OT: Little League baserunning

[Cubswillwinitonedaydawg]

Ex-baseball players and/or little league parents:
My kid is 9 now and moving to kid-pitch ball. We recently moved and I am lined up to help coach. Found out it's USSSA and they have open base-running with leads and everything. When I played at that age (mid 90's), it was Dixie Youth and all closed base-running through age 12. (No leaving the bag until pitch crossed the plate). In a way I like getting the kids a jump on real baseball, but that is a big jump from coach pitch at age 8 to secondary leads and inside moves at age 9. I would like to see 9-10 closed and give them at least 2 more years of focusing on the fundamentals. Plus I know if we don't have a catcher with a cannon we will be in a track meet. Just wondering what everyone is seeing as far as the style of play in your area, and what your thoughts are.

 

[MarkDallas]

I can't offer any specific advice. But I can tell you I was worried about my son going from coach pitch to kid pitch and it turned out to be fine. The transition was not as difficult as I envisioned.

 

[JoMo MoJo]

My son played select for two different clubs and most of their runs were from stolen bases. Even with large leads, the 17’ing coach just couldn’t help himself. That’s all select is. The most egregious one doing it was one of the Sox teams that Ross Mitchell coached. Interestingly enough his final year in select he also played on a NWRAA rec team and his coach, who played at USM, was the only coach he ever had that stressed hits. His team was one of the most successful too.

 

[msubrave]

My son is too young to play but if I was a coach in that league I'd have my players stealing on every pitch. No way a catcher is gonna throw out more than one maybe two runners a game at that age.

 

[stateu1]

The catcher won't throw anybody out at second and rarely at third. Runners will go on first pitch every time. The catcher will have a tough time keeping the pitch in front of him much less throwing out a runner.

 

[Shamoan]

Take advantage. Be aggressive on the base path because the good teams will be doing exactly that.

 

[josebrown]

Find a kid not scared of the ball that wants to play catcher. Teach him proper fundamentals on how to take his stance, mitt placement, dropping down, squaring to the ball, basically blocking balls. The fewer balls go past your catchers, the fewer runs the other team scores. They’ll steal around to third, but only score on rare hits thru the infield or bases loaded hits or bases loaded walks. On the other hand, steal your kids to third. If there’s a passed ball/wild pitch you score at least one. With your decent base runners have them challenge the catcher from third. Take aggressive leads, make the catcher throw after the third base runner. When he does have your third base runner go home on the throw. The few good coaches will teach their catchers to run the base runner back. The rest you will score a plenty.

oh yea, play infield in most the time at that age. Will give your fielders a chance to field a grounder and get an out.

 

[8dog]

Its the single dumbest thing about youth baseball. Instead of teaching kids basic mechanics you have to teach them about balks. No one is getting a jump on anything. You could teach this stuff at 12 in 10 minutes and they will be just as well off

 

[MarkDallas]

Ok I thought I'd some specific advice: teach them to back up on throws. You can be more aggressive with your throws if you know somebody is backing up.

 

[HomeBoyDawg]

True Little League Baseball rules are no leaving the bag until the ball crosses the plate. This is undoubtedly the best format for rec ball through age 12 (and probably competitive ball, too, but I won't argue that). Players need to focus on the fundamentals without pitchers and infielders being overwhelmed with holding runners on and catchers having little to no chance of throwing runners out. Might as well put one of your kids with lessor skills at catcher as long as it's not unsafe for him or her. The posts above attests to this. There's no telling how many kids have been turned off to the sport because of the farce it makes of the game when kids just automatically steal 2nd and 3rd after reaching 1st.

It's not difficult to teach 13 year olds these skills if they have a good grasp of the fundamentals.

 

[bruiser.sixpack]

I agree with this. They should graduate gradually. Just like a 9 or 10 year old trying to throw a curve ball. That is ridiculous! If a 9-10 team gets 2 legit hits and scores 12 runs, that ain't baseball. And most of those kids will be out of baseball by 13.

 

[DawgsOnTheWing]

Plus, a balk every time a runner is on. It turns into a track meet. I have difficulty seeing how this is beneficial to young players. 11-12s should be earliest for open base, it then. Must be a reason the LLWS is closed-base.....

 

[DocHolliday.sixpack]

My son currently plays 10-11y/o travel ball and catcher at that......

We’ve taught him to predominantly only make the throw down to third. Most teams practice this method. Taking second is essentially conceded, unless it’s a ridiculously slow jump. Fact is, if your sons team isn’t advancing every runner to second, they will lose more often than not.

 

[hatfieldms]

Our league is dizzy dean and 9/10 they cannot lead off. Once you get to 11/12 then it is regular baseball rules. I like giving them the 9/10 level to get used to kid pitch

 

[bruiser.sixpack]

This is the way to go. When we played tournaments. We saw coaches having their SS or 2B hold a runner at second. That is not fundamental Baseball. You are leaving huge holes for base hits that should be routine ground outs. Teach the young ones to hit, field, throw and catch. All of the idiocycresis will come as they develop.

 

[goodknight]

LL no leads wait until pitch crosses plate, U trip just like the big boys steal at will

 

[AlCoDog]

I agree. My 9 year old’s team has to spend half of their practice time holding runners and working on pick off moves

 

[Tigr2ndbase]

I agree it’s to young but since you have to deal with it here’s what I’ll say. Run, run, and run. Only way to put yourself in the best chance to win. From a defensive standpoint, have your pitcher try to pick off first a lot. You’ll probably get a few outs that way. Really work on rundowns as you’ll get in a lot of those. Make sure you teach setting a throwing lane either inside or out and not having the ball carrier run in the baseline. Try to teach them to run the base runner to the previous base and only one throw for the out. Having 10 throws on rundown will result in more risk for error. It’s going to be tough at that age with the running rules. Prayers for your sanity.

 

[diggidydog]

My son is 12...9-year old, even 10-year old ball can be painful to watch unless your son is playing at the highest levels. A walk turns into a run usually. Every teams runs all game long. A lot of coaches have their kids take the first pitch because they are stealing and don't want to hit into a line drive double play. Our teams spent a lot of valuable practice time on pick-offs and holding runners in an effort to stop it. We got a few outs this way but the kids missed out on fundamental work. Hindsight, we might have been better off just not worrying about teaching and focusing more on fielding and throwing strikes. You will have 10 run innings with 1 hit. The rules should change to no stealing until it crosses the plate or at a minimum, no leading off and you can't go until it leaves the pitchers hand, doesn't do anybody any good to play real baseball at that age. The kids can also run to first on a dropped 3rd strike which is crazy at that age as well.

 

[kired]

The kids can also run to first on a dropped 3rd strike which is crazy at that age as well.

What? You've only got 8-9 more years of training before the draft - they better start learning now!!**


It's threads like these that make me glad my kids don't seem to be as interested in baseball as I was. Seems to me the competitiveness of coaches & parents are ruining the joy of sports for young kids.

 

[NWADawg]

It becomes a league of “if you get on base, you score”. The biggest negative impact is to batting. So kids look for walks or learn to dink hit just to get to first knowing they can steal the rest of the way. I always emphasized aggressive hitting at that age. It is much easier to tone down swings and coach shrinking your swing zone than to try to get a kid to go full at the plate when they’ve been coached/allowed to be passive for years.

 

[DirtyDog]

I totally understand the frustration that open stealing at that age changes the game. However, you have to play by the league rules or you'll be non-competitive and your team will struggle to win games because the other coaches are going to run their kids. You don't want your team getting discouraged or turned off on baseball because they are losing a lot of games because you are trying to play it on hits while the other coaches are running the kids on every pitch. The USSSA game at 9 years old is to try to get a hit if the pitch is over the plate or take the walk if the pitcher is wild. Then steal on every single pitch. When you get to third, you send the runner halfway down the line so that he can score if it is a wild pitch or passed ball (typically about every 3rd pitch in recreation league or every 5th pitch in tournament ball). You make the defense make a play. Most teams will put one of their best players at catcher, and even then it is a track meet. My USSSA team is now 14U and we typically steal almost every pitch except for the slower kids, and then only because the bases are further apart and the catcher is better. You don't get to real baseball until 14-16 when the pitcher learns to hold the runner on, and the catcher can frequently throw runners out.

 

[00Dawg]

We had open from the get-go back in my day.

That would've been circa '87 in small-town Mississippi. I'm slow as Christmas, but loved base running if only because of all the little nuances that could give you an edge if you paid attention. In retrospect, I'm sure an initial high success rate due to low catcher skills contributed to the love. Run often and early, and let the kids have fun with it.

Meanwhile, here in the 'Ham, 9s and 10s in Rec leagues get the closed rules, except for 10-year-old All-Stars, who have open.

 

[West Tn Dawg]

When I coached my son, we won a lot of games on base running. We taught our guys defense and holding runners. No one else did. If we got a kid on base, he scored 95% of the time.
My son was extremely fast. There were some teams we played that I would tell him, no matter where the ball is, don't stop running until he crossed home plate. He often would hit a ground ball to the infield and score with out the ball ever leaving the infield. Most of the time they were throwing behind him, when they could have stop him if they were just taught to throw in front of the runner.

 

[jblailock]

You guys must have watched some crappy leagues. This is not my experience at all with my son. Yes, there were a lot of stolen bases at 9 years old, but good catchers still threw guys out.
Some mentioned "scoring 10 or 12 runs an inning on 1 or 2 hits." Well, that's some crappy pitching and/or fielding. Whether the kids can or can't play off base doesn't have anything to do with a pitcher that can't throw strikes. It has nothing to do with an infield that can't make a play either.