Live pitching practices VS bullpens/lessons

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Cannonball

Ex "Expert"
Feb 25, 2009
4,854
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Not what we are talking about.

I got plenty of equipment accumulated myself to start a travel team.

What we are talking about is should a 10u (gonna say it again, 10u) team burn daylight with their own pitchers plunking their own hitters and throwing 50% strikes. And is it a good idea for the coaching staff to dedicate more time to it.

If you say 14u, maybe. If you say college, definitely. But at 10u, my contention is it’s time poorly spent.

Don’t make me start a 10u team and spend my next 8 years proving I’m right, lol
I don't know much in this world that could force me to go back to 10U so I'll leave this topic alone.
 
Last edited:
Oct 4, 2018
4,611
113
Pitchers are made in the off season.

Yes, when they don't pitch at all and hit the weight room. :p. Of course the off season for travel softball is about 5 weeks in Dec/Jan.

We get our reps in between team practices and tournaments. But your point is correct. Pitchers are made due to their own practice schedule, drive and determination. Not much a head coach can do other than give them mound time and support them.
 
Last edited:
May 26, 2021
56
18
Practice with a full defense and live hitting is probably one of the least beneficial ways to spend your time during team practice at the 10u level.

I would recommend spending more time on groundballs and fielding footwork than any other aspect of the game.

After that focus on throwing and outfield. I will admit, that throwing was one of the most difficult problems to fix, it really takes a ton of time. You should be working on throwing at every practice. Even at the High School level, I would estimate that half of girls on my daughters High School still throw poorly.

You still have to work on base running, bunt defense, pickle or run down plays, cutoffs, etc. What I am saying is live hitting that takes up your entire practice field should be at the bottom of your priority list.

When you are done with those practice scenarios above, do more groundballs, footwork and throwing because i guarantee you at 10u you are lucky if you have two girls that do that stuff correctly on a consistent basis. Please be careful and overdoing the overhand throwing, you can work on groundballs and footwork without throwing.

When you only practice one or two days per week, pitching and hitting need to be done on their own unless you have a batting cage to work in. Just too inefficient to do live pitching and hitting on the only field you have to practice on.
I coach 10u rec. I do live hitting/pitching at every practice. These girls might be able to hit a coach pitched ball just fine, but as soon as they have to hit of a real 10yo pitcher they have no idea whats going on. They never get a chance to do that except for at most 2-3 at bats a week. Even if the girls practice at home, this is hard to practice at home.

I'm confused at why everyone says you have to put full defense out there. I have one field and I never do that. I put two nets in left or right field side by side. Have two tees there. Then I have every other girl hitting heavy's behind those nets. We go out as far as we can in the field. Never had any issues. Then we just rotate through. I rotate through the pitchers and rotate through the batters. Sometimes we have a catcher, if there's something I think they should work on, sometimes we don't. All the girls are doing something 100% of the time. I have ~6 parents out pitching heavy's and helping on the tees.

All but maybe 3 rec girls will never practice outside of practice. If we don't practice batting, they never get better period.
 

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