Coach defensive responsibilities...

[JaC]

I coach a team of 8 to 10 year old girls, some who have never played. I'm working on teaching them coverage and backing up. There's so many nuances to this as you all know. For those who have been coaching awhile, where would you start? How would you break it down so they can understand and not get confused?

 

[CoachCeetar]

Coach defensive responsibilities start and end at Matrix like moves to avoid comebackers in coach pitch games. (yes, I recently fell on my rear doing this)



imo, it starts with just explaining a force vs non force, and what the runners are even trying to do. Reinforcing even basic coverage before worrying about backup. Our rules are ball is dead back to the pitcher, so there's a lot of "If you don't know how to get an out, get it back to the pitcher" and "If you've just made a play, get it back to the pitcher". But in general, I find so few of them even really understand that they're starting a journey around the bases with the intent to get home and score a run, and how much each base in that journey matters. They know they're supposed to get the easy out at first, or whatever we tell them, but the broader picture? no so much.

Then I tell them to think about what they can do when they're NOT involved in the play. Are you a center fielder with a runner on first who's not involved in the soft grounder? What happens if the pitcher throws to second and the fielder misses it? Bring up plays that happened where the ball was just rolling around/away from fielders (on either team) and emphasize how much more bases the offense got out of that, and then ask/suggest who could've prevented that by backing up.

Once you can tell kids get it, you can be a little more granular about it.

 

[Gags]

The 3 B’s - ball, base, backup

Moving on every play - there’s almost no type of play where each player doesn’t have one of those 3 responsibilities.


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[CoachJD]

The 3 B’s - ball, base, backup

Moving on every play - there’s almost no type of play where each player doesn’t have one of those 3 responsibilities.

Came here to say this.

Something I've noticed with that age group is if you teach them what base to cover, that's all they're thinking about, so they'll often run to that base on contact instead of playing the ball. So stress your first job is to go for the ball if it's near you. If it's not near you/someone else is getting the ball, you're either covering a base or backing up something.

 

[CoachJD]

But in general, I find so few of them even really understand that they're starting a journey around the bases with the intent to get home and score a run, and how much each base in that journey matters. They know they're supposed to get the easy out at first, or whatever we tell them, but the broader picture? no so much.

This is stuff that I (and I suspect many people here) was never even taught. I definitely wasn't taught any of it by a team coach at a team practice.

A lot of this knowledge comes from watching softball/baseball games. Almost everything I learned about the What To Do came from watching thousands of games over the years. And generally speaking, kids just don't watch the sport anymore. It's not 100% necessary for picking up the game, but those who like the game enough to watch others play it will learn faster.

 

[juasmith]

Agreed with previous comment on the "ball, base, backup" phrase. I had success at the 8U level with that phrase and still use it in 13U. Don't get caught up in the advanced relay situations yet, just get them in a habit of moving every play to field the ball, cover a base, or back up a play. For 2B/SS and covering the bag just teach them to follow the ball. If the ball is hit to the left side of the field, the SS will go towards the ball and the 2B will go the same direction and get the bag. Same on the right side of the field with the 2B going towards the ball and the SS doing the same and covering the bag.

 

[CoachCeetar]

This is stuff that I (and I suspect many people here) was never even taught. I definitely wasn't taught any of it by a team coach at a team practice.

A lot of this knowledge comes from watching softball/baseball games. Almost everything I learned about the What To Do came from watching thousands of games over the years. And generally speaking, kids just don't watch the sport anymore. It's not 100% necessary for picking up the game, but those who like the game enough to watch others play it will learn faster.

Even if they do, broadcasts aren't designed to show a lot of the defense stuff. But if you follow along on the MLB Gameday app, they have a live 'field view' which shows you every single player (tiny graphic) moving in real time. Can be useful to show kids that "look, even on that lazy fly to right field ,the left fielder still took a few steps and moved"

Current 4th graders were in Kindergarten in 2020, first grade in 2021. As much as some of young softball can be a slog, missing all those games of coaches telling them "run through first" and "shortstop plays here" and all that still sticks around.

Also we definitely as adults forget how few years of exposure these kids have to some of this stuff that we've known for decades. Not even just softball. Post-game huddles to (quickly) ask/explain some of the more complicated/weird game situations that happened go a long way.

 

[cvsoftball]

it's not "you need to do this...", it's "you need to do this and this is why...", and you do this at every practice, over and over and over..., and at every game when ever needed.

 

[canyonjoe]

At that age if you can teach them to do something on every play you are ahead of the game. For the most part you switch positions a lot at that age to become proficient at 6 positions is not really going to happen. I find at younger ages kids are so afraid of getting in trouble for not backing up they'll run to backup rather than get the ball.

 

[CoachJD]

Agreed with previous comment on the "ball, base, backup" phrase. I had success at the 8U level with that phrase and still use it in 13U. Don't get caught up in the advanced relay situations yet, just get them in a habit of moving every play to field the ball, cover a base, or back up a play. For 2B/SS and covering the bag just teach them to follow the ball. If the ball is hit to the left side of the field, the SS will go towards the ball and the 2B will go the same direction and get the bag. Same on the right side of the field with the 2B going towards the ball and the SS doing the same and covering the bag.

I tell players (infielders, really) to pretend the ball is a magnet and it's pulling them toward it. That helps with "go get the ball if it's hit near you," but it really helps with getting the young 2B/SS to remember A) covering second and B) going out for the cut-off.