As a coach I am always trying to come up with fresh ideas to hone my teams baseball skills and drills. Here are two simple quick drills that work well and the kids even ask to do them because they see the improvements quickly!
Eye-Hand Coordination
To develop eye-hand coordination I have the players take a knee in a radius about eight to ten feet from me and I toss them wiffle balls and show them how to catch using two hands. After getting comfortable with wiffle balls I switch to tennis balls. They are comparable in size to baseballs but not as hard.
After they get the knack of catching with their hands I have them catch using their gloves. Only after I see that they can get their glove on the ball do I transition to real baseballs. It’s fun to watch kids progress from being afraid of getting hit by the ball to having confidence in knowing they can catch the ball.
Throwing Accuracy Drill
Here’s another baseball drill I came up with to help my 10year old team improve their accuracy in the game. During warm up I actually hold my glove to my chest with it as wide open as I can get it.
Then I tell my boys to practice this with their dads. They have to try to get the ball directly into the glove with little or no adjustment to catch the ball. I think this drill fine tunes their throwing mechanics.