5 Baseball Fielding Drills for 8-Year-Olds

Fielding is an important part of baseball, and it's a skill that your young player can practice and improve in your own backyard.

In this post, we'll provide a variety of baseball fielding drills and games that you can do in your backyard to improve your little one's skills.

Infield

Alligator Traps

How to do the drill:

1. Stand about 10 feet away from your player. 
2. Have them get in a baseball-ready fielding stance.
3. Roll a slow ground ball to your player.
4. As the ball approaches the player's glove, they use a two-handed scooping motion to "trap" the ball in the glove, simulating the motion of an alligator snapping its jaws shut.

What it helps: Technique and hand-eye coordination.

Make it fun: Give your child a point every time they "trap" a ground ball in their glove. Keep track and challenge them to break their score the next time. Or make it a game between the two of you!

Make it challenging: Gradually increase the speed of the ground balls. Or roll them to either side of your player and make them shuffle to catch the ball.

Ground ball shuffle

How to do the drill:

1. Stand about 15 feet away from your player.
2. Have them get in a baseball-ready fielding stance.
3. Roll a ground ball to the side of the player.
4. The player shuffles their feet to get in front of the ground ball.
5. The player fields the ball and gets into a throwing position as quickly as possible.
6. The player throws the ball back to you.
7. The player goes back to where they started and gets into a baseball-ready fielding stance.
8. Repeat, but roll the ball to a different side of the player each time.

What it helps: Footwork, quickness, and technique.

Make it fun: Make a "goal" behind your player; you can use anything -- cones, rocks, toys, whatever! Tell your player you're going to try to roll a ground ball past them to "score a goal." Their job is to stop it by shuffling in front of the ball and properly fielding it. Keep track of how "goals" you score and challenge them to improve their performance each time.

Lazy catches

How to do the drill:

1. Stand about 15 feet away from the player.
2. The player gets down on their knees without resting on their feels.
3. The player places the fingertips of their glove on the ground.
4. Roll a ground ball into the player's glove.
5. The player throws the ball back without getting up.
6. After a few tries, roll back-handed grounders to the player, following the same basic sequence.

What it helps: Tracking ground balls, technique, and hand-eye coordination.

Outfield

Headers

How to do the drill:

1. Stand 15 feet away from the player.
2. The player stands in the baseball-ready position with a hat on (no glove needed!).
3. Using a smoosh ball or tennis ball, toss the ball up in the air toward the player.
4. The player moves toward the spot of the ball and lets it hit the brim of their hat.
5. Repeat.

What it helps: Getting under fly balls, footwork.
Make it challenging: The player takes their hat off and puts the brim in their mouth. Now, they try to catch the ball in the hat. Track how many they can catch in a row!

Find the ball

How to do the drill:

1. Stand 20-30 feet away from the player.
2. The player turns around with their back facing you.
3. Throw a pop-up to the player and yell, "Turn!"
4. The player turns around, finds the ball in the air, and tries to catch it (with two hands!).
5. The player throws the ball back to you and gets in the ready position again.

What it helps: Tracking pop-ups, quickness, and technique.

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