while warming up. And if you encounter mechanical problems at any point in your pitching career, you ought to return to the beginning and work through the drills again.
Pitching Practice
There is some debate about how much girls doing the windmill should be allowed to pitch. Most experts say that this motion does not cause the wear and tear that overhand throwing does. I agree although I have not seen definitive studies. You can hurt yourself doing just about anything too much but my experience is that windmill pitching is something you can do as often as any sort of exercise. Let the pitcher's body be the deciding factor. Especially early on you are looking for the correctness of the motion as opposed to getting as many repetitions as time allows. If a girl is 7 - 10 years old, 50 pitches is probably plenty. Older girls can work to 100 or 200, perhaps more. Young kids typically are only allowed to pitch 3 innings but older girls face little restriction. A typical inning for a young pitcher is likely to be around 25 - 50 pitches depending on the number of walks. You don't need to have your six year old throwing 200 pitches twice a day. This will not help her make the Olympic team before they stop having softball.
Older girls should look to build up stamina while holding the correct motion. Pitchers need to learn to work through periods of wildness and fatigue. You "work through" these by concentrating on pitching mechanics. If a 12 year old girl has been windmilling for more than a year but she cannot seem to pitch more than two innings without losing her motion, more work with greater number of pitches is probably in order. Try counting her pitches until the point of fatigue then increasing her practice sessions to double her fatigue count. When you see her getting tired, start emphasizing mechanical issues. Most often the things which break down are snapping and the opening and closing of hips and shoulders.
An aspiring pitcher should as a general rule try to throw at least a little three or four times a week. The sessions do not all have to be long. They do have to involve good body mechanics. If a pitcher cannot throw well three times a week, a few short sessions of as little as 25 throws (after warm up) is probably a good idea. At least one session each week should be long and intense. If you don't do this, much of what has been gained will be lost. The thing which gets most fatigued while pitching is the legs. But no amount of road or treadmill work will solve this. There is no practice for pitching like pitching itself. Don't make pitching practice into drudgery. That is the way to get flat or, worse, allow mechanics to break down.
As a final word, I will reiterate my biggest pitching point. You learn to throw strikes by throwing a lot with a good motion. Bad pitches most frequently result from improper body mechanics. There is no reason for a beginning pitcher to "try to throw strikes." We're all hoping for strikes. But working the motion will cause the strikes to come. No amount of psychic activity will make a pitcher throw strikes. But pitcher who try their hardest to "just get over" generally alter their motion incorrectly and eventually end up losing all desire to stand in the circle. If you are the parent of a young aspiring pitcher, exercise patience. Pitchers are not built in one outing.
Permanent Link: Working With The Beginner Windmill Pitcher
 
Alone With Your Thoughts In The Outfield
by Dave
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
It is often said of softball players, "if you can hit, they'll find a place for you." Most often the "place" they find is in the outfield. Yet, especially on youth teams, very little is done to teach players outfielding skills. This is a tragedy waiting to happen especially if it happens to be you who the team has "found a place for" in the outfield.
The other day I watched a 14U state championship game. One team nearly mercied the other because they caught a couple breaks and their pitcher was rolling along pretty good. But just past the midway point of the game she began to get tired since it was very hot and humid that night. The other team began timing her pitches well and making solid contact. At first this didn't amount to much as the infielders made some great plays. Then the trailing team began hitting the ball into the outfield. Unfortunately for the team in the lead, their outfielders were very poor. One outfielder misjudged four balls over three innings and that allowed the other team to tie the game and eventually go on to win it.
Four balls into the outfield made all the difference in what ended in a 10-9 loss. I was happy for the winning team who never gave up and felt badly for the losing team because they had played so hard for 7 innings, only to lose. But I felt even worse for the girl in the outfield who made the bad plays because undoubtedly she blamed herself for her team's loss. I suspect it wasn't really her fault. Her judgement was so bad on balls just over her head that I'm positive her team did not give her the right kind of training. They put her in the lineup because she is generally a good player and probably a good hitter but they did little to prepare her for the position. I know. I've been there myself.
If you are a solid hitter but your defensive skills are not particularly sharp, you may want to work on the skills which make you adequate in the outfield before some coach puts you there with little or no preparation. You will need to work on different kinds of fielding and throwing skills and you'll need a slightly different perspective on situational plays. But you can work on these with some help from your friends and family.
Fielding
Perhaps the most difficult aspect of moving from the infield to the outfield is judging fly balls and line drives. Often outfield practice is limited to a bunch of girls shagging flies 15 minutes or half an hour once a week or every other week. The only other practice is during live hitting drills. But that's just not enough. Good high school and college programs realize how different and important judging balls in the outfield is, so they spend far more time working outfielders.
Outfielding is different from other positions because you have to really run for balls. If you are like most other human beings, when you run, your head bobs up and down. If your head is bobbing up and down, your eyes are constantly moving. If you try to judge where a ball is going while your eyes are jerking up and down, you are fighting a losing battle. That is the first thing you need to correct.
Your natural head bobbing can be overcome with experience and some running drills. Basically, the more you do of the right kind of running, the less your head bobs. Simply running miles and miles on a track or in the street does not do enough to correct this. Any running helps but you really need to run on outfield grass which is usually slightly uneven. You don't need to run miles and miles but you do need to run while focusing your eyes on objects. If you have a practice field near you with a street nearby, try running while focusing on the cars. If you don't have a road near the field, try a little bird watching during your runs. In any event, run while focusing your eyes on objects whether they are moving or not. This will train you to run while holding your head as still as possible. Over time, your running mechanics will correct themselves quite easily to keep your head still. This aspect of working out for the outfield will have the biggest single impact on your defensive game - don't ignore it.
Practicing the judgment on hit balls is a lot like batting practice. The more you get of it, the better you will be able to judge trajectory, speed, and spin. You need to find someone bigger and stronger than the girls in your league to hit you balls. If you have a big brother who plays baseball or a big sister who plays softball at a good level, enlist his or her help. The idea here is to have someone who can hit the ball over your head. You don't want a bunch of ground ball practice. You're looking for trajectory practice. You're training your eyes for hard hit balls.
Baseballs can be hit a lot harder than softballs. They're also harder to judge because they are smaller and usually darker, especially if they are dirty. So you may want to try practicing with them. If you do, I suggest using a fungo bat because it is far easier to hit airborn balls with a fungo than with a conventional baseball bat. You are working at training your eyes as much as anything else so don't get frustrated if your practice assistant is hitting balls way over your head or drilling line drives you have no hope of catching. This is good for you. Challenge the hitter to hit the ball past you in the air. Make a game of it. Count how many balls your big brother or sister has hit past you and how many you catch. Half an hour of doing this is probably the limit for the hitter and should be sufficient for you. But keep in mind that I'm assuming you and you alone are fielding the balls. In a good half an hour of shagging flies, you can probably field over one hundred. Make sure to bring a bag of balls. You're not working on your throws. You don't want to waste your valuable practice time with the batter retrieving the ball.
Finally your practice of shagging flies should be in as many different sun fields as possible. You want to make sure to work with the sun in and out of your line of sight, on mostly and partly cloudy days, with crystal clear "high sky" days, etc. If you can practice under the lights, great. Balls appear very different in the various sky and lighting conditions. Practice shagging flys in as many different conditions as possible. If your team plays under the lights, see if you can stay after a game one night and shag some flies.
Real speed may be God-given but raw speed does not make the outfielder. If you watch two outfielders of equal speed play centerfield, I think you will quickly see that one seems to get to the ball a lot faster than the other. And more importantly, the better outfielder is in better position when she makes a catch. This is due to a couple of things. First off, the better outfielder has quicker judgement which comes from lots of experience shagging flies. Secondly, she makes a point of getting to the spot where the ball is hit as quickly as possible. She does not drift to the catch spot so as to time her arrival with the arrival of the ball. This is the most common mistake newly minted outfielders make. Get to the spot, position your body, make the catch. Don't be casual or lazy.
Outfield speed comes with confidence of knowing where balls are going. We've covered the need to shag as many flys as possible in order to gain experience at judging balls. But there is another consideration. The moment the ball is hit, you need to use your eyes first, your brain second and your feet last. Put simply, before you can move to the ball, you need to assess where it is going. Balls hit far to your right or left are easy to assess. This is because you get a good view of the trajectory immediately. Balls hit more closely to your position are more difficult. You must hesitate before moving your feet because there is nothing worse in the outfield than making the wrong move first. We've all seen outfielders turn one way, then the other, sometimes even back to the original position. This happens when an outfielder is said to misjudge the ball. But I think of it as the outfielder moving before she knows where the ball is going. We all like to get a jump but jumping the wrong way costs you double because you not only have to switch direction but you also have to make up the lost ground from moving in the wrong direction first. This often manifests itself when an outfielder takes a step in on a ball destined to go over her head. The last thing you want to do is step in first. See first, think, then move. As you gain more practice, you will be a better judge and the moment of seeing then thinking will become shorter and shorter. If you are a beginning outfielder, take your time judging balls.
Here's one final thought on fielding hit balls in the outfield. Remember that if you are in left, a ball hit by a righty probably has top spin on it while one hit by a lefty most likely has side spin towards the line. The opposite is true of rightfield. And in center, most balls are either knuckled or have top spin. Particularly when judging balls which drop in front of you, you need to consider this as you approach to make your play. You've practiced a lot of shagging balls in your practices but real game situations are different. Balls are hit a lot harder in games because the pitcher is throwing harder. You need to always be mindful of potentially bad spins which end up being bad hops which end up being balls getting past you and running to the fence.
Throwing
Outfielders generally make fewer throws per game than infielders but their throws are more varied. You may have plenty of the typical throws where you retrieve a pop-up or a base hit and simply get the ball in to the infield. But you may also have to make throws to home on sac flys at a moment's notice. You need to practice throwing in close like the infielders do (60 feet) but you also have to practice making longer throws (at least 60-100 feet).
It alwasy amazes me to see teams coming out to the field where the outfielders stand next to each other warming up by throwing with bench players on the sideline. They stand 40 - 60 feet apart and throw back and forth like an infielder warming up. Between innings, it is absolutely critical for an outfielder to throw from a good distance of 60 - 100 feet. Throwing long distance tends to lengthen the muscles of the arm and stretch the tendons and ligaments. If the first time you throw the ball 140 feet is in the seventh inning, chances are pretty good you are going to make a bad throw. You may even injure yourself. Of all the arm injuries I have seen over many years, most involve longer throws. Please make a habit of practicing making long throws and, before and during games, make at least a couple of long throws.
When you are playing outfield there is one thing more important than the strength or conditioning of your arm. Your footwork is critical to making good throws. This is intertwined with judging the ball well and getting to the point of the catch quickly. I'm not going to go over proper body position here as we'll have to cover that another time. But you need to be moving towards your target at the moment you catch the ball. In order to do this you simply must get there before the ball does. If you do this the fotwork will come easily. The main difference between making a throw from the infield vs. the outfield is you have to throw a longer distance. In order to throw a longer distance, you need to take a good step. So an outfielder must catch the ball right at her head while moving towards her intended target, take a good step and throw.
Finally, it is absolutely imperative that you work on hitting the cutoff. A few weeks ago I watched a major league baseball game in which Vladimir Guerrero caught a ball on the warning track in right field and threw it all the way to third base on a fly. The game announcers marvelled at how strong an arm Vlad has. That's 100 yards, 300 feet! I agree, he has a strong arm. But that was a terrible play. The runner on second tagged up and Vlad had no chance to get him out at third. He threw the ball all the way to third on a fly which means it had a looping trajectory. This allowed the runner on first to move up to second. Huge mistake. Huge!
When throwing a ball in, you must keep the trajectory low. The best outfielders are not the ones with the strongest arms. They are the ones with strong, accurate throws with low trajectory. Had Vlad's throw been lower and on-target, an infielder would have been able to cut it off and throw out the runner moving from first to second.
When you are throwing from the outfield to a cutoff person, you must throw the ball where the cutoff person's head should be. I say this in that manner because sometimes cutoff people are out of position. If the cutoff person is out of position and you throw the ball where she should be, chances are good she'll adjust and make the catch if she needs to. To explain what I mean, let's say you are making a throw to home on a base hit or fly ball and the cutoff person is supposed to be between you and home. If she is not lined up properly with the catcher but you throw towards home intending to hit the spot where the cutoff person whould be, it will probably only take her three steps to move and catch the ball. If a cutoff person is out of position and you throw the ball where she is but she misses it, most likely there will not be a fielder behind her to grab it in time to make any play. I say you should throw at head level because, if the ball is allowed to go through, for example, to the catcher, hitting the spot where the cutoff's head should be results in a one bounce hop to the catcher. Finally, when you throw at head level, the ball actually gets there faster than if you use all your might to try to make it on a fly.
In addition to making good strong throws to cutoffs, you need to always be cognizant of game situations. I was watching another game recently where there were runners on second and third with one out in the bottom of the last with the batting team down a run. A fly ball was hit right down the third base line. If you had been that leftfielder under those circumstances and that ball had drifted foul, the right thing would be to drop it and not try to be the hero making the throw to home to nail the runner. In the game I was watching, the ball was fair and the fielder caught it. The runner from third tagged and went to score. The outfielder had a "great arm" and whipped the ball 5 feet over the catcher's head! The runner from second who was also tagging on the play ended up scoring on the overthrow. Ballgame over. Home team wins. Had that leftfielder made the throw at head level to the cutoff near third, I'm willing to bet the throw would have nailed the girl tagging from second. In fact, it might have gotten her before the tying run scored! Ballgame over. Visiting team wins.
As Tom Hanks once said in "A League of Their Own," "you really need to practice hitting the cutoff before next season."
Other Considerations
An outfielder can find herself not fielding a ball for an entire game, perhaps several consecutive games. Yet frequently after a long period of inactivity, often the one ball she gets is the most important one of a game or tournament. If that outfielder is you, you've just got to be ready in mind, body and soul.
It is difficult to keep your whits about you while counting the grass blades or dodging bees in the outfield. You've got to find ways to keep your mind and body active. One exercise I suggest is formulating a book on the hitters. You should keep track of who is hitting anyways but you might try analyzing her swing and judging where you think she is going to hit the ball based on that. You want to create a little knowledge base in your head of which kind of hitters tend to hit the ball to you. And doing this during a game keeps your mind active. Whatever you do, don't let yourself fall asleep. This is invariably when the ball gets hit to you!
When you are out there in left patiently peforming your mental exercises, watching the pitcher throw ball after ball or striking everyone out, you tend to get very tense whether you know it or not. You need to do some jogging and sprinting every couple of pitches in order to keep yourself loose. Move your arms around. Stretch. At least after walks and strike outs you need to do something to do some running to keep your legs moving. At the beginning of every inning, you run out to your position which loosens you up. The last thing you want to do is wait until two outs, bases loaded, and a 3-2 count to run again. Do some stretches and short runs while you are hanging out there in the outfield waiting for your next chance to get up to bat.
Conclusion
If you are one of those good hitters teams will find a place for, you can pretty much figure your home will be in the outfield. Make the best of it. Become as good a fielder as you possibly can. College scouts need to find good hitting outfielders too. And they are more apt to take one with decent to good defensive skills. Run in the field to calm your head. Shag lots of flies, on your own time if needs be. Work on throwing outfielder throws. Then keep your mind awake and your body loose. You never know when the ball is going to be hit to you or ... when those college scouts might show up.
Permanent Link: Alone With Your Thoughts In The Outfield
Stepping Up At The Plate
by Dave
Monday, August 01, 2005
You are already a good hitter. Your team relies on you to drive in the runs in tough situations. You sport a good batting average with quite a few extra-base hits. But no matter how good of a hitter you think you are, there's a pretty good chance that there's someone better in the next town, county or state. How do you get better? How do you take it to the next level?
There are a few mental and physical steps you can take to bring your hitting up a notch but before you do this, you need a serious period of introspection. Softball is largely a mental game once you get past the fundamental skills. Take a moment to sit down with a piece of paper and jot out your strengths and weaknesses. Ask yourself to seriously and honestly answer these questions:
- How well do you know the strike zone? This sounds easy but you may want to try to find an objective outsider for this assessment. Often hitters are totally convinced the pitch which just struck them out swinging was a strike or the pitch they just took for a called third strike was a ball. Getting outside opinions helps!
- How well do you handle the various pitch selections in the various quadrants of the strike zone, as well as those just outside of it? This requires total honesty because it is often difficult for a girl sporting a .400 average to admit she has a weakness. Maybe drop curves give you trouble. Maybe you can't lay off risers out of the zone. Great hitters form an honest assessment of their weaknesses.
- Do you use the entire field when you are hitting? Great hitters hit to all fields. Always pulling the ball, always hitting to the opposite field, or always hitting the long ball may not hurt early on in your career but being able to command where the ball is going, based on the pitch (most of the time) is the sign of a great hitter.
- Do you almost always do the right thing given the situation? This gets complicated but great hitters do more than hit for average. They move the runners over at the right time. They are able to generate sacrifice flies at key moments.
- Is there anything in particular you would like to accomplish as a hitter, besides hitting more homeruns, that you are not currently doing that you would like to be able to do?
Knowing The Strike Zone
Each at-bat is an opportunity for learning. As a hitter, there are numerous stresses on your head but somehow you need to find your more intelligent self when you are at the plate. The first exercise in improving your hitting is to really get to know the strike zone. In order to do this, you need outside input. On each pitch, I suggest you converse with the umpire. He or she calls a ball but you're not exactly sure where it was. After the pitch you step back from the box to get the sign from your coach, step back in, take a practice swing and get set. You've just wasted an opportunity for learning.
If you watch great hitters, you'll see a number have dialogues with the ump after every pitch. I'm not talking about those conversations like, "come-on ump, that was outside." I'm saying that if the ump calls an outside ball, ask how far outside that was and whether it was high or low. On strikes, ask how much of the plate did that pitch catch, which corner did it hit.
You need to train your eyes and brain. Getting instantaneous feed back is extremely valuable. Not every ump will engage and answer your questions but keep trying. You may even want to quickly explain to the ump that you are just trying to lock down your own understanding of the strike zone. If umpires see that you are asking them for their take on every pitch, they will quickly understand that you are not some wise-guy but rather a student of the game. If you see the same umps a lot, they will also gain respect for your approach. They will help you out and perhaps even give you a close pitch every now and again, especially if you are never argumentative on questionable calls.
The ump is only one resource. Your teammates and parents can also help you gain a better understanding of the zone. It is advisable when you get to other aspects of this hitting article, to chart the pitches you faced to the greatest extent possible. When charting pitches, you will need to have a good understanding of location. Your parents can help you with this. And as they become aware that you are very serious about going over the pitches you faced, they will become very important partners t you. Parents need something to do which helps you. Giving them responsibility for charting pitch location can turn your best allies into an even greater asset.
Charting Pitches
Absolutely every hitter has a weakness. There is a guy who plays for the Texas Rangers named Alfonso Soriano. He hits a ton of home runs, drives in runs and hits for a decent average. He earns millions of dollars playing baseball. But the guy can't lay off a low outside slider, and he can't hit them. If you've ever watched the movie "A League Of Their Own," you may remember how late in the film Geena Davis is the catcher for one team and her sister is a key player for another. Davis knows her sister "can't hit a high pitch, can't lay off'em" and tells her pitcher that. Every hitter has weaknesses. Get to know yours.
Kellie Wilkerson is a great hitter. I believe she was first or second in batting average in the NPF during her first season with the NY/NJ Juggernaut last year. This year she was a key component of Team USA in the World Cup. She hits the ball hard almost every time at the plate regardless of location or pitch type. I don't claim to know what her particular approach was when she was younger but it does strike me that this may not be just a natural talent. Any hitter who honestly assesses her weakness and works to rectify them, can become a better hitter.
What's your weakness? If you are totally honest, you won't stop at one. If you have the opportunity to work with a private coach, discuss what you think your weaknesses are. Get your coach's assessment and put more weight on that than you do on your own assessment. If you are on a team with a hitting coach, work with that coach to identify the pitches which give you the most trouble.
Once you have these identified, it can be difficult to attack them in practice. Your team may not have anyone who can throw you a down-and-in screwball if that is your problem. But regardless of whether you have to work on things in games or can do it in practice, your next step is to be able to identify these problem pitches as they come to the plate. On every pitch tell yourself what you just saw. If you need to, say them aloud but keep it to yourself. You don't want the catcher to gain any sort of advantage when you emphasize "screwball" after the pitcher just threw one. Say it under your breath but by saying it, you are forming a memory of what the pitch was. If you're not sure what you just saw, you can even ask the ump although he or she may not answer. Ask the question as a sort of joke, "Hey what was that? Was that a screwball? Did that break in or out?" The catcher may even answer questions like that!
Once you know your weakness and have become a batting student who analyzes what the pitcher has thrown, you can start to solve the problem. Sticking with the screwball example, if a pitcher throws you that inside and low screwball which gives you trouble, your first approach is to lay off the pitch, especially if it is borderline and the count is in your favor.
Most pitchers cannot throw a ball precisely to your weak point. Most hitters with a problem area will swing at their weak pitches when they are out of the strike zone. Your best approach is to take a strike if the pitch is marginal. In this manner, you will accomplish two things. First off, you won't be highlighting your problem. Secondly, you will discourage the pitcher from throwing this again. Pitcher's minds are such that if a batter looks really bad on a particular pitch, they want to throw it again. And they will remember this throughout the game, perhaps the season or tournament. But if a pitcher throws a pitch you take for a strike, especially if that was a marginal strike, they typically won't throw that pitch again because they don't know if you can hit it, they don't know if they can put it there again, and they don't know if it will be called a strike if they do put it there. Laying off tough pitches is your first line of defense.
Your second approach to dealing with problem pitches is to learn how to foul them off. If you are down in the count and don't feel comfortable taking a particular pitch, fouling it off raises the question in the mind of the pitcher whether you can hit it. Training yourself to hit fouls anytime you want increases the number of pitches you see in your at-bats, especially when you hit them on 3-2 counts.
Your first efforts to work on hitting fouls should be to the opposite field baseline. Hitting fouls off to your weak side is just easier than hitting them straight back. After you've gotten pretty good at this skill, you can work on hitting them straight back by focusing on hitting the bottom piece of the ball.
Once you've learned what your weak points are, how to lay off them when the count is in your favor, and how to foul them off when it isn't, you are ready to work on hitting them. Don't adjust your stance or swing to deal with trouble pitches and location. Learn through experience where you can successfully hit them. Hitting low-outside drop curves to right is a better approach than trying to pull them over the fence in left. Use your hear. Changing your stance or swing has serious implications you simply do not want to deal with. The best way to handle a tough pitch is to take it to the correct place.
Using The Entire Field
The ability to spray the ball around is not something hitters are born with. It takes lots of practice and a tremendous amount of discipline at the plate. If you do not feel as if you have command of the field as a hitter, while you are still sitting and analyzing your skills, take another piece of paper and draw a diamond with players in their positions. Now take some colored pencils and mark off the places on the field where you think the best places to hit the ball are. Obviously the gaps between short and third, second and first will be important ones. Then the gaps between the outfielders come to mind. Up the middle is another. Don't forget down the two baselines.
With this chart in front of you, pick up a different colored pencil. Now mark off the places where you typically hit the ball. You can start out with the easiest exercise, how often do you pull the ball vs. hit to the opposite field? Figure this into a percentage. If you pull the ball 50% of the time, you're already ahead of the game. If an honest assessment of that percentage is more like 75% or higher, you've got some work to do. But now that you have a sense of which side of the field you hit to and in what percentages, break these percentages down into your typical alleys. If you pull the ball 75% of the time and half of these are between short and third, draw a line there and write the number 37%. Then maybe you hit another 15% into the gap in left-center. Continue marking up the page to place percentages, adding to 100% or thereabouts, in the places on the field where you hit the ball. If you have done this honestly, you have a good diagram of where your alleys typically are. You can entitle this piece of paper as "spray assessment."
Now take another piece of paper and draw the same stuff or make a copy if you have a color copier. Your next step is to draw up a plan for how you would like to change your spray. Perhaps you would like to hit the ball to the opposite field more. Maybe your goal will be to increase your opposite field hitting by 10%, from a 75-25 mix to 65-35 one. Get out your colored pencils and mark up the paper to create your "spray goal" page. Keep in mind that there are certain alleys you want to take advantage of. If you are going to hit more balls to the right side, you should probably pick two alleys which suit you such as between second and first and right-center.
Once you have created your goals, sit down with a parent and go over them. Explain that you are trying to improve your hitting overall and that you recognize that great hitters take advantage of the whole field. What you'll need this parent to do is chart where you hit the ball. Memory is not often perfect when assessing hit spray. It is going to be important for you to have hit charts so you can measure your actual hitting against where you think you hit the ball. And once you start changing that mix, you need to measure how well you are accomplishing those goals. If you are able, after each game in which a hitting chart has been made try to write down the type of pitch and the location to match it with each at bat. See if your parent agrees with you on at least the location. It is often difficult for someone in the stands to assess the exact pitch but it is often easy for them to better judge location. Make sure you agree that your ground out to the second baseman was really on a pitch in the strike zone.
With your established goals for hitting the ball around the field, now you are ready for batting practice. Start out by using the tee and working on familiarizing yourself with how it feels to hit to the opposite field. Step forward from your typical position at the plate and start hitting the ball the opposite way. If you are hitting into a net, you may want to set up some targets to hit. It is actually quite difficult to set targets in the right place. You need to visualize the field and the proper trajectory of base hits. Then mark the net with ribbon or shoe strings. Now work on hitting those spots. The same technique works for soft toss batting practice.
Once your are on the field for live hitting practice, work on those alleys you have identified for your goals. It isn't necessary to only work those alleys. You want to maintain your current ability to hit the ball in the usual places. But you don't want to hit the ball to the opposite field just by accident or based on pitch location. Work on driving the ball hard right at the alleys you are targeting. Later once you have reassessed where the good alleys are, you may want to re-mark the places on your hitting screen where you thought those alleys were.
Hitting is largely a "feel" thing. What is important whether at the tee, on the field for practice, or in game situations is to gain the knowledge of the feel of hitting to the opposite field power alleys. You are looking to make this aspect of hitting second nature - not something you need to think about every minute of every at-bat. Once you establish your ability to hit the ball where you want it, you can begin to take advantage of the whole field. You may want to re-examine your spray mix and your goals every now and again, maybe once each season.
As a final comment on using the entire field, it is patently obvious that pitch choice and location have a great deal to say about where you hit the ball, especially as you face better and better pitchers. As you work through the exercise of examining where you hit the ball, you are going to see patterns emerge. For example, you are going to learn that you cannot hit the ball in the alley between first and second on high outside rise balls. You may find that you are able to drill through the right-center alley on outside drop balls. What we are looking for by charting your hits is knowledge. This knowledge is as important as multiplication is to algebra. You don't sit and work through multiplication tables as you are trying to solve an algebraic equation because you have committed the tables to memory. They are second nature. As you continue to assess your hit spray and match that up with pitch location and type, you will create a knowledge base in your head which is useful in very subliminal ways. You may come up in a situation where hitting the ball to the right side is important but as the pitch comes in and you identify it as a high, outside rise ball, you will be able to lay off that pitch because you know you always pop those out to the first baseman. It will be a split-second decision but because you already worked through the exercises many times, you will not need to perform calculus at the plate.
Situational Hitting
Doing the right thing at the plate in key situations is a bit tougher than using the whole field. Last time you came up was in the bottom of the sixth with nobody out, a runner on third and the game was tied. You hit a homerun, that was great situational hitting! Well, maybe that was great hitting in an age group game but what are you going to do in the state high school championship game in an identical situation with the only variation being that the pitcher has you scouted and knows you can't hit a home run on a high pitch? If you're using your brain, maybe you're going to take that high outside change-up and hit a high fly to deep right allowing your runner to score the game-winning run on your heroic sac fly!
The first assessment in situational hitting improvement is understanding what to do in situations. It is not possible to even outline all the possible situations in this already too long article. You're going to have to become a student of the game before you can understand what to do every time. But if you've already formed an understanding of what pitches give you trouble, if you've already worked on using the whole field, you're ahead of the game. Your next step is going to be to watch lots of games and have lots of conversations with coaches and others. I suggest you have conversations with a coach after every at-bat if that is possible. At least understand what they hoped you would do in a given situation. If their answer is always non-analytical, well maybe you need to talk to someone else. If they say different things in different circumstances, you've found the right person. Get into the habit of talking about your at-bats with someone "in the know." They may not always give you sound advice but at least you'll be thinking about your batting in the moment when the circumstances are still fresh.
Situational hitting analysis is maybe where taking the time to watch major league baseball can be helpful. There is just not enough softball on TV to be able to watch a game whenever you are free of other responsibilities. If softball is available, watch it. But if it is not, tune in to MLB on one of the many channels which broadcast games. The announcers are pretty good at highlighting situational hitting opportunities. Take note of them. Runner on second, nobody out, that guy should have hit a grounder to the right side but he was so intent on hitting a homerun, and the pitcher knew it, that he popped out to second and failed to move the runner over.
"Productive outs" is a term you want to familiarize yourself with. Great hitters recognize that during a typical season, they will make outs 70% of the time. Sometimes those outs will amount to nothing but if a situation arises which provides the opportunity to move runners along, they adjust their approach to take advantage of the opportunity. It is not so much that the batter tried to make an out, it is more a question of where he or she needed to hit the ball. If you're trying to move the runner from second to third, it is certainly OK to drive her in via a base hit or double up the alley in right-center. But the hitter needs to "have an idea" when she steps to the plate. If she tries to simply get a hit and her best alley is between second and third, 70% of the time she is going to ground out to short without moving the runner along. That is a "non-productive out." That is a mistake.
In order to be a smart hitter who takes advantage of situational opportunities, you will have already performed the exercises in which you gained knowledge and improved your abilities to deal with different pitches, as well as learned to hit to the entire field. I'm hoping here that among the first results of your analysis and work is that you've learned to hit a decent flyball to right on a bunch of different pitches. The single most important situational opportunity is the one to bring a runner home in a tight game. The sac fly is often under-rated by players. If you can train yourself to hit a deep enough fly every time a runner is on third with less than two outs, you will become your coach's favorite player! And remember, sac flys don't count against your batting average! They're productive not only for the team but also for the player as they increase your RBIs while not giving you a time at-bat!
Like I said earlier, there is not enough space to list every possible situation. Some of the situations you want to examine and figure an approach to early on are those in which you might hit into an inning-ending double play, ground into a fielder's choice when the batter before you reached first on a lead-off walk, or ground to the third baseman when runners are on first and second. If you know how to handle different pitches in different zones, and you can take advantage of the entire field, you will avoid making harmless outs.
Everything Else
Finally, I have offered to you my perspectives on hitting and taking it to the next level. I've covered some of the larger areas hitters can work on but there are a number of other things out there as well. Maybe I have not covered something you think is important. That's OK. You have a brain. You can work on improving yourself as hitter without any input from me, or for that matter anyone else. You might want to work on your bunting skills, take the steps necessary to be a switch hitter, or maybe even learn how to slap hit. If these things or others are important to you, give them a try. Learning new skills will never harm your established ones as long as you don't totally ignore that which has brought you to this point.
What's most important is performing self-evaluation, mapping out areas to improve, developing a plan, and then putting that plan into practice, first at the tee, then in live drills and finally during games. Remember to put your plan into some sort of writing. Then you must measure success. Success is not simply a matter of checking your batting average after every game. You want to measure how well you achieved your goals.
Conclusion
Whatever you do to improve your hitting game, remember to use your God-given brains. The pitcher is out there using hers to try to get you out. If you do not use your brains at the plate, you are handing the advantage to your opponent!Labels: hitting
Permanent Link: Stepping Up At The Plate
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