Simple Baseball Practice Drills
The best way to make yourself a better baseball player is to use simple drill to improve your skills. Baseball is game that relies more on skill than any of the major sports. In football and basketball athletic ability can get you very far even without a mastery of game specific skills. In baseball, however, one needs to have perfect mechanics along with strength to be able to succeed. To help you improve these skills take a look at a few of these simple baseball drills.
Soccer Ball Power Drill
One of the most important elements of baseball is having a powerful swing. While lifting weights can help improve your power, the best way to do this is to practice your actual swing while focusing on hitting for power. Put a plunger in the barrel of tee and place a soccer ball on the tee. Focus on powering through the ball and not allowing the heavier ball to mess up your mechanics. At first you will find that your bat may bounce back a little before you can finish the swing, but as you practice you will see that you are more and more able to swing through the soccer ball. Just imagine how this extra power will translate into your baseball swing.
Location Hitting
Being able to hit to general locations, such as left vs. right vs. center is an important part of your job as a hitter. Where you hit the ball is a combination of where in the zone the ball is thrown (inside pitches get pulled, one up the middle go to center, and those outside go the opposite) and how deep in the zone you make contact. The key to hitting balls hard is to make sure that you aren’t trying to force the ball somewhere it shouldn’t go. To do this take a pitching and set it to pitch to the outside part of the plate. Start off by taking swings that stop at the point of impact with the ball. For outside pitches you should be making contact behind your hands, those in the middle should be even with your hand, and those inside should be the hit in front of your hands. After you have gotten your impact point right begin taking full swings focusing on hitting balls to specific fields.
Relay Drill
When balls are hit to the outfield they are often thrown to relay men whose job it is to throw out runners. To practice this drill, arrange two lines of players. The goal of this drill is to have them throw the ball down the line as quickly as possible while making sure that they are turning the right direction and making accurate throws. This drill quickly motivates players to learn it since they are competing with another group.
Using these simple baseball drills you should be able to improve you fundamental baseball skills and be a better all-around player no matter what position you play on the baseball diamond.
