You seem to have decent perspective and find value in various POV's so I'm going to push the envelope a bit. When we are coaching our kids when they are young, we all like to think we have proper perspective and keep things age appropriate, only later to realize we were still a bit over the top. Most of what you describe says you get it. But forget about logging stats for a kid just entering kid pitch when the pitching (and everything else) is still really crappy.
Have "hit ball hard" contests. Put a semi-deflated basketball or soccer ball on the tee and have the players hit it as far as they can. (If they don't get thru the ball, it kinda recoils and tells them what to do next time) In our back yard, a garage with windows faces the lawn. We played games with somewhat firm foam balls. We offered every little neighborhood kid that played $5 if they could break a window (man, did they all try to hit the ball hard - and they sorta had to go oppo). One of my sons is playing his senior college season. My wife still sends him a pre-game text occasionally ... "break a window".