8u batting cage ball size question

[PerpetualBeginner]

Hello everyone, I was wondering if it was ok for our 8u girls to hit off of a tee and soft toss using 12" balls. 8u is 10", but we don't really have any strong batters. I'm wondering if hitting a bigger target would be of any benefit or detriment. Thanks!

 

[Dabears17]

I've seen a couple of times that girls do better-hitting baseballs or tennis balls. Not sure if it is the smaller ball that makes them focus more. That is why in 8u I've done a fun practice hitting small objects. At one point, a friend had a pitching machine that threw golf ball-sized whiffle balls, but it was usually a little too windy.

In 8u if you want to try larger balls, I suggest using 12" lite flight balls.

edit: Getting old, the small objects they hit for fun were marshmallows.

 

[The Man In Blue]

Do not use tees with 8u. They need (and do better with) the practice of tracking the ball. Many years ago, we launched a tee ball program from scratch for our community rec league. Two days into it, the coaches came back and asked if they had to use the tees because the kids (co-ed) were doing better without them. We gave our blessings and our thanks for the quick feedback.

As for the rest of the question . . . use whatever ball you want, just make sure you keep your 8u players in cages. Otherwise they wander off to the playground, the concession stand, chasing the dog that ran by, chewing on tires of cars in the parking lot . . . they are animals. Keep them caged.

 

[PerpetualBeginner]

Do not use tees with 8u. They need (and do better with) the practice of tracking the ball. Many years ago, we launched a tee ball program from scratch for our community rec league. Two days into it, the coaches came back and asked if they had to use the tees because the kids (co-ed) were doing better without them. We gave our blessings and our thanks for the quick feedback.

As for the rest of the question . . . use whatever ball you want, just make sure you keep your 8u players in cages. Otherwise they wander off to the playground, the concession stand, chasing the dog that ran by, chewing on tires of cars in the parking lot . . . they are animals. Keep them caged.

I think we need some tee work because none of the girls on our team have proper swing mechanics. We plan to make sure they swing correctly off the tee then do soft toss. I do agree that tracking the ball coming towards them is better, but the girls on our team barely made any contact during our assessments.

 

[dogpatch]

You should use the same size balls your league uses for games if possible. I'm not sure why anyone would recommend against using tees. The best approach to teaching hitting is to mix the use of all the aids and drills you have available. Tee drills are excellent, as are soft toss, front toss, and any other creative approaches to hitting drills that you can come up with. The biggest challenge in 8U is attention span. Varied approaches can help with that.

 

[The Man In Blue]

I think we need some tee work because none of the girls on our team have proper swing mechanics.

. . . and that is why I typically avoid 8u conversations.

The only mechanics you should be worried about at that point is how to put them in the proper order at the concession stand and when buying ice cream. They learn through that repetition and rewards that actually matter when you are six and seven years old. (Then you can use that same line up order for your batting order and they will remember.)

Sure, if you only care about programming a cookie-cutter "perfect" swing, use tees with them. The swing is beautiful, but they can't find the ball. Tees only make kids that age self-conscious and frustrated. If you want them to hit the ball, you need to let them figure that skill out first with tosses. Once they have that, then you can work with them in small increments on "proper mechanics" (and I use that term loosely) by using a tee.

 

[stox]

I love tee work, because I can really drill down into the details of my daughters swing, but we are investing several days a week to hitting and improving swing mechanics.

But if you're given an new 8u player that only does team practice once a week and will play on game days, how do you allocate hitting reps to give her the best chance to avoid a strike out on game day.

50/50 Tee and Front toss?
More front toss?
More tee?

I do think tee is great but maybe just more "see ball hit ball" reps go further when we're talking a very limited number of reps (say
Sent from my SM-S906U using Tapatalk

 

[earlg3]

Not to disparage tee work, but new kids playing in 8u have a hard time remembering/focusing on tracking the ball coming in with their eyes and not staring at the coach pitching, so there is extra value in them getting reps watching a moving ball.

 

[PerpetualBeginner]

. . . and that is why I typically avoid 8u conversations.

The only mechanics you should be worried about at that point is how to put them in the proper order at the concession stand and when buying ice cream. They learn through that repetition and rewards that actually matter when you are six and seven years old. (Then you can use that same line up order for your batting order and they will remember.)

Sure, if you only care about programming a cookie-cutter "perfect" swing, use tees with them. The swing is beautiful, but they can't find the ball. Tees only make kids that age self-conscious and frustrated. If you want them to hit the ball, you need to let them figure that skill out first with tosses. Once they have that, then you can work with them in small increments on "proper mechanics" (and I use that term loosely) by using a tee.

I think there might be a little misunderstanding, probably my fault, but I mentioned tees because we're going to be rained out and in a single cage for toss and a tee station. We aren't going to be practicing like this normally. We plan to have some girls on the tee and others being tossed balls then they'll rotate.

When I say mechanics, I'm not expecting a "beautiful" swing as you mentioned, but we have girls that don't swing properly. We planned to show them how to swing on the tee and rotate girls into moving balls. I completely agree that a moving ball is better, but given the cage we're going to, there's no way we can just have them all in one line waiting.

In any case, if you mean don't do tee at all at the cages, how many balls per batter should we do? Should we just forget about correcting them and just let them swing? We have an hour for the rental and 11 girls.

 

[PerpetualBeginner]

Not to disparage tee work, but new kids playing in 8u have a hard time remembering/focusing on tracking the ball coming in with their eyes and not staring at the coach pitching, so there is extra value in them getting reps watching a moving ball.

I love tee work, because I can really drill down into the details of my daughters swing, but we are investing several days a week to hitting and improving swing mechanics.

But if you're given an new 8u player that only does team practice once a week and will play on game days, how do you allocate hitting reps to give her the best chance to avoid a strike out on game day.

50/50 Tee and Front toss?
More front toss?
More tee?

I do think tee is great but maybe just more "see ball hit ball" reps go further when we're talking a very limited number of reps (say
Sent from my SM-S906U using Tapatalk

Yeah I should've mentioned, we're only going to the cage due to rain and the setup isn't very large. We have a tee station and just enough space to toss them the ball. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I would think it would be beneficial to have some of the girls on the tee and some on live toss then rotate instead of just one long line of girls waiting to hit a ball tossed to them. There's no real way to have 2 live toss areas unfortunately.