Practice Plan for Saturday

(From April 17)

I hope we'll be able to squeeze in a practice tomorrow before the rain comes. If we do, we'll be playing very short handed: four players will not be there -- Owen with a broken foot and Nino, Zach and Harris all have a soccer game.

That leaves us with 8.

So let's modify our practice plan. We need to keep the cage work going, so I propose we do 30 minutes of hitting in the cage -- 10 minutes for each group of 3, 3 and 2.

It's probably a good idea to limit them to 7 pitches each as in a real game. Get them used to that routine, while at the same time getting them in and out of the cage fast so everybody is getting good BP. But I'll leave that up to the capable hitting instructors.

Meanwhile, we'll have the other 5 or 6 boys in the infield/outfield working on relay throws. For this, we'll position them at RF, CF and LF as well as have a SS and 2B. We'll work on teaching the SS to be the cutoff man on anything hit to the left side of CF and the 2B cutting off everything hit to the right side. So we'll want the RF hitting the cutoff man (2B), who then throws it to the SS at 2B. Likewise, the LF will hit the cutoff man (SS), who will throw it to 2B (2B). The SS/2B will then throw to the pitcher -- either a player or a coach.

Then, we will have a full team fielding drill for 20 minutes. This will be a drill called "10" in which I randomly hit the ball to fielders, who then must make the play according to the situation in less than 4 seconds (We'll need a coach to SCREAM the countdown). This is drill is made more fun by challenging the team to make 10 consecutive clean plays. If they boot one or make a bad throw, etc., the count resets to zero. (Maybe we can get some coaches to run the bases?)

We'll wrap up with 10 minutes of baserunning.

Practice Plan:

Pre-practice Warm-ups
5 minutes: Throwing and catching
5 minutes: Running
5 minutes: Stretching

Station Drills
30 minutes: 10 minutes each group

• Hitting: Soft toss, quick stick, T work, cage work (Dave, Bill)
  

• Fielding: Cutoff Drill (James, Amy)
  

Game Situation Fielding

20 minutes: Team fielding (drill "10")

"10"

Goal: To develop defensive proficiency, focusing on catching the ball and getting rid of it quickly

Procedure:

• Players at their spots, one coach fungoes, another times how fast the fungoed ball reaches first base, or if hit to the outfield, how fast the ball is relayed back to 2B.
• Players must make 10 straight plays in less than 4.5 seconds each (the average runner's time to first base)
• Any mistake returns count to zero.

Practice Wrap-up

10 minutes: Baserunning (Run through 1B; 1B to 3B; Home to 2B; 2B to Home; Home Run, finishing with a slide)