General practices

Always going through pre pitch prep: What are you doing if the ball comes to you? What base are you throwing to?

Perform ready hop and thumbs up arm positioning.

Use footwork to create ball placement to body. In most scenarios this will be directly in front between the two feet or offset towards the left foot.

Fielding execution (when the ball arrives): semi wide stance, hinge at the waist, butt up, chest forward. Present open glove by making a triangle, left foot on heal to create momentum towards throw path. Hold the triangle until the ball gets there, don't retreat too early. Funnel the ball to chest to initiate arm/glove separation. When making throw to the base keep momentum going to the base.

Throw release speed

Throw release is based on the situation. The more time you spend setting up a closed shoulder throw, the better the throw will be. If the ball was hit slow and/or its a fast runner, you may have one shuffle throw. If the ball was a burner and/or a slow runner, a two shuffle throw will be more accurate.

Side note, you can use a two shuffle throw to hold a base runner back by making the first shuffle a fake towards the leading base runners base then the second shuffle to the base you are throwing to.

Tricks to judging the ball

Rollers immediately start charging the ball with initial footwork moving right then working left towards base.

Hoppers immediately freeze to start footwork judging last hop.