Something that I am doing new this year is that I am watching the other teams that we are playing throughout the year to better prepare the Marlins for facing them. Last week, I was watching the game prior to ours to see what kind of team we would be playing this week. Apparently, I was watching the wrong game because we ended up not playing either of the teams I thought we would be playing.
Within BCC Baseball, there is a faction of baseball players known as “Kidball.” Kidball is an organization very similar to BCC except without having a league of their own to play in. The players take the game much more seriously and are essentially Select Teams playing at the recreational level. The team we played on Sunday was a combination of players from third through fifth grade. Despite the fact that the League rules dictate that no players may play above or below their League age (the third grader in this instance would be too young to normally play in Minor League), this Kidball team was able to play in our division.
Kidball teams are found throughout all levels of BCC Baseball. I have never beaten a Kidball team when I played them, even in Senior League. I am not sure how large their organization is, but I know that they have been floating around BCC for a number of years. Maybe the Kidball teams take their practices a bit more seriously, or they have more opportunities to practice, or the parents shuttle their kids into Kidball because they want their kid to be immersed in baseball. Whatever the reason is, this team was a very good team that we played. They made all of the easy plays that came their way on Sunday. The Marlins were no-hit until the fourth inning if I remember correctly.
Something that was very unique about this team was that each and every hitter on their team was a switch hitter (meaning that they are capable of batting from both sides of home plate). They were being trained to switch hit from the first day of practice. The rule for switch hitting, as I was taught, was that you needed to master batting with your natural hand first. After you became a capable hitter with your natural hand, you learn to bat with the other as well. In all my days of baseball, I have never seen a true switch hitter at any level of play.
The difference in the game was in the defense I feel. The plays that stand out to me this week were on balls that were hit to the outfield. Whenever the Marlins hit a ball to the outfield, their players fielded the ball cleanly and immediately threw it into the cutoff man to relay the ball into second base, back into the infield. The Marlins had similar plays on balls hit to the outfield as well. Whenever the fielder got to the ball however, more often than not, the player held the ball, confused as to where he needed to throw it in an attempt to make a play. This is something that I had emphasized with them several times in the past at practice. They cannot hesitate when the ball is in the outfield to get it back to the infield. As soon as they get the ball, it needs to go to the cutoff man every single time. As they get older, that hesitation in the outfield is going to get more and more costly as players advance on the bases and score more runs.
Therefore, on Wednesday, I am going to do a drill with them that I had previously done with the Senior League team whenever I felt their instincts were lacking. There is a player at each position (or as many players as there are at practice) and then runners. I put runners on base purposefully and see how the team reacts to each play. I do not tell them where the play should go. It is up to them to make that judgement for themselves. The purpose of the exercise is to get them to think about the question “What am I going to do if the ball is hit to me?” and then the following question, “What do I do next?”
I will admit that perhaps I have not paid enough attention to the outfielding so far in my time with the Marlins, but the team is starting to see more balls hit into the outfield as the players improve and become stronger hitters. This is a shortcoming on my part. I have not adequately prepared them for outfield play so far.
Hopefully after fine tuning the outfielding play, we will perform better in this situation next time.
The Marlin Way 