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The Fantastic 'Fast Catch 
Throwing Drills'

The Fast Catch Throwing drills are a amazing drills for any age level or skill level. From professional baseball players all the way to tee ball, players can use this drill and variations to practice ball handling skills every day.

The simple fast catch baseball throwing drill gives a youth baseball coach another opportunity to offer coaching tips to their youth league players.

We also can name the throwing drill the Hot Potato Fast Catch practice baseball throwing drill. One of the objects of the fundamental drill is to improve all players ability to handle the ball, grip the ball and get rid of the ball quickly to the target.

So you can pretend the ball is HOT, so a player does not want to have the ball stay very long in their glove or they will burn their hands.

Any Time, Any Place Throwing Drill

Often the best times to use this throwing drill is right after players have finished long toss during practice warm-ups, and as a pregame warm-up drill or at baseball camps.

Players are already matched with partners after playing catch. You will give them your coaching tip cues to line up for fast catch. It should only take about 30 seconds for the players to transition and get into position.

Before every ball game you can get your players into this quick paced warm-up drill. This is an awesome time to get the blood flowing and transition into the real game.

Energetic Fun Mini-Competition
Practice Drills

Coaches are always wanting to the know how to coach youth baseball, little league, tee ball and all amateur baseball levels.

Well one of the best ways to show your players how to play baseball is to use mini-competitions to your youth team practice plans.

Fast catch throwing drills are one of the best examples of using competitions in your practical youth baseball instruction.

How to Organize 'Fast-Catch'
Throwing Game

Fast Catch Throwing Drills:

Players are partnered off in pairs like they would be playing catch. Each set of partners should be spaced safely apart from their neighbor partners in case of errant throws.

Players should all be equally distanced from their partners so each player is throwing from the same distance. Players should throw a little more than half of the distance between their base distance. If players were playing at 90 feet distance then about 45 -50 feet is a good starting point.

Instruct the players how many ‘catches’ they need to make before they take a knee. Let us pick the number ten to start with. Each pair of players in the partnership will need to catch the ball ten times and then immediately ‘take a knee.’ This tells who ever is judging that they are finished.

Once the players are set in a safe position liberally spaced apart you are ready to begin coaching drills.

Start with the all the baseballs together on one side. The coach will give some type of verbal cue to start the fast catch throwing drills games into action. Players will quickly throw to their partner.

Immdiately after throwing the thrower will have to scramble back into their starting positions. Then they will get ready for the ball to arrive again. This avoids bunching up closer and closer after every throw.

Captivate Baseball Players
With Mini-Competition

Teaching youth baseball fast catch throwing drills is a fun captivating method of teaching baseball skills in your practice plans. You can visualize the stunning energy that comes from this baseball drill.

The fast-catch baseball throwing drills that you put into practice action every day in amateur baseball. Fun games worked into your drills deflects the boring routines teaching fundamentals.

Vital Coaching Tips Recommended By Professional Baseball

Two hands always together: In order to get rid of the ball quickly players must keep both hands very close together to grip the ball correctly.

Catching drill: Keep the hands well away from the body and relaxed to give your hands room to ‘give and cushion’ the throw.

Stop the ball: The better players will not really catch the ball. They will merely stop the ball just long enough to get their throwing hand on the ball.

Bow and Arrow Drill: Immediately bring the throwing hand to the bow and arrow position. Many players in their haste to be fast will forget to bring the throwing elbow in the high bow position. They will keep the elbow pointing to the ground and do a lob/push arm action, which will reinforce some really bad throwing fundamentals. I do not want to say you throw like a g..l but fill in the blank. No disrespect to girls.

Start the throw just before the ball arrives: Players receiving the throw are in a wide stance athletic position. Just before the ball gets to the glove the player that will catch is already slightly turning their front shoulder and leaning into their shuffle footwork.

Better to be accurate than too fast and make bad throws: The great basketball coach John Wooden used to say to his players ‘Be Quick …But don’t hurry.’ Hhhh? If players rush their throws faster than their ability to be accurate with the throw then they need to slow down a notch.

Each player will find a pace that they successfully can execute the drill with very few bad throws. It is good to fail at times. This forces us to reassess and adjust to find a pace and tempo that eliminates mistakes.

Safety: Make sure that partners are paired up safely. You probably do not want a mature 12 year old little league player with a just turned ten never player very much little league kid.

Shake up the pairs: Do not let the best two players always pair up. You should make your players rotated to different catch partners everyday anyway. This strategy helps team building. The baseball fast catch throwing drills are a help in building self confidence in youth players.

Scoring 'Fast-Catch'

I have used a time system and a number system in the Fast Catch Throwing Drills: Either way works. Just try different ways. There is no right or wrong way.

Time: Try 15 seconds to start with. If you want to extend longer that is fine. 30 seconds at this fast pace is a long time to sustain. Play with it and see what works best.

Number System: Start with 10 catches per partner group. Make sure the players vocally sound out each catch and count along. Yes, there are players who get excited and tend to skip a number or count by twos. Move up to 12 and so on if quality is still maintained. Longer is not always better.

Warm-up Round: It is not bad to have a non-competitive warm-up round first especially for younger players. Every pair do a round of fourteen without any winners. They can find a pace to effectively perform throws accurately.

Best of Three: If you do this catch and throw drill regularly than about three quality games is about all you will get out of them. Using 10 catches per game that equals thirty throw and catches each. Not a bad ball handling drill in about two or three minutes per day.

Note When a throw gets by a player have them retrieve the ball and run back to the starting position before re-engaging in the practice drill. Otherwise you will have possibly dangerous errant throws coming into a congested area and someone may get hurt.

Ties: I love it when two or more groups tie. Then we have a tie breaker playoff between those two or three groups. You make up the tie breaker rules for the great fast catch throwing drills.

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