Coach pitch for 10u

Our rec league plays a modified kid pitch "finish the count". If its 3-2 and she throws another ball the coach comes in and has 1 pitch to throw, kid has to swing. We like it because at 10u rec (especially in the fall) you could easily walk in the innings run limit without a fielder even seeing a ball. It keeps the game moving a little and keeps the girls interest.

I've sat through 8u and 10u games where we would give up 13 runs on 0 hits. Like riseball said, it doesn't really benefit anyone (except marginally, maybe the pitcher). The batters don't swing. The fielders don't field. After a couple years of watching kids making sandcastles in the infield, they usually quit by 12U because it's so boring.

In our rec league...
8U - kid pitch the first inning w/ coach pitch after 4 balls..
10U - all kid pitch
When DD#1 played one season of SB, she started in 10U and it was the most boring season ever. Lots of walks. Though you'd come across the team that had a really good pitcher who struck out everyone.
DD#2 (the one who still plays) was still in 8U at the time and it was much more exciting.
When DD#2 got to 10U, it was much better - probably because we had some good pitchers. Lots more action and it wasn't a walk-fest.
Watching 10U now (DD#2 is in 12U), there are still the teams that can barely get it over the plate. I can imagine the good pitchers move on to TB and then you're just trying to get anyone who has interest in pitching at all..

riseball said:

If a kid can throw chuck a baseball overhand they can learn to pitch a baseball in short order.

Click to expand...

You're overstating it quite a bit. It's certainly easier to learn to pitch in baseball for this reason, but it's still not easy for 10 year olds to throw strikes consistently.

For LL baseball we has a minors and a majors for 10 - 12. All the 10 year olds in majors could throw strikes, minors could be a struggle even with the 12 year olds. Pitching limits made it even harder as coach.

I think I'm OK with 10U being a transition year. The walk fests are painful to watch and for that reason I would probably use 10U as the year to go half season with some kind of modified rules with coach pitching and last half kid pitch only for a rec league. If you let them have say two walks an inning before start coach pitch you might even have many pitchers never using the coach.

Baseball talk is completely irrelevant, if girls could pitch the softball overhand you would have half the team pitching just like the boys do.

riseball said:

The harsh reality is that very little before 14U makes a bit of difference in the long term development of pitchers. IMO developing pitchers at 8U-10U is simply not necessary and a waste of time for all but those in the circle. You are developing players at one position at the expense of the other 8 players on the field. 8U-10U players would be much better served if they learned to hit, field, and throw properly. Skills that are sorely lacking at all ages and all locations all the way through 18U. This is painfully evident even in the alleged softball center of the universe in Southern California. If it were up to me it would be machine pitch up to 12U and then start developing pitchers. The end result would be significantly better overall hitting, fielding, throwing, and pitching at 14U-18U. Instead of developing 8U and 10U pitchers with crap mechanics just to indulge the few it is better to defer these activities until they are a bit older and better suited to learn proper mechanics. You know that skippie HS pitcher that never gets called for an IP? Most if not all picked up those poor mechanics learning to throw screwballs at 8U-10U.

Click to expand...

90% of hitting and fielding are developed, for the most part, outside of a game setting IMO. As a matter of fact, I would say in general 75% of developing is probably outside of a team setting. Now the instruction may come from the team practices, but in general one cannot rely on a team setting to get in the necessary reps at the younger ages where practices may only be 2 to 3 times a week at most. I can work with my DD for an hour and hit her 100 ground balls and throw 75-100 front tosses to her. In a 1.5 hour practice with her team, she may get 25 ground balls and 25 swings. In a game she may only get to swing twice and get 1 ground ball. While in machine pitch fielders do get more work in the games, the hitters don't really develop any additional skills that they cannot get outside of a game due to nature of machine pitching (pitch recognition,etc). All of this to say, I don't mind machine pitch at the 8U age, but after that I think they should go with kid pitch only.

Also, unless you are saying that 10U kids don't have the physical or mental capacity to properly pitch, fixing the pitching instruction issues you mentioned is separate problem which won't go away when they get older. Most kids who pitch here in OK go to instructors and do not rely on their coaches, many former "baseball players", for pitching instruction. Of course I do not know enough about pitching
to gauge how good this instruction is and my DD is not a pitcher so I haven't worried about it much

Snotbubbles said:

I've sat through 8u and 10u games where we would give up 13 runs on 0 hits. Like riseball said, it doesn't really benefit anyone (except marginally, maybe the pitcher). The batters don't swing. The fielders don't field. After a couple years of watching kids making sandcastles in the infield, they usually quit by 12U because it's so boring.

Click to expand...

I see this mostly with 1st year 10U, e.g. 9U. By the time they are second years most at least can throw strikes from what I have seen. This is for TB at least. Rec may be different. Those walk fests are boring as heck though...

mikfish711 said:

Our rec league plays a modified kid pitch "finish the count". If its 3-2 and she throws another ball the coach comes in and has 1 pitch to throw, kid has to swing. We like it because at 10u rec (especially in the fall) you could easily walk in the innings run limit without a fielder even seeing a ball. It keeps the game moving a little and keeps the girls interest.

Click to expand...

When the coach pitches, how do they throw it? Windmill? Just underhand? How fast is it? While this may make the game a bit more exciting and will get the fielders some work, it probably isn't helping the hitters much at all. To give them
some marginal benefit, imo, you would have to set up a screen from 20 feet and have the coach throw windmill to them.

Rec parents always ask me...I don't really have much time but want to help what should we do...my number one answer is always play catch with your kid. The thing is kids just don't get out like we use to when I grew up, I remember my brother and I playing catch in our big back yard by 9 or 10 we must have thrown and caught tens of thousands of grounders and pop flies and could not drop a ball thrown within our reach if we wanted to it was just instinct to catch it.

Funny thing is it probably would not hurt most girls to just play in a quality LL baseball program through 12U (blasphemy I know). I had one girl play rec 14U with me for one year who had never played softball before, her dad wanted her to play for the HS varsity softball program her Freshman year and figured she should at least have played the game before trying out. She had only played baseball with her brothers previously in LL that way dad (who coached) did not have to split his time between kids, so we talked he trusted me enough and off we went. She was easily one of the best players on the team and did make Varsity as a freshman (but that's another story).

As much as I want girls to pitch the 10U rec walk fests I endured are nightmares seared in my mind that I try so hard to forget....thanks to this thread for drudging them up.