I'd like to hear opinions and ideas from coaches on how they do batting practice.

It always seemed so inefficient to have 17 guys standing in the field while on kid takes hacks. Also boring, and the time could be used better.

How do you coaches do BP?

Well, I'm not a coach, but our team goes through this lineup...

1-2 take their swings
3-4 do bunting behind the backstop
5-6 fungo to the infield off soft toss
7-8 fungo to the outfield off soft toss
9 finds something else to do...

I like this set up because there is always something to do that will be beneficial.

Hope that helps.

stations...1. hitting in cage (usually 4-6 hitters, one hitting, one in hole, other 4 hitting IF fungo near cage or OF fungo near dugout 2. baserunning (secondary, see bunt down, hit & run, sac fly, then off bat reads) 3. Live game reacts (fancy name for shag, gets my kids more focused) 4. Hitting off jugs in side tunnel 5. bunting station (using wiffle balls, work sac. slash, squeeze, bunt 4 hit)

**also use graded BP, where they have certain items to execute and use swings as bounties. some days we have one group hit on the side and one on the field, they next day they switch...amazing how hard they work on the little things on the side to get those swings on the gtame field. ex. they get 3 sac bunts, if it takes 5 attempts they lose 2 live swings.

We are very fortunate and so, I don't know of many HS teams that can do what we do. We have 2 rolling cages and so we do "double cage." Our set up involves 2 pitching ramps, 2 L screens and a hugh 10 x 10 screen between and hooked up to the L screens for protection. We use 2 6 x 12 hitting mats to hit off of so we protect the grass. The rolling cages abate at one corner over home plate and are slightly angled to prevent us from hitting parked cars along the ball diamond.

Behind these cages we set up an ATEC Rookie Machine to throw fastballs for a bunting station and we have a T station set up. Therefore, 4 hitting stations so everyone is working. We have rules for the double cage which include:

• Pull an outside pitch and out of the cage.
• Hit 3 lazy fly balls and out of cage.

Those 4 hitters keep rotating briskly between cages since we often have a left and right handed coach throwing. The next hitters in our order are in our other cages doing drill work. The main ones I won't discuss in detail but one I really like is that we do an "oppo drill" with the same rules as the rolling cages on the diamond. We are fortunate to have equipment and so often we have another rookie machine or a Jugs machine shooting fly balls to one or two outfielders as they get their fly ball work in. I don't believe in shagging and so, we have 3 JV kids shag and one person behind a protective net collecting the balls. Those 3 JV kids are on a timed rotation system and so, they are out there for a few hitters then they rotate into their "work." We also funnel our pitchers into this shagging role after they are done with their bullpens, running, lifting, etc.

Currently we have 13 position players and one pitcher that get live arm on the field in this system. The others receive live arm etc. in our cages.

We have an outdoor cage next to our field. We have 4 groups.
Group 1. Hitting in the cage (2 batting tees while you are waiting.
Group 2. Hitting live (one person is the baserunner and practice reading the ball off of the bat in situations. Batter runs on last hit and becomes the runner. Softoss for others waiting to hit.
Group 3. On the infield (fungos from a coach and off of the bat)
Group 4. In the outfield (fungos from coach and off of the bat, one person on a bucket to collect balls from all fielders.
Anyone is a hitting group not swinging and standing around runs poles.
This is a rough idea of how we do things, obviously there are days where we are focused more on specific aspects.

Three guys shagging, one catching the throws coming in from the shaggers. One on deck. The rest are at various stations.