Teaching Baseball to Kids: SOFT TOSS

Soft toss is a great drill that improves hand-eye coordination and helps kids learn the feeling of contact.  It’s easy to set up and can provide valuable swing feedback and instruction.

The goal of soft toss is to mimic a ball crossing into the hitting zone just in front of the plate.  The tosser sits in front and to the side of the player (if they’re a right handed batter, you’d be a few feet down the first base line and in foul territory) and gets ready to underhand toss a ball just in front of home plate.  Show the batter the ball, then make a firm and constant underhand toss.  The batter sees the ball and hopefully hits it in front of the plate in a good hitting position.

The goal isn’t to handcuff your players, or to teach them bad habits.  As the soft tosser, you’ve got to make sure you put the ball in a position where you want contact happening.  That place is just in front of home plate.  Not back at the hands over the plate, not 2 feet in front of the plate.  Let the player extend his arms and hit the ball in a natural position.

Here’s a really long video about hitting drills, with some really important points:
6:33 CORRECT soft toss (in front)
6:50 INCORRECT soft toss (into the hitter)

Here is a virtual goldmine of great hitting drills – they touch on soft-toss at the beginning
HTTP://WWW.WONDERHOWTO.COM/HOW-TO-PRACTICE-SOFT-TOSS-DRILL-BASEBALL-274410/VIEW

Source:
https://teachbaseball.wordpress.com/2010/03/25/soft-toss-tips/