Our team (14U) does it occasionally at practice. They bring in one of their 18U pitchers and each girl goes to the plate with a 2-2 count. That way girls have to focus on the 2-2 count situation and the pitcher throws less to each hitter.
Live pitching and hitting in practices
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CB....not sure if you're serious (write up a proposal!) but I'll bite:
14 players, three catchers, up to 6 pitchers (they don't all game pitch). 18U. Can have two fields if we need it, facing each other (ie, infield, two outfields, infield).
I've seen coaches have two hitters at once with a screen. But in general safety concerns mean 1 hitter-1 pitcher-lots of watching.
Tried it last week with two pitchers alternating, another warming up, batters swapping out every 5 pitches and it still got really slow really fast. Maybe because my second coach was watching from the outfield as I scrambled to keep things moving.
Again, any ideas appreciated, I think live ABs are important for both hitters and pitchers especially early in the year...
14 players, three catchers, up to 6 pitchers (they don't all game pitch). 18U. Can have two fields if we need it, facing each other (ie, infield, two outfields, infield).
I've seen coaches have two hitters at once with a screen. But in general safety concerns mean 1 hitter-1 pitcher-lots of watching.
Tried it last week with two pitchers alternating, another warming up, batters swapping out every 5 pitches and it still got really slow really fast. Maybe because my second coach was watching from the outfield as I scrambled to keep things moving.
Again, any ideas appreciated, I think live ABs are important for both hitters and pitchers especially early in the year...
We did this a few times this year at 16u. It seemed to work well.
1) We had a roster of 12 but would often have some player friends that would join us for practice. Our goal was to have between 12 and 15 girls any time we did this.
2) We split them into 3 teams making sure that each team had at least 1 pitcher and 1 catcher.
3) Team 1 would bat while teams 2 and 3 would play the field.
4) The catchers called pitches and the pitcher's goal was to get the hitters out.
5) The hitters would hit and run the bases as they normally would.
6) Once the hitting team reached three outs, we would rotate the teams.
This accomplished several things in my opinion. It gave the hitters the opportunity to hit against live pitching with no intentional meat balls. It gave the pitchers the opportunity to pitch against live hitters. It gave the catchers an opportunity to call pitches (that was a goal of ours this year - we wanted the catchers to call pitches in the games). It gave the coaches an opportunity to interrupt for "teaching moments" such as bunt defenses, base running, etc. Midway through the summer we took it another level by having the players coach their own teams. Not only were they calling pitches, but they would also call for bunts, steals, delayed steals, defensive shifts, etc.
1) We had a roster of 12 but would often have some player friends that would join us for practice. Our goal was to have between 12 and 15 girls any time we did this.
2) We split them into 3 teams making sure that each team had at least 1 pitcher and 1 catcher.
3) Team 1 would bat while teams 2 and 3 would play the field.
4) The catchers called pitches and the pitcher's goal was to get the hitters out.
5) The hitters would hit and run the bases as they normally would.
6) Once the hitting team reached three outs, we would rotate the teams.
This accomplished several things in my opinion. It gave the hitters the opportunity to hit against live pitching with no intentional meat balls. It gave the pitchers the opportunity to pitch against live hitters. It gave the catchers an opportunity to call pitches (that was a goal of ours this year - we wanted the catchers to call pitches in the games). It gave the coaches an opportunity to interrupt for "teaching moments" such as bunt defenses, base running, etc. Midway through the summer we took it another level by having the players coach their own teams. Not only were they calling pitches, but they would also call for bunts, steals, delayed steals, defensive shifts, etc.
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I coach a 10U team. I'm not sure what to do.
I know they need to see live pitches, but my girls throw MAYBE 50% strikes so it really slows practice down if I let them pitch. Additionally, one of my girls throws in the mid 40s and is wild as a March hare. She hits about every third batter, which of course makes the hitters scared to dig in and swing away and seems counter-productive overall.
I pitch to them and I can throw strikes with approximate 10U speed,...but not if I wind up.
I'm open to any and all suggestions.
Dave
I know they need to see live pitches, but my girls throw MAYBE 50% strikes so it really slows practice down if I let them pitch. Additionally, one of my girls throws in the mid 40s and is wild as a March hare. She hits about every third batter, which of course makes the hitters scared to dig in and swing away and seems counter-productive overall.
I pitch to them and I can throw strikes with approximate 10U speed,...but not if I wind up.
I'm open to any and all suggestions.
Dave
JJsqueeze
Dad, Husband....legend
If you have three hitting stations, one live, one tee and one machine, then you can keep practices moving along while doing live pitch. 3-4 girls a station. for the live hitting, two girls are shagging while one girl is on deck. On the tee one girl is loading while one is hitting, on the machine, one girl feeding while one hits. Coaches at each station to instruct. It minimizes downtime and gets reps for hitting.
This is about the best you can do in a team environment to keep it useful and keep it moving. But really hitting in team environment is just the bare minimum, girls are not going to improve if they just hit at practice. As a parent, if you can hire a girl to come out and pitch to your kid for an hour here and there do it. Or better yet, train your own pitcher so you can save some money
This is about the best you can do in a team environment to keep it useful and keep it moving. But really hitting in team environment is just the bare minimum, girls are not going to improve if they just hit at practice. As a parent, if you can hire a girl to come out and pitch to your kid for an hour here and there do it. Or better yet, train your own pitcher so you can save some money
Older aged pitchers from older teams either in your org or from another. Our org is setup so we have the next age group up is available to pitch to the younger teams. We also use local high school pitchers to come in and throw. We give out service hours like candy.
Ex-college players who have returned to the area.
Even pay someone as a last desperate measure (we have never had to go this far).
You will find someone.
This is basically how we do it. We often do it with 1-1 counts, runners on various bases, random # of outs and so on to keep it moving. Invaluable use of practice time.
We carry 12 players on our team so live pitching can get a little slow. We split into 3 teams of 4 (we are blessed with 3 pitchers and 3 catchers). We start of with 2 at a T station while we have 2 live batters and rest shagging balls with a player at 2nd to bucket the balls. We put a large screen between two batters with 2 inverted L screens for coaches to pitch from behind. We keep the pace fast but never 2 balls in the air at once. They get 10 pitches each (we let one coach pitch inside and other outside) then shift. So in reality they get 20 live pitches and should hit at least that same amount if not more of t while waiting for coach pitch. Once we do this then we set the field with the girls and rotate after the team of 4 has batted, highest score wins. It keeps them moving with out the dreaded long stretch in the outfield just looking at butterflies. Think we timed the two drills together and did them in 45 minutes other day.
- Aug 12, 2014
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Obviously the tee is off the field and they hit into a net, but where are the live pitching and machine pitching stations located on the field?
We'll usually have 12 girls.
We are fortunate to have a coach that will pitch live BP from 30 feet.
We have one catcher.
One on-deck batter taking dry swings.
Two girls on a tee-drill station down left field line.
Two on another station doing soft toss or "drill of the day".
One girl at 3rd working on general reaction and fielding.
One girl at SS (they shift to SS and 2B with a lefty batter.)
One girl on 2B protected by net with empty bucket receiving balls from field.
Three girls are in right field.
2nd coach at 1B coaches box hitting grounders or flies to five girls in field in between each pitch.
Each girl rotates one spot (except catcher) after 30 or so pitches.
We are fortunate to have a coach that will pitch live BP from 30 feet.
We have one catcher.
One on-deck batter taking dry swings.
Two girls on a tee-drill station down left field line.
Two on another station doing soft toss or "drill of the day".
One girl at 3rd working on general reaction and fielding.
One girl at SS (they shift to SS and 2B with a lefty batter.)
One girl on 2B protected by net with empty bucket receiving balls from field.
Three girls are in right field.
2nd coach at 1B coaches box hitting grounders or flies to five girls in field in between each pitch.
Each girl rotates one spot (except catcher) after 30 or so pitches.
