Baseball Practice Tips

From a coaching standpoint, the most important thing about tee ball is ensuring that all of the players have a good time and are able to take something positive from the experience. While it is always nice to win, that should have no bearing on any decisions made during a tee ball game, as coaches have the responsibility to ensure that all players have a good time. By coming up with a plan and sticking to it throughout the season, coaches can keep a keen perspective on the situation and prevent themselves from getting carried away. Perhaps the best advice you will ever receive when coaching a tee ball team is to have a plan. Firstly, you must make sure that you are coaching the sport for the right reasons. If one of these reasons isn’t to have fun, you are clearly not ready to coach tee ball. I have experienced tee ball coaches in the past who have wanted to be part of a player’s development. If that is your goal, you should focus on an older age group, because tee ball players are simply too young to be thinking about a future in the sport. One thing that you will learn right away is that the players have very short attention spans and, therefore, you must do everything in your power to keep them busy. This can be a difficult task, but ensuring that everyone is active throughout practice is definitely a start. This can be more difficult during a game, since players will surely go through stages where they do not touch the ball. Therefore, you will have to come up with some other ways to keep the players focused. Of course, the best way to keep everyone focused is to focus on fun, which will be a creative process for you to figure out. I have seen many coaches rotate position players throughout an inning, which keep everyone moving and can even be a fun experience. Read the full story

Hitting off of a tee is very boring for youth baseball players.  Maybe its because they remember the days of tee ball when there were two kids per team that could actually play catch with any degree of efficiency.  Tee ball is for little kids.

Always place the tee in front of home plate except when hitting the pitch on the outside corner.

Yes, it is, but then why do so many Major Leaguers still use tees?

For teenage players, I recommend that you get them to hit off of the tee prior to going into the batting cage.  Have them work on those balls that are most difficult to hit.  Remember, that the tee should be place in front of home plate; nobody hits the ball at the plate!

Have the players work in pairs with one guy placing the balls on the tee.  This keeps the drill moving and the hitter will be more serious when he knows that somebody is watching him.

Take 5 swings with the tee at various parts of the plate.

• Down middle — Get loose with swings right down Peachtree.
• Ball away — the only one where you actually put the tee on home plate.  Stress hitting the ball deeper in the zone and hitting it the other way.
• High — The high fastball is the most difficult pitch for youth players to catch up to.  And, umpires at the youth level call this a strike much more often than they do at higher levels believing that the strike zone is to the armpits like it says in the rule book.
• Inside High — Work on pulling the inside high pitch.
• Low Inside — Work on pulling this pitch as well.
• Now take 3 swings one-handed with the trailing hand only at all 5 tee positions.
• Finally, take 3 swings one-handed with the lead hand only at all 5 tee positions.

You’ve varied the swing and made it interesting for the player.  Total swings is 55 (not bad).