Coaching Youth Baseball

How much “player development” actually is going on in youth baseball? Is youth baseball more about entertaining the “Big-people” or giving kids vitally important reps to build and develop baseball skills? Listen in and decide if you think we are just dressing up in our baseball uniforms or actually ‘playing” baseball. Let’s see if there are improvements to our youth baseball systems that we can implement immediately. Coachandplaybaseball.com

Kids who start playing baseball at age 5 or 6 then reach age 13 & 14 have played 8,9, maybe even 10 years of organized youth baseball. They should be pretty polished by the time they are 13 or 14 right? Not always the case. Too many players are lacking baseball skills. The collateral damages of playing too many games, never practicing on the field and having coaches that are trained to organize player development minded practices are often more the norm than the exception. www.coachandplaybaseball.com

How many on-field baseball practices will a player participate in during their under 12-year-old career? From age 7 to 12 or about 6 seasons how often will kids have an on-field team practice? In addition, how many coaches will be thoroughly trained to conduct these on-field practices which include a large quantity of reps, wide range of throwing skills, sampling of multiple positions, many baserunning opportunities, turning double plays, catching fly balls on the run, numerous times to bat? All while having a blast! www.coachandplaybaseball.com

You all have been to your town carnival or county fair right? It’s exciting and entertaining to go to a town carnival. Youth baseball has a bit of hullabaloo around it that somewhat mimics a carnival. It has an entertainment aspect to it. But the consequences of making kids play games and never practicing on the field leaves players ill-prepared for the 60’-90’ fields. Pro baseball has a rookie level that you may not be aware of that youth baseball should take a long look at and it does not look like a carnival. www.coachandplaybaseball.com

When we find something ‘out of order’ like an elevator for example it means it needs some special repairs to get it back functioning correctly. It is broken to some degree and working like it should. Is there any part of youth baseball that we can consider as ‘out of order’?

Well, here is a couple areas that we will discuss and let you decide if there might be cause for an ‘out of order’ sign. www.coachandplaybaseball.com

Listen to Dave’s suggestions on how to turn the perfect hitting technique into a full-on culture of hitting on your baseball team. You will hear how the professional baseball coaches communicate hitting methods to their players. You might be surprised to hear some hitting techniques that you have never heard before. www.coachandplaybaseball.com

What are the options for your area ballplayers when they hit the 60’-90’ ballfields at age 13? Has your organization fully prepared them for this age level? We are looking to join in with your local leagues and teams and work with you on our High Tempo© Baseball Development System and close up all the holes in your player development model and increase the kid’s fun-level at the same time. www.coachandplaybaseball.com

Have you been brave enough to bring up kid friendly modifations and variations to your local youth baseball leaders and travel ball coaches? Often new ideas are met with laughter and little interest. If they are not laughing at you then maybe it is time to step up your game and get prodding. People only know if we tell them, so it’s time for those laughing at us to get educated. www.coachandplaybaseball.com

If we know the problems and issues then we can analyze the situations and find solid solutions that make the problems somewhat go away. Here we look at our known problems in youth baseball development and match solutions to fix them. Question: Are our youth ballplayers “getting their work in?” Not like they should and probably not even close. How do we fix the problem?….by giving youth baseball coaches easy to use solutions. coachandplaybaseball.com

Someone asked me recently, “Hey Coach Dave, What would you do in youth baseball if your son was 10 years old?” So, here is the six things that I would use to analyze the situation and come up with my answers. What is the best-practice methods and systems to help your kids maneuver through youth baseball from 10 years old and beyond. coachandplaybaseball.com