Maybe times have changed. Many years ago my daughter took some lessons from Danielle Henderson, former Olympian, All American, pitched in the NPF, now the head coach at UMass. She taught HE.
Wanted: A Better Strategy for Developing Young Pitchers
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just 2 thoughts here, when my DD first started at 10U, I asked the coach if he would guarantee her 1 inning per game. 5 run max per inning or 10 batters and he said yes. so, every developing pitcher needs some bit of game experience. second, if they have trouble from 35', pitch them from 30'. and a third thought (multiple thought days are exciting 
), making sure coaches and parents grasp the concept of development at 8U and 10U is more important than winning.
), making sure coaches and parents grasp the concept of development at 8U and 10U is more important than winning.
IMO 10u is the most difficult age group to watch and develop players of all positions primarily because of beginning pitchers. As a coach and a parent of 2 pitchers, one who has gone through it and another that is currently at the beginning stages, I have a few thoughts.
Pitching must be developed outside of normal practice time. We offer pitching lessons to anyone that wants them but they have to practice on their own what they have been taught. If they don’t have a parent or sibling willing to help them, it is going to be tough. We are very clear with parents we will find their kids innings to develop if they show they are putting in the work. If they aren’t working they won’t get time.
There is no shortcut for experience. The pitchers have to get mound time and be allowed to fail. We have seen the most improvement with girls in their second season after being allowed to struggle the prior season. Once they see some success things can take off rather quickly for the girls that are working hard.
It can be extremely frustrating for parents whose kids are not pitchers at this age. They won’t get to hit often and there isn’t much fielding. It is critical to focus most of the development of non pitchers to non game times. The games at these levels primarily benefit pitchers and catchers.
To the topic of developing more pitchers I would agree with those that recommended letting 8u girls practice throwing underhand a few minutes a practice. Identify those who do it naturally and teach them basic pitching principles long before they are ever expected to use them in games. There are a lot of fun ways to teach young girls to pitch. I didn’t let my daughters pitch in games until they had been pitching for several months first. Even with that they had to go through many struggles before it started to click.
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Pitching must be developed outside of normal practice time. We offer pitching lessons to anyone that wants them but they have to practice on their own what they have been taught. If they don’t have a parent or sibling willing to help them, it is going to be tough. We are very clear with parents we will find their kids innings to develop if they show they are putting in the work. If they aren’t working they won’t get time.
There is no shortcut for experience. The pitchers have to get mound time and be allowed to fail. We have seen the most improvement with girls in their second season after being allowed to struggle the prior season. Once they see some success things can take off rather quickly for the girls that are working hard.
It can be extremely frustrating for parents whose kids are not pitchers at this age. They won’t get to hit often and there isn’t much fielding. It is critical to focus most of the development of non pitchers to non game times. The games at these levels primarily benefit pitchers and catchers.
To the topic of developing more pitchers I would agree with those that recommended letting 8u girls practice throwing underhand a few minutes a practice. Identify those who do it naturally and teach them basic pitching principles long before they are ever expected to use them in games. There are a lot of fun ways to teach young girls to pitch. I didn’t let my daughters pitch in games until they had been pitching for several months first. Even with that they had to go through many struggles before it started to click.
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- Dec 17, 2020
- 6
- 3
I have a few observations. My now 12 year old played rec when she was just starting and was the one who could throw strikes. She started taking pitching lessons pretty early so she was throwing 'fundamentally correct' from the mound. She got the majority of the mound time for her team and was the All-star pitcher because she could throw strikes. My problem is that she was so focused on throwing strikes that she mentally wouldn't throw as hard in the games. Not sure if some of the suggestions above could have helped that.
I have a love/hate relationship with girls playing travel so young. She moved to travel at 9, and because there were girls who could throw harder at that age she didn't get to pitch much. She became discouraged and even though she never wanted to quit pitching and still took lessons, it was hard.
I say all of that to say that to say that if we didn't start girls playing travel until the age of 12 or so, and all kids stayed at their rec level until then it would give those younger girls a chance to develop. Just because you can throw hard at a young age doesn't mean anything as your body starts to develop and grow, etc.
BTW... she recently attended one of Rick and Sarah Pauly's clinics and has continued to take lessons. She has worked hard and she gets a lot of mound time in travel and middle school ball.
I have a love/hate relationship with girls playing travel so young. She moved to travel at 9, and because there were girls who could throw harder at that age she didn't get to pitch much. She became discouraged and even though she never wanted to quit pitching and still took lessons, it was hard.
I say all of that to say that to say that if we didn't start girls playing travel until the age of 12 or so, and all kids stayed at their rec level until then it would give those younger girls a chance to develop. Just because you can throw hard at a young age doesn't mean anything as your body starts to develop and grow, etc.
BTW... she recently attended one of Rick and Sarah Pauly's clinics and has continued to take lessons. She has worked hard and she gets a lot of mound time in travel and middle school ball.
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Great question. Here's my two cents, from a parent's perspective:
Agree, walk-fests are boring, and not good for developing hitters. However, there will have to be some age/level where there will be a lot of walking as we develop our pitchers.
1) One thing we learnt from our daughter's pitching coach when she started is to "throw hard, the accuracy will come". As such, she learned to throw hard from day one, and certainly did cause a few walk-fests in her day. But 5 years later, she's still pitching at a competitive level, she LOVES it, and she throws hard, accurate and fearlessly.
2) In contrast, one mistake that young pitchers can make is to 'aim' for strikes, this compromises speed, which eventually makes them less competitive.
3) As far as increased strike zone, this makes sense, and is actually used in baseball here in Ontario, for the first year that the kids pitch. There is literally a larger orange home plate that they put on top of the normal one. However, there are still walk-fests unfortunately
4) Getting through the walk-fests and frustration is a critical part of a pitcher's mental development. At higher levels, the mental part of the game is huge. You can't just throw fast strikes. You have to have the mental strength to outsmart the batter and not lose your cool when things go wrong.
BTW, in our experience in softball and baseball, walk-fests are more of a house-league problem, and only at the younger ages. At competitive levels, and older ages, the pitchers are generally very proficient. Giving pitchers the opportunity to mess up in the early years, especially in house-league (as boring as it is for the rest of us), is vital to their development, and ultimately for the development of the game itself. In the meantime, bring out the pitching machines to develop the batters
Agree, walk-fests are boring, and not good for developing hitters. However, there will have to be some age/level where there will be a lot of walking as we develop our pitchers.
1) One thing we learnt from our daughter's pitching coach when she started is to "throw hard, the accuracy will come". As such, she learned to throw hard from day one, and certainly did cause a few walk-fests in her day. But 5 years later, she's still pitching at a competitive level, she LOVES it, and she throws hard, accurate and fearlessly.
2) In contrast, one mistake that young pitchers can make is to 'aim' for strikes, this compromises speed, which eventually makes them less competitive.
3) As far as increased strike zone, this makes sense, and is actually used in baseball here in Ontario, for the first year that the kids pitch. There is literally a larger orange home plate that they put on top of the normal one. However, there are still walk-fests unfortunately
4) Getting through the walk-fests and frustration is a critical part of a pitcher's mental development. At higher levels, the mental part of the game is huge. You can't just throw fast strikes. You have to have the mental strength to outsmart the batter and not lose your cool when things go wrong.
BTW, in our experience in softball and baseball, walk-fests are more of a house-league problem, and only at the younger ages. At competitive levels, and older ages, the pitchers are generally very proficient. Giving pitchers the opportunity to mess up in the early years, especially in house-league (as boring as it is for the rest of us), is vital to their development, and ultimately for the development of the game itself. In the meantime, bring out the pitching machines to develop the batters
- May 7, 2008
- 174
- 18
How about make a called strike = 2 strikes. A lot of young players learn very quick they can just stand there and statistically get on base. One good called strike and now the pressure is on the batter, anything close you got to swing.
- May 13, 2021
- 651
- 93
I think the only way you will ever ensure that teams develop more pitchers would be to put a pitch limit on pitchers. Then you would have to try and develop more pitchers. You would also have to let your not so great 10 year old's get some game time, and as we all know the only way to get better at pitching is to pitch.
If this thread has proven anything, it is certainly that there are certainly no simple solutions. As a 10u Rec coach, our league has a 9 / 12 inning limit per week depending on 2 or 3 games that week. We had a 5 run max per inning for innings 1-4 then unlimited runs 5&6 (if it got that far).
I had 3 pitchers (my dd who took lessons). Over 13 games (including playoffs) the 2 other pitchers completed an inning (recorded 3 outs) a combined total of..... 1 time. I believe that covered almost 30 innings between the two pitchers. It was 98.75% walks. It was a tough year for everyone involved. They both still pitch in Req, but have never taken the initiative to really work at it.
I had a fourth girl that could throw more strikes than the girls that pitched, but she could not catch the ball. What do you do with that? Roll the ball back to the pitcher? She certainly could not stop a comebacker. So she did not get a chance to pitch. I don't know if I made the correct decision there.
At one pregame home plate meeting, both coachs asking the ump to make the zone big. After the first inning the home plate ump told me, "I can't make it that big."
It has been mentioned already, but the best thing that we can do is educate parents and get them to work with their children at home.
Edit to add
We have a local Mom that pitched in College. She has son's in our little league. Each spring, she would hold group lessons. $10 per child for an hour. Both years I coached, we started with 10-12 girls attending. Within 2-3 weeks we would be down to 4-5 girls.
I had 3 pitchers (my dd who took lessons). Over 13 games (including playoffs) the 2 other pitchers completed an inning (recorded 3 outs) a combined total of..... 1 time. I believe that covered almost 30 innings between the two pitchers. It was 98.75% walks. It was a tough year for everyone involved. They both still pitch in Req, but have never taken the initiative to really work at it.
I had a fourth girl that could throw more strikes than the girls that pitched, but she could not catch the ball. What do you do with that? Roll the ball back to the pitcher? She certainly could not stop a comebacker. So she did not get a chance to pitch. I don't know if I made the correct decision there.
At one pregame home plate meeting, both coachs asking the ump to make the zone big. After the first inning the home plate ump told me, "I can't make it that big."
It has been mentioned already, but the best thing that we can do is educate parents and get them to work with their children at home.
Edit to add
We have a local Mom that pitched in College. She has son's in our little league. Each spring, she would hold group lessons. $10 per child for an hour. Both years I coached, we started with 10-12 girls attending. Within 2-3 weeks we would be down to 4-5 girls.
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5+ years ago i coached my DD's rec 10u team. I remember asking the 12 girls on the team who can pitch during the first practice and 11 hands went into the air. out of the 11 hands there were only 2 who actually practiced regularly and 1 who just had some natural talent or luck throwing strikes. i had a lot of pissed off parents, so i started giving a test before games. i would give any girl the chance to pitch in games they just had to throw 6 strikes( or close to being a strike) out of 10 pitches. most of the girls were 0-10 or 1-10 many went to pitching lessons but didn't practice outside of the team or their lesson. i found that when i gave into certain parent pressures to let suzy pitch who didn't practice and we would lose due to walks they blamed me or the umpires call, but not suzy for not practicing. that was the last year i coached. My DD is a pitcher for one of the best orgs in our area she only got 5 innings all year on that team her first year. she was number 5 or 6 pitcher. i begged her to quit but she refused and worked her butt off and came back the next year their #1 pitcher being used only against the toughest teams nationally. its a marathon not a sprint, and to be a pitcher requires an extremely strong work ethic and an absolute love and passion to practice.
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I admit to skimming comments after page 5, so not sure if this has been covered, but maybe instead of changing rules, there should be more emphasis on the mental game at an early age? If the lobbers are getting the innings and the trained pitchers are quitting, there is something wrong with the training. Pitching is hard work. Lessons teach technique and practice develops muscle memory, both of which are required to be a pitcher. But I've seen plenty of young girls with good technique melt down during a game. Then they get scared and don't want to come back. If they learned to "set and forget" earlier, then maybe each of the 35,000 pitches is takes to master a pitch wouldn't be so intimidating.
DD has been pitching since age 7, and every coach has agreed: when starting out, throw as hard as you can and don't worry about where the ball goes. At some point, it comes together, but it doesn't work the other way around. If pitchers start aiming early on then they don't throw as hard. So, yes, there is a learning curve that parents of non-pitchers just have to tolerate if they eventually want good pitchers. But asking a young girl to manipulate her body in unnatural ways repeatedly while onlookers pick apart her every move and the team depends on her puts quite a mental load on her, and that is the most difficult part of pitching, IMO.
Whoever on this string who said that the cure for this is just to play more softball, I agree. Maybe I just live in a remote part of the country, but girls here normally play both rec and travel concurrently. Pitchers get tons of opportunities for innings if they want them. But also I don't see the "everyone wants to pitch" mentality. That's just not a thing here. It's too hard, and too much of a commitment. Helping young pitchers handle the mental load early on might make it more palatable? Just a thought.
DD has been pitching since age 7, and every coach has agreed: when starting out, throw as hard as you can and don't worry about where the ball goes. At some point, it comes together, but it doesn't work the other way around. If pitchers start aiming early on then they don't throw as hard. So, yes, there is a learning curve that parents of non-pitchers just have to tolerate if they eventually want good pitchers. But asking a young girl to manipulate her body in unnatural ways repeatedly while onlookers pick apart her every move and the team depends on her puts quite a mental load on her, and that is the most difficult part of pitching, IMO.
Whoever on this string who said that the cure for this is just to play more softball, I agree. Maybe I just live in a remote part of the country, but girls here normally play both rec and travel concurrently. Pitchers get tons of opportunities for innings if they want them. But also I don't see the "everyone wants to pitch" mentality. That's just not a thing here. It's too hard, and too much of a commitment. Helping young pitchers handle the mental load early on might make it more palatable? Just a thought.
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