Category Archives: Coaching
Where to go to choose your hitting models
It’s often been said, here and elsewhere, that one of the most important things you can do during lessons is compare what you (or your daughter, player, etc.) is being told to do against what the best players in the world do. If it doesn’t match it, it’s probably not the way to go.
For hitting, one obvious place to go for comparison is Major League Baseball (ML
. The best hitters there are paid millions of dollars by willing owners who compete for their services, so there’s a good chance those hitters know what to do. (Whether they know what they’re doing is a debate for another day.)
Still, it can be difficult for some players to relate to baseball players. And there are always some coaches who think baseball and softball are two different games that only look similar, which means they think what works in baseball won’t work in softball. Not true, but it’s hard to change a mindset. So with that in mind, another good place to look for models of how to swing the bat is college softball.
How do you know which softball players (or teams) to follow? A good place to start is with the statistics.
This area on the NCAA website shows the stats for the top hitters in college. As I write this it’s late March 2014, so the link may have moved for 2015. But poke around a bit and you should be able to find it. You can who is leading in batting average, on-base percentage, home runs, slugging percentage and a whole bunch more. (It also shows some pitching stats.) Look at the leaders in various categories and the odds are you’ll find some hitters who really know what they’re doing.
There is also a team section that shows which teams are leading in various categories. Not surprisingly, Arizona is leading in batting average and slugging percentage, and #3 in home runs per game and overall scoring.
Now, we can debate all day long as to how much actual impact the coaching staff has on how their players hit. Unless you’re on the inside it’s tough to know for sure, although my guess is they work with them a lot. But if nothing else, a team with great hitting stats shows the coaching staff knows what to look for in hitters. So there’s a good chance those are again some good models to follow. Put the two together – the best hitters on the best hitting teams – and you’ve likely found some great players to use as models.
The other good thing about using college players as a model is their results are probably closer to their reality of what you can achieve. Although it’s good to look at MLB hitters, keep in mind there is a HUGE difference in game experience, practice time put in, athletic ability, strength, and learning abilities between a 28 year old MLB professional in the prime of his career and, say, a 12 or 14 year old girl who is still learning the game.
There is also a HUGE difference in the access to top-level facilities, video of every swing, access to coaching and, quite frankly, time and incentive to work on their swings between these two groups. A high-level MLB player has literally million$ of reasons to spend hours studying his swing and working to improve it. A young girl, even the most dedicated of them, is trying to work in hitting practice between school, homework, family obligations, other activities and all the challenges that go along with adolescence.
But a college player, while more accomplished and with more access to facilities, still has many other things happening in her life and competing for her time. And she’s not that far removed from being that 12 or 14 year old player. So while the college player’s swing may not be ideal just yet, it may also be more achievable.
The bottom line is don’t just believe what someone calling him or herself a hitting coach tells you. As Ronald Regan liked to say, trust but verify. (Side note: Regan said it about the Soviet Union, which was ironic because it’s an old Russian proverb.) Use those resources to see who the best college softball hitters are right now and compare what they’re doing to what you’re hearing. It could save you a lot of work heading in the wrong direction.
Sometimes you can outsmart yourself with changes
This afternoon I had the opportunity to watch the University of Arizona v. UCLA softball game. It was the second game of their three-game series and a lot of fun to watch.
U of A was behind for most of the game. Despite all the offense they’ve been putting up against non-Pac 12 teams, they seemed to struggle against UCLA. They were shut out in yesterday’s game, and were down 3-1 until the top of the seventh.
The Wildcats had a runner on first and no outs when one of their hitters hit a comebacker to pitcher Jessica Hall. She wheeled around to throw to second and — threw the ball away. Runners were safe at first and second. At that point, despite the fact that Hall had been pitching lights-out, Coach Inouye-Perez decided to make a pitching change, bringing in Ally Carda who had shut U of A out the day before. (Carda and Hall switched positions.) After a sac bunt to waste an out, Kellie Fox hit a three-run home run to put Arizona up 4-3. They were three outs from evening the series at 1-1.
SPOILER ALERT: If you have the game on DVR stop reading here until you’ve watched it.
Ok, everybody else. In the bottom of the seventh, Coach Candrea decided to replace Kenzie Fowler, who had had some troubles but pitched her way out of them, with Estella Pinon. She immediately got into trouble, giving up a solo homer to leadoff hitter Mysha Sataraka. She then walked two batters and hit one to load the bases. At that point she appeared to have heat exhaustion and was lifted in favor of Nancy Bowling. Bowling promptly surrendered a walk off grand slam homer to Gracie Gould.
Knowing when to replace a pitcher is always a tough call. There may have been factors influencing things that we TV viewers don’t know. But from the outside it sure appears both coaches may have outsmarted themselves, and one wound up paying for it.
For those of us coaching on lesser stages there are a couple of lessons to be learned here. First is that even the highest-level coaches can make mistakes, or at least decisions they regret later. So when you do it – and we all do – don’t beat yourself up too badly.
The second lesson, in my opinion, is when you have a pitcher on a roll, go with it. Wait until she shows she can’t handle things before you decide to take her out. She may not be on top of her game, but she has a feel for what’s going on. Unless you have a pitcher whose actual role is to be a closer – and softball teams rarely do — it’s tough to come in cold. You may be better off sticking with what you’ve got rather than taking a chance with someone new. Better the devil you know!
What’s your story? Have you ever taken out a pitcher based on what you thought what might happen only to have it blow up in your face? I sure have! Share your stories in the comments.
NOTE: Edited to reflect what actually happened.
Keeping softball from turning into Space Armada
Back in the mid-1980s, I owned an early video game console from Mattel called Intellivision. Extremely primitive by today’s standards, I still managed to waste many an hour playing it. This was long before I started coaching softball, obviously.
My favorite game was one called Space Armada, basically a knockoff of Atari’s Space Invaders. The object was to kill off all the invaders while avoiding being hit by bombs dropped by a flying saucer that went back and forth across the screen. If one of the invaders reached the bottom of the screen, the game was over.
Why tell you about an ancient video game in a softball blog? Because there were a lot of similarities between that game and what can happen to softball players when they start to panic.
You see, as hard as it may be for today’s young games to understand, in Space Armada there was no way to “win.” You didn’t beat a level boss to move up, and you could never reach an end. In Space Aramada, every time you cleared the aliens a new group would appear. Each new screen would work faster and faster, while the pulsing “music” behind it would go from thump…..thump……thump to thump…thump…thump and ultimately thumpthumpthump. In the meantime, your heart would race and your brain would be, shall we say, over-stimulated.
That’s the way it can feel in a softball game or even a practice too. We often hear players who are “in the zone” say the game slowed down while they were in there.
Well, the opposite can happen when things don’t go well, such a pitcher not making the pitches (or getting the calls), or a hitter struggling through a slump. The player starts to press, and you can almost hear the background sounds going thumpthumpthump. At that point it’s going to be tough to recover. Usually the biggest sign is that the player starts to work faster, such as a pitcher trying to throw the next pitch as soon as she gets the ball back.
If you feel that happening (or you’re a coach and you see it happening to a player or the team) you need to try to get them to chill out, slow it back down and relax.
The best way to do it is to take some time to breathe. Not just any breath, though. Take a deep cleansing breath or two – in through your no
se, out through your mouth, slowly and taking in as much oxygen as you can. You’d be amazed at how that deep breath can help you calm down and relax.
You want to clear your brain and quit over-thinking — especially of the consequences of failure. Trust your training and focus on the task at hand.
If you’re a coach, you may want to take this opportunity to call a timeout and talk to the player or team. Tell a joke, comment on what a nice day it is, remind the player or team that they’re playing for the love of the game, and perhaps a little plastic trophy or medal, not world peace. Do whatever it takes to slow those aliens down and keep the game at a pace they can handle.
When I played Space Armada I knew it was just a game. But the competitor in me couldn’t help but get wrapped up in the pressure to perform. It’s the same for your team. Help them keep the game from getting out of control and you’ll like the results a whole lot better.
New softball tournament resource
A few days ago I received an email with some information I thought I’d pass along. It’s about a new website called mySoftballTournament that allows tournament directors to post information about their tournaments and coaches to search the site for tournaments that match. 
It looks pretty simple. Everything is pretty much run on dropdown menus. You pick your State or Province, fastpitch or slow pitch, gender, age group, etc. and then hit the Search button. The site then returns any tournaments they have that fit your search. (I’m presuming this site is out of Canada, by the way, because the listing asks for Province rather than State.)
It doesn’t look like there is a whole lot out there yet. I searched for tournaments in my home state and received no tournament listings, but hopefully that will change.
I hope this site gets filled with tournaments quickly. Finding the right tournaments for a team is always a challenge, so having a good resource that has decent information is something that’s needed. I know that eTeamz (or whatever they’re called now) has this service, but it’s been a bit spotty the last couple of years. Hopefully an organization with some enthusiasm can make this work and become a great resource for coaches.
If you have a tournament to post give it a try and let us all know how it goes. If you have a team and are looking for tournaments, give it a look as well. Maybe you’ll find something that fits your needs.
Updated 3/9/14 to align with changes to the site.
The importance of evidence-based softball training
Over the last couple of months I have become immersed in the health care field for my day job. (Yes, Virginia, I have a day job that isn’t softball-related. I actually work for a PR agency that specializes in health care and health care IT.)
One of the big things in health care these days is the idea of evidence-based medicine. You can look up the details with the link, but basically it’s the idea that instead of relying on the individual knowledge of physicians, those doctors should be referring to research and studies that draw conclusions from looking at large populations with similar conditions. In other words, instead of every doctor doing his/her own thing they’re trying to establish some standards based on looking at what large groups with that condition have in common.
Why am I telling you this? Because the same idea should apply to teaching softball skills. There are all kinds of ideas and teachings out there. Some are good, and some are not so good. Some can help players immensely, and others will get in the way of their success.
What instructors should be doing – and parents and players should definitely be doing with what instructors are teaching – is looking at the evidence to see if it supports what’s being taught. In this case, the evidence is what the best players in the world do when they’re playing.
These days there is ample video evidence out there. Google a player’s name, the skill and the word “video” and there’s a good chance you’ll see a long list of results. If you’re not looking for one specific player you can Google the skill and the word video, or look at the Model Swings and Model Pitching threads at the Discuss Fastpitch Forum. While not every example there is ideal, you can certainly see a lot of commonalities there. Another good source is the RightView Pro app for the iPad – you can download all kinds of model videos of top college/professional softball players as well as Major League Baseball Players.
No matter how much you like an instructor, no matter what great “credentials” that instructor may have, it’s important to compare what he/she is saying to what the best players in the world actually do. Look at the evidence – and if the evidence doesn’t match the treatment – run, don’t walk away from it.
Just as with medicine, the state of softball instruction is constantly changing. With high-speed video, and some very smart coaches constantly testing the conventional wisdom and learning – it continues to evolve and get better. You wouldn’t want your doctor using information from 20 years ago to treat a disease when there’s better information available; you shouldn’t want your softball instruction coming from 20 years ago either.
If you’re an instructor, get out there and look at the evidence. If you’re a parent or player do the same and make sure you’re learning what the evidence says is the best way to hit, field, pitch, whatever. It will be time well-spent.
More on overuse injuries
A couple of posts ago I wrote about the problems of overuse injuries in youth sports, including fastpitch softball. It’s a phenomenon that’s growing, often due to a combination of specializing in one sport too early and not taking breaks.
Since that time I’ve found a couple of other articles that also talk about this issue. Both are from the Science Daily website. The first is this one, which quotes some sports medicine specialists who talk about the value of playing multiple sports.
The more interesting one to me, though, was this one, which says that nearly 30 percent of all college athlete injuries are a result of overuse. It goes on to say “a majority of overuse injuries (62 percent) occurred in females athletes, according to a new study published in the current edition of the Journal of Athletic Training, the National Athletic Trainers’ Association scientific publication.” And, it says, field hockey, softball, soccer and volleyball have the highest rates of overuse injuries.
Think about that. We’re not talking about young children anymore. These are collegiate athletes, many of whom are no doubt getting money for school in exchange for playing. Their muscles have matured, as have their bone structures – and their knowledge of their own bodies.
How does this happen? A big part of it is coaches driven to win because their jobs depend on it. They run drills over and over, and conduct extended practice sessions – as much as the NCAA rules will allow. They throw their #1 pitcher game after game, because of course the fastpitch pitching motion is “natural” and therefore requires no rest. Yeah, right.
The big problem is not just the injury itself according to the article. It’s also the toll it takes psychologically on the players. Once these overuse injuries occur, they can affect recovery time and performance.
We’re not talking about sore arms after the first practice. While that’s not a good thing, it can happen if your players aren’t in game shape. But they can recover quickly from these problems with a little rest. Overuse injuries tend to linger, though. And the more you over-use, the worse the issue gets.
If you’re a coach, it’s important to be aware of these risks. Conducting brutal four-hour practices may not be getting you where you want to go; it may be hurting you. Instead, try running two-hour practices that are more efficient in their use of time.
If you’re a parent and you’re seeing this type of injury in your daughter, don’t just sit idly by. Speak up. Show the coach some of these articles and let him/her know the risks. Because if you don’t and your daughter ends up unable to play, the coach will find someone else. The game must go on. In the meantime, your daughter will be watching from the sidelines. Perhaps in a sling.
Repetition in softball doesn’t always equal improvement
One of the most common ways of practicing fastpitch softball is to perform lots and lots of repetitions of the same skill. The idea is that if a little bit is good, more is better.
Yet the truth is that’s not always so. Yes, building skills does require repetition. But that doesn’t mean you have to do one hundred reps of the same skill in a row. In fact, that approach can work against you depending on how engaged the player is.
You see, as the saying goes, practice doesn’t make perfect; it just makes permanent. Say you decide you’re going to hit 100 balls to a player to field. On the first 25-50 her brain is engaged, her motor is running, and she’s all enthused. Then for the next 50, her brain shuts down and her technique starts getting a little sloppy.
Which half of the drill do you think is going to stick with her? There’s a good chance it’s the second half because it’s the last thing she did.
Honestly, it’s better to do 50, or even 25, great repetitions than some good and some bad. What you want to be doing is building an automatic approach – building up the myelin that tells the muscles what to do faster than you can consciously think it. When that occurs, the player has a much better chance of executing the skill during a game. When you do some good and some bad, the myelin never has the chance to build properly and the brain can get mixed messages.
One other good reason to do fewer reps of one skill is it allows you to work in additional skills. And as we all know, there never seems to be enough time for everything you want to do.
How many is the right number? It varies by player. Some can only handle a small number before losing focus. Others can seemingly go all day. You need to judge that by the individual players.
If you’re working with one player (perhaps your own daughter), it’s pretty easy to adjust to her focus level. If you’re working with a team, it gets a little tougher. In those cases, try grouping players by focus level rather than raw skill level. It may mean a bit of an unbalanced practice – some players working on more things than others – but it will also mean a more productive practice.
The key is to remember that your team really will play like you practice. Keep it sharp and you’ll like the results on the field much better.
Overuse injuries in youth softball growing
Saw an article today that my local paper picked up from the San Francisco Chronicle , talking about how injuries have exploded in youth sports in the past few years. The big culprit? Overuse, driving largely by kids specializing in one sport year-round rather than playing different sports.
That’s certainly an issue in the fastpitch softball world. I hear these stories all the time about the schedules even 10U players are playing. The goal seems to be to get in at least 100 games in a season. In the Northern climes, they’ll play 5-6 tournaments in the fall – basically from the start of September through the end of October. Then there are some indoor games, followed by a tournament every weekend from the first weekend in April through the end of Jly.
Down South, where the weather stays warm year-round, they basically take off December for the holidays and that’s about it.
I don’t know about where you live, but where I am the high school season can be even tougher. Games every day, Monday – Friday, and often a double-header on Saturday. If you only have one pitcher, she’s going to see a lot of action. For those whose high school seasons are in the spring, that heavy schedule is then followed by playing pretty much every weekend in June and July.
That’s a lot of repetitive motion, which is generally how overuse injuries occur. According to the article, what makes it tougher for softball, baseball and golf is that these are very arm and shoulder-oriented sports, so they put a lot of stress on the joints.
According to the article, this didn’t happen so much when kids were playing different sports throughout the year. The motions for, say, basketball are different than those of softball, so the body had a chance to rest and recuperate from the softball-specific stress.
And no, this isn’t a “girl thing.” It’s actually more pronounced in baseball because of the overhand throwing motion pitchers use. But since this is a softball blog (at least most of the time) we’re sticking with that.
In today’s culture, it’s getting tougher and tougher for kids NOT to specialize. There’s the pressure to be on the “right” (read: most competitive) team so they can get some of that college money. If you’re not willing to devote 24×7 to that high-level softball team, they don’t want you, and by implication you’ll never get that D1 scholarship.
But what toll is it taking? An organization called Stop Sports Injuries is trying to provide some answers. They’re going to medical professionals, especially those who specialize in youth sports injuries, to find out about the trends and get their recommendations. You can see their softball-specific data sheet here.
One thing they recommend, which is going to cause all sorts of anguish among coaches who believe winning is everything, is some pretty strict pitch count limitations for pitchers. That old myth about the softball pitching motion being “safe,” which means you can ride one pitcher game after game for an entire tournament, is just that – a myth. At 10U-12U they recommend a limit of 65 pitches per game, and no more than 95 pitches a day over two days. No pitching at all on the third day. At 15U and above, the numbers “only” go up to 100 pitches per game, 140 total per day in the first two days, and 100 for the third day. That’s way less than a lot of pitchers actually pitch during the season.
Again, this isn’t only for pitchers. Catchers and other position players are running the same risks, just with different body parts. Our bodies weren’t designed for the type of repetitive motions being demanded of youth players these days. The kind of cross-training created by participating in multiple sports rather than spending all your time on one encourages better overall development, and protects players from wearing down – mentally as well as physically.
Whether you agree with the exact numbers, this is important information for both parents and coaches to understand. There needs to be a mindset/cultural change if we’re really going to help our kids become all they can be – and keep them healthy. I recommend that all parents and coaches follow the links in this post and become better-informed about the risks. It might just be the best thing you do for your daughter/players this year.
The problem with playing down
Now that fall ball is cranking up in earnest, teams are beginning to test themselves in games and find out who they really are. Some are finding they are better than they thought; others are finding they have a lot of work to do.
One of the things you’re likely to see are some serious mismatches in playing ability. If it happens because better teams didn’t know there would be a wide range of ability that’s one thing. But if they’re playing down just to trophy hunt, they’re doing themselves a disservice.
One of the biggest problems with playing below your actual level is it gives you a false sense of how good you are. Sure, you may be defeating or even blowing out teams that don’t hit, field or pitch too well. The trouble is that can lead you to think you don’t have to work on those aspects of the game yourself so much. After all, you’re winning, right? So you must be good.
Think again. Because one day you’ll run into a team that has been playing at the proper level. Maybe they haven’t won as many games as you have. But when you meet them head to head you find out that they’ve developed their skills because they’ve had to in order to compete.
Winning alone is not the measure of a good team. You also have to look at who you’re playing. Play at the right level — one where you have to be at your best to win — and you’ll develop your team better and faster. And you’ll help your players become all they can be.
Understanding the value of outs
I’ve talked before about the value of outs in fastpitch softball. It’s a concept that’s really laid out well in the book and movie Moneyball.
Yet it still can be a bit difficult to grasp in practical terms, especially for players. So I thought of a more concrete way to explain how precious outs are, and why you want to conserve them carefully.
Think about it this way. You want to buy a new iPod. You’ve been working hard to earn the money, doing chores and such, knowing exactly how much you need to make your purchase (including tax).
Finally the big day arrives. You head to the mall to make your purchase, but before you get to the electronics store you stop in to a shoe store and buy a pair of shoes first. Of course when you get to the electronics store you no longer have enough money for the iPod. You lose.
It’s the same with outs on offense. If you waste them on bad strategies or stupid decisions, you may not have enough at the end of the game to go for the win.
Outs are precious. In a seven-inning game, each team only gets a maximum of 21. (In a time limit game, it may only be 18, or even 15). As a player, wasting them by getting doubled off a base on a line drive or pop-up, trying to stretch a single into a double when the ball is clearly going to beat you there, leaving a base without tagging up on a fly ball, popping up a bunt attempt, swinging at strike three that is over your head or in the dirt, etc. can really come back to haunt you.
As a coach, wasting them by automatically sacrifice bunting when you get a runner on first, attempting steals against a catcher with a gun for an arm and a quick release, attempting a steal in the last inning of a tight game with the top of your order coming up, sending a runner for an extra base against a team with a strong defense, etc. can do the same.
Make sure you use yours wisely.
Life in the Fastpitch Lane 