Practice Schedule Model

Hey Guys,

As promised here is the practice schedule model for a YOUTH baseball team.  In no way am I saying this is the only way to practice, but if you're a first timer or are thinking of ideas here you go:

*Hypothetically your practice starts at 5:00

5:00- Run, Stretch, Throw
*The first step to having a good team is to make them disciplined.  Have them warm up the exact same every single day.  Make it routine.  Doing the little things right will lead to the big things being done correctly.

5:15- Short hops, and Rocket Relay
*Short hops are self explanatory.  Do them from the knees and from your feet.  For a rocket relay split the kids into two teams and have them get into two lines.  The balls start at one end of the line, travel to the other end and back.  You can go down and back as many times as you like.  Make sure that your players are using two hands and lining up in correct relay position.

5:45- GROUND BALLS AND FLY BALLS!!!
*You can do this any way you want, but don't have them throw..... yet.

6:00- 21 Outs
*There are 21 outs in a baseball game.  Stand in as the hitter and hit balls to all the different positions until 21 outs are recorded.  They need to be a mixture of grounders and fly balls.  Start over after every error or "should've been" out.

6:30- Hitting
*Young kids don't need to waste their time bunting and doing hit and runs and all of that.  Teach them to stay inside the ball and focus on squaring up every ball.

End your practice with some form of conditioning.  Do not make it a punishment!  This is the quickest way to lose the focus of your team.  Have them do some type of relay or competition so that they forget they are even conditioning.  

This is only one practice schedule.  There are literally thousands of different things you can do at practice, but this is one I like to go to because it pounds the fundamentals of the game.  Whatever you're doing, make sure that it keeps the interest of your players.  That is the most important thing.  At any level, the moment you lose the focus of your players you might as well just end practice right then.  The picture below shows when it is time to end practice:)

Tip of the Day: High expectations yield better results.  If you expect more from your team you will get more from your team.  Too many coaches expect nothing from their kids and it shows out on the field.  Push them, but only as far as they can mentally go.  There is a line.  Don't cross it!

Until Next Time!

The Correct Approach to Youth Coaching

Hey Guys,

I was able to watch a few 11u baseball games over the past weekend and just can't help but writing about how youth coaches are doing it wrong.  My guess is that if you are coaching a youth team you aren't losing games due to bunt coverages, first and third situations, or pickoff plays that weren't run correctly.  I had to spend 15 minutes of my day listening to a coach tell his team how they are losing games because they can't execute these things.  You're wrong!  You lose games because your kids can't catch a fly ball or a ground ball and because your team won't swing the bat.  That goes for all youth baseball coaches.  The problem isn't your 11 year old kid not performing high level things, its the fact that their fundamentals are poor.

When running a practice for young kids you need to do tons of reps of ground balls, fly balls, hitting, and base running.  Start your practice off with teaching them to properly warm up.  Make sure they are hitting each other in the chest with their throws.  Make it a game.  Kids attention spans are short.  Then go to short hops where the kids are on their knees.  After that move to ground balls, and then to fly balls.  Hit last.  Make sure the kids understand that to hit you have to get the outs in the field.  Also, in regards to the hitting approach, just let the kids swing.  This isn't major league baseball.  They don't need to be bunting and doing hit and runs and all of that upper level stuff.  Just let them hit and let them develop a love for the game.

Those are my two cents about youth baseball.  If you disagree and are one of the parents that thinks your kid is a high school baseball player when he's 11, I'd love to hear what your philosophy is on it.  Later tonight there will be a posted model practice schedule for youth baseball players (12 and under).  At thirteen coaches can start working in more upper level things into the games.

Until Next Time!

Hitting With Bryce Harper Power

Hey Guys,

Every time I see Bryce Harper strike a baseball I wonder the same thing: "How does he hit with that kind of bat speed?"  I think many hitters wonder the same thing.  There is definitely a huge element of natural talent and bat speed when it comes to Bryce Harper's hitting, but his technique is also flawless.  He does things that all other major league hitters do, but he does them better and more extremely.  According to my analysis, I can pick up three major things that contribute to his massive exit speeds.  These three things are his hip separation, his contact point, and his follow through.  These three things are parts of the swing that all players need to be working on to add bat speed and power.

First let's talk about the hip separation.  I couldn't find a quality picture of this in a Nationals uniform, so this picture is from his JUCO days.

Get up at your computer and put your body in that position right now.  Do you feel the torque that it creates.  Look at how the hips have rotated about half way, but the upper body has stayed completely closed with the hands back.  Many hitters, even at the major league level, rotate the lower and upper body almost simultaneously.  You have to create this separation in the swing to produce optimal torque.  To practice this, start your swing from this position just to feel how your swing should progress.

Now let's talk about the contact point.  Here is a picture of Bryce Harper just before he makes contact for a home run:

Notice that before contact is made he is already against a firm front side, and his back foot has been pulled of the ground from the explosion of his hips.  Many hitters don't ever get to this position, and the ones that do get to it after contact.  Here is why it needs to happen before contact:  If you do it after contact you haven't hit the baseball with maximum bat speed.  Simple physics says that you need to hit the baseball with the highest amount of bat speed you have.  This picture clearly shows Bryce Harper hitting the baseball with all of his weight transferred into the ball.

The last element of Harper's swing that creates the power he has may be the least talked about thing in hitting.  It's the follow through.  Many hitters who are taught by today's hitting coaches would end their swings where Harper is in the above picture, however look where Bryce ends his swing:

Do you see how his back shoulder is pointed to where he hit the baseball?  Contrary to popular belief, this isn't a bad thing.  Your shoulder needs to stay down on the ball until contact, but then you need to explode through the baseball with your upper body.  Surely you've heard, "Short to it, long through it,"?  How about we use, "Lower body to it, upper body through it,"?  Use the upper body to explode through the baseball.  This will take a massive number of reps to perfect, because if the timing is even slightly off you will come around the baseball and hit it very weakly.

To perfect this kind of swing, use a progression.  Start with pyramid swings.  Swing without moving your feet and keep your back shoulder down on the ball the whole time.  Next, take a regular swing, but do not finish with the upper half.  After you've taken some swings like that, go to the full swing.  Keep that shoulder down to contact and then explode through the baseball with your upper half.  This progression will give you a feel for the timing that things should happen in the swing.  You will be amazed with the power that this creates.

Tip of the Day: During season keep your repetitions in batting practice lower than in the off season.  You don't need to take 300 swings a day.  Just make sure you're keeping your swing a part of your muscle memory.

Until Next Time!

Youth Pitchers Need Help!

Hey guys,

I'm late again.  I'm finding myself to be very untimely with my posts lately.  Just like everyone, I'm getting into the heat of the high school baseball season.  It's fun to watch and much can be taken from it.  In the past week, I've had the fortune of seeing a top recruited pitcher throw, and work with a ten-year-old kid on his pitching.  And it was actually funny how similar their flaws were.  Both of the pitchers were all over the place (with the high school kid throwing 90mph though).  Many times they'd miss up and in, up and in, up and in.  Pretty soon I wanted to get out there and coach the kid on the mound, and I did coach the player I was giving a lesson.  It made me realize that two things I thought were so elementary, falling off and following through, are nothing of the sort.  Which leads me to this week's post.  Here are two drills that you MUST do with pitchers of every age.

1. The Line Drill- In some way create a line on the ground extending from the middle of your body outwards about eight feet.  Make sure that as you go through your pitching motion you consistently stay on this line.  It will help you to work in and around the strike zone more consistently.

2. The Tim Lincecum Drill- You want to stop missing high?  FINISH!!!  You want to put more velocity on your ball and less stress on your arm?  FINISH!!!  It is astounding how many pitchers will not get their back legs up and over and flatten their backs.  It's pure laziness and if you don't do it pitching you will never be successful.  Sure there are alway exceptions, but do you really want to take the chance of being an exception?  Here is what you should look like:

Look at that perfect follow through.  Notice that his back is flat and his leg is traveling up and over and, shockingly enough, will land on the imaginary line that we just talked about.  To do this drill put an object on the ground and as you go through your pitching motion, pick the object up off the ground.

Forgive me for getting a little fired up in this post, but it's frustrating to watch a top recruit throw 40% strikes, because of improper coaching.  The bottom line is work in line and follow through and you will see your pitching success become much greater than whatever it is now.  If you are already good, you'll be better.  Give these drills a try and let me know what you think.

Tip of the Day: Place more emphasis on throwing first pitch strikes.  It isn't talked about enough.  Getting ahead gives you many more things to play with in the at bat and will, in the long run, give you a better chance to win.  This is something that everybody has heard and accepts as truth, but nobody is forcing the issue.  I say it's time to start forcing it.

Until Next Time!

Two-Strike Hitting: The Correct Approach?

Hey guys,

So I promised you a post on two-strike hitting.  What brought this up is that some big time colleges, such as South Carolina are changing from the traditional, "sit fastball and adjust to the off speed" approach to something much different.  The new theory going right now is to look for the off speed and fight off the fastball.  So what's the reasoning for this?  The reasoning is that over 60% of strikeouts come from off speed pitches, so we should  be looking for them.  I, and many other people, disagree with this theory.

The first and most important problem that I have with this is that your two-strike approach should change from pitcher to pitcher and should be different for different hitters.  Many pitchers are predictable.  Some of them, you know you will see an off speed pitch when you have two strikes.  If this is the case, then why wouldn't you be sitting on it?  On the other hand, many pitchers rely on their fastball too much so why would you not be looking for that mistake fastball?  Do you see what I mean?  Those are just a few variables that can change your approach.

Now what about your hitters?  If you have a guy who has quick enough hands to fight off the fastball when he is looking for off speed that he may be a hitter who can use this new approach.  However, 95% of hitters do not have quick enough hands to do this, so they should be looking for a fastball and adjusting to the off speed on two strikes.

The moral of the story is that there is no set approach that is correct.  If you are a coach, you should know enough about the game to be able to tell you hitters the kind of approach that they should be using.  Look at the pitcher, analyze the type of hitter who is batting, and think about the situation in the game.  Then make your decision.  I'll be back tomorrow with a post that pitchers are going to want to see.

Until Next Time!

Tip of the Day: On two strikes, expand your strike zone by two baseballs outside, inside, up, and down.  Your strikeouts will decrease dramatically if you are able to do this.