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YBE 139: 3 Things Killing Youth Baseball (and How To Fix Them) with Steve Ferroli

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YBE 139 cover art

Youth baseball has been around since kids ever knew about the game of baseball. But organized youth baseball as we know it today is wrong in three critical ways, according to Steve Ferroli. Is the sport of youth baseball—and the millions of kids participating in it—in serious danger? Does youth baseball need to be saved? Can it be? This is part two of a two-part interview with Steve, who is the personally chosen successor by Ted Williams to advancing Ted's hitting theories.

Plus Rob (and Deven Morgan, the Director of Youth Baseball at Driveline Baseball) answer the Question of the Week (51:22) about whether it matters if kids pitch from flat ground instead of raised mounds.

In this 54-minute episode, you'll learn:

  • the overall problem with youth baseball today (1:52)
  • why shrinking home plate size won't make pitching harder (13:16)
  • why sacrificing velocity for accuracy is not a bad approach (26:06)
  • the problem with the base path distances (28:08)
  • why the size of the baseball is a significant problem in youth baseball (32:03)
  • the advantages of a smaller baseball (35:13)
  • how a skilled youth team has reacted to these changes (39:31)

Resources and links mentioned in this episode:

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  • disqus_8QK3CtbZZ9

    Rob,
    I appreciate your work for youth baseball and the production quality. I am encourage to continue the good work of being a coach and being a blessing to others after listening to the show.

    “Good works do not make a good man, but a good man does good works; evil works do not make a wicked man, but a wicked man does evil works.” Luther

  • Stephen B

    The biggest issue is changing all the park fields. Who’s going to swap home plate when softball comes to play? Who’s going to maintain the anchors for the larger basepaths and swap bases? I will agree that LL Majors (12u) should be playing on a larger field, the 50/70 field worked for us. IIRC, Cal Ripkin does that. Any larger than that and nobody will be able to make the throw from third to first. Smaller ball is an added expense. Aluminum bats are also cheaper than buying a wood bat everytime it breaks, they also come in lighter weights so smaller kids can control them. My son just started HS, but his LL team turned plenty of double plays on the smaller field. Since he played on the 50/70 field for 2 years the transition to 60/90 wasn’t a huge deal. As for pitching, it sounds like it’s a coaching issue, we always stressed pitching for contact. Also, gotta teach kids how to turn on the ball that’s coming toward them. Too many kids open up. I would throw wiffle balls and tennis balls at them to teach them to turn their back to the ball. Finally, in the land of rec leagues, everybody needs to pitch. Even if they can’t. Everybody needs to play. The size of the field isn’t killing baseball, travel ball and elite 8u teams are killing baseball. When those kids get to high school, many of them won’t play. All those kids who were too small, all grew 12 inches over the summer and added 50 pounds. But nobody gave them a chance, so they aren’t interested any more.