Hitting & Pitching Focus Tips for Youth Baseball Players

Posted by Linda Hudson on November 4th, 2019

There's no bigger challenge in coaching youth baseball players than keeping them focused on games. Baseball has about fifteen to twenty seconds between pitches; this gives players' minds good time to wander. Also, there may be many pitches without the ball put in play that leads to additional time for the players to take their thoughts off their responsibilities. In addition to this, of all the balls put in play in the game, few may still come to some positions. On the offensive side, batters only bat once every few innings so losing focus from one at-bat to the next is equally easy. This "downtime" presents a challenge for youth players, as well as for the baseball coaches. Coaches training youth players during baseball nets practice not only have to work on their motor skills but also the mental aspect of the game too.

Additionally, the task of keeping players' "heads in the game" can also be challenging for various other reasons such as player's nervousness, overthinking, and fear. Obviously, it takes a patient & dedicated baseball coach to train & develop youth players during baseball nets practice for all the phases of the game, from skill development to focus and strategy.

Here are the hitting & pitching coaching tips to keep the players' focused:

Hitting Focus Tips

A good coach:

  • Never teaches hitting mechanics during the game at-bat but simply keeps reminding the batters to time the ball and get a good pitch.
  • Teach hitters to expect every single pitch to be their pitch & to not look for walks.
  • Remind hitters that they can only control taking good swings at the good pitches.
  • Don't get upset when players swing at bad pitches in the games, so that players can stay aggressive and as fearless as possible.
  • Teach & reward hitters for making good situational hitting attempts. 

Pitching Focus Tips

A good coach:

  • Teaches the pitchers that the quicker they get the ball and pitch for the most alert defence, and the faster the games go the more completed innings will be when there is a time limit.
  • Have pitchers focus on the glove and not on the batter, and never let them get disappointed when the hitter connects on the ball because of course throwing strikes and challenging batters is the goal.
  • Get pitchers to focus on staying in the moment and controlling things that they can control, i.e. the next pitch.
  • Never let pitchers show disgust when other players make errors behind them.
  • Remind pitchers that after releasing the ball they are fielders. This tip is given mainly for their own safety and also for helping get outs.

Thus, the more a coach maintains the focus in the baseball games, the better they can help the players to "stay on their toes" at all times.

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Linda Hudson

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Linda Hudson
Joined: July 26th, 2016
Articles Posted: 176

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