Fields get bigger and the game changes
May 22, 2018 by Coach McCreary
Filed under Coaching
You’ve coached your son’s team at the early ages and everything is pretty simple and straight forward. Then he gets to around 11 or 12 and it seems like the entire game changes.
That’s because it does.
My son is now 11 and a boatload of changes have now made the game much more complicated for him and his teammates. The field is now bigger. Runners can take leads and steal on first move instead of no leads and stealing when the ball crosses the plate. There are now dropped third strikes. And balks. That has meant a lot more practice time on these little changes.
Here is a list of things (many with links to articles and videos to learn more) that they now will have to know how to do.
- How to take a lead off of each base. (article) (video)
- How to get back to the base.
- Learn the options for the 1st and 3rd plays. (article)
- Good base running angles due to longer distances. (article)
- Catchers blocking. (video)
- Pitchers covering home plate on passed balls with a runner on 3rd.
- Pitchers covering first base. (video)
- Pickoffs to all the bases. (video)
- Spin-move pickoffs vs Inward-turn pickoffs. (video) (video)
- Timing of the suicide squeeze on offense. (article)
- Pitching from the stretch position.
- Quicker deliveries to home plate. (video)
- Preventing runners from getting walking leads.
- Learning how to step off the rubber.
- Going first move as a runner with a lefty on the mound. (article) (article)
- The keys to not getting picked off as a runner. (video)
- Become more vocal on the field. (article)
- Asking for “Time” when the pitcher is taking too long in the set position.
My players will not get this stuff overnight and neither will yours. So when you are looking for little drills to throw into your workouts, think of these new concepts and add them accordingly.
You forgot double cuts and proper relays.
Many youth coaches do not teach proper cut/relay positions to players because the younger kids can not throw the ball. So they teach if the ball is hit to RF then the 2nd baseman is the cut and if the ball goes to LF then the 3rd baseman is the cut.
That is far from the case in “big boy” baseball. With runners on things change. The 1st and 3rd baseman become cuts if runner is on 2nd base depending on where the ball is hit and the SS plays a different role in that situation as well. Pitchers and 1st baseman rotate into different positions as well, backing up throws to 2nd or for the pitcher backing up 3rd and home. Cant tell you how many times we see a pitcher standing on the mound.
We see kids get to HS baseball that dont know how to properly double cut a ball that gets past the OF. The problem with many 12 YO playing on LL field is that for fields from the 185 to 200 foot distance many of these kids have no trouble throwing from the fence to 3rd base so the coaches dont teach double cuts (if they know what they even are – we had one kid this year say that his coach didnt teach double cuts because they are dumb and are not done in the MLB! – The coaches all laughed and then asked the player to go watch some live games! Player came back the next day and had a different opinion of his “favorite LL coach” – still a great guy — just wasnt teaching what he should have been teaching.)
We played a PONY game last night (13-14u). Ball is driven down the line to the LF fence. The 3rd baseman runs out towards the LF to be the cut. The pitcher covers 3rd base. The SS is standing around in the outfield. I look at our players in the dugout and ask them if the other team played that properly. They all said “NO COACH!” Whew!!!