Baseball Playing: Simple Way Coaches Develop Baseball Instincts

Baseball Playing Decisions Depend on This

The one baseball playing thing thatdrives me crazy iswhen ballplayers do not know the score, no matter the age of players. Good baseball coaches coach this, if nothing else.

Many tough decisions need making, without a moments delay, when playing baseball. Making the wrong decision at these times usually cost teams runs, if not wins. Of course, there is no better teacher than experience when it comes to baseball playing decisions. However, coaches can speed up the process of making good decisions by instilling good baseball playing instincts.

This is a common occurrence in baseball, even at the major league level. A team is up two runs and the opposition has a runner at second base in the last inning. The batter hits a single to the outfield, whereby the outfielder fires the ball home to nail the runner, missing the cutoff man, only to have the runner safe and letting the tying run advance to second base. Good baseball coaches would have told the outfielders to have the ball go to second base in this situation, not risking missing the cutoff player, and keeping the tying run out of scoring position. Of course, earlier in the game, throwing home would have been the absolute right decision.

Best Way to Develop Baseball Playing Instincts

Baseball coaches have the responsibility of helping players develop good baseball playing instincts and this teaching comes by way of coaching one thing - the scoreboard.

Good youth baseball coaches help kids make solid baseball playing decisions by continually insisting that they know the things on the scoreboard the number of outs, the inning, the count on the batter, and most importantly the score of the game. Most youth baseball games do not have an electronic scoreboard at games, so continually asking youth players those "scoreboard ingredients" is necessary. It is very difficult to make correct baseball playing decisions without that knowledge.

I must repeat, coaches should insist that players, throughout the course of the game, and even to bench players, know the score of the game, etc. Winning baseball playing decisions mostly come from knowing the score and the inning. The chances players and teams may take early in games are ones they cannot make later in games and the same goes for when teams are winning, as opposed to when they trail in games.

Over time, players begin to make the correct baseball playing decisions on their own, leading to a well-coached team the goal of all coaches.