What does your DD/Player do to improve?

[cmspock]

Thanks for all these responses. DD11 is probably the #1 pitcher in our rec league as far as speed and (on a good day) accuracy. She could play TB, but I'm not ready for that yet. She has natural talent, says she wants to pitch, goes once a week to PC, but won't work at all outside of that. It's like pulling teeth to get her outside to throw extra.

She's also a very good catcher, so maybe she really wants to do that instead. I don't want to keep spending money on PC if she isn't going to strive to get any better, but she is young and still has time. I guess at this point, we will finish out this season and then see what she wants to do next year. I could certainly force her get out and throw with me or dad, but sometimes it just isn't worth the aggravation.

 

[halskinner]

There is something called pitching stamina. If you ONLY practice with an instructor once a week, say for 30 minutes, the most you will be 'Good" for is about the same amount of pitches. If you throw 40 pitches a day twice a week, you will be good for around 40 pitches.

After that point, you are spent and will be pitching like tired out crap.
How much pitching do you think you will get if can only go 40 pitches a day? N ONE on my old teams.

Work yourself up, over a period of time, to where you are throwing at least twice as many pitches as youi would throw in a horrible game. That way, if you do have a long game, it will not be as stressful as a normal workout session.

Tell her to enjoy those two or maybe three innings, cause after that, she WILL get pulled. All prima donnas do.

 

[Djanvk]

I stress to her hitters and fielders get better as she gets older and what works now will not work as the competition gets better. Therefore, she has to continue to work to get better.

How do you think your DD would respond to better competition? Would she crumble or would she fight to get better? Perhaps looking for opportunities in TB for her to face better competition may be a way to motivate her and see the need to work to improve?

She has played 12u and 14u TB, but next weekend is her first 16u TB tournament so we will see how she performs during better competition. I will say when she gets on the mound and is in her groove she does very well by hitting spots. She pitched a varsity game at the end of the season tournament against the 2nd ranked team in the state for her class and only lost 7-1, this mainly due to the coach for some reason putting in all the second and third string players to start the game behind her except about 2 first string players, there were many fielding errors. The fact still is she has been told by her coach and pitching coach that she needs to work harder and practice more. Funny though after reading some of these responses to her today she went out to the park today and pitched for about a hour, so these responses are opening up her eyes a bit of what could happen if you work hard for your craft. Normally she comes home and just sits and watches tv and snacks.