Developing a Youth Baseball Pitcher

 
A pitcher is often the most important player on a youth baseball team. He, as a growing youngster, also needs to be handled quite carefully.
Rutgers University assistant baseball coach Rick Freeman mentors the Scarlet Knights’ pitching staff. He also is a coaching veteran at all levels, and works privately with youngsters in various youth leagues and clinics year-round.
“One has to realize youngsters of Little League age and lower are still developing,” Freeman says. “The key in teaching pitchers that age is how to throw strikes and hit spots.
“The first thing I want to make sure with any pitcher that age is they enjoy pitching. If not, there are eight other positions."
Freeman emphasizes that accuracy, not power, is often the factor that determines success of a younger pitcher. The ability to keep a hitter off-balance is paramount.
And it can involve as few as two pitches.
“A young pitcher needs to learn how to change speeds, and that is what I impress upon him to start,” Freeman says. “At that age, a pitcher can be successful with a fastball and some type of change-up. Change speeds and hit spots.”
If those two points can be mastered, confidence will grow and a pitcher will, in his mind, gain a psychological advantage over a hitter.
“It doesn’t matter how old you are – 7, 11, 17 or 32 – any pitcher who is throwing the ball well will tell you he can ‘feel’ it when he releases it,” Freeman says.
There is a tendency, especially at a young age, to attempt to overcome mistakes or shortcomings with speed, Freeman says. This is where youth baseball pitchers can get into bad habits and forget about throwing strikes and hitting spots.
“And bad habits are often hard to break,” he says.
Nor, according to Freeman, should a player around Little League age worry about throwing curveballs.
“With an arm and shoulder that is still growing, that’s not a good idea at all,” he says. “What I often see are youngsters looking to spin the ball right out of the glove instead of the delivery. That can lead to other problems with a young arm.
“At this age, a fastball and a change-up is the way to go. Maybe, when a pitcher is 14 or 15, he can begin learning to spin a curve.”
Freeman uses rather simple logic to find a pitcher’s natural arm slot, the angle from which he will throw all his pitches.
“I just watch, or play catch with, a youngster to see where his natural arm slot is,” Freeman says. “I build off that. The arm slot will only change due to an injury, and in that case it lowers. All young pitchers should throw from their natural arm slot.”
Sound advice that will help a youth baseball pitcher build consistency.
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                            * How to improve your hitting
                       

10 important BaseBall Rules for Beginners

Many youth baseball players have watched the sport or been around it before they play for an organized team, but coaches are responsible for making sure the youngsters understand baseball rules. They should not assume the players know any of the rules.
A coach doesn’t want to overload players with baseball rules while they also learn baseball skills. Here are 10 important rules to make sure beginners learn during your team’s season:

Batting order. Make it simple for the kids and keep your youth baseball team’s batting order posted in the dugout, so they can follow it. If the umpire is aware that a hitter bats out of order, he can declare him out.

Keep the helmet on. A player can't remove his helmet while at bat or running the bases. A first offense draws a warning from the umpire. A second violation results in the player being called out.

Strike zone. It takes a steady eye for a batter to cover the entire strike zone. Although it is subjective from umpire to umpire, the strike zone is considered the space over home plate between the batter’s shoulders and the top of his knees (when the batter uses a natural stance).

Fair ball! A batted baseball is fair if it lands in the field of play or if it touches or passes first or third base within fair territory (even if it then goes over the foul line). The point to make to batters is to run hard to first base whenever they hit the baseball.

Three strikes and you’re not out? Obviously, a batter is out if the catcher catches a third strike during an at bat. But if the catcher drops the third strike or the ball gets past him, and a baserunner is not occupying first base, the batter can run to first base and try to arrive safely before the catcher throws the ball there to force him out.

Tie goes to the runner. It’s as simple as it sounds. An umpire judges whether a baserunner is safe or out. If the runner can be forced out at a base and he arrives there at the same instance the fielder catches the ball, the runner is considered safe.

Baserunning. Running the bases is one of the most fun parts of youth baseball, but, yes, there are plenty of rules for it. A runner must touch each base when going around the infield and won’t score a run until he touches first, second and third base and then home plate in succession (if he misses one he has to go back to that base while touching them in succession and not passing any other runners). A baserunner can’t pass a fellow runner in front of him when rounding the bases. He also can’t run more than three feet away from his baseline to avoid being tagged out unless he is trying to avoid interference with a fielder. Make sure the runners know how to slide properly, safely and within the rules.

Tagging out. To tag out a runner, a fielder must touch him with the ball or with his glove when the ball is in. A runner is not out if the fielder tags him with his glove but has the ball in his other hand.

Make the right pitch. A pitcher has to keep one foot on the rubber during his windup and must come to a complete stop – though brief – during it. It’s also important to stress that a pitcher can’t put either hand to his mouth within the pitching circle unless the umpire has allowed it beforehand (perhaps on a cold day).

Sportsmanship. Major league players can’t argue balls and strikes. Stress that your players show respect to the umpires as well as coaches and players. Umpires make the decisions and can disqualify a player or coach for good reason. It’s a life skill that outweighs all your baseball drills and skills.

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Baseball Exercises

 

By Jon Doyle, MA, CSCS
While you search around the Internet for baseball exercises, you no doubt come across some odd and strange looking exercises. The problem is a great deal of these "exercises" is not only worthless, but potentially dangerous. So I figured I'd write up a quick article so you can determine if an exercise you come across is worthy of you adding to your program.
1. Ground-based Exercises - Not all baseball drills need to be "ground-based" or standing up with your feet in contact with the ground, but 99% of the good ones are. Baseball is played standing up. So you should workout that way. Nuff said.
2. No Machines - If an exercise is done on a machine you can kiss it goodbye like an Adam Dunn bomb. You should focus on free weights, body weight and medicine ball -related exercises. Cables are ok, but if it's a machine it won't help your baseball performance and may even hinder it due to lack of stabilizer muscle working and improper execution of range of motion.
3. Explode - Baseball happens at lightning speeds and so should your training. Now, this does not mean exercising out of control, what it means it learning how to properly execute each exercise in a very explosive and controlled manner, just like you do with a bat and ball.
4. Posture - As soon as you lose posture, whether it's in your swing, your throw or when you run, you lose the majority of your strength and power. Same goes in the weight room. Make sure all of your baseball exercises not only maintain proper posture, but they should help build it as well.
5. Similar Joint Movements, Not Exact - This may be the biggest rule broken when it comes to baseball exercises. Don't try and replicate a throwing motion or swinging motion with an object a lot heavier than your game-used equipment. For example, if you use a 30 ounce bat, don't swing a 45-60 ounce bat thinking it will make you a better hitter.
In fact, it will make you worse. Studies prove that any implement over 15% heavier or lighter than your normal piece of equipment will alter your mechanics significantly. If you swing a heavy bat you're practicing a different swing! Same goes with throwing a ball. Drop the weighted balls. It's too much of an injury risk and virtually impossible to maintain your mechanics when you use them.
Same goes in the weight room. Don't use a baseball exercise that tries to mimic a specific movement on the field. This is NOT baseball-specific and stems from the brains (or lack there of) of idiot strength coaches who have no clue what they're doing and, most likely, have never worked with a real athlete in their life. Or in other words they are an Internet Hero. Be wary, they are everywhere trying to steal your money. For more insights, feel free to check out this weight lifting Guide.
Stick to these five basic rules and you will eliminate most, if not all of the terrible exercises floating around the Internet. And you will have a program comprising of many very good baseball exercises to help you become the best possible player you can be!

Baseball Hitting Exercises - The Sweet Spot

Why the right baseball hitting exercises are crucial

Anybody who has ever played as much as one game of Little League can tell you that hitting a baseball is much more complex than just swinging the bat. Even when you make contact, you're not guaranteed success. Foul balls and tips, pop-outs, slow rolling ground balls, broken bats and more are just some of the missed results that can occur when you fail to hit the ball with the sweet spot of your bat. Learning how to do this effectively and as consistently as possible will help you improve your performance and grow as a player.
The sweet spot is just about two to three inches in length, and it's at the top, fat part of the bat just a few inches from its end. You'll know when you connect with the sweet spot, because the vibration and pain you sometimes feel as you hit will be almost nonexistent. All that's left is smooth connection, and a forceful impact that leads to great things for you on the field.

The truth is that with such a small sweet spot to work with, there isn't much room for error and you really need the right baseball hitting exercises to train yourself to make contact with that exact part of the bat. As mentioned, there is any number of potential negative outcomes when you hit the ball in a different location. You can add to that list jarring pain in your hands and wrists, not to mention a drop-off in your hits and performance.

One way to start improving the results that you see on the field is to practice correctly and perform the right baseball hitting exercises. Wooden bats have smaller sweet spots than metal bats. Metal bats have been designed of course to increase performance, power and overall batting success. Always hitting with metal bats will get you accustomed to this overcompensation and then when it's time to turn to a wooden bat, or when you face top notch pitching, you'll be left wondering what happened to your skills.

Therefore the right way to train is to train using wooden bats with smaller sweet spots. You'll get accustomed to hitting in the right way, to making contact in the right place and ultimately you will see a better outcome when it's actually time for you to be in the batter's box with the game on the line.

Another great technique to start making contact with the sweet spot is to mark off that spot on your bat when performing baseball hitting exercises. Use some tape to either mark the two ends of the sweet spot, or to make something like an X on the location where it is. Then as you practice you can focus on making contact in that specific location. You will train your body, your muscles, your eyes and your mind to perform that task perfectly, creating great muscle and mental memory to work from.

When you do this you will always know if you're swinging and hitting the right way. This visual cue offers immediate feedback and will let you know how and why you are falling short or making contact in less than ideal places. Remember, your swing is the complex union of many different muscles and movements, and training them together to complete a specific task or objective is the best way to improve your actual performance. From swing to swing you'll be able to adjust what you're doing and how you're doing it, and you'll quickly learn where you're going wrong.

As with all other aspects of baseball hitting exercises, and truly all sports in general, seeing consistently successful results is going to take some real time and effort. That's what separates good players from average ones and great ones from good ones. So continue to hone in on that sweet spot, train your body and your eyes to connect with your bat in the right place and at the right time and practice in the right fashion and before you know it you will start to see improved results.


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How to improve your hitting

 

By Jon Doyle, MA, CSCS
There are many different ways to improve your hitting, and of course different players will respond to different techniques. Different players will also have different goals for their hitting, whether they are trying to increase their power, learn to hit to the opposite field or anything else.
Some things hold true regardless of your intentions however. All great hitters do the same things – regardless of how it may look to the naked eye.
Learning or relearning some of the fundamentals designed to produce fast, powerful and sharp swings will make anyone a better hitter.
How to improve your hitting
One of the most important things you have to realize right from the beginning is that hitting the baseball is far more than just swinging your arms.
It's also far more cohesive than the separate, disjoint movements of several different areas of your body.
Your baseball swing is a compound movement, synching up various parts of your body all at once. The better you are at creating that rhythm between all areas of your body, the better your swing is ultimately going to be.
The body MUST be able to function as one synergistic unit. If you are too mechanical, you will not even come close to your potential.
Think of your arms bringing the bat through the strike zone as the final movement in a total chain reaction.
You get the chain going by assuming the proper stance & then generating force from within.
It's only after this rotation that the bat moves, and all you are really doing is unleashing the chain reaction that was started several movements ago.
There are a couple of different forces at work here. For example, there is the rotational velocity and rotational power that you generate through your core and hips.
There are also the ground reaction forces you create by driving into the ground to unleash your swing. More than anything you actually do with your arms, these two areas of your swing, when honed properly, will add immense speed and power to your baseball hitting.
If you are unsure about how to improve your hitting, the good news is that all of these various components can be trained of course. The first step in the process is of course learning about these different forces and seeing how they are applied.
Taking a few hundred swings at a batting cage will certainly help teach you the muscle memory you need to make use of each piece of the puzzle.
However you can add more strength to your muscles by training in the gym to target the specific areas that will help with your swing. There are various exercises that you can perform with a medicine ball & free weights.
One of the best of these is the base stance medicine ball wall throw. This does a great job at mimicking what you will need to do when you generate power through your swing. Stand perpendicular to a wall (don't perform this on a drywall) in your base stance, with your arms extended in front of you holding a medicine ball with both hands.
Rotate your shoulders to the right, raising the medicine ball to head level. Drive your right foot into the ground, and then explosively rotate your hips towards the wall. Bring your body around following this rotation, and throw the ball with both hands into the wall. Catch it on the rebound and repeat the movement several times, then switch sides and do the same.
This is just one of many exercises that you can perform if you are wondering how to improve your hitting, but it may be the single most effective that you can deploy to help you master the concepts of rotational power and ground reaction forces. Plus, by training with a medicine ball, you will be building strength, stamina and power in your core muscles that you will be using when you actually swing the bat. The end result: quicker to and through the strike zone and more power in your swing.
Regardless of your baseball hitting goals, learning these fundamentals and honing the entire chain reaction of the swing will make you a superior hitter. You will swing the bat with more speed, power and precision and you will see much more success at the plate. Remember, your arms are only helping you to unleash all of the power that you wind up through your core, hips and legs.
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