Youth Baseball Development: Part 1
Introduction
The game of baseball teaches hard work, dealing with failure, working as a team, communication skills, problem solving, and several other life long skills. It is also one of the most difficult sports to find success and enjoyment in as a young player.
How we as parents, coaches, and leaders set up the opportunities for the youth generation is crucial to the long term interest and success within the sport. In the early 2000’s, there were competitive local club teams, little leagues, and a few big community tournaments a year. Kids started baseball training after basketball (or soccer/football at least) and had about 4 weeks of indoor team workouts before scrimmages. Less time for skill training but coaches prioritized the key aspects of the game given the team setting and lack of resources. Teams practiced on full baseball fields and played several games that didn’t have a trophy given after. That’s not to say it was the better way. Kids are way more developed and physically skilled at younger ages. That’s a good thing. The problems include the burn out, the level of stress, and commitment it requires to play any competitive baseball.
Right now, we are seeing more competitive youth baseball players, teams, and tournaments being offered than ever before. The demand for winning is at an all time high. This pushes the competitive nature of development and performing. It adds pressure to the kid, coach, parents, and the organization. Is this really a good thing? We can all agree we want our kids to learn how to compete, but is the pressure building up on kids and families really worth it?
The current model has several holes which are misleading several athletes and their families. What ways can we improve the current system and model to impact young minds while allowing common sense to come back.
Current Model Breakdown:
We are in the position of “win now” mentality in youth baseball for several reasons. Teams and organizations sell themselves on winning and player development. By winning, they get more quality players each year at tryouts. By not winning, you lose your best players to those teams that win. Most over sell and under perform on the development piece
Players are working harder to improve their baseball skills at a younger age than ever before. The talent pool is way deeper than it has ever been. These are good things that come with unintended problems. It will come with benefits, but is it truly worth the sacrifice? Are we rewarding the right qualities of a baseball player at 13 or younger with the current model? Everyone should be proud of those working hard and committing their time and money into improving. We just need to make sure that the kid wants it more than the parent and that parent is knowledgable enough to avoid overuse and burn out
We are seeing all-time injury rates, burnout % is high, and families are spending more time and money for a false sense of “trophies” being correlated to development and success.
More young players get left behind now than ever because they are not able or ready to make a commitment for thousands of dollars to play travel baseball or want to but can’t make it work with another sport’s schedule given the expectations of the program. If they don’t start travel ball early, it becomes more difficult to catch up to the speed of the game moving from rec leagues to travel ball. The fact is, baseball is not a very fun sport when you’re getting your butt kicked while getting 2 at bats over 3 hours of time at the field and maybe 1 ground ball that you throw to the cut off man and get yelled at for not doing it better.
So, step 1 is identifying the issues.
Main foundational issues:
Pitch count rules are recommended, not enforced in most youth baseball tournaments. There are plenty of good people out there doing it right, but it needs to be the standard that is held accountable across all organizations, coaches, and parents. ZERO excuse not to.
Who holds travel teams accountable if they violate rules?
What rules are they set to follow outside of what the umpire decides at coin flip?
Every game feels like a “must win” due to travel schedules being tournament dependent.
We learn curveballs before a good pickoff move. Pitching development as a whole on youth fields is closer to a train wreck than a productive system. That may deserve it’s own part in this blog series.
The schedule doesn’t allow for proper use of the roster and managing pitching safely. Not the coaches fault trying to manage 11 kids in 95 degree heat over 7 games in 4 days.
Yearly change of coaching style, opinions, and teachings is not good for development in ANY aspect of sports. Why? No time for buy-in or finding trust in the process of their work. But, every year is the ultimate free agency and kids get new coaches and opinions before they built enough trust in the former coaches. Rinse and repeat the following year.
There are more and PRP would appreciate your feedback and individual situations so we can continue to learn and hopefully impact these issues.
Each family, team, and organization knows that there are ways to improve their systems and provide more for the players. Most organizations provide quality opportunities and products for players. But, the system continues to get worse each year as competition and greed rise.
So, what does matter with youth baseball development?
What should be the standard of successfully developing a ball player on your team?
This game is very difficult. Learn how to deal with failure.
Hard work doesn’t guarantee results but it guarantees preparation.
Hustle – actual hustle every play and getting on/off the field. Not just when asked.
Position flexibility – learn to play several positions with awareness
Proper Baserunning – loaded component simplified to every athlete needs to know the foundations of baserunning.
How to play catch at a high level. Unfortunately, this is not common.
How to execute a cutoff/relay.
How to properly back up bases.
Learn the control strike zone, for pitching and hitting.
How to hit the ball on a line that can consistently land in the outfield
To do those 10 things is far from easy. That’s not the issue, it’s that it’s become an afterthought on most of them due to the demand of travel baseball schedules and budget. There isn’t a policy that says you have to be able to play 5 positions or get rewarded when your team deals with failure better than the other team. But, we can hold ourselves and our organizations to a higher standard. To add to that, we’re fully aware that a huge percentage of travel budgets have to be used on tournaments and gear. Quality practice opportunities and qualified coaches are hard to come by.
Again, the standards and expectations need to be set.
Watching a kid chuck his $400 bat and walk out to the field because he struck out should be dealt with in a specific way. It doesn’t matter the score or who it is. And, Mr. Hustle who gets stuck in OF and 10 spot in the lineup each game should be rewarded for his behavior and hustle more so than a popsicle after the 4 inning 8am pool play game on a Thursday.
Now, personally I have two kids currently in travel baseball and am motivated to find the best strategies to help our youth generation learn and respect the game of baseball. As we all know, the game of baseball is a whole lot like life. No sport teaches it better when done right.
How to Develop a Young Baseball Player this Off-Season:
Ok, less complaining and more productive context to end the first phase of this blog series so that each family can learn and grow from these. Development is all about setting goals, creating a plan, and being consistent with your work. Players have gotten away from this due to the length of the baseball season(s) leading them to have less time to work on their swing mechanics, defensive glove work, foot speed, arm strength, etc.
Getting a plan set for your off-season should be driven from performance review discussed between the family, player, and potentially a coach/trainer.
Here are some examples on how to start. Ask your ball player and answer together:
Where did we struggle in game?
What are my strongest skills?
What are my weaknesses?
What “tools” do I need to sharpen?
What tangible things can we use to measure (exit velocity, # of push-us, inside the park timed, throwing velocity, add a new pitch, etc) if we had success this off-season?
What are reasonable goals for next year’s performance?
Once you’ve completed this portion of the off-season development plan, now we need to figure out how to impact those skills. Each skill development requires it’s own plan and details, but here is a general way to put a plan in place.
Goal #1: Improve arm strength. We’ll measure throwing velocity from summer 2025 and test multiple times before spring season begins. Test will be “pitching fastball velocity.
When is my shutdown from throwing? Set a 4-6 week window of less throwing
When do I need to be “game ready”
Now, let’s make a schedule for your throwing program to properly build you up for that goal.
Let’s say, the shutdown will be in the month of November. The player needs to be ready at the beginning of April for 3 innings of pitching.
How do I improve throwing velocity or a 10-12 year old?
Mechanical Review: What needs to improve mechanically?
Power Development: Improve your physical strength, power, and mobility
Throwing Program: Create a consistent throwing program around your other sports, the calendar already set, and your outside commitments. It’s valued time but it doesn’t need to take priority over everything else that you do. Work around what you need to.
Arm Care/Strength: Get an arm care plan that requires 3-4x a week executing the program focused on shoulders, core, and arm.
Now, set the start date and get to work.
Development Plans and Feedback
This can be done with any skill or sport. It just needs to start with a discussion, review, and creating a plan. It is important to write it out up front so that you’re able to make reasonable adjustments as needed instead of creating adjustments without an original plan.
If you attack the planning part correctly and the athlete buys in, then you can destroy your goals. These are the most important components of development. Yes, which trainer or coach you decide to work with and how much time you put into the work will both matter. But, they are not the most important ingredients. Find a coach who you trust and will work with your set plans and commit to a certain amount of hours or reps a week.
With today’s economy and schedule demands, we’ve seen some of the best results come from in-home gyms, homemade plyo walls or cages, and pole barn facilities combined with a structured plan and hard work. Get a plan and commit to it with a support team.
Rewarding the athlete for the time spent planning and working towards the goal is key. Find ways to provide tangible feedback and benefits for their hard work. That doesn’t mean a brand new bat or glove, just a simple reward system so that they get consistently reminded that what they are prioritizing as a young athlete is great for their development. We’ve done anything from pick dinner to friend hang outs to allowance money for specific things they have interest in.
Families can find success in youth sports for how these life experiences affect our kids. What we truly hope is that every kid and family gets that opportunity. The hardest part, you usually only get 1 or 2 cracks at it while it costs them a college tuition to get through. Taking a young athlete all the way through travel sports into high school and then potentially dealing with recruiting is way more difficult and stressful than expected. We hope that you are able to learn as much as possible early enough in that process to make educated decisions for your family!
More to come soon..