Update on new Select for LL---Scorekeeper

Sorry I'm late on responding. Somehow I missed the post!

The only thing I'd question about the pitching is whether or not 12 pitches will really tell the tale, and was wondering if you had any cut off on accuracy.

The reason I say that is, there's no reason at all why every player who says he's a pitcher shouldn't be able to throw 60-70% strikes with no batter. What I normally see in situations like that is that they are throwing as hard as they can because of the gun, but usually don't throw nearly that hard in a game because they can't control it.

Personally, I'd like to see 10 hard and 10 off speed pitches. Unless the velocity is so very high that no one will hit it, which is very unlikely, they need to have an off speed pitch just to keep the batters honest. then a combination of the accuracy of the 2 pitches and velocity would mean more to me.

I like your infield drill! In fact, I'm gonna try to pass it along to our HS coach to try. Fat chance, but hope spring eternal!

IMHO, you pretty much have the catching covered. There's just only so much you can do with catchers in a tryout because as you said, so much of it is between the ears.

The speed thing is something that can be done a lot of ways, but must be done none-the-less. It has become too important a factor to make light of anymore. There just isn't room for the fat kid that can't run or the lazy kid that won't! a lot of things can be worked around, but speed isn't one of them. Lack of it will kill you on both offense and defense!

The outfield arm thing is pretty good too. Its a lot like catching in the respect that unless its in a game, there's really no way to tell how a given player will react to a given situation.

I agree about the hitting. Without seeing a batter in "action", all you can really do is eliminate the obvious slow bat or otherwise flawed swing. The rest is a coin toss. I did see an intriguing "test" a couple years ago, however. I can't vouch for its veracity because it wasn't for our team, but it is at least worth thinking about.

This coach had each batter come up for 3 rounds of 10 pitches. He told the hitters that the object of the 1st round was to hit every ball no matter where it was. A ball hit fair was obviously good, but It really didn't matter if it was fair or foul for the overall score. The 2nd round the batter took his stance and didn't swing, but has to say if the pitch was a strike or ball and where it was. The 3rd round was to only hit strikes, or more accurately close pitches.

After watching for a while, I just had to know what the thinking was behind this drill and hunted down the guy running it. I just knew it would be a really tricky, hard to understand, in depth explanation when I was directed to a crusty old fart wearing a well worn baseball uniform, replete with spikes, warm up jacket, a Walter Brennen limp and an ample belly hanging over a too tight belt.

When I asked him to let me in on the secret, he laughed and said it was simple. The 1st drill gave him an idea what kind of bat control and hand to eye the hitter had, since the balls were thrown everywhere but over the plate. The 2nd one just gave him some idea about the batters sense of the strike zone, and the 3rd allowed him to see how the batter really swung the bat and how picky he was.

You must understand that there were about 200 kids at this tryout. They were using 2 fields and had around 100 at the morning session and another 100 in the afternoon, and there were lots of "evaluators" helping out. That not-with-standing, it seemed to me to be as valid a way to look at a bunch of hitters in a very short time as any.