— Baseball is a Game of Movement —
Overview - Practice Plans
The Practice Plans in this section are designed for the ages 11-12 and 9-11 levels of play.
These can also be used for the ‘First Year Player Pitch’ level.*
The full series of practices follows a step-by-step process for training all aspects of team play up through First & Third Defense and Bunt Defense.
The development of the Batting Swing and Pitching Delivery are sewn into each practice.
Batting & Pitching instruction points are in the ‘Playing Catch Practice’ (beginning in Practice #2). Description and training of the Batting Swing is covered in the Batting section (the Pitching section will be added soon).
* For the ‘First Year Player Pitch' level a coach will likely slow down the pace of progression. Just check off what you did and did not cover in a practice and pick up where you left off.
A coach may want to adjust the Skill Building Warm-Up content to stay consistent with the content covered in the previous practice(s).
As we move through the series of plans, some of the drills in the Skill Building Warm-Up reinforces the previous practice’s content.
(Coach/Machine Pitch, and Tee-Ball will be added. In the meantime, much of the content can be applied to younger levels.)
Below each Practice Plan and Batting Instruction page is a list of drills/activities included in each day’s plan. Most have links to drills and descriptions. Some are in the process of being added. …until then, the drills and descriptions are posted below the Practice Plans; just a bit of scrolling is required.
Day 1 address foundational pieces. Beginning with Day 2 we settle into the standard practice format (see the ‘Plan Template’ page)
Days 1-3 appear to have more content than the remaining plans; not more to cover during a practice, but more detail in the descriptions of the content. These first days address much of the concepts that the rest of the season’s teaching will build off of.
Slipping in a ‘Day 3b’ might be a good move, to be sure the kids run though all the content of the first three days.
Days 2-4 introduce the three ‘Skills’ routines that conclude Playing Catch Practice:
Replaying the Ball
Relay Footwork
Catch, Tag, Power Position
These pieces come up often each practice/game. Being disciplined about including these each practice will have your kids playing stellar baseball later in the year. People watching will notice.
by Day 6 or 7 players and coaches become familiar with the routine of the practices and the flow practices improves quite a bit.
To receive alerts of when the content is updated, email your contact info to: mark@baseballpositive.com.
I welcome, and encourage, suggestions, comments, and any other feedback that can help me make this information as valuable, clear and user friendly as possible.
- All the best, Mark Linden (2/28/25)