Travel ball coach: Focus on development chances on game day

Studying the opposing pitcher should be part of your game-day routine. (Kyle Prudhomme/NEBJ)

Baseball is hard. It becomes a lot harder when a player repeatedly foregoes opportunities to get better.

Too often players today are programmed to focus strictly on development at practice. During games, they are consumed by their own performance. If I’ve learned anything in baseball, the best players are the ones who find pockets of opportunities to develop.

Here are three areas players should be exploiting on gameday.

Playing catch before games

Playing catch prior to a game is one of the most squandered opportunities for development. This period of pre-game warmup is arguably the most important developmental opportunity a player will have throughout the course of the day.

The players and teams that approach catch play at the beginning of the day as a true developmental opportunity — and not just a part of the pre-game checklist — are far ahead of others.

I can’t stress this point enough. Playing catch prior to a game is the most important part of the day, and not only promotes having success but creates a foundational catch-and-throw skill set that becomes imperative for success across the field, including on the mound.

Pre-game catch needs to be heightened in its importance to truly take advantage of the opportunities a player has to develop on a game day.

Pre-inning warmups

An extension of pre-game catch play, pre-inning warmups offer players an opportunity to simulate game reps between innings. Each position has its own opportunities for development, but the major violators of not taking warmups seriously are generally infielders and outfielders.

Infielders should be treating between-inning ground balls as game reps. Five game-like ground ball approaches pre-inning can lead to a player with a heightened level of confidence headed into the inning. This isn’t happening on a consistent basis.

Too often, outfielders are playing catch 40 feet apart when they’ll have to make a 100-plus foot throw in-game a few minutes later. This is a wasted opportunity to continue to develop arm strength and throwing footwork in between innings, while also preparing appropriately for the inning ahead.

Studying the pitcher from the dugout

Hitting success starts in the dugout. The sooner a player realizes the immense amount of information being given by the pitcher through warmups and approach to other batters, the better the player will be.

Too frequently, players are surprised at the velocity or off-speed pitches that the pitcher has already put on display. To be a great hitter, you need to take in the information that is in front of you and be able to put into action a way to beat it. It starts by being engaged in a hitting approach in the dugout.

These three areas are some that need to be capitalized on more. If they are, players give themselves the opportunity to both perform and develop.