12U locating pitches

Unrealistic for very many--if any at all-- 12u players on a community-based team to hit quadrants, let alone sextants, in my experience. Assuming, that is, that they're throwing the ball, as opposed to aiming it like a dart.

IMO, count your blessings if you've got a pitcher or two who can throw strikes in the bottom half of the zone with some consistency.

Just work with them on fundamentals. Like Freddy77 said few 12 year olds, even ones on upper level travel teams, can consistantly hit their spots at the level you want.

Emphasize keeping the ball down and mixing up fastballs and changeups. Doing that will hopefully result in ground balls and a chance for all the kids to field and throw runners out.

quote:

Originally posted by Wklink:
Just work with them on fundamentals. Like Freddy77 said few 12 year olds, even ones on upper level travel teams, can consistantly hit their spots at the level you want.

Emphasize keeping the ball down and mixing up fastballs and changeups. Doing that will hopefully result in ground balls and a chance for all the kids to field and throw runners out.

I agree. They really need to learn to keep the pitches at the knees UNLESS you want a high fastball.

So I just call three things:

1. fastball - catcher sets up down the middle with wrist just below the knees

2. outside fastball - same thing but outside 3-6" off the plate

3. high fastball - throw the pitch at the umpires facemask.

And I do it very simply - a "1" with index finger straight down, a "1" with pinky touching rt leg (or index touching left leg for rightie), and a 4 for the high cheese. We use a 2 and 3 for CB and CU if we are playing in that level (All Stars or tournament play).

Then offspeed pitches are always the same location: DOWN!!

BTW - I've done all sorts of other ways (touches to face, touches on arms) but I found that the simpler way worked best. By the time they get to HS, if they are still playing, they will have enough time to learn the more sophisticated methods.

I even did this on 13U and 14U teams and it worked well except we added the inside on the hands location which is the "1" on the inside of the left leg.

Like I said, I tried lots of things but found it was overkill. We even did the college wristband thing for one travel team. It was like a human rain delay and didn't make one iota of difference in the end.

quote:

Originally posted by FanForLife:

Am I asking too much for 11 & 12 year olds to do this ?

If this is doable, how do you signal a catcher during a game where to set up ? Or do you leave it up to him to set up & be able to read batters?


Thanks.

From working with this age group for the past 2 years here is my experience...

Few 11/12 year olds will be able to hit a "spot" with any consistency. Your best bet is to focus on up/down and in/out. Don't bother them hitting location 100% of the time or they will end up becoming dart throwers. Work with them on having a consistent motion and being able to make small corrections when they are missing the plate. You'll find most 11/12 year olds will be all over the place with their motions, which makes it really hard to hit the strike zone consistently.

One of the important things to teach is that their job is to get the batter out, and that doesn't mean they have to strike them out. Kids want to go for the K even though most of them don't have the stuff to strike out stronger batters.

As for signals, here's what I did... I taught my catchers to call the game. It takes a little time, but really are we doing rocket science here? Sure, they make mistakes - but I make sure they learn from them. Set guidelines on what to do on certain counts or certain situations. If a kid isn't smart enough to figure out what to do after a few games, he probably isn't smart enough to make the 100 other decisions a catcher has to make in the game.

You can always experiment for a few innings and see how it goes.

Of course I'm the guy who says we adults micro-manage the fun out of the games and let his players coach the bases during last season's championship game - so I'm prone to odd opinions.

Good points about adult's micro-managing.

I should have qualified my statements similarly. I don't call every pitch. But I teach them all of this and we call a pitch sequence for the best couple of hitters on the opposing team.

Also, one of my son's catches and he is a smart kid so I let him call his own for the most part.

But in All Stars and higher levels I might call the whole game. Depends on my mood, who's catching, and who the opponents are I guess.

My opinion. All of the posters above who point out that ability at 11-12 years old is very variable are correct. However, this is a great age to get both pitchers and catchers thinking about the value of changing location AND speed from pitch to pitch.

With my newer pitchers, I stick to teaching grip fundamentals, simple mechanics, and general ideas about when to throw what.

But not all 11s and 12s are created equal. If you have boys with experience, who take pitching lessons and do basic thrower conditioning work in the offseason, and will go on to some level of travel ball next year, you can offer them a bit more.

For these guys, try to get them to think about going inside and outside and changing levels with purpose, as well as changing speeds. They can do it; their only issue will be inconsistency.

I think it's on you to figure out where your players are in terms of mechanics first. When you have confidence in their capacity, then you can go on and determine what your players can handle in terms of approach. Most importantly, keep it fun while enabling them to enjoy growing in the game.

Always aim for location, and hope for the best, regardless of age.

What a great website & thank you to everyone who has responded, great information.

tres_arboles - your idea about the pitcher AND cather thinking about location and changing speeds is something I have thought about since the end of last baseball season. And the idea of having them do this with a purpose is great. Can't wait for the season to begin.

It's never too early to call pitch location...just don't get upset if they don't hit them (at least early on)...but they can start to try and locate, and start to understand how to "pitch" instead of just throw.

I believe even more important is training, and making sure that, your catchers are locating the target for the pitcher where you want the pitch. An example, 0-2 and a pitcher know full well he needs to waste a pitch and go outside, catcher sets up with target middle and belt high even though he called for an outside pitch, pitcher wants to go outside, but his training will make him throw to the mitt. Batter crushes a pitch over the middle and no one, including the pitcher and catcher, knows what just happened.

Pitchers, even at this age don;t want to cross up their catchers, especially of the pitcher happens to catch also and knows how that feels. As much as he wants to hit the spot, he's gonna throw to the mitt where ever it is.

Work with your catchers.

Just my very humble opinion.

Tim

quote:

Originally posted by scdigger:
It's never too early to call pitch location...just don't get upset if they don't hit them (at least early on)...but they can start to try and locate, and start to understand how to "pitch" instead of just throw.

this is some very good advice...after 20+years of being behind the plate with pitchers from 8-58...the really successful youth pitchers I've seen are the ones who throw strikes....

I've seen youth players who are hard throwers, curve ballers at 10-11 yrs old...and the ones who consistently progress are the ones who throw pitches at youth age appropriate speeds into the strike zone.....

I do not think it is too early to teach location, but as said above, dont be too upset when they cant or dont hit it...

I too have noted over the years that 11-12 year olds shouldn't worry about learning location in some odd off the wall spot as much as learning to throw strikes to where the mitt is placed. When I used to coach at that level we would play a simple game with the pitchers doing their bullpens. After they were warmed up they would pitch 3 simulated innings. The rule was they couldn't allow anyone to be walked in and score. I would be the umpire and call each pitch either a ball or strike. I would also have my pitch counter to tracjk them over the season to see what minimal amount of pitches they could throw in each inning. What I was trying to teach them was having the mindset to always throw to the mitt- wherever it is located. If I told the catcher to move off the plate to the outside and the pitcher hit that spot I gave him a "strike" regardless of if it actually crossed the plate. One of the general targets in this game is to finish all three innings having pitched no more than 50 pitches. We would never throw anything but fastballs in this game. For a pitcher to lose in an inning would mean he had to throw a minimum of at least 16 balls. For him to get out of the inning means he has to throw a minumum of at least 9 strikes. This is where math comes into play and they start to understand that being effective is all about low "ball counts" and "high strike" counts. Pitchers often forget that pitch counts have way more to do with success than anything else. Successful pitchers are those who throw more strikes than balls.

Very rareley did my pitchers lose at this game and after a time they were all in that general 12-15 pitches per inning and hitting "spots" most of the time. Very few pitchers at this age can hit spots like we see in professional ball. Pitchers at this age can usually be taught to throw "over the plate", "up", "down", "inside" and "outside". Hitting spots within a tight strike zone is near to impossible at this age. Trust me on that- I too thought it would be cool for the strike zone to be broken down into zones like the pro's. We would try it in practice having three horizontal zones- upper middle and lower and three more zones vertically- left middle and right. We would then practice calling spots such as "2-1" which would be middle of the plate and inside. What we found out was that kids at that age just can't hit these spots with any kind of regularity to make it worthwhile. Good batters usually capitalize off of the pitcher throwing "mistakes" even at the big major league level. You figure, if a batter just sat in the box and was patient he has at least three opportunities and often times 5-6 times for the pitcher to make just one one mistake. Even at the major league level we watch this every night on ESPN with how this pitch and that pitch missed it's spot and as a consequence the ball went yard. If major leaguers have problems with consistancy, how much more difficult is it for pitchers just starting out learning to throw strikes?

In my opinion I think those expectations are above the ability level of a 12U community team. I would have them concentrate on just throwing strikes consistently to begin with and letting the fielders do their job. No need to strike out every batter. As the season progresses and they get better and start hitting the strike zone consistently I would try and have them work on either inside or outside pitches. Cheers!