Games vs Practice

Another thread got me thinking about this. You have kids playing more and more baseball at younger ages. Many believe that if you take 9 -10 year olds and put them on select teams with talented players this will help them develop their skills and ultimately make them better players. The problem is what happens many times is the following.

They play every weekend. They practice very little. The goal becomes to win the trophy on Sunday and not on actually developing as players. Learning the game becomes secondary to winning the medal on Sunday. Coaches go out and pick up the top players from all around and then win by just having more talent than the other teams. These young kids instead of learning the fundementals of the game spend way too much time playing games all the time. Then they move up to 11-12 13-14 and before you know it they are getting ready to start HS.

Now they find themselves in trouble. They move up to the regulation field and they lack arm strength. Lack foot speed. Have poor fielding and throwing mechanics. Can not hit velocity because that long looping swing that produced pop up homeruns doesnt work anymore.

When kids are younger they need to spend way more time on learning the fundementals of the game. Proper throwing mechanics. How to properly field hit and run the bases. Play multiple posistions. Etc etc. Playing games is alot of fun. But playing games all the time does not make you a better player when you are 12 years old etc. You need to find a balance. Most of the time should be spent on teaching and building a baseball foundation that is built upon solid baseball fundementals and baseball work ethic. As they get older and they are ready to be showcased then the games become more and more important. But too many kids today are playing themselves out of the game.

Find a situation where the focus is on teaching and learning the game. Not playing the game for a medal on Sunday. There are alot of kids that are advanced at an earlier age because they are bigger or stronger than the other kids. Or they have been blessed with a stronger arm for their age. They are the kids everyone is seeking out to be on their team so they can go win the Nationals etc. Then there are the other kids that are working at the game. Learning how to properly throw hit and field. They play some games but they practice alot. These kids will be way ahead and will be the players in HS. JMHO

 

Coach 27

I agree. I have a nephew in who is 9 years old. He's just started kid pitch this season and plays on a travel team. He had a tournament this past weekend and I had the chance to go watch him play. I sat over on the fence with his father (my brother-n-law) who is a high school coach up in my area. We both just sat there in disgust as we watched kids trying to play the game. There were so many little things that were being done so poorly. My brother-n-law also coaches football but spends as much time as he can working on teaching my nephew fundamentals. But his fall coaches are all about winning. Which I love to do as well, but these kids aren't being instructed the way they need to be.

I went to a practice of thiers this past summer. WOW. Two hours long. Nothing accomplished. I had to leave after I watched the second kid pitching throw 56 pitches to 1 batter in a row. No breaks. Nothing. 56 straight pitches. I could go on and on. The bad thing is that thier are parents out there that want thier child to participate, but they don't know any better to understand how counter productive some of these coaches and teams are.

My hat goes off to these coaches who devote thier time and sacrifice parts of thier lives to try and help these kids. However, unintentionally, these kids are getting cheated.

 

As my

son has gotten older (HS) it seems that practice is somewhat less instructional and more situtations as they get older. With the resrictions that HS put on the coaches. Practice time, how many players before the season starts, lights, ect. It is hard to work on everything. He was very lucky (7-13) to have coaches that spent time during their practices that worked on fundamentals. Pitchers threw bullpin at practice. BP was a coaches job. It is hard to give every player the one - one at a team practice. It is better served to have a practice plan. The coaches would at the first of the season have a couple of practices during the week. When play started it was pretty much once per week and they worked on stituations for the most part at that time. Worked on the things they saw during games. They worked practice the right way. One on one was for the most part after practice or during pre-season or as needed. It was never a set thing. Things were worked on as a team for the most part.

 

I was having this exact discussion with my older son yesterday. I told him that most of all the fundamentals that I learned was in LL: How to correctly field groundballs, hitting cutoff men, sliding, hitting, bunting and situational plays.

I just don't see any benefit for a young kid to play travel ball. Playing against the best competition is a non-factor at that level. The only factor that is important is learning to play the game correctly.

The one area that parents should be concerned with is the number of talented kids that quit baseball at the ages of 15-16.

 

Agree we lose to many. I will disagree with the travel ball. I think that is what has made my son a better play. Now, some of the teams should not be there with the coaching. As stated earlier about a pitcher throwing 50 plus pitches at a practice. This is an example of bad coaching at any level. I think that the pocketbook helps with alot of the negative of travelball.

 

You have made some good points, PlateDad, but here is my thought. Most people will agree that yesterday's players were better fundamentally, but if that's the case, yesterday's players did not have fall workouts with the HS coach. In fact, most players played multiple sports and practiced baseball during its season only. So, if people agree that yesterday's players were more sound fundamentally, it flies in the face of year round teaching and playing of baseball.

What I think you will find is when a player reaches the age of HS baseball, fundamentals are assumed to be a given. That it was already taught and learned. However, the point that Coach May is making, is that many times it is not.

 

Please explain how a kid of 8-12 yo becomes a better player playing travel ball?

 

Man of the Week Award

Coach 27 you are dead on! We played "travel" and managed to be a few games over .500 for 9u-10u-11u-12u seasons combined! We lost 13 straight games to 2 different teams over that time...........then we finally beat both of them in the last month of the 12 year old season. We worked hard on throwing mechanics, fielding, understanding the game's situations, etc, etc....

We got beat by teams with more horsepower. One weekend (annoyed) at losing to the powerhouse I (regretably) put the Daddy Coach in his place. I told him that he shouldn't be too proud of his teams' accomplishments. I told him that he could have stayed home and let his wife coach the boys and they would have won anyway! It was the truth because they were loaded with the biggest and strongest boys (at that time). Little by little now it's all going away for many of them.

That part I can live with. What is really disappointing is the parents I have "gone through" that didn't understand or value what we offered in training, teaching and caring for each boy while playing .500 ball in the Major Division. Dedicating your time in this fashion is rewarding but thankless at the same time. I am having much more fun now, teaching my 13U the proper way to play the game on our own time. AND he's not smaller than those "horses" anymore!

It's becoming more and more fun every day!

 

Agree with you. I think it is a case that in the past more focus was to be better fundamentally. It was not so much about winning a trophy on Sunday. As youth baseball has expanded into many new dicertions. It has become more about hardware than the game. I think it has diluted the talent base. I would dare to say that a kid ten or so years ago. Played LL in the Spring. It was couched by many great coaches. Yes they wanted to go to the LL world series but they were more concerned with beating the cross town team. Seasons of sports were more clearer. They went from this date to that. Now, it is all out all year. Kids have less time to recover thier bodies from a hard Spring season then it is back at it. They just get wore out. And when it gets more into their hands they just drop it. To hard. This is one reason I think you see less players. But with that said. Teams are playing every weekend thats two days. School takes five. So practices are less focused. Therefore, the skills are less refined.

 

I think that sentence speaks volumes...