Slapper defense

[inumpire]

Well if you all would quit pitching to the outside corner and bust her hands you might have a chance to get 75% of the slappers out!! I have never understand why everyone pitches to slappers in their wheel house. Why put the ball out over the plate where they can get the barrel of the bat on the ball. Throw it inside where they have harder time controlling where they hit the ball.....

 

[Long Baller]

Well if you all would quit pitching to the outside corner and bust her hands you might have a chance to get 75% of the slappers out!! I have never understand why everyone pitches to slappers in their wheel house. Why put the ball out over the plate where they can get the barrel of the bat on the ball. Throw it inside where they have harder time controlling where they hit the ball.....

I never understood that either, yet that is what you see almost exclusively. Ask a slapper what pitch they hate the most, and most will tell you anything on their hands. That, and a good mix of off-speed.

 

[SESwildfire]

Hear me out on this one..
Every time we face a good slapper or drag bunter they alter their path for inside pitches and lay it down, very rarely do I get the results I am looking for when I try to jam them up. If you watch most players learning those skills they have a tendency to want to naturally pull to 1st base early. Reason why some throw outside. I agree outside is bad spot because most slappers are wanting a 5/6 hole and outside pitches naturally work that way for a girl in the right side box.

I starting playing around with ways to defend, shifts, and pitching against good slappers.
I prefer to work them high looking for a popup and off speeds to mess with their timing. When im throwing in drills on my team I will work my slappers high to see how well it works.

The one thing that has killed me is a slapper that can power slap and place the ball in holes. Faced a Prodigy Easton team last summer that had two phenomenal slappers. It didn't matter what I did they found the gaps.

we have had decent results shifting middle up, corners deeper and a shallow LF, CF.

One things for sure, every lefty we face gets unhittable ball first pitch until I see what their feet do.

on the offensive side of the ball good drag bunters with wheels are tough to defend, especially if they dont show the bunt in their run through. What we are working on is developing girls to read the defense shift and drag/slap based on that.

 

[Vertigo]

Agreed on the outside pitch. Dd will just keep fouling it off until the pitcher has to bring it over the plate more or she gets walked. I rarely ever see many inside pitches on her.

 

[MikeP]

I never understood that either, yet that is what you see almost exclusively. Ask a slapper what pitch they hate the most, and most will tell you anything on their hands. That, and a good mix of off-speed.

That would be my daughter. Absolutely hates inside pitches.

 

[radness]

insise drop against lefty slappers

 

[uncdrew]

Being a baby 12U team, I've still not seen a successful slapper in real life. Seen plenty in videos and it can be effective. But in 10U and 12U it's just an easy out. Glad to see them trying to learn the skill. These years I'm happy to see a slapper come to the plate against us. I'm sure that will change soon.

 

[Cornbread]

If girls are on base with a slapper hitting you better know who has the bag on a steal

 

[BT3100]

Get em to pop out... don't matter how fast they are if they pop it up. Hit em on the hands early.. then fade them by working up and away with rise or screw. More attention to how you pitch them versus how you defend them.

 

[Long Baller]

Being a baby 12U team, I've still not seen a successful slapper in real life. Seen plenty in videos and it can be effective. But in 10U and 12U it's just an easy out. Glad to see them trying to learn the skill. These years I'm happy to see a slapper come to the plate against us. I'm sure that will change soon.

At that age, most slappers are "quick righties" that got turned around because they couldn't hit. Don't worry, that will change soon enough especially if you are playing true "A" level travel. You'll run into elite slappers that will fillet your defense, regardless of what you do. You'll see speed that, once they reach first base, they will be on 3rd base two pitches later, and there is nothing you can do about it. You'll see that "little slapper" that laces one into the gap when you were playing her to "tap and go". It's truly fun watching elite level slappers do their work, especially when they are in your batting line up.