What's up guys? Coach Madden, YouGoProBaseball.com here with Doug
Bernier. You may recognize him from Pro Baseball Insider or from the Major
Leagues. He played for a while he was an infielder and in fact he's got a
1 thousand fielding percentage he's never missed the ball in the big leagues so
when we're talking about fielding this is a guy you want to listen to and
that's what we're talking about today how to have smooth soft fast hands what
do you got for him yeah all right well I got two things for you guys and first
thing I want to talk about is the glove and how we deal with the glove you
probably see a lot of infielders and they got a lot of quick action quick
movement with their with their glove and what they're actually doing is they're
putting more tension in their hand and they're making fielding the ball a lot
more difficult when you are moving your glove and you have a lot of timing and
you're flipping the glove down and trying to look look cool you know what
you're doing is you are you're timing the glove with the ball and it makes a
lot more difficult when someone's throwing you a ball you're playing catch
with your buddy right as the ball is coming you just have your glove open and
you make the catch right you're not flapping your glove around to make the
catch we want to apply the same concept when fielding a ground ball so as the
ball is coming have the glove open have it set and then just use your feet to
feel the ball take the movement out of your glove that will relax your hand
that will make your hands look and feel a whole lot smoother and it'll make your
hand softer so that is the first thing we want to focus on number two is our
feet now our feet directly affect how our glove works all right so if we are
stomping after the ball like this like a caveman or something what it's doing is
it's putting a lot more it's just making our hands harder when we go after the
ball we want to be on our toes we want to be soft with our feet and when that
happens our hands will be softer so remember that we want to have nice soft
feet we don't want to be landing on our heels feel like you're on your toes and
then with your glove just take the movement out have your glove open and
preset and be waiting on the ball it will make it a whole lot easier those
are some the great tips now I want to talk about
something that I hear on the channel a lot about receiving the ball huh want
there's a big debate whether you're trying to come through the baseball or
you're trying to funnel it in to the middle of your body what's your take on
this all right see I get a lot of debate on this too and and I don't know if
there's really one right way or the other but for me this is what I like to
do I like to work through the baseball and I'll kind of turn to the side a
little bit but what I like is when I'm fielding through the baseball I keep
this glove integrity and I know we'll probably talk about that at some point
but I like to work this way when I funnel the baseball what happens for me
is when I'm pulling back to my chest or the center of my body a lot of times
I'm pulling away from the ball before it actually hits my glove so when I'm
concentrating on working through the ball it helps me secure the ball first
and then once the balls in my glove and I start using my feet to go to my target
then the glove just kind of naturally comes to the center of my body and one
other point too when I do funnel and I'm kind of pulling out too early what
happens is my glove goes from here to here and that's not a good thing either
we want to have our glove open it fully open to the ball that's a great point
now you mentioned earlier about being loose with the glove and everything what
about like at the point of contact like the point of view fielding the ball are
you being a little stiffer are you still loose at that point how
does that work no I want to be as relaxed as I can so when I take my glove
off I don't want to be squeezing the ball or squeezing the glove I want to
form the form of glove how you know how it fits my hand and I want to trust that
that when the ball hits it that the glove is gonna do its job and just
secure the baseball so I want to keep my hand as relaxed and as soft as possible
and then once the ball hits it will just it will just stick in the glove with
that me and said we're because that was a pitcher I was an infielder but when
I'm fielding the ball off of the mound I always felt like the ball was a little
bit deeper in my glove not in the in the pocket maybe not deeper shit more
shallow right not deep in the pocket it was more here where are you actually
trying to grab that ball inside the glove alright see I'm actually
trying to feel the ball in my palm I'm trying to feel it right in the middle of
my hand when that happens I know exactly where the ball is I know
infielders you guys have probably done this I've done this before when you
catch the ball in you know in the pocket or kind of deep in there a little bit
sometimes what you kind of fumble around and you kind of lose where it is in your
glove when it hits you in the palm you know exactly where it is it's shallow in
your glove and it's easy to get out let's talk about how you wear your glove
because me I put two fingers in the pinky I started doing that in pro ball
it made a little bit deeper pocket now I was a pitcher again so that you know for
me it was okay to have a deep pocket how did you wear your glove where you picked
finger in finger out okay I wear it traditionally I do have a finger out but
I would say probably half the infielders go with two fingers over in the pinky
portion of their glove and so I don't think there's one again I don't think
there's one right way or the other but the reason why I like you know have the
more traditional way is because it made my pocket a little bit shallower
especially when I was turning double plays at second base
this being keeping the pocket shallow allowed me to get the ball out quicker
when I was turning it kind of like what we talked about before when I if I was
to slide the two fingers over to the pinky what would happen is that would
get deep and sometimes I would know I was not able to get the ball out quick
or just kind of got lost in there at times now let me ask you this when
you're working on double plays over there are you ever doing anything
working on just flipping with the glove or or doing crazy stuff to work on those
plays that you might not get all oh yeah for sure I mean we all want to make
routine plays right and that's what we're expected to make we're expected to
make every routine play but in a game you know that you're gonna have to you
know make a throw from your knees sometime you're gonna have to dive
you're gonna have to do a spin throw or a glove flip that just happens in the
game but if you never practice it then once it happens in the game it's gonna
be foreign and you're probably not gonna be able to make the play so yeah I mean
routine stuff is important work on that every day but hey have some fun at the
end of it right we'd do a couple of flips man throw from down here do a
little spin jump throw or something that will help you become a more complete
infielder awesome awesome we got to make a video
about that yeah if you guys want to see that video go ahead and give us a thumbs
up on this video if we get to 500 likes on this video we'll publish that video
where we talk about the glove flips and how to work on that stuff so thank you
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