Clubhouse Gas
Casey: Today on Clubhouse Gas Brandon Smith is back to continue his series on the fundamentals of catching. Brandon played in the AAA and Mets organization drafted straight to high school and then all the way to AAA and now he is a baseball catching instructor. I really appreciate you being here again Brandon.
Brandon: My pleasure.
Casey: We want to work on throwing runners out so stay tune to Clubhouse Gas.
Brandon: Today we’re going to talk about throwing runners out at second base and third base in order to do that I want the catchers to have good footwork. We’re going to talk about how to catch a ball with runners on base and how to set our body, how to set our feet to make good accurate throws to second and to third base. So let’s go ahead and work out of our action stance again. Remember that’s the one where I have got my hips up a little bit about knee high, gloves out in front, bare hands behind the glove.
Now as soon as that runner takes off we want to catch the ball before we do anything so seriously takes off you will hear your coaches yell he’s running or you’ll see out of the corner of the eye, don’t panic, don’t come up and catch the ball, go ahead and stay down catch the ball first and then we’ll move through our footwork to throw this guy out. It’s important as a catcher and doing this that we’re quick but we’re quick without rushing so in order to do that we’re going to catch the ball first.
Let me take you through the footwork of how we’re going to do this, as I catch this right foot is going to step first and as I step my instep here a the inside of my foot is pointed towards second base. By doing that it’s going to make it much easier now from a whole body to fall in line and now my front hip is pointed towards the target. Now my front shoulder is pointed to the target. It all starts by setting our right foot in this open position so I’m going to jab step forward then my left foot comes around and I’m in line to second base.
A common mistake here is when catchers catch the ball and they come out and their toe is pointed towards second base. Now I try to get my shoulder in line but the more natural position is if I was standing here with my shoulder more towards third base. When catchers do this they’ll come out, they’re close and then immediately they fly open. Well by having the arm lower it’s going to cost for a more inaccurate throw but it also causes for a more dangerous or more injury prone arm slot.
So remember when you come out catch the ball right foot, left foot to where we get our shoulders square in line to second base and an easy way to do this is to draw a line straight off the back of the plate and we’re going to make a little Tee here. My feet are on the top of the Tee, right foot to left foot.
This is two steps. We’re going to catch, jab step and step. From our stance, catch the ball jab step and step. Notice when I make the exchange is I’m doing my footwork. The glove up around my chest and I don’t drop my hands. This is another way that we can be quick without rushing. Remember we talked about earlier that if I come up and catch too soon now, I’ve got a long way to go to get my arm back on top but if I stay down catch the ball first, catch, jab, step and go and make the exchange high then my arm is already in a high slot or in a safe arm slot.
So again, good action stance, bare hand behind the glove, the guy goes, catch the ball first, right foot, left foot and from here we just going to turn and make a good accurate throw. As you make this exchange now we’re talking about before about having the bare hand close to the glove is you make the exchange, keep the bare hand close because the closer that the bare hand is to the glove the easier it’s going to be to get the ball out.
If my hands drop, if I take the ball out low now I got farther to go to get back upon top. Now, I think I’m out of time for today but I would love to come back and talk to you guys about throwing down the third. Casey are we good for that.
Casey: Well I’ll tell you what let me check the ratings, when the ratings come in if people liked you then yeah we’ll have you— no, you’re good we’ll bring you back absolutely. Great show today Brandon and we really appreciate it. Brandon we’ll be back and we’ll be talking about throwing guys out of third base of which I was never one of the guys you would have had to throw out of third base because I have got a lot of this. That will do it for us today. He’s Bryan and I’m Casey, you can check out more of Brandon at ebaseballtips.com and we’ll see you right back here next time on Clubhouse Gas.
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