Softball Drills & Coaching Tips

Try these slow pitch softball batting practice drills with your team to improve your teams hitting skills.  The effects are immediate!

My girls were stopping their swings during games recently and this reminded me that I hadn’t done this batting “basketball” drill in awhile.  We broke out this drill and after only 4 hits with the bb drill the girls were hitting doubles and triples in the next game.

Take half deflated basketballs and place them on a tee. Have the girls set up in a normal batting stance. When they swing it forces them to follow through and shows them whether the stopped the swing or not.

PURPOSE:  This increases the power of the swing but also stops that half swing that causes the ball to just drop on the dirt.  It insures that they remember to follow-through on the swing.

Bunting-
I teach my softball team that bunting is as simple as “catching the ball with the bat”.

To show this, I have the athlete stand in the batters box in sacrifice bunting position squared up to the pitching machine without a bat.  We use lite-flite foam balls and pitch to the batter.  The right handed batter then literally catches the ball with her right hand; a left handed batter catches the ball with her left hand.  Those are the hands that control the location of the bat.

This works really well when trying to teach a right handed hitter to bunt from the left side, because in most cases she usually catches the ball with her left hand anyway.  You could also use a harder ball and have the batter wear a mitt on her catching hand. After a few successful catches or deflections (it is sometimes difficult to squeeze the foam ball with a bare hand), put a bat in her hand.

You should find improvement in eye-hand-bat-ball coordination resulting in improved bunting skills which should carry over to improved hitting as well.

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While coaching softball to my younger girls softball team(ages 11-13), I’ve noticed that if they get behind in the game it is sometimes hard to keep them focused on the game.  Here is a drill I like to do to work on just this situation.

Caught in the Pickle
I have a runner at first and a runner at third.
Have the runner attempt to steal second trying to get the pitcher or catcher to throw the ball down to get them caught in a pickle. This allows the third base runner to advance to home.  This really works well if the other team is not disciplined enough to not throw the ball.

I challenge the girls to score before the girl gets out between second.  If she can get home before she gets out they do not have to run fences.  If she does not score before she gets out they both run.

I have the girl start in between first and second with the softball on first base or second base.  Or I have a girl start running from home on a hit or walk and instruct them to keep running to second trying to bait them into making a play at second to create the pickle.

This drill teaches the runner on third to stay in the game and not to daydream and to run hard for home.  It helps teach her to be more focused on what her responsibility is to score.  There are times that the girls watch the pickle instead of running home.  It also teaches them that anytime a pickle is on if they can, to advance bases, good drill.

It teaches the runner in the pickle how to slide if she gets the chance and to be quick on her feet.  It also teaches the other girls how to perform the squeeze to get some one out.   The pressure for them to score gives them real game time pressure so they do not have to run.  It also helps explain the look back rule if the runner is coming from home plate to first and the pitcher has the ball.

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These fastpitch softball hitting drills do an amazing job in decreasing strike outs and getting the kids to make more contact with the ball putting it into play more often.

Fastpitch softball tip:  Reduce strike outs and to teach your players to keep their eye on the ball on contact.

These drills are best for 10-11 yr olds, but you can try it with athletic 9 year olds too. My girls do great with the tee and soft toss, but when it comes to hitting a pitched ball—it often falls apart.

I use the hard plastic baseballs.  First I demonstrate what I want them to do.  I have my bat and get into my stance.

I have a girl pitch a ball to me and I stop the ball from going past me by just bringing my hands to the ball and have my bat make contact with the ball. I am not swinging.  The knob of the bat is near my waist and the barrel of the bat is in contact position and my head is looking at the barrel of the bat.  This is where I show them where my head is on contact.  I’m not swinging at the pitch.  I’m consciously putting  the bat in position to make contact with the ball. It’s sort of a half -swing.

After my girls master this–and this will go quick–I have them do the drill adding a follow through.

Add a follow through (a squish the bug or hip rotation) and now they’re swinging fluidly and don’t realize it.  They just know their smacking the ball and hard.

I call out “connect and follow through” before each pitch.  Warning—Once they see how they can hit every ball pitched to them, they don’t want to stop.

This softball drill makes them keep their head in there and their eyes on the ball.  Naturally, they load on every pitch without reminders.  After they master keeping their eye on the ball—the rest is cake!  When a ball is coming 40 mph—all you have to do is put the bat on it and follow through—its going!

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This is one of the practice drills for softball that I use with my little league team. I have had good success working on defense using a “three (or more) lines” idea.

For example–we might work on picking a runner off of third base.  We would have a line for catcher, a line for third base, and a line for left fielders.

The softball coach would toss a ball to the catcher who would come up throwing to third.  Meanwhile the left fielder is immediately moving to back up the throw.

After the play is completed we rotate.  The catcher hustles to left field, left field hustles to the back of the third base line, and the third baseman hustles to the back of the catching line.  Each player keeps moving and the idea of backing up is heavily emphasized.

The basic idea of working in lines of three or more and emphasizing backing up has helped us a lot and can be used to teach/drill many situations.

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These are a couple of my softball coaching tips that I use when the attention spans are lacking at practice.  Use these sparingly so the novelty doesn’t wear off!

When I’m working mostly w/ 6U & 8U girls, it seems like their attention gets very lax when they are batting, and their bat speed suffers a little bit.  Or they go through the motion, with no real-follow through.

M tip to increase attention, bat-speed, and follow-through is to put my hand over the plate, right where the ball would be, and ask them to hit it.  Make sure you move your hand.  But if you try this a number of times, it’s amazing how fast that bat moves off their shoulder, into position, and across that plate when they try to hit the moving hand.

Occasionally the girls are really flat or distracted after a busy school day.  Recently, they were warming up throwing & missed balls were rolling everywhere.  Spur of the moment we created a competition using Starburst & Lifesaver candies to make most repetitive catches a competition.

The girls perked up, and started focusing on what they were doing just to get the small reward.  Save the reward system for when they really need it, but on a day with distractions or a lack of self-motivation, we were happy to get in a good workout.  Besides, if the softball coaches work hard, they get candy, too.

Technorati Tags: softball coaching tips, softball coach