3 Infield Drills You Can Do By Yourself

Hey, what's going on everyone? So one question that I get asked a lot is, how do I improve my infield play? How do I work on my infield mechanics if I don't have someone to hit ground balls to me? I think a lot of people are in that boat where they may not have someone that they can go to the field with that can hit them ground balls. And so what do you do if you're in that situation? And so we've talked in other videos about multiple ways that you can work on your skills without having someone hit you baseballs. Because the thing about infield play is you need to take reps, lots and lots of reps. You need to be able to do things mechanically that we talk about. And we're gonna talk about a few things here in a second. But you need to be able to work on those mechanical things so many times that when the play happens in the game, you're able to go on to autopilot mode. And the only way you get to play on autopilot is your body has to go through those reps thousands and thousands of times so that it only knows the proper way to field the ball. So how do you get those reps? We've talked about how you can do drills where you just put the ball in your glove and you work simply through the mechanics. Today we're gonna talk a little bit about left foot timing for infielders because I think that's hugely important. But you can use ball and glove drills, right? Another great way, one way that we do it in the facility is with a pitch back rebounder. So this is Rucket Sports Pitch Back Rebounder. You can use a regular baseball, a tennis ball, a racquetball. You can do it barehanded or with a glove. I'm gonna demonstrate a couple of things that you can do. But it's a great way to get a ton of reps. And so we just set the rebounder up. You can set it up in a tunnel or we have an area over here that we just set it up on. And you can go through hands routine. You can go through, again, left foot timing. You can talk about fielding the ball in your left eye. All the things that we talk about in our fielding videos, you can work on that and it puts you in basically a live situation where you're able to throw the ball and you can work your footwork. You can get to the right of the ball. You can time your left foot up. Everything that you would do in a game, you can do in a really, really confined space. So I'm gonna show you here in a second how we do that. Okay, so let's talk about the importance of left foot timing. I think this is hugely important when it comes to infield play. Really good infielders are able to work through the ball. They're able to create momentum and direction towards their target. And so in order to do that, you wanna feel like as that ball hits your glove, your left toes are gonna hit the ground. If you time that up properly, then you're going to work through the ball. If you don't time it up properly, if your left foot lands too early, your feet are gonna become flat-footed. And that's when the ball plays you instead of you playing the ball. So I'm always trying to read the ball. I'm trying to time up the ball so that I can go right, left, and catch the ball as my left toes are hitting the ground. Then all I do from there is go right, left, throw. So anytime we field, it's right, left field, right, left, throw. But the timing, again, is crucial. It needs to be right, left, that timing right there has gotta happen every single time. And that'll allow me to flow right through the catch, get my momentum and direction going towards first. So let me show you a couple of ways that you can practice that with the rebounder. So the first thing we do is we just get into a stationary stance. We get into a fielding position, we're gonna have our back flat, we're gonna have our hands out front, and we're gonna be up on our heel. So let me show you here. So all you're gonna do, you're gonna get in position in front of the rebounder. You're gonna put your left foot slightly in front of your right. If you're a lefty, you just do the opposite. So again, this is for right-handed throwing fielders. So third baseman, shortstop, second baseman. If you're a lefty and you wanna work on double plays or throwing the ball to your right, it's just the exact opposite. You're just gonna put your other foot up. So I'm a righty, so I'm gonna get in position. I'm gonna put my left foot slightly in front of my right. I'm gonna go toe up. I'm gonna exaggerate the toe up. I'm gonna really be on the heel. I'm gonna throw the ball off of the rebounder, and then when I catch the ball, I'm going to put my foot down, okay? So I'm right here. So every time I catch the ball, I'm funneling the ball to my middle. So I'm funneling to the middle as my left toes go down. So you can see when that happens, see how it starts to make me work towards my target right there. So that's the timing. So we start off in that position. Really easy, stationary, just put your heel down, your toe up, and time it up. Catch it as you put your foot down. Your toes go into the ground, you're gonna funnel. Then we go to the flamingo drill. Flamingo drill, we just lift the foot up off the ground, and we're gonna now time it out so that we have to put our left foot down on the catch. So I'm working on timing it out. That foot's gotta land as I catch. And then after I catch, I'm going right to left, left to target. After that, now we put it all together, we move back, we throw the ball off of the rebounder, we work our feet, we go right, left field, right, left throw. Again, right now I'm not throwing. You can add a throw in. Right now I'm just working on, again, the basics, and then I can build up from there. So every time I do that, I'm timing up my left foot. And again, for me, I've played a long time, I've fielded a million ground balls. I can do that on autopilot. But when you watch young players that haven't learned it or haven't done it enough, they don't. And so they need the reps. They need the reps over and over again. And again, it's a great way to be able to get those reps in in a small area, all by yourself. You can do thousands of these reps a week if you really want to. If you want to dedicate the time, you can get as good as you want to be. So this is one small thing that you can do with the rebounder. But again, you can work on anything, backhands, forehands, slow rollers, doesn't matter. But if you're going to work on some of the fundamental parts of fielding, really focus on that left foot timing. So if you want to check out a rebounder or anything else made by Rucket, go to the description box down below, click the link there. It's going to take you over to their site. It's going to give you a deal on not only this, but all of their products. So go check it out. And that's all we have. Thanks so much for watching. Subscribe to the channel, hit the notification bell, give it a thumbs up, and we'll talk to you later.