Slow Your Feet Down

Working with a lot of high school and college infielders I notice a common mistake that increases the likelihood of a bobbled ball or an errant throw. It seems to me that most infielders today are taught to have so much movement in their feet and are schooled that it’s so vitally important to have “quick” feet that they don’t put themselves in good position to catch the ball or to make a good throw. To often high school and college coaches are more concerned with how an infielder looks rather then how an infielder performs. If you watch most Major League infielders you’ll notice how smooth and deliberate they look when fielding the ball. This is due to the efficiency of their movements. Major League players understand that the more efficient they are with their movements they don’t have to work as hard to complete a play. What I notice is that most amateur infielders take twice as many steps to go the same distance as professional infielders. Everything they do is done with a lot of movement and at a high rate of speed. So why is this a bad thing?

First of all, the more movement an athlete has the more the head moves which makes it more difficult to get a good read on a hop and field the ball cleanly. Secondly, when it comes to getting the throw off and completing the play the added quick movement causes the infielder to feel rushed and doesn’t allow him to get his arms in good position to make the throw. As a result he has to take 2 more steps before releasing the ball and when he does make the throw his lower half is ahead of this upper body causing the throwing arm to drag and causing the ball to sail creating more errant throws.

My advice to my infielders is to think about slowing their feet down. Infielders are already quick enough so there is no reason to try to move quicker. What’s the old John Wooden quote, “Be quick but don’t hurry.” That couldn’t apply more to fielding ground balls. Your feet will be quick enough naturally there is no reason to try and be quicker. I tell my infielders to think about taking bigger, slower, more deliberate steps and to take a more direct route to the ball. As opposed to taking the short quick choppy steps the bigger more deliberate steps stabilize the head, allows the body to be in good position when fielding the ball, and allows the upper body to move together with the lower body allowing the player to have a consistent release point on the throw.

So if you’re an infielder do yourself a favor and slow down. Think about taking bigger more deliberate steps. You won’t be too slow, in fact you may just notice that you’re actually quicker by slowing down because you’ll be more efficient.