Baseball Coaching Digest: Defending the First and Third Early Break Play

Baseball Coaching Digest: Defending the First and Third Early Break Play
By guest author: Nick Dixon


One of the plays that teams will run with runners at first and third base is to have the first base runner early break. This article outlines this play and the best ways to defend against it.

You have seen the play ran over and over. There are base runners on first base and third base. The runner at first base break early before the pitcher even begins his motion. The pitcher steps off, throws the ball to the second baseman the runner breaks back toward first base. The second baseman throws the ball to the first baseman. The runner at third, who has been creeping slowly down the line, breaks for home, when the second baseman releases the ball. The first baseman catches the ball, turns to throw to the plate, the ball arrives late, the third base runner scores. How do you stop this play?

To know defend this play you must first know why the offense runs it and what their goals are. The offensive team's goals in order of priority are:


Score the runner at third with a late throw to the plate. If your pitcher throws the ball to the middle infielder, the runner at third will in most cases break for home when the ball leaves the middle infielders hand. The offense knows that the first baseman must catch the ball, turn, and throw. In most cases, that process takes too long. The throw home will always be late.
Score the runner at third with a balk. - Another goal of the early breaking runner at first base is to force the pitcher to balk. This action would move both runners and score the run.
Get both runners into scoring position without a threat of the first base runner being thrown out. The offensive team knows that the defense will not contest the early breaking runner, so they use this tactic as a safe way to steal second and to get both runners into scoring position.

What should the defensive team do to stop the play and to prevent a run form scoring?

Here are the three recommended actions and the results each causes:


Give the base up uncontested. This is the safest method if you feel that your pitcher can get the batter out at the plate. Of course if there are no outs or one out, you may not want to let the runner move to second base without action.
Run a cut play with the pitcher throwing the ball to the second baseman. The second base man will charge toward third base. He will catch the ball throw from the pitcher and immediately throw the ball to the third baseman or run at the third base runner in an attempt to catch him off a bag and to get him out.
Pitcher throws the ball to the second baseman, after checking the runner at third base. The second baseman will not throw the ball to the first baseman but will rather, keep his shoulders turned in a position allowing a throw to the plate, and slowly walk the runner back to first base. There is no throw made thus the runner at third base does not have the opportunity to break to home.
The Pitcher full arm fakes to second base and immediately throws to the third baseman. In many cases, the runner at third base will "bite" on the full arm fake to second base and will come off a few steps toward home. This movement toward home is often enough to allow the pitcher to pick him off third or to catch him off third with an opportunity to get an out in a run down situation.

I hope that this article is helpful and informative. Thanks for taking the time to read it.

Have a great day,
Nick.

The Baseball2u.com Baseball Store has a great selection of 1400 Baseball Products. Check out the BatAction Hitting Machine baseball pitching simulator. Available now for just $119.95 + S&H.

Nick Dixon is the President and founder of Nedco Sports, a sports training company established in 1999. Dixon is also an active and full time high school baseball coach with over 25 years experience. Dixon coaches at Boaz High in Boaz Alabama. Dixon is a member of the American Baseball Coahes Association and Alabama Baseball Coaches Association.

To subscribe to the Baseball Coaching Digest Newsletter visit the Baseball Coaching Digest. You may also fine free baseball coaching articles, drills and tips at the Baseball Coaching Digest Blog.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nick_Dixon



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6042998
===================
Thanks to our sponsors:


www.BatAction.com



---BatAction Machine at CoachesBest.com
---BatActionMachine on Ebay.com
---BatAction Machine Video Clips
---BatAction Trainer - 15 Reasons Why You Must Own This Machine
---Message to Parents From Coach Nick
---If you are looking for BatAction Replacement Balls or Power Bands Click Here

Baseball Practice Planning Tips and Sample Baseball Practice Schedule

Baseball Practice Planning Tips and Sample Baseball Practice Schedule
By Nick Dixon
The word is PLAN

There are many four letter words that baseball coaches know, but few are as important as the word for today, PLAN. There are very few volunteer jobs more challenging, time-consuming or rewarding than being a coach in your local league. There are many four letter words used by coaches that I can not use here. Here I want to discuss the 4 four-letter words that can and will determine the amount of success a coach has during the coming season. The four words are Goal, Plan, Work and Time. In part one I discussed the important of the word Goal and the importance of setting a goal to drive a team toward success.

The Baseball Coaches four letter word of today is P-L-A-N:

Planning is one of the most important responsibilities of a head baseball coach is planning. Planning is organization. Planning is delegation of duties and responsibilities to your assistants. You must plan every practice. You must plan your season. You must have a game plan going into every game. Planning practice after you start is a sign of bad coaching. If the team has practice at 3:00 PM, and the head coach turns to the assistant coaches as the team is warming up, and says, Well, guys what do you think we need to do today? A team with a coach like this is destined to have a difficult year. The coach is not organized and does not have the dedication to do his coaching homework at home before he arrive at the field. Have a plan and a schedule before you arrive at the field. The practice plan should be in the can! Planning as you go will waste valuable practice time that will never be recovered. It is extremely important to have a daily practice schedule written down. You must decide on each practice activity for that day, the assigned amount of time to be spent doing each drill or activity, and the objective or reason for doing the activity. A written practice schedule is a must! You practice plan must be detailed, easy to read, and easy to understand. Your practice plan begins with the first minute of practice and ends with the last minute. Every minute is scheduled. Include breaks and transition times from one activity to the next. You should write out the practice plan, run copies, and give each coach a copy. The schedule will have time slots, each coach drills and duties, and location of each activity.

A sample practice plan:

3:00 to 3:12 Team Stretch and Warm-up

3:12 to 3:27 PFP (Pitching Fielding Practice)

3:30 to 3:45 Outfield Drill Work & Infielder Drill Work

3:45 to 4:00 Team Defense, Infield, and Outfield Cuts

4:00 to 4:45 Team Batting Practice

(4 Groups, 4 Station, 12 Minutes and Rotate to the next station

-Station 1 On-field Batting Practice -Station 2 Batting Cage Work -Station 3 Bunt Station -Station 4 Tee & Soft-toss

4:45 to 4:55 Break

4:55 to 5:15 21 Outs Drill

5:15 to 5:25 Base running Drills/Conditioning

Coaching Note:

6 Pitchers will throw after practice bullpens. List Names. The greatest difficulty in having a practice schedule is staying on time. You must have a set rule that when drill time is up, the drill ends. If the drill was performed so bad that it needs to be done again, it will be done over after practice. Always have a coaches meeting after each practice to discuss what the staff has to say about the day practice. You also need to ask what they think the next practice schedule should cover. Listen to your assistants and consider what they say when you make out your next practice plan. Another part of having a plan is the delegating of responsibilities. You can not do it all. Recruit some good volunteer coaches to help you.

Good coaches always delegate task and duties to assistant coaches. Let certain coaches work with certain positions. One of the crucial assignments on every team is the position of pitching coach. You must have a coach that oversees pitching practice, bullpen work, and that calls the pitches during the game. Another important role is that of the team hitting coach. The hitting coach is often the offensive coordinator and 3rd base coach. This coach oversees all batting drills, batting practice and base running practice. Organize you pregame routine. Plan it, write it down, and make sure every coach know it by heart. Have a set time when you start stretching and warming up. Have a set time that you take pregame defensive infield and outfield warm-up. a set time that players may have 3 minutes to go to the restroom if they need to. Have a set time that you have a team huddle. Plan what you are going to say during this team moment. Having a plan is having a purpose, a time, and a place for everything and everyone.

Visit BaseballCoachingDigest.com for a great selection of Baseball Coaching and Training Articles. Check out the BatAction Hitting Machine baseball pitching simulator. This high speed training machine is 100% Guaranteed to raise Batting Averages and has a full year warranty.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nick_Dixon

==================
===Advertisement from our sponsor:=====
Baseball2u.com/CoachesBest.com is the ultimate online baseball training and coaching store. With over 1400 products organized into categories Baseball2u.com makes finding that baseball training product easy and simple. Order securely online or by phone. Baseball2u.com is a fully licensed company and has a full time staff available from 8:00 to 5:00 CST. Their toll free customer service number is 1-877-431-4487.

The Categories they have are: BatAction Hitting Machines, Hurricane Hitting Machines, Batting Cages, Pitching Machines, Jugs Equipment, Game and Practice Baseballs, Protective Practice Screens and Nets, Portable Pitching Mounds, Baseball DVDs & Books, Clearance Items on Sales, NEDCO Bataction Replacement Parts, Baseball Training Equipment, Youth Baseball Training Equipment, Training Bats, Pitching & Throwing Trainers, Defensive Trainers, SKLZ Hurricane Replacement Parts and Much Much More! Visit Baseball2U.com today!

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Check us out on Twitter:

Blog4Coaches
Blogs4Coaches.com

Thinking About Standing Tall For Better Baseball Hitting

Nedco Sports Ebay Super Store
Standing Tall For Better Baseball Hitting
By Guest AuthorChris Moheno

Great baseball pitching, of course, is needed to counteract great baseball hitting. But there is some difference of perspective among those who are involved in professional baseball training about one of the most fundamental issues regarding baseball pitching mechanics: whether or not one should "stand tall and stay back" when on the mound.

Now, pitching coaches generally contrast standing tall against pitchers whom they describe as "drop-and-dive". Drop-and-dive pitchers are represented in the Hall of Fame by such greats as Tom Seaver, Robin Roberts, and Sandy Koufax. But, the conventional wisdom generally adhered to by baseball pitching coaches is that a few Hall of Fame pitchers who had unusual capabilities do not a rule make.

"What you want to see out of power pitchers is that once that stride leg starts lowering, the lower body really goes fast, and they land on a flexed leg...The drop-and-drive is definitely something you wouldn't want to teach. Nobody pitches that way anymore, because in the drop-and-drive, you don't really use your body. It doesn't allow the core muscles of your body to get up and over a braced front leg," insists Amherst College's head baseball coach Bill Thurston.

And University of Kansas pitching coach Steve Abney adds, "Tom Seaver was a drop-and-drive guy, but he was a power-armed, 5' 11", 215-pound guy who could get his arm through. By staying tall and not dropping-and-driving, you allow the arm to get out of the glove and get your fingers on top of the baseball."

Another Hall of Fame Pitcher, the all-time strikeout and no-hitter king Nolan Ryan, credited with having thrown the officially-clocked fastest pitch ever (101 mph), is often cited as the exemplar of the mechanical advantage given to the pitcher who stands tall and stays back. It's well known that Ryan said that the most important part of his body when it came to pitching was not his arm--it was his legs. And when Ryan finished his delivery to the mound, he would be standing stork-like on his front leg, the rest of his body curled up around and on top of that powerful leg. "One thing [Nolan Ryan] told me about his delivery was that he wanted to do as much work out front as possible...Pitchers who drop-and-drive need to alter their posture to get that momentum going again. Keep all the energy you've worked hard to recruit," insists Bioforce Baseball's Bill Mooney.

However, this attitude about standing tall is by no means universally held by baseball training professionals.

Indeed, Nolan Ryan is used as an exemplar of what not to do by those who are antagonistic toward the methodology as he is use as a paragon of perfection by those who are its proponents. The point out that for all of his no-hitters, Ryan never threw a perfect game; and while he's the strikeout king, he's also the all-time walks king. Ryan, who is widely regarded as the greatest power pitcher there ever was, did have a human flaw after all: he did not always have the greatest control. And for those who don't like standing tall in pitching, this was because Ryan didn't do enough practice time on the baseball mound. Not because the great one wasn't training: but he had a personal trainer who believed in cross-training and working out pitchers on flat ground. Ryan spent a lot of training time throwing footballs from a flat-footed position. And they say that as great as he was, Ryan was harmed, not helped, by this training approach, even if he gained leg strength from it.

They also point out that in actual fact, Ryan did not pitch from a downward angle. And, nor did Koufax. Nor did Steve Carlton. Neither do Josh Beckett, "Dice K." , or the great heat-throwing closer Pedro Martinez. Instead, they insist that these great, powerful pitchers gain their ball velocity from long strides--not from standing tall and staying back except for at the very beginning of their wind-up. Proponents of this "lean forward" baseball pitching philosophy also point out that by leaning forward the pitcher is releasing the ball at a closer range to the plate--and while it's only a slight difference, given how fast the reaction times in baseball need to be, this closer-range release point does throw off hitters.

In fact, Koufax (whose single season strikeout record was broken by one pitch by Ryan in 1972) wrote in his 2002 book 'Sandy Koufax, a Lefty's Legacy', "If you look at pictures of Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan, myself, the back leg is on the ground. You have to get your center of gravity low so that when you're throwing the ball, you're throwing it straight out, rather than down. You can't defy gravity."

What all baseball training coaches want their pitchers to do to create great pitching is: improve the mobility and rotational velocity of their hips and thoracic spine; increase their stores of kinetic energy and their ground reaction forces; and improve the coordination they have between their arms, torso, hips, and ball. Does standing tall and staying back facilitate this the best, or no? Maybe it all comes down to the individual; or, maybe many coaches are mistaken.

Chris Moheno has a long time passion for sports in general and for baseball coaching more specifically. His goal is to spread the word about effective non-fluff baseball training techniques for both more experienced and young baseball players, to help them perform better during the game.

Discover more about baseball training secrets on baseballtrainingsecrets.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Chris_Moheno

Nedco Sports Ebay Store
Visit the Baseball Coaching Digest for daily post and articles on every aspect of coaching baseball. The Baseball Coaching Digest Blog. Check out the Bat Action Hitting Machine baseball pitching simulator. This high speed training machine is 100% Guaranteed to raise Batting Averages and has a full year warranty. Check out Baseball2u.com/Coachesbest.com for all of your coaching and training equipment needs. Visit the Nedco Sports Ebay Super Store to purchase top quality baseball training equipment at discount prices.