From Maury…
One of my favourite baseball drills is the Bucket Drill.  It’s really easy and it teaches kids to hit a target.

You get one baseball player to sit on a bucket; you can set the distance based on the age group.

Have a line of kids ready to receive grounders.
I tend to use cones for this one.
I’ll set up a pair of cones for the starting line and a pair of cones where I want the players to move to when they receive the grounder.
It instills moving to the ball instead of waiting for the ball to come to you.

Once the player receives the grounder he needs to make a throw to the person sitting on the bucket.
If you miss no point.
If the person needs to reach for the ball 1 point.
If you can hit the head or chest as a target and the player on the bucket does not need to move–5 points.

On a hot day I will reward a Slurpy to the top three.  It’s simple and easy and the kids like it.

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From David…
I coach modified baseball in my school district. One of the toughest skills for my pitchers and first basemen to master has been picking off the runner from first base.  We would practice the traditional way - with a pitcher on the mound, a first baseman, and a runner - but it has never really panned out.

About 3 yrs ago I decided to come up with a new baseball drill to practice this skill.  When we finish our long toss, I bring each pair of players back to a starting distance of about 20-25 ft.  While one line of players remains stationary I have the remaining line across from them move one player over to their left so that the original starting pairs are ‘offset’ in a diagonal line similar to the configuration from the pitcher’s mound to 1B.

The drill begins with all of the baseballs with the players in the same side of the formation.  I then go over throwing from the stretch - explaining that not all of the players may be pitchers but for this drill we need an equal number of pitchers and first basemen.  I start with the pitchers facing home plate and then walk them through the motion - coming set and then looking over to 1B without moving their upper body.  Once they’ve checked out the runner, I have them turn and throw to the first baseman (his partner from the long toss).  We practice both stepping off the rubber and quickly pivoting to throw to
1B.  Their target is the first baseman’s knee closest to the base.

Once the first basemen receive the throw, they become pitchers.  They face CF and we repeat the drill.  We usually do this so that each pitcher makes 5-10 throws to 1B.  We started practicing the pick-off this way and I immediately noticed that my pitchers were able to keep opposing runners much closer to 1B - in fact so close that some teams stopped trying to run on us.  In one game, the other team threw to first probably 15 times through the entire 7 inning game to no avail.  We were
safe every time and successfully stole 5 or 6 bases.  Their runners stayed pretty close to first, only attempted to steal twice, and - the ONLY time we threw to first WE PICKED THE BASE RUNNER OFF!

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From Don…
This is not a baseball drill as much as a game that our baseball team plays at the end of practice that the kids love and it serves as a very good practice drill for fielding grounders.

We call it ” king of the hill“

We have an indoor facility where the nonbatting cage portion of the facility is a little larger than the size of an infield. We split the team into two groups and have one group on each end of the facility going width-wise.

We put cones out as the outside barriers and put another cone in the middle of the facility. We then play an elimination game where a player is eliminated from the game whenever they miss a grounder.

We encourage them to throw the balls to one another as hard as possible but it must bounce before the middle cone to be fair. A player is also eliminated when the throw is “out of bounds”. As players get eliminated there is more ground to cover for the remaining players. We start out 5 on 5 and usually wind up 2 or 3 on 1. We try to be fair as to how much ground one player is expected to cover as to where we allow the ball to be thrown to.

This game teaches teamwork as well as going to both the forehand and the backhand as the players will cheer for their teammates after they are eliminated. we usually play 2 out of 3 to determine the winning team and let everybody play as much as possible each time.

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From Ralph…
Baseball Hitting Drill: ADVANCE THE RUNNER

Move runner from 2nd base to 3rd base to home plate by hitting behind them on the right side.

1. Hitter steps into the batters box and stands a little further away from the plate than normal.

2. After the pitch is thrown the hitter will wait and hit the baseball in the back of the strike zone so that they can drive the ball to the right side.

3. The base runner will determine whether to continue to third or not.

4. If the ball is hit behind them to the right side they can run, if not they need to hurry back towards 2nd base.

From Terrill…
When I want to go over baseball defense, I shrink the diamond so everyone is real close. This way we can go over everything with the boys still standing in their positions and walk through everything. This also helps save your voice, by allowing to to talk normal instead of yelling direction and baseball coaching tips to all the boys spread out far away on the normal size field.

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From Dan…
Here’s something that has really helped my hitters grasp the idea of starting your swing with your hips.  It’s not as much a baseball drill as an illustration.  I simply call it “eye balls”.

Place a small piece of athletic tape on both of your knee caps and one on your belt buckle.  Draw an eye ball (a black dot) in the center of each piece of tape.  When you’re in your hitting stance, your “eye balls” face home plate.  When you take your stride, your “eye balls” face home plate.  Then at the moment you begin your swing, all at once, all 3 of your “eye balls” turn and look at the pitcher.

Stand up and try it.  It just seems to help with the concept of starting your swing with your hips.

From Danny…
One of the baseball hitting drills we do really helps the boys wait on the baseball and they learn to pull the ball.

1.  Coach will pitch to the player a variety of lob pitches, almost softball style of pitch.
2.  The player (right handed hitter) is instructed that he has to hit the ball between the short stop position  and 3rd base, Left handed hitter must hit between the 2nd baseman position and 1st base.
3.  We want the hitter to wait as long as possible and then hit a line drive.

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From Dan…
My baseball drill is for catchers at 7 & 8 year olds.

Our league only allows to steal third base. So, we put the catcher in the catcher position and throw past balls or balls into mitt. Third basemen covering, they practice getting out of stance and getting to the baseball and throwing down to third. (Third baseman is always yelling on a past ball either right or left depending where the ball goes.) Third baseman is also practicing his tags and positioning at the bag.

We also work on foul balls up around home plate,  the catcher again in the catcher position. We work with them on finding the ball and getting under it. Depending on the mask we teach them to remove or keep mask on. This has come up huge and helped in key times of some games.

One other baseball drill we do with the entire team.
Competition- we split team into two teams and put in right and left fields. The baseball coach hits high pops alternating to each field. They get a point for catching the ball and a point for making a good throw to second base. A coach is there to make the judgment call and catch the ball as well as award the point. The players seemed to really like this skills game.

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From Tom…
A baseball drill I found the kids love is a form of “Pepper“.

I use it before and between baseball games to kill time and warm them up.

Basically I take the team, line them spread out across in front of me, and hit them a ball.  If one of them makes a play on it, they have to complete the effort, then pitch it back to me so I can hit to them again.

If they make a move and don’t complete, or they bobble or miss it, they are out.  I was amazed how much they work to do well and be the champ.

From Shane…
This is a baseball catcher drill–

I have my catcher crouch in position without a glove and I will toss a tennis ball at them to catch. It sounds easy but it take can take a few times to get the hang of it. The baseball catcher can’t just hold his hand there because the ball will bounce off. The catcher has to give a little to catch it.

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From Rod…
One challenge of coaching baseball to the age range of 5 to 8 year old boys is keeping them focused during basic ground ball and fly ball baseball drills.

Our team has two baseball coaches; we each take half of our team and work on various baseball drills.  Even in these smaller groups of around 6-8 players each, it only takes on player that might be a bit squirrelly to create a fire storm of silliness that quickly spreads to the remaining kids.  To reduce this, both of us split the kids into mini infields (1st, 2nd and 3rd) with 2 to 3 players at each position.  We then work on fielding drills with them.

This keeps some distance between the kids, keeps the drills moving along faster, and helps keep the kids focused.

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From Brad…
Here is our version of the scrambled eggs baseball drill.  It takes a little advance planning to rotate everyone through but it teaches a lot of skills and we have fun doing it.  We call it 7 inning scramble.

Put 9 players in the field and use the rest as runners.  The first runner stands in the batting box with an egg in each hand.  The coach hits a baseball for the runner and the game is on.  Everyone plays as if it is a real game.

I place a cone near the pitching rubber and one in center field.  If the runners score 3 runs before 3 outs, the infielders run to the outfield cone and back and the outfielders run to the cone at the mound and back.  If the fielders get 3 outs before the runners get 3 runs, the runners all run the bases. Since the coach is hitting, they can make a hit that will get someone on base, make a close play, a fly or a bunt.  I like to reward whoever is hustling.  If the fielders are working hard, I might hit a soft grounder and give them a double-play chance.  If the runners are aggressive and stealing, I might hit a rocket past 3rd base.

Each inning we change fielder positions and runners and I usually have that planned out in advance.  Everyone gets to run at least 3 innings and usually play 3 positions.  Even if the fielders get 3 outs we keep batting until all the runners have a turn.

Sometimes we have a baseball coach giving the runners signs and other times we have penalties for making a running or fielding error.

7 innings take about ½ hour and we get great fielding experience, base running, some conditioning from running the cones or bases and have fun doing it.  For some reason, when you put eggs in the players hands, they remember to slide properly but we still end up with some gooey fingers.  I always bring a role of paper towels.

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From James…
T-Ball Drill

The new hit for my 4 year olds is called “hoping like a frog” baseball drill.

I first explain how important it is to bend the knees to get low to the ground. Also this helps to get in front of the baseball when it is coming towards you.

I have all the 4 year old’s hop around first and say “ribbit”. They get very into it! Then I break them up into groups of 3-4 and ask a couple of parents who were paying attention to help out. You say, “are you ready my little frog?” They say “ribbit”. Roll the ball just to the left or right of them and watch as they hop in place and bend down to get the ball. Then have them throw it back. That’s it!

The kids really loved it and I ran the drill 2-3 times through for each group. Parents all said it was a very creative drill and very effective. Hope it works for you and others!

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