team fielding problems

Well Scott..as a catcher myself, I know first hand how you feel. The best thing for you to do is to talk to your teammates. Being the team captain gives you the responsibility of knowing your teammates and how they feel. You have to be the leader. Figure out whether or not they can hear you during the game (if so you must be louder!) or if they really just don't trust you. I've learned over the years that in most circumstances the infielders flat out can't hear you. Speak up, be loud, but most importantly communicate with your teammates off the field in order to communicate better on the field!

Great advice above but to me this seems to be a coaching problem. What is your coach doing and saying?

I agree most of the time the problem is you are not loud enough so leave no doubt as to what you want.

You've probably got both a coaching and an experience problem.

The more "individual" aspects of baseball --- pitching and hitting --- seem to be coming along more quickly in European baseball than the team aspect of defense. For your defense to be good, they need not only the skills but Baseball Intelligence. Frankly, if they have to wait, even a nanosecond, for you to tell them what to do midaction, the chances of success are not good.

Players in countries with a longer history of baseball started their reps with grounders and fly balls and anticipating the play since t-ball age; what you know as the right way, has been honed through years of experiencing the massive number of different situations baseball can present. Your players simply don't yet have that experience and now not only need the defensive reps and drills, but a more intelligence-based approach to boost their reaction time. At practice, they need to have the Why explained to them and not just the How so they can start to incorporate it into their game.

Ever watched American footie? How mechanical and rote many of the plays are, how separate the players can be from the ball? You're used to seeing footballers who grew up with a ball on the end of their foot; they can anticipate the opposition's movement and change direction/angle without missing a beat because of that engrained experience with the ball.

It will be a while before European baseball's defense catches up. But I would suggest explaining why you don't throw behind the runner, you know what you'd do with the ball before the pitch is thrown, the differences based on number of outs/the hitter/the runner etc before the drills to help them take it all in more effectively. Gotta work with your coach on this one.

Best of British Luck to you.

Much can be deciferd from this but I think its clearly a coaching problem. When ever I took a new team over, the first thing we did was work on defensive drills and practice. The routines are done at each practice and there is no room for personal choice, just the system we follow. Once an infield/outfield routine is learned, it becomes second nature in future practices, pre-game warm-ups and game situations. I know you can't change the coach, but you may want to mention what some say here, and have him come on board for practice advice. Maybe buy him one of Ron Polk's books online.