In baseball, we want everything to become instinct or muscle memory.
In fact, it should probably be one of the very first pitching concepts that is taught. They need to get comfortable with how to pitch out of the stretch. For young kids, however, you could almost call a balk on every pitch. Balks eventually all but disappear in baseball.
The first step is to teach the rules early.
Those failures are what make the successes feel so amazing! But what if there are zero (or very close to zero) successes? Does anybody truly enjoy doing something they are always unsuccessful at? In a lot of cases, youth pitchers would rather just let the guy steal his base and keep his mind focused on taking care of the hitter. Indeed, baseball seems to be all about failure. Why? More than likely because they’ve only experienced failure and frustration through the process. I can almost guarantee what answer you’ll get (Exception: Lefties that have learned a decent move). But, we’ve all been to these games in which every runner who makes it to 1st base will soon be standing on 2nd (and probably 3rd) …and there’s nothing the defense can do about it.Ĭoaches, ask your pitchers if they enjoy the process of dealing with the runner at first base.
This definitely will be the topic of a future article, so I won’t dive into it here. If you want to know my real opinion on the matter, I believe this issue is deeply tied to the fact that we allow advanced base running at too early of an age. One of the most common skill deficiencies that I’ve seen at EVERY level of baseball is a pitcher’s (in)ability to control the running game. This article is focused toward the instruction of youth baseball players but will also contain some concepts and suggestions for players at higher levels (high school, college, pro).
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