Understanding how to play offense within a team concept is one of the many benefits to becoming an active member of a Carolina Elite Baseball team.  Team practices, individual instruction, and baseball camps/clinics will help make you a better hitter.  What they won't teach you, however, is how to be a complete offensive player within a team concept!  Just because you are a good hitter, doesn't mean you are a good offensive player!   Players who join under the team membership plan will learn what it takes to make yourself into a better offensive player, including:

Taking Leads

• Primary Leads (how much should you get, and which defender dictates that)

• Secondary Leads (how much should you get, and which defender dictates that)

• One Way Leads 

• Exposing a LHP pickoff move (is he a reader or predetermined, and how to find out)

Basestealing 

• How to read a pitcher

• How to recognize a pitchout before it occurs

• How to steal successfully, without getting picked off or thrown out!

General Baserunning Fundamentals

• Contact vs.see-it-through at 3rd base

• Apply the rule at 2nd base

• When to tag up vs. getting off the base as much as you can

• 2 out 2 strikes secondary leads

• Hit and Runs (It is not the same as a steal, and what adjustments you need to make as a baserunner)

• Run and Hits (It is not the same as a hit and run, and adjustments you need to make as a baserunner)

• 1st and 3rd offense

• Double Steals

Sacrifice Bunting

• Runner on 1st (what the defense should do, and how to read it)

• Runner on 2nd (or 1st and 2nd) (what the defense should do, and how to read it)

• Slashing (how to read a defense to know when to do it)

• Suicide vs. Safety Squeeze 

Bunting for Hits

• Drags

• Pushes

• 4-slot bunts

Hit and Runs

• What is the job of the hitter

• What is the job of the baserunner

• When to put one on as a coach (the opposing pitcher and catcher play a role in this, as do your own players

General Offensive Skills

Carolina Elite Baseball players will gain an understanding of the offensive game of baseball beyond their years.  The ability to understand your job in a particular at-bat is something that is lacking in almost all young players, simply because it is not taught.  Players will gain this understanding, and learn how to create an offensive approach around this understanding every time they step into the batter's box. Your offensive job may change with each at-bat during a game, and your approach should reflect that. You may be asked to be a table setter, run-producer, or to move a runner at different times throughout a game. You may also be asked to execute a hit and run, or run and hit (there is a difference)! There are also certain times throughout a game where a strikeout is more costly than others, and players will learn how to approach their at-bats with this in mind. The following circumstances may impact your offensive approach, and players will learn how to increase their awareness of them:

• Score of the game
• Inning
• How many outs?
• Who is hitting behind you? (sometimes you may want to be more aggressive, and not settle for that walk, depending on the next pitcher/hitter match-up)
• Who is on the mound for the other team? (does he have control problems, a nasty strikeout pitch that you don’t want to see, movement on his fastball, etc…) The opposing pitchers ability and assortment of pitches will impact your offensive approach
• Who is warming up, or available in the other teams bullpen? (again, you want to look ahead at possible hitter/pitcher match-ups behind your at-bat – you may choose not to sacrifice bunt a runner to 3rd base if the other team has a reliever ready in the bullpen with a favorable chance of striking out your next hitter and stranding that runner on 3rd base)
• What is your job? (are you needed on base, move a runner, or score a runner (this changes with each at-bat)
• What are the ballpark dimensions and conditions? (it may impact how the other team will pitch you)