Hitting off of live pitching at practices??

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Dec 2, 2013
3,410
113
Texas
DD had a workout with other local college players yesterday. The last 45 minutes was live pitching to live hitters. Catchers calling pitches. It was fun to see the high level pitchers vs the high level batters. Pitcher's getting batters out with their pitches. Some hitters had some success, but I would say Pitchers won the battle. Although, Pitcher's last pitch was left fat and batter took it deep. You can tell that many of the players were very rusty. My DD hadn't even looked at her bag since March. She is hurting all over this morning. I have to admit those 2.5 hours brought me joy and it was good for my soul. DD really enjoyed the workout too.
 
Oct 4, 2018
4,611
113
DD had a workout with other local college players yesterday. The last 45 minutes was live pitching to live hitters. Catchers calling pitches. It was fun to see the high level pitchers vs the high level batters. Pitcher's getting batters out with their pitches. Some hitters had some success, but I would say Pitchers won the battle. Although, Pitcher's last pitch was left fat and batter took it deep. You can tell that many of the players were very rusty. My DD hadn't even looked at her bag since March. She is hurting all over this morning. I have to admit those 2.5 hours brought me joy and it was good for my soul. DD really enjoyed the workout too.

At that age and that level of play, that's a great way to spend a portion of practice.
 
Dec 2, 2013
3,410
113
Texas
At that age and that level of play, that's a great way to spend a portion of practice.
At the younger ages 10U/12U is very difficult to do "live pitching" on a regular basis. One because you might get to practice a couple of times a week with 2 hour practices. Two, the pitchers are still trying to find the strike zone. Three, you need to develop the skill set of the rest of the players so that they love the game by doing drills so they can succeed and improve continually to build their confidence. Otherwise practice can get boring if each player is not fully engaged in some type of activity. We lose enough players year to year because the game is slow and there is no action. Not baseball slow, but slower than other sports. At the older age divisions, pitchers need fine tuning and something to get their juices flowing to keep them sharp between pitching lessons.
 
Oct 4, 2018
4,611
113
At the younger ages 10U/12U is very difficult to do "live pitching" on a regular basis. One because you might get to practice a couple of times a week with 2 hour practices. Two, the pitchers are still trying to find the strike zone. Three, you need to develop the skill set of the rest of the players so that they love the game by doing drills so they can succeed and improve continually to build their confidence. Otherwise practice can get boring if each player is not fully engaged in some type of activity. We lose enough players year to year because the game is slow and there is no action. Not baseball slow, but slower than other sports. At the older age divisions, pitchers need fine tuning and something to get their juices flowing to keep them sharp between pitching lessons.

Well said.

I'm sure most of you have experienced other sports. My older daughter plays volleyball. So much easier to keep kids working and engaged. So much more action in games.
 
Apr 13, 2009
11
3
Central Illinois
Been at this for about 10 years with 2 daughters. I taught myself to throw early on and throw a decent speed. If I recommended one thing I would recommend learning to pitch BP. Occasionally I throw live in the cage, but almost every practice and warm up consists of me throwing total control wiffle balls at live speed to the girls. Live pitching from pitchers is only done in scrimmage situations.
 
Sep 10, 2019
59
8
The pitching machine has got to be the best thing since sliced bread, even if all you got is a fastball machine - use it!!! 2-3 times per week. Totally builds batting confidence.
 
Jul 13, 2019
54
8
I realize that there are alot of things to get covered in a practice, but what I see some coaches do is do one drill or situation for 30 minutes and then the wonder why they didn't get more covered. I would say that depending on the age of the players that each segment of practice should last about 15 minute (I realize that it might be longer than that early in the season.) When we practiced we would warm up, and then play catch and then from that we would go to infield and outfield together while their arms are warm. After that we would go over situations like 1st and third, bunt defense, rundowns, and anything else that the previous game showed us that we needed to work on. After that we would take BP, we would have stations and we would give each kid 15 pitches. You are right depending on how many kids you have this can take a while. So don't do the same type of BP every day change it up. I think that we need to cover the things that come up the most in games and make sure that you know how to handle the situations. I know that BP can sow things down and take time but the kids that I coached always wanted to hit. So some how or other we worked on hitting most every day.
 

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