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Rethinking The "Decision To Pitch"
by Dave
Thursday, January 25, 2007
A visitor to this site sent me an e-mail which basically expressed a "re-thinking" regarding his decision to have his daughter focus on pitching. His daughter is 11, playing for an 11 year old elite 12U travel team, is apparently the number one pitcher right now for that team, and spends a lot of resources, both time and money, perfecting her skills as a pitcher. The father is concerned that perhaps a better pitcher might come to the team or that she'll end up getting "bombed out" in some games. He worries because the girls on the team and his daughter are only 11, playing against probably a lot of 12 year old teams. He says "if I could do it again I would encourage hitting and fielding over pitching because now we are kind of stuck. Now we really have to step up the pitching and there is not much time or money for those other things. What all girls want is to play and training a pitcher dose not guarantee that." I'm going to respond to this message here because I know a lot of pitcher's parents read this site and because I think the question is valid to all of us.
First off, fastpitch softball girls most definitely "just want to play." And being a pitcher certainly does not guarantee that. But it does open up opportunities. And you are never really "stuck" in any permanent sense. More importantly, the lessons learned (good and bad) from the experience of being a pitcher are invaluable. I highly recommend pitching for girls who show the ability to do it. Let me explain why.
Just about every travel team on the face of the earth is looking for one more pitchers. That's obviously not always true but the general sentiment is reflected on softball forums and bulletin boards throughout cyber-space and the walls of batting facilities throughout the softball world. It is far easier to put together a team of utility players than it is to fill your roster spots for pitchers and catchers. Sure there are a lot of pitchers out there but many are just starting out and do not have the talent or work ethic to progress to the level necessary for tournament competition.
I put together a team once. I started out with two pitchers who were returning to the team. Everyone else graduated up. But one of these pitchers was not sharp and wasn't working hard at her craft. I eventually ended up dropping her because the work ethic just wasn't there and for other reasons I don't want to go into. She wasn't going to help us out that year but both she and her parents were going to expect time in the circle. So then I was down to one player with which to build my roster.
Very quickly I identified a couple catchers and asked them to join me. But one subsequently left. There were a number of other utility players I had identified who were going to come to the team so I had a nucleus of 1 pitcher, 1 catcher, and about 6 infielders and outfielders. I advertised tryouts and received a fair response. I found one pitcher, a catcher and many infielders, outfielders and utility players. In the end I was left with 2 pitchers - 1 really just starting out, 2 catchers, and a full roster of other players. I had more work to do.
About 12 pitchers did try out for us but most were not well enough developed for the level of play we compete at. One was quite good and developing very well but her personality wasn't suited to our team. She was what I call a "free agent" which is a subject I'll have to get into another time. I didn't invite her to join the team. Of the other girls, several had no zip on the ball and because of what I believe were improper mechanics, had no real movement on their pitches. All of these girls tried out for other positions but none made the cut. I continued my search and after a time found another top level pitcher. She is actually good at other positions too but I didn't need to see that before I invited her to the team. I took her as a pitcher with the plan to worry about other skills later.
Then it was time to start practicing the team. I left my roster open for 1 more pitcher and possibly a catcher - you can never have too many catchers. In the end I was left short of one decent quality pitcher. As I understand things, this is not uncommon.
The reason travel teams often leave their rosters open for pitchers and frequently would always like to have one more is tournament ball can be grueling. I have seen a few pitchers at 10U who can pitch all 3 games in a day but that pretty much ruins them for the next day and typically they are not exactly sharp in the third game. I have never yet seen the pitcher who can be effective at 12U in 3 games in one day - just two is tough enough. As you move up in age, this becomes more and more true. At 14U, you need to have at least 3 girls, probably 4, who can get outs. At 16U and 18U, having 5 is prudent unless you find that rarest of all creatures, the special girl who can pitch effectively from an hour before dawn until an hour after sundown, 8 days a week. Most teams do not have this luxury. Even top level ASA Gold teams have more than just a couple good pitchers.
My point here is being a good pitcher really can never hurt you. Rather, it probably opens more opportunities than it closes. At least two girls on the team I talked about above would never have made the team on the strength of their athleticism or other skills. I had far more general utility players than I had pitchers and the competition for those spots was more difficult. I readily would make a utility player from one of my pitchers but you just can't make a pitcher from your utility players.
These pitchers who are on my team got more than a mere pitching experience. They practiced with the team in defensive drills, during batting practice, etc. Your typical tournament team carries 12 or 13 girls, sometimes a few more. It would be counter to the teams best interests if the pitchers only practiced and played that one position. I need my pitchers to learn other outfield and infield positions. And because the best pitchers are often among the best overall athletes, I need them to work on their hitting as well. I know that on my teams, pitchers will learn more than just pitching. And I believe this is true in most travel organizations as well. The math is easy. If you have 12 or 13 roster spots, 3 of them are for catchers, and 4 pitchers, that leaves just 5 or 6 who are neither. Some pitchers and/or catchers are going to have to play other positions.
When I think back over the couple hundred travel games I have watched or participated in, when a pitching change is made, it is relatively infrequent that a girl who has been throwing in the bullpen or along the sidelines is called in to relieve. Most often I see a coach approach the pitching circle, get the ball from the pitcher and then turn to the field to indicate who he wants to come in. Many times, the pitcher who has been removed goes out into the field to play the new pitcher's position. The typical high school team doesn't necessarily follow this template as they might have ten or more girls on the bench. And ASA Gold and NCAA teams usually have room for specialty or pitching-only players. But the typical travel team's economics keep roster size down and pitchers do play the field.
Also, being a pitcher at 11 doesn't pigeon-hole you into continuing on with it forever. At 14, maybe this girl will stop trying to be a pitcher and settle in at third or in the outfield. When you join a team as a pitcher, you are expected to continue your work and focus on pitching - that's why you were asked to join the team. But from year to year, season to season, that can change, especially if you keep the lines of communication between you and team coaches open. Also, there is nothing stopping a girl from trying out for another team in another position. So this 11 year old girl whose father wrote might pitch this year, perhaps the next, but there is no reason why she can't give it up at almost any time between seasons. Then she and her parents can focus their time, energies and money on hitting or fielding lessons. In the meantime, she will get a better experience than she might otherwise have. I just do not buy into the notion that an 11 year old must decide what her entire softball future holds right now, today.
With respect to this father's concerns about another pitcher who is better than his daughter emerging or coming to the team, sure, that can and often does happen. That doesn't mean she won't get significant time in the circle. As I said, teams need more than one pitcher. She'll most likely get her opportunities. And, after all, that is what the real world is like. The potential lesson gained is worth the risk. If this girl grows up to be a doctor, lawyer or engineer, it is very possible that she may be the darling of the place she works for. Then one day maybe someone else who is more of a darling will be hired. What should she do then? She could pack up and find a new employer or, as an alternative, redouble her efforts and compete for greater recognition. I'd rather my kids face this sort of situation for the first time in the rarefied atmosphere of youth sports than in the middle of their professional careers.
I have the same opinion about the risk of being "bombed out" by an opposing team. In life, you lose more than you win. What determines one's success is the ability to deal with adversity. And I'd prefer my children to learn this before they face real life hardships. That's actually why I let them play sports at all!
I had an experience during one tournament with my daughter in which she had a bad pitching performance. The experience was so bad that I believe she was ready to quit. I know she wanted to quit pitching but I suspect she thought about quitting softball altogether. I took her into our "laboratory" which is what I call the pitching area in my basement. She started to throw a bit and then told me she thought she should give up pitching. She said, "I stink." She doesn't - she just had a bad outing. This provided me with a golden opportunity to deliver to her a real life lesson which, no matter how hard I might try, would not be available to me otherwise. After that lesson, she began working harder than I have ever seen before. And that work wasn't limited to pitching either. Now whenever I detect complacency or laziness, I bring up that day and how we dealt with it. She is more receptive to my advice as a result. And she's a better softball player than she would ever have been without that experience.
In conclusion, I think perhaps this father was trying to say generally that some girls ought to be discouraged from pitching because it is so competitive. That may be true. I don't disagree with the general notion per se. Many girls who after a couple years show neither the capacity nor the drive, ought to be discouraged from pitching. But there is no reason for an 11 year old or her parents to feel as if they are "stuck" because they have aggressively pursued pitching. Being a decent pitcher or even a very good one may very well open more opportunities than it closes at this early stage of a girl's softball "career." And you can always shift into another position the next season.
Our society is so "specialist focused" and we try to determine direction so early that it is common for folks to worry about this. Yet somehow I am reminded of a fellow I knew in high school. This guy didn't much care for school work but he always did his best. He began to work in an automobile repair shop. He became a pretty good mechanic. After high school, he worked full time as a mechanic rather than going to college. Then one day something, I'm not sure what, happened and a switch clicked in his head. He realized that medical doctors are sort of like mechanics for the human body. He went back to school, first going to junior college and then graduating from a four year school. His grades were excellent because he had a mission and anything less than perfection would keep him from that mission. He got into medical school and today he is a doctor. Today this or that girl may be a pitcher but tomorrow she may be playing center or working for NASA. The general lessons she learns along the way will determine that more than any specific decision today. Pitching is a great way to enjoy the game of fastpitch softball.Labels: pitching
Permanent Link: Rethinking The "Decision To Pitch"
 
Top 10 Ways To Know You are Addicted To Fastpitch
by Dave
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
An e-mail exchange I had with a visitor to this site spurred my imagination to craft a list of the top ten ways to tell if you are seriously addicted to fastpitch softball. My list is from my own perspective. I'm sure you can add your own thoughts to this.
You know you are addicted to fastpitch when:
10) You scour the forums in order to find a quality 10U game, one in which you have no relatives playing, and then you actually go to the game, and get emotionally involved and when people ask you who your relative is, you lie.
9) You go to several teams' tryouts on back to back days because your daughter's team doesn't have any games scheduled, there are no tournaments within driving distance, and you just need a fix of softball since you haven't seen a game since last Sunday, today being the first weekend day she hasn't had a game in ten weeks.
8) You get excited towards the end of January and, while you are a huge baseball fan, you aren't really concerned about the date in February when pitchers and catchers report to spring training and are, rather, interested in the date of your local college fastpitch team's season opener.
7) You spend hours on ebay looking at fastpitch bats late at night and even bidding on a couple though you just bought one last week and your daughter doesn't need another since she already has two extremely expensive top quality bats which she loves in her bag.
6) You are such an over-protective parent that the thought of leaving your 11 and 13 year old kids home alone for more than 5 minutes made you physically ill until you realized that on Sunday mornings there was a fall double header league at local fields featuring some really good high school players.
5) You purchase Howard Kobata tapes to study fielding mechanics even though your only daughter graduated college ten years ago and is working towards furthering her career for another five years before she even considers having children even though you have offered to help raise them if she has daughters.
4) You still buy sunflower seeds by the gross even though you are the only one still in the house who chews them and your dentist has warned you that you are completely wrecking your teeth.
3) You really hope the high school game you are watching doesn't end via the run rule because you'd like to watch some more game even though you just happened to catch this one as you were driving by the fields and you are sitting on the ground in 45 degree weather in shorts and a "Pony Nationals" t-shirt without a jacket because all you were doing was running out to buy some milk.
2) You actually contemplate stopping off to try to catch a professional fastpitch game two hours from your home on the drive back from nationals 8 hours from your home, the game is being televised, and you have already set your TiVo to record it.
1) You wish your darling daughter would just want to play catch in the yard a little more often or at least try to smile when you take her to the batting cages or enjoy going to a park where you are willing to take an hour out of your busy schedule to hit her grounders or flyballs, and she is already an all-state high school player who just signed an early letter of intent at a Division One college which routinely makes the NCAA field of 64.
These are but a few of the most obvious signs you suffer from a fastpitch softball addiction. But as in all addiction, you don't really need these warning signs or a professional psychiatric opinion to tell you if you have a problem. If you have to ask, "am I addicted to softball?," you most likely are.
By the way, I do not believe there is any known cure for this condition other than watching additional softball games. Thank goodness the college pre-season tournament season begins soon.
Permanent Link: Top 10 Ways To Know You are Addicted To Fastpitch
Indoor Workouts => Quality Over Quantity
by Dave
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
If you're anyplace where the temperature maxes out below 65 or 70 on the typical day, you're probably working out indoors these days. Indoor facilities are sometimes difficult to find and mostly expensive. Players need to work out during the cold months but you've just got to have the right kind of space. You've also got to make the best possible use of your expensive time. There are any number of things you can do indoors to work out your fastpitch team. The typical indoor workouts involve a lot of batting practice with machine tossed balls, or a few varieties of ground ball or throwing drills. The type of stuff you do indoors largely depends upon the type of space you have. But regardless of the dimensions of your available space, there are some things you ought to consider.
First of all, it is easy to forget the need to conduct speed and agility drills. If all you've got for your practices is a single batting tunnel, you can still do speed drills. Shut off the pitching machine and have your girls run sprints back and forth. 40 foot sprints are better than no sprints at all and if you can do 60, so much the better. Your typical batting tunnel provides sufficient space to run two players, side by side. Run them one way, two at a time and, assuming you have 12 or 14 girls, you can get through one rep fairly quickly. Then run them back. I think a minimum of 6 - 10 sprints should be sufficient.
Another drill you can do is a two-lap sprint. At one end of the tunnel, place some red cones and instruct your girls to touch them and then turn and come back at full speed. You want to get your girls huffing and puffing a little so keep them moving with minimum breaks. You can do 4 way sprints but after that, you're just getting carried away and should look for a big track to run miles on. What you're after is speed.
In addition to sprinting, use some other speed / agility techniques. We like to use "power skipping" in which the player explosively lifts one knee as high as she can in conjunction with the opposite arm coming forwards and up in a running motion. The foot in contact with the floor pushes off and skips at the same time. The next motion involves using the opposite leg and arm the same way. Right leg up, left arm up, hop. Left leg up, right arm up, hop. Repeat across the running distance to the other side.
The power skip is an exaggerated motion. The object is to do it right not to propel yourself quickly across the course. Try it yourself before instructing kids on how to do it. Then while your team is doing it, emphasize proper technique and explosiveness over speed.
There are some other things you can work in. I like to have the players run backwards with knees high. Speed from one point to the other is not the idea here. Rather, I want the girls to focus on keeping their knees very high, the legs moving quickly, and the general motion is slowly backwards. It is like running in place while moving ever so slowly backwards. Use your run course distance but make sure nobody gets hurt at the other end!
We also use what is sometimes referred to as the karaoke run. Please recognize that there is no singing involved with this one. Rather, standing sideways to the course, the player runs sideways by stepping out towards the finish line then stepping once in front of the leading leg and then once in back. This is somewhat difficult to express in words but I'll try. Standing at the start line, turn one quarter to your left. Now step out with your right leg. Then bring your left leg to your right but step in front of the right foot and just past it. Now step towards the finish line with your right leg again and then bring your left leg to it while stepping in back and just past the right foot. Repeat to the other side of the course. Once you reach the finish line, stop and then go back the other way while still facing in the same direction. This time your left leg leads and your right is brought to it, first in front and then in back, across the full length of the course.
Next try a shuffle run. Standing in what could be described as a proper infielding position, legs apart more than shoulder distance, butt down, hands hanging loosely in front, shuffle across the floor while touching the ground with your hands. As you shuffle sideways, your back should move up to rigid while you keep your butt down, then you shuffle, then you touch the ground, up to rigid, shuffle, touch the ground, across the course.
There are plenty of other agility and speed drills you can use. I can't go into all of them here. The idea is to get the girls using their legs in ways they wouldn't normally as they play outdoors and these motions should emphasize good running and playing mechanics as much as possible.
One more training technique you should look into is the agility ladder. I hope you know what this is. I also hope you know some of the basic drills used with it. There are some free web sites and plenty of videos available on the topic.
A complete discussion of speed and agility training is well beyond the scope of this article. But my point here is you should not ignore this kind of training no matter how limited your time or space is. You can run an effective agility training program in fifteen minutes to a half an hour. It will pay dividends in so many ways I can't even begin to touch on them. Suffice it to say that an agile team will defend much better and a team that is in shape, quick and agile will play almost every aspect of the game better than a team that is not.
And if you've got more space than a simple batting tunnel, use it. You can run your girls through these drills four people wide or set up a circuit of different drills to run them through sequentially. And if you've got more than 60 x 60, do some real base running drills too, in order to make it more interesting. I have a fairly large space and after we have the girls huffing and puffing, I have my girls run out a homerun one at a time while the rest of the team shouts encouragement. You can run first to third, etc. even in a fairly small space. But touch 'em all, please! Don't miss the bases in practice!!
Throwing is probably the single most important skill fastpitch players need to work on. But if your space is limited to a single 10 x 60 batting tunnel, you cannot run effective throwing drills for more than two girls. If that's what you've got, I'd say forget about it. Actually, my advice is to find a bigger space.
If you have several tunnels or an even bigger space, throwing should probably take up a good portion for your practice. If the entire available throwing distance is limited to 60 feet or perhaps even less but you can have the girls all throwing at the same time, you can still run an effective throwing practice. Just make the girls throw from one knee. I suggest you tell them to bring something to kneel on like a folded blanket or a loose base. And work on mechanics, not just strength and endurance, in these sessions. For example, while kneeling on one knee with the other leg in front, lift the hand with ball up into throwing position and then throw across the distance, or a portion of it, while making sure to use a good four-seam throw, nearly straight over the top (1 o'clock to 7), with the follow through to the opposite side of the forward leg. As coach, you should be watching closely and correcting errors and lazy throwing. The mechanics are as important as the exercise aspect.
Make sure your throwing sessions last long enough to be beneficial. Less than 100 throws per player is probably too short. I don't have any science to back this up but that's my gut instinct.
If you have sufficient space to throw further than 60 feet, use it even if you can only do a few girls at a time. First perform your kneeling throw and then have two or four girls use the full distance to make throws of 80 feet or more. It is always advisable when constructing throwing drills to use a greater distance than you need. Catchers, for example, benefit from working a 100 foot distance. Infielders get the most out of making throws from greater than 60 feet. Even pitchers get something out of working at least part of their workouts from 45 or 50 feet.
Another important aspect to conducting throwing drills is game situation. There is no way to duplicate game stress in practice but I try to use a proxy - fatigue. One of the things I do try to do in winter workouts is get my girls really tired, huffing and puffing and then have them perform their throwing drills. if I can mix running into the throwing drills, so much the better. As I've said, we have a space that is greater than 60 x 60. So I run what I call the four corners drill (some folks refer to it as the diamond or star). basically you have girls out at the four bases and the one standing at home has the ball. She throws to second and then runs to that base. The girl at second throws to first and runs there. The one at first then throws to third and runs there. The one at third returns the ball to home and runs there. Please note that the minimum you can do this drill with is five players since somebody needs to be at home when the girl at third makes her throw. Then we go around again.
If the ball is overthrown or missed, encourage the players to keep it going and not give up. When we're working outdoors, I stop the drill after a missed ball or overthrow but in a confined space, there's no reason to stop. Just run down the ball and keep it going.
The four corners drill is great for working just your starting infield but if you've got a full team and just that amount of space, you can run it with all your girls involved. During your practice, do your agility drills first, then let them warm up throwing, then do your long tosses, then go into the four corners drill. once a girl has completed the circuit twice, substitute another player in for her and keep the line moving until all the girls have participated. This is complicated since the girl who starts at first is in the drill for longer and because you ideally want to get all the girls to throw with each other. But figure it out. It isn't that hard to do this and you can run girls through the circuit multiple times.
If you haven't got quite enough space to run the full size of an infield, you can run "four corners" with just three corners like you would be forced to do if you had a space 30 x 80. The point is to make a short throw and then a long one. If all you have space for is two long throws and one short one, that's fine.
Another important aspect of throwing drills whether conducted in an indoor, limited space facility or outdoors is to work quick release throwing mechanics - ones where the thrower does not take a crow hop or skip before throwing. This is as easy to do indoors as it is outside. Emphasis should be on making a catch, whether in the air or on the ground, and coming up to make the throw without moving the feet after the catch. The torque for the throw comes from the hip and upper body. This is one of the drills advocated by Howard Kobata to emphasize quickness of release rather than power of the throw. You can and should do these sorts of drills during your indoor practices. And add in some barehanded plays to the mix as well. Make sure to teach proper barehanded technique if you do. the hand should be fully open to the ball, just outside the foot. The pivot foot stays in place while the stride foot takes just that half a step necessary to generate throwing power.
Another type of drill I like to use in addition to these is one which is based on "three ball." Three ball involves a pitcher and catcher. The pitcher has two balls and the catcher one. Standing about 50 feet apart, the pitcher initiates play by performing the windmill motion - absent the wind-up - and throwing with a single step towards the catcher. the catcher catches with one hand and throws the other ball, in her hand, back to the pitcher. The pitcher has removed the second ball from her glove and placed it in her throwing hand. She catches the throw from the catcher and windmills in another one. if a ball gets away from either the pitcher or catcher, ignore it and just continue with the balls still in play until they are all thrown away or about 50 throws have taken place.
Three ball is a great way for a pitcher to get a workout in just a few minutes. It also helps the catcher to practice quick release throwing. We like to use it in the middle of our pitching workouts. It generally results in both the pitcher and catcher being winded. If I have 4 pitchers and catchers, I give each a turn which usually lasts about 5 minutes. If I have sufficient space, I do two pairs, side by side. That gives each pair a good 5 minute wind and muscle workout and five minutes rest. Then we go around again.
The entire team can do this drill with the pitchers so even if you don't have enough real catchers, you can use it. And you don't really need to use pitchers in every iteration. A significant benefit can be had with two girls both throwing regular overhand. I just like to increase the distance to at least 60 feet when two infielders, for example, are doing this drill. if your space is 60 x 40, you should be able to run 6 girls simultaneously. But because this is an intensity drill, I suggest using no more than half the team at a time, one session on, one off for rest. The idea here is speed of transition from catching to throwing combined with powerful throwing. You get no benefit from this if players dog it or the ball constantly gets away.
You should try to use as much of your throwing drill repertoire as possible when conducting indoor drills in adequate space. The idea is to have the team throwing as much as possible and under conditions in which they are winded and tired. Try to get as much distance as you can. Also focus on quick releases. If you can combine different aspects of throwing mechanics, psychological stress, and distance, do it. And if you have some good indoor throwing drills, write me and tell me what they are so I can share them here!
My least favorite aspect of indoor practicing is batting practice. Unless you have great facilities, you're probably limited to just enough space to have a single batter at a time hitting balls from one machine. Even two or three at a time creates a very boring, marginally beneficial situation. You have to do something to try to engage all your girls. If I have twin batting tunnels, I'll use one machine but the other cage for other drills.
I'm a big fan of hitting off the tee. Tee hitting is never quite as easy as it looks. And you can get many more repetitions using a tee than you can with a pitching machine. besides, a pitching machine which throws a single speed on every pitch and puts the ball within the same general two foot area is not at all like hitting live pitching. I'm hesitant to use real live pitching, however, in the type of confined space with somewhat poor lighting teams usually use. So the batting tee is almost as good as the pitching machine and we work on swing fundamentals. Also, by using a second batting tunnel, we can have almost the entire team doing something at all times. A 10 x 60 foot space provides enough room for about 4, possibly more, tees with one girl placing the ball on the tee for the other hitting. Make sure you leave plenty of room and instruct the girls firmly not to walk around the cage, even to retrieve balls. Serious accidents can occur that way. if you are able to partition the space with large nets, that's probably ideal.
In addition to batting tees, you can also make use of soft toss hitting where the girl who would put the ball on the tee instead tosses the ball in an underhand motion. My experience when using soft toss is you need a little more space than you do with the tee. But a very good drill you can use with soft toss is rapid fire hitting where the girl tossing the ball waits until the batter fully recoils and then immediately tosses the next pitch. Batters should be instructed to immediately recoil after completing their swings. Initially I imagine girls get tired after 20 such swings. As your practice "season" progresses, they will be able to handle more. Try to gradually move up to 50, maybe by adding 5 more to each week. This drill helps build quick-twitch muscle strength as well as overall strength and endurance. It is a sprint and will make your hitters far stronger than all the time spent in with a machine.
I know some of you will insist on using pitching machines. I will too. I think you can use machines in an intelligent manner so as to glean some benefit from them. My first thoughts regarding machines is get the speed up to higher than what you expect to see in competition. This is especially true if your girls are moving up an age or competition class. they'll arrive at your first game expecting to see fast pitching and then after a winter of hitting balls 5 mph faster, wonder what they were concerned about!
Also, if you can use smaller balls - say baseball sized - do it! More than actually preparing girls to face live pitching, using a pitching machine is good for training their eyes. Even professional softball players hit off machines but what they do is turn the speed way up, use smaller balls and engage in some innovative practices. For example, the Olympic team uses a special (and expensive) machine which throws tennis balls at high velocity. the balls have numbers or colors painted on them and the batter are told to only swing at those with blue or red paint on them, or the number 5, for example. Again, the idea is not so much to work on mimicking live pitching, but rather to train their eyes for when they do.
Please recognize that using a baseball pitching machine is not advisable. Baseball pitching is, obviously, overhand while softball pitching is underhand. You don;t want your team to face pitching that comes from above the shoulder of a person standing out around the pitcher's plate. The release point has to be around the hip. if you go to most public batting cages, the ball is thrown in such a way to mimic overhand throwing. fastpitch players get no benefit from a pitching machine set up like that. So use baseball sized batting machine balls but make sure the release point is low.
Also, if you've turned up the speed of a pitching machine, note that the arc of the ball is not going to be accurate. Most of the pitching your hitters will face will have more downward motion than you get from a fastball thrown by a machine due to the spin of the ball thrown by a live pitcher and, presumably, the lower speed live pitchers will be throwing. Unless you look forwards to watching your players all strike out by swinging and missing over the top of the pitched ball, adjust the machine to put some downward action on it. Most good machines have speed adjustments for both the lower and upper wheel. You'll have to read the directions and play with it but you don't want the arc of the ball to be quite so flat unless you're deliberately preparing for a riseball pitcher. While we are on the topic, if your team and their competition is sufficiently advanced, use the machine to mimic various pitches like the dropball, screwball and curves. For most machine, this involves a somewhat complex adjustment. Play with it and, again, try reading the directions thoroughly.
Well, we're in the thick of winter practices. My first priority was getting a good space. I'd rather run 10 indoor workouts in 80 x 100 than 30 in 30 x 50 or 50 in a couple of 10 x 40 batting tunnels. If you do the analysis, I think you'll find someplace that is adequate, if a little on the expensive side. You probably have limited resources but use your intellect to get the highest quality possible for your planned indoor practices.
Make sure you don't forget normal, average athletic agility and speed training. It will benefit your team tremendously to do these drills. The less space you have available, the more this is true. And don't use time limitations as a reason for skipping this most fundamental type of athletic training. You can work some agility into even an hour's worth of practice.
Do some throwing - it's really important - but don't have girls throwing back and forth over a 40 foot distance. Too many bad habits are formed that way. Make sure you get in a decent amount of distance throwing or create situations to mimic distance throwing by placing them on one knee.
Work on skills you know your girls will need when the games begin. Quick release throwing and barehanding ground balls shouldn't be ignored. if you;re going to conduct hitting practice, use your head and make the best possible use of the available facilities. There's very little benefit to standing around for 50 minutes waiting for your one or two turns to hit 20 pitches at 45 mph from an overhand machine.
Quantity of practice is important but quality of practice is more important.Labels: coaching, fielding, indoor, practice
Permanent Link: Indoor Workouts => Quality Over Quantity
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