BY STEVE KRAH
Catchers catch the baseball. It is in the title of the position.
And yet Doug Buysse often sees an emphasis placed elsewhere when it comes to the player who wears the mask, chester protector and shinguards.
“A lot of people want to talk about the sexy stuff — blocking and throwing,” said Buysse, the Indiana University South Bend head baseball coach and a former Saint Joseph’s College catcher. “That part’s awesome. But far more important — the day-to-day stuff — is receiving and the true catching part.”
Buysse and IUSB junior catcher Jordan Moore gave a demonstration on catching Tuesday, March 5 for the South Bend Cubs Foundation’s Cubbies Coaches Club at Four Winds Field.
“In a game, we may have 130 pitches and Jordan may block it 10 times,” said Buysse. “He maybe throws a guy out at second three or four times. He catches the ball 130 times.
“That’s what we’re going to spend the majority of our time on. Receiving is the most-important part.”
Buysse has a simple goal for his catchers: Keep strikes strikes, turns three balls a game into strikes and balls out of the strike zone are kept there.
“If you can’t receive and keep strikes strikes, you need to go play first base,” said Buysse. “We spend more time doing this than anything else.”
The coach noted that there are umpires who call he pitch where it is caught and not where it crosses the plate.
“Nothing’s worse than watching a kid throw a really good pitch and our catchers catches it and because of the way he caught it, it’s (called) a ball,” said Buysse.
IUSB pitchers generally do not have swing-and-miss stuff.
“Our staff has got to pound the zone, work down and work ahead (in the count),” said Buysse.
That makes it important to have a catcher that can accommodate their needs and strengths.
When he is recruiting receivers, the first Buysse looks at is the player’s hips.
“Some kids are genuinely blessed with good hips,” said Buysse. “But it’s one of the things we can work on.”
Buysse has his catchers go through a position-specific daily stretching routine that takes 10 minutes or less.
“You can’t expect your catchers to use the exact same stretches that outfielders do because they’re using different muscles,” said Buysse.
The routine helps with the flexibility in the ball and socket joint and get hips used to moving in the desired direction.
The coach said catchers who are doing squats and cleans in the weight room need this daily stretching or else they will be too tight in the hips to be an effective receiver.
“Jordan’s probably going to catch 40 to 45 games for us so he’s got to keep himself really loose,” said Buysse. “The looser he is, the quicker he’s going to recover.”
Buysse noted that since the chair came along people don’t squat like they once did. He has noticed many young catchers who are not comfortable in their stance.
“One way we eliminate that is to put the left knee down (with no runners on base),” said Buysse.
Moore does this more than half the time when catching for IUSB.
Buysse said the benefits are twofold — it saves his legs and he can work a little bit lower.
“It took a long time for me to be OK with this,” said Buysse. “I’ve accepted it. It helps and he can give a lower target.”
On pitches with a lot of run, it helps having the knee out of the way with the zone opened up.
“We’re looking to give our catchers freedom to move and give our guys the best possible scenario to keep a strike a strike,” said Buysse.
Buysse went through receiving drills using tennis and plyo balls. He fed the ball to Moore, who received it with the idea of being quiet and efficient.
After listening to Tim Cossins (former minor league catching coordinator with the Florida/Miami Marlins, field coordinator with the Chicago Cubs and now major league field coordinator/catching instructor with the Baltimore Orioles) speak a few years ago at the American Baseball Coaches Association Convention, Buysse has been having his catchers start with their glove hand on the ground.
“We want our catchers to work up to catch the ball and stick the pitch instead of chasing it out of the zone,” said Buysse. “There’s less movement.
“For for a long time, I was a ‘drive the wheel’ guy. Now we start down and we work up.”
Buysse insists that his catcher’s head and eyes follow the ball as if a string was tied from their mask to the their middle finger.
On high pitches, the instinct for many younger guesses is for their head to go down and hand to go up.
“Now I’m guessing,” said Buysse. “It’s sounds simple and it sounds easy. But you’d be surprised how many kids don’t watch a ball all the way into their gloves.”
Buysse said the wrist — not the arm — is to be kept soft when receiving a pitch. The throwing hand should be kept out of harm’s way.
Buysse called Twitter a great resource for baseball drills. He found a reaction drill where one person stands behind the catcher and throws tennis balls off the wall which a catcher must receive with the proper technique.
Buysse said one way to build confidence for catchers is to receive balls from a pitching machine (or a coach) from shorter and short distances. One example might be 75 mph at 45 feet.
“Don’t be afraid to experiment with things and try to make them better,” said Buysse.
When it comes to throwing, Buysse said catchers should use the time when they’re playing catch to work on things like transfers and footwork for throwing to bases.
“It’s right to left, left to target and throw,” said Buysse. “When you make a bad throw, it starts with your feet.
“Catchers can do this every single day.”
At the college level, Buysse has his catchers do a lot of throwing during fall practice. During the season, he does not want too much extra throwing, considering all the times the catcher must throw the ball back to the pitcher, down to second after warm-up pitches and around the horn after strikeouts etc.
When it comes to throwing, Buysse said catchers should use the time when they’re playing catch to work on things like transfers and footwork for throwing to bases.
“It’s right to left, left to target and throw,” said Buysse. “When you make a bad throw, it starts with your feet.
“Catchers can do this every single day.”
Buysse wants his catchers to block balls to the field and not to the plate. The former keeps the ball in front of them with their momentum going into the direction they’re throwing.
He also insists that “the chin has to dig into my chest protector.”
“Protect your neck,” said Buysse.
The Cubbies Coaches Club is done meeting for the off-season but 1st Source Bank Performance Center director and South Bend Cubs travel team coach Mark Haley encourages area coaches to continue to call on the baseball community centered in South Bend if they have questions.
The Performance Center is at 525 S. Lafayette Blvd., South Bend. The phone number is 574-404-3636.
Doug Buysse is the head baseball coach at Indiana University South Bend. He was a catcher at Saint Joseph’s College in Rensselaer, Ind.
www.IndianaRBI.com 
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