Category Archives: Coaching

10 Points For Coaching Baseball Catchers

Here are 10 coaching points we teach our catchers.

We will always have at least 4 catchers in our program each year. Two Junior Varsity catchers and 2 varsity catchers make up our catching staff each year. Here are 12 basic things that we teach our catchers to know or do. There are others things but here are the basic 12 we start with.

1. Wear your chest protector loosely. Do not strap it on too tightly. If the chest protector is too tight to the chest, the ball will bounce farther away from the body on a block. A loose fitting chest protector deadens the energy of the ball on impact allowing the ball to fall closer to the plate.

2. With no runners on base, keep the bare had behind your back. With runners on base, depending on the level of play, the catcher may position the bare hand behind the mitt.

3. The correct blocking position requires that you drop immediately to you knees. Learn to drop to block. Kick your feet back from under your body and get the knees on the ground as soon as possible.

4. The correct blocking position has the mitt in a flattened out or vertical position to block the hole under the crotch. The mitt must be flat and vertical to prevent a ball from ramping or deflecting upward off of the mitt.

5. The correct blocking position has the chin tucked, the upper body slightly leaned forward, and the elbows slightly out from the body.

6. The correct blocking position has the bare hand behind the mitt.

7. If you see that pitch is going to be in the dirt assume the blocking body position immediately. Learn to react quickly. Do consider catching it, you job is simply to keep the ball in front.

8. If time allows use a circling or rounding technique to get around the ball and direct it back to the plate. This is possible with slow pitches but is impossible to do with high velocity pitchers. Keeping the shoulders square is the only alternative when your pitcher is throwing the heat.

9. Know how to hide signs when you give them. Keep the legs as close as possible. Keep the sign hand as deep as possible and high enough that the fingers are in the crotch and not visible below. Put your left forearm your left thigh. Turn your arm so your mitt palm is in the hand-shake position off the front of your knee.

10. Establish a good rapport with the umpire. Keep the climate positive around the plate. Should he ask you a question, always respond with a Yes, Sir or No Sir.

Find Baseball Coach’s Drills

There are plenty of great books out there that have baseball coaching drills in them. You can get these book either at your local library and book store. The best part about getting them this way is that once you buy the book you are free to consult them over and over again. Plus, these books are so crammed full of information that you might run out of practices before you run out of drills.

Another option is buying some coaching dvds. The dvds are usually built around a system and instead of just giving random drills they will usually progress your players around. For example, they might built a base one day and then build on that the next. One of the downfalls of dvds are that their baseball coaching drills seem to be out of date with today’s baseball practices.

A third option is searching the web, like you are now, and hoping to find some real gems. The internet has access to great drills but it’s so big that you really have to know exactly what you are looking for. A huge advantage of the internet is the access to online baseball instruction. You can pay a one time fee, and have continually updated information in the form of an online book, or ebook. Just make sure the author is credible (testimonials are great for this).

If you are looking for baseball coaching drills hopefully this article has helped you out. Keep practicing hard and keep winning games, and drills can certainly help that.