What's up guys Coach Madden, yougoprobaseball.com and I am here with
Matt Antonelli from Antonelli baseball and Nick Shaw from the baseball box both
professional middle infielders Brewers organization Padres organization we
played together what we're going to talk about today I got a question actually I
pulled it up on my phone I don't want to mess it up so I'm gonna read it straight
from my phone and we're gonna answer it it says far too many Little League and
travel ball coaches coaching to win and not coaching to instruct they cater to
what a kid doesn't do well and what they can do to use that kid to win games
instead of improving that kids skill set and what he struggles with a video that
can show these coaches five easy ways to improve a player's skill set and overall
ability will be great so what do we have tip wise maybe one by one we can go
through and give some tips on how to develop these younger players as they're
coming up you guys got anything I'll give one I think in 2018-2019 there's so
much information out there so even if you are even if you're a coach or a
parent and you don't know a whole lot about the game it's really really
probably the easiest that's ever been to start to get some ideas not only about
how to improve players play through mechanics whether it's pitching fielding
heading but also you can go and look at how teams are running practices like you
can go literally go on YouTube and put in any team that you want and in
organizations are putting up practice plans exactly what they're doing like we
put up our drills what we do at our infield is what we do or outfielders so
there's no reason you can learn even if you didn't play the game you can go on
there and get so many ideas and I still do it I feel like no matter where you've
played or coach or whatever I know the best coaches and the best players that
are still going online and literally finding information and so I go on all
the time and I steal people's ideas I don't come up with a whole lot I just
take things that's a really good idea maybe I tweak a little bit try with our
guys so you can get a kind of information without ever play in the
game and really knowing anything so I think that's one big thing is always
making yourself better always trying to learn a little
bit more to help you know and still those things in your players absolutely
uh technology is huge I totally agree maybe picking one movement one hitting
movement a day or one fielding movement a day and getting repetition with your
boys over and over and over because in the end baseball is a game of repetition
if I take a hundred ground balls how many better than if I took five
ground balls okay but working on the proper mechanics look it up if you don't
know it there's no problem looking it up right finding out what works big big one
I got for you guys is instilling confidence in these young players
because baseball is a game of failure and a lot of times we have youth coaches
who are yelling at the kids you know you gotta feel that ground ball come on you
gotta throw a strike whatever it is of course that kids trying to feel that
ground ball he's trying to throw that strike you know he's not trying to mess
up so with that being said being a game of failure and having coaches that you
know are just doing what they're seeing as well so I'm not blaming any coaches
that do that but what I want to offer you instead is to try to instill
confidence in these young players so instead of yelling at them for missing
the ball say maybe hey it's alright we'll get them next time
this ball is coming you'd be ready to go and maybe instilling that culture on
your team so you know if it's a shortstop that missed the ball the
second baseman comes over it's alright man we got this next one or a pitcher
goes hey we're all good here comes on a roll on you again
so instilling that culture and your team to build confidence now if he does mess
that ball or whatever maybe the next day at practice we work on a fun drill or a
fun game to get better at that and then praise him when he's doing it well so
now he's like oh I can feel balls good I'm a good fielder so now he goes into
that next game and he's like oh I got this and he's gonna feel that confidence
is going to come out in the field and he's gonna have a lot more success so
instead of taking it from a game of failure and coached by negative people
we flip that around we all support each other and we'd get better as a team and
we instill confidence in all our players I got one more quick thing I think
especially now where there's there's so many tournaments so many showcases so
you know players and parents and coaches want to play in and like hundreds and
hundreds of games and a lot of players brag but though I played in 100 games
this past year I played one hundred and fifty games or whatever
and that's great you need to have the game to be able to then learn how to
translate what you do in practice to the game but I think sometimes we get so
wrapped up in the games and we kind of neglect practice where we're building
all the skills if you're just playing in games yeah you'll you'll learn a little
bit on how to you know perform in a game sure and that's great but I developed
the skills through repetition through practice like you said and it doesn't
have to be anything fancy it literally if I want to get better at ground balls
if I literally can just get somebody to either roll me a ground ball or fungal
me a ground ball whatever it is or just get somebody up to hit and they're gonna
hit and I'm gonna play defense and field live ground balls the more reps I can
get in practice that's gonna translate over to a better performance in the game
so don't get so wrapped up again the game's important and I know games are
fun but you can't neglect the practice and say guys we're gonna play you know I
see teams that play a hundred games and practice once or twice and it's just
that the the ratio has to be much more in line where you know I think that you
should be practicing more than you're playing you know or at least 50/50 close
but if you're somebody just playing games you're not practicing at all it's
really really tough of my experience to get better one last thing I have just
challenger players that's the biggest thing I see there was a couple
situations a couple weekends ago I coach a 13-year team and the nine-hole kid
came up twice with a runner on second base in one out right we need a base hit
in the run scores instead both times the coach gave him the bunt sign right so we
just moved a runner to third base and now we have two outs with that said to
me is the coach has no confidence in that hitter and he probably does that
more often than not right if he did it twice in the same game against the same
team instead why don't we challenge that kid all right give him the hit sign let
him hit away let him get that hit and feel the success of driving in the run
instead of waiting later in his life when he has to get the hits a high
school ball we're not going to bone a runner over for two outs and then he
doesn't have an experience doing it and then there was another situation where I
get if a guy's in a groove right he's throwing well he's throwing well but
once the pitch count starts getting up in the 90s in the hundreds
especially on a new distance at 13 you it's time to get puts
buddy in there I think in my opinion you know I'm no judge of pitch count but I
don't think that we should be running kids on a new distance upwards of 100 or
110 pitches just to win a tournament maybe challenge somebody else in the
field or on your bench to go out there and get some out you know and have them
taste success or failure but they're gonna learn from it either way
so challenger players I know the question was asking for five and that
was five I got one more to leave you with and that's just to take
accountability yourself to whether you know it's a dad or a player to get the
work in by yourselves because let's be honest at the youth level the little
league level these guys are volunteers the coaches
are volunteers they're doing probably the best that they can there you know
with what they got some of them you know haven't played past high school or
whatever it is and they're just out there trying to help they're
volunteering their time so take it upon yourself if your dad and you want your
son to get better let's practice with him at home you know get some working at
home make it fun if you're a player and you're looking to get better and you
want to know how to develop find a wall grab a ball that's the best thing to do
man I used to have so much fun just playing with myself throwing the ball
against the wall and and and fielding it so take accountability if you're trying
to get better set some goals and try to get out there make sure make yourself
better so anything else there's six of them six development youth baseball
hacks for you so I hope you guys like this don't forget to check out Antonelli
baseball youtube channel the baseball box I'll leave all their information
down below and we'll talk to you guys next time
thank you