if he pops and throws guys out by 5 steps on a routine play its fine, however, if this bad habit occurs during bang bang plays, thats a no no. is he doing it on every play or just the easy ones as a timing mechanism. personally, he needs to break his hands, thumbs down and get his arm out and up in proper throwing fundamentals. i would break him. as you can see some coaches see it as poor mechanics and he very likely will not be able to use his arm every time to make up for this flaw. sounds like he needs to do some basic drill work like the beanie drill either bare-handed or with glove to work on quick hands and help get the ball out of the glove quickly and the arm quickly into throwing position. your "coaches" need to do a little drill work. sounds like they like to yell more than teach.
beanie drill: stand 10 to 15 feet apart, roll ball to preferably no glove fielder in the crouched fielding position,(in juco ball we have the fielders that aren't catching the ground ball yell "sit", yes, during the game.). roll ball to him directly in front first and fielder looks ball into hands and works on getting the ball "out and up". he points beanie on top of cap so the driller or coach sees the beanie. this is a great drill in getting the throwing hand into a simultaneous action by bring the throwing hand at the same time into the glove hand. keep in sit position and stretch the fielder by rolling the ball to the right and then to the left.