Kick These Bad Coaching Habits This Baseball Season

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Great information that can be applied to both baseball & softball any clinics coming up for softball?

Around the 5:35 mark Duke talks about wrist turned back to second base. I think a ton of coaches still teach this, including myself. I’ve heard some talk of this changing though. Can you make a quick video on the new proper throwing technique?

Great stuff! Glad to see I'm of the same mindset as you guys.

Great information coaches! Good luck to everyone's season in 2024! As long as my kids evolve and grow with the season and the process of the sport, I could care less about wins and losses as proper baseball skill and IQ evolution almost guarantees a winning season.

As a coaches pitch coach. I am always trying to throw a strike but sometimes you gotta give em that chin music.

Some of these things you can coach but just not as constants. Like glove up in outfield, run to spot for sure but we teach get to spot get under and get around if you can and hand up to block sun or light or if you get to a spot on time, and sometimes you want the batter youve coached to drive the ball to make contact as in baseball theres time a strike out is just bad

6:42 I couldn't disagree more. My goal is to instill proper mechanics and good hand eye codernation with the ball. To many times I've seen coaches instill drive the ball and hit the ball hard and those same kids look foolish come game day cause they are swinging out of there shoes cause all through there coaching they where told drive the ball and swing hard which sets them up to fail. I preach good mechanics, good hand eye cordernation and to focus on line drives we want to hit lind drives. And I've seen 1st hand my boys take that on and it leads hard hitting balls aka line drives.

I agree with most and do most of the things you say, so I guess I just use common sense. One thing is about the pitcher pointing toward second: maybe it’s to keep the throwing arm on the same repeatable plane? Some kids have their arms behind their back, some away from their body, I teach fast pitch softball pitching, and both of these things cause very inconsistent, wild pitching. Also, as far as the “just make contact,” I would say it’s not the best advice but it can be helpful if the player is struggling to make contact and she realizes she doesn’t need to over swing, or simply putting the ball in play gets that winning run home and she needs reminding of that? Sometimes kids aren't aware of the situation. I also try to stay away from all the cliches: “you got this,” “it’s all you,” “you saw it,” etc. They are overused and I’m not so sure they help. The kid is up there and she knows what she’s supposed to do: hit the ball.

Runner at third when I’m coaching at third, pre pitch I would tell them what to do on ground balls & fly balls & such, then I tell them not to listen to me during the live play. As people get excited & you might yell go go on a line drive. So I held my runners to my pre play instructions even if I might have yelled go go on a line drive instead of freeze with less than 2 outs.

So one of the base running commands I use and teach my players on any team is Red and Green. If they look at me and I’m waving my arm I try to yell “GREEN, GREEN, GREEN”, and “RED, RED, RED’’ with the stop sign. As a coach I try to have a parent’s meeting as well to keep them from telling the kids what to do when their playing, for example if the SS gets a ground ball let him either make a play or make a mistake that he can learn from. Just my input.

The ball looking at second I always told the coach I wasn’t doing it. I always had to run laps 7yrs old to 14. Then around 15 was throwing low 80’s

I disagree with only non-verbal communication from 3rd base coach. U10 and below at least in my experience and even when I played in high school there are times where the runner is too focused on the pitcher and not paying attention to arm signals. Just like the swing down, it depends on the player being coached and the circumstance of the play.

Some of these habits (running with the glove up, etc...) are certainly bad but several of them (throwing motion drills, group hitting instruction, etc...) try to make the same point that each kid may need a different kind of instruction and that some "standardized" motions or drills are simply bad. I get the point but that's not very helpful to coaches out there who are trying to coach entire teams by themselves or with maybe one other parent who has never played. There is an unspoken assumption being made that each team is sufficiently staffed to provide moments where one-on-one instruction can regularly happen. Sadly, that's just not the case everywhere, especially at the early youth levels. I've been the coach trying to give group hitting instruction because I was the only parent willing to help out. I say all this to say that calling some of these things bad coaching habits may be discouraging to those are simply doing the best with what support they have. It's nearly impossible to work with a single kid for long while 10+ 6-8 year old kids slowly lose the last couple ounces of mental focus they had left.

As this is my 26th year coaching high school baseball I'm definitely convinced now more than ever my high school coach was an idiot

Happy to see this as I coach 10U and have seen and have needed to un-teach all of this to our kids. I'm sure their previous coaches meant well, but 90% of what you mentioned, I saw during our winter conditioning, and been working to break....thank god the kids minds are sponges. Never underestimate the kids' ability to re-learn things.

Matt Budgell baseball

Sadly...most youth coaches are narcissists. They dont really care about the kids,teaching the game, or einning. Its all about them being able to control things to make themselves feel better...especially the parents.

I would also add that our coaches believe winning is more important than anything. Even when we’re just starting the fundamentals of baseball. This year, so far, kids are not showing up to practice and playing because they’re a little older and a little better. Meanwhile, kids that have showed up to every practice, every game, and every optional practice are riding the bench. Back in my day, if you didn’t show up for practice, you didn’t play. Simple as that.