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Catching Drills

Coach MercCoach Merc1,000+ posts
I had posted this on another thread but became interested in what other drills are used...The seem to be a lot of good catching coaches here...


Posted February 16, 2006 08:21 AM
Here are a couple of drills we use quite often for receiving and blocking.

Receiving:
Catcher in position behind the plate, full gear. 4 or 5 other players, coaches or catchers positioned 15-20'in front of the plate in a straight line each with at least 6 baseballs. You can start with rif or tennis balls with younger players. Starting at one end and in order each player throws a pitch one at a time. The catcher sticks each pitch and just drops the ball in front. As they get better the sequence sppeds up to a rapid fire drill...

Also receiving; no glove,catcher holds a tennis ball in his pinky and ring finger. Assumes his stance and then has tennis balls thrown to him. He catches them and holds the incoming pitch with his middle finger, pointer and thumb. Very similar to the ball being caught in the glove. To much movement by the catcher makes it very difficult to catch the pitch..He will have two balls in his hand to complete the drill..

Blocking:
We use most of the standard drop and block drills but I learned a nice drill from Coach Stone at UMass a few years ago and use it quite a bit.
Catcher sets up facing a block wall about 5' away. Coach stands behind him and throws balls at the wall. They rebound off the wall onto the ground, the catcher has to react and block each one. This can be done with tennis balls or real baseballs. As both get better, it's a great drill since it is totally reactionary. The catcher can only see the bals location when it his the wall and has very little time to react.
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CoachB25CoachB25Honorary "Old TImer"
At our "rules meeting" two years ago, an ump asked the coaches why we don't teach the catcher to make contact with the ump on a pop fly over the catcher's head, seal the ump drop step and all like a post player in basketball and then play the ball. Caught me off guard with this question. His rational. He kept getting caught in "no man's land" on the popups and invariably got hit by the mask when the catcher threw it. He said, if the contact is made, he knows where to run after that seal. We take an ATEC Rookie Machine and set it up for popups. We take 3 catchers at home plate and in gear. We have one feed the machine, one be the ump and one be the reciever of the popup. They then rotate. NOTE - be careful where you have the popups thrown. You don't want your catcher running into that machine. BTW, we've never had an ump complain about this technique.
Last edited by CoachB25
06catcherdad06catcherdad1,000+ posts
What about some of the lower body drills? We talk a lot about techniques, but seldom do we say much about working on the catcher's legs other than footwork drills for throwing.

We don't do it often, but will have our catchers duckwalk from home to first, do frog jumps, lunges, and similar work in their gear at the end of some of their workouts to strengthen their legs. We don't do it often, and never after a hard practice. They don't like doing these drills, but it does help their legs.
CollegeParentNoMoreCollegeParentNoMore1,000+ posts
Low budget Popups:

Popups can also be done with a tennis racket and incrediballs or tennis balls. With a little practice the catcher can hit himself popups. (Catcher puts his glove on the ground in front of him, then hits himself a popup, he then lowers himself to put his glove on and then locates the ball and tosses the racket).

The incrediball or tennis ball also forces the player to use soft hands to catch.

I'll admit the pitching machine can put the ball up much higher thereby making it more challenging/fun for most kids. In fact I like to use the pitching machine for outfield popups at the end of practice -- the kids really enjoy the challenge.

B25 thanks for the umpire tip, I'll give that one a try.

I have seen a manufacturer advertise a racketball looking racket to hit popups for catchers. Has anyone tried it? Is it better then a $9 tennis racket?

Lower body work:

Another interesting drill I've seen is having the catcher take groundballs on the infield in full gear. As far as I know my son has pretty much relied on running and the weightroom for lower body work.

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