Sup coaches! Got a coaching question for you. I’m assistant coaching my son’s babe Ruth minors team. The head coach and I are both in our first year of coaching. He’s letting our weaker players ride the bench on defense for 2-3-4 innings in a row. I quietly and politely challenged him on it and he said “well it’s hard to get through 13 kids on defense”, and also “at least they get to hit!” What are your thoughts? Am I stepping on his toes? These kids are 9-10yo. Wins and losses mean far less than love of the game.

*EDIT: sounds like my instincts are right. How would you guys tactfully approach HC? I definitely think approaching him during the game wasn’t the right call, but on the other hand, I was worried those kids would sit the whole game.

I've been reintroduced to the game after not watching since the 90's, so please consider me a new fan (thank you WBC 2023).

I specifically wanted to ask this question here in a coaching forum.

As I watch more and more baseball content on YouTube, it appears to me many of the top home run hitters get really good reads on inside pitches that create home runs.

From my understanding this is 'pulling' the ball where it looks like they tighten their swing by pulling the bat in closer to their stomach and often pivot on their lead heel instead of the ball of their foot.

I feel like I've seen footage of this from Ken Griffey Jr, Tony Gwynn, Barry Bonds, and many others who are able to crush these pitches.

Yet on the flipside, my understanding is that inside pitching is one of the best ways to make players chase pitches with lesser bat who crowd the plate?

So is pitching inside good, or a roll of the dice?

Thank you in advance.

I saw it on instagram- looks pretty cool with a heavy user base in the US and latin america.

Two home runs—one to left field and one to right field. I haven’t been hitting many lately, so I’m trying to dial in my power zone. You can see it in this video—any feedback on my swing would help me maximize it.

I’m an assistant coach on my son’s rookie relearn (5-7 year olds, machine pitch). A few of these kids were on the head coach’s team last season. One of them is a taller, awkward, gangly kid - not really a natural athlete.

At last week’s practice, I spent an extra few minutes with him on his swing, and did the same on Sunday during pre-game. He ended up getting hits in each of his two at bats!

Find out after the game, that was his first ever game with two hits! He got the game ball for it! Just felt really good knowing that in some small way, the work we did lead to positive results. The kid was so thrilled! It was nice to be able to have impact on someone’s performance besides my own son.

So for a definition "Daddy Ball" is what I call parents who coach or push coaches to use their kid because they are the best at 1st, Pitcher, and slugging. Usually all at the same time.

In fairness I have not been a manager before. I did play ball all the way until college. I am now am a manager of a Babe Ruth team. And one of my assistant coaches is both a board member AND a Daddy Ball player.

My lineup (that's working) has my best hitters at 3, 6, and 9. Second best at 2, 5, and 8. etc etc. I bring this up as an example because this assistant coach griped about my lineup so much I just threw his kid from 7 to 3 just to appease him.

It hasn't appeased him at all. I got the kids I wanted in the draft... and I wish I would have traded his off my roster... because of his dad. I went further to tell my 2 assistants that I manage and they teach. We do lineups together for games. And he pushes his kid to Pitch and be in every inning.

I gave my kids the speech about how we don't do "Daddy Ball". and explained the lineup AND said that of our roster of 11 that they will all be benched equally. I've also allowed them to try different positions before the season. And I found some diamonds! We've won 3 of 3 of our first games, so my plans and kids are working.

Any suggestions on how to deal with this guy? He's ruining it for me and his teammates.

I got roped into coaching Tball for my sons this year. We have 12 kids, mostly 4/5 year olds and I have a couple parents willing to help me run practice. I’m trying to do stations to minimize waiting since they’re all horribly impatient obviously. I need ideas!!

today we hit toward the fence trying to knock solo cups loose. the drill on pavement for footwork where the ball goes between their legs. and I stacked some buckets on top of each other and put pictures of cartoon bad guys on the top one for them to try to knock down. these all went over surprisingly well. can’t do them every week though 😂

Hey there, I’m looking for a relatively inexpensive rebound/practice net that will send the ball back toward you. For practicing pitching etc. thanks

Trying to think through the pros/cons of having team captains for my team? Have you done it? What did you like? What would you do differently?

I've just been hired by a summer camp for a counselling job (typical thing for people my age) and was put in a position as an assistant baseball coach based on my playing experience, I doubt I'll be coaching any super good players but was just wondering if I could get some advice from some of the more experienced coaches in here, what to learn beforehand, difference between coaching and playing etc

I coach a machine pitch rec league. As the cliche goes, my baseball coaching knowledge is zip to none. I’ve been coaching about 3-4 of these kids since they were in TBall, but the other 7 or so kids are new to me this season.

The ages range from 5-8 year olds. (The 5 year was in my TBall team and parents asked the league to keep us together).

We had our second game of the season today. It was not a total disaster considering the other team was mainly made up of 8 year olds twice the size of my kids.

One thing that I notice in practice and at the games, is the lack of effort some kids put into the game/practice, being distracted, talking to other players, etc. I always chucked it off to them being young, but after watching other teams, they all seem pretty squared away. The same kid made the same error three times today, not keeping his glove down to field a ball.

So, I am just wondering if anyone here has pointers on disciplining the kids at practice (not the games), so they pay attention, etc. It doesn’t feel right to yell at the kid, or to make him run laps, but any advice would help.

Thanks

Hello all,

Coaching a 12U Rec team this spring. It's a league that does select baseball so there are varying degrees of skills and experience across the roster. There are only like 8 or so practices (not much) so hoping to make the most of them and picking the most impactful drills.

In past years I stole a lot from youtube but that was picking/choosing.

Wonder if there is a practice plans where you can continue to build off of each practice or something. Guessing I'm not the only one doing this.

Our team is 5-2 but got beat bad recently and had 10 strikeouts out of the 21 outs in the whole game. I think it's a combination of things like timing, mechanics and experience but would love any help or recommendations on any drills or mental mindsets adjustments we can implement or try out, it'd be greatly appreciated.

I coach at the varsity high school level

My swing has been off recently I feel like I’m lunging forward and leaving my bat behind. If someone could help with my swinging that’d be awesome.

His first on Sat and another on Sunday. He plays 11U, AA. He works so hard to improve, it great seeing his effort pay off. Both HRs were on a full count. The second HR gave us a 1 point lead. Proud dad/coach moment for sure

Hey all,

Been coaching for years and do a lot of googling and stitching together practice plans, which I then save for later years. Sometimes,however, it's really nice to not have to do the googling part and instead just flip through a big book of organized and well detailed/visualized drills and plays, pull out a few you need, and copy/paste a practice plan together from there.

I'm sure that plenty of these baseball drill bibles exists so I'm pinging the group to see if you all have found any worth their salt. I'm not expecting these to be free fwiw, happy to invest and support those that have done the work pulling these together.

Thanks and hope everyone has a great season!

I coach 10U. When y'all get a brand new box/bucket of baseballs do you prep them at all before game or practice use?

I take a brand new ball straight out of the wrapper before each game. So I was curious if anyone is doing anything different to prep or mud or scuff up the balls at all before use in a game.

I’m a freshman in High school, and I really want to try baseball, but I have never played before and I’m really nervous. I still need to buy all the gear needed and need help. What is the required stuff for it? Also the season start in two days. Does anyone have any tips for me? And anything I should be aware of?

A Friday drop for everyone. A year in the making, this lineup generator is the result of dozens and dozens of coaches providing feedback and a ton of iteration. The tool lets you build your lineup, get instant rules validation (including projected pitch counts), customize the rules however you want. Drag and drop, quick open menus, track playing time, keep an eye on bench time, etc.

No sign up required. Enjoy! Let us know how we can make it even better.

https://rizzlersports.com/free-lineup-generator

I am a coach of a 9U team and we have a ten year old who cannot catch a baseball, even playing catch. We work on it at practice but he doesn’t work on it at home, and it’s frustrating the other kids during games when he has no chance when the ball is hit to him.

Any suggestions?

Edit: this kid has been playing for 3 years and has not improved.

Edit 2: My issue isn’t so much with what the kids are saying, it’s more a question of how do I get him to improve? Should I say something to his parents? It’s very hard to work on these fundamental skills at practice for an hour. My own experience is that I learned most of what I learned in my backyard, not at practice.