Advice on More Structured Practice

DD is 13, 3rd string pitcher on a 16UB travel team. She has been in consistent lessons for 1.5 years. I am happy with her PC but she’s not very disciplined when it comes to practicing on her own. Her travel coach and PC have both told her she needs to pitch 300 balls/week and she has a couple of drills to perform. Outside of actual lessons though, she is undisciplined in her practice, merely throwing random pitches. I’m looking for advice on a structured practice; what is your progression through the practice, and examples of drills you use? She has a good basic warm-up that is similar to what others use on this board, but how many repetitions do you use of a particular drill? She is also very inconsistent with pitch placement, often throwing into the ground, then over-correcting and pitching it 10 feet in the air. She says that when that happens, it’s because she’s trying to place the pitch instead of just throwing.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Location is hard when you don't practice.

If she wants to be a pitcher, she'll practice. I nudge mine -"Hey kid, wanna go pitch?" -but ultimately it's up to her (and mine is only 9). If she doesn't want to practice, that's her choice. If she consistently chose not to practice we'd drop lessons though. I'm not willing to pay $140 a month if she's not going to apply herself.

Mine hasn't even been pitching a year yet so I don't know if what we do would be useful but I try to keep it fun. Sometimes we go through our team's lineup, and she analyzes how each of them swings and what the best pitches to throw would be. Or I make up a team she's throwing against. She loves games so one I plan to start once we really get back into full practice (we took a break for about a month and are easing back in) is having her knock various sized balls off the tee starting with something large and getting down to a tennis ball or ping pong ball. I think she'll enjoy that challenge. By the time she's 13, though, I really hope I'll be on the sidelines drinking coffee while she works with her catcher. lol

This is just what we do:

Off-season is a great time to work on improving mechanics. If there's something specific she needs to improve...we focus on it. So typically those workouts will start with some drills. If there's nothing major of concern, then we work on her pitches. We mix it up. Typically always run through 10-15 of each. Then we'll either break out the target and work on very specific locations, or we'll pitch a few innings. We'll also mix in some velocity work where location means nothing...just how fast she can throw. During the season, we do a lot more inning workouts. Still warm up by going through the pitches, but then we go through innings with scenarios. A great way to mix in hitting and keep the inning workouts "game-like" is after every inning, we'll break out the tee and take 20-25 swings, then after the next inning we'll do some soft toss or front toss with TCB's etc.

I think some sort of structure is good, but at the same time, keep it fresh. And as grcsfbll stated, if she wasn't putting the time in, I wouldn't be paying for lessons. At the very least, you should expect 2-3 days per week outside of lessons. And if she's really serious about it, she should be doing some sort of physical training. Check out the Drive Mechanics Sticky... Javasource has a ton of great workout ideas in there.

Shelbylynn said:

DD is 13, 3rd string pitcher on a 16UB travel team. She has been in consistent lessons for 1.5 years. I am happy with her PC but she’s not very disciplined when it comes to practicing on her own. Her travel coach and PC have both told her she needs to pitch 300 balls/week and she has a couple of drills to perform. Outside of actual lessons though, she is undisciplined in her practice, merely throwing random pitches. I’m looking for advice on a structured practice; what is your progression through the practice, and examples of drills you use? She has a good basic warm-up that is similar to what others use on this board, but how many repetitions do you use of a particular drill? She is also very inconsistent with pitch placement, often throwing into the ground, then over-correcting and pitching it 10 feet in the air. She says that when that happens, it’s because she’s trying to place the pitch instead of just throwing.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

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I do not think it is a question of structure but desire. If the objective is to get better, much better and pitch at a high level the level of desire needs to border on obsession. Becoming an elite level pitcher is not a casual endeavor. If she were my DD or student we would have a heart to heart chat on where she wants to go with this. No right or wrong answer. If she wants to be the #3 on a 16UB team then what she is doing is what got her there and it is where she will most likely remain. However, if she wants to be the #1 in a 16A she needs to step up her work ethnic. Once the two of you get on the same page then figure out what it will take to get her where she wants to go.

Here was my DD's schedule:

1) She practiced 4 to 5 times a week all year, except for part of November and December.
2) Each practice would consist of warm up overhand and then warm up underhand. The underhand warm up was simply her playing pitch and catch underhanded. (It amazes me how few pitchers can do this.)
3) We would then work on either (1) control, (2) speed or (3) movement, depending upon what was needed.
4) We would end up with work on control. So, the basic drill was "quardrant" work...she would have to pitch high-inside, high outside, low inside, low outside. We would eventually get to random locations.
5) We would end with a game such as "how many strikes can you throw in a row".

Total practice time was between 60 and 90 minutes. She probably threw 150 to 200 pitches each practice, with another 50 or so underhand drills.

It was work. She would often be soaked with sweat at the end.

he is also very inconsistent with pitch placement, often throwing into the ground, then over-correcting and pitching it 10 feet in the air. She says that when that happens, it’s because she’s trying to place the pitch instead of just throwing.

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No wonder the kid is having problems...what the heck does "place the pitch" mean? What does "just throwing" mean? Those statement are meaningless crap you hear out at the ball park. Monica Abbott does try to "place her pitch"?

The reason for her problem is that she doesn't know how to move the ball around.

The more quadrant work she does, the better she'll get.

After warm-ups we do about 30-50 throws focusing on speed and location, using radar, or revfire device, to get her competitive juices going.
Then it is some kind of drill to work on whatever aspect we want to focus on. Whether is power for the lower half(long toss, straps etc), underloading/overloading or an element of the motion that need special attention. Finish up with some speed readings if we think the drills awakened something or do game scenarios for location/accuracy.

We keep a consistent process but mix it up with the drills. Some drills she loves, like long toss. Some not so much, like straps.

sluggers said:

...what the heck does "place the pitch" mean? What does "just throwing" mean?

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In the context of her post, placing a pitch sounds like she is aiming, or trying to guide the ball. Kids who don't practice good form enough tend to do this. I like the cue of whipping to a spot, making adjustments, along with lots of reps to gain control.

My point was that the advice, "don't place the pitch, just throw it" is not helpful. It doesn't give the pitcher any specifics. It is a bunch of words glued together that sound meaningful to a newbie, but really have no meaning.

Don't place the pitch? I thought that was the whole point of pitching...putting the ball in a specific location. Just throw it? The pitcher is, by definition, throwing the ball. It is all a bunch of nonsense. The poor kid is now parroting back useless advice.

On the other hand, "whip to a spot" is a great description. It is a specific physical action that a kid can do. For clarity, does "spot" refer to the plate or a place where the hand is supposed to end after a proper follow through?

It is always great to learn a new way to teach something.

Thank you!

Spot--like in the quadrant drill you recommended. So many kids try to guide the ball instead of trusting the whip. Whip feels out of control at first and kids who don't practice whipping to a quadrant (or spot,) tend to aim or guide the ball.

If the OP's DD used even half of your suggested routine--using good form and trusting her mechanics to work for her--she'd be a much better pitcher. The other issue is her lack of motivation and desire to be great. You and riseball are blessed with DD's who understand that the work never ends. Never. Hopefully this girl finds that work is fun and that hard work is even better!