The Dugout · Practice & Baseball IQ
Turn practice time into team baseball.
Use practice time well, teach the whole field, and help players know where to go before the ball is ever put in play.
Run a practice
Build practices players want to come back to.
Most youth practices don’t fail for lack of drills. They fail on structure — long lines, too much talking and no real baseball at the end.
Build a 90–120 Minute Youth Practice
A practice you can run this week: the structure, the timing, the stations and the coach math — built so every player gets reps and nobody stands in line.
Get the practice planMore The Dugout is tracking
Team defense
Teach the whole field.
Good team defense isn’t nine individual fielders. It’s everybody knowing their job before the ball is hit — including the players it isn’t hit to.
Cutoffs & Relays
Alignment, communication and where every defender goes on a ball in the gap.
Fly-Ball Priority
Clear communication rules settled before the ball is in the air.
Bunt Defense
Who takes the ball, who covers which base, who backs it up.
First-and-Third
One clear system a young team can actually execute.
Backups
The players away from the ball and what the play needs from them.
Rundowns
Short, loud and repeatable — get the out in as few throws as possible.
Every player has a job on every pitch — even when the ball isn’t hit to him.
Baserunning & situations
Know before the pitch.
Outs, runners, score and inning should make the next decision simpler, not harder. The best young players have already decided before the ball is pitched.
Where’s the Play?
Using the situation to know the throw before the ball arrives.
Baserunner Checklist
Outs, the ball, the coach and the next base — before every pitch.
Leads & Secondary Leads
Building timing and intent without giving away outs.
Turns & Reads
Connecting the route out of the box to the play developing in front of you.
The Dugout principle
Baseball IQ is just preparation that happens before the pitch.
Dugout Guides
Go deeper when you need it.
Dugout Guides pull the best ideas from the underlying library into practical help for one specific baseball problem.
Build a 90–120 Minute Youth Practice
Short blocks, lots of competition, and real baseball at the end — with a 90-minute version for the nights the field is shared.
Read the GuideKeep exploring
Need an infield station?
The footwork progression from the Fielding pathway drops straight into the infield station of the plan.