Soft Toss Drill Is Fabulous If You Use It Properly!
The soft toss drill is one of the best baseball hitting drills around. It is an incredible time saver to break a bad habit. If you are a player, a coach, or a baseball parent who wants to help your child, avoid making some common mistakes and read how to properly use this drill or you may be wasting your time. Your benefits will be tremendous!
The baseball hitting benefits of the soft toss drill are incredible but this drill must be done properly. The soft toss drill is one of the best baseball coaching drills around and please don’t ever sell it short.
It is a great time saver to break a bad habit, get into a good habit or to simply maintain your baseball swing if you are in a good groove. Let’s say you’re into baseball coaching and you want to break a bad habit that one of your baseball hitters has suddenly gotten into. It may take about 300 swings for the baseball hitter’s muscle memory to take over and break the bad habit. For you to throw this player enough pitches for him to get 300 swings would take a long time. Even if you went to the park every other day and threw 50 pitches a day to the hitter and they were all strikes, it would take quite a long time. Now you can see the major advantage if you can accomplish the same thing in only a couple of days. I would much rather have my player or my child struggle for a day or two instead of a week or two! That’s awesome.
Some Benefits Of The Soft Toss Drill
1) It doesn’t even require a baseball field or a glove.
2) You don’t need someone to round up all the balls in the outfield.
3) The person doing the “soft tossing’ to the hitter doesn’t even have to have any baseball skills at all, so you can get anybody to “soft toss” to you. Please don’t take this the wrong way but your grandmother can soft toss to you. I say that with total respect.
4) The soft toss drill only requires a bat, some baseballs, a fence and an optional plastic bucket or two. (One for sitting on and one for holding the baseballs)
I know several baseball people, including my son and I, who have a setup in the garage with thick carpeting fastened to the wall of the garage and that acts as a fence. You can then soft toss any time of the day or night. It can be ten degrees outside or even raining or snowing. You can still get your baseball swings in. Regulation balls are not necessary and you can use a softer type of ball to practice damage control in your garage or even in your back yard if you opt to soft toss there. (And you will remain on good terms with your neighbors if a batted ball should go over the fence and hit them or their house!) If using non regulation baseballs, you will not detract from the benefits of the soft toss drill at all, as the swing is the same no matter what type of ball is being used for the drill. Many players, coaches and parents use this drill incorrectly. There are many variations and I’ve tried lots of them.
My Favorite Method
1) You can either squat down or sit about 12 feet from a hitter who is about 8 to 10 feet in front of a high fence.
2) Be very careful. Make sure to avoid areas of the fence that have posts or the batted ball may come right back at the hitter. Make sure the fence you are hitting into is high enough! The person doing the “soft tossing” should make sure to be in a very safe position so they don’t get hit by the batted ball.
3) Your angle to the hitter should be just about like he’s in the batter’s box and you’re in foul territory just outside the foul line. In other words, if he’s a right-handed hitter and you were soft tossing to him, imagine that you are positioned along the first base line, slightly in foul territory. Stay very safely out of the way so there is no chance that you can get hit by the batted ball.
4) Squat or kneel down with as many baseballs as you want to use right next to you. A plastic bucket is very helpful to sit on and and an additional bucket to hold the baseballs is also very useful.
Three Easy Steps Involved
1) Holding the ball underhanded, show the hitter the ball.
2) Drop your hand with the ball in it down toward the ground and pause for about one second. (At that point, the hitter should “load up,” cocking his hips, hands and elbows.)
3) Softly toss the ball to the hitter, so that it has a slight arc up and then down. Aim for his back hip, or a different spot if desired and the hitter hits the ball into the fence. Repeat with the remaining baseballs.
It’s very important that the soft toss drill never be rushed. The purpose is to have a good swing repeated many times until the hitter can do it in his sleep. It is one of the best baseball coaching drills for getting a hitter to break a bad habit or to develop a good habit through repetition.
Once again, be very cautious of several things. Be careful as to where you are when soft tossing the ball to the hitter. Make sure there is nothing in front of the hitter that can possibly have the batted ball come right back at the hitter, such as a post in a fence. Make sure the fence is high enough so the hitter doesn’t hit it over the fence, which could be dangerous.
The amount of time spent to break a bad habit will be at an absolute minimum because you can soft toss a hundred balls in no time at all! Baseball parents, players and youth coaches, I post a new baseball article on hitting, pitching or fielding every week at LarryBaseball.com. You and others you may want to invite to read them will benefit and you will be raising some eyebrows. Click here and scroll down the right hand side to read more FREE baseball tips
