How To Write Better Baseball Practice Plans

How to Write Better Baseball Practices Plans

Backed by a successful 30 year coaching career, I am going to share with you how to write better practice plans that produce results.

These thoughts on what goes into a baseball practice have been selected because I have seen them used, heard them talked about, and I have used them myself with great success.

The purpose of my post is to share with you content you can use to write better baseball practice plans using CONSISTENT, ACTIONABLE, REPEATABLE, & EXACT COACHING POINTS.

I am going to share:

Objectives for a Quality Baseball Practice
Practice Organization on a Daily Basis
Exclusive Checklist on What to Coach
Install Plan for Success
Plus Much More

As you prepare to write a baseball practice you need to think about:

How do you run a good baseball practice?
How do you organize a good baseball practice?
What should I practice for baseball?
How do I organize my kids' baseball practice?

Let’s get to work. . .

How do you run a good baseball practice?

A good baseball practice is a highly organized and structured time where a group of players are able to get high quality repetitions and practice their game-like skills at game-like speed under game-like conditions. This process is repeated daily.

The best baseball practice plans will incorporate the “5 Objectives to Baseball” as well as implement “practice routines.” By implementing these two you are giving your players more confidence in themselves and in you (the coach).

The teams that can execute these 5 Objectives at a high level and on a consistent basis will win more games. With these objectives at the fore-front of your planning, you now have to create routines.

With solid routines, the players believe in you and they believe in themselves. When this combination happens, you are in for a great time. So as their coach, spend some time and prepare the best practice you can.

When thinking about your next practice you have to visualize how you help your players get optimal opportunities to practice and improve their skills based on the amount of time, space, equipment, and coaches.

No matter what level you coach, a baseball practice plan has objectives, or clear expectations of what needs to be covered in order to be successful. Not all objectives have to be covered in one practice session. You can choose just one, 2-3, or all of them. The important thing to remember here is make sure you cover them all every week. Have a look at my list of objectives and compare them to what you have. I call this my Baseball Curriculum.

What I want you to realize is this: from Little League to Major League Baseball the objectives are all the same.

Sidenote: Mentally, it is proven that routines build confidence. And everyone wants a confident player/team.

As you plan your practice and think about routines, you need to consider how you will start practice, transition from one phase to the other, and end of practice.

Here are some routines for you to consider implementing:

Warm-Up & Throwing Drills
Individual Drills
Group Drills
Team Drills

In each of these routines there is a specific purpose!

The purpose for a warm-up & throwing routine is to get the blood flowing in the body with a dynamic stretch and arm care/throwing program which prepares the body for premier effort while reducing possible injury.

The purpose for individual drills are to get the player’s mind focused and allow the player time and space where he can practice the necessary skills he needs to be successful. He must practice ALL skills.

The purpose of group drills is to have more than one position work on a situational play that will happen and give them optimal time and space to work on ALL the possible movements, situations, and skills necessary to make the play.

The purpose for team drills are to bring all nine positions together and work on team situations that come up and execute with efficient and effortless ease.

When you implement the above drill series during the course of one practice or a couple of times a week, you are giving the position players valuable reps on game-like skills in game-like situations at game-like speed. The trick is to replicate this process daily! If this is not happening, you are wasting your time.

A key thing to remember when you coach is to take nothing for granted, plan for the best but prepare for the worst and build your team’s confidence by creating “routines” they believe in. Some routines are as follows:

Throwing
Fielding
Hitting
Pitching
Baserunning

This has been a quick summary on how to organize a baseball practice.

The meat and potatoes of planning are coming. . . keep reading.

Have a PLAN and WORK the PLAN!

A baseball coach can not show up to the field and not know what he wants to do. I mean, you can - but it won’t be very productive and there will be lots of wasted time.

A coach needs to spend at least 15 minutes planning the next practice. It always took me longer because I had all the players named in positions, rotations, and batting order and hitting groups.

Here is a General Baseball Practice Plan you can have.

When we hit the field, we hit the field with a purpose and no wasted time. It was a work of art.

OK - enough about me. Let's back to helping you.

Build your practice plan the night before and build it with your routines. You can read my routines here and compare to what you have prepared.

Why are having routines so important?

Again, routines breed confidence.

The players and coaches know what is expected, in what order, and what needs to be done. This keeps practice running smoothly with confidence.

The routines you plan need to include individual, group, and team defensive drills . . . and don’t forget about hitting drills, hitting on the field, and baserunning.

Want More Baseball Practice Routines?

How do you organize a good baseball practice?

The way to organize a good baseball practice is to be aware of how many players will be attending, the baseball objective you want to teach, the space available, the equipment needed, and how many coaches are present.

Starting off each practice will be a welcome and a short summary of what will be taught today and what the player should be able to do before they leave.

Second thing to do is get the player’s blood flowing with some type of warm-up. It has been my experience that the older the players are, the more time they need to warm-up. The older player will need a dynamic stretch followed up by an arm care routine, throwing lightly, and then long-toss. The younger player can run the bases once and get to throwing.

Third item is to practice on defense. Depending on the time, you can select 1 to 3 drills and do each one for a select period of time. Example: ground balls with throws to first base (5 minutes), ground balls and turn a double play (5 minutes), and slow rollers with a throw to first base (5 minutes).

Fourth and the players favorite is to hit. If space and equipment are available you can set up a hitting station. I always liked having a short tunnel (45’), a long tunnel (70’), and 6 sock nets. Take a look at my rotation and plan for more details. This hitting circuit would take about 30 minutes.

Fifth part of practice is hitting on the field. You can refer to the “batting practice” routine mentioned earlier, use your own, or get more ideas from here.

Lastly, teach the team how to baserun and practice game situations.

That is about all you need to do.

The older players will add some conditioning, weight training, flexibility exercises, and speed training. The younger kids can go home and get their homework done.

How do I organize my kids' baseball practice?

When coaching a novice team, there is no need to group. Set the players up for success and work them together teaching them how to throw and catch.

Before you have baseballs thrown everywhere, have the player simulate the throw and get his body into the “feeling” of how it is supposed to work. Then add a ball.

When you add a baseball, make sure there is plenty of room between each partner. The younger the group, the further apart they need to be. I am not talking about distance of a throw, I am saying there needs to be enough room between partners so Group A does not throw the ball to his partner and ends up hitting a player in Group B.

Now moving on up to younger players who have played before, I would organize my team based on their ability to throw and catch. The second ability to organize players is by hitting and the last way is by position.

With older players, the team can be divided by position.

The situation to avoid at all cost is having an experienced player practice with a novice. What happens here is the experienced player gets frustrated, the novice player gets scared, and in the worst case scenario: the novice player gets hit with the ball right smack in the face - ouch!

What should I practice for baseball?

The 5 Objectives of Baseball should always be your starting point.

Throw strikes
Play high level catch
Put the ball in play
Run the bases aggressively and intelligently
Control all situations

You can break these five objectives down further and base your practice on a massive list of position specific techniques and drills along with team situations that need to be covered. I refer to this list as my Baseball Curriculum.

You now have your objective, you have a curriculum; now, how do you implement this? There are numerous game situations to prepare for.

The easiest is to have your team perfect the routine plays. The infielders need to be able to throw to first and turn a double while the outfield will need to be able to throw to second base and home plate. If your young team can do these, you will win a lot of games.

The older a player gets, the more they have to be able to do. I recommend putting it all down on a calendar and getting it taught.

BONUSES

I couldn’t wait until the end, I had to give them to you know! For reading this, I am giving you 4 Bonus Baseball Practice Plan PDFs for you to use. Simply print and go practice.

Printable baseball practice plans

Want to save time in planning? Print this Baseball Install Plan.

Now that you know how to run a good practice, organize the practice, and structure the players; you are ready to bring this all together with the 10 Best Baseball Practice Plan Routines!

10 Best Baseball Practice Plan Routines

Individual Defensive Drills
Group Defensive Drills
Alternate Defensive Drill Series
Chaos Drill (Pitcher’s Fielding Practice)
Competitive Batting Practice
Hit and Run Batting Practice
On Field Batting Practice Groups with Variations
21 Outs Simulations
Live & Random Situations
Bunt Carousel & Bunt Stations

Make sure you subscribe to Diamond Notes and get weekly emails sent to your inbox. I am sharing 30 years of files, you are bound to find many files of great value! At the very least confirm what you do is done with prior success, what you do is relevant, and maybe you can take a nugget or two of knowledge to help your team.

Now, go ahead and download the detailed powerpoint presentation by Coach Casey Smith from Sharyland Pioneer High School, Mission, Texas. Coach Smith presented this at the Texas High School Coaches Association Convention.

Now you are ready to hit the next practice with a plan, a routine, and with no time wasted.

Now it’s Your Turn

I hope this article gives you some insight on how to plan your next baseball practice along with some objectives, routines, drills, and practice plans.

Now I’d like to turn it over to you:

What’s the #1 tip from this post that you want to try first?

Are you going to implement routines? How are you going to structure your weekly plans?

Or maybe you have a question about something you read.

Either way, let me know by leaving a comment below right now.