Little League Baseball Practice Plans – Use of Practice Time

Time is one of the biggest assets a coach has, but it has to be used appropriately. This is especially true when setting up little league baseball practice plans. 

When a coach arrives to practice unprepared or overwhelmed, athletes will immediately pick up on that and follow suit.  Pretty soon, you have endured a frustrating, useless baseball practice.  Everyone leaves in a bad mood, realizing that nothing was accomplished and blaming someone else.

When coaching, your job is to lead your players through drills, improve technique, prepare them for competitions, and build self-confidence and team unity.  If you do not have your practice planned, none of these things will occur.  Just like a teacher, a coach must have a “lesson plan” of sorts.

Certain things should be kept constant in practice.  There should always be time for a warm-up and stretching at the beginning of a practice.  During this time, you should help your team transition into “practice mode” and focus on the work at hand.  You should help them prepare their bodies sufficiently for the physical exertion ahead and help them concentrate on what they individually need to improve.

Little League Baseball Drills – Squaring Ground Balls

I sent out a request for my newsletter subscribers to send in their best free little league baseball drills. Check out these drills

below sent in by Kent and Roger (very creative!).

From Kent…
I use this baseball drill to teach the progression of squaring a ground ball, backhanding or forehanding it or diving for it.

I use a machine to place ground balls in the hole. Have the players move them in to a position that challenges them. After a few

attempts we have them move stop where the stop must be made with a backhand or forehand stop. Then more of a distance to teach them

to lay out or dive for the stop.

After each progression has been completed a few times we mix it up. We work this drill from all positions in the infield and have

each player take one turn then rotate. Also you can have a player play any base to teach a quick recovery into a throwing position

and the release of the ball as they throw to the designated base.

From Roger…
I have a player stand in between two cones about ten feet apart. The player breaks down and I roll a ball towards the player off to

one side and the player has to slide over and get in front of the ball. The player must then get the ball back to the coach. As the

ball gets to the player I throw a second ball to the other side of the player and they have to slide over in front of this ball and

pop up and make a good throw back to the coach.

Little League Baseball – Monkey in the Middle

Coming up with new ideas for drills for free little league baseball can sometimes be a challenge. Here’s a baseball drill from Steve

that is working well.

Monkey In The Middle

This helps my players, when throws come in from the outfield, to quickly relay the ball. Also helps on double plays.

Imagine a tic-tac-toe board. Place a person in each box with three balls, one given to each person on the end of the row. To start,

that person throws to the one (monkey) in the middle row. She then throws to the person on the other end. Then that person throws

back to the person in the middle and then throws to the person starting the sequence. Then the process is repeated.

This starts slow and speeds up as you go. What this helps develop is that the monkey in the middle turns towards the person throwing

the ball with their throwing arm side. This allows the ball to come into the gloved hand, across the body. This will allow the

throwing hand to be behind the ball ready to throw as oppose to catching the ball out in front of you, and having to then turn the

body towards the target.

The coach must watch and correct each player when they step toward the thrower with their gloved hand because they will!