Cues to the pitch you call

[Scorekeeper]

Phathead,

I think people would find it much easier to pass on information to the catcher, turn them loose, then discuss it after the game, than trying to keep control and hope that one day they’ll be ready to go out on their own. If it brought on loss after loss and blast after blast by opposing hitters, I’d be in complete shock.

What's scary is, the 1st time you try to do it, you'll find lots of things you forgot about. But like teaching anything, you'll get better and better at it.

 

[Phathead]

Score,
That is where I am headed with our catcher. I set ready to call pitches, if I call them I explain the what and why after the inning. If the situation is there I just point at the catcher and she calls it. Like I said I always tell her to have a plan.

 

[Greenmonsters]

Pitch calling is all about a plan. It is dynamic and involves thinking ahead - sometimes 1 pitch, sometimes several pitches, and sometimes the next at bat i.e.,hold off on a certain pitch to a specific hitter and save it for a tight situation later. The same pitch can be right or wrong depending upon what came before it or followed it. An occasional interjection is OK, but it becomes disruptive if too frequent and can lead to poor results if the parties aren't on the same page.

Another thought - As important as is the specific pitch, specific location can be as, if not more important, too! The right pitch in the wrong location can be a disaster, but the wrong pitch in the right location can be effective, but not as effective as the right pitch in the right location (assuming its executed properly, of course).

 

[riseball]

Pitch calling is all about a plan. It is dynamic and involves thinking ahead - sometimes 1 pitch, sometimes several pitches, and sometimes the next at bat i.e.,hold off on a certain pitch to a specific hitter and save it for a tight situation later. The same pitch can be right or wrong depending upon what came before it or followed it. An occasional interjection is OK, but it becomes disruptive if too frequent and can lead to poor results if the parties aren't on the same page.

Another thought - As important as is the specific pitch, specific location can be as, if not more important, too! The right pitch in the wrong location can be a disaster, but the wrong pitch in the right location can be effective, but not as effective as the right pitch in the right location (assuming its executed properly, of course).

For me the location is much more important than the actual pitch. Often I will dictate the location on certain hitters or situations and let the battery decide what pitch to use. As long as it moves I don't get too hung up on what pitch is thrown. This weekend we played an aggressive hitting college team and almost all of the hitters were up on the plate. I explained that we were going to hammer the inside up and down while mixing speeds until they showed they could turn on it. All was well until the pitcher decided to go outside because "it was getting too predictable".

 

[Cowdogz]

I teach my baseball catchers that they can use the last swing as a cue. When the hitter is early (jerks the ball foul to the pull side) the next pitch is off-speed, or outer-third, or both. When the hitter is late (fouls off to the opposite side), the next pitch is faster, or inner-third, or both.

 

[Scorekeeper]

Score,
That is where I am headed with our catcher. I set ready to call pitches, if I call them I explain the what and why after the inning. If the situation is there I just point at the catcher and she calls it. Like I said I always tell her to have a plan.

I’m not saying your way won’t work, or even won’t work well. We simply disagree as to when the best time is to put the reins in the C’s hands completely.

This is MY experience talking again. It’s very rare for me to see a coach sitting down with the C after an inning, to tell him much of anything. Of course I have no experience in that area for SB, but in BB there’s usually less than 2 minutes between team changes before the coach trots out to a base coaching spot. That doesn’t leave a lot of time to talk to the pitchers about what they did, the catchers about what they did, or the rest of the fielders about what they did.

Things are happening much too quickly. Even after a game, unless the coach has taken extensive notes he can’t remember every time he agreed or disagreed with a call. And even if he did, whose gonna sit around for the 5-10 minutes the coach wants to “teach” the catcher? It’s so much easier for the “teaching” to be done during a pen, but then the teaching focus is split between the catcher and the pitcher, and normally the pitcher will get most of the attention.

Big college and pro teams have a distinct advantage because one pour soul isn’t trying to teach everyone everything. For 3 years, Fernando Vina’s son was on our HS team, and he spent a great deal of time working with the IFr’s. During those years, our IF defense was well known to be one of the best in the area. It wasn’t that the HC wasn’t more than capable, it was simply that he was free to spend his time teaching other things.

It’s a shame that life works that way, but the truth of it is, team environments at the amateur level aren’t the best place to learn baseball or softball skills. 

 

[Scorekeeper]

Pitch calling is all about a plan. It is dynamic and involves thinking ahead - sometimes 1 pitch, sometimes several pitches, and sometimes the next at bat i.e.,hold off on a certain pitch to a specific hitter and save it for a tight situation later. The same pitch can be right or wrong depending upon what came before it or followed it. An occasional interjection is OK, but it becomes disruptive if too frequent and can lead to poor results if the parties aren't on the same page.

Another thought - As important as is the specific pitch, specific location can be as, if not more important, too! The right pitch in the wrong location can be a disaster, but the wrong pitch in the right location can be effective, but not as effective as the right pitch in the right location (assuming its executed properly, of course).

That’s all true, at least to some degree. The thing most forget about though, is that there aren’t many absolute truths in baseball when it comes to pitching or hitting. As long as there’s a batter in the equation, the most that can be said about calling pitches is, they’re the best guess at the moment. That guess can be improved on by higher pitching skills and having more information about the batter, but even then it’s still only a best guess because of the wild card. The batter.

 

[Phathead]

This is MY experience talking again. It’s very rare for me to see a coach sitting down with the C after an inning, to tell him much of anything. Of course I have no experience in that area for SB, but in BB there’s usually less than 2 minutes between team changes before the coach trots out to a base coaching spot. That doesn’t leave a lot of time to talk to the pitchers about what they did, the catchers about what they did, or the rest of the fielders about what they did.

I understand what you are saying. When I talk about discussing the inning Im just talking about a quick discussion of paticular sitiuation during that inning not a complete recap. Example might go something like "Did you see where that batter was standing thats why I called x then y and when the count went 2-2 I called z". I like to try to teach during pitching practice with both. We might be throwing ptich a I then show/discuss when we would call it and what we expect it to accomplish. What situation would we use it and who or why not to use that pitch in that location. Like I said earlier I just started the thread to see what others look for to see if I am missing anything.

 

[Scorekeeper]

I understand what you are saying. When I talk about discussing the inning Im just talking about a quick discussion of paticular sitiuation during that inning not a complete recap. Example might go something like "Did you see where that batter was standing thats why I called x then y and when the count went 2-2 I called z". I like to try to teach during pitching practice with both. We might be throwing ptich a I then show/discuss when we would call it and what we expect it to accomplish. What situation would we use it and who or why not to use that pitch in that location. Like I said earlier I just started the thread to see what others look for to see if I am missing anything.

I think it’s obvious that you’re one of the “good” or even “exceptional” coaches, who really does try hard to teach, so it’s not that my personal feelings are directed at you. It’s just that for a lot of years I’ve heard every coach go on about how they do this or that, but when it’s checked into, you find out they might try to do the things they say, but in reality the number of times and how well they do it comes up a little short of what they lead others to believe.

What I’m sayin’ is, exceptional coaches are just about as rare as exceptional people in any other endeavor. That’s why they’re called exceptional.

 

[Greenmonsters]

That’s all true, at least to some degree. The thing most forget about though, is that there aren’t many absolute truths in baseball when it comes to pitching or hitting. As long as there’s a batter in the equation, the most that can be said about calling pitches is, they’re the best guess at the moment. That guess can be improved on by higher pitching skills and having more information about the batter, but even then it’s still only a best guess because of the wild card. The batter.

It's a unique mix of chess and dancing. Pitch calling can be proactive or reactive, follow or lead, or a little of both, but as long as it isn't predictable there are a number of ways to achieve the same result. At the higher levels, the pitches that get hammered are the mistakes i.e., those pitches that are poorly executed or located. When done well, you can get away with a poorly executed pitch in the right location, or a well executed pitch in the wrong location.