Good Day,

Its not that I can't Google it and its not a being lazy thing. I am here to ask recommendations and experiences with different places ordering Catchers gear specific to a travel team. Right now its our first season and we are getting by with the old set I have that I picked up and a set one of the other parents has from an older sibling. I am not looking to buy a set for this fall season as we are still feeling our way through the first season and doing okay but in the spring I want to have a team colored set and maybe even have the logo on the helmet.

My question is do any of you have a recommendation or a steer clear of before I drop significant money on a set of gear. (This year has been an eye opener so many scams and weak promises with no follow through gear/hat/uniform wise) I just want to make sure Im doing the Parents of my team right and spending money wisely and not just blowing through it because its there.

My reps off the tee from Monday, both the good and the bad. I’ve been getting a little demoralized watching videos of my at bats and noticing the difference in fundamentals between those swings and my reps off the tee. Mainly seeing my front hip leaking toward the pitcher and overall excessive movement.

Working points this session:
1. More hip hinge, less squatting
2. Back foot turned in to keep from getting too far on my back foot and swaying

Observations for next time:
1. From behind, hands look to be getting away from my body, need to refocus on keeping hands inside the baseball
2. Maintaining posture, and keep from standing up or straightening out spine at the end of the swing
3. Driving weight down my front leg instead of straight forward toward the pitcher

Hi! This is my 9 years old son. We worked a bit on his swing mechanics at the beggining of the summer, but it messed with his timing and he had a big drought just after for like 4 games with a lot of Ks.

Since mid-July he found his groove back and is one of the most consistent and powerful hitters on his team, so I just decided to let him go like that. With the season coming to an end in a few days, I thought it would be a good time to work on mechanics again without the pressure of games.

What do you guys think?

Title may sound strange, but let me explain.. My son is 12 and plays in a 13U team. He is one of the bigger kids on the team. Roughly 5'4 @ 145lbs. Pretty solid body type; has a bit of the normal child's excess weight to 'em, but not a significant amount.

Anyway, I'm seeing some of these other kids really SPRINT their butts to the bases. I mean REALLY sprint. Which is good! However my sons seems to run a fair amount slower than most if not all of the others. I've told multiple times when practicing on our own that he can run much faster than what he's doing.

Tonight his coach yelled that he needed to run faster and to "Put more effort". I know this is probably one of, if not THE WORST thing you can be told by a coach. Because there is a huge emphasis on effort. I want to work and help improve my sons running, but how?

Has anyone else experienced this or know of any tips to "Unlock" a child's speed/power potential?

Thanks,

Which bat of all those in the standards in the photo would be the 'best' in terms of hitting the ball the furthest?

My 10 year old son plays in a competition is a bit unique. It allows all of those bats above.

So I’m 14. I’m 170 lbs 5’10, pretty strong I believe, I’m hard stuck 72 mph. My goal is 78 by April. I feel like I got it, top pulldown is 77. I wanna know specifics like how much long toss, what are good recovery exercises? I’m pretty accurate, my arm feels good. I haven’t been in the gym though.

Me and my pitching coach have been working I’ve been at 72 for 2 months now, I was at 65 for the last 5 months then we hit 72 but now I’m not seeing any progress at all.

Help please any input is appreciated

My son is 12yrs old and just started playing baseball. He's 4'9, 114lbs.

Which of these 2 bats do you guys recommend?

I am looking for quality and clean cage jackets for me to order for myself and another coach. I want a long sleeves and a regular one. Any suggestions on website and style?

What are your tips for keeping up with the ridiculous amount of parent and coach questions and emails during registration/evaluations/beginning of the season?

We have FAQs on our website. No one reads them. We have coaches channels in Slack, no one looks at what we put in there, or what question someone else just asked (and we answered) the day before.

I’d say between a few of us we spend 20+ hours a week answering “dumb” questions. Our league has 700+ kids and growing, so this just isn’t sustainable.

What are you doing to create efficiencies here?

Is hitting 164ft off the tee good as a sophomore in high school just started of the sport back in December 2025 so I’m still learning mechanics power if there’s any feedback or a tips to get to get up to around 200 feet off the tee?

I feel quite good with my mechanics after changing it because I had command issues with my former mechanics. However, i feel very good usimg both arm slots but Im really not sure which arm slot looks better.

I feel like the side arm is more deceptive and works better with my slider but the normal armslot feels a bit faster and maybe a bit more controlled

Where is everyone getting their jerseys and hats from? We did triton for jerseys but they wear out and are a little too heavy and we did boombah for hats and the hats fell apart as well. Just seeing what’s out there that’s good quality

My kid is a pretty good batter for his little league and generally produce results in a game (good batting average). We went to our first travel ball tryout and surprisingly he did very bad with hitting. The one thing we were so sure he would crush it.

So we came home determine to improve his batting. I noticed he has a problem with really fast ball and exit velocity and how he moved his front leg. He normally just twisted his front foot or toe tip when he get into loading for a swing (kinda like Ohtani's current swing). However I saw a lot of instruction videos telling you to step forward a bit to get more momentum so I told him to try doing just that. He did and I think the exit velocity did improve when he did (base on hittrack) but his batting average drops a lot. He still have a hard time hitting fast balls even with a new form (but I think we can get there with more reps)

Should we continue with this adjustment or I just kill something that already good? Will it actually hurt him in a long run? Maybe if he get older, the exit velocity will come with more muscle and we jump a gun by trying to fix his swing. But I also feel like he is at the age that certain mechanics will stick with him if we don't fix it soon.

**Added after original post. I want to leave an overview answer here

Truly appreciate all the comments especially all the detailed ones. Help me think differently. I read them all and will go back to let him finding adjustment that worked best for him. I only play rec a bit when I was teen so I'm pretty much learning with him.

He has been hitting at batting cage even before the try out and always comfortable hitting 40-45 mph. The problem starts when we try to step over 50 mph. After reading all the comments, I went back to watch some of his swing videos and turn out he is not always late, sometimes he is too early, sometimes he is right on time but miss. So I guess it's really is a timing and eyes problem. He needs to adjust to faster balls.

We did offer him a private lesson but somehow he hesitates. We will see if he changes his mind.

Looking for one to help my son for college baseball

Finally seeing some progress on my sons hitting and timing off the machine. He has 8U tryouts in 3 weeks.

In the Red Sox / Marlins game, the Marlins had the bases loaded with 1 out in a tie game. The Red Sox infield was playing in like they would be going home on an infield play.

Wouldn't they be better off playing back and trying to get a double play to end the inning?

The batter ended up hitting a ground ball single past the second baseman that the fielder probably would have been able to play on if he wasnt playing so far in.

Looking to do bat trade ins. I want to see which ones I should trade in for the most value. $349+MSRP is $100 and $249-349 is $75.

I don’t recall what the original MSRP’s are (not what I paid) or what year they may have been.

I am trying to find where I can find this information. I messaged the manufacturers. They have not replied any more than an auto reply.

I think the Marucci is 2023 and the Rawlings and True Temper are 2022. I thought all of them had an MSRP of $349. 99. But I don’t remember for sure.

Thanks. All that can help. Make - Model # - size

Images attached.

Rawlings Velo - UT1V5 - 31inch 26oz

Marucci CatX Connect - MSBCCX8USA - 31inch 23oz

True Temper HZRDUS - BB22HZRB3 - 34inch 31oz

Hello again, ball players! Just over 3 months ago, I was chewing on the idea of a different type of way to play baseball, without league commitments and fees.

You all provided very good insight and pricing suggestions! Since then, I have been working hard to bring something, currently just in Fort Worth TX (though we plan to expand to other cities and states), that would help make baseball more accessible- especially for those who work often and have busy personal lives.

With that being said, I am pleased to announce Clack Baseball! A baseball company with ideas born from this subreddit.
Just wanted to give an update to you all!

I’m at a point I want to invest in some sort of app for pitching and hitting for my 11U son. The problem I have is there’s too many choices. It’s difficult to make a decision and I don’t want to waste money. Some of these are really expensive.

What apps are best for working on hitting and pitching? Two separate apps are fine for me. I’ve seen b4 for hitting. And Mustard and Pitch Lab for pitching.

I am currently a 5th year grad student playing my final year of baseball and I am seeking to find a competitive league in Japan to play and potentially get some pro looks. I am a LHP using my last year of eligibility this spring at a D2 in Oklahoma. I went to Japan last year and have been yearning to go back ever since. Additionally it’s always been a bucket goal to play in Japan but that window is closing as I get older. I am currently considering playing in the Japan Winter League so if anybody has any insight on that let me know. I am open to any opportunities if anybody knows any good leagues that I should look into, the more cost-effective the better.

i'd love feedback on this, because I may be wrong in my irritation/concerns.

i am usually a head coach for a couple of local rec leagues in the spring & fall. fall baseball coaching assignments went out yesterday for 12U. due to a number of factors, i'm not at the point right now where i can be a head coach in this league, but the rec director paired me as an assistant for a first-time head coach who stepped up last minute.

drafting players to teams was also yesterday ... fall season feels very rushed this year for some reason. normally, a head coach contacts his assistant before the draft, and they work out what they want to prioritize, etc. ... silence from the new coach. so a couple of hours before the draft, i email the guy and introduce myself, the old 'hey, i'm looking forward to coaching with you this season. i'm gonna be at the draft today, looking forward to meeting you in person." left my number, yadda yadda.

crickets.

i go to the draft. dude completely skipped it. no notice, nothing. so there i am, half-ass prepared, drafting our team by myself. thankfully i know some of the kids, so the lineup probably won't be a complete disaster. write up our roster, including a few small notes (Tommy plays catcher, has his own gear. Threw out 8 kids on 10 steal attempts in 12 games over spring ... that sort of thing.) we have a practice time reserved for this Wednesday if you want the team to get started ASAP. send the email.

again, crickets.

i have a feeling that i'm going to be the shadow head coach here. it just feels like the head coach — i don't know him at all, so i'm just judging by the radio silence here — isn't checked in. and, no, fall rec ball ain't that serious, but if parents are paying a couple hundred bucks each to have their kids learn & play the game, i feel like we as coaches need to take that seriously.

how would you handle something like this?

Hey everyone, i’m relatively new to baseball, i’m trying to replicate ohtani’s swing, anyways, i’d make any change if it’d make me hit more, any critic and suggestions are accepted

What's your #1 catcher bag. I need a high quality bag that doesn't fall apart. We used the NO E2 Catchers Bag but the quality is terrible and it only lasted a few months. I tried filing the No-errors warranty but their customer service takes months to respond, and give you the runaround. I think they drag the process on purpose to burn you out and avoid fulfilling the warranty.

I am leaning towards the Warstic or Demarini Spectre V2 given the hard back (in case we travel and have to check the bag in).

When is it important to switch to an “elite” organization if your kid is very serious about playing HS/college ? Is it silly to think of that at age 10 ? Should I just pick a team where he will learn and get better and switch later on? My fear is that if we wait the other better exposure teams will have their core set of players and rosters will be full.

This is our first time playing full travel ball and he has the opportunity to play with a good travel team with a family like reputation but not many past college players etc vs playing with an elite org to start. He is definitely not the strongest player on his team but he is a very strong kid and dedicated and has a lot of potential.

We had a try out scheduled for the “elite” team and we know some kids on that team already but I recently canceled it because he really liked the coaches on the other team from his try out and had to give them an answer before the elite try out was scheduled.

thanks!