How to stop walk-athon in 10u?

[angispeds]

I'm a fan of very big strikezones for 10U rec. Let all coaches, teams and parents know before the season starts. Make them swing, and avoid the walk-a-thons.

Flip side of this is creating really bad batting habits and really bad swings trying to swing at things that are not strikes. I like the 6 ball idea or no walks 4 balls and then machine or coach pitches.


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[uncdrew]

Flip side of this is creating really bad batting habits and really bad swings trying to swing at things that are not strikes. I like the 6 ball idea or no walks 4 balls and then machine or coach pitches.


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Kinda sorta, I guess. But teaching the girls to swing and be aggressive might eclipse that concern. We're talking rec, where most of the girls aren't really practicing or taking lessons. At least our rec, that is. I'm not saying calling strikes on balls over their heads. Just not the tiny strike zone we sometimes see.

 

[BucketDud]

It was hard for some parents to accept, but after a half a season the parents who had older kids were telling everyone how great this was that their current kids were learning more quicker and having more fun playing the game. This made it much easier to find players who wanted to play on tournament teams as well because the kids were having fun. It made a huge difference. No increase in strikes. We also begged the coaches to not ask the kids to not swing at pitches to get a walk. Recreation leagues should be made for the kids to have fun and to learn so that they want to play the game. After the first year parents really accepted because we made that part of the packet during sign ups so that parents could understand what was going to happen. It was great!! We also asked the coaches to ask the umpires about rules and calls after the game as to not embarrass the teenage umpires especially. A teenager will more likely accept criticism when you are trying to help them learn.

In 10u game many years ago our pitcher was struggling with command, but we were ahead and needed a couple more outs. Batter had 3-0 count and then took two straight fastballs down the middle. Other coached yelled: "we are here to hit and get better, not win a game with walks".

Always remembered that comment. Turns out she was also the local HS coach and this was her 4th kid going through softball so had better perspective.