One of the areas that coaches neglect when planning [tag]baseball practice drills[/tag] is the outfield. Read below for a great suggestion on this topic.
This is a [tag]baseball drill[/tag] my young outfielders love. It can be boring at times in the outfield so this drill seems to get them fired up.
You need a shortstop and a second baseman with a catcher at the plate. The rest of the players are split in half. One half in left field and the other half is in right field.
-Coach (at the plate) hits a pop-up (or throws it) to the left fielder.
-Leftfielder immediately throws the [tag]baseball[/tag] to the shortstop (cut-off man).
-Shortstop immediately throws the ball to the second baseman at the base.
-Second baseman immediately throws the ball to the catcher at the plate.
-As soon as the catcher catches the ball, the [tag]baseball coach[/tag] launches another fly ball, this time to the right fielder, and the cycle starts all over again. At this time the leftfielder now becomes the shortstop. The shortstop goes to the back of the line in left field.
Once the play is complete in right field, the right fielder becomes the new second baseman.
This is a non-stop drill. In fact, I call it a rapid fire drill. I will use my stopwatch to time this drill. The drill is not over until every one has gone through and the catcher steps on the plate. After that, the players switch sides of the field and we start the drill over again. You will be surprised how much speed your players pick up after a couple of times doing this.
Don’t forget to time the second half of this drill after the switch. Sometimes your team may be faster on one side than the other. You can add baserunners to this drill if you want. I like to have two baserunners, one on third and one on first. I tell the runners to tag up and go after the catch.
You can add whatever you want to this drill to gain more knowledge on any potential game situation this game can come up with. The sky is the limit.
It brings so much joy to the outfielder who gets an assist in an out. As I always stress to my young outfielders, you are very imporant in this defensive setup. You are the last line of defense. Your infielders have you to back them up. All you have is a fence!