11 Year-Old Son FOOLED BY OFF SPEED PITCHES

You use of terms and the title especially is bit weird is it not !!!!!!

I think the first thing to establish is pitch recognition, and that only comes with time and experience. You can throw them breaking balls and offspeed stuff in BP but I've always had a very hard time duplicating a 12 YO curveball.
Most importantly, at that age it is very rare indeed to find a kid who can throw the breaking ball for a strike more than once in a blue moon. Teach your kids to recognize the pitch and to lay off the offspeed and breaking stuff with less than 2 strikes.
Even with HS aged players, sitting on fastballs will improve any hitter.

Holy **** man, I thought your soon actually died from an off speed pitch. Throw the kids curves and offspeed and get them used to what it looks like, but it will take time.

Please watch those titles-a couple deaths have been reported on here this year so "son" and "killed" is not a good combination.

Off speed works great for the "killing of batters" because kids don't load and stride to balance early enough. They must learn to separate the stride from the launch by a moment in time. Most don't get their hands back by shoulder rotation so when their foot finally gets down they have nothing to hit with and they continue to drift forward seeking some tension/torque.

The lead elbow must be behind the belly button at toe touch. If you have filmed him he would have been 0 for 4 on that criteria.I don't have to see the game to know that.

Easy fix..use a Hands Back Hitter www.swingbuster.com that is why it was built. It has helped a lot of kids learn and Dads teach torque which is creating and maintaining the shoulder load until toe touch. There IS more to hitting but until they learn this the rest has little relevance

Dude! Kids getting killed by baseballs - not funny. It happens.

Don't do that!!!!! Use an ice breaker to get our attention, but geeeeeeeeeeeeeezzzzz. Some suggestions for future topic starters for you sir:

1. My hair is on fire!
2. Did you see that pair...
3. MONEY if you read!
4. etc...

this needs to be deleted...not a good topic starter...

Everyone needs to lighten up a little. The title could be better but it's not THAT bad.

On topic, I agree with swingbuster for the most part.

RED

Not a case of lightening up

As you know I am not into the politcially correct stuff but this title is over the edge

Perhaps it was used to draw attenetion but still over the edge

goingyard,

rbinaz is on the money. You must first teach them to recognize the pitch. Many times a kids hands are not fast enough to wait until the pitch is recognized. I think there are several things that need to happen:

-develop their bat speed, so they can wait a bit longer and give them the time to recognize the pitch.

-train them to recognize the pitch by watching the seams, which will be a giveaway at that age. I use a CB machine and have them stand in the box with their glove and reach out to catch the ball. This helps them recognize the seams and the flight of the ball. They have more time to watch the pitch through all the stages of the break.

-lastly, train them what are the most likely counts that pitchers throw CB's/FB's. As was atated in this thread, 12 yr. olds are not going to throw the CB accurately a high percentage of the time and CU's at that age are usually telegraphed.

goingyard---

You can edit the title of your thread, too. Do it...Not funny (and PC has NOTHING to do with it).

One drill that can help along with some others that have been mentioned it to throw badminton birdies to them. The birdies slow down a lot and the kids have to learn how to stay back to hit them at all.