Baseball Coaching Research Paper

Effective Baseball Coaching Sport coaches serve an important role as educators and leaders in society. There are many different coaching styles that have paved the way for student athletes. During my high school career I was the starting second basemen for what turned out to be the most talented team in the history of California High School. During a two year run as East Bay Champions, I was privileged to be coached by former Oakland A’s Mike Davis and Dave Hamilton. Their coaching styles and practices made such a profound impact on our high school team that I was able to inherit their style and apply it to my own teams that I would coach in the future. I have spent the past 22 years around the game of baseball. As the head coach at Capuchino
Knowing what type of team you have is very important. Is this a team that is strong in hitting? Pitching? These are questions that can only be answered through proper player evaluations. Quite frankly, hitting will make or break a team so a coach must have an organized approach in order to reveal what the team’s strengths and weaknesses are. When evaluating hitters a coach can throw batting practice or a consistent pitching machine can be used to throw batting practice. I found that the best approach to evaluating hitters is to throw about 15-20 pitches to every player. Giving only a few pitches may eliminate some good hitters so it is important that each player gets a handful of medium speed fastballs to get an idea of how they swing the bat. There is no need to get excited about a hitter who hits the ball over the fence. Hitting for power is important for a team, but during a batting evaluation a coach needs to look for players who hit the ball hard consistently. A player who hits for average and a team that collects base hits routinely will win you more games than the occasional long ball. Looking for the guys that hit the ball hard to all areas of the field is what a coach looks for when trying to find a good overall hitter. You can actually split the player evaluation into three groups. There are generally about 15-18 players on a team and the best way to evaluate a group of players is to have
Offense is pretty cut and dry, 9 players will bat regardless of their athletic ability. On defense, it is essential that you put your most athletic player’s at the most active positions. For example, shortstop and center field are the three most active positions on a baseball field. Most hitters are right handed and a right handed hitter is most likely to hit the ball to the shortstop, left fielder or center fielder. The outfield consists of three players a left fielder, center fielder and right fielder. The center fielder is the captain of the outfield because he has the most ground to cover. He must be able to track down fly balls that are hit from gap to gap. He is generally your fastest player and one of the most athletic players on the team. Your shortstop is generally your best infielder and it certainly doesn’t hurt if he has a strong throwing arm. Your shortstop is the staple of your infield and generally the captain of the infield for the same reasons that the centerfielder is the captain of the outfield. His position sees the most action and more balls are hit to the shortstop than any other position. Your shortstop is always one of the best players on the team. The next tier of demanding positions that require formidable, but not the best athletes, is your corner positions. In the infield those positions are first base and third base, in the