out of line, or helpful

DD is playing 10u LL All Stars. I was an AC for reg season on one of our teams, was a HC for four seasons prior. I have done my very best to not try and coach even my DD during his practices, just cheer and encourage all the girls, and generic sideline coaching (watch the ball hit your bat, keep you eye on it, and my favorite, get angry at the ball)

they played first AS game last night, lost 8-6. they got blanked first two innings, came alive on offense the last couple. teams are pretty evenly matched defensively I think, looks like their pitching is a little better, and they got their bats going early. The pitching we faced was not that fast, but girls were timid first few innings for most part at the plate.

My question is, do I suggest during pregame he have most of the girls move back a bit in the box towards catcher? most have front foot well in front of plate (about 6-12 inches). I am just thinking the tiny bit of extra time to see the ball might help them.

i do not want to try to or be seen as interfering, he and his ACs are doing good job with the team. I just know when you are running a team, you cannot possibly be on top of everything all the time, and this is the one consistent thing I have noticed. they are missing probably the best all around player (family vacation, who schedules vacation for July?), but they have a real chance, but have to win two in a row now (district is only two teams, we are playing best of three to decide district).

If you aren't coaching in any capacity I would save your comments for your daughter when you are practicing alone with her. I am not a fan of moving batters around in the box but there is something to be said for assuming the correct position in the batters box.

Hitting is timing so you want to adjust that timing (and not by moving forwards and backwards in the batters box). Moving up in the box in general is frowned upon (the catcher will move up with you).

bmakj said:

My question is, do I suggest during pregame he have most of the girls move back a bit in the box towards catcher?

Click to expand...

No.

Leave it to the coaches, IMO. Same for ''generic sideline coaching.'' Coaches coach. Parents encourage/support. Players play.

I am a no. I don't teach that, so it would be considered interfering.

Not helpful at all. I teach neutral, roughly even with the plate. The one summer I was HC of the 8u All-Star team one of my better hitters got into a slump. The cause, my dugout mom was moving her back in the box from one end of the dugout while I was trying to move her back to the neutral from the other side of the dugout.... and confusing the heck out of the poor 8 year old. Unfortunately, I didn't figure out the cause until the last tournament.

I am with the no crowd as well. I coach my daughter in 10U rec but she also plays 12U travel which i am just a parent for. I don't say a thing at travel even if i know it is wrong, it's not my place since i am not part of the staff.

Just work with your DD. Too many coaches these days think they know a lot more than they do an get offended by outside influences...

kept my big trap shut. we lost 13-3 (mercy ruled in 4). This was not primary cause of loss, lots of little things adding up, and some bad luck (line drive with R1, caught by 1B for DP; fly ball falling in between P/SS/3B, R1 gets thrown out at 2B (had to wait to see if it would be caught); and one inning in particular, team threw ball around a lot, and C dropped a couple throws that would have been outs at the plate; all this rattled our already fragile pitching staff, and they could not find plate for most of rest of game (we used three different pitchers in 4 innings, no one pitched more than 2 innings).

as for I generally like nuetral as well (I generally have DD put front even even with front edge of plate), unless the girls is throwing real heat. problem was our girls faced very little pitching this fast during reg season, and just not used to it (I think most of their pitching played up at 12u, so we did not see them all year). almost all were consistently late. since it was elimination game, my thinking would be give my hitters any advantage possible to increase offense for that one game. All stars / tournament is not the place to be teaching really, just trying to find little edges to help team win.

All in all proud of the team thought, Manager was iffy about actually playing AS, felt we did not have talent to compete. For next level after districts, we certainly would have been crushed bad (we scrimmaged a couple of teams outside our district, and got crushed). but only two teams from our district entered (including us), so I think it was good overall experience (lost first game to them 8-6, got down 8-2 early, girls rallied hard). I do not think we were entirely outclassed, I think size of girls on other team got them spooked a little. Glad it was decided to do it.