Coming up with new ideas for [tag]coaching youth baseball[/tag] is challenging. Here’s a [tag]baseball drill[/tag] from one of my subscribers that works well to improve performance and communication in your team.
This is a [tag]baseball[/tag] drill idea for working on cut off throws. Arrange 4-5 pylons in the outfield at least 15 feet from one another with a baseball on or beside each one. Get the same number of players to spread out on the edge of the infield and randomly number them to be parallel to the number of pylons and balls.
Then, have one player start around 10 feet from the first pylon and on your mark they run to the first pylon. Just before they get there the [tag]baseball coach[/tag] yells out number 3. Lets say at this point this will tell the player at the pylon which numbered player to throw it to. The only thing is they won’t know exactly who this person is. Only the person with that number knows. The responsibility of that player is to raise their hands and yell the persons name or something like “here here”.
The player that is throwing wants to make a good throw to the player that is the cut off guy. Once he completes the throw he continues on to the next pylon (go left to right)
I made this baseball drill up last year because I was finding a few things frustrating:
1. My team didn’t do a lot of talking on the field especially when outfielders had to make a throw into the infield.
2. Players didn’t know where to throw it to make a cut off or the infielders didn’t know who was supposed to be the cut off guy.
3. When throwing to a cut off man, whoever it might be at the time during a game, the ball never ended up to that person.
I found this drill to be a good introduction to cut off throwing, accuracy and improving communication on the field between players.