Infield Fundamental Drill Series
"Excellence is achieved by the mastery of the fundamentals." -Vince Lombardi
Fundamentals are what is taught as soon as an athlete starts any sport. Until that athlete retires or has to stop playing, will that athlete ever stop practicing fundamentals. Without being fundamentally sound, excellence cannot happen. No athlete can be excellent at anything until he or she has mastered the fundamentals. Here is the other thing about fundamentals, it is close to impossible to be a master at every fundamental. The reason is because we are all human. Even the Gold Glove Major League athletes make errors. This is part of the development of all athletes. We will not master everything as athletes, so practicing the fundamentals will always happen.
What happens when fundamental practice becomes dry? Lack of engagement, bad repetitions, and injuries. The question is now, how can we as coaches make fundamental practice more engaging? Today I will show you a fundamental drill package that is engaging and game-like. Most of these drills I have taken from the Atlanta Braves's Ron Washington and the Cleveland Indian's Kainoa Correa. Both coaches are two of the best at teaching infield defense. Therefore, I am excited to show you some of their fundamental drills that have improved many athletes.
Before starting this drill series, it is important to go over key points of focus with your infielders. When catching a grounder your infielders should have their eyes, glove, and ball all lined up. When they catch the grounder, they should bury their chin into their chest. It is also important to tell your infielders what they should fundamentally do on specific kinds of ground balls. On short hops, the infielder should work through the ground ball. For in-between hops, infielders should also work through the ball. For long hop ground balls, the infielder can either work through this ground ball or funnel the ball to their chest. When it comes to working through grounders or funneling, I have no preference. It is up to the infielder to find out which style works best for himself or herself. Remember if you want the most out of your athletes, you do not want to restrict them by cookie-cutting everyone.
The first drill series that will start every single fundamental session for infielders is the Hand Series. The Hand Series has each infielder on his knees and his upper body is in an athletic stance. Each Hand Series goes for two rounds of ten repetitions.
Hand Series Drill 1:
This first drill in this series starts the day for the infielder every practice day. To introduce to the infielder what to do for a groundball to the middle, glove hand side, and back hand side, you will place a ball in each of those areas in front of the infielder. For grounders to the middle of the infielder, the infielder can either funnel the ball or he can work through the ball. For grounders hit to the glove hand side of the infielder, have the infielder work through the ball with his glove hand. On back hand grounders, have the infielder work through this grounder as well. When working through the grounder, it is important for the glove of the infielder to work smooth and straight through the ball. You do not want your infielders to have their gloves to cut across instead of going straight through. The reason being is because cutting across isn't smooth and it causes for a greater chance of an error to occur. After you have introduced and taught what to do for each ground ball, then start rolling ground balls to the infielder. For each repetition, you want your infielder to field the ball in the pocket of the glove, not the web of the glove. The pocket makes it easier for the infielder to get the four-seam grip on the baseball when the ball is fielded.
Hand Series Drill 2:
In drill two of the Hand Series, you can differentiate your ground balls to your infielders. In this drill you will roll a one hop or two hop ground ball to either the middle of the infielder, glove hand side, or back hand side of the infielder. The other grounder you will roll to the infielder is a complete roll or a roll with no hops.
Hand Series Drill 3:
The last drill in the Hand Series brings in a fungo bat. You will now hit one hop ground balls to the infielder. The key to this drill is to have the infielder catch the ground ball after the first hop. This teaches a valuable lesson to the infielder to beat the hop before the hop beats you. Many nasty injuries have happened to infielders when they are not aggressive to field the ground ball, this drill is essential in teaching this skill.
The second drill series is called the Multi-Ball Series. For this series you will need either three different kinds of balls, two kinds of colored whiffle balls and a baseball, or colored baseballs. Each ball will represent three kinds of skills to the infielder. One ball will represent a slow runner, another ball will represent an average runner, and the last kind of ball will represent a fast runner.
Multi-Ball Drill:
For this first Multi-Ball drill, have each ball represent a type of runner. For the slow runner, have your infielder take his time. When the infielder takes his time, he fields the ball, gets the proper grip, and is smooth with his footwork. For the average runner, keep the same fundamentals as the slow runner, but make the action of which you are doing this skill quicker. For the fast runner, you will want to field the ball, get your grip on the ball, plant your arm side foot, and throw. This runner is quick, so your throw should beat him if you are quick with your actions.
1st and 3rd Multi-Ball:
For this drill, you will want your infielder to either practice throwing to second base for a double play, or to look back the runner at third base and throw to first. The infielder will make his decision based off of the speed and kind of ground ball that he will get. For a quick grounder, the infielder will throw to second for a double play. On a slow ground ball, the infielder will look back the runner at third and throw to first, to prevent the run from scoring.
The last drill that will finish up your fundamental infield practice will be to take ground balls off of the fungo bat.
Standard Fungo:
Depending on the position, the kind of ground balls and the handedness of the hitter matters. For third and first basemen, you will want to hit mostly top
spin ground balls. Most ground balls in a Major League game will be top
spin grounders to the corner infielders. Over 80% of third baseman will have ground balls hit to them by right handed hitters. Over 75% of ground balls that are hit to the short stop are hit by right handed hitters. Over 66% of ground balls to the second baseman are hit by left handed hitters. Back over at first base, over 80% of ground balls are hit by left handed hitters. Therefore, when infielders are taking ground balls off of a fungo bat, have a right handed hitter hit grounders to the left side of the infield, and have a left handed hitter hit grounders to the right side of the infield. If this is what happens in the game, then it should be practiced. This makes fungo ground balls more game-like.
These are all drills that can be practiced every single day at practice. In addition to that, these drills are engaging and challenging. These challenging drills will make your infielders wanting to come to practice every single day to get better. In practice, we do not want to make it boring. In fact, we want to make the boring aspects of practice more engaging. This drill package will prepare your team for the game and have them looking forward to this time in practice.
Blog Notes:
Ron Washington Drills: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDlnzZs4DUU
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