Thanks everyone!
Those total control balls are way to costly for me. I'd be willing to pick up a bucket of the lite flights. I think those will work out for some things. Do they take a beating pretty well? I was thinking i could have like 2-3 stations of a pair of kids doing soft toss against the wall with those, 2 kids in the batting cage. a pitcher and catcher throwing a pen, and then that would leave me with just 4-5 kids and enough room to be doing some grounders and other stuff in the meantime while rotating kids in and out of each station. I like the idea of ending with a scrimmage too, would give us a chance to work on some situations, even if our basepaths are much smaller than 90 haha.
couple more things:
What do you guys think of pitching machines vs. a live person in the cage? I always hated the machine as a kid and felt like i couldnt get the timing with a ball dropping into the machine vs. an actual person winding up. I abandoned the machine last year and just threw from behind an L screen from about 20-30 ft. away, but I'd be willing to go back to the machine if experience shows an advantage. thoughts?
Also, I understand that preseason should be when we spend more time on conditioning. in a 1 1/2- 2 hour indoor practice, how much time would you guys typically spend on conditioning vs. skills and stuff? And what are some ways that you motivate during conditioning exercises to really get kids to push it? I tried last year doing things like wall torture, or planks and whoever lasts the longest doesn't have to do sprints...that type of thing. But I always felt like i could have been getting more out of them. a few kids would really rise to the occasion and a lot would just fold out early and rest up for their sprints while the other kids really pushed it... pretty disappointing, but its the culture of the school thats gotta be turned around...doesnt happen overnight.
Thanks again everyone!