Feed the Gorilla
Here’s a fun pitching drill it’s called feed the gorilla.

You get two pitchers to double up as a team.
You need a bucket of baseballs. Here’s how it works:

Coach stands 40ft back to catch balls.
One player has a bucket of balls and tosses them to pitcher.
Pitcher throws all balls to coach (feed the Gorilla).
During the pitches the coach observe’s arm rotation, foot work, and balance of pitcher.

Cool thing about this drill–you can get your player to throw 20 or 30 balls and have fun while getting good conditioning. The player should not stop until he has thrown all the balls in bucket.

Water Bottle Slam
Another drill that we do with our pitchers is at the last few minutes of practice.

We set a 2 liter of water bottle on top of a bucket on home plate and have them try to knock it off. We then move the bottle to inside & outside and we keep a running number of points.  It makes it a game and they love the last 10 minutes of pitching practice. PLUS you see them really getting better control of the ball.

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Often while the kids are getting comfortable stepping towards home and with the length of their stride, they lose sight of the fact that they need to play their position and be ready to field the baseball. Young kids will get focused on mechanics and as you know, they learn much faster when they’re having fun!

To keep the kids looking up at the catcher, I’ll have the catcher hold up his hand after the pitch and show either 1, 2 or 3 fingers. The pitcher needs to tell me (I’m standing behind the pitcher) what the number is.

I will signal the catcher behind the pitcher’s back how many fingers to hold up and we’ll keep score.  The kids quickly get into the habit of looking at home after the release and being ready to field the ball.

Another favorite coaching tip for determining flight of a fly ball: With your throwing hand, point at the ball and track it. If your arm is dropping, then run forward to the ball. If your arm is rising, move back.

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I have them throw off of a mound, usually the warm-up pitchers mound because my assistant baseball coaches are using the baseball field for batting or fielding practice when I am working with my next-game starting pitcher on the side.

I ask him to throw a simulated game for 3 innings.  He pitches to the number of batters necessary to record 3 strikeouts per inning.  In other words, if he walks one batter in a given inning, he’d have to face (pretending of course) 4 batters instead of 3 to record three outs.  The maximum number of simulated at bats is 12.  I have a batter stand at the plate with a bat, BUT HE IS NOT ALLOWED TO SWING AT THE BALL.

The goal is to throw a strike on every pitch.  However, we work on developing the ability to hit spots.  I call the location, and the pitcher has to try to hit that spot.  I might say “heart of the plate at the knees” or “outside corner at the letters”.  We get them to throw up and down, in and out.

After they have thrown a simulated baseball game for 3 innings, I let them face 3 – 5 batters in live batting practice.  By this time, the pitcher is ramped up pretty good.

It helps our batters because they are facing “game speed” pitches, and it helps our pitchers because they get to test out the art of locating pitches which they would have been practicing on the side.

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Progressive drills for pitchers:

Have pitchers start on one knee and no glove–throwing the baseball to another player with a glove about 10-15 feet away.  Pitchers will focus on getting a good top spin on the ball by getting their throwing arm out front of their body and finishing the throw with pulling their hand into their belt buckle.  This baseball drill helps pitchers get used to releasing the ball without having to speed up their arms to cover a large distance.  Have players throw 15 pitches per drill on this to avoid straining their arms as this is a new movement.  Asking players if their arms were feeling strained, you would have any players that were feeling strained to stop throwing immediately.  Once pitchers have confidence and good technique with this drill, advance to the next drill- this may take a couple of practices before advancing but I want players to focus on technique at this point.

The next drill would be the same but having the pitchers standing up and throwing with the same motion from flat ground.  The distance between players would increase to 20-25 feet and players would continue to focus on the top spin and arm movement.

This drill would be continued until players had good technique and accuracy while standing. Have players throw 20 pitches per drill on this to avoid straining their arms.  Asking players if their arms were feeling strained, I would have any players that were feeling strained to stop throwing immediately and at the next practice we would only have them work on the first drill if their arm wasn’t feeling strained.  Once again this drill may be used for a few practices before advancing to ensure technique and accuracy were practiced before moving on.

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From Don…
Curve Ball Introduction:

I will teach a baseball pitcher to throw a curveball once he had command of his fastball and control of a change-up.  Once a pitcher has those pitches mastered then he will not have to rely on his curveball as much in games- especially as he would be younger, facing inexperienced hitters and having an inexperienced catcher.  I explain this to all of the players that I coach to help alleviate the pressure for young players to throw curveballs before their bodies are ready.

I teach this by telling the pitcher not to snap his wrist on the curveball as this will cause increased stress on the wrist and elbow as his arm gets stronger.  The grip on the curveball should be one with the index and middle finger together with the middle finger resting on one of the four long seams on the baseball.  A pitcher should concentrate on pulling his arm down into his belt buckle and allowing the ball to travel over his fingers and towards the plate.  This will allow him to use the larger muscles in his arm and not his wrist and elbow.

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From Robert…
I coach 13U boys.  Here is a baseball pitching drill that I do for the pitchers on my team.  I call this baseball drill 1-3-7.

The boy gets 10 pitches and in those 10 pitches he must try to accomplish the following:
1-throw the first pitch for a strike so that they practice getting ahead of the hitter
3-they must throw at least 3 strikes in a row within these 10 pitches
7-they must throw 7 of 10 pitches for strikes.

I’ll repeat this drill 1-2 more times based on how much time we have in practice.

Then, based on the results, I’ll announce the Cy Young winner of the day.  The boys love to be the Cy Young for the day and they all love to compete against one another.  They ask me all the time now if we are doing the 137 drill today in practice.

I find this baseball drill helps them to concentrate on just throwing strikes.  It sounds so generic-but we all love a challenge and if they missed throwing that 1st pitch for a strike the first time, they concentrate that much harder the next time to do it.

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From Paul…
With young baseball pitchers, I watch their balance and mechanics to start.  I start with the full wind up to help them understand the tempo necessary to throw strikes. The rock step, bringing the leg to your body with a pause to gain your balance, the stride toward the plate, the arm angle, the release, and the follow through to a balanced position to get ready to field your position. Too many kids forget they are a  baseball fielder in this position as well as a thrower.

I progressively get the baseball drill faster until the motion becomes second nature to the player and they can throw strikes consistently. Once I feel comfortable they have the balance down, we then incorporate fielding bunts and driblers down the line at full speed so the player can understand he has to go right or left or get ready for line drives.

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From Roger…
Idea- This is a baseball drill for the pitchers. Simple but very effective. We do 6 sets of 10. The catcher has a ball and the pitcher has a ball. The pitcher pitches the baseball and the catcher throws the other ball back as quickly as you can. The pitcher runs back or hurries back to the mound and is ready to release as quickly as possible. He will pitch as fast and quickly as he can not really worrying about where it hits as much, but how quickly he can get another ball and pitch it.
Good cardio workout.

From Mike…
A baseball pitching drill that I like to do with my team is a one-hop drill. Utilizing the width of a gym, have your baseball player throw the ball as hard as he can keeping the ball low and hitting the floor in front of the catcher.

This drill teaches the pitcher the proper release point and cuts way down on high pitches.

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