The Yes/No Bullpen Stand-In: Training Early Pitch Recognition

Every coach has told a hitter to "track the ball," and most hitters quietly do the useless version of it: they watch the pitch all the way into the catcher's mitt. That is comfortable, it feels diligent, and it trains almost nothing — because by the time the ball reaches the glove, every decision in a real at-bat is already over. The bullpen stand-in yes/no drill fixes this with one rule that changes everything: make a call out loud before the ball gets to the catcher.

Pitch recognition is a real, trainable skill

The foundational research here comes from Dr. Peter Fadde, a professor at Southern Illinois University who has spent decades adapting sports-science occlusion methods to baseball and softball. His definition of the skill is precise:

"It's picking up cues in the pitcher's wind-up, release, and the first 10-20 feet of ball flight." — Dr. Peter Fadde (source)

That first 10 to 20 feet is the entire ballgame. A 90 mph fastball reaches the plate in roughly four-tenths of a second, and a hitter swings at where they expect the ball to be, not where it is out of the hand — so recognition has to happen early or it does not happen at all. The encouraging part is that this is learnable. Fadde's whole body of work, used with college programs and professional teams, is built on the premise that recognition improves with the right kind of practice: "mostly it's repetition with immediate feedback and let their eyes figure it out."

What makes the drill work: the out-loud, early call

The drill itself is almost embarrassingly simple, which is part of why it transfers. The hitter stands in with a helmet and no bat, the pitcher throws a real bullpen, and the hitter calls "yes" or "no" — but the call must beat the ball to the mitt. Fadde names this the Bullpen Stand-In Drill and is emphatic about the timing:

"the batter needs to call out loud 'Yes' or 'No' BEFORE THE BALL HITS THE CATCHER'S MITT." — Dr. Peter Fadde (source)

That single constraint is what converts passive tracking into recognition practice. If the hitter can wait until the ball arrives, they are just watching; if they must commit before it arrives, they are forced to read the pitch out of the hand. The "yes" is flexible by design — it can mean fastball, or fastball-in-the-zone, or strike, or a pitch worth swinging at — "whatever a coach or hitter wants to work on." Pick one meaning per round so the feedback stays clean.

Why no bat

Removing the bat is deliberate. With a bat in their hands, hitters carry the fear of missing into the rep, and that fear makes them commit early and stop gathering information. Standing in with no bat isolates the eyes and the brain so recognition can be trained on its own, and the spoken call gives the coach instant, honest feedback on what the hitter actually saw and when. It also makes the drill safe and low-cost: there is no swing volume, so it fits anywhere and fatigues nothing.

Recognition and decision-making are two halves of the same job. Once a hitter can reliably call pitches early here, give them something to do with that read using the three-zone count-leverage hitting drill, where the yes/no read becomes a count-aware swing decision.

Coaching it well

The most important habit to protect is where the eyes go. A hitter who drifts their gaze to the glove to "check" their answer has reverted to passive tracking; keep the eyes on the release and the early flight. Insist on a real pre-pitch rhythm — the hitter should stand in as though they intend to hit, because disengaged eyes recognize nothing. Resist over-coaching the cues themselves; as Fadde found, hitters see different things, so the reliable recipe is reps plus immediate feedback, letting each hitter's visual system tune itself. Track accuracy out of ten so improvement is visible and the hitter has a number to chase.

Where it fits and how to progress

This is a daily, low-fatigue drill for any level — a five-minute add-on to a bullpen session, a rain-day cage block, or a pre-BP routine, in-season and off. Start easy: "yes" equals fastball on a moderate bullpen, just to build the habit of calling before the mitt. Switch the rule to strike-versus-ball to train zone recognition. Combine type and zone ("fastball strike," "curveball ball"). Speed the bullpen up and add more off-speed to shrink the decision window. Finally, put the bat back in the hitter's hands for live BP while keeping the exact same early-recognition habit — now swinging at the "yes" pitches. The skill being grooved never changes: see it early, commit early, and stop watching the ball into the catcher's glove.

Sources

• Hitting Performance Lab — Pitch Recognition Secrets: Dr. Peter Fadde Interview: Fadde's definition of pitch recognition, the Bullpen Stand-In Drill, and the call-before-the-mitt rule.
• Peter J. Fadde — Web Page: Fadde's pitch-recognition research and video-occlusion training background.
• Patrick Jones Baseball — Dr. Peter Fadde: Video Occlusion Training for Hitters: how occlusion methods test and train early recognition and transfer to batting drills.
• GameSense Sports — Training Pitch Recognition for Next-Level Baseball & Softball Hitting: the video-occlusion approach to recognition and its application to youth and amateur hitters.
• WIN Reality — What Is Pitch Recognition in Baseball? A Hitter's Guide: recognition timing, reading the ball out of the hand, and converting tracking into recognition.