How to stop walk-athon in 10u?

[Andrew_Vegas]

I’ll answer in 2 ways, long term and short term.

Long term, it’s about developing pitching earlier. This means moving on from coach pitch earlier and encouraging girls to pitch earlier. Walks are no fun, but also an absolutely necessary phase of development pitcher development. Also, young girls don’t swing the bat and umpires call 12U strike zones in 8U. Start in 6u on identifying athletes and introducing girls to pitching. It’s a numbers game. The best way is to make it fun and gamify it, not doing drills and isolating mechanics. Young kids just need to throw windmill style and be encouraged to throw it hard. I like putting a 12” ball on a tee and just have young girls try to knock it off.

Short term in 10U. I’d focus on parent commitment and implementing pitcher clinics. Collaborate with local pitching coaches to hold low-cost camps and get the girls and mom/dad to understand pitching requires regimented practice. There’s a direct correlation b/w quality reps done frequently and the growth that happens in 2-3 months. Giving the girls and parents a structured approach to practice will go a long way, it has to become a routine. Then it’s up to the parents to “encourage” and be there to catch when the player asks. My observation is a lot of girls really want to pitch, those girls will get better, but the ones who get consistently really good are the ones with the parents supporting the effort 100%.


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[ArmWhip]

In my area 10U kids will play 2-3 of these rec sports: soccer, softball, basketball, hockey and lacrosse. Parents will wisely not commit money to lessons/travel without being relatively certain that their daughter likes the sport. Volley ball and field hockey are lurking just down the road.

 

[PJR202]

You can't defend against a walk. Your pitchers need to be able to throw enough strikes to get the other team swinging. Too many 8U rec coaches teach their team to not swing and wait for coach pitch. This carries over to 10U and if a team sees that they don't need to swing then they won't.

Regarding stealing, it's hard to answer without knowing the rules around stealing in your league.

Hold pitching practice separate from regular practices at least once a week. Teach your pitchers and catchers how to defend against a runner at 3rd and a passed ball/wild pitch.

Pitcher, Catcher, and 1st Base are all earned positions. As a rec coach I'm up front with players and parents about the expectations for these positions. If your daughter can't throw and catch she will not play catcher or 1st base in a game. Especially because dropped 3rd and passed balls are such a big part of rec games at this level.

Pitchers need to practice every day. Ask parents to play underhand catch with the girls that want to pitch. Learn how to play underhand catch with yourself and teach your pitchers how to do it.

While this is great and logical in-theory, I've found that about 20% of kids work outside of practice, even if it's suggested to the parents. This includes the better players. And just try and convince people to spend money on lessons. That's about 10% of kids in our program, although we're in an economically depressed area. This is a big reason I'm learning to be a pitching coach. I want to get these kids throwing with decent mechanics very early.

IMO a walkfest is worthless. Pitchers will never fix anything during the game, defense learns nothing, and batters learn nothing. Spectators are miserable. It's the kind if environment that turns kids off from playing in the future. I'm a big believer in the hybrid pitching. Kids do wait on the coach to come out, but the pitcher still got a shot at it. There's not much more that can be asked of anyone at that point.

 

[lostcreek1]

Then it’s up to the parents to “encourage” and be there to catch when the player asks. My observation is a lot of girls really want to pitch, those girls will get better, but the ones who get consistently really good are the ones with the parents supporting the effort 100%.


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This is absolutely a requirement for long term consistent improvement. Your daughter has to me at least mildly obsessed with pitching, and you have to at least mildly insane to commit the time money and effort to go along with her obsession.

 

[_MIA_]

This is absolutely a requirement for long term consistent improvement. Your daughter has to me at least mildly obsessed with pitching, and you have to at least mildly insane to commit the time money and effort to go along with her obsession.

“Dad I want a tattoo on my face”. No
“Dad I want a pet Tiger”. No
“Dad I want to pitch”. No

Easy..watching a game is torture enough as it is..

 

[lostcreek1]

“Dad I want a tattoo on my face”. No
“Dad I want a pet Tiger”. No
“Dad I want to pitch”. No

Easy..watching a game is torture enough as it is..

I think face tattoos and softball is comparing apples and oranges.

 

[_MIA_]

I think face tattoos and softball is comparing apples and oranges.

Yeah..I could probably deal with the face tattoo.

 

[uncdrew]

I don’t know the solution, but I don’t think coach pitch is necessarily the right solution. In my neck of the woods (so cal) our 10u pitchers don’t pitch walkathons. We have 9 teams and one team struggles. The other eight will have maybe 3 walks on average for a game.

Maybe it’s how we develop pitchers? Not sure. In 8u it’s kid pitch here. First half of the season if the pitcher walks someone the coach comes in and pitches. Second half a walk is a walk. When my DD was in it it was about 50% of teams would walk in 5 runs. But now in 10u we have 8 pitchers who pitch ~60% strikes.

But there’s definitely a culture of pitching here and it’s all pretty competitive for rec. we have a 6 year old playing up in 8u because she wants to pitch. She’s probably pitching around 50% strikes. Parents take it pretty seriously.

They really do need to get pitchers more reps sooner. Our local rec league is doing a few pitching clinics (free, run by older girls) to try to give some instruction and get girls starting earlier.

 

[uncdrew]

I’ll answer in 2 ways, long term and short term.

Long term, it’s about developing pitching earlier. This means moving on from coach pitch earlier and encouraging girls to pitch earlier. Walks are no fun, but also an absolutely necessary phase of development pitcher development. Also, young girls don’t swing the bat and umpires call 12U strike zones in 8U. Start in 6u on identifying athletes and introducing girls to pitching. It’s a numbers game. The best way is to make it fun and gamify it, not doing drills and isolating mechanics. Young kids just need to throw windmill style and be encouraged to throw it hard. I like putting a 12” ball on a tee and just have young girls try to knock it off.

Short term in 10U. I’d focus on parent commitment and implementing pitcher clinics. Collaborate with local pitching coaches to hold low-cost camps and get the girls and mom/dad to understand pitching requires regimented practice. There’s a direct correlation b/w quality reps done frequently and the growth that happens in 2-3 months. Giving the girls and parents a structured approach to practice will go a long way, it has to become a routine. Then it’s up to the parents to “encourage” and be there to catch when the player asks. My observation is a lot of girls really want to pitch, those girls will get better, but the ones who get consistently really good are the ones with the parents supporting the effort 100%.


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Fortunately our 8U and 10U local rec umpires told all teams that if you can hit it, I'm calling it a strike. So strike zones were a bit expanded and it did end up in fewer walks, more swinging, better games.

 

[Dabears17]

10U rec, there should be no walks. After ball 4, coach comes in and inherits the count. Coach gets 3 pitches, batter gets as many swings as strikes they had left in the count.

If batter has 2 strikes, they get 3 pitches, but only 1 swing. Fouls on strike 3 keep them alive for another pitch.

If batter has 1 strike, they get 3 pitches, but only 2 swings.

if batter has no strikes, they get 3 pitches and up to 3 swings.

This is what leagues in my area do in 8u. It helps develop pitchers for 10u. I tried to have every girl pitch at least 1 inning in 8u. Over two seasons every girl but one pitched. She was scared to and I told her unless she brought me a jar of red vines, she'd have to pitch the last game of the season. She brought me my bribe:

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