Getting a rec team to hit

Welcome to Discuss Fastpitch

Your FREE Account is waiting to the Best Softball Community on the Web.

May 16, 2016
946
93
Why does it waste time? One pitcher one batter, everyone else is off in other stations. 0 wasted time right? My issue with it is the pitchers hate it, otherwise I would do it every time.
It's a waste of time from bad unhittable pitches.... or batters watching good pitches... So, the pitcher and catchers are working their tails off, for very few hitting reps. Better to use a machine, or hire an older pitcher, to throw BP for you.

The only time I would use live pitching is in a "game situation" like a 5 on 5 scrimmage, where the balls and strikes matter.
 
May 26, 2021
56
18
It's a waste of time from bad unhittable pitches.... or batters watching good pitches... So, the pitcher and catchers are working their tails off, for very few hitting reps. Better to use a machine, or hire an older pitcher, to throw BP for you.

The only time I would use live pitching is in a "game situation" like a 5 on 5 scrimmage, where the balls and strikes matter.
I'm confused though. That's like 100% what my team is missing out on. They swing on bad unhittable pitches. They watch good pitches. I can pitch to them all day, but they don't get better at what they need to do in the game because they feel like they can swing on every pitch. Even if I tell them not to and try to throw bad pitches it doesn't help. They need to see live pitching is all I can think of? I'm always so confused on why this is so discouraged by coaches.

My girls don't hit particularly well, but if they hit AT ALL we would win games. Tees, soft toss, machine pitch they do great and hit everything. Live pitching they strike out every time. Seems like they need to practice live pitching right? The skill they are missing is hitting off of live pitching. Most teams don't teach that for some reason. I think I need to, but not sure how to without my pitchers always hating me at practice. Still thinking I should hire some pitcher to come in and help.
 
Aug 17, 2019
89
18
We didn't do much live pitching in 10U or 12U. I think it was because the pitchers were not accurate enough at this age to make it worthwhile. We did mostly soft toss and machine. It wasn't until 14U we did a lot of live pitching, mainly intra squad scrimmages which made it competitive. In 18U, we also brought in collegiate pitchers who came from the program to augment our own pitchers for hitting against live pitching. Every team we were on that did live pitching started with a 1-1 count to speed things up.
 
Jun 6, 2016
2,714
113
Chicago
My girls don't hit particularly well, but if they hit AT ALL we would win games. Tees, soft toss, machine pitch they do great and hit everything. Live pitching they strike out every time. Seems like they need to practice live pitching right? The skill they are missing is hitting off of live pitching.

I think this is probably not right. The issue isn't "live pitching." It's "hitting in games." You've said yourself the girls can hit a ball in flight. They can hit it at different speeds. They can recognize good/bad pitches. They can hit. What they can't do, for whatever reason, is handle hitting in games.

I think it's unusual for this to be a teamwide issue, but it's not unusual for young kids to freeze up/panic/forget everything when they feel the pressure of games. You're describing a mental process. They need to work on approach. And maybe they just need to play more games to get comfortable doing it.

FWIW, we never have our pitchers throw to our hitters at any level in practice (I rarely do scrimmages because they take too long and I have too much to teach to waste 2 hours on girls getting 3 reps each; when we do scrimmage, I pitch to both teams). We do a ton of front toss though, and it absolutely translates to the games.
 
Jan 25, 2022
880
93
Our MS team did no live pitching in practice two seasons ago (wasn't my call) and our hitting was brutally bad. We did all the other things. To be fair to that season's HC, most of the kids were super, super new to the game. Front toss is great and should be done a lot, but as someone else said, there's no consequences involved.

This past season, new HC and all coaches on the same page, we did live pitching as part of intersquad scrimmages, and it helped tremendously. It was still 3/4 into the season before we started getting consistent contact in games from our better hitters. A lot of that is just nerves and experience too, though.

***I will add...we played a team that was on our level (lower middle of the pack) early in the season, and it was a great game ending in us losing 5-3. We played them again late in the season and they beat the piss out of us. They WERE using a better pitcher who didn't have to play up for the high school that night (she's the HS's only skilled pitcher too), so we didn't hit as well as expected, but...they crushed the ball. 16 legitimate hits in three innings. Line drives, gappers, smokin grounders. During the handshakes I asked the coach where all that came from and he said "we had 5 rainouts in a row and a lot of rained out practices, so I said 'let's get in the gym, set the machine at 50mph, and do nothing but hit,' and that's all we did for three weeks."

And it clearly worked. It didn't hurt that our best pitcher throws right at 50mph and mostly only has a fastball down the middle. My daughter pitched JV and did some better, but she throws low 40's all over the zone. I call her the human change-up.
 
May 26, 2021
56
18
I think this is probably not right. The issue isn't "live pitching." It's "hitting in games." You've said yourself the girls can hit a ball in flight. They can hit it at different speeds. They can recognize good/bad pitches. They can hit. What they can't do, for whatever reason, is handle hitting in games.

I think it's unusual for this to be a teamwide issue, but it's not unusual for young kids to freeze up/panic/forget everything when they feel the pressure of games. You're describing a mental process. They need to work on approach. And maybe they just need to play more games to get comfortable doing it.

FWIW, we never have our pitchers throw to our hitters at any level in practice (I rarely do scrimmages because they take too long and I have too much to teach to waste 2 hours on girls getting 3 reps each; when we do scrimmage, I pitch to both teams). We do a ton of front toss though, and it absolutely translates to the games.
Who said they can recognize good and bad pitches? They only see good pitches in batting practice. They can swing in exactly one spot for the machine. I can move it to be a low pitch but then they start swinging low. As soon as they don't know exactly where the pitch is going to be they don't know when to swing or where to swing. They don't have the ability to recognize where a pitch is going to be and where to move their bodies.

Every pitch, whether they swing or not, is a rep IMO. It's a rep in seeing a pitch and making a decision. Sure maybe they aren't swinging the bat better because of this kind of practice. But batting isn't just swinging the bat. If it was, every at bat would be like a home run derby.

Also FWIW 10u pitchers in the rec league we're in rarely walk batters. The top 5/6 pitchers walk maybe 1 or two girls a game. They strike out girls in practice, it's not like every pitch is a wild pitch or something.

How are they going to get that without practice doing it? The only kids I've seen that can do that are kids who have played for a while, and I'm assuming have had a lot of at bats. I haven't found any exceptions to that rule. As an example a girl came up that is obviously really athletic but never played softball before. She hits great. But strikes out every game. I've coached 4 seasons now. It's been a team-wide thing every season. The only girls that can hit off of live pitching are the all star girls. My daughter practices hitting a lot. She's never done all-stars, but I would be surprised if she has had fewer actual swings than the girls in all-stars. But she struggles with live pitching a lot more than the all star girls. Just anecdotal, could just be my daughter, but makes perfect sense to me. The all star girls have had a lot more live at bats than my daughter.

FWIW baseball is the same. My son is playing and literally every team has the same problem. They can hit off coach pitch or a machine great, but can't hit off a pitcher. Why do coaches not practice this?

I don't agree that it's all mental, but if it is shouldn't they practice that too by hitting off a live pitcher? My kids can't hit off live pitching in games OR in practice. We've done it quite a bit before, before my pitchers revolted.

Maybe coaches in older divisions here have forgotten and this stops being an issue later on, but 10u the entire league struggles with this and no coaches address it. Seems crazy to me. Honestly it's the major reason I started coaching because it really bothered me.
 
Last edited:
Jun 6, 2016
2,714
113
Chicago
Who said they can recognize good and bad pitches? They only see good pitches in batting practice. They can swing in exactly one spot for the machine. I can move it to be a low pitch but then they start swinging low. As soon as they don't know exactly where the pitch is going to be they don't know when to swing or where to swing. They don't have the ability to recognize where a pitch is going to be and where to move their bodies.

Sorry, I thought I read that in practice, they don't swing at bad pitches. So pitch recognition is a problem, and the pressure of live pitching isn't going to solve that faster. Front toss where good/bad pitches are mixed in will help, but none of this happens over night.

Every pitch, whether they swing or not, is a rep IMO. It's a rep in seeing a pitch and making a decision. Sure maybe they aren't swinging the bat better because of this kind of practice. But batting isn't just swinging the bat. If it was, every at bat would be like a home run derby.
Agree with this, but we may have a different definition of "pitch." It doesn't need to be a player on the rubber pitching full distance in a "game situation" (spoiler: You can't ever actually simulate the pressure of a game in practice no matter what you do). Well executed front toss is like 95% as good as live pitching unless you're seeing ridiculous speeds or a ton of good movement pitches.

Maybe coaches in older divisions here have forgotten and this stops being an issue later on, but 10u the entire league struggles with this and no coaches address it. Seems crazy to me. Honestly it's the major reason I started coaching because it really bothered me.

It is clear from your descriptions that the general talent level where we coach is different, but we (more my DW/AC than me, since she works with beginning hitters) have gotten so many girls to figure out the basics of hitting that I'm not sure why it isn't happening for you. Our girls aren't going D1. They're hitting at a rec/low travel level. But they got there mostly from nothing.

Every year we have at least a half dozen girls who have never played before who join in high school. This year it was 11 players. Not all of them can hit after one season. Some never will get it (one of them won't get it if she practices 8 hours a day for the next 100 years, but that's another story). But there are 5 or 6 of them who are going to be able to hit at a decent level by next year through a combination of batting practice (90% of that is me throwing front toss) and game reps.

The sad truth is you won't be able to do this on your own at team practices. You're 100% correct about the girls who get more reps -- and that includes practice at home -- being better. That gets back to my main point: You don't necessarily need another girl throwing pitches. You just need them to see balls in flight while they have a bat in their hands. As many of those reps as possible. Those All-Star girls aren't just getting better because of extra games. They're getting better because most of them have someone at home throwing them balls when they're not at team practice.
 
Nov 9, 2019
56
8
Who said they can recognize good and bad pitches? They only see good pitches in batting practice. They can swing in exactly one spot for the machine. I can move it to be a low pitch but then they start swinging low. As soon as they don't know exactly where the pitch is going to be they don't know when to swing or where to swing. They don't have the ability to recognize where a pitch is going to be and where to move their bodies.

Every pitch, whether they swing or not, is a rep IMO. It's a rep in seeing a pitch and making a decision. Sure maybe they aren't swinging the bat better because of this kind of practice. But batting isn't just swinging the bat. If it was, every at bat would be like a home run derby.

Also FWIW 10u pitchers in the rec league we're in rarely walk batters. The top 5/6 pitchers walk maybe 1 or two girls a game. They strike out girls in practice, it's not like every pitch is a wild pitch or something.

How are they going to get that without practice doing it? The only kids I've seen that can do that are kids who have played for a while, and I'm assuming have had a lot of at bats. I haven't found any exceptions to that rule. As an example a girl came up that is obviously really athletic but never played softball before. She hits great. But strikes out every game. I've coached 4 seasons now. It's been a team-wide thing every season. The only girls that can hit off of live pitching are the all star girls. My daughter practices hitting a lot. She's never done all-stars, but I would be surprised if she has had fewer actual swings than the girls in all-stars. But she struggles with live pitching a lot more than the all star girls. Just anecdotal, could just be my daughter, but makes perfect sense to me. The all star girls have had a lot more live atd bats than my daughter.

FWIW baseball is the same. My son is playing and literally every team has the same problem. They can hit off coach pitch or a machine great, but can't hit off a pitcher. Why do coaches not practice this?

I don't agree that it's all mental, but if it is shouldn't they practice that too by hitting off a live pitcher? My kids can't hit off live pitching in games OR in practice. We've done it quite a bit before, before my pitchers revolted.

Maybe coaches in older divisions here have forgotten and this stops being an issue later on, but 10u the entire league struggles with this and no coaches address it. Seems crazy to me. Honestly it's the major reason I started coaching because it really bothered me.
At ten it could be as simple as loading when the pitchers hand is straight up at 12 oclock. Most girls don't load at release untill highschool age. Give it a try, sounds as it cain't hurt anything.
 
Dec 11, 2010
4,713
113
I didn’t read the whole thread.
Who said they can recognize good and bad pitches? They only see good pitches in batting practice.
They shouldn’t.

They should see bad pitches in practice too. Taking a bad pitch is a win.

Start with this: do front toss. Use something for a home plate. A bucket lid is fine. Make the swing/don’t swing decisions really easy. Make balls outside the zone REALLY outside the zone. Make the strikes right down the middle. As time passes make the decisions harder. Still, give them really easy decisions to make regularly as you give them more difficult ones. (Source: V-Flex training material. I find it works.)

They can swing in exactly one spot for the machine.
Maybe. I don’t find that to be true with most machines. Focus on front toss for awhile, it helps young kids to see the arm. Machines are awesome, especially when thoughtfully used, but they are usually over the heads of coaches and players that aren't yet using them a lot.

Make every warmup before a game a mini practice. Start an hour before the game. Two stations need to be live arm wiffle balls. Make sure that they are thrown fairly flat. Try to match the time in flight of the wiffles to be similar to what you see in games. It doesn’t have to be perfect.

I like a mix of wiffles. Sizes, shapes, weights whatever. They fly different at different speeds. It looks rag tag but I like it. The rubbery hole balls are excellent, especially when mixed with hard wiffles.
 
Last edited:
May 26, 2021
56
18
Start with this: do front toss. Use something for a home plate. A bucket lid is fine. Make the swing/don’t swing decisions really easy. Make balls outside the zone REALLY outside the zone. If they swing at it, you don’t even have to say anything, they know. As time passes make the decisions harder. Still, give them really easy decisions to make regularly as you give them more difficult ones. (Source: V-Flex training material. I find it works.)
This sounds fair. I started doing this at the end of the last season. Going to do more of this hopefully it helps! I have a lot of parents pitching to the kids too, need to give more instruction there I guess.
 

Forum statistics

Threads
42,830
Messages
679,474
Members
21,443
Latest member
sstop28
Top