Step Up Your Outfield Defense With These Three Drills

• By Jose Ortiz

Your outfielders are your last line of defense. You'll rely on them to keep singles from turning into doubles, and doubles from turning into triples. Playing bounces correctly, making accurate relay throws, having high game-situation awareness and making routine catches are just a few of the things you'll need from your outfielders.

Use preseason training time to work on the basics so your team will develop the right habits.

On both the youth and high school levels, a fundamentally sound team wins a lot more often than they lose - even without an all-star player.

Here are three drills to work on with your outfielders:

1. Hard Charge Ground Balls and Crow Hop 

When the opponent dunks in a base hit, you need your outfielders to charge the ball and be ready to throw as quickly as possible - especially with men on base.

Start this drill with two players lined up about 20 yards apart. Have them chuck hard ground balls to each other and practice aggressively charging and fielding the baseball, making sure to get in front and get the ball low.

The next move is for the outfielder to make a quick hop onto his strong-arm side and stride forward with the other leg for a throw back to his partner. This is a crow hop throw, and is a quick way for your outfielders to get rid of the ball. Have the partners switch sides after about five throws, then have them practice throws to the left and right.

2. Drop Step Drill

Outfielders should never backpedal to chase down a fly ball, always take a drop step, turn and run.

First of all, most people don't run backwards very quickly, secondly a backpedaling player is more likely to trip than make a play. But for youngsters who haven't been taught, this will likely be a natural reaction to a hard hit ball their way. Instead, practice the drop step.

The first phase of this drill involves two players - one who is throwing "fly-balls," the other is tracking and catching. Standing about 10 yards apart, have the thrower point to the right or left, and the outfielder takes a small drop step in that direction. When the fly ball goes up, the outfielder either runs and chases the ball down or gets behind it to make the catch.

Have your outfielders practice this over each shoulder multiple times so they can get used to drop stepping in either direction. To take this drill to the next level, hit some line drives at them.

Here we see Coach Morgan explain what goes into footwork when coaching outfielders.

Source: Outfield Play: The Defense’s Secondary

3. Game Situation Drill

Even if your outfielders are slow and have average arm strength, good decision-making can make up for a lot of deficiencies in the outfield. Knowing where to throw, who to back up and what to do on every play could be the difference between giving up one run or giving up three.

Line up your outfielders in their spots, shout out a game situation, hit the ball to them and let them make the right decision. Here are a few examples:

Where they should be on backup assignments (when the ball is hit to first, third, etc.)

What to do on a base hit with runners on

Bases loaded sacrifice fly, or a sac fly with runners on second and third

There are endless scenarios to be prepared for in baseball, all you can do as a coach is make your players as familiar and comfortable with as many of those game situations as possible.