9U kid pitch practice priorites

[Coletrain]

The team I coach is moving up to 9U kid pitch this year. Besides the basics, what should be the main priorites of practice? This team is moving up from 8u machine pitch. Thanks for the help!!!

[HYP]

The team I coach is moving up to 9U kid pitch this year. Besides the basics, what should be the main priorites of practice? This team is moving up from 8u machine pitch. Thanks for the help!!!

For me, only basics. Play catch a lot.

[Ursa Major]

Keep 'em moving and keep 'em busy. Early on, you should - as Hyp suggests - focus on the throwing and catching. As this starts to get tedious, there are lots of games and contests you can adopt to make it more interesting. For example, place a plastic garbage can on its side near the pitcher's mound and have kids try to get the ball into it from the outfield. This promotes arm strength, accuracy and low (non-rainbow) throws.

To keep kids from standing, you should never have more than five kids in the field during BP - everyone else should be at a station working with coaches or parents. At this level, any healthy parent can run a station (say, a hitting tee/net station), and you should encourage their involvement for a host of reasons. (Parents who are de facto practice coaches are less likely to conspire to undermine you, for example. :crossfingers: )

Beyond this, just Google something like "fun drills baseball practice" and you'll come up with dozens of sites and books from which you can steal ideas to keep things fresh.

It's a vague truism that the first priority should be "having fun", and this can be misconstrued by kids as permitting throwing equipment around and spitting sunflower seeds at each other. More precisely, the goal of everything you do should be that each and every kid should have a good enough experience that he or she wants to continue to play another season. So, fun is part of your goal, but so is building skills, confidence, teamwork and camaraderie. This means you should treat the development of each kid as a high priority and show it to the kid. Let him and his parents know that you have a plan for him to improve -- and what reward he'll get in terms of playing time and at what position(s) for carrying through with it.

I've got one further tip, Coletrain - check your PMs.

[Coletrain]

Keep 'em moving and keep 'em busy. Early on, you should - as Hyp suggests - focus on the throwing and catching. As this starts to get tedious, there are lots of games and contests you can adopt to make it more interesting. For example, place a plastic garbage can on its side near the pitcher's mound and have kids try to get the ball into it from the outfield. This promotes arm strength, accuracy and low (non-rainbow) throws.

To keep kids from standing, you should never have more than five kids in the field during BP - everyone else should be at a station working with coaches or parents. At this level, any healthy parent can run a station (say, a hitting tee/net station), and you should encourage their involvement for a host of reasons. (Parents who are de facto practice coaches are less likely to conspire to undermine you, for example. :crossfingers: )

Beyond this, just Google something like "fun drills baseball practice" and you'll come up with dozens of sites and books from which you can steal ideas to keep things fresh.

It's a vague truism that the first priority should be "having fun", and this can be misconstrued by kids as permitting throwing equipment around and spitting sunflower seeds at each other. More precisely, the goal of everything you do should be that each and every kid should have a good enough experience that he or she wants to continue to play another season. So, fun is part of your goal, but so is building skills, confidence, teamwork and camaraderie. This means you should treat the development of each kid as a high priority and show it to the kid. Let him and his parents know that you have a plan for him to improve -- and what reward he'll get in terms of playing time and at what position(s) for carrying through with it.

I've got one further tip, Coletrain - check your PMs.

Thanks for the help Ursa!!!

[benz99]

We did a game called clutch to end our batting cage sessions. All kids would get in a line & they got one chance to come through in the clutch. If the got a hit by the coaches judgement they kept going till they made an out. Called strike, swing & a miss, Foul tip, weak grounder's & fly balls they lost their turn & the next kid would step in. We would keep track of who got the most hits in a row. Kids loved the competition & bragging rites lol. Never did it outside on a field though you probably could,just a little more time consuming. Takes about 10 mins or so to end the practice & was a lot of fun

[Coletrain]

We did a game called clutch to end our batting cage sessions. All kids would get in a line & they got one chance to come through in the clutch. If the got a hit by the coaches judgement they kept going till they made an out. Called strike, swing & a miss, Foul tip, weak grounder's & fly balls they lost their turn & the next kid would step in. We would keep track of who got the most hits in a row. Kids loved the competition & bragging rites lol. Never did it outside on a field though you probably could,just a little more time consuming. Takes about 10 mins or so to end the practice & was a lot of fun

Thanks for the help benz!

[shake-n-bake]

Normally a lot of stations, smaller groups, more reps, and less idle time is better. This is something we did where most everyone was a spectator. It's also a good way to end practice. Kids usually leave on a high from the competition.

I'd split the team into two groups. Odd and even jersey numbers most of the time. They'd compete against each other in a relay race. You might be able to have both teams going simultaneously if you were clever and creative. I actually liked having one team watching and yelling at the kids on the other team. Seemed funner.

Start a line at the LF foul line with the team that's up. First kid takes the field in the LF position. Clock starts. I'd simulate an overthrow to 3B and the player backs it up and throws the ball to the appropriate place. He then stays in LF and fields a variety of balls (behind him, at him, in front of him). He fields each play and makes the appropriate throw in. You could give every kid the same hypothetical play for fairness. I'd have base runners and base coaches that would change it up.

Once the player completed the plays as a LF, I'd have him hustle in to play SS or 3B. I'd give him a few field and cover plays as an infielder.

Upon successfully finishing the infielder plays, he drops his glove and becomes a base runner. Starting roughly from the SS position or a cover at 2B he'd round 3B as a runner. I'd have the base coach yell - round it and take a look - then, back, back, back. They'd dive back into 3B. Then I'd overthrow 3B and he comes in to score.

The overthrow was the start for the next kid in line. Once everyone was in on that team, team 2 got an opportunity to beat their time.

It's a fun team building thing, but it does reveal individual hustle and skill level too.

[raptor]

We did a game called clutch to end our batting cage sessions. All kids would get in a line & they got one chance to come through in the clutch. If the got a hit by the coaches judgement they kept going till they made an out. Called strike, swing & a miss, Foul tip, weak grounder's & fly balls they lost their turn & the next kid would step in. We would keep track of who got the most hits in a row. Kids loved the competition & bragging rites lol. Never did it outside on a field though you probably could,just a little more time consuming. Takes about 10 mins or so to end the practice & was a lot of fun

We do a game that's very similar..each kid starts off by getting four swings to hit two line drives..then it goes to three for two..two for one, and one for one till there is a winner..they get choice of snack from the stand..they compete hard for a Snickers. We also sometimes do the Augie Garrido approach to BP..where they have to get four bunts down in seven tries before they take their round..if they don't they go to end of rotation.

[kimbercarry]

I've done one for the past few years where I split the team up evenly from a speed standpoint. Half at 2nd and half at home. Each team has one baseball. We do a relay race where you run around the complete set of bases and then you have to hand the ball off to the next in line before they can leave the base. We do a best out of 3 usually. It helps with conditioning and the kids start figuring out it's not always how fast they are but how good they cut the corners while running the bases. It's a great team building exercise and they are usually begging to do more than 3 rounds.

[Ursa Major]

I'd split the team into two groups. Odd and even jersey numbers most of the time. They'd compete against each other in a relay race. You might be able to have both teams going simultaneously if you were clever and creative. I actually liked having one team watching and yelling at the kids on the other team. Seemed funner.

Splitting the team into two or three squads for competitions works in a variety of drills, etc. However, kids generally don't have their jerseys at practice and you want to mix up the teams so that everyone is a teammate of everyone else at some point while still trying to keep the teams even, of course. This builds camaraderie; if the superstar knows that his team's chance of winning depends upon the kid who usually sits at the end of the bench, he'll be rooting for/helping that kid. What works for visually splitting teams is to buy 7 or 8 cheap red mesh practice vests. I found these for 12 for $18 on Amazon simply by Googling.
PracticeVestsMesh.jpg

[shake-n-bake]

Splitting the team into two or three squads for competitions works in a variety of drills, etc. However, kids generally don't have their jerseys at practice and you want to mix up the teams so that everyone is a teammate of everyone else at some point while still trying to keep the teams even, of course. This builds camaraderie; if the superstar knows that his team's chance of winning depends upon the kid who usually sits at the end of the bench, he'll be rooting for/helping that kid. What works for visually splitting teams is to buy 7 or 8 cheap red mesh practice vests. I found these for 12 for $18 on Amazon simply by Googling.
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The kid doesn't need to physically be wearing his game jersey or even have it in the trunk of mom's car on the way to practice to remember if he's number 7 or number 8. It's just one way to randomly split them up with out over thinking things. Most of the time any system that selectively strives for parity goes south. Kids pick up on it and start labeling themselves and their teammates. Sometimes labels are obvious, unavoidable, but can be manipulated into a positive.

When I coached 12U we had the same amount of 12s (maybe one more I think, but my son was limited in participation most of the year because of injury) as 11 and 10s combined. Splitting them up 12s against the rest made them compete fiercely. Everyone was good with that. The younger group had a speed advantage, so every once in awhile to throw them a bone I'd have them run in those groups at the end of practice. Losers had to pick up bases or rake.

The older kids dominated most everything else, unless for fun and to stir things up I switched some kids around or sat them out. They were the leaders on the team. That league really glorified it's top 12 y/o kids. And it had always been that way. So, rather than have a team led by 1 or 2 alpha kids, I had about half the team feel like the king ding a lings. My kid really helped. He hardly played that year and still led the league in HRs, so he was THE guy on our team. Being a humble kid and buying into the plan really brought everyone else on that team up.