How to stop walk-athon in 10u?

[RADcatchers]

yeah. fair. there were a couple of #2s in rec this year, but not many thankfully. I remember a few from last year too, not terrible. The typical MO around here is your #1 pitcher pitches innings 1-2, and then you get someone else inning 3, and then if you've got a chance at winning or it's the unlimited run last inning, you bring back #1 otherwise you get someone else an inning too. So even in the crappy "can't reach the plate" situations, at least it's usually only 25 or so minutes in the middle there.

But I wouldn't necessarily say #1 gets the game moving, because that's a BROAD category, and where most of the walkathons come from really. Because there are a lot of girls just out there basically stepping and lobbing it like the coach would. Sure, it gets to the plate, near the plate ,bounces on the plate ,etc but I'm not sure that's going to develop them.

IMO, you need to be at least attempting to whip it/releasing at the hip, and on average at least 1 pitch per batter should be a "you should've swung at that". It's a low bar and still might be an 8-walk inning, but at least there's a sense that if they keep at it, they'll get better, and that someone's actually teaching them "right".
On the other hand, we faced a girl the other day that I guess was kinda doing that, but she had all these wiggling and bouncing, and did what I guess technically is a "Crow hop" in that she took a step with her push foot first, before getting through what wasn't an unreasonable delivery. But she repeated her motion pretty well every time! (also was mostly high balls around the umpires head)

Little humor here ...
Somewhere in reading this description of rec ball I started thinking about the movie Dances With Wolves.... the vast tundra and nothing going on for 20 minutes...?

What are your thoughts about having pitcher evaluation before the season?
Like they have player assessments?
A,B,C

Perhaps by a certain age if someone wants to call themself a pitcher they should have to qualify at some skill level to be able to pitch?
(to keep some integrity of the game intact)

Simply considering that a coach can teach basics how to pitch, isn't really going to develop much quickly to make it very useful. If you get to pitch without training on your own it really deteriorates the rest of the game.

So what about a standard before teams are put together? Like I commented earlier perhaps to be a pitcher you would have to be able to hit a door 5 out of 10 times. That is not an unreasonable request. Say specifically above 10u.

 

[CoachCeetar]

Little humor here ...
Somewhere in reading this description of rec ball I started thinking about the movie Dances With Wolves.... the vast tundra and nothing going on for 20 minutes...?

What are your thoughts about having pitcher evaluation before the season?
Like they have player assessments?
A,B,C

Perhaps by a certain age if someone wants to call themself a pitcher they should have to qualify at some skill level to be able to pitch?

Simply considering that a coach can teach basics how to pitch, isn't really going to develop much quickly to make it very useful. If you get to pitch without training on your own it really deteriorates the rest of the game.

So what about a standard before teams are put together? Like I commented earlier perhaps to be a pitcher you would have to be able to hit a door five out of 10 times. That is not an unreasonable request. Say specifically above 10u.

see: the dozens of threads where everyone's like "how do we find another pitcher?"

I'm not as privy to the higher levels yet but I don't get the sense that many of them are doing the same "well, let's just throw you out there and see how it goes!" that happens below 12u. There is already some standards, even if they're sorta by feel/unofficial. Definitely giving kids benchmarks they have to hit to be a "pitcher" would be a good coaching/development thing to do, but you might need them to pitch anyway.

Little humor here ...

you would have to be able to hit a door five out of 10 times.

How about this, the door is the strike zone. The catcher stands behind it. If you hit the door, it's a dead ball, ball or strike, whatever. If you miss, runners are free to steal.

 

[RADcatchers]

Definitely giving kids benchmarks they have to hit to be a "pitcher" would be a good coaching/development thing to do,

?

 

[ninthgirl]

Yeah, I was trying to caveat I didn't know your use case, but there are many rec leagues that will happily let a girl walk in an entire inning until the mercy rule. That turns away any competitive player from that league, and basically forces those families into travel ball.

I'm not sure I love the idea (not saying this is your idea, just speaking in general) that one has to pay significant money for travel ball to get to play softball at a competitive level (not the highest competitive level, but to even get competitive games).

I totally agree with this. In our family Sunday morning is a conflict (church) that we just aren't willing to miss very often. That rules out most travel programs. Our local rec leagues have Sunday afternoon double headers that are supposed to be for rec all-star level players. If it worked as intended (it doesn't, but that's a topic for a different thread), it would be a great compromise. Rec games on Saturday and double headers on Sunday that are more competitive - and the rules are more "real" too - provides a lot of opportunities without penalizing families who aren't going full-on 15 tournaments a year. It's also a lot cheaper for families who might not have the resources to pay for travel ball.

 

[canyonjoe]

One think I always wanted to do was have a double header on Saturday. Game one was modified pitching and game 2 was all coach pitch. That way you got your pitchers some work but also got to have a decent game with a lot of hitting and fielding. We used to do this at 10U practice and could get in 6-8 inning in an hour and a half and there was a ton of plays made.

 

[Chris8]

yeah. fair. there were a couple of #2s in rec this year, but not many thankfully. I remember a few from last year too, not terrible. The typical MO around here is your #1 pitcher pitches innings 1-2, and then you get someone else inning 3, and then if you've got a chance at winning or it's the unlimited run last inning, you bring back #1 otherwise you get someone else an inning too. So even in the crappy "can't reach the plate" situations, at least it's usually only 25 or so minutes in the middle there.

But I wouldn't necessarily say #1 gets the game moving, because that's a BROAD category, and where most of the walkathons come from really. Because there are a lot of girls just out there basically stepping and lobbing it like the coach would. Sure, it gets to the plate, near the plate ,bounces on the plate ,etc but I'm not sure that's going to develop them.

IMO, you need to be at least attempting to whip it/releasing at the hip, and on average at least 1 pitch per batter should be a "you should've swung at that". It's a low bar and still might be an 8-walk inning, but at least there's a sense that if they keep at it, they'll get better, and that someone's actually teaching them "right".

On the other hand, we faced a girl the other day that I guess was kinda doing that, but she had all these wiggling and bouncing, and did what I guess technically is a "Crow hop" in that she took a step with her push foot first, before getting through what wasn't an unreasonable delivery. But she repeated her motion pretty well every time! (also was mostly high balls around the umpires head)

All great points. That's where our league modified starting the batter with one ball....and ball "four" wasn't a walk but insertion of coach to pitch. This kept game moving reasonably and there were no walks, no HBP.

"you should've swung at that" beginning of season this was tougher, end of the season it was majority of pitches and fewer coach pitch to batters.

 

[Andrew_Vegas]

The league needs to change its structure. By 10U, pitchers should be developed to the point of being able to throw strikes.

1. Start kid pitch as early as possible in 8U. Waiting until 10u is too late to go from coach pitch to kid pitch. We have competitive games with just kid pitch in 8u.
2. Host clinics with local pitching coaches to teach girls the basics and introduce them to pitching, it also helps to make connections for private lessons.
3. Encourage umpires to open up the strike zone, essentially make it armpits to bottom of the knees and anything inside the river. If the batter can reasonably hit it, it’s a strike.

Coaches:
1. Pitching has to be a part of every practice. Give your pitchers work against live batters and your batters reps vs love pitching.
2. Make games out of it and let every kid participate. Put a basketball on a tee and have them try to knock it off. Kids love it and you get a chance to see if a kid has natural ability.
3. Drills must be done every day & every practice to see who is working in their own. Give your pitchers 3 drills to do every day.
4. Pitchers who don’t work at home are not pitchers. Parents need to understand this if they want their daughter to pitch.


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[earlg3]

Encourage umpires to open up the strike zone, essentially make it armpits to bottom of the knees

I'm kind of sidetracking here, but this is actually the normal strike zone in NFHS. Not trying to pick on you, especially since most umpires also do not believe this, for whatever reason. ?‍

 

[Andrew_Vegas]

I'm kind of sidetracking here, but this is actually the normal strike zone in NFHS. Not trying to pick on you, especially since most umpires also do not believe this, for whatever reason.

View attachment 29744

It 100% is, but rarely do you see umpires call strikes at the letters, nor do many give young pitchers the benefit of marginal pitches on the corners. Many umpires who do 8U and 10u also do 14/16u games and tournament ball, so they carry tight zones. A tight strike zone is a killer to a young pitchers confidence. My point is the league UIC needs to be explicitly clear with the umps that the strike zone is big and pitcher friendly.


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[ArmWhip]

I know that the quality of softball varies by location but in my area where it's weak I think the simple answer is all 10U rec should be coach pitch. This is my opinion as an instructor. Given the choice of a 10-12U pitcher with a couple of seasons of rec pitching and a girl with little to no pitching experience I will take the rookie every time. The pitcher with experience is going to come with bad mechanics that will take a lot of work to change and high expectations now that she is 'taking lessons'. Teaching pitchers to bowl strikes with a phony windmill action isn't doing them any favors.