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Catcher has to have soft hands to be effective behind the play. He has to have hands like fly paper, the ball hits the glove and it stays and you can work to develop that a little bit. One of the ways that helps catchers develop is to take the glove off and to run through a drill where we just catch the ball with the bare hand and making sure that we hold it and we block. JD if you would, let us set our self up, let us throw-off the glove behind us.
We are going to talk just a little bit how we want to have soft hands and how we are going to block pitches in order to be able to keep them where we need them in strikes on. Okay, let us take a pitch, an outside pitch to a right hand hitter that we are going to frame the outside of the ball right here. I want JD’s arm to be extended away from his body this way, so that when the ball makes contact, he is going to block it right here. He is going to block that pitch. He is not going to take the pitch and run it back into the middle of his body and he is not going to let his hand carry back here. He is going to carry right out of the strikes on.
The instant that ball touches his hand, he is going to block it, he is not going to let the ball go any further same thing would apply on an inside pitch to the right hand hitter, block the ball and catch it. And again he is going to catch the outside of the pitch. A same thing applies to a high pitch, same thing to a low pitch. So we are going to make sure that we do not take a strike away from our pitcher.
This is a particularly critical point when considering throwing breaking balls, if you got over kids or if you happen to be an older player, and we are catching a breaking ball from a pitcher, catchers have a tendency to ride that breaking ball right out of these strike zone, they will catch it back catch it back in here and let it ride out. Catch that breaking ball infront of you and block it. Block the ball right there and do not let it leave the strike zone. Do not carry that ball out, catch the ball right here and keep it right there. Okay, JD, let us run to a couple of soft hands, blocks the pitch, good.
See, he does not let the hands slide back from the strike zone it keeps it right where he touch the ball, boom. Do not let it move forward. Keep that bonus strike zone. Keep that bonus strikes on, low pitch as the same way, good. See if I get it down the lower, here we go, nice block, you can speed them up a little bit, make him work, throw him a little harder, good. If he can catch this way, he can certainly catch with that glove on. For any pitch as certainly as something we all have to be good at and we have to do and we have to do on a regular basis. And one way we can get that done is to start with a bare hand, other positions do that, out fielders do that, infielders do that to help themselves get the nice soft hands and be nice and soft when that ball hits it’s sticks.
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