Lots of baseball players and Coach Dan Blewett. in today's video.
Let's talk about when.
As a catcher, should you go out and visit the mound
to talk to your pitcher?
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So I'm glad you're here.
And in today's video, we're going to talk about four catchers.
When should you visit the mound?
This is an important thing and it takes some sort of
like emotional intelligence. So let's talk through
some of the instances when it makes sense to visit.
All right. So no one bad body language, when you see
bad body language that's tethered to the performance of the pitcher.
So you just gave a couple of runs,
just gave up a hard hit, just gave a home run, just walked another batter.
And you see the shoulders droop. You see the head roll.
You see all that sort of stuff.
That's a good time to go out and visit if you're pitching coaches.
And already that's one thing I look for is as a coach, when I see
my player is mentally in a bad like I visibly bad spot,
like a visibly enough where he's going to show his bad body language to the world.
That's a good time to go have a talk and try to get them back on track.
So bad, bad body language is is a great one to go out there
and talk about their performance and just get them back into the game.
All right. The next one is if you detect a consistent mis pattern.
So especially for pitchers, this could be everything up.
That's a very common one. Everything to their arm side.
That's another very common one.
So when you see a pitcher consistently missed, like he walks about
or one way, then walks about the next way, then he's falling behind consistently
because everything is like eye level or he's just hanging everything.
If you see a consistent and miss pattern, that's a really good time to go out there
and talk to them, especially if you as a catcher
have a little bit of a clue about mechanics and what they're doing wrong
to maybe correct that.
So little things like, hey, look down your shoulder longer.
Hey, stay close a little longer. Hey, you look like you're rushing.
Those things are typically what's going to account for a consistent missed pattern.
So if you detect that consistent missed pattern,
go out there and try to clean it up,
because a lot of times the pitcher is going to be frustrated
or he's going to be in his head or he's just not going to know what to do.
And that's why it's gone on for two, three or four batters.
And so it's up to somebody else, the catcher or the pitcher, to help snap them,
give them something to try to fix that miss pattern so they can get back on track
and throw strikes. The next thing is a tempo change.
If you see the pitcher start to rush, if you see him start to move
a little bit faster around the mound, not even their delivery in general,
but they just start to look a little more frantic and mentally sped up,
or if they start to slow down, like, say, they're sinking in their back
leg too much or their pace just changes, just look for any tempo
or pace change again, whether it's their mechanics or their movements
around the around the around the mound in general.
Those are good indications that something's going on there, flustered.
They're mentally upset, whatever it is.
But any tempo change is cause for alarm.
And if you spot want to go out there, talk to them, see what's going on.
All right. The next one is give them a break.
If it's just a really long inning, especially if it's a hot day out,
I've seen this in amateur baseball, and I could not, for the life of me,
understand how a pitcher on an opposing team is out there for 40 pitches
while my team shelling them and no one goes out to break up the inning.
The pitching coach doesn't go out. The head coach doesn't go out.
The catcher doesn't go out.
This poor pitcher just throws 40 pitches in a row or 30 pitches in a row
and is just getting creamed.
And no one thinks to just like give him a breather.
Sometimes, you know, the pitcher is going to just pretty much
take the ball and just keep going if he's a competitor.
But sometimes they
just need someone to go out there and break up the other team's momentum.
And the pitchers own bad momentum or it's just super hot.
It's ninety five degrees. It's two o'clock in the afternoon.
I'm just going to go out there and give the kid a, you know,
15 second breather, go out there and just talk about nothing
until the umpire breaks you up and get you back in.
Those things are important.
So especially if it's been like single, single, single, go out there
and just break up the other team's momentum, make the next batter wait,
give the pitcher a chance to regroup, break up a bad long inning.
It's a really important thing.
It's one of the simplest things you can do to help a pitcher out of a bad spot.
The next thing is strategy.
Say this hitter that's coming up is maybe going to be.
Go up there and let him know that if you
if you're afraid that he's going to forget it
or say those hitters already hit two doubles, and you're afraid that
if you approach him
the same way you did last time, he's going to hit a third double.
So go out there and be like, hey, remember, this guy's got really fast
hands. He likes hitting fastballs, you know, on the outer half.
We're going to pitch him in this time. Just go out there and just reiterate.
Don't always assume that the pitcher knows what you know,
just because, you know, it doesn't mean he saw the same thing.
You have two different vantage points and you need to work together as a battery
to get through this game.
So if you have a moment and you're not sure, does he also out there say, hey,
you know, we got to make sure this guy can't steal?
Second, just I just want to make sure, you know,
you got to hold this guy on this situation because he cannot steal.
We've got to keep him close.
If we want any chance to win this game, then hustle right back and get back to it.
So typically those strategy meetings are quick in, quick out,
share the tidbit of info that you need and get back to the plate.
The next thing and this is. Just sort of going back to the strategy.
Say this is just a tough hitter and he's beaten your pitcher twice.
You might just want to hustle out there and be like, hey, look,
I know this guy got this last time, but what do you think about this sequence?
And like, you got it, man. Like it could just be a confidence thing.
If you're afraid that there's a pitcher who gets down himself easy,
then go out there and give em a little pep talk every now and again.
Doesn't have to be about anything he's done wrong.
Just be like, hey, we got this guy ready to stick it to him.
You know, you get we get to two strikes
and you throw that nasty slider that you've got.
We're going to bury this guy. Let's do it.
Sometimes those rah rah
kind of catching moments are important and they get you psyched up. You get.
All right. I can see that. Let's get ahead, then.
I'm going to get to that slide and then boom, the punch this guy out.
He beat me last time, but he's not going to beat me this time.
So if that's in your personality and the pitcher you think might benefit
from that, then go out there and give them just a little shot of confidence.
And the last thing, just administrative things.
So if a new pitcher enters the game and you're not sure what he throws
or you want to make sure you're on the same page with signs
or you're afraid he's like tipping pitches, maybe.
Maybe he's doing something that's telegraphing something that he's throwing.
I'll put a link in the description below about my video on tipping pitches.
This is important for catchers to know as well.
Any of those administrative things, make sure you're on the same page.
Make sure he knows the signs,
make sure he knows the signs when there's a runner on second base.
All that sort of stuff.
Don't take it for granted that everything's hunky dory.
And then, lo and behold, Guy gets on second.
You're a little uncertain.
You think he's throwing you a curveball,
he throws you a fastball and it goes right past your ear to the backstop.
So if you need to do that, if you need to take that extra second,
as soon as he comes in the game with a new reliever, go out there,
be waiting for him like, hey, just just reminder with a runner
on second and third sign, if you shake, we go to the second sign, whatever
it is, you get that administrative stuff out of the way if you can.
Hopefully you take care of that in, you know, in the dugout.
You don't have to do that in a game.
But if there's any
there's any inkling that you might not both be on the same page, go out there
and take care of it before it ends up costing your team in the game. All right.
So when should you not visit number one?
Do not visit the mound if they're just cruising along.
That will really piss a pitcher off, especially if he's a competitive guy.
If you're just running out there
for no good reason, like this didn't really need to be shared.
We could have talked about this in the dugout. Stay behind the plate.
If the pitcher is cruising along, just like I talked
about breaking up a bad inning where the other team's got a good rhythm going.
Don't break up your pitchers rhythm if he's cruising along and you'll know
when you'll know this, you'll feel it.
He just getting the ball, throw it and he's Ménière's
pound the strike zone getting guys out.
Don't break up good momentum.
Number two, if they don't like visits from you.
I did not like visits from catchers unless you had something very specific
and important to tell me.
I wanted you to shut up and stay behind the plate.
Let's not say we weren't friends,
but don't come out here because I'm going to be pissed off
and I'm just going to send you right back. Final.
If I'm not really wanting to hear from you, it's not going to go well.
So you have to know the personality of the pitcher.
So obviously, like I respected my fellow players,
but when I'm out there and I'm in like aggressive, competitive,
like Dann's, you know, pitching for blood mode, don't come out here.
So again, make sure you know the personality of your pitcher.
Sometimes pitchers like a lot of visits, sometimes they do not.
And so you don't want to step on their toes and get them too
high or too low,
because it's part of your job as a catcher is to regulate the pitcher's emotions.
If you see him get really, really hot or really cold.
Meaning really aggressive and angry or really kind of sad and salkey
and disappointed.
You want to try to get him back to the middle,
but you can put him into the red zone by pissing him off,
by going out there for a visit that he doesn't want .
So just be careful and know your pitchers.
And lastly, if you're brand new and you're new to the team
and you don't have a good rapport, just tread lightly.
So if you don't know me as a pitcher and you don't know that,
I don't want to do a lot of mound visits, I don't want to do any mound visits.
If possible, then you should probably just tread lightly.
You start to just,
you know, build a friendship, build a rapport in the dugout between games.
So you figure out and ask questions.
If you don't know a pitcher very well, talk to them in the dugout.
Ask them what they like. Do you want me to come out?
If you're like, if I see something mechanically, is it
OK if I come out and tell you, you know,
to ask permission for everything,
but it's better not to figure some of this stuff
out during a game in a tense moment where you accidentally piss off
your pitcher or whatever.
When that could have been discussed in the bullpen before a game
or in some downtime or whatever.
So just remember, it's not about you as a catcher.
Years, essentially, it's supposed to be invisible.
And the only times that you're going out there is to help fix things
and make them better.
So don't make it about you, you know, being visible
by having all these mound visits there.
Sometimes catchers who make tons of mound visits
and there isn't a good reason for them don't make it about and about you make it
part of your craft to correct a pitcher when he needs something from you.
But other than that, tread as lightly as you can and be as invisible as you can.
Just do your job and he'll do his.
But again, knowing your pitcher is a really big, big part of this,
and that comes from building rapport in the bullpen.
When talking to them in the dugout and just, you know,
being friends, sort of off the field.
All right. So hopefully today's video help was helpful.
This is definitely a big baseball IQ item.
Coaches noticed this. Coaches appreciate this.
So if you're on the recruiting trail, your college or your high school,
you know, you're a high school player
or you're a college player hoping to get drafted.
Scouts are watching this.
They're saying, can this guy control a pitching staff?
Can he manage a pitching staff? Can he help make his pitchers better?
They're going to ask the coaching staff
those same questions when they're gone through the pre draft checklist.
They're going to talk to coach and say, how does he handle a pitching staff?
So these things are important.
So the more you can be watching and observing and using,
again, your emotional intelligence to make your staff better.
That gives you intangible value that can keep you on the field,
even if maybe your batting average isn't as high as it is
or your arms not quite as strong as other catchers.
When they say this guy is,
he makes our pitching staff better, helps us win games that way.
That's something that's going to really pay off in your career
as a catcher. All right.
So thanks again for watching. I'm coach Dan Blewett.
If you have any questions, leave in the comments below.
I respond to almost all of them.
And I will see you here in the next video.