Youth Baseball Questions. Chris Winters’ Answers.

If he isn't striking out much but most of his contact is a ground ball to the pull side, it is usually one of two things: he is coming up out of his swing, or his front shoulder is opening too early. Either one pulls the barrel up and puts him on top of the baseball.

The drill I use is front toss where the coach fakes the toss. If he is already out in front, he feels straight away how weak that is. Once he learns to stay back on that back leg, get his front foot down and drive the ball to the opposite side, he is using his whole body instead of just his upper half.

It frustrates players at first. That is the point, and it is where the results come from.

You do not need weekly one-on-one lessons to get better, and you do not need to be in the biggest program in town. What matters more is what happens between the sessions. I wish I could see my athletes five or seven days a week, because one hour out of the whole week is just not enough. If nothing is happening in the other six days, that hour can only do so much.

My answer is about five days a week of actual baseball. Practice means something different for every kid though. If he is a multisport athlete and he is running around catching footballs, that counts, and he does not need to do something baseball specific every day. But a player with a bat in his hand every day is going to perform better than one who does not, without the lessons and without the personalized coaching, because he is hitting whiffle balls and tennis balls and baseballs. He is just hitting.

I had an eight year old come in for one session, and I did not see him for two weeks. When he came back he looked like a totally different kid. I told his mom I did not know what he had been doing, but whatever it was, keep doing it. She said every day after school he asked to go hit, five or ten minutes off the tee, and she or his dad would flip him side toss. That was the whole thing.

A two hour team practice is not the same. Ten players in line for ground balls, ten pitches of BP and the next kid is up. That is reps, not instruction. The time that moves a player is a catch with dad in the backyard, hitting with a friend on an empty field, or a tee and a net out front.

A one-on-one lesson is absolutely great. Thirty minutes or an hour of individualized time where you are getting proper instruction, whether that is hitting, fielding, catching or throwing. That time is valuable.

But one hour out of the whole week is just not enough. If nothing is being done in between, my time is only so valuable to that player. I trust myself to get him results, and the gap between where he is and where he is going still closes slower if we are not practicing on a daily basis.

The example that goes against my own business is the eight year old who came in once and I did not see him for two weeks. He came back looking like a totally different kid, and it was not because of my session. It was because he asked to hit every day after school.

Ask him a question first: if you stepped in the box right now, on a scale of one to ten, how confident are you that you make contact? The answer tells you what you are actually working on. If he says four, that is why he is hesitating, swinging early and feeling for the ball. I call it running for your life.

Confidence is not a gift and no coach can hand it to him. It gets built in the dark, in the reps nobody sees. Not twenty swings so he can get back to the video game, but twenty swings where he comes away saying the bat sounded better today, or he did not miss one. Those are the strides that build it.

It also gets built by choosing discipline over excuses. Some days he has had a long day at school and does not have the energy for his normal fifty swings. Taking fifteen anyway, or throwing, or doing push-ups, still counts. He showed up.

The thing I ask players to do is one slightly uncomfortable thing a week. Speak up at practice. Ask a coach a question instead of waiting to be corrected, because when he asks, he controls his own growth. Film himself hitting and watch it back. Little wins stack, and he does not need permission to be confident.

Yes. In a rec league there is not as much structure. There are a lot more dad coaches, and nothing against them, some are very knowledgeable, but you might be practicing one day a week if that, and a lot of kids are there to have fun and find out whether they like baseball. In travel you are around people who are more serious about getting better, and around coaches whose primary role is helping players get better rather than being somebody's parent. Being around other skilled players does a lot on its own.

The flip side is that everybody now wants to show what they do differently. We train different here, we are built different here. So you get a lot of we do these showcases, we do these big tournaments, we have traveled here and won this many, and to show it they are pulling kids off other teams. They are taking nine year olds from New Jersey and Pennsylvania and New York down to Florida programs. It is cool to say you have done those tournaments. But when you are nine, ten, eleven, you can be the biggest kid and the best kid and it still does not tell you where you are going to be in four or five years. What gets lost is how the practices are run, how often they practice, and why the pieces are in there at all.

The part I question most is travel ball starting at six and seven years old. When a six year old does not throw to the right base or misses the cut off man and three coaches are screaming, is that helping him or is it scaring him? Is it helping the team or is it just reactive? What does that kid look like in three, four, five years? Every family wants their kid coached differently, some want the direct coach, some want the positive one, some want the one who played pro ball, some just want the one with their kid's interest in mind. So does travel ball help? Yes. But be careful where you go looking for it, and make sure you are in the right spot.

Staying in the zone longer. Getting into the zone and out of it too quickly is behind most balls that get mis-hit or missed altogether, and the off-season is when you fix it.

The tell is off the tee. If he is consistently catching the ball off the tip of the bat, his hands are getting too far across instead of staying inside his body. Check his load too: if his hands are outside his front elbow, he will struggle to drive anything to the right side with any strength behind it.

The cue I use is to picture a second baseball in front of the one on the tee, and extend through to hit that one as well. It turns one narrow contact point into a two or three ball window, so being slightly early or slightly late still produces a hit.

Stop reading the box score for the answer. Celebrate the effort and the approach, not just the outcome. A great at bat with no hit is still progress worth acknowledging.

Here is what that looks like. A parent tells me we have been working hard in the cages and he still grounded out three times, no hits. But last season he struck out in all three of those at bats. Now he is putting the ball in play and the defense is making the plays. That is the improvement, and it does not show up anywhere on the scoreboard.

The real question is whether he is making the same mistakes over and over. If he is not, progress is being made whether or not you can see it in real time, and whether the score says fifteen to nothing or eight to seven against a team that beat you seven to nothing last year.

Five or ten minutes off the tee counts. That is the whole answer, and I have watched it work. One of my players asked his mom to go hit every day after school, five or ten minutes off the tee, and sometimes his dad or his mom would flip him side toss or front toss. Two weeks of that and he was a different player.

Beyond the tee it is a catch with dad in the backyard, hitting with a friend on an empty field, or throwing a baseball into a net out front. It is having a bat in your hand and a ball in your hand and getting the extra movement in.

It does not have to be organized and it does not have to be long. Time at home, time with a best friend, or time in a small group getting a ton of reps connecting with the ball and having fun is what matters most.