Sweet 16: Warm-up drills for fielding

When you work with infielders indoors, you run into the problems of space and time.  You rarely have all the space you’d like and you never have enough time.  Below is a listing of fielding drills that I often do in progression to keep everyone moving and get them to focused on the core fundamentals of fielding a baseball.

Each drill lasts only about 20-30 seconds and are done in partners.  Fielders should be able to do each progression without moving their feet.  These are rapid fire (back and forth between partners) hands/glove drills.  Their feet pretty much stay still.  

Partners can be as close as 5 yards from each other and as far as 10 yards depending on the space you have available.  Here is what the letters above the columns mean:

A = whether the players are on their knees or on their feet.  If using knees, players have their knees apart and are straight up – not resting their butts back on their heels.  If up on their feet, normal fielding stance is required.  Their hamstrings will start to burn after a while and they WILL get lazy so make sure their stance stays correct.

B = whether they use a glove or bare hands

C = whether the glove hand only is used to catch or if both hands are used.  If both hands are used, normal one-hand-over-the-other (top hand / alligator mouth) only.

D = whether the ball is rolled underhand to the partner or whether it is an overhand throw that creates a big or short hop.  A roll hugs the ground the whole way.  A big hop is a firm throw that bounces half way between the partners.  A short hop bounces right in front of the partner.  Lobbing the ball to the bounce is wrong.  It should be a firm toss.

E = where the ball is rolled or tossed.  Could be right at the partner (middle of the body), glove side, or to the backhand.  If to either side, the roll/toss should be just to the outside of the partners foot.  The fielder should not have to move his feet to get the ball.