Daily Catcher Drills

I am looking for some daily catcher drills for my DD.

She is 15, and IMO a very good catcher, but like most kids, her skills are use or lose.

I really don't want her to just catch live pitching in the off-season, but I am having issues finding a skills program that we can do indoors/outdoors that will keep her skills up and maybe even advance them. Not looking for strength training, but a good daily or even every other daily drill sets.

Anyone have any insight?

Have you looked at the NECC (The Catching Camp) website or Jen Schroeder's stuff from the Packaged Deal? If not familiar with either of them do a google search, both have plenty of ideas to keep DD improving.

Here are some exercises I do. There are some techniques here that I coach, but take what you like from that.

Warm-ups: Extra calf, quad, hamstring stretching. Invisible chair, backs against the wall, knees bend at 90 degrees. Modified mountain-climber, bringing both legs up (bottom half of burpee)

Stance: throwing hand fisted with thumb lightly tucked in
No Runners: sink the buttocks, reduce wear tear on legs, but be ready to field bunt
Runners on: thighs parallel with the ground

Warmup Pops: Girls start in squat. On command, C pops-up to full-throwing position. Reset.

Transitions: C in mid-squat, start with ball in glove in front of body, throwing hand behind back or glove (depending on technique). Toes forward. Twist to throwing side bring glove and hand together. Ensure thumbs are down and moving apart. Make throw bending at waist, following through.

Long-distance throw from knees: Girls are `~85’ apart (on mats if indoors) and start on knees. Girls are instructed to throw and focus on extending and should fall forward and have to catch themselves with their hands. Strength building exercise.

Bucket/Paddle: C sits on bucket with pancake glove. 3B on the bag. Coach/Helper tosses underhand to C who catches and immediately throws down.

Framing. Large wiffle balls, C with bare-hands in squat. Coach tosses underhand from about 8’ aiming for edge of strikezone. C attempts to catch with ball on the inside of the hand, relative to the strikezone. Framing is not moving the ball after catching it as much as positioning the glove to the outside of the strikezone. Try to ‘snatch’ the low pitch, keeping the thumb underneath.

Squat & Balance: Girls should be on the balls of their feet with a shoulder width squat. Coach should be able to give them a push and not have them fall over.

Blocking (no gear): Teach the position. Knees shoulder width with glove touching ground in the ‘5 hole’. Shoulders are broad and forward, chin is tucked into chest. The goal is to block the ball, keep it in front of the C, not necessarily to catch it. We want the C to thrust her feet backwards so that the knees land where the feet started. For moving laterally, step with the foot closest to that direction, before assuming the blocking position.

Blocking (Full Gear) with Paddle & Wiffle: enforces not trying to catch everything and focuses getting into position.

Blocking (Full Gear) Whiffle Balls, react: Coach throws some whiffle balls over the plate, some are in the dirt. C must react to the balls in the dirt and get to blocking position. Start with all straight on, then add in left and right.

Transition to real ball blocking and go through these again.

Picking: Throwing shorthops to the catcher. This is a tough one because for me, it’s been about breaking the habit that most are in of trying to catch everything instead of blocking. I would introduce later.

Go over techniques of doing a pop-up or a front foot rotational slide. Pitch to the girls and have them practice both, throwing to 2b to see which they were more comfortable with and faster with.

Pop-ups behind plate. (as in, the batter pops up to the catcher). I like to stand (as the coach) behind the C, give a verbal ‘inside’ or ‘outside’ while throwing pop-ups on 1b or 3b side. Vary the height of the pop-ups. C should try to make the catch with their back to the infield. Turn toward 3B for inside, 1B for outside. If they want to take off helmet, hold on to it until just before catch to not trip over it if the ball drifts. Be ready for runners trying to advance after catch.

Plays at Plate: C should stand in front of the plate, not in the baseline when waiting to receive throw. Once ball is received, then step with left foot first into the baseline and take your right knee to the ground.. If a throw takes you into the baseline, then it is okay to go after it. Protect yourself from collisions by getting lower than the oncoming runner. Throwing hand on ball, ball in glove, glove on ground, back of glove to runner. Coach/helper practices by calling ‘4’ and throwing one hops and various balls from cutoff position.

Bunt defense: Dribble ground balls in front of plate or down 1b line.: C should circle around so that when they pickup the ball, the are already in a position to throw to 1st base. They should pickup the ball even with their back foot. Don’t rush it! Take a shuffle to create a better throwing angle if necessary. Throws should never drift toward foul territory; miss to the 2b side. Immediately return to the front of home plate to receive a throw if runner tries to advance from 3B.

Footwork going to 3B with RH batter: If the pitch is middle to inside (ideal), catcher shall drop step (cross-over right leg behind the left leg) behind the batter to throw to 3B. Practice with a simulated batter and 3B. Outside pitch may take the catcher to the front/LHB side of the plate instead.

Snap throws to 1B: C starts with ball in glove. Fielder at 1B. From the squat, C brings hands together, throws from squat, falling forward onto a knee (non-throwing side). Should be falling forward on the throw.

Pitch-outs: Younger girls may want to setup on the outside corner to begin with. Work with pitcher on timing and aim points. Come out of the crouch as ball is delivered and so they are in a position to throw sooner.

Fun drill: Have coach/helper sit on a bucket and girls try to ‘knock them’ off carnival style for various bases.

Things my DD works on away from team practices or catching live pitching...
- Bare-hand receiving (tennis balls or foam balls) - Focusing on hand and arm position, body movement, and protection of the throwing hand. No need to go anywhere. We do this at home.
- Blocking - Focus on quickness and correct mechanics. This can be done with softballs, lite-flites, or anything else that provides somewhat-realistic flight and bounce.
- Throwing - Long toss, footwork for throws to bases, knee-throw mechanics.
- Strength and fitness - Tons of options here. The next few weeks will include elastic band work for her arms and shoulders, and lower body explosiveness exercises.

I hold catching clinics for our organizational catchers every Saturday for 2 2 hour sessions at a time. I try and focus on 3 skills in those 2 hours and each session varies. I pretty much follow the catching clinic drills with some others that I have incorporated from other sources that others have already posted. Chewbaluba has a nice plan although I don't agree with some of the things he/she says but that's neither her nor there. I also work on dives from behind the plate for low pop-up bunts, throwing from the knees and we try to work on various other blocking drills. Another thing we do is the four corners drill which helps with quick target acquisition and throws as well as conditioning.

Another fun (and useful) drill is practicing sliding on the non-throwing side to retrieve a WP (of course it wasn't a PB) near the backstop and throwing a hard, knee-high strike to the plate