How to evaluate a non-catcher catching?

So here's my conundrum:

We are doing evals for my 12U and 14U divisions this season. First round of the draft will be any girl who shows even a little talent at pitching. 2nd round will be catchers - I hope. What I need is some way to evaluate something catcher-ish without requiring a girl to gear up.

My first thought was very simple: have them get into a receiving stance, soft-toss a ball and have them pop and throw down to 2B.

Beyond judging whether they're comfortable doing that, what else can I do?

Throwing out runners is (maybe) #3 on the list of priorities for a catcher. Being able to catch the ball, from a real pitcher, with a batter in the box is priority #1. If you can't create some sort of reasonable facsimile of that situation, you aren't going to be able to make much of a determination of their abilities (IMO).

They should not have to gear up, their face mask is fine to see how they receive the ball.

I would let anyone who is going to pitch and catch hit first then just have them gear up. It's just not that big a deal. Plus you should not have any pitchers throwing full speed from the mound without warming up.

Catchers hit first, gear up, pitchers hit then start rotating in doing warm up drills, then as they go to live pitching rotate catchers through. You are there for a couple hours anyway a few extra minutes is not going to hurt anyone.

Assuming we are talking about no more than 10 girls per age group, otherwise might take a while

Few years ago coach assigned DD a catcher. Everything was looking good until the first real game, with a batter swinging, etc. DD did strike out 17 batters in 4 innings though.

Pretty sure the C was closing her eyes, it got better when we knew what to practice.

(Yelling don't close your eyes is every bit as affective as just throw strikes)

A story to help answer your question.

I had a cool experience in a very similar situation some years back. 12u rec team through a local YMCA and I ended up with no catcher. The other team in our age group wouldn't share one of their three. I was really stuck. One of the girls on the team said she wanted to be a catcher. She had never played before. I talked to her dad, who was also AC for me. Told him I was really hesitant to put her at catcher because 1) she couldn't get the ball to 2nd, and 2) there's so much for a catcher to keep up with that I was concerned she would be in a position to fail. One of my big things is give every could their best chance to feel successful. At the second practice, she approached me again wanting to catch. I told her that when she could throw the ball to 2nd I would give her a chance. I didn't think she'd be able to accomplish that till maybe the end of the season. Joke was on me! The very next practice, she was there before me with her dad... and she was throwing the ball to second over and over and over. It was pretty much a big rainbow, but it was getting there. When I walked up she didn't say anything; she just smiled from ear to ear. I was so proud of her. She was the only catcher we had all year. She wasn't great... wasn't near average, but she never lost her enthusiasm and the other players looked up to her.

All that to say this:

1. Can she catch the ball?
2. Can she throw to second?
3. Does she have enough heart to work and grow?

If they've got these three, teach them.

Not sure #3 should be last one on the list.

We moved away that summer. I know she made her middle school team that fall, but I don't know anything after. She remains an inspiration to me.

In 8u, I had all the players on my team get down in a catchers position and tossed juggs lite flite balls at them to see who had decent reflexes. I told my team I considered catcher the most important position and had every girl catch an inning or two over the season. The ones with the best reflexes got more innings.

I would at least bring a couple catcher's masks and maybe chest protectors.

What I did for our catcher's evals in 10u-14u this season was:

Asked them on a scale of 1-10 what their desire to catch was. I got a couple 11's and one 20.
3-4 pitches to see if they used the A,B,C receiving position or had any natural instincts to do that.
3-4 bad pitches to see if they had any instincts or training to block correctly.
3 pitches to evaluate their throwing motion down to 2nd.

Eric F said:

Throwing out runners is (maybe) #3 on the list of priorities for a catcher. Being able to catch the ball, from a real pitcher, with a batter in the box is priority #1. If you can't create some sort of reasonable facsimile of that situation, you aren't going to be able to make much of a determination of their abilities (IMO).

Click to expand...

djcarter1966 said:

I would let anyone who is going to pitch and catch hit first then just have them gear up. It's just not that big a deal. Plus you should not have any pitchers throwing full speed from the mound without warming up.

Catchers hit first, gear up, pitchers hit then start rotating in doing warm up drills, then as they go to live pitching rotate catchers through. You are there for a couple hours anyway a few extra minutes is not going to hurt anyone.

Assuming we are talking about no more than 10 girls per age group, otherwise might take a while

Click to expand...

Sorry, should have been more clear (besides, I thought you guys knew this already):

It's a rec league with terrible pitching and catching. Most parents won't fess up to DD doing either for fear of being placed on a team where they (the parents) can't get cliquish with each other, so I can't simply ask during registration and get an honest answer (though I will ask anyway - I did last season and got decent response amidst the accusations of holding tryouts, which we didn't and haven't ever done). Therefore, ALL girls will be asked to pitch, but not full out probably as we're looking to develop talent. We'd be on the lookout for even a little affinity. And ALL girls will be asked to perform some sort of catcher drills (just thought of using tennis balls with the mask on to look at receiving- NECC comes through again).

There will be in the neighborhood of 150-200 girls being evaluated at 12U and 15U (I hope, I'm making some big changes and it might scare parents away). There's no way we get through that many girls having to gear up, and we really do need to evaluate all of them in order to have a large enough pool on draft day.

We're looking to determine potential, not ability at this point.

I didn't understand the magnitude of the group you are evaluating. We always narrowed the field down by only evaluating those who were interested in playing the position. Invariably, there would be others who ended up behind the plate at some point in the season, but that was between them and their coaches.

Good luck!

Honestly, I would just do normal fielding evaluations, and then ask the girls to raise their hands if they also have any interest in catching.
If they're struggling at normal fielding and throwing, they'll definitely struggle behind the plate. If they're good at fielding and throwing, and they're interested in catching, then the coaches have a much better chance to work with them, and teach them to catch.