offseason competition

JMW37- I don't have any ideas off the top of my head, but I, as a player, thoroughly appreciate what you are doing. Making practice competitive is both fun and efficient, as well as realistic. The best conditioning days are those that we're competing against one another. You don't realize how much you do, you just do it because you want to win.

Some others...
-Agility course races
-Linear throwing relay races
-Around-the-horn timed throwing races
-team vs team bunting - coach pitches from behind Lscreen, field a team in infield w/corners kept honest behind cones until contact. each player gets AB, reaching safely is a point.
-IF knockout - using safety basballs, coach hits hard grounders between two cones. each player on team rotates in to take a turn and is eliminated with a ball thru. count total team reps before last guy is out.

Fifteen years ago I heard Rick Dell (then the coach at College of New Jersey) give a talk where he described some of the drills he used to maintain his players' passion for the game during winter workouts in the field house. I remember thinking, I'd like to play for this guy.

He's still at it, as MLB's lead guy in China.

"He’s innocently, impossibly optimistic, the kind of man who told his staff at a January meeting that the myth of Sisyphus is a fable about the need to make work fun."
http://www.hemispheresmagazine...011/10/01/the-pitch/

Coach
We break our team into smaller teams also. We award points through the offseason on the following items

Grades
Attendance at workouts
Wearing school colors on Friday
Attending special events (coach designates event)
Community service projects (food and toy drives)
Team competitions
Baseball articles that they find and review on their own.
Attending tutoring sessions

I pick seniors to be the captains, they select a co captain. They have a draft. Everyone knows when they where picked in the draft (tells them what their teammates think of them). Leading team after every 4 or 5 weeks gets pizza after workouts. Individuals can also earn a bracelet, stocking cap, and tshirt based on different levels they attain.

We will be doing this for the 3rd year and it is really gaining steam. Some of the seniors have done it since Soph year and they are really looking forward to having their own team.