While pitching machines are most often thought of as tools to aid in batting practice, there are other situations in which
right pitching machine can be an invaluable tool for results-oriented coach or manager. Many modern pitching machines can be set to throw groundballs and fly balls which can be a great help in many situations — two of which we discuss below.Tryouts: From little league to high school ball, tryouts are a necessary but sometimes overwhelming process where literally hundreds of hopefuls must be evaluated in seconds apiece. Most tryouts are set up in stages — a groundball stage, a fly ball stage, a batting stage, and a pitching stage — where characteristics such as arm strength, running speed, agility, fundamentals, and power are judged. How best to judge all of these elements quickly and accurately? Consistency.
As any coach who has tried to hit hundreds of fly balls or grounders with a fungo can tell you, consistency is not something easily achieved by a person. That’s where a pitching machine like Jugs Lite-Flite or Jugs Combo Machine comes in. By setting up a pitching machine like these two at each of our hypothetical testing stages, each individual can be consistently judged by same set of criteria as everyone else. Let’s take groundball stage as an example. By setting Jugs Combo Machine to throw grounders instead of pitches (a snap given its 360 degree swivel design), each player can be sent exact same grounder. This allows for quick and accurate evaluation where it is easy to judge a player’s speed, reflexes, and mastery of baseball fundamentals. How is this player’s hand speed versus that player’s? Does this player properly set his feet and position himself well to take grounder? With right pitching machine, these questions become simple to answer with some basic observation and your draft picks will become obvious.
And same technique can be used at all of our tryout stages. Throwing same fly ball repeatedly quickly reveals which players can properly read ball’s flight path and who has best foot speed. And a pitching machine’s presence in batting stage goes without saying. Do you want to throw 2,000 pitches in a tryout to evaluate bat speed, rate of contact, and power? We didn’t think so. A pitching machine in a tryout is a tremendous asset in determining who is a natural outfielder or infielder, a power hitter or an Ichiro because of their consistency and versatility.
