Better B.P.???

I personally don't think that kids need to see kids pitching in practice. Think about the majors, each team has a batting practice pitcher and that's it, they don't use other players.

We split the kids up into groups of 3 or 4, depending on how many kids you have.

One group hits (baserunning included in this group), one shags, one live off the bat and one in the cage. If you have enough adults, you can hit fungoes in between pitches.

Work the batting group in rounds of 10 or less.

Keeps everything moving.

Each round can be a different situation.

95 % of players swing during their stride. Set up a station that is fun that eliminates that problem completely and your team will hit better. It solves the limited cage problem too for $89. Best of all it is fun!

www.swingbuster.com see Hands Back Hitter

Oh ! and plenty of them are going to Texas...you guys must play a lot of baseball out there

swingbuster
You have a PM
T-Ball

T-Ball,

We have broken into the same groups as MLL described but have found it to be monotonous. Here is another variation:

Group 1 - hit live & base running
Group 2 - cage working short toss inner half
Group 3 - cage working short toss outer half
Group 4 - field live & fungoes

We have just found that with this set up, we get more done. Also, you can do Groups 2 & 3 with only 1 cage and 2 'L' screens.

Really, I can't think of anytime that we just hit. When we have a hitter hitting live off of a player or coach, we also have two hitters hit fungos to fielders standing at ss and 2nd. We also have one hitter hitting tee or bunting off of a ATEC Rookie machine. As far as shagging, you really only need 2 shaggers for the field. A suggestion, break up your players into categories like outfield, infielders or even in positions if you have more than one or two that play a position. Then, you can rotate them into fielding positions as they also rotate into hitting positions. This is a complicated way to run a practice but if you are organized, you can get so much more done than with simple hitting.

I have a bp drill that allows each kid to get 16 live bp cuts, 16 t cuts, 16 soft toss cuts, 16 fly balls/ground balls (depends on if you're a inf or outfielder) and their sprints in (as the shag).

A twelve player team can finish the entire thing in 35 minutes (as a pregame bp). If you don't want to rush it's easy to finish in 45 minutes.

I detest the standard "stand around" bp with one kid hitting and the rest shagging. I mean........talking about who they're shagging.

Complicated to explain but very easy once you get the hang of it.

Need 3 Coaches and 64 baseballs.

For all levels that I coach reguardless of age I will go with at least 5 groups. With you limitation of access to a only one cage you can still get a lot. I like redbird5 set up. It depends on if you want to do all offense or some offense and some defense. If you want all offense the I would recommend this: 6 Groups x 10-12 mins
Group 1 - Cage live
Group 2 - Tees next to cage
Group 3 - Big wiffle balls
Group 4 - Small golf wiffle balls
Group 5 - Live on field
Group 6 - Shag
This will put only 2-3 kids in a group and will maximize the amount of hitting and minimize the amount of sitting around and doing nothing. If you want to do both Offense and Defense then I would probably do this:
6 Group x 8-12 mins
Group 1 - Cage live
Group 2 - Tee
Group 3 - Big wiffle balls
Group 4 - Small wiffle balls
Group 5 - Ground balls / fly balls
Group 6 - Base running
You can mix up the groups and do anything you want (bullpens, pitcher fielding, bunting, etc..) there is no limit. It is based on what you need to work on. I alway like a lot of groups with small amount of kids. It maximizes the hitting and there really in not sitting around doing nothing. You can get a lot done in a little over an hour.

Swingbuster's Hands Back Hitter is cool and a functional. I used it as a station with my 13U competitive team with good results.

Also demo'd these at numerous tournaments this past spring. The first few attempts are very revealing, but it's amazing how quickly the players adjust....they don't have a choice if they want to hit the ball with some authority.

All kids regardless of age love it. They STAND IN LINE to try it out and then get back in line so they can do it again. Crazy.

Anyway, I have inventory so if someone is in TX (or anyplace else for that matter) and wants one drop me a PM.