Here are a couple of [tag]free youth baseball drills[/tag] to try with your players. The first drill is a [tag]baseball drill[/tag] I use with my 8U team to teach them what to do on force-out plays.
The 3rd baseman must field the [tag]baseball[/tag], touch 3rd (too many times they forget to do that first) and then make the throw to 1st.
The shortstop then gets a turn to field the grounder, run to 2nd, and then make the throw to 1st.
The 2nd baseman, fields it, and if we are practicing with runners, they need to tag the runner first, then make the throw to first, or if the SS covers 2nd, they make the throw first to them, then they make the throw to 1st.
This sounds simple, but constant repetition of this baseball drill has helped us in games.
My second baseball drill works on concentration. When practicing ground balls with your infielders take a black sharpie and number 5 balls from 1 to 5 on 4 sides of the ball. Have the infielders call out the number of the ball hit to them as they are throwing to ball to a particular bag.
This teaches the players to concentrate and totally focus on the ball through the fundamental progression of fielding a ground ball particularly as they funnel the ball “through the shoot”.