So in my local little league, we have 6-7 yo machine pitch and 8+ kid pitch.
First year kid pitch is fucken awful. Kids learn to dodge wild pitches and just walk when there is a kid pitcher, very few first year kid pitchers can throw three strikes before they throw 4 balls. After the first two walks of an inning, its coach pitch. The biggest determinant of the success of your team is the coach pitcher.
Some leagues overcome this problem by starting kid pitch at 9 when more of the kids have the hand eye coordination necessary to hit the strike zone with regularity, but its still pretty fucken rough. Others have pitching clinics during fall ball and the pre-season but this requires a LOT of parent participation (parents mostly have to catch for their own kids) and its hard to get that sort of program off the ground.
Our local league probably loses 20-30% of its players because of this rough transition.
Aside from waiting to 9 (which I hope they do no matter what) and having labor intensive pitching clinics, how do you make this transition smoother and less painful for the kids?
Where I grew up, the first year of kid pitch was called minor league. I recall we implemented the following rules to help ease the transition.
A bases loaded walk requires 8 balls.
The strike zone is pretty friggin’ huge.
No stealing. No advancing on a passed ball.
That’s about it. My kid’s in coach pitch right now, but I’ve been watching the kid pitch games and the pitching is not as bad as I expected. However, I’d like to see rule 3 above implemented. Even if the pitcher gets it near the strike zone, there’s only about a 60% chance the catcher will catch it. Runners advance like crazy and your defense almost never has an opportunity to turn a double play. Not that they could anyway because from what I see, defense is a lot worse than pitching at that age. Catching a routine pop up on the infield is a circus. Throwing a guy out at first from the left side of the infield? Doubtful. And I honestly don’t think I’m misremembering when I say that when I was that age, we made those plays regularly.
You just need to tell your pitchers to let the batter hit it. Don’t worry about throwing hard, just get it near the strike zone. Pulling a pitcher for a coach after two walks is a pretty quick hook. I’d let him keep going.
This is a very rough transition, and I’d argue that a league that struggles too badly quite obviously needs to implement measures to change it. The development of kids as ballplayers is NOT enhanced by a walk-heavy game. The young ballplayer must learn plate discipline, but it’s possible to dominate the game doing nothing but walking, and I should know; in my age 10 and 11 years, I drew walks in 50% of my plate appearances (and once leading off and stealing was allowed, stole every open base on the next pitch; catchers don’t throw any better than pitchers do at that age.) It was great for scoring runs, but my father warned me I wasn’t hitting enough, and he was right. “Son, you’re not being selective; you’re being passive, and it won’t work in a few years.” Hoo boy, that was true. I had to learn how to hit again.
As Barkis points out, first of all the strike zone should be very liberally interpreted. Umpires should be calling an extremely big strike zone.
Batters should be encouraged at this age to be aggressive and attack all pitches they can reach.
After that, Damuri, you need formal rule changes. Just moving the pitcher a couple of feet closer to the plate will greatly enhance control and reduce the advantage the batters have. If half the kids are walking the league needs to fix that. I don’t like calling upon the coach to pitch because how does that teach the pitcher? Make it easier for the pitcher.
I’ll expand on what I’ve seen in kid pitch today that I think is helpful. Every kid I see is throwing from a set position. Not one is going into a windup. Come set, stride toward the plate (big leg kick optional) and throw it in there. That’s how I did it when I was a kid and I think it’s good for control.
Very few of them are throwing as hard as they can. There’s no need to. Learn control first with proper mechanics, then start throwing hard.
I’d rather see you play around with the rules on how to walk a hitter than let a coach start pitching after 2 walks. Like Rick said, kids won’t learn to pitch if they’re not pitching. Make a walk 5 balls. As long as you get more balls in play, hopefully it won’t extend the length of the game too much compared to walking every batter.
As for losing a good number of players making the transition, I think that’s normal. The game starts getting competitive. You’re actually recording outs and keeping score and it’s possible to strike out. Some kids can’t hack it. Good luck!
So after 2 walks, there are no more walks for that half inning unless the batter is beaned. After 2 walks the pitcher keeps pitching until he throw 4 balls at a batter then the coach comes in and gets two throws to put the ball into play. Then the pitcher resumes the mound until he throws 4 balls again, rinse repeat.
You may only steal one base per play. You may not steal home.
Pitching distance is 42’ instead of 46’
We are lucky to get 4 innings in 2 hours. Its literally 4 balls, walk; 4 balls, walk; 4 balls, coach pitch; 4 balls, coach pitch, etc. The most important factor on your team is the accuracy of the coach pitcher.
I agree that most of the player we lose are the automatic outs that you hide at SS or at catcher on defense. But you also lose a lot of good athletic players who take soccer in the fall because THEIR big transition is that they start keeping score. Same thing with basketball. For football it’s tackling. None of it is as repellant to kids as first year kid pitch.
We used to have no walks. At four balls the coach pitched.
First half of the season was still rough - a lot of coach pitch and some kids basically went into box not intending to swing until coach pitched. But by end of season the pitching had gotten dramatically better.
Ok, I understand this league’s coach pitch phenomenon better now, thanks. That last paragraph is rather stunning to me, though. It seems abnormal that so many pitchers are flat unable to throw a strike. Is it difficult to get kids to practice on their own with parents? Because this sounds like an issue that won’t be solved in one practice.
And I would strongly encourage a league at this age to make a no stealing rule. From what I’ve seen, a walk or a single is essentially a triple every time because that guy’s on 3rd base in 2 more pitches… Especially if kids are throwing as many balls as you say, and on top of that you’re hiding a crappy player at catcher! Your defense never has a force out at any base except 1st. It makes for a boring game and I don’t think they’re learning the right things.
Its first year kid pitch with mostly 8 year olds coming up from machine pitch. Strike outs are about as common as doubles (e.g. one or two per game).
You are almost always better off waiting for the coach pitcher so eventually kids let really big fat eggs come straight down the middle without swinging.
And yes, every single turns into a double on the next play, triples are achieved with slightly less success.
Some leagues around here have fall pitching clinics so that the 8 year olds have a season of pitching practice before actually pitching in a live game. But you need a high volunteer participation rate for that.
In my experience when kids start kid pitch there are both lots of walks AND lots of strikeouts. To develop the batters need to see lots of pitches.
This year was my son’s first year of kid pitch and he struck out 1/3rd of the batters he faced, and he was only the 3rd best pitcher on his team. (82 battters faced, 20 walks, 27 strike outs). If you started the count 0-1 or 0-2 over half the kids would strike out which wouldn’t be fun for the batters or the fielders. Plus, strikeouts are fascist.
Really, in the end, pitching is about good coaching and lots and lots of practice. There’s no way to throw strikes if you don’t have good, consistent form and throw at least 20 to 30 pitches a day. There’s no shortcut for this.
You only need 3 pitchers per team at that level. I understand that not every parent is willing to play catch with their kid every day* but I’d hope that at least 3 or 4 are.
I tell the kids I coach that the best thing they can do to improve for playing any position is to play catch with their parents everyday. Frequently they tell me they want to play catch with their dad, but he just wants to play video games (which the parents often sheepishly admit). Grumble, Grumble, something about millennials, Grumble.
42’ is way too far at that age, so either they need to give the kids another year or they need to make some substantial rule changes. A non stop walk a thon is going to literally drive kids out of the sport.
I would give anything for one of my kids to want to play catch with me.
I loved my Dad playing catch with me, but he was often too tired or whatever. When he did, though, that was great. And it’s true; it is the best practice a kid can get. Simply throwing and catching are much harder skills than they appear, and to be a good ballplayer one must absolutely master them. There’s one way to do that; do it a million times.
That’s the saddest thing I’ve read in a long time. When those guys’ kids are too old to want to play with them, I’m sure they’ll be glad they at least beat whatever video game they had to play.