What is the point of individual lessons as a baseball player.

By: Matt Wehner

I have conversations every week with baseball players of different ages who want to make the most of their career and they ask, “Should I sign up for lessons?” Believe it or not, the answer to that question is not always a resounding, “Yes.” It relies solely on what specifically you need to improve as a player and understanding what the benefit of lessons can be. 

As a full-time baseball coach I have worked with players in a few different formats - full team practices, four-man workouts, two-man workouts, and individual lessons. The purpose of all of these styles of workouts provides a different value. In full team practices we can work on different defensive and offensive plays, relays and cutoffs, bunt coverages, first and third base coverages, steal plays. These plays you can only work on when the whole team is there. In four-man workouts, we can work on throw downs with pitchers, catchers and middle infielders. We can have four middle infielders work on double play feeds, receiving transfers, or communication in the infield. In two-man workouts, pitchers and catchers can work on calling a game together and having a plan of attack. Two outfielders could work on fly ball communication and backing each other up. Two infielders can work on their fielding hands and throwing from different arm slots.

As for one-on-one individual lessons?

Individual lessons are designed for a player to get evaluated on their strengths and weaknesses and given drills to continue to train on their own. 

The greatest benefit of individual lessons is to work on a specific skill that applies to you personally as a player that you can go practice on your own. In a 30 minute window it is a combination of discussion and practicing the skill so you understand what your focus should be on your own. Let’s say I work with a 10 year-old pitcher learning how to separate our hands at the same time as our lower half. If we work on that repeatable motion, it is only going to truly take form if that player practices on his own. 

Every first-time lesson I ask the player, “What do you want to work on?” And I almost always get the same response, “Pitching.” Then we talk about pitching identity and evaluate what skills they do well and what they need to improve. The players who benefit the most from lessons are the ones that take the information we begin working on and start implementing that into training on their own. And other players I can have lessons weekly for 10-15 weeks and we work on the same things we did the first week because no work was put in on the off days outside of lessons. 

The other reason to get individual lessons is if you are new to baseball and want to learn the basics. Individual lessons are a good way to not be embarrassed to learn how to throw, catch, field and understand the rules of baseball. During lessons you can learn the basics and THEN go practice on your own with a parent or friend.

Do you want to get evaluated on what you do well and need to work on during your own time? Individual lessons are for you. Are you new to baseball and want to learn the basics? Individual lessons are for you. Are you committed to working on the things you learn during lessons? They are for you.

Reference:

OpenAI's DALL-E. "The point of individual coaching graphic." Generated [February 16th, 2024].