Baseball Clinic Drills

A baseball clinic gives you a chance to work on skills with players, usually during the offseason or preseason. Since you probably will have a lot of kids at your clinic, you need to be organized so that they all will learn and have fun, and so that no one will get hurt. There are several drills you can do as part of your clinic to work on specific skills.

Three-Step Throwing Drill

The three-step throwing drill teaches the players at your clinic how to throw properly by breaking the throwing motion into segments. You can keep everyone together for this drill or break the kids into small groups. Pair the kids by age, and have one partner stand on the foul line and the other about 10 yards away in the outfield. Make sure there are at least 5 yards between each group. Give a ball to each player on the foul line. First, direct them to step forward with their throwing-arm-side foot. Then have them turn their shoulders and separate their hands so their gloves point at their partners and their throwing arms point straight away from their partners. Finally, instruct them to step forward with their glove-side foot and throw the ball. Call out "one," "two" and "three" to direct them through the steps.

Controlled Ground Balls and Fly Balls

The fundamentals of defensive baseball include fielding ground balls and fly balls. Regardless of their skill level, all the players at your clinic will benefit from fielding controlled ground balls and fly balls so they can focus on using the proper technique. Break the kids into small groups, and assign one coach to each group. Tell the coaches to have their players form a line and roll slow ground balls and toss fly balls underhand to one player at a time from a short distance. The coaches should provide encouragement and feedback to each player.

Hitting Stations

The best way to get all the players at your clinic a lot of batting practice in a short period of time is to rotate them through hitting stations, each manned by a coach. Set up at least four stations: a batting tee station, a side toss station, a front toss station and a game station. For the batting tee station, line up several tees and have the players repeatedly practice hitting balls into a net. For the side toss station, have a coach toss balls underhand into the strike zone from the side and slightly in front of home plate. For the front toss station, instruct a coach to throw balls underhand into the strike zone from behind a screen positioned about 5 yards in front of home plate. For the game station, have a coach pitch balls to one player at a time, and give each player points based on how hard he hits the ball. The coaches should give tips to the players about how to improve their swing.