If you’re looking for [tag]free youth baseball drills[/tag] to really jump start your team, try this Relay drill. This is a great [tag]baseball drill[/tag] for the catchers. Younger catchers really need to understand that they are also the “coach” on the field.
THE RELAY DRILL:
Hit some [tag]baseball[/tag]s deep and some balls shorter, (left and right too) so that the fielders are challenged and the relay player gets a feel for when to go out, stay put, or come deeper into the diamond to properly position themselves for the relay. The [tag]baseball coach[/tag] between home and first hits grounders to the kids at short and the coach between home and third hits grounders to the kids at second base. The kids field and throw to a receiver by the coach who hit them the ball.
They need to practice knowing when to have a player cut or throw home and they also need to practice the skill of making themselves heard.
You can explain to them that they need to understand the strength of the arm of each outfield player and that they must consider how deep the outfielder is when deciding whether to have the infielder cut or not. This is also true for the relay person in that they need to understand the strength of the outfielders arm to determine where to position themselves for the relay (and of course when to know that there is no need for a relay) .
My experience has been that most catchers at first are not comfortable with talking (yelling out) loud enough to be heard. With the catcher by your side, this is a great time for the coach to communicate with the catcher.
Since the kids love to compete, to make this more fun, you can devise a way to keep score for each team.