They Can Hit 400-Foot Homers, but Playing Catch? That’s Tricky

Even some coaches of elite college teams — the very people who young players and their parents are trying to impress — are distressed by the deteriorating skill development of players. They say they often have to re-educate entire rosters, teaching rudiments of the game that used to be learned in middle school.

"We're working on something as basic as throwing after fielding a slow roller in practice today," Vanderbilt Coach Tim Corbin, whose team won the 2014 College World Series and was the tournament runner-up in 2015, said in a recent interview. "And these are 18- and 19-year-old college kids who are supposedly pretty good."

Corbin added: "You can get a stuffed animal at a street fair for throwing 90 miles an hour, but does it mean you have the ability to decelerate a pitch to get a big out? That's how the game is played."

Photo Jesuit High School's team had some batting reminders displayed during a game last month. Credit Scott McIntyre for The New York Times

Five seasons ago, Louisville's Dan McDonnell, who entered this season ranked sixth nationally in winning percentage among active college coaches, began dedicating dozens of hours during his spring practices to elemental fielding and throwing mechanics.

"I realized we had guys who couldn't throw the baseball straight," McDonnell said. "Catching a less-than-perfect throw was a challenge, too. It's not their fault. In what showcase do they line the kids up to see who throws the ball straight? Do they emphasize fielding? No, they don't."

At Tufts University, a Division III power in New England, Coach John Casey gathers his new players on the first day of practice and makes this announcement:

"You're no longer in the showcase world of display, display, display. We play baseball here — hit the cutoff man, do the little things that win games."

Casey, the former president of the American Baseball Coaches Association, sometimes adds: "You have been hitting off a tee in an indoor cage way too much. You could teach a chimpanzee smoking a cigarette to hit a baseball off a tee."

There is nothing new about a young player wanting to stand out on a team. And the skills that stand out most at youth showcases — raw power, on the mound and at the plate — are now showing up more prominently in the major league game, where strikeouts rise every season and home run rates are spiking again.

But the current burning desire to get noticed is driven almost exclusively by well-meaning parents of players who have become convinced it is the only way to contend for an athletic scholarship, or even a prized position on a quality high school team.

Parents have made time with a private coach a standard part of a young athlete's week — and not just in baseball but throughout the overexcited, quasi-professional youth sports community.

Serious, aspiring baseball or softball players trudge into indoor training facilities around the country — charging $40 to $60 an hour — to refine their skills.

Photo Jesuit High School Coach Miguel Menendez said of players with private instructors: "They've been taught hitting skills, worked hard at it, and that's all good. But the lost art is how to play baseball." Credit Scott McIntyre for The New York Times

Those who operate and work at baseball instruction programs say they are simply responding to the demands of the marketplace.

Nate Headley, a former University of Tennessee assistant baseball coach who is also the brother of Yankees third baseman Chase Headley, owns two baseball and softball training facilities in Knoxville, Tenn.

Although Headley offers lessons in defensive play, it accounts for only 4 percent of the instruction he and his staff conduct. Hitting instruction accounts for 75 percent of the private lessons, and pitching lessons make up the remaining 21 percent.

"It's what people come to priv ate facilities for," Headley said. "We have it all, but that's what they ask for."

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