Do coaches still spend time on rundowns(pickles)?

[softball fanatic]

This is an 18u team from my area. Many of the players have been together for 5 years or so. The head coach coaches high school ball too. Are coaches spending time on things like pickles?

 

[Cannonball]

Yes we do and it is a major pain. I bet we spend an hour trying to ingrain how to do the rundown before we do it in situations and players still mess up. It drives me crazy. I saw an MLB team blow a rundown either today or last night. If a team wants to be good at rundowns, it has to be something that they do weekly.

 

[nixxy311]

Last nite Nats vs Braves - the thing I liked about that one though was Heredia didn't give up. So many times I see runners just give up and let themselves get tagged. Make the defense make a play and let them screw up. As a Braves fan I loved it but the catcher should have known better. Wasn't much else going right for the Nats last night anyway.

 

[GunnerShotgun]

Two throws max in a rundown or you are doing it wrong.

No pump fakes either.

 

[mmeece]

This is an 18u team from my area. Many of the players have been together for 5 years or so. The head coach coaches high school ball too. Are coaches spending time on things like pickles?

We certainly did. These situations need to give you an out 99+% of the time. At a bare minimum, you have to be good enough to prevent the runner from EVER getting an extra base. It's also important to work on run-downs with more than one runner on base (particularly with a runner hung up between 2B and 3B and another runner on 3B). Often gets overlooked.

 

[MoJo]

Yes we do and it is a major pain. I bet we spend an hour trying to ingrain how to do the rundown before we do it in situations and players still mess up. It drives me crazy. I saw an MLB team blow a rundown either today or last night. If a team wants to be good at rundowns, it has to be something that they do weekly.

Yep. Sometimes not enough hours in the week. My daughters are still MS or younger. Hopefully advanced plays will actually happen.

Here some awesome rundown, communication and outs.

 

[Rolling Hard]

Two throws max in a rundown or you are doing it wrong.

No pump fakes either.

Easiest way to make it 2 throws.

 

[Lance Steckler]

only the teams that want to win, work on all the little things in winter practices.

 

[Vertigo]

Thankful that my dd’s 18U team worked on it often. She was playing 1B the other day in her college game - ground out to 3B with throw to 1B (no play at 2B) and runner who went to second kept going 1/2 way past 2B. Dd immediately began to run at her after she got the out at 1B. Girl just froze - dd tossed to 3B and then they tagged her out after a quick rundown.

That’s the key - running at the baserunner. If my dd just threw to 3B or to 2B runner most likely would have been safe. Running at them causes confusion and many times they freeze.

 

[uncdrew]

Yes we do and it is a major pain. I bet we spend an hour trying to ingrain how to do the rundown before we do it in situations and players still mess up. It drives me crazy. I saw an MLB team blow a rundown either today or last night. If a team wants to be good at rundowns, it has to be something that they do weekly.

Yikes.

Sounds like just a "run them back to the previous base" might be a better strategy than kinda, sometimes practicing it.