My Top 10 Baseball Coaching Tips
If you are new to the game search out veteran coaches and ask for
coaching tips. Find websites like this one that will teach you
the fundamentals. What ever you do, always look for new ways to
reach your players.
Times are different then when I grew up, and I have found that
attention spans are short and patience is thin so you need these
coaching baseball tips to find ways to keep practices interesting
and competitive.
I hope these coaching baseball tips work as well for you as they
have for me.
1. Have a preseason parent’s meeting. This should be mandatory
for every team. More problems can be eliminated than you can
imagine, if you plan this meeting right. Spell out your coaching
philosophy, and parental behavior at games. Playing time is the
#1 parental complaint. Deal with this up front at this meeting
and you will avoid problems during the season.
Enlist your assistant coaches and find a couple of scorekeepers.
Inform them of the importance of punctuality in bring their kids
to practice and picking them up after. Otherwise you will spend
half your practice waiting for players to arrive, and spend your
dinner hour waiting for them to be picked up.
The parents meeting is #1 of all my coaching baseball tips.
2. Find assistant coaches. You can never have to much help when
coaching baseball. If you can’t find qualified coaches enlist the
help of parents to help you run drill stations and handle
administrative details like uniforms and scorekeeping.
3. Emphasize the fundamentals. The proper mechanics for throwing
and hitting are seldom emphasized enough. Injuries occur when
children use poor mechanics. Teach proper warm ups and insist
they are performed before practice begins.
4. Have a plan and work your plan. If you are serious about
coaching baseball take the time to develop a practice plan based
on the skills you need to teach. Pick out the fundamental skill
sets appropriate to your age group and practice drill and
practice again.
5. Spend 30%-40% of every practice on pitching. This is why you
need assistants. Someone should spend this much time at every
practice with your pitchers. This does not mean they pitch all of
this time, they can work on mechanics and drills like balance
drills, and towel drills. If the players can lead off at your age
group, you would also include holding runners on and fielding
bunts. Players should throw batting practice once they can throw
strikes on a regular basis.
6. Teach every player how to bunt. Bunting is a lost art that
needs to be revived. For the player who struggles to hit bunting
can be a confidence booster and run producer.
7. Teach defensive movement. This is nothing more than having
every player moving when the pitcher reaches the top of his
windup. Nobody is standing flat footed. This also means that on
EVERY hit ball, every player has a place to move to. If they are
not catching or throwing the ball they must be moving to a backup
position. Statues don’t play baseball nobody is standing and
watching the play.
8. Emphasize aggressive base running. Run out every hit ball
regardless of where it’s hit to. Come out of the batters box as
if you are going for a triple, even if it’s a routine grounder or
fly ball. Break on every pitch as if you are going to steal even
when your not. A runner in motion puts pressure on a defense.
They move out of position to cover the runner and base hits
squeak though. Pitchers rush their motions when a runner breaks
and lose their concentration. I believe in pressure, pressure,
pressure when it comes to base running.
9. Praise in public and criticize in private. Remember these are
kids we are coaching not adults. If you need to get on a player
pull him aside privately and speak with him. On the other hand if
you have something good to say share it with the whole team.
10. It’s about the kids Emphasize sportsmanship, discipline,
teamwork, and persistence. Winning will take care of itself. Your
job (should you choose to accept it.) is to help the players
learn the game, enjoy themselves, and advance to the next level
of the game.
These 10 coaching baseball tips do not include mechanics or
drills but they do lay a foundation that will help show remakable
improvement in your team.
If you have your own coaching baseball tips that you would like
to share please email them to us and we will post them on this
site.
10 Year veteran of coaching youth baseball. Owner and webmaster
of www.Baseball-for-Parents.com
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