#1 Key to Your Pitcher Development

Total Reading Time: 3 minutes

This week we’re talking - literally (ha) - how to get your catchers to talk and the biggest key to pitcher development… My passion is helping people and I hope this newsletter helps you!

Today's Topics:

• Get Your Catchers to TALK

• The #1 Key to Pitcher Development

Get Your Catchers to TALK

Everybody has thought “come on catchers, we’ve got to hear you!”, and no mattter how much we tell them to talk, they still don’t.

Now I’m not talking about your catcher stepping out in front of home plate and yelling “1outrunneronsecondplayattheplate” - like every catcher does in travelball. Nobody can hear them and if they could, they aren’t saying anything helpful.

The reason catchers don’t “really” talk is because they aren’t sure what to say, and they don’t want to be really wrong, really loud.

If you want your pitching staff to get better you’ve got to get your catchers more involved, more confident and more vocal. A great way to have them talk LOUDER is to have them talk to the Outfield - so they can hear you!!!

Here’s a checklist that will help give you and your catchers a framework for talking during Practice and Games:

This list is intended to be simple so the Catchers can keep things simple, consistent and remember things. Too often we overwhelm our catchers with all the crap we tell them.

The “Write it Down” part involves a Catching Journal. If you don’t already have one I’m happy to share a copy of mine. Just shoot me an email.

([email protected]) and I’ll be glad to send you a copy!

The #1 Key to Pitcher Development

All of us have pitchers that need to get better. Some need to improve their speed (either faster or slower), others need to improve their command, some need to improve their break, while others need to improve their focus and mental strength. It seems like it’s always something…

But that’s our job as pitching coaches - to improve our pitchers. Put differently, it’s our job to “develop” them. We all know this, and yet few of us are really good at this year in and year out. We see their issues as problems for us, instead of seeing us as solutions to their problems.

I think the #1 key to developing your pitchers, or helping each of them solve their main issues, is how you Prioritize and Plan. I know it sounds simple, but to be REALLY good at something you have to be REALLY good at Planning, and Prioritizing is a key part of Planning.

Here’s what I mean. Pitcher A has 4-5 pitches, throws about 60-61 on her #1 pitch and has a Fastball with really good arm side run but it’s inconsistent.

1st - PRIORITIZE:

• Pick no more than 2 things for this pitcher to develop this year!!

  1) Get 2-3 more mph on her #1 pitch

  2) Get consistent Armside Run on her Fastball

• The chart below maps our the keys to your development plan:

  • The THING (what you need to develop)

  • The TIME (how much actual practice time do you have to do this)

  • The WHAT (what is the key to making this change)

  • The HOW (how will you go about accomplishing the WHAT)

  • The TEST (how you will objectively determine your progress).

#2) PLAN:

Be SUPER specific with the amount of time you have with your pitchers, and how much of that time you will use to develop your priorities with each pitcher.

In the case of Pitcher A, we’ve ID’d the Top 2 things (her Priority) in our list above, and detailed What we need to do and How we’ll do it. So now let’s look at the Time we have to execute these plans.

If we start from THIS WEEK and go until the week before Thanksgiving - that’s 5 weeks. Now, if we assume we’re in our 4 hrs/wk per pitcher, then that equals 20 total hours remaining per pitcher. How you use those 20 hours makes all the difference come Spring!

What I’ve done is simply:

• taken ¼ of those 20 hours (or 5 hours) and given them to our #1 Issue (adding some velo to her #1 pitch)

• another ¼ of those 20 hours (5 more hours) for our #2 issue (Armside run on our Fastball)

• which then leaves 10 hours (the other half of our 20 hours) for working on combining these 2 pitches with her other pitches, working on those other pitches, and improving her under competition.

Not a lot of time to accomplish some vital things. Which is why we don’t have more than 1-2 things we’re ever trying to develop per year.

Actually keeping track of WHAT you need to develop, and how much TIME you have to develop them will make all the difference in the world. This helps you map out how you’re going to spend your different hours each week, with each pitcher, to ensure you accomplish your development goals come winter break.

SAVE NOW!! Save $150 on the Pitching Summit Video Recordings!!!!

Watch Kirk Walker talk Picking Pitches, along with inside secrets from Jen Rocha, Trisha Ford and Nate Walker in our 2024 Pitching Summit presentations.

Hope you enjoyed this Issue. If there’s something specific you want to read about send that to me at [email protected]

See You Next Week!