crossposted on Checkswing.com
The biggest reason in my opinion is the number of games that are played between teams. In a typical high school league, teams may play each other 3 times and that's all. The rest of their schedule are mostly one gamers. This gives absolutely no time to record and remember tendencies. This is the largest reason that coaches need to call pitches.
The second reason lies with learning and execution. In high school, players are still dealing with learning with all the subtleties of the game, plus their swings, plus their defense, plus...u get the idea? Among all that, expecting catchers to learn tendencies and sequences for hitters they may only see 6-9 times the whole season at the most is not enough.
Another reason is that novice catchers (novice in EXPERIENCE, not ABILITY) in most cases can't read hitters reaction to pitches as easily as the coaches can from their view in the dugout. As catchers are focused on receiving the pitch, blocking, runners on base, etc...it takes away from concentrating on the batter's reaction to the pitch, which is what I'm looking for. Did his hands drop, did he swing, what did the swing look like? These are all questions I deal with each and every pitch I call.
This is not a new trend. Calling pitches and plays have been in baseball for years. You hardly see it at the pro level, although watch Mike Napoli from the Angels look at Scioscia in key situations. As a coach, I'd rather the responsibility be placed on me to make a good pitch call. I know without a complex system, I can usually pick a coach's pitch signs within the first 2 innings. With the advent of the new "quarterback" calling system, it can make coaching signs virtually un-pickable. The only problem I see is that coaches calling pitches can slow down the tempo of the game if they're not quick enough.
Coaches calling pitches is only good for the kids if the coaches are teaching and explaining their calls after an inning, game, etc. Kids then begin to learn the philosophy of calling pitches and key points to look for on hitters. If the game is out of hand, or there's some room in the score...I will allow my young catchers to call their game and instruct accordingly. But when it counts, I'd rather make a bad pitch call myself, than have my kid make the mistake.
Hope this helps,
Coach Corral
TeachingBetterBaseball.com
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