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Batting Drills and Batting Practice For Youth
Baseball
Here are some ideas for batting practice. You will
want to use a variety of these drills. Make sure all players get a
significant amount of batting practice each week. With all drills,
make sure the batter uses proper form.
Batters Hitting To The Infield
Have a coach pitch or use a pitching machine to pitch
to players as they rotate in from field position. Have the infield and
outfield players try to make a play on first base if possible and
perhaps even designate a runner. Make sure you are pitching hit-able
balls. They don't have to be fast balls. The advantage of this drill
is that you get fielding practice and the coach can closely watch the
batter to see that proper form is used. The disadvantage of this
drill is that each player only gets a few at-bats and a lot of players
are not doing anything. Still, it is worth doing once in a while as it
reproduces the full game experience. Don't have one of your pitchers
pitching as you may spend a lot of time chasing wild pitches with
little actual batting or fielding.
Live Pitching
While other batting practice is going on, have batters
individually bat against a live pitcher throwing against a fence or
backstop or to a catcher. Use a pitcher that can throw the most
consistent strike pitches. Have each batter hit 3-5 balls. This drill
is a must since it is the only one that truly emulates a game
batting situation.
Hitting Wiffle Golf Balls
Have your players pair off. Then, one player underhand
tosses a wiffle golf ball to the batter and the batter takes their
full stride and swing to hit the wiffle golf ball. Have a coach
check in on all the groups to watch for correct form. The
advantage of this drill is that a lot of hitting takes place by all
players and batters can focus on watching the ball and using good
form.
Batter "Good Eye" Drill Using Colored Dots
Place several red dots on one ball, several blue dots
on a second ball, and several green dots on a third. Have a
pitcher randomly grab a ball and then call out a color as he/she is
pitching, keeping the true identity secret from the batter. The
batter should hit the ball if it matches the color called out by the
pitcher. The pitcher should call out the true identity about
half the time and a false identity half the time. If the actual
dot color does not match the color called out, the batter should not
swing. This drill forces the batter to closely watch the ball
all the way in from pitcher to bat.
Batter "Good Eye" Drill Using Multiple Balls Thrown
Have a coach underhand toss two balls and call out
"top" or "bottom" as the balls are released (or after being released).
The batter must hit the correct ball. This drill forces the
batter to watch the ball all the way in.
Using a Pitching Machine (9-12 yr old Youth Level)
Pitching machines, many say, are a nice tool for
eliminating younger player's fear of the ball. Some will argue,
however, that ultimately the batter must overcome the fear of a live
pitcher. At any rate, the pitching machine delivers a lot of hit-able
balls and is a nice supplement to live pitching and other forms of
practice. Most will advise using a pitching speed of 45-50MPH. It has
been said by some that if you use overly fast speeds, bad habits may
be reinforced. Speeds lower than this are also not recommended. One
may very easily make these balls pitch in at slightly different
locations by manually tilting the machine up or down a bit - many feel
this is a good idea to keep the batter's eye on the ball and prevent
swinging to a single spot. As with any batting drill, make
sure the batter uses proper batting form.
Used pitching machines
may be found at ebay.
Using a Batting Tee
Batting tees are a nice tool for developing good
mechanics, follow-through, and bat speed and are used at all levels of
play. You can build a bunch of these tees for your team (or for at
home) for under $15 each using these
batting tee plans. As the batter bats, a coach should make
sure they are using proper mechanics. Vary the height of the
ball to insure the batter keeps eyes on the ball.
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