How To Choose Baseball Coaching Equipment

Step 1

Keep in mind, not all of these products are absoultely necessary but the more you have the more productive practices you can run. First and foremost, you are going to need baseballs and a bucket for them since you are playing the game of baseball. I would recommend having between 36-48 baseballs. Baseballs are less expensive when bought by the dozen. The reason for having so many is because when doing hitting drills or taking batting practice, it is a pain in the butt if you always have to stop practice to pick up the baseballs.

Step 2

Secondly, I believe having a fungo bat is important as well. A fungo bat is not like a normal bat that the players hit with. A fungo bat has two purposes. To hit ground balls to the infielders and to hit fly balls to the outfielders. It should never be used to hit live pitching. Fungo bats normally weigh more and are longer than a regular bat. From the high school level up, every single coach uses a fungo bat on a daily basis to make the infielders and outfielders better.

Step 3

The next two things I would like to have as a coach would be some cones and a stopwatch. Cones are very useful during practices because they can be used in drills to increase speed and quickness, but to also improve footwork by doing various drills. Cones are also good for showing proper positions to be in during certain plays, and as ways to mark where the ball should be thrown. The stopwatch is good for timing any running drills at practice, and to time things in games. Things that would be timed during games would include: how long it takes the pitcher to deliver the ball home, and to see how long it takes for the catcher to make a throw to second base. Knowing both of these times are critical during games because that affects if you steal during the game or not.

Step 4

Another important tool to coaches, especially ones that do not have the ability to throw batting practice, is the pitching machine. These are fairly expensive and a big investment, but they do serve a great purpose. Pitching machines are able to be set at certain pitching speeds and continiously throw strikes when a ball is set in the machine. They can also throw different kinds of pitches like curveballs and sliders to give the hitters more game like situations which makes them better. Pitchig machines run on electricty so they should have a fairly long lifespan.

Step 5

These last couple of items are optional at best. A radar gun is useful because it gives the coach the ability to use it to see how fast the pitchers are throwing the baseball. It can also be used for position players to see how hard they throw the ball from point A to point B. And lastly, medicine balls are a very popular training tool for baseball players these days. The medicine balls give the players numerous ways to replicate baseball movements while adding a strenght straining phase to it.