Earlier posters have alluded to this, but it's a two-tiered solution. More reps, and expose them to consistent pitching that is actually not going to hit them.

Get your practice organized to where you have people hitting live pitching, tee work, and soft toss simultaneously. That way every player gets three hitting drills every practice no matter what.

Then get a pitching machine to throw strikes at them over and over for a while. Take the bat away from them and let them watch pitches come in for a little bit. Let them see that it's not going to hit them, then let them hit.

That will get their mind off of getting hit and get them more dialed in to hitting and being more confident at the plate. And it will also teach them what a hittable pitch looks like.

If you want... you can also actually teach them how to take a hit by pitch with tennis balls. Teach them to turn inward on a pitch like that so it hits their back/shoulder instead of their lead arm/face. Sometimes knowing what to do in that situation builds confidence. Depends on the personality type a bit.

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Posted by TriadTigers

North Carolina

Member since Jan 2020

1293 posts

Posted on 4/4/22 at 10:17 am to SpqrTiger

quote:
Get your practice organized to where you have people hitting live pitching, tee work, and soft toss simultaneously.

This "station" type batting practice has also worked the best for me. The lights will come on for kids at different stations for god knows what reason. After one or two practices I had a kid who couldn't hit his arse with both hands go to the soft toss and starts ripping the ball.

But, if you can't have practice like OP said, I don't know what you can do.

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Posted by TeddyPadillac

Member since Dec 2010

25838 posts

Posted on 4/4/22 at 10:38 am to SpqrTiger

quote:
More reps, and expose them to consistent pitching that is actually not going to hit them.

Get your practice organized to where you have people hitting live pitching, tee work, and soft toss simultaneously. That way every player gets three hitting drills every practice no matter what.

i would agree with that, and i also understand that can be very difficult to achieve if you don't have coaching help, and also if you don't have competent coaching help. It's rather pointless to have a dad soft toss to kids that are dropping their hands and he doesn't correct it. As the head coach, you can't be in 3 places at once.

I had the same problem with 10 year olds. You say it all the time, but keeping your eye on the ball is so important. The other thing a lot of them don't understand is you have to be ready to swing on every pitch. You should be loading up and getting ready to explode on every pitch. That's where practicing with consistent pitching helps. Literally tell them to swing at every pitch, and hit that ball before it reaches the plate. If you can throw strikes 90% of the time, then that obviously helps.

The other thing that seemed to help motivate them was i told them if anyone goes up to bat and strikes out without swinging the bat at all, you're batting last in the next game. The boys that swing the bat, regardless if you hit it or not, are going to bat near the top of the lineup. There was one kid who was just not good, and i told him if you make contact and hit a ball in fair play, i do'nt care if you get out, i'll let you bat first in the next game, and he eventually did and he was excited as hell when it happened.

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Posted by PurpleExile

Member since Dec 2020

453 posts

Posted on 4/5/22 at 2:54 pm to SpqrTiger

quote:
Get your practice organized to where you have people hitting live pitching, tee work, and soft toss simultaneously. That way every player gets three hitting drills every practice no matter what.

Then get a pitching machine to throw strikes at them over and over for a while. Take the bat away from them and let them watch pitches come in for a little bit. Let them see that it's not going to hit them, then let them hit.

That will get their mind off of getting hit and get them more dialed in to hitting and being more confident at the plate. And it will also teach them what a hittable pitch looks like.

I coached for seven years, ages 9 through 16, and this is more or less what I did. Soft toss and doing the batting tee the CORRECT way build confidence.

But more than anything, I think what some coaches do wrong is do live batting practice the wrong way. Some coaches let their pitchers attempt to throw BP, and the ball goes all over the place. Other coaches try to pitch BP, and they can't consistently throw strikes, either.
So it becomes a self-defeating exercise.

I had a JUGS pitching machine, but there's no replacement for the kids seeing live pitching and learning how to pick up the ball out of the pitcher's hand.

More than anything they need to be seeing strikes to hit in practice. If you're not throwing them strikes, it's a waste of time and some of them are going to be hit by the pitch.

When my son was 9 years old, he had a coach who used to make the pitchers throw batting practice -- at 9 years old! Then he would lean against the backstop, smoke cigarettes and yell, "C'mon, son, bow your neck!"

That's when I decided that I needed to be a baseball coach.

Good luck to you. The problem is solvable. (You might also Google the name "Tom Emanski".)

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