High school baseball is a great way for students to exercise while learning how to compete and be a team player. It’s also a way for those that excel to earn a free education.

Either way, players have to build themselves up and learn specific techniques to play the game. They have to train and coordinate their muscles to do baseball-specific movements to succeed and not get injured.

The key is to practice these drills until they become second nature. You want the movements ingrained in your body, so you can do them fast without even thinking about it.

Bottle Cap Drill

The bottle cap drill is excellent for high school players to improve their hand-eye coordination. All you need is a bat, a bunch of bottle caps, and a coach or teammate to toss the cap to the batter.

The batter tries to hit the significantly smaller cap than a baseball. Although it’s moving slowly compared to a fastball, the cap will dip and drop uncontrollably, so it makes it a little harder to hit than you’d think.

Two Tee Drill

The two tee drill is another drill for hitters that helps with proper swing plane and hand-eye coordination. You need two tee’s; one waist high and another one about a foot in front slightly lower.

Place a ball on the second tee. Swing over the first tee to hit the ball off of the second one. This helps you keep your head down and eyes on the ball through contact.

Positive-Negative

The positive-negative drill is great for young hitters. Hitters stand at the plate in their batting stance. Coaches should draw a line down the center directly under the batter’s belly button and nose.

Coaches: Make sure the batter rocks back and stays firm on their back foot. Then the batter should explode through the line with their swing. Have them focus on driving through the power zone from their back leg.

Underhand Flip Drill

The underhand flip drill is great practice for turning double plays. Have two lines of players—one from the shortstop position and one from the second base position.

A coach should roll a ground ball to one of them and the player who fields it flips it to another who’s waiting on the 2nd base bag, and that player throws it to the first baseman for the double play.

Coaches: Switch sides of where you throw the ball to and don’t telegraph it, to challenge your players more.

Charge and Drop Drill

Coaches stand about 10-15 feet from your outfielders who are lined up single file. Throw the ball either five feet short or 15-20 feet behind them in the air. The outfielders will have to charge or drop back to make the play. This drill is great for transitioning and footwork. It’s also a good conditioning drill if you keep up the pace.

Pitcher’s Count

The pitcher’s count drill is fun. Split into three teams of 4-5 players each. One team takes the bat and the other two take the field. Each batter will enter the box with an 0-2 count.

The batting team gets a point for each baserunner and another point for each run scored. After three outs are recorded, rotate the teams until each team bats three times. The losing teams after three innings have to do extra sprints.

Fundamental Drills For All

Here you have drills for hitters, infielders, outfielders, and pitchers. Coaches should remember to focus on fundamentals and keep the drills tight.

High school baseball players are easily distracted. However, if you incorporate these drills that allow them to learn, get better, and have fun, they’ll be much more focused on the field.