Is it unreasonable to assume that club coaches will develop hitting?

[BrianTx01]

I am never a fan of a travel ball coach giving his/her own players lessons for money. It is just is a good way to invite feelings of favoritism.

As far as whether a coach should teach hitting during practice. That can be a touchy subject. They definitely need hitting reps in practice. As pattar said almost every player has their own hitting instructor but I do think there is room for some minor corrections and definitely lots of encouragement.

If your coach is only doing fielding in practice and telling you to come to their private lessons than I would have concerns.

 

[BrianTx01]

Sorry. I forgot to mention she is 13 years old. I wonder if the amount they practice is part of the problem. They usually have four hours a week in practice. After warm ups, conditioning etc there never seems to be enough time for BP.

There is enough time.

 

[efastball]

Unless you have lots of filed time, like a HS team, you cant practice hitting on a field.

Make use of cages for team hitting.

As far as individual development for hitting or pitching, a team coach is probably not going to advance your individual kid. (This is a big mistake most parents make)

 

[Rolling Hard]

If you can hit, you will play. Players should hit 2 to 3 times a week. Tee work/ front toss at least 50 swings each session. You can get a lot done in 30 to 40 minutes. Talk situations ie. Its 2-1 count,runners on 2nd and 3rd, 1 out, 4th inning and we are up 6 to 3. Helps them with visualizing which is very important.
We don't have mid-week team practice. Team is way too spread out to even consider. BP on Saturday consist of tee work and 2 coaches throwing front toss and each player getting 2 rounds of 15 pitches.(not rapid fire). Occasionally our pitchers will throw to our players.
Basically BP on Saturday is to see who was putting in the work mid week and what the batting order will be on Sunday.
I've said this before:
If your DD plays travel ball you must own a bucket of balls, a bownet, a tee and a screen for front toss and have couple hours a week for time at the park.

 

[JOHNN]

How long is each practice and are they not run very efficiently? If they are practicing 4 hours a week it seems they should be able to get hitting in.

We went to a pickup practice last night (10u) and after warmups and conditioning, the entire team did infield work, then broke up into 3 groups with pitchers/catchers working together, and 2 groups working on various outfield drills and situations. Once that was done, they had batting practice all with live pitching, 3 girls batting and the rest in their positions. Batters either got 3 strikes, or a hit and then next batter. If they hit safely they stayed on base, then could steal, etc. Every player got a pretty decent amount of time at bat bc it was pretty rapid fire but also caused the fielders to be on their toes since you always had players on the bases trying to score. Now this practice was 2 hours but it was pretty well structured and definitely didnt have alot of standing around like Ive seen with some teams.

 

[radness]

This works in the reverse if you're never going to work on hitting then you damn well better work on defense because you're going to be doing a lot of it LOL

 

[_MIA_]

3/4 of the time, when my DD has practice, I hit with her beforehand since it is almost an hour drive (and the hitting facility is right next to where they practice, indoor or outdoor) and if I am going to go up there
I might as well make the best use of my time (as opposed to driving up to the facility to hit on a different day). Plus she doesn't go to paid lessons so I am all she has.. There have been times where I wanted to
tell her coach to not have her hit (unless it was live) since she had already taken enough swings (and sometimes they do dumb drills..).

Her team (first year 14's) probably hits about once a week, and it is a combination of tee work, front toss and live hitting.

 

[GunnerShotgun]

Am I expecting too much?

I think you are asking the wrong question. "Is team hitting the most effective use of practice time"? Probably not unless you are a HS or 8u/10u team.

Now you know why pitchers (for the most part) end up not hitting as much when they get older. Not enough hours in the day.

 

[Strike2]

"Is team hitting the most effective use of practice time"?

If we're talking about team hitting practice on a ball field...unless you live in an area where it's always nice outside, and ball field / players are most always available, then no...but that doesn't mean it shouldn't happen.

DD's team worked cages for hitting ~ 99% of the time. That's really the most efficient way to do it for a club team. I can count the times on one hand that we hit during an outside practice. There's way too much standing around and practice time becomes ever-more difficult to schedule as players get older.

If the team cage time is well organized with station work and a good progression, it can be useful. DD's HC was pretty good on hitting technique and had enough help to get everyone a good number of reps. Still, I found that it ranked third in quality behind 1) a half-hour with DD's preferred batting instructor and, 2) an hour with me.

To the OP's question...yes, it is reasonable to expect some hitting development from club coaches. What isn't reasonable is to expect them to do ALL the work. Hitting well takes an ever-increasing amount of work as players age up and face better pitching and defense. Fortunately, it's a skill that can be extensively worked on away from the team.

 

[Eric F]

Sorry. I forgot to mention she is 13 years old. I wonder if the amount they practice is part of the problem. They usually have four hours a week in practice. After warm ups, conditioning etc there never seems to be enough time for BP.

If the HC can't figure out how to get in a good BP session in a 4 hour practice, it's poor planning.

That said, team BP is for reps to keep skills sharp, not instruction. Even if the team is doing a 1 hour BP session, 1x per week is not enough to make any real improvements. Generally speaking for TB, if you're not doing extra work outside of team practices, you're falling behind. I understand it's hard if you're also doing other specialty skill work (like pitching), but this is reality. Between games, practices, hitting instruction sessions, and work at home, a decent week for my DD is having a bat in her hand at least 4x per week. More is better.