A post-season agenda for your pitchers (Part 2). (Baseball).

THE POST-SEASON OFFERS AN UNUSUAL DYNAMIC FOR baseball coaches. He can send his players off to perform for other coaches, after equipping them with a list of things to do work on -- things that will prepare them for the regular season.

It is quite possible to draw up a list of practice goals from which each pitcher can choose five or six objectives to work on.

In my article last month, I listed 10 basic but extremely viable objectives. One good turn on the rubber deserves another. Ergo, points 11 to 20.

11 Improve the pitcher's fielding.

You rarely see this aspect of the game on the radar screen. Pitchers usually think about the mechanics of the delivery, ability to throw hard, and how to strike people out.

They ignore the vital aspect of fielding. It is a skill that has to be worked on to be improved, and it is the coach who must do the motivating.

12 The pitcher must learn how to miss with his pitches.

He must pitch on a downward plane to the plate.

The off-season is the time to learn control and the natural movement of your pitches. The good pitchers make sure that when they miss, they don't come over the middle of the plate.

Another way of doing this is by getting the pitcher to stay tall on their posting leg and throw on a downward plane to the plate. The more this is done, the more likely the pitches will miss low in the zone (where pitchers tend to get hurt less) than they will up in the zone (where pitchers tend to get hurt).

13 Improve your warm-up.

This is another much under-practiced, but critical skill: warming up for a start, warming up for a relief appearance, and warming up between innings of a game in which you are pitching.

Walking the leadoff hitter is one of the cardinal sins in baseball. About 80% of the lead-off men who are walked will eventually score. So how do you prevent this?

I think a lot of it has to do with how the pitcher warms up. A pitcher will often go out to the mound and not focus on preparing to pitch that first hitter. He will take his five between-inning pitches and then suddenly the lack of concentration has put him behind in the count. The pitcher has all the time he needs to prepare for his start, yet once he gets on the mound, he has to struggle to find the strike zone.

14 Develop an aggressive mound mentality.

How often do you see a pitcher who has great stuff, but tries too hard to nibble the corners? Does he have an aggressive approach?

This kind of pitcher has to learn to trust his stuff and develop a different mentality. If he has the stuff to get people out, he must learn how to make hitters swing the bat rather than work the count.

Some pitchers have to be pushed to aggressively attack the plate and make the hitter swing. If a pitcher can create a tone that he is going to throw strikes, the hitters will start coming to the plate looking to swing rather than work the count and extend the at-bat.

15 Focus on working quickly.

Pitchers who work fast have many advantages over pitchers who do not. They keep their fielders' minds in the game, maintain the tempo of the game, and discomfort the hitters.

Since it takes about 20 seconds for a person to clear his mind of a bad event, it makes sense for a pitcher to work quickly and prevent the hitters from resting and clearing their minds.

Though I'm not an advocate of the quick pitch I'm aware of the things that can be done to help a pitcher work quickly. You can reduce the pitcher's fidgeting to a minimum (no playing with their pant leg), ask them to stay on the mound (not walk around it or walk toward the catcher when the ball is being returned), and to set for the catcher's signal as quickly as possible.

This requires help from the catcher, as catchers are also notorious fidgeters, often take too much time to relay the sign, or just slow movers in general behind the dish.

Coach Shohn Doty of Old Dominion puts his pitchers on a stopwatch, setting a goal of 12 seconds between pitches. He has had terrific success getting pitchers to follow this formula. Like all things in pitching, it requires attention and practice.

16 Don't divide your attention between the hitter and the base-runner.

This is another part of the game that pitchers tend to neglect. One of the things that offenses do against good pitching is to try to get inside the pitcher's head and take his mind off the hitter. By getting the pitcher to divide his concentration between himself and the hitter, they give the batter a small advantage.

There are many ways that base runners can do this, and many ways for the pitcher to react. The more the pitchers allow these things to distract them, the more it encourages the offense to further irritate them on the bases.

17 Throwing in situations of increased stress.

There are many moments in a game when pitchers tend to overthrow: (1) after giving up a home run, (2) in the last inning of games, when they feel that the coach is about to remove them after a cheap hit, or on 0-2 pitches when they are thinking about striking the hitter out.

One of the ways in which coaches can turn good pitchers into great ones is by teaching them to cope more effectively with these situations.

18 Learn to read the hitters' swings.

A pitcher can learn a lot about the hitter by studying his stance, the way he holds the bat, and the way he swings. If, for example, the hitter wraps the bat around his head in the stance, he can be vulnerable to the inside fastball. If he has a real uppercut to his swing, he can be pitched up in the zone.

The more the pitchers learn about the hitters' swings, the more effective they can be in exploiting weaknesses. This is something you can have your pitchers learn when they are not pitching, making it easier for them to identify when they are out on the mound.

19 Develop a strategy for pitching to weaker hitters.

What drives coaches crazy is watching their pitcher walking or getting behind weak hitters. If your pitcher has a real good pop on his fastball and you know your opponents' no. 7,8, and 9 hitters are not going to catch up to it, you may have the pitcher keep throwing that pitch until the hitter proves he can hit it.

Against a better hitter, you may want him to change speeds. Pitchers must learn to recognize these situations and work them to their advantage. There will be times when you will want to challenge a hitter with a fastball right down the middle.

20 Pitch to get outs, not strikeouts. Take advantage of aggressive hitters.

Pitchers sometimes think that their ability to strike hitters out will impress people more than their ability to get people out on the easy taps. I don't agree with this kind of thinking. I much prefer pitchers who are economical with the pitches and who get hitters to make outs early in the count.

To me, any time you identify a hitter who tends to swing at the first pitch, it's smart to use the hitter's aggressiveness to your advantage.

Pitchers who get hitters out early in their at-bats, have lower pitch counts, pitch farther into games, and bounce back faster for their next outings. Pitchers need to think more about outs and less about strikeouts. If this is going to happen, it has to come from the coach.