Outfielder pet peeve.....

I have been watching A LOT of college softball lately, if you do not believe me, just ask my DW! Anyway, I cannot tell you how many times I have seen outfielders use poor footwork when making routine catches of fly balls with a runner tagging at 3B. Outfielders need to get behind the ball and have their momentum coming forward to make a strong throw home to have any shot at the runner (unless the OF has a cannon for an arm). Anyway, it is something that we have been teaching our players since 12U, yet I see the same things happening at the highest levels of college softball.

Rant over....

I am working with a player now. She is a SS for her high school team, but has been recruited to play outfield in college. She has played travel ball for 7 years but has played SS for all of it. She tells me that her coaches never even worked with her on outfield basics. All she has ever done is play SS (3rd base for 1 game in 7 years). She has been a hitting student of mine for approximately 18 months, but we are also adding outfield to her studies.

Many collegiate OF's were indeed SS's in their prior life. My dd's college Outfield consists of 5 TB/HS infielders and 1 outfielder.

We teach our outfielders to run in as hard as they can, then jump in the air as high as they can with their glove fully extened.

quincy said:

We teach our outfielders to run in as hard as they can, then jump in the air as high as they can with their glove fully extened.

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I have seen many your students. They follow your teachings very well.

Lenski said:

Many collegiate OF's were indeed SS's in their prior life. My dd's college Outfield consists of 5 TB/HS infielders and 1 outfielder.

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It is never too late to learn!

FP26 beat me to it. They're a bunch of converted SS.

It is a shame, really. I know colleges like to recruit SS and turned them into everything else but there are some really good outfielders playing in the higher travel ball ranks. Really, really good.

At the HS level, I have been working on this all year. To be honest, I am losing my patience some. There is some type of gear missing in a lot of players when they get into the OF. It kills me to watch a player cruise to a ball instead of sprinting to where the ball will be and getting there before it gets there. It kills me to see OFs catch a ball on their glove side, take to many steps and then throw some ball with half of the zip it requires to throw the runner out.

Ummmmm...I would say something but would get yelled at

But I do agree...watching some games just makes me wonder

Cannonball said:

At the HS level, I have been working on this all year. To be honest, I am losing my patience some. There is some type of gear missing in a lot of players when they get into the OF. It kills me to watch a player cruise to a ball instead of sprinting to where the ball will be and getting there before it gets there. It kills me to see OFs catch a ball on their glove side, take to many steps and then throw some ball with half of the zip it requires to throw the runner out.

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and then on top of all that if the ball is not hit to them or is hit in the infield or is being thrown around the infield you look up and 3 seconds later they have not moved one inch...is it that hard to back up a player take an angle to where an overthrow might go or just take 10 step up so you are in position to offer some kind of help if needed