20 Minutes of Practice that Will Transform Your Team!

Run prevention and defensive efficiency is all the rage now for all the "sabermetrics" fans and "stat-geeks". With the reduction in homers and the overall shortage of quality pitching arms it is only natural to find other areas to improve and make up for other deficiencies. Well I'm going to share with you how an open mind, a little bit of commitment and 20 minutes of each practice can cut down the runs your team allows, reduce pitch counts, improve your defense and add Ws to your team's overall record. And the best part is that it's easy for the coaches to implement, fun for the kids to practice and, best of all, incredibly effective from day one. It worked for us -- I have a 6-month case study to back it up!

For this past season I was able to recruit a pitching coach to help us with our 12U Travel team. A young guy more than 10 to 15 years younger than the rest of us. Jake Dixon had played college ball with the Ospreys at the University of North Florida and professionally with the Anaheim Angels. A week or two before we were to start our practices we were talking about the team and he mentioned that he would like to practice Pick-Offs in every practice, and that at UNF pitchers would practice Pick-Offs during every practice and for about 45 minutes per practice.

Now I know what you're thinking because I thought the same thing. I actually have "Pick-Offs" as one of the six basic defenses that I like to practice (along with Bunt Defense, Pop Fly Resposibilities, Run Downs, Runners on 1st & 3rd Defense and Outfield Cut Off-Relays) but EVERY practice? For 45 minutes each time out? With our limited field space and limited practice times it took some discussion and explaining but I was convinced to try it; besides, if this was good enough for a Hall of Fame Coach like Dusty Rhodes at UNF and for a major league manager like Mike Scioscia, it had to be good enough for me. So we reached a compromise and worked it out to practicing Pick-Off plays during every practice session but for 20 minutes per practice.

The first adjustment I had to make was to my own personal approach towards Pick-Offs. I had always approached Pick-Offs not to get an out, but to throw off a runner's timing and shortening his lead to, eventually, have a chance to throw him out while trying to steal or throw him out trying to advance an extra base on a base hit. Many times just one step is the difference between safe and out; so with my approach I was trying to cut that one step from the lead to give us a better shot. If a Pick-Off play resulted in an out by itself -- then it was a bonus. I don't need to tell you that with this passive mentality towards Pick-Offs, rarely had I ever had a pitcher really excel at picking runners offs. Jake's mentality (and the mentality at UNF) was very different. Pick-Offs were meant to get outs. The picks were meant to be agressive, persistent and called from the dugout, from the catcher or from the infielders. There was a real purpose to these Pick-Offs.

We ended up implementing 5 Pick-Off moves to first base for right handed pitchers (2 for lefties), 5 Pick-Off plays to second base, 2 Pick-Off plays to third base, and 2 Pick-Off plays with runners on 1st and 3rd.

The kids loved the fact that they were executing Division I and professional caliber baseball plays (to make it even more fun --- the WBC Champion team from Japan ran one of our plays during a game in the spring's World Baseball Classic). And every other practice or two we would add runners to the drills and practice run downs at the same time we were practicing our Pick-Offs.

In all honesty, it was painful at first. I remember that the first pratice was a complete disaster. We wanted to take about 30-minutes during that first practice to implement all the plays first so it would be easier to go over them in 20 minutes over the next few practices..... but instead we spent about one full hour just trying to get the first Pick-Off play right. Talk about one frustrating afternoon! And I'm sure more than one parent wondered in the stands what the heck we were doing practicing such a small part of the game so often and with so much focus (after all, everyone just loves hitting in the cages).

But all it took was that first Pick-Off during a real game for EVERYONE to notice the value of this. And we got better at it, and we got better QUICK!

In all we picked off 39 Base Runners for the Season. If you don't think that's a lot, think of it this way. That's more than two full baseball games (6-inning games) worth of outs WITHOUT HAVING TO DELIVER A SINGLE PITCH HOME. I'm going to repeat that just because even I find it hard to believe --- we got two 6-inning games worth of outs (w. 3 more to spare) without having to make a pitch home.

I will be totally honest with you; someone much more intelligent than me will have to calculate how many runs that really saved us over the lenght of the season. But with my basic math I can tell you this: based on the number of batters we faced per inning, those 39 Pick-Offs saved us from facing approximately 68 more batters over the course of the season. At 3.31 pitches per batter (our season average), that translated to 225 less pitches that our pitchers needed to make. That's about 3 games worth of pitching that we saved. Less pitches on the pitch counts meant that the pitchers we wanted on the mound could stay on the mound deeper into games. Many of these Pick-Offs were third outs of innings -- which meant we got our defense out of the field and our offense back into the batter's box. Less runners on base meant less pressure on our defense to have to make plays. You have a defense with less pressure, and that's a defense that's going to play better and take more chances and make more plays.

For coaches that value momentum and the composition of an inning, you can add the whole psychology of being in a hole, with bases loaded and two outs and the opposition's best hitter at the plate just licking his chops --- and then all of the sudden, with one soundly executed play, you have your team running to the dugout while the other team is frustrated and trying to figure out what just happened. There's no formula to evaluate that -- but if you have coached, you know the feeling if you have been there.

Our Pick-Off moves got to be so good, that with time runners where moving BACK to the base when the pitcher threw home, rather than taking secondary leads. And I'm not even adding to the equation that our catcher's were FINALLY able to throw some runners out during the season just by the fact that runners were being so concious of not getting picked off and leaving very late while trying to steal.

I definitely became a believer. And like I said, all it took was an open mind, some commitment to stick with it and 20 minutes two times per week. Our team went from a 6-34 record to a 29-27-2 record. We did have better players (you can't do anything without the players) and it would be silly and unfair to the players to give too much credit for the whole turn around to just this aspect of our game. But I can guarantee you that it didn't hurt! And with limited practice time and with limited practice fields, if you want your team to improve you better be concentrating your time and efforts into high-yielding activities and drills. And this is one way to make your team a lot better with just 20 minutes of practice time every time you have them.