Baseball Infield Drills: Why Dry Drills Make You a Better Infielder

Hey,

When was the last time you did your dry drills?

If your answer is, “I’m not really sure,” you’re probably missing one of the simplest things you can do every day to become a better infielder.

Dry drills aren’t flashy.

You aren’t diving for a ball.

You aren’t making a throw across the diamond.

Nobody is watching you make a SportsCenter-worthy play.

You’re just working with your glove.

But that’s exactly why they’re so valuable.

So, What Exactly Are Dry Drills?

Think of dry drills as your daily routine for getting your hands ready to field ground balls.

Just like you stretch before practice or throw to get your arm ready, dry drills prepare your hands and body to field.

You work through a sequence of different fielding positions and different types of hops.

The goal isn’t to rush through them.

The goal is to make every movement clean and precise.

You’re teaching your body what a good fielding position feels like.

You’re teaching your glove where it needs to be.

And you’re teaching your hands how to receive the baseball.

That’s why you’ll see professional infielders doing some version of these drills all the time.

They don’t do them because they don’t know how to field a ground ball.

They do them because they know how important it is to keep those skills sharp.

Your Glove Should Know Where to Go

One of the biggest benefits of dry drills is that they help you become more precise with your glove.

Think about what happens when a ground ball is hit at you.

You don’t have much time.

Your glove needs to get to the right spot.

Your hands need to work together.

Your glove needs to present properly.

And when the ball gets into your glove, you need to catch it cleanly.

Dry drills give you thousands of opportunities to practice those little movements without needing someone to hit you a ground ball.

For example, you can use them to work on:

• Glove presentation
• Wrist tilt
• Glove movement through the baseball
• Pushing through the baseball
• Funnel to the center of your chest
• Catching the ball out in front
• Staying low through the fielding process
• Hand separation

These aren’t just warm-up drills.

They’re skill-development drills.

That’s an important difference.

You aren’t just getting your hands warm. You’re getting better.

Don’t Just Go Through the Motions

Here’s where I see players make a mistake.

They grab their glove.

They go through their dry drills.

And they’re thinking about everything except the drill.

Maybe they’re talking to a teammate.

Maybe they’re looking around the facility.

Maybe they’re just trying to finish as quickly as possible.

That’s not really practice.

You’re just moving your glove around.

Instead, treat your dry drills like they’re a real part of your training.

Slow down.

Focus on each catch.

Ask yourself:

Is my glove in the right position?

Am I receiving the ball in the right spot?

Am I staying athletic?

Am I finishing the movement correctly?

Five focused minutes is much more valuable than ten minutes of going through the motions.

And there’s a bigger lesson here.

If you can’t stay focused for five minutes while doing dry drills, how do you expect to stay focused for an entire practice?

Focus is a skill.

You have to practice it.

Make the Drill Harder

Once you become really good at your dry drills with a glove, there’s another way to challenge yourself.

Take the glove off.

Try doing them barehanded.

It’s harder.

That’s the point.

Without a glove, you don’t have much room for error.

Your hands have to be precise.

Your body has to be in the right position.

You have to catch the ball cleanly.

It’s a simple way to take a drill you’ve already mastered and make it more challenging.

This is a good rule to remember:

Don’t always look for a new drill. Look for a way to make the drill you’re already doing better.

You don’t need 100 different drills to become a better infielder.

You need to get really good at the fundamentals.

Make Dry Drills a Daily Habit

Here’s what I want you to do.

Start treating dry drills like brushing your teeth.

You don’t brush your teeth once a week and expect good results.

You do it every day.

Dry drills should be the same way.

Before practice, spend a few minutes working through your routine.

Don’t worry about making it complicated.

Start with the basics.

Do each movement correctly.

Stay focused.

Make every catch.

Then, as you improve, increase the difficulty.

Eventually, you won’t have to think as much about the movements.

They’ll become automatic.

And that’s the goal.

When a ground ball is hit to you in a game, you don’t want to be thinking:

Where should my glove go?

How should I tilt my wrist?

Where should I catch the ball?

You want your body to already know.

That’s what repetition does.

Good Infielders Don’t Skip the Boring Stuff

The best players aren’t always the ones who find the coolest drills.

They’re usually the ones who are willing to do the simple things over and over again.

Dry drills are simple.

But simple doesn’t mean easy.

And simple doesn’t mean unimportant.

If you want to become a really good infielder, you should want to become really good at the things that good infielders do every day.

That starts with your hands.

So the next time you walk into Paradigm, grab your glove and spend five minutes on your dry drills.

Don’t rush.

Don’t talk.

Don’t look around.

Focus.

Make every movement count.

Because if you can learn to take five minutes seriously, you’ll start learning how to take the rest of your practice seriously, too.

And over time, those little five-minute habits add up.

That’s how you become a better infielder.

One clean catch at a time.

Colten
Paradigm Sport

P.S. If you want to take your infield game to the next level, I’d love to help. I work with players one-on-one and in small groups at Paradigm to improve their glove work, footwork, hands, and overall defensive skills. If you’re serious about becoming a better infielder,