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15 replies

Defense?

I indians08100+ posts
Im sure im going to catch a lot of grief for this post, but I just wanted to share some thoughts

I have seen only a few high school games and college games this season, but I have spoken with a lot of coaches at both levels and am hearing the same things. " We cant catch the ball" "we kicked the ball around" " Kids lose focus when we practice defense" Even reading some of the posts on the game results page i see the same things

I think their is getting to be way to much emphasis on hitting, hitting lessons and offense and not enough on defense. In the offseason I bet kids spend 85-95 percent of the time on hitting. There is so much you can do in a gym to work on defense, footwork and so on. My first year of college from fall ball on we spent about a half hour doing partner drills..glove, no glove, just rolling the ball..getting the the point where you can feed someone up blindfolded.....now it seems like its hitting, hitting hitting.

I think kids think they have to hit .400 to make it to the next level, and maybe that is true...but you have to be able to play a positon. There may never be another Ozzie Smith, not because of lack of talent, because he may never make it out of AA with a low average.

I just think that there is not enough emphasis on defense and or kids want nothing to do with it. I think it may have been Vince Coleman that said "speed doesnt slump" well defense doesnt either. if you practice and preach your fundamentals, it not only gives your pitcher confidence it puts pressure on the other team. I see a lot of posts from pitchers that say they pitched well but there were 4 errors or what not, solid defense takes away the need a pitcher feels to strike every batter out. WE all know the defense does crack at times no matter how good, but thats whe the pitcher pikes up his defense and k's a guy, or vice versa, defense bails out a pitcher. Thats baseball.

I think that there is way to much emphasis on hitting and not enough on other fundamentals like defense. I want to see kids say "hey will you hit me some grounders and can we work on turns" rather then "hey lets go hit" There needs to be a balance of both.

Personally id rather see a 3-2 game then a 12-11 game and I would like to see wood used at all levels.
Bill Dwoinen Jr Assistant Coach Melrose Indians Baseball www.melroseindians.com
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mojowo11mojowo1110+ posts
Our team is hopelessly terrible at defense. Our hitting needs work, but the pitching is there. Today we got slaughtered while surrendering 2 earned runs. As a pitcher, it's frustrating to see your fielders kick around routine plays, take bad angles to fly balls, and miss cutoff men. I'm 100% with you on this one -- people tend to overlook defense, but pitching is nothing without it. Just think, we could've put up 10 runs today and still lost almost exclusively because of our defensive troubles. That should say something right there.
denisr400denisr400500+ posts
Agree 100%. Defense is right up there with free throw shooting as a lost art. Only the spectacular plays make highlight reels and chicks don't dig the 6-4-3 double play, therefore more emphasis is put on hitting.
Good defense is vital. My son's hs team was terrible defensively the past 2 seasons and only won 19 & 13 games because of it. This year they have been better and are 9-3. A couple of errors in 1 run losses to Nequa and Waubonsee Valley seperates them from 11-1.
More teams and especially players should focus on d. Nothing demoralizes a team or pitcher more than unearned runs. In hs and above it's impossible to hide a poor defensive player, ball always seems to find them.
P pitchdoc24100+ posts
No arguements here. As a former pitcher, my job was to get the ground balls, pop-ups, let my defense do their job. As a pitching coach, I stress the same thing. It's not one one one, it's a team game...and as a former coach always stressed..."9 on 1 baseball". That's not bad considering others sports are 5 on 5 or 11 on 11. I'll take 9 against 1 any day. But, those other 8 guys (and the pitcher as the 9th fielder) must do their job. So many times we hear...pitching & defense wins championships. If pitchers and fielders do their jobs, you only need a run (sometimes 2 or 3) to win the game. And, you can score those runs with base hits, bunting, moving guys over, going deep into counts and drawing walks. I think there are selfish players out there that don't want to bunt or take pitches...because of the whole "Sportscenter Mentality". Do players actually know that a SAC bunt does not hurt their average? Do coaches tell them that? Occasionally, you do find a kid or two that stays after practice to take extra fungos. It's a rarity...almost as rare as seeing kids playing pickup games at the park. It's sad that most kids would rather leave practice right away to go spend time with Suzie or finish that PS2 game. Spend the extra 30 minutes to make yourself better...it's what you do after practice that counts! (I'm not claiming that phrase as my own by the way!)
I indians08100+ posts
I have told this story for a while and will again

my first year of college one of our coaches took us aside and explained that we have 2 of the best pitchers in conference and we will get a lot of groundballs.....but that was all we had, so we had to focus even more on defense for the one and two to keep the pitch counts down because they carried the load, and then to get as many outs for the committee

we spent at least 30 min a day working on the basics and then 30 min after practice...we looked into it and I believe we led the nation in double plays (d3) We would not move on until every feed was perfect, it was to the point where we actually did it blindfolded

I dont care who you are, if you give any team extra outs your not going to win...I dont care how good of a hitting team you have, your still going to make outs 65 percent of the time....as if you practice and preach team defense, you could have a fielding percentage of 95-98 percent as apposed to a BA of .350.

As bad as this sounds, I dont think many players today are willing to work on their own or have knowledge of the game and how it was played. I have heard many coaches say "I dont have ball players, I have kids who play baseball" I almost lost it when I called a kid explaining there would be a makeup game on a saturday and he replied "o man, i wanted to BBQ" I would have and still would be excited about that. Trust me, i know there are a lot of kids out there with a burning passion for the game and the knowledge, but its not constant" I was very impressed with the kids I coached in the fall, they had talent, they were coachable and they knew how to play the game (Mehan (Carmel) Javers (SC North) Fitch (Batavia) Pitlock ( DGS) and Tropp (Woodstock)) I am looking forward to having a team again this fall for that reason.
I indians08100+ posts
Thats really not a fair anology..........how many players are in a showcase / how many hs baseball players....that makes up about 1 percent of the population,and they are hand picked most of the times

as a whole.....teams do not catch the ball...yeah the ss may be good, but the other 7 arent......originally I was refering to team defense


It comes down to kids dont want to work at it...all they want to do is hit,hit hit.....they say that when the Oz worked as a kid, he would pay someone to cover for him so he could go out in the lot and take groundballs.....yes there are still teams and players that take pride in d, but as a whole your hearing to much "we would have won but we made 6 errrors"
K13K13100+ posts
Your right...a strict comparison between HS ball and travel/showcase ball is unfair. Equally unfair is it to say that HS kids don't want to work on defense. At least that hasn't been the experience I have had with HS ballplayers in my area. Sure pitching and hitting are more glamorous, but I have no trouble getting my kids to work on taking groundballs/flyballs/doing DP drills/defensive drillwork.

My point about the summer was that it is much easier to play good individual defense and team defense when:

A--the playing conditions are better and more consistent, and

B--ballplayers have had some time to get some defensive work under their belts.

Let's face it, drillwork inside is great, and it is helpful, but working on D inside or in a lesson situation is extremely different than taking actual groundballs or flyballs on a field. And, doing proper team D inside is extremely difficult at best.

I think it is a bit harsh to condemn defense (especially team D) in April. It takes time to develop.

If we really want to jump on a soap box, let's talk about the deplorable state of individual and team baserunning in HS level games. It is attrocious. And that statement can be made whether watching a HS game, a shocase tournament, or a travel tournament. Spring, summer, or fall...it usually remains pretty ugly.
S soxnole1,000+ posts
What IS fair (and accurate) to say, is that in HS, on many teams, there are a lot of players that could not make top travel teams.

This starts in t-ball, continues through little league and pony until players and parents (INCLUDING MANY NOVICE COACHES AND MORE THAN A FEW LEAGUE OFFICIALS) think its normal.

Having players on any team beyond little league that can not keep up with the rest, severely hinders the progress of the best players. This has been obvious to most of us for about 10-20 years now, all of us that are not protecting a local fiefdom and don't want to admit that baseball is indeed, very similar to school and life in general. Success breeds success.

This is not to say that a lesser brand of baseball is bad in ANY other way, except in its effect on the experience and ability level of top players.

The extreme result becomes apparent at top programs where a top player loses out to a similar player who has had the advantage of playing at a higher level for a longer time with more experience and better coaching.

A great point regarding base running was made by k13. An experienced coach will weed out those who don't know how to run the bases, (checking OF positions) bunt, when to take a pitch and what to do defensively during game situations.

BTW, D1 is not any different. There is a reason why Texas,Miami and others win year in and year out. Virtually every player at Texas and the top 50 or so programs has a background of high level play and lots of it.
I indians08100+ posts
in this old time quote book I have it says "dont aliby on bad hops, anyone can field the good ones"

Yeah seeing the ball of a bat is better, but also spending 30-45 min a day doing...partner rolls, backhand, forehand, shorthops etc and working on turns is very benaficial and will lead to solid D

So instead of doing 12 hiting stations for 5 mn apiece...take some time away to work on fielding

now i know this isnt universal, this is just from what ive seen

baserunning.........a whole nother topic!@
K13K13100+ posts
No doubt about it, higher level play pulls out the best in an athlete...baseball, basketball, whatever. And, I am definitely not arguing with indians8--there is definitely solid defensive work that can be done inside, and it will lead to improvement. My point is simply that in MY opinion, defensive work is the hardest to successfully do inside. And, as such, we should understand that D always suffers early--more so than hitting and pitching.
S soxnole1,000+ posts
Watching the M.L.B. pro's is tantamount to regressing as far as fundamentals are concerned.

On the other hand watching the Japanese players in M.L.B. is the very best way to learn. The Japanese League is by far the most sound baseball played anywhere on the planet!

Too bad we don't get thier games over here. With far less talent but lots more hard work and practice those fellows continue to play the M.L.B. teams that visit Japan dead even.
K13K13100+ posts
Dye's play was miserable the other night. Sad to see from a veteran pro that I actually like. And, while I agree for the most part about the Japanese players, the secondbaseman for the WSox (I am not even going to begin to try to butcher his name) has to learn how to get the heck out of the way when a runner is trying to spoil a DP. Not only is he not getting solid throws off, but he is going to get himself killed.

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