Coaching Youth Baseball

Here is a list of ten bullet point items you can implement in your leagues, baseball practices, games, scrimmages right now. If you truly want to help your players totally enjoy playing youth baseball then you will listen in and check off how many of these ten items that you might already be doing. If you have not tried any then it's time to begin using some and folding them into your everyday practices, scrimmages and ballgames. Kids need more opportunities for unstructured play and here are 10 ideas for you to try. coachandplaybaseball.com

One of my biggest objectives for bettering youth baseball for the kids is to show coaches how to implement unstructured play, unorganized play, free play and things of this nature. Well don't take it from me…listen to a couple of the biggest names in college baseball coaching talk about the need to provide more opportunities to implement unstructured, disorganized play in youth baseball. You will go away with a new outlook and approach to your youth baseball experience. www.coachandplaybaseball.com

I have known several youth baseball league presidents over the years and they all have shown to be very nice, hardworking, dedicated and the desire to provide a good experience for the kids and families that they work with. Only thing is they are nowhere close to well trained, player development people. In fact, they had little to no baseball coaching experience. Yet they are picked to continue the youth baseball format that they have been handed down.

The league admin are told to just carry on the same format as always regardless if the players are 1) having fun and 2) getting enough reps to increase their baseball and athletic skills. The use of lunatic is not directed at these dedicated people who lead our organizations. Rather "lunatic" is used here more to reference to how idiodic it is to force our kids to play boring games and rarely if ever have on-field baseball practices. The people who think that is the best system we can come up with are lunatics. coachandplaybaseball.com

One of our listeners sent this to me…"Listening to your podcast has really changed my perspective on youth baseball. I coach 11-12 year olds in rec league and in the tournaments. I was "that" coach focused on winning district tournaments. I used to think 12u was the end-all-be-all of baseball. Boy was I wrong. I'm 100% resetting this year to player development. We've had a bunch of practices and I've been using your drills and scrimmage games. Kids love the scrimmages. Our league is also going to run coach-pitch sandlot games on the weekends to give kids more playing time. Thanks, and keep up the good work!" coachandplaybaseball.com

There might be some things you think and believe to be true in youth baseball that might not be. Listen in to hear Dave talk about some of the "myths" that are commonly circulated in the youth baseball arena. I bet most of these "myths" you have heard of and probably directly affect your current situation. Well, here are the seven discussion topics and we wrap up with a solution that you don't want to miss. www.coachandplaybaseball.com

Are you tired of slow paced, boring, unproductive ballgames? Want to open your youth baseball world to unlimited player development and player enjoyment? Then you will want to hear the features and benefits of my accelerated High Tempo© baseball development formats. Here we go looking into a completely different way to approach youth baseball. See for yourself if you want to stay same old, same old. Or are you ready to jump start your kids into high octane, action packed games and practices. www.coachandplaybaseball.com

Youth baseball parents and coaches are in a vicious cycle of trying to accumulate "status symbol points" watching their kids play ballgames and giving up the status points and allowing the kids to develop more during on-field baseball practices. Listen in as Dave talks about how the 'Big-people' are locked in and obsessed with status points and at some point got to give it up and let kids have more on-field practice opportunities. www.coachandplaybaseball.com

We complete our 100-point youth baseball coaches checklist with this episode. We cover several topics of interest and concern especially digging into how to coach hitters during competition and coaches demeanor during ballgames. In addition, we also discuss the problem of playing too many ballgames and neglecting on-field well organized baseball practice. We say, "Develop, develop, develop, but where is the development"? coachandplaybaseball.com

Our 100-point baseball coaches checklist continues and we hit a bunch of topics that commonly we have to deal with as youth level coaches. We also try to answer a really big question that I cannot get a fair answer to that makes sense to me. Want to know what that question is then tune in and maybe you can help give us an answer. I doubt if you can but let us know your best shot.

The "business model" of the major youth baseball national organizations is "ALL-STARS". It is the main carrot that these national entities use to attract families. Unfortunately, the collateral damage from All-Stars is what turns many families away. We take a big long look into what it would take to shift from a national umbrella organization and just play as a local independent youth baseball operation. You could be a local league or a travel ball tournament team you should listen in and see if this might be a better fit for your baseball families to look into.