bobahunter
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Everything posted by bobahunter
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I certainly get that and I was excited for them to get their chance. I just don't think they will push this year's rookie class aside and have a new crop of rookies starting right away 2 years in a row. I could certainly see in May/June. Of course this is if Counsell hypothetically stays. If he's gone then they could certainly go that direction.
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I think a lot is hanging on what happens with the head coach situation. Majority belief is that Counsell is gone. But, if Counsell wants to stay then I think we get a lot of what we've seen over the last few off seasons. Plugging holes with 1 year veterans, not going with a bunch of rookies to start the year. If he moves on there is a lot more to think about. Would they hand the reins to Murphy? Look inside the organization? Look for a known coaching entity? Go in an entirely different direction? But I think construction of 2024 doesn't start until they figure out what the coaching staff looks like for the next era.
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This will be a really interesting offseason. Fan excitement seems to be waning with the style of baseball they have played over the last few years (non-exciting, minimal bats, good pitching and defense). The fans at the stadium weren't hanging on every pitch like fans often do for playoff games. Even the broadcasters in this playoff series seemed hard pressed to come up with exciting talking points for the Brewers other than Counsell leaving. It often seemed like they were annoyed they even had to stop talking about the D-Backs. But I guess I get it, the D-Backs actually have some exciting young hitters and the Brewer's hitters are kind of meh. Some of our better hitters weren't on the team the whole year and probably won't be next year. Just hard to root for such a non-stable group of hitters. The Brewers really need to look long and hard how they approach this next phase. They need to be careful to not to continue this years-long offensive doom loop that they have constructed and at least give the fans hope that you're focused on fixing it. If they go status quo and just add to the periphery like they have in recent years, it's likely you see a drop in attendance. With all that, I do hope these last two playoff exits have given them enough of a push to want to do something different and exciting. Go Brewers!!
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Second game last night and we faced a "fast" pitcher (a fourth grader and our team is all 3rd graders). The kids were watching him warm up and some were a bit negative about not being able to hit off him. We had to calm everyone down and tell them to be confident and take their swings. I think maybe 2 or three kids even hit the ball and we had two hits the whole game. There were so many kids who really didn't even swing the bat which was frustrating. We tell them to be aggressive all the time but when it comes to the game a lot of them are hesitant to swing. With the ones that did swing, the problem was because of the fast pitcher they wanted to be further off the plate. And instead of taking that initial step towards the mound they were opening up and stepping out to third. I'm sure with more reps they will get more confident and they will start to take more swings. On a plus note, we kept the game pretty close and outside of one bad inning we held them to only 1 run. My son also pitched for the first time. He wasn't nervous at all but I certainly was. He came on in the second inning and struck out three and walked one. I have been really surprised by his accuracy and that he doesn't seem to get bothered by much. He told me after he was done with the inning, "I kinda like pitching, that was fun." That was an awesome feeling.
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This was hard having all those on the bench at one time. I tried to keep them all focused on the game and cheering for their teammates, but it always quickly regressed into silly noises, talking, and trying to play with the bats and balls. And when they noticed the bird's nest in the corner of our dugout it was over. [facepalm]
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Yeah, 15 is a lot and too much normally. But we have 2 city teams at this age level and wouldn't have enough to have a 3rd. I like the idea of switching it up since I already see that it's going to be a tough task to keep some of these kids interested. I had one kid as me the other night "is this what baseball is? all this sitting around?" I had to tell him that it's nothing like practice where there is always something happening and everyone is involved. Unfortunately, I feel like a couple of these kids are there to give their parents a free babysitter for 6 hours a week. They don't watch baseball, don't know even the most basic rules, and clearly don't want to be there. But I also have to remember that this is a developmental league that is open to anyone that wants to play. So, like you said, we have to try and make it as fun as possible.
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We had our first game the other night to mixed results (not the score more on how they played). We have 7:30 start times at this level and we still have about 2 weeks of school left. For my kid, we have a pretty strict in bed by 8pm rule and my wife found out from sitting in the stands that most of the other kids do too. So it will be a rough couple games until the school year ends with kids not really used to being active past 8. In the first inning we ripped off a couple hits and runs with the top of our order but that was about all they could muster for the game. I feel like this is going to be what happens for most of the year. We have about 7 that are consistent, 4 that are wild cards, and 4 who are developmental. Any suggestions on lineup construction with a group like this? For this first game we loaded the top with the 7 to get out of the gate quick and after that we had short innings with a bunch of strikeouts from the less consistent players. And with 15 kids batting (everyone bats) we didn't get back to the top of the order again until the 4th. Would you mix in some of the less consistent at the top to try extend more innings or just keep it as is with the top 7?
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we certainly do the station work like infield , outfield, batting, pitching. When we do big group stuff there are always kids that sit down, make dirt mounds, put their gloves on their heads (yikes). I feel scared for some of these kids when we are fielding batted balls because they just aren't paying attention. Just last night we had 2 get nailed in the shin and one in the arm. Scatterbrained is certainly the word for it. We have our first game coming up in a week we've had to focus on how the game works. I would say 60% of the kids know enough to get through a game but the other 40 we have to go through everything, how to lead off, how cutoffs work, how to run bases properly, etc. So we inevitably have to do large group work to run through scenarios. I think once they've played a few games we can focus mostly on the station drills.
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The start of the year has been good. I got paired with another coach and we have 2 or 3 parents that have helped at various practices. So we're off to a way better start than I was part of last year. We ended up getting all 3rd graders so it will be a bit trying on the pitching front but we'll be ok. A lot of the kids on the team played basketball together (which I got to help coach too) over the winter so there are some good friendships and coaches know what to mostly expect. The best part was that when we started doing batting cages on sunday afternoons back in February the new high school coach was there helping kids and parents. We still have a good number of kids that haven't played before or at least very little. So a lot of the coaching right now is focusing on those kids to get them caught up while still trying to challenge the ones who have been in it a few years.
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Thanks for the link. This will be a great place to start. You are right, these next two years are going to be interesting especially since we have 3rd and 4th grade together. And since this is a community education league we seem to get 1 or 2 kids a year that have never played. I did have a pre-season question that is geared toward getting volunteers. What works in your leagues to get parents to volunteer to help coach? Do you have to do league deposits or something in the by-laws about parent participation? I'm just interested in what other leagues do to get those numbers up.
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I have seen tidbits here and there on the forum about tips for little league coaching but thought I would start a thread. A little back story, I am going into my third year of coaching my son's team and we are leaving behind coach pitch and moving into kid pitch (3rd/4th grade) this spring. I coached in previous district where the high school baseball coach was really involved and went as far as developing a program that he wanted the coaches to follow. I found this helpful being a beginner coach and not knowing much about teaching mechanics, etc. Now we live in a new town that the high school is really hands off and there isn't a structure for development other than some basic drills that are suggested for a practice. Would any coaches here have any suggestions for online drill programs (paid or free) that have really helped their little league program? I am looking for something like a series of content that could be used at our level now and progress through to the 8th grade levels. I find the drills that explain the reasons for mechanics much more helpful from a coaching standpoint. I like to be able to explain to the kids why we do certain drills and what we are looking to get out of it. There is a ton of content online, but I would like to get a feel for what other beginner coaches at our grade level use to narrow it down a bit.
