The [tag]baseball tips and drills[/tag] below are fundamental and fall into the “oldies but goldies” category. All your players especially your youth players should get introduced to these [tag]baseball drills[/tag] and use them in their practices. Thanks to Tom for sending them to me.
1. Catching fly balls–Place thumbs together. It forces them to get UNDER the [tag]baseball[/tag] and not reach out for it.
2. Hitting Fly balls: Don’t hit them, it takes too long. Throw them. You can throw them where ever you want. You get twice as much practice time on the drill too than if you were hitting.
3. Throwing: Tee (arms straight out, legs spread too), Bend (at elbow, palm back as if touching a fence), Throw. ( Don’t move your head – look at your target, rotate waist to throw ). Follow-through: ( Bring your arm down and brush the side of your body by your waist) with it, so you don’t stop the throwing motion.) Tee, Bend, Throw, Follow-through.
4. Hitting: Young players sometimes don’t understand what swinging hard actually is, so demonstrate that to them. Swing without the baseball, hard, tell them feedback like: that was 1/2 hard, 3/4 hard, then full hard swing. A hard swing sometimes straightens out something in their swing.