Blocking with Jack

​This month’s article we are going to talk about how to take our blocking drills we do in practice to the game!!! As a catching instructor, I am routinely asked about how to help catchers block better in games. The main obstacles for catchers when it comes to blocking in game that I have seen is recognition, or simply knowing when to block.

Recognition is the most common problem catchers struggle with knowing when to block. In other words, knowing when to block versus when to receive. Many young catchers get caught in the middle and stuck, which takes away from their ability to block the ball. A classic blocking coaching cue is to anticipate a bad pitch, so that you are always ready to block. I work hard with my catchers to be able to “react’ vs. “anticipate” to balls in the dirt. I always joke with my catchers that if as a coach I am anticipating the ball in the dirt with my pitcher it's time to make a pitching change. 

How do we work on reaction vs anticipation? 
Vision Training:

• We utilize tools like Hecostix, vision boards, and training with different release points from the person throwing to our catchers. Having your catcher breakdown release points and understand what the ball can do from that release point allows them to make better decisions for blocking. This is an example of Knowing Our Staff, in which we talked about in last month’s article about taking notes on how our Staff’s pitches work. 
• Before you start your work behind the plate, give your players time to get their eyes and brain warmed up in a manner to help them decide. Two examples of what you can do is get a small magnet board and magnet letters of the alphabet, scramble the letters on the board and have your catcher find the words in the ABC order and then backwards. 
• Using tools like Hecostix will help catchers visually recognize and force them to make last second decisions with minimal reaction time.

Less blocks during your sets: 

• My favorite drill to do with our catchers has a very simple concept: receive first and react. In this drill 90% of balls that are thrown are receivable pitches or strikes, and then randomly balls are bounced by the thrower to simulate the randomness of blocking. 
• One major reason why catchers struggle taking their blocking skills from drills to the game is that we turn off the recognition aspect in our drill work. If I know that the ball is going to be in the dirt before its thrown, the decision to block has already been made for me and therefore it becomes a form drill, but if my issue is recognition vs form than I need to make sure I practice the randomness of when to block. 
• If a hundred pitches in a game are thrown and 90% of pitches are receivable and 10% of them need to be blocked, we need to have drills that simulate that for our catchers so that the drill is not taking away their need to make a decision on what balls they need to block. 
• Form work is very important, much like tee work in hitting, but when we are taking our drills to the game we need to simulate game situations as much as possible. Drill series you can do for your catchers is 30 throws from a right handed arm and another from a lefthanded arm. Sets of 15 pitches, in which you repeat the release point over the top and ¾ arm slot and throw a total of 6 blocks in the 30 pitches, and then repeat from the left side is possible

​
A catcher’s ability to recognize when to block is something that can be trained. These are daily ways to help your catchers make better athletic decisions behind the plate!!!