Wanted: A Better Strategy for Developing Young Pitchers

1) Kids need to practice to become a good pitcher.

A Solution: Educate parents and coaches about this requirement. You would be surprised about how many people have never been good at anything and hence have no idea about this requirement…

2) Young kids need room to grow, without fear of failure, in order to be a good pitcher

A Solution: Educate parents and coaches that W/L , ERA, WHIP, etc don’t mean sh*% at 10 YO

3) Kids need to learn to love to pitch to be a good pitcher.

A Solution: See 1 and 2 since being good is more fun than sucking and softball is a lot more fun at a young age without the pressure of performing.

4) A kid needs to have some ability to be a good pitcher.

A Solution: make softball more accessible to the masses (how many 6’ point guards in P5 basketball would make great softball players…)

5) Most pitchers need good instruction to be a good pitcher.

The Solution: read DFP

I had a 10U pitching student about three years ago. She was one of four I worked with who were on the same team, and her dad was the head coach. She struggled to get the ball over the plate, both in lessons and in games, but she never let it discourage her. One of the sunniest kids I've ever met. She was also one of the most curious, always asking great questions.

In games she was pretty much a disaster. Dad would pitch her and for that entire season she failed to make it through an entire inning before he had to pull her. (He would pitch the other girls more, but gave her chances here and there.) I'm pretty sure her grandfather, who would catch for those early lessons, couldn't understand why his daughter and her husband were wasting all those money on pitching lessons when the safest place to stand when she was pitching was on the plate.

This went on until her very last game of the travel ball season when she actually got three outs in an inning. Oh did we celebrate next time I saw her!

Funny thing is, that one successful inning turned out to be a turning point. By the fall, merely a few weeks later, she started mowing them down on a regular basis. She has turned out to be a go-to pitcher, the type you pitch against best opponents and the one you bring in when you absolutely need an out or two now.

None of that would have come to pass had she not been given the opportunity to stink it up at 10U.

Flood YouTube with videos on how to get your 8u pitchers started.
Hint: Just let them throw underhand. Put it on top of a drive. Encourage brush and posture. If fewer well meaning coaches introduced HE nonsense because it was the first thing that showed up on YouTube, training the natural motion out of them by having them do 50 wrist snaps every day, there would be fewer pitchers who couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.

I think live AB's in cages should be utilized way more. Especially for players at this age.

You could have 2(or more!) cages going and have 2 games worth of pitching and hitting and catching in an hour or 2 for a group of 10-20 players.

pattar said:

1) Kids need to practice to become a good pitcher.

A Solution: Educate parents and coaches about this requirement. You would be surprised about how many people have never been good at anything and hence have no idea about this requirement…

2) Young kids need room to grow, without fear of failure, in order to be a good pitcher

A Solution: Educate parents and coaches that W/L , ERA, WHIP, etc don’t mean sh*% at 10 YO

3) Kids need to learn to love to pitch to be a good pitcher.

A Solution: See 1 and 2 since being good is more fun than sucking and softball is a lot more fun at a young age without the pressure of performing.

4) A kid needs to have some ability to be a good pitcher.

A Solution: make softball more accessible to the masses (how many 6’ point guards in P5 basketball would make great softball players…)

5) Most pitchers need good instruction to be a good pitcher.

The Solution: read DFP

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This. This. And this.

If DD played for those that believe in the “if you can’t throw strikes at 8u/10u” she wouldn’t be pitching today in 14u. So I have a hard time agreeing with that way of thinking.

The rule change suggestions aren’t for the pitchers. It’s for the coaches and parents who don’t have the patience to let pitchers develop.

I did like the point about expanding the strike zone vertically as it benefits both pitchers and hitters. As it encourages more action with less risk. Both will find that strike zone can exist in TB anyways…….

DD played 10u as modified pitch. It seemed like a nice middle ground where pitchers felt less pressure to throw strikes, but it wasn’t a total walk fest. Who cares if coach throws a meatball for the hitter? More contact for the hitters. And more balls in play for the defense.

HunterMO said:

This. This. And this.

If DD played for those that believe in the “if you can’t throw strikes at 8u/10u” she wouldn’t be pitching today in 14u. So I have a hard time agreeing with that way of thinking.

The rule change suggestions aren’t for the pitchers. It’s for the coaches and parents who don’t have the patience to let pitchers develop.

I did like the point about expanding the strike zone vertically as it benefits both pitchers and hitters. As it encourages more action with less risk. Both will find that strike zone can exist in TB anyways…….

DD played 10u as modified pitch. It seemed like a nice middle ground where pitchers felt less pressure to throw strikes, but it wasn’t a total walk fest. Who cares if coach throws a meatball for the hitter? More contact for the hitters. And more balls in play for the defense.

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Glad I could fulfill my one good post per year quota early in the year. I can go back to making useless comments now (like this one..)

Bonesaw said:

I think live AB's in cages should be utilized way more. Especially for players at this age.

You could have 2(or more!) cages going and have 2 games worth of pitching and hitting and catching in an hour or 2 for a group of 10-20 players.

Click to expand...

I don’t know how I feel about this. I know the parents of non pitchers usually love this idea.

I did not like my dd throwing in a poorly lit indoor cage against good hitters at a young age. I always felt like it was tough to defend yourself in that environment. The parents of the other pitchers felt the same way. I think the pitchers themselves did too.

I also note with interest who liked your post and I respect their opinion.

I did a lot of things wrong as the parent of a pitchers who had potential. So did all those other parents on the teams we were on in 10’s, 12’s and 14’s. Maybe this was one of them.

I‘ll be honest about this too- it chaffed my @$$ that parents of non-pitchers wanted my kid to throw all weekend, go to at least one lesson, practice outside of practice AND THEN throw to their kid in practice too.

Westwind said:

I don’t know how I feel about this. I know the parents of non pitchers usually love this idea.

I did not like my dd throwing in a poorly lit indoor cage against good hitters at a young age. I always felt like it was tough to defend yourself in that environment. The parents of the other pitchers felt the same way. I think the pitchers themselves did too.

I also note with interest who liked your post and I respect their opinion.

I did a lot of things wrong as the parent of a pitchers who had potential. So did all those other parents on the teams we were on in 10’s, 12’s and 14’s. Maybe this was one of them.

I‘ll be honest about this too- it chaffed my @$$ that parents of non-pitchers wanted my kid to throw all weekend, go to at least one lesson, practice at practice AND THEN throw to their kid in practice too when their kid went one hitting lesson per week and called it good enough.

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As a parent of a non-pitcher I love it (well except in 10U where there was one kid who threw pretty hard but was wild and she ended up hitting Marcela 3 or 4 times in one round..lol) but yeah I can understand the issue for pitchers. Safety issue aside (and this is certainly an issue), what I would say that if you know you are going to throw live BP you would modify your work at home to take that into account. From what Marcela has told me, DD's team has the pitchers throw to 3 or 4 batters per week during the season. Probably about 30 to 40 pitches total.

My experience with this comes from a bozo Grandpa coach who sprung it on the players at practice. He had another bozo dad coach in his ear- and it was poorly planned. His plan was hitter oriented not pitcher oriented.

Also facilities are generally better now…. Better lights, better turf. Probably makes a difference.

We played in a dome a lot in the winter, the place had bad lights and the better 14’s and 16’s had a lot of pitchers taken out by line drives to masks and shots to their knees. It was just harder to see the ball come off the bat.

I guess I’m just saying I wasn’t comfortable with the situation dd was thrown into. A more experienced coach with an actual plan that is communicated in advance could make it work.

Westwind said:

My experience with this comes from a bozo Grandpa coach who sprung it on the players at practice. He had another bozo dad coach in his ear- and it was poorly planned. His plan was hitter oriented not pitcher oriented.

Also facilities are generally better now…. Better lights, better turf. Probably makes a difference.

We played in a dome a lot in the winter, the place had bad lights and the better 14’s and 16’s had a lot of pitchers taken out by line drives to masks and shots to their knees. It was just harder to see the ball come off the bat.

I guess I’m just saying I wasn’t comfortable with the situation dd was thrown into. A more experienced coach with an actual plan that is communicated in advance could make it work.

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Yeah when it is warm enough, they hit indoors for one practice a week (and are outside on a field for 1 or 2 days depending on whether they are playing a tournament) and the pitchers throw to the batters the day they are hitting.