Baseball practice plan template

A practice plan that keeps everyone moving

The hardest thing about a youth baseball practice is not the drills. It is twelve players and one coach, with nine of them standing around while one takes ground balls. A plan with a start time beside every block, and drills that put everybody in a position, keeps the practice moving and tells you at a glance when you are falling behind.

So this template is a run sheet. Each block has its length and the minute it starts, counted from the first pitch, with a tick box to mark it done and the coaching cue printed under each drill. It prints on one page, with lines at the foot for notes.

What is in the plan

It is the plan the practice plan maker opens on for baseball:

• a five-minute team talk;
• a fifteen-minute warm-up of easy laps and dynamic stretches;
• ground ball to first: glove down early, field it in front, feet to first and throw to the chest, with the first baseman on the bag and the catcher backing up the throw;
• the cut-off and relay: the outfielder hits the relay in the chest, the relay turns glove-side and throws, and everybody else covers a base or backs one up;
• a water break;
• a twenty-minute scrimmage;
• a cool-down.

It runs eighty-five minutes, which fits a ninety-minute field slot with a few minutes to drag the infield.

The cues that matter in baseball

Ground ball to first practises the force play: the batter has to run to first, so the fielder only needs the ball and a foot on the bag before the runner gets there. That is why the first baseman gets to the bag early and stretches late, towards the throw. The cut-off and relay practises the tag play at third, where a runner who is not forced has to be tagged with the ball, and the habit that two good throws beat one long one from the fence.

If anyone pitches in the scrimmage, count the pitches and write them in the notes lines. Little League limits how many pitches a player may throw in a day by league age, 50 for ages 6 to 8, 75 for 9 and 10, 85 for 11 and 12, and 95 for 13 to 16, and a pitcher aged 14 or under who throws more than 20 in a day needs at least a day of rest before pitching again. Other leagues, and coach-pitch and t-ball divisions, set their own rules, so check your league's.

Changing it

On paper, cross a drill out and write yours beside it, keeping its minutes so the later start times still hold. On screen, the edit button opens the practice plan maker with this plan loaded. Swap either drill for any of the baseball drills in the library, such as bunt coverage or the rundown, change the minutes, and print it again with every start time worked out. It is free and needs no account.

For game day, the rotation maker for baseball moves every player round the field by inning, so nobody sits out twice before everybody has sat once.