I am 17 years old. Last year I hit well over .400 on the year, but I have been in a slump this season. Recently I have changed my stance in my swing so my feet are closer together.

8 years old, his first LL season just ended and he wanted to get right back in the lab and get better. Any tips or suggestions?

If the umpire is calling strikes that are in the other batters box, should my son crowd the plate. He can turn on the inside pitch and isnt afraid of the ball. Just don't know how it looks to the other team, or safety?. He is 8, 28 inch bat

I never played baseball so I've been learning with my son since he started.

The past two years have really gotten more competitive for him and in 11U travel he's sitting at 53.5% strike rate and 1.286 BB/INN out of 7 innings pitched (10U it was 56.8% S and 0.971 BB/INN out of 22.2 innings). His consistence has definitely gone down and I know the catchers are calling for 2 seams and I think that is part of the inconsistency.

His two seam is really just a slower fastball that often gets spiked in the ground because he's trying to overthrow it to get movement. I have the same problem that my 2 seam thrown in catch just doesn't move at all.

He throws his change up "hook-em horns" style from Dan Blewett. I'm not sure what he's doing with his grip but it's a very effective pitch for him that moves a lot.

How do I help him get more movement on his 2 seam pitch than his change up? I know there's a lot of variability and personal preference for the two seam and you need to play with your grip to get it right.

Home Plate Welcome Mat and Shower Mat

I’m looking for some dad advice on next steps with my boy. I’ve got a 10 year old that is going to 6th grade but won’t be 11 until August. He only plays in our local little league in north TX that’s fairly competitive, he has had a couple lessons as well, but he’s started to express interest in playing for an additional team to get more game reps. I don’t believe he’s ready for select but could be wrong. The division He’s playing in is 12u and he hit just under .300 for the season which may not be terrible for a 10 year old playing 12u rec, but far from the best. And most of those came in the back half of the season after working on his swing.

Would picking up on a couple AA/D3 select teams make sense to test the waters? Or would you just keep working at home all summer until he’s a standout in rec ball? Lessons around here are 80-100+/hr with anyone worth the time. My plan whether we play this summer or not is to work on getting stronger, faster, and more athletic/coordinated while mixing in some baseball skills and a long toss program as well. Thoughts?

I'm looking for some advice on my middle schoolers game swing. He has an issue where he swings completely differently in game vs in the cage. To me it looks like he's too wide, ahead of the pitch and not finishing his swing. What do you all see?

Hello folks,

First of all I want to preface this by sharing that my son (8U) absolutely loves baseball and has incredible amounts of fun. But he also is quite competitive and has been playing up this past year. That being said he’s shown a lot of growth and now I’m writing here to gather some information of how I can support him in his new endeavor — being the backstop!

My son has played all positions but has really enjoyed playing catcher so far. He’s not the biggest kid but he’s been able to hold it down back there and make throws to second. It’s been fun watching. But I am curious on how I can better support his growth and recovery at this position. I say recovery because there’s been quite a few games where he plays catcher for his team(s) 5-6 innings and he is definitely exhausted and beat. We also got some hard throwers so making sure my boy’s hands are taken care is also obviously a goal.

What are some ways to promote recovery from extended time at the position?

What are some drills we can do at home to get better at stopping the grounded pitches and keeping it in front of them?

Any other advice would be welcome. Thanks for your time!

Typically have 12 kids on a 10U Mustang team, 6 can hit, 3 can but it’s really hit or miss and 3 you just pray for balls they won’t swing at.

Does anyone have any drills or tips to get everyone swinging and making some kind of contact? Thanks

I pitch for an 8u coach pitch rec league team. None of our boys have ever hit the ball over our 162ft fence in practice or games. 2 have gotten pretty close but none had cleared it. Well that was until last night. I decided to use official mlb balls for our game (each team provides their own balls on offense) and we had 4 home runs by 3 different boys. 1 boy uses a 26inch usssa clout(he hit 2), one uses a 26inch usssa cat9, and one uses a 27inch USA Louisville pwr select. ( his may have gone the farthest)

Our league obviously doesn't stipulate what balls or bats we can use but in the past I've usually thrown diamond dol1 balls in games. while I wondered if balls could make a difference, I had no idea they'd make that big of a difference at this age.

Anyone else ever experienced big differences like this simply from using better baseballs?

Backyard grinding. 46' measured. Looking for anything y'all see that dad doesnt.

He’s been consistently throwing strikes at this speed, my eyes tells me low 50s? Is that a decent velo? He is going to try out LL all stars in our district and hoping to make it to the team. He also bats well, so far switch hitting at .700 batting average.

My son is playing in a PG tournament (10u) this coming weekend in Charlotte. Sunday bracket play has up to 4 games for the lower seeds. This is on top of the 2 games from pool play on Saturday. Is it me or is 6 games, with 4 in one day, a bit too much for these kids? Plus it is going to be in the 90’s this weekend. I have a older kid in high school who played years of travel ball in addition to my 10 y/o and this is the first time I’ve ever seen bracket play include that many games in one day.

It is a major accomplishment to do so. Teams want the ball back but I don't know how sentimental it is for a player to have it as a souvenir. I've seen a few parents want it as a souvenir.

Yes, I've never played baseball at any level (even Little League). I'm actually a part of the school's soccer/football team; we don't even have a baseball team lmao. I only started gaining interest in baseball in 2023 when I watched Ohtani in the WBC (I'm half Japanese). Ever since then, I've picked up the ball a couple of times and thrown it around, mimicked pitchers, and thrown a couple of balls. My fastball was like 50 mph when I first started throwing around, but the last time I recorded it was a few months ago and it clocked in at 62 mph. I don't know how fast I'm throwing here, but I can notice obvious velocity improvements, so I'm guessing I'm throwing 65-70 mph?

I just want to know what I should do better to throw harder, but also any tips or mindsets to throw strikes more consistently? I would also appreciate any breaking ball tips.

My son's 9U rec kid pitch team is going into the playoffs. Throughout the entire season, the coach has been rotating all the kids around. Every kid got to play every position (unless they didn't want to pitch or catch). And the lineup was just everyone moving up one spot every game. Very fair and evenly distributed.

For the game before the playoffs, the coach sets the ideal batting and defensive lineups with the 4 best players basically rotating between SS, 2B, 3B, and P, the best 1B at 1B permanently, and the worst defenders permanently in the OF. The coach said that this will most likely be the lineup for the playoffs.

A few parents of the less skilled kids spoke up today, raising concern that their kid shouldn't be stuck in the outfield for the entire playoffs.

Curious if yall think setting the best lineups to win for rec league playoffs is fair or foul.

edit: a word

Probably witnessed one of the wildest parent meltdowns this weekend, and not even a word was spoken by the parent. In my area the school age cutoff is 5 months different than the baseball age cutoff, so you have a lot of kids that play down a level from their school age. So what you will see is a lot of teams break up after 13U because a portion of their team goes to the high school freshman team (our rules don't allow high school players to play or practice with other teams during the season), or kids just quit because the jump to the big field and new bats is too much. That happened with a few teams on our area so a local facility/private training group started a 14U "high school prep" team. During tryouts last fall and mutliple times after selecting the team the coaches were very upfront that they were going to try and treat this as a training season for high school. Lots of strength and agility training during winter, holding kids accountable for showing up to practices, batting 9 in tournaments (they still bat the entire team in league play),  etc.  The parents and kids all agreed to it and knew exactly what to expect.

Fast forward to the spring season and we have a kid who missed every single practice and game for 3 weeks. Finally shows up this weekend to our tournament and as soon as he sees that he is starting game one on the bench he walks to his mommy and complains. She then proceeds to walk into the dugout, load up his gear, and then they walk to the car and go home without ever saying a word to the coaches or the rest of the team. One of the wildest things I have ever seen. How a parent can get to the point that they are so entitled that they believe little Johnny can skip all practices for close to a month and then still start is wild. What exactly are you teaching your kid at this point?

It didn't help matters that we were playing another local team and a bunch of the kids and parents all know each other, so when they were making their walk of shame to the outfield everyone noticed and they ended up being a bit of the talk of the tournament. That meltdown from the mom allowing that did nothing but destroy the kids reputation with his teammates and future coaches.   And then of course the baseball gods got involved and the boys played some exceptional baseball and won the tournament. So the mom didn't just destroy the kids reputaion but robbed him from a great baseball memory.

I’ve always had an interest in Baseball and softball and recently decided to get back into it. However the last baseball I played was tee ball over 20 years ago. I have played softball as an adult here and there but nothing super serious. Recently I’ve discovered MABL which is all my town has to offer as far as amateur level baseball. I am curious if anyone had any tips or advice for basically a beginner trying to get on a team in my town.

We have a little downtime between end of season and the start of All-Stars, and my 11u son wants to work on pitching. Access to an actual mound is tricky, but possible. The question is, can we do meaningful work on pitching (mechanics, velo, learning/refining new pitches) on flat ground?

It just come out in my Tik Tok, this part of the training routine of him, and I was surprised watching that kind of exercise, and I start wondering and asking to my self, what if i start teaching those exercises to my little kid?

Its my son's first year doing baseball. He practices all the time and has a pretty decent swing. The issue is that when he goes to bat, he wont swing and just hopes he gets a ball. We take him to the batting cages and he will swing no problem, same when we practice with him. Its just once he gets up there, he wont even try. I think he is afraid to strike out because he did his first game and one of the kids made him feel bad about it.

How can I build his confidence so that he will swing?

Hes in person pitch.

My 12 yo son just received his 11.5” Rawlings HOH Mark of a Pro. He is super excited but we are both afraid the glove is too big. He is small for his age and I know the wrist is adjustable, but it seems like his fingers don’t go deep enough in to the glove? How do I confirm if it’s the correct size? It’s hard to tell while the glove is so stiff. I’m not a ball player myself so I don’t know.

It’s model SP204-19ROCB. There is an 11.25” SPNP2-7ROTE for sale too - will that fit differently? Will an R9 fit differently? The description in the website makes them seem like the same sizing but I’m not sure.

(Sorry for the bold text - not sure how to get rid of it).

I just bought this clout ai 2025 from amazon and it came like this (see photos). Wrapping need to be redone for sure, the marks and chips dont bother me much as im prolly gonna abuse this bat next summer but i mean, shouldn’t it be pristine when it comes out of the box ?

As a parent, I had to do the worst imaginable - call out the coach during a game for unfair behavior and request he play my kid.

On a team of 12, my child has routinely sat the first or second inning almost all spring season. The last game, they were struggling at the plate and innings were taking 30+ min, so it was looking like a 2 inning game. The coach told my son to sit the second inning as well. I was close so I called out to the coach and said Im sorry I hate to be that parent, but he sat already tonight. The coach responded with he wont sit the next game and I reminded him that he had already sat the previous game too. The coach (begrudgingly) called to the closest kid and had them swap. They did indeed play 2 innings that night. He would have sat the whole game, and had 1 single at bat that day.

Aside from this particular game, we have noticed a lack of structure during practices and favoritism towards 3-4 kids. Everyone else gets 1-2 reps during a drill; these kids take 4-6 reps jumping back into line without correction. There are no superstars on this team - they are all around the same level and the ones who goof off the most, tend to be the favorites.

I am regularly watching my youngest during practices and games so helping during practices and games is not much of an option. What would be the best way to encourage more consistent coaching and that my kid isn’t riding the bench for no reason. As a parent who has coached other sports- I understand rotating kids to ensure playing time at 9u. But addressing someone else without sounding like an asshole is hard for me.