Any good "situational" fielding drills?

ANNASDAD said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDwFdR4gluQ

Mike Candrea bucket work! You can use this drill for many different situations, but mainly work on feet work, catching the ball out front and moving through the ball. At this age, repetition, repetition, repetition!

Click to expand...

Love this, this is one of my top 3 drills. At lower ages you may want to really work on form first and in that case I would point you to these 2 videos;

1. Infield progression (starts at 3:20) - We do this even at an older age to remind them about the basics again, we do it indoors with small squares of painter's tape to mark the triangle. You may want to do it every practice to start.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmJQoLK4Vos

2. Then work on just fielding
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTWKhoJbzm4

Then do a throwing progression, then progress to doing everything at once (Mike Candrea). Do it every practice and this will become second nature. I always felt if you ask them to do everything to start, it's a much harder and longer road because you are accepting bad form to keep the group and practice moving. Progress to full infield with runners and balance the time at the different steps as needed. I am a huge fan of progressions for almost everything.

Just realized the OP was asking specifically for situational. Here's a specific situation I like running, maybe for older teams working on cutoffs/extra bases/balls in play but also base running.

2 buckets with balls (or just 2 piles of balls) in LC and RC (deeper than the outfielders).

Full infield defense, outfielders take turns playing center field or go LF & RF. (I switch off in CF because it's lots of running).

Coach yells "RF" or "Orange bucket", runner starts from H (must go to 2B minimum), outfielders go get the ball and hit the cutoff and try to get the runner. If you have enough you can do teams and keep score. You can move the balls/buckets to make it easier or harder. Only 3B has it easy in this one. P needs to backup home, 1B needs to cut balls to Home, etc.

Great for lining up cutoffs, relay throws, optimal distance to stand to take the cut, communication, thinking on the fly, knowing who's running (fast/slow), receiving throws at the base, tags, rounding bases, sliding, picking up the ball (with your eyes) as you round 1B, learning the speed of defense at your age group, forcing throws, running back to previous base, rundowns, etc.