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Easy Play?
by Dave
Friday, April 11, 2008
I'm not quite sure when it occurred to me but when the notion took hold, it struck me like a bolt of lightning. Someone wrote in to ask my opinion about the way his daughter's travel team was being drilled over the winter months. Girls of all age groups from 12 to 18 practiced together in a high school gym. There were a number of stations including one in which fielding drills were conducted. At that station, a coach lined girls up and hit them grounders. The coach hit the balls as hard as he could regardless of whether a young inexperienced 11 or a very experienced 18 was his charge of the moment. I thought to myself, well, this is the way it's usually done. We don't care whether the girl is young or old, she simply needs to learn to deal with hard hit balls. I found myself in a school gym hitting grounders to fielders and realized I was doing the same thing. I reasoned that I was, like this other girl's coaches, getting the girls used to hard hit balls. There's some truth to that but it ignores one key piece, the hardest ball to field and get an out on isn't the hardest hit ball. In fact, the hard hit grounder is often the easiest play to make because the batter is usually slow to get out of the box and the quickness with which the ball gets to the fielder provides extra time to find the handle, set and make the throw. The hardest ball to field is the softest hit one. Yet most coaches don't spend any time on that.
I was watching a high school game the other day between two very good rival teams. Both had solid pitchers in the circle. Baserunners were at a premium. There were a lot of strike-outs and not very many walks. There were some hard-hit basehits and a couple long balls. But these did not turn the tide in the game.
What ultimately decided the game I watched were a couple dribblers and several mental errors. The dribblers did not directly cause the mental errors but they had a contributory effect. The dribblers were hit to a young second baseman and shortstop who are both generally very solid fielders. The second baseman has very good range, a strong arm and she is well schooled in turning over from fielding the ball to getting it to the right base quickly. It doesn't matter how hard you hit the ball, she's probably going to get to it and get you out, assuming it is a playable groundball. The shortstop is also well-schooled, has good range and a plus arm. The plays which turned the game involved poorly hit balls which were nubbed off the end of the bat or topped directly into the ground, putting hard spins on the slow-moving grounders. These are the hardest balls to play.
The first element of the softly hit, spinning-like-a-top grounder is you have to charge it. It is one thing to obtain a proper ready position, field a grounder with your feet and body posture set up properly, set and make a quickly released, accurate, strong throw. It is quite another thing to accomplish these tasks after charging a ball. You have the same need of position, posture, mechanics and exchange with a softly hit ball that you have with a hard hit one but your footwork is far more complicated and you've got less time to get the ball where you need to, sometimes a lot less. Accomplishing this requires proper footwork mechanics and a lot of repetitious practice.
It's really almost like batting practice in the sense that a fielder needs lots of iterations of balls hit at varying speeds and spins in order to formulate the judgment necessary to know how hard to charge and when in each cycle to set up and field the ball. The best way I can explain this is via examples.
Think of 3 different kinds of grounders, hard, softer and very soft. One takes just a half second or less to reach the fielder - she barely has time to move her feet at all. She just fields it and makes the throw. Another grounder takes a full second to reach the baseline between first and second or second and third. The fielder has to charge it. That complicates things.
Let's, for the sake of argument, say that our fielder charges the moderately soft hit ball by taking four quick steps, right, left, right, left, down. She, at some point, made a judgment, however subconscious, that she had time to take four steps. She didn't want to take 3 or 5 because that would have left her off balance and with the wrong foot forward in order to set up the throw quickly. She subconsciously told herself to take the four steps because she has experience fielding a ball hit in the same manner as this one.
We sometimes see very young, inexperienced girls either refuse to charge a grounder or do so by taking the wrong number of steps, leaving the fielder off balance to make the throw. Young fielders need to be schooled in charging the ball. Once they get this basic concept, each girl needs to build an internal "library of experiences" which tell her quickly and subconsciously just how many steps she can and should take in order to get to the ball quickly while also landing on the correct foot. In other words, fielding a somewhat lesser hit ball involves greater complexity than fielding a hard hit one.
Another type of grounder takes a second and a half to reach the fielder. In this instance, the fielder is going to charge it, set up and field it, while taking a certain number of forward steps. Again, she needs to land on the correct foot in order to field the thing and make a throw which is quick enough to get a baserunner who is now probably well more than halfway to first. The need to be on the proper foot and to have the right posture is more important on these slowly hit balls because there is no time to set before throwing. Everything needs to be accomplished almost simultaneously or the runner will be safe at first. So the complexity of how our fielder will charge the ball is greatest with the most lightly hit one.
It is often told to infielders that they want to field a normal grounder right before or right after it takes a second hop. Any grounder will develop some degree of top spin right after it hits the ground for the first time as a result of its forward speed and the resistance it encounters when it hits dirt. When it comes up from its first contact with the ground, it has a greater or lesser amount of top-spin depending on how hard it was hit, how soon it hits the ground, and whether there was top spin or some other spin put on it by the bat. [; But it will have a significant amount of top spin regardless. When a grounder hits the dirt a second time, it generally takes a lower, further, faster hop than it did after the first hit as a result of this top spin. Ideally a fielder gloves the ball before the second hop because the ball tends to take off then. If she can't get to it before the second hop, we hope she'll get to it right after and "short hop" it. After that, you really never know what a ball is going to do because human beings do not possess the capacity to calculate the effect of speed and spin at this point. If it hops twice and you don't pick it up right away, the best you can do is assume a good position, attempt to field it cleanly and hope that if you don't, you manage to keep it in front of you. These are the type of grounders we tend to school our players in handling whether we are inside or out. But a softly hit, wildly spinning grounder is, by its very nature different because its direction and speed are hard to gauge.
So now we know we have a couple elements involved in fielding softly hit, wildly spinning grounders. We have to charge it in order to make a play and we need experience of playing these balls in order to automatically calculate how hard to charge and when exactly to stop charging in order to keep our feet in good order to make the exchange. We also surmise that the balls repeated contact with the ground is going to alter its path and effect the spin on it. This is going to make an impact on how well we play the ball. There's one other element which impacts the infielder's play on a slowly hit ball.
Generally in high stress environments, our bodies react in a number of ways to deal with the circumstance. What happens and how we feel this is different depending on the passage of time. The more time which passes, the more our bodies produce adrenaline and the more we are aware of this. To explain, think of an automobile accident. Of course, I mean a minor one in which there is no real damage to your car. If all that happens is someone taps you in the back, say at a traffic light, and you didn't expect this, you will most likely feel a little shock and then realize nothing much happened. If instead, you are racing along, at the speed limit, of course, and the car in front of you stops short, you jam on the brakes, watch your car slide, hear your tires screech and pray you don't hit the next car until finally it comes to a stop right as it makes very slight contact. In the first case, you weren't aware that anything was going to happen, you experienced mild shock and then the incident was over. But in the second incident, you became aware of a surge in adrenaline, a rise in blood pressure, a certain light headedness and all the symptoms which come with such things. Then, after you stopped right at the point of contact, chances are that wasn't the end of the event in terms of your body's response. Chances are pretty good that the surge in adrenaline and your blood pressure rise took some time to subside. Your hands shake not because you were frightened - though it does seem that way - but because the surge of adrenaline causes them to shake. Eventually your body will recover and you may have a mild headache.
Now let's go back to the softball diamond. The longer the ball takes to get to you, the more you will experience and become aware of a surge in adrenaline and your blood pressure. A fielder who gets a hard hit shot plays it without thinking. But the player who takes a full second or a second and a half to make a play becomes somewhat lightheaded and feels her heart racing. Very experienced players, those who have fielded lots of softly hit balls, are less aware of this phenomenon because they have been conditioned to ignore it. But someone who has never fielded a softly hit ball will experience it in spades. And that's often the cause of a poorly played, softly hit ball like the ones I saw at the high school game the other day.
The way through this "problem" is, as I said, through experience. Fielders, particularly middle infielders, need lots of experiences with softly hit, spinning balls. It doesn't matter how many hard hit balls they have seen in their lives. Those plays are reactive. Most fielders at higher levels have seen so many hard hit balls that they don't even flinch. But give me a chopper with four different kinds of spin, striking the ground for the fifth time, requiring a more than four step charge, and I'll give you probably the highest percentage of errors of any balls in this game.
So what we coaches need to do is remember all the times when a softly hit grounder was our undoing. Then we need to recognize that we have to give our infielders not merely 50 hard hit grounders per practice but also another 50 of softly hit ones. After a few practices, we will get good at hitting grounders which spin out of control. And once we begin hitting our fielders these soft but spinning balls, I think we can begin to cut down on the number of errors.Labels: defense
Permanent Link: Easy Play?
 
Re: Aggressive Baserunning
by Dave
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Coach Bryan writes in to ask:
"My question has to do with a small part of your post regarding aggressive baserunning. I coach a 10U ASA team. My girls show a lot of potential and I see a very bright future for the team. One area I want to dramatically improve is situational baserunning. "Aggressive" is what I want.
My belief is that rallies can be manufactured, not just stumbled upon. Aggressive baserunning promotes rallies, in my opinion. You mentioned the situation of runners on second and third with less than two outs, say one out. You stated, 'With runners on second and third, especially with one or no outs, I want both my runners to try to advance on any infield grounder. This puts pressure on the defense and can cause infielders to make poor judgments like trying to get the runner out at home.' I agree completely with your statement.
I went to a coaches clinic where Sharon Drysdale spoke on aggressive baserunning and she labeled this strategy as "angle-down." Any ball hit that "angles down" from the bat means that the runners are going without hesitation or regard for which fielder receives the ball (with runners on 2nd and 3rd). She emphasized that this is an automatic play. OK, I love this. Here is my question. I want to expand this "angle-down" strategy, for my team, to anytime I have a base runner on 3rd regardless of the outs. A single base runner on third is enough for me to call this play. Do you agree? If not, why not?
Its a gamble, but I think the odds are with the base runner IF, the base runner gets a proper jump and goes at FULL SPEED on ANY ground ball. I mean ANY ground ball without hesitation. The other part of this play is the batter/runner going to 1st. If the fielder who receives the ball attempts to make a play at home plate, my batter/runner is automatically going to 2nd without hesitation. So, worst case is that we are out at home, but I have a runner in scoring position, again. What do you think? Too risky? Am I missing something?
I generally like your thinking about teaching your team aggressive baserunning in the age group you play, 10U. I think you will have trouble getting the 10U girls to recognize "angle down." Also, I hesitate to teach something to 10s that I might not want them to do when they are 12s.
I understand the use of the term "angle down" as the baserunners recognizing when a ball is a grounder vs. a linedrive/pop-up. The baserunner looks to see the ball below the bat, identifies that as angle down and knows the hit ball will be a grounder. Conversely, a baserunner who sees the ball, immediately after contact, aboce the bat knows it is a linedrive or pop-up so she holds waiting for more information. Baserunners should be taught to look for angle down vs. angle up at all ages and regardless of which base they are occupying.
Tens have difficulty recognizing it because of the way young brains mature. Certainly some 10 year old girls can see and recognize angle down but most cannot. Kids brains develop differently with respect to recognizing spatial relationships. And it is my understanding that girls develop this aspect of cognition more slowly than boys. I'm not exactly certain at what age girls' nervous systems deal well with this sort of thing. I'm no expert. But I believe I remember reading something about this which indicated 11 -13 years, around the onset of puberty.
I'm not sure how to answer your real question about a baserunner from third (not second and third) always coming on angle-downs. It sort of depends on the circumstance, even at 10. But I think you'll probably be successful most of the time. 90The odds are pretty good except for circumstances when you are playing a well schooled team or when you find yourself playing in a key game. There the risks might be too great so I would temper this "automatic" play by allowing the third base coach to call it off or only making it a put on if he affirmatively calls it.
Very good 10U teams (but only a few of them) will nail your runner at home and hold the hitter to first about 50% of the time. I've seen this happen once or twice in 10U tournament championship games. Where you really run the risk of this backfiring on you is on a hard hit, cleanly fielded grounder back to the pitcher. If your runner is coming all out and the pitcher expects that, she'll have an easy time throwing the runner out at the plate and having the batter/baserunner at first held there.
In 12U, I suspect this is overly aggressive. I know that last year we made a double play on such a situation. I'm pretty sure we were playing in an elimination game. Basically, the batter hit a one hop hard grounder which the pitcher fielded cleanly. She threw immediately to first where we had a very talented young lady playing. She caught the throw from the pitcher and without hesitation whipped the ball to our also talented catcher who caught the throw cleanly and applied the tag well in advance of the runner from third who was coming all out on contact. That was an unusually successful play. It was an easy double play and broke the back of our opponent. They never produced another serious rally during that game.
The part about having second and third with one or no outs rather than just third is you are no worse off if the runner from third is nailed than you would be just allowing the batter to be thrown out at first without pressing the issue. That's what makes runners on second and third moving on angle down an automatic. It doesn't cost you anything. The worst case scenario should be runners on first and third with the same amount of outs you would have had. Now, assuming one out, you can run a steal and either be back at second and third or, if they try to get the runner stealing second, score a run.
Obviously in the anecdote I told you about, we would have had a double play whether there were runners on second and third or just third. But I think second and third is just better enough of a situation to force the issue and make "angle down" an automatic.
I think you, Bryan, are better situated to know whether with 10s, you can pull off the same thing with just a runner at third. But, again, I hesitate to teach something to 10s that I wouldn't teach to 12s, 14s, etc. I'd always teach all these age groups to go automatically on angle down with runners on second and third. But I'd want to affirmatively call this with just a runner on third, based on my observations of the opponent the same way I wouldn't want the "continuation play" (runner walking to first and immediately proceeding to second) to be an automatic for 14s. And a lot would depend on the importance of a game, not to mention the skill level of your opponent. You might find yourself in an elimination game or playing for the championship of a qualifyer against an opponent who has been wel drilled. You could find yourself driving home thinking about how at your next practice, you are going to go over the sign to call of this play.
Just to recap the strategy in case I have muddied it. With runners on second and third and one or no outs, the runners proceed all out to the next base whenever the batter hits a grounder - when the baserunner can see the ball below the bat immediately after contact. This should be an absolute because you need to have the runner from second move up to third. The reason you employ this strategy is to force the defense into making a play in complex circumstances or else, you score a run. If the defense tries to nail the runner at home, they may get her but they won't always succeed. If they fail, you get a run in, no out recorded and you're back where you started. If they succeed, you are no worse off than you would be if you just let them throw the runner out at first.Labels: baserunning
Permanent Link: Re: Aggressive Baserunning
Who Is That Guy?
by Dave
Monday, April 07, 2008
Who is that guy? What's his name? Which kid is his?
There's a fellow who has been connected with every travel team my kids have ever been on. I'm not sure what his name is or which kid belongs to him. He changes his looks every year. Sometimes he's got dark hair, sometimes blond, sometimes grey or salt and pepper. Sometimes I am left with the impression that he's over 6 feet tall. Sometimes I know he stands less than 5 foot 8. But I know he's the same guy because he always does the same things, makes the same comments, and carries himself the same way.
This fellow I'm speaking about has never been to a single practice of any of these teams. But his kid shows herself to be a very good athlete, at least early on, so she always makes the team. When it comes time to organize a practice, the guy has never, to my knowledge, volunteered to help out. He is not interested in being a coach even though the coaching staff is usually made up of about 4+ volnteer fathers and/or mothers of the team's 10, 11 or 12 players. He apparently doesn't have time to volunteer though, to be honest, he works just 35 hours per week and is never on the job during practice hours. He's just too busy or tired to coach or even run a station at practice, ever. Some years he is to busy golfing. Some years he likes to spend the evenings or weekends at eating establishments with liquor licenses. Some years he claims that he has a high powered job and is too busy working though he's always home if you call around 6:00 pm.
It's probably a good thing this fellow doesn't coach. He can't get along with anyone anyways. He's hyper critical of everyone. He complains when kids don't do things right though he never criticizes his own kid in public. He saves that for private conversations, the nature of which are left to everyone's imagination. But with respect to criticizing others' kids, he has no inhibitions.
Not only is this fellow never at practice, his kid doesn't deign to come to many either. That is, one is left to surmise, because she's so talented. It becomes readily apparent how talented the girl is when you listen to this fellow during games. He always shows up for games though he sits by himself and doesn't mix with anyone. Somehow, even though nobody really knows him, everyone hears what he has to say during games. &nbsap; They are left with the feeling that his kid is a shoe-in for the Team USA. They are also left with the feeling that everyone else on the team ought to at least consider giving up the game entirely.
This fellow knows the games of softball and baseball very well. If you're ever down at Dino's bar and grill in the mid-evening hours, he will tell you about how he almost got drafted, could have, should have been drafted, or maybe actually was drafted but ruined his shoulder or back in a car accident. In any event, he knows the game and lets most anyone within earshot know that he knows.
He was a very good ball player at around the age of 12, 13, 14. But the truth is he was kicked off the high school team because he could not submit to the coach's will. The coach wasn't very good. In fact, none of the school's coaches were any good. The same thing happened to him when he went out for basketball and football. He was pretty clearly the best kid on those teams but the coach made him sit the bench, he got bored, and then he acted out by not following instructions at practice or in other ways. Eventually, the coach got sick of him and turned him loose for the good of the team.
Well, that's not necessarily true. He may have stayed on one team or another. And perhaps he was good enough to draw a few scouts around to see him. But they lost interest once they saw his grades, talked to his coaches, or maybe learned of his minor police record. He wasn't good enough to overcome those obstacles.
As I said, this guy's kid is pretty good. He may think she's the absolute best kid on the field but she isn't. She's simply above average. You wouldn't know it to listen to him talk. He's convinced that his kid should simultaneously be pitching, catching, playing short and center. You know this because, if kids in those slots make the slightest mistake, he starts grumbling. Whenever anyone, player or coach makes the slightest mistake, he lets them know because that's his contribution to the world. Since he doesn't have time to coach or help out or even get his kid to practice, he helps out by pointing out everyone's mistakes.
He's pretty good about voicing his opinions too. You can always hear him clearly. Parents know exactly who he is criticizing when he makes his comments. Coaches know when they are the target of his contempt. And the same is true of umpires.
It doesn't matter to this fellow that this is youth sports. To him, this is travel and everyone is supposed to be "professional." He expects the coaches to be very good even though they are many times just a hodge podge of parents whose kids play for the team. Many of those coaches didn't want to volunteer their time but they recognized that somebody had to do it. This guy is not inhibited by such guilt. He expects all his kid's coaches to have decades of experience at the highest levels and to bring the team's performance up to the level he thinks they should be at to qualify for playing with his daughter. He is REALLY disappointed in the coaching on this team (or any team). He wonders why they don't seem to know as much about the game as he does.
And the kids, well, they certainly do not have much talent. Those coaches could make them better if they had the slightest clue about the game but they don't. So he tries to let the girls know what they should be doing, or more exactly what they shouldn't be doing, once they make a big mistake. He is a bit gruff about it and often the kids get upset when they hear his criticisms. Somebody once tried to point out to him that these girls might be a little sensitive for the manner in which he criticizes him but he told the intruder that "then they need to toughen up or they shouldn't play this game."
He's very hard on the umps too, especially when one of their bad calls effects his kid. He isn't particularly concerned that this is a scrimmage, not a "real" game. He doesn't care that the only way we had any ump for this game was because Sally's father knew a guy who knew a guy whose sister's husband umps games. The ump had wanted to watch basketball games on TV with his daughter who no longer plays softball but after we begged him mercilessly, he agreed to come out from his warm den to ump a game in 40 degree, blustery wind, and no sunshine. All this guy cares about is the fact that the ump is wearing an official uniform with ASA clearly printed on his cap.
He wasn't at all concerned that the ump turned out to be an old friend of mine or Bill's who was there specifically for the girls. The grumbling parent didn't quite get that the ump was instructing girls about rules infractions as a learning tool. He felt the ump should make that call rather than explain to the girls why they shouldn't do that. He also didn't care for the ump's tendency to broaden the strike zone when too many girls seemed to be up there looking for walks. He didn't care that the ump told the girls he was going to call balls and strikes aggressively to get them to take the bats off their shoulders. He saw that as unprofessional conduct of an umpire and since the guy was being paid (just enough to eat at Applebees tonight), he felt he should call balls and strikes the "right way."
This fellow does lots of damage to teams directly but his worst contributions are very subtle and accomplished through a proxy, his daughter. This parent with generally poor impulse control says what he says at games but later, during the car ride home or when his wife asks about the game, that's when the really interesting stuff spews forth from his mouth. He might be very hard on his kid while criticizing her performance on the field but then he feels a little guilty about that. So in order to make up for his transgression, he tells her that it's OK. It's not her fault that the team lost or barely won while playing badly. It's those coaches. Or maybe it's those under-skilled players on her team.
He doesn't want to just speak in broad generalities so he begins listing out specific examples of poor decisions, poor coaching, and poor playing. He describes the individuals precisely and makes sure his daughter knows exactly who he's talking about. He speaks in very condescending ways so his daughter will be sure to act as his proxy later on and communicate his general displeasure to her teammates when he's not around to voice his concerns.
After a few of his sessions, this girl will no longer take instruction from the team's coaches. That's OK since they don't know what they're talking about. But unfortunately, this will cause her to have a "healthy" skepticism of every coach she comes into contact with in the future. She's increasingly unlikely to be susceptible to constructive criticism of any kind. And she'll make a lousy teammate too since she will begin to believe that everyone around her in every sport is not as good as she is. She will be intolerant of other's mistakes. She will correct their poor play. And they won't have an appreciation for her blunt and harsh style.
Do you know this fellow? Who is he? Which kid belongs to him? What's his name?
I know all of you can answer these questions because you all know him or her. In fact you are (and of course I am) him. We all have a little of this inside us. We don't always vounteer as much as we could. We all criticize more than we should. We often forget where we are or that others have feelings. We forget ourselves more than we should. And we really must begin to recognize this person so we can exclude him from our team.
It's early yet. Team's are not in "June shape." That's true of the players but it's also true of the coaches and parents. This tournament ball is hard work. If it wasn't, we wouldn't aspire to it. We all have to work at this and all we need is a little direction. ^ I hope this little musing helps us find a little direction.Labels: coaching, parents, youth tournament teams
Permanent Link: Who Is That Guy?
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