Over the years of coaching kids from little league to 16U, I’ve seen my fair share of mistakes. I wanted to share with you the top 3 that I see little league baseball players making and how you can to fix them before they get ingrained.
#1 – Downward Swing Path
You may see a lot of your baseball player “chopping down” or swinging with a downward swing path. This downward swing path motion with a ball that’s already traveling in a downward direction is not going to set these kids up for success later on as they make their way up into the higher levels.
How to fix it: we want to teach an upward swing path towards the baseball. How much it’s upward varies from person to person and age to age. We have specific tee drills and troubleshooting videos in our online coaching program that address this issue in more detail, so you may be interested in checking it out.
#2 – Not Using the Glove Hand Effectively When Throwing (Having a “Dead Glove Hand”)
What I see in a lot of these younger baseball players is either they will have their glove hand just hanging by their side, or they’ll start with the glove out, but then it’ll just drop down to their side causing them to lose balance and not allowing them to truly generate the extra power that they can by having a good, strong front side.
How to fix it: you want to make sure you’re teaching them how to properly use their front side. Get their glove hand up when they are making throws, whether they are pitchers, infielders or outfielders. Again, if you’re looking for specific throwing drills to develop a strong throwing arm and mechanics in your baseball players, then check out our online coaching program.
#3 – Fielding Ground Balls Directly Between Their Feet
Often times you’ll see a player’s bum up in the air and their glove directly down between their feet. It may not look too bad, but this not effective. What you want is for your baseball players to field the ground balls out in front of them.
How to fix it: you want to encourage your players to have their bum nice and low, their glove out in front of them, so they can see the ball well into the glove, as opposed to being directly underneath them and between their feet. Our fielding dailies (drills) will help teach your baseball players how to get that glove out in front. Fielding Dailies is one of the many components in our online coaching program.
If you can help your baseball players with these 3 common mistakes at a younger age, it will only help them down the road.