how to get enough batting practice

10u rec level coach here

while thinking about upcoming spring season (a little early I know, but league has already started discussing rules mods, draft, etc., got me thinking), I realized I needed to plan practices better.

while putting pencil to paper (actually fingers to key board in excel), trying to chart how mich time I wanted to spend on various skills and drills, I realized that if I have a team of 12 girls (my teams past three years have varied from 11-15, so 12 at least is safe bet), in a given practice 90 minutes, I cannot give any one girl more than say about 7 minutes of BP. Background, generally, I have not been able to get more than one or two assistants, and I end up normally being the only one that can throw BP (either no one else can get girls decent looks, or not field certified in our league, and while I use noncertified parents to help with certain things, throwing ball at the girls is not one of them, they do things like roll/hit grounders to girls, baserunning drills, etc.), how do I ever get the girls the BP they need. I do suggest to parents that they take their girls to local cage, but it is rec league, and not all can do it (for variety of reasons).

do I short change the ones who need it less and/or get ot the cages at least some (like my own DD), or just shrug and say it is what it is. I do not want to do what my LL coaches did, each kid only got BP every third practice or so, poor hitters never improved (like me).

Stations and more stations.

Your parents should be able to do TCB, whiffle, soft toss and tee work.

10U you can get a spring loaded or sling shoot for a reasonable price that I would trust parents with.

I feel you pain and wish I had a good answer. Ultimately I came to the conclusion that as a Rec ball coach it was my job to do the best with what I was given. 90 minutes is 90 minutes no matter how you stretch it. I did not short change anyone (usually my daughter was the first one to get short changed) and realized that I was not going to be able to please everyone. It was not my job to get them all playing select level ball by next season. Those girls that want to move up to select will put in work outside of practice and those that are happy with Rec will be happy with what time you give them. As a Rec ball coach you will see it all. I even had a girl who showed up for the first 10u game having never played any organized sport before and was using a plastic fisher price/franklin glove. She was a last minute addition that I didn't know about until 5 minutes before game time. Just do the best with what you have and if a parent complains tell them they are more than welcome to go throw soft toss.

Agree with Quincy, its all about the hitting stations. If you do not or cannot have adult helpers, have the players put the ball on the tee and/or show them how to side toss. IME, 10YO girls don't do a great job of throwing front toss so leave that up to the coaches. A bunt station is also good.

Also, before every game, have the players show up at least 1 hour before game time. If you set-up the hitting stations correctly, you can get through it in about 20 minutes and have plenty of time for throwing and fielding warm-ups. In season, try to get them to a batting cage or get the practice extended to 2 hours or have some optional batting practices on the weekend. Lastly, encourage all players to supplement throwing and batting practice on their own (just like the pitchers and catchers do on regular basis).

If you have one other coach, even someone who can just supervise have a kid pitch station so they get used to hitting off real pitchers and a coach pitch station(you pitching) where they hit off of you. At 10U not as many can crush the ball yet so you don't need a huge amount of room. That will help, but it's the ones who hit on their own who will get a lot better. at 10U DD and I always hit for 20-30 minutes after practice to get some real work in.

Yes, stations, stations, stations. I think the goal is to get them as many swings in as possible. Tee, whiffles, soft toss, heavy balls is good. Maybe only give them 3 pitches when you throw BP, make it game situation practice. Have a separate practice at the cages or for BP.

We had the luxury of a cage and machine at the practice field so we would rotate kids in and out during the entire practice.

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Many have already talked about stations. In addition to stations in practice for tee, wiffle, soft toss, etc) we approached game days more like a travel team and showed up an hour early instead of 15-30 minutes before game time. We used that hour like an extra practice and broke down into hitting stations while the others took some fielding. By the end of the season, they had 10 extra batting practices! My rationale to the parents was your night is already taken up with softball, why don't we use it! Some kids still showed up 30 minutes before game time, but we'd still manage to get them some bp.

There is no substitute for working at home, but in Rec that's not the reality for 90% of them. This was an alternative that seemed to work for us.

Strongly agree that it's great to look at every pregame like it's another practice.

On the pure minutes per girl question, and if you get stuck without coaching help, you'd be better off buying a ton (I mean a ton) of whiffles and throwing to multiple girls at once. Put yourself in the middle and have them circle around you and maybe another coach with their bats. Throw them whiffles and just keep rotating and let them just keep swinging and swinging and hitting back to the "center". Stations are great but they really need to hit a pitched ball. They'll get a hundred whiffle swings in 20 minutes vs. 10 hard-ball swings in their seven minutes. A good trade-off. (And you'll get a good workout)

#7sDad said:

Many have already talked about stations. In addition to stations in practice for tee, wiffle, soft toss, etc) we approached game days more like a travel team and showed up an hour early instead of 15-30 minutes before game time. We used that hour like an extra practice and broke down into hitting stations while the others took some fielding. By the end of the season, they had 10 extra batting practices! My rationale to the parents was your night is already taken up with softball, why don't we use it! Some kids still showed up 30 minutes before game time, but we'd still manage to get them some bp.

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We got a lot of kids 'early' for weekend rec games by making it clear that the players there on time were going to bat first in the line up. We didn't do it in order they turned up (that is a mess), but if 5 girls were there an hour before the game ready to go, they were the first 5 in the lineup that game (in some random order). By mid-season we would normally have all but two there for first drill (after all it is still rec and sometimes you are looking at the parking lot just hoping player #9 is about to walk on).

BTW, we never did this on weeknight games because the games generally started at 6ish and it was unreasonable to expect everyone to be there for 5pm, but we were always available and out there for those that could.

I run a separate BP 1/wk at the local indoor cages. We do tee work and a tunnel/machine. Best part is while 1 group is on the tees and 1 girl is in the tunnel, the rest can go work the coin op cages until it's their turn. We don't yet have the pitching to do live BP unfortunately, but I'm working on getting the league more up to speed on that. This is 12U rec, and my rec league is very rec lol!