More of the same old same old at the old HS

[Coach Al]

Went to watch my old HS play today, the same school my oldest DD played for 18 years ago and I found little has changed. I do see that the pitching has improved and the hitting is competitive but the fielding is TERRIBLE. We have several indoor training facilities in the area and I can see that they have been taking advantage of the coaching there. The pitchers must be throwing pitches there through the winter and the batters must be hitting in the cages year round. Where's the fielding practice? Are these girls having there parent pay good money for them to learn to pitch and hit and completely ignoring fielding? I know there is prestige in having a good pitcher or being able to handle a bat well, but where is the pride in fielding? I can see that I will be emphasizing fielding more with the young girls I am coaching as I don't think they will be seeking it on their own.

 

[amanda_cake]

I do think that a lot less emphasis is put on fielding. There are areas to pitch, to catch, and to hit in the winter. But I have yet to see an indoor facility with an area to rent where someone could hit you some balls. There are plenty of pitching lanes and batting cages indoors, but there is not a fielding area in sight. I'd love to have a room where someone could just hit my squishy balls or something. I feel like I go into the start of my season after the winter hitting some of the best I have ever hit, but my fielding is not that great because there is no where to practice when it is snowing outside.

That being said, I put in the extra hours when it is warm. Poor daddy, having to hit my all of those pop flies.

 

[SnocatzDad]

Depending on the avialable space, fielding is the hardest thing to work on in the offseason, tunnels are great for pitching and hitting, but usually not enough space to really work on grounders, overhand throwing and definitely hard to work on fly balls. Dome time is expensive (about $250 an hour here for one indoor field).

I actually feel hitting is neglected by many coaches. If half the game is offense, how many teams spend half the time on offensive skills (hitting, baserunning, bunting, leads). Very few IMO. Our HS was averaging one day a week when they would have a "batting" practice and they literally would not pull the bats out of the bags the other days. It's also the first thing that gets chopped if there is limited warm up time before a game. So we'll practice turning double plays in the infield prior to the game, but skip batting, because we'll have more double play opportunities than we will at bats right?

Eddie Feigner, "The King and his Court", demonstrated over the years how relatively unimportant good defense is when you have dominant pitching. Not many pitchers can dominate to that level, but for the ones that come close, I'm sure they would rather know that their teammates were working on offense to support their efforts on defense. I've seen plenty of Varsity Softball Games where there were 30 at bats per team and only 6 balls put into play. So do you work on getting the most out of the 6 defensive opportunities knowing that if you do it well, you actually might get fewer defensive plays to make, or maximize your effectiveness on the 30 offensive opportunities knowing that if your successful there, you actually get more opportunities.