The American Baseball Coaches Association conference will be January 8-11, 2026, at the Greater Columbus Convention Center in Columbus, Ohio.
This is my second year creating a version of the schedule you can give to your coaching staff that the can fit in their pocket to decide which sessions to attend. The subject to modification, but this is the current compiled version. This is likely most useful if you’re bouncing between session types, but it can also be useful just to keep track of your own schedule. I find something useful in each type of session. If you’re not an ABCA member and want to join, click here!
How it’s organized:
All sessions – main stage, expo stage, youth sessions, panels, FCA events, and diversity workshops – are all listed on the 4-page spreadsheet. They are sorted by start time. Sessions are not all the same length. There is a column at the right, so that you can mark down who on your staff is going to which session.
What I did:
I used ChatGPT to build the spreadsheet, with guidance and editing by me. It was much easier than last year’s cut-and-paste.
This year, you also get easy access to the Trade Show floorplan. I highly recommend making your list of vendors to visit — you can print a list from the floorplan — and make sure you allocate plenty of time to walk the Trade Show floor to see what’s on offer and meet old & new friends.
Vendors, there are still spots available! Reach out to Juahn Clark, ABCA Trade Show Director at (336) 821-3143 or jclark@abca.org, pictured here with small vendor Michael Dobre who sells a great breaking ball trainer (https://dobrebreakingballtrainer.com/)
I’ve been dumping my PitchLogic data into spreadsheets and manipulating it in HCL Notes databases, but I wanted to see some ‘visualizations’ to evaluate the data a little better. A picture is worth a thousand words, right? Or it “a pitcher is worth a thousand words”?
Within the PitchLogic app, you can get the vertical and horizontal movement for a single session. When you go look at your session reports, you see a little more. So, I’d used ChatGPT to help me create some visualizations from my downloaded data. Here’s a sample, showing those movement profiles by pitch type. This is only from about 50 pitches, so it looks interesting, but is a little less-than-actionable.
Now, that gives a very good visual impression of where the pitches are going. Fortunately for us, this is our hardest throwing pitcher and we’re going to have him for two more years. One of the things that pops out about this is that he’s missing high (1-2-3) more than he’s missing low (7-8-9) with 34% of his pitches being high and just 6% being low. Oddly, in this sample, nothing inside or outside at strike zone height. That could be just because it’s a small sample or might point out bad data collection (we might be categorizing those inside and outside pitches as high or low as well.)
The good thing is that I can also break this down into different pies for each pitch type, but the lack of data doesn’t make that real useful right now. When you have it, it can really bring home what the quality of the pitches really is.
I learned something new as well. I might have seen a boxplot a few times, but I never understood them. This uses statistical methods to place the velocity of the various pitches he’s thrown. Now, you must keep in mind that these are to auto-tagged pitch types. For any of you who are coaching young teens, you’re going to notice that how the PitchLogic ball tags the pitches is not always what the player intended to throw.
I’ve been telling other coaches that one of the things we need to work on with youth players is “grip discipline”. Most of them grow up with no instruction in how to grip the ball at all. Sometimes, they get instruction in how their fingers ought to be aligned, but rarely do they get instruction in how to line up the laces and their fingers the same every time. When I first started coaching Little League, I sent a Dad out to the mound to talk to our pitcher. He came back and said, “He was holding the ball with three fingers!” That was when I first realized that a lot of Dads and assistant coaches also need coaching and instruction.
Technology, and the PitchLogic ball in particular, give us a lot of numbers. As any old baseball guy will tell you, the only number that actually matters is balls and strikes. I don’t focus on how to improve those myriad numbers, like a player’s spin rate or velocity. The goal is consistency since moving the ball in a consistent way makes it easier to throw strikes. So, we look at how consistent is the arm slot, or whether the release makes it a cutter instead of a fastball. Then, we use the numbers as a gauge for ‘how consistent’ the pitches are.
How can you do this?
If you have a PitchLogic ball, you can get your data. Just go to the “hamburger” down in the lower left in portrait mode or upper right in landscape mode and then click on “Get CSV Data”. This will let you pick the dates for which you want data and then email you a file. You can drop it into ChatGPT and start asking it to make you some visualizations.
I plan on writing about the technical details on my software development blog, so for those who love that stuff, revisit here in a few days for a link!
As the coach of Randolph-Henry baseball (VA), Josh Barmoy, said, “Off to Disney World for baseball coaches” when tweeting about his ride in. It truly is Disney for us.
Registration was a breeze once I figured out where it was (top floor of the atrium) and then I hit the Trade Show. As I’ve noted in prior years, like with ABCA 2022 First Day, there is a LOT to see. I’m committed to visiting as many vendors as I can and sharing their stories, especially the small ones!
But first, a story
In my final season coaching Little League baseball here in Alexandria before we moved to Asheville, I got a new player, who had never played baseball before. Our Young E. was a relatively good-sized kid, but there were probably no sports in his background. His arms were obviously strong and I knew there was potential.
When we brought out the PocketRadar to find out how hard everyone threw, Young E. couldn’t throw hard. He sometimes threw one that registered 25 mph or so, but it was in a random direction. Sometimes, in practices leading up to the season, he would get distraught with bad directional control and think he wasn’t throwing any harder.
By the beginning of the season, using both PitchLogic and PocketRadar to track his progress and provide encouragement, he was able to throw it 30 mph. By the end of the season, he clocked one at 41.8 mph and it was in the direction of his teammate and catchable.
Three years later, he’s getting ready for another baseball season. We showed him that the OUTPUT of his efforts was improving so that by the end of the season, his OUTCOMES were far better.
Why bring this up?
This afternoon, the CEO/Co-Founder of PocketRadar, Steve Goody was on the Expo stage talking on a panel about Integrating Evaluation Technology in youth baseball. On the stage with him, Neil Anderson from SkillShark Athlete Evaluations was explaining how his software helps organizations evaluate players using PocketRadar and eliminate all the paper-to-PC tracking of evaluations. Then, Alex Sumner of Fargo Youth Baseball and Jordan Draeger of GoingYard Baseball talked about how easy it is, how it provides objective feedback to players and helps shape player development.
Both PocketRadar and Skillshark are doing their share to “democratize the data.” By making data transparent to the players and parents, they encourage the players, show them their progress and give them guidance on how to get better. As with our own Young E, retention is much improved.
Great Conference, Like Always!
I’ve got my list of vendors and I’m stopping in to see a broad variety of them to hear what everyone has to say. I’m an Outgoing Introvert, so I use my outgoing times to meet as many as possible, especially the little ones or the folks who have no customers in front of them at the time. Then, I use my introvert times to share my experiences with all y’all. (Since I live in North Carolina now, “all y’all” isn’t awkward to my companions.) I do have some revisits planned (I spoke to Brandon and Morgan at Nexus Mount, so will have an update to share!)
Last year, I handed out spreadsheets with the schedule to our coaching staff in attendance. Since the schedule has already been released, but subject to modification, I thought I’d share the current compiled version. This is likely most useful if you’re bouncing between session types, but it can also be useful just to keep track of your own schedule. The three of us are in travel ball, so we find something useful in each type of session. If you’re not a member and want to join, click here!
How it’s organized:
All sessions – main stage, expo stage, youth sessions, panels, and diversity workshops – are all listed on the 3-page spreadsheet. They are sorted by start time. Sessions are not all the same length. There are a few columns at the right, so that you can mark down who on your staff is going to which session.
What I did:
I used simple copy-and-paste into a text file from the ABCA pages. Then, I moved the data around so that it’s in columns instead of boxes. That made sorting simple.
Here in Asheville, we have lost some time that we had intended to use as an on-ramp to velocity improvement. The hurricane devastated many towns and neighborhoods in our region, but we expect to be back underway in the next few months. Many of the local fields have been badly damaged, so we will likely have to improvise and travel more than we would normally.
As such, we plan on offering an on-ramp program to local high school players to get them ready for their tryouts and spring seasons. The greatest hazard to a young arm when looking at high school teams is that you’re trying to impress the coach on Day 1. Without a proper on-ramp, you could quite easily start the season with an injury. The best preventative method is to on-ramp yourself in the 4 weeks prior to those tryouts. For this, we turn to the Driveline Skills that Scale: The Complete Youth Baseball Training Manual.
We’re a twice-a-week team practice group, usually doing our practices on Mondays and Thursdays. This fits well with our plans for an On-Ramp, Powered by Driveline. The first practice date for NCHSA in 2025 is Wednesday, February 12th. So, we need to walk back four weeks, finishing on Monday, February 10th. Thus, we start on January 16th. That fits well with the ABCA Convention on January 2nd to 5th in Washington, DC.
Equipment
For the on-ramp, each player ought to have their own set of equipment or share it with a partner. This way, they can bring it to both team practices and do two other practices with that partner each week.
Recovery: This is our most common workout, used to get us started and repeated in between team workouts. It’s about 50 throws and should never exceed 50% intensity.
J-Bands: 10 of each of the 8 exercises (download PDF here)
Forward & Reverse Flys
Elevated Internal and External Rotations
Tricep Extensions with Pronation
Bicep Curls with Supination
Wrist weights: 10 of each of the 4 exercises (PDF here)
Pronation Swings (Spill the Cup)
Two Arm Throws
Cuban/Gorilla Press
Pivot Pickoff
Training
Plyo Reverse Throws: 10 each with Blue (450g) and Green (1000g)
Plyo Pivot Picks: 10 each with Blue (450g) and Red (225g)
Catch play: 30 throws with baseball, not to exceed 50% intensity
Hybrid B: In our on-ramp, this is actually the most common team workout. It’s basically double the workload of the Recovery workouts, with a bit more intensity — 70%. This is used to slowly ramp our arms up to the intensity we’re going to need for regular practices, bullpens and games. Driveline labels it “Hybrid B”, so we’ll stick with that, even though it is the most common workout in all Driveline youth throwing programs. Somewhere between 90 and 120 throws, up to 70% intensity
Warm Up
J-Bands: 10 of each of the 8 exercises
Wrist weights: 10 of each of the 4 exercises
Training
Plyo Reverse Throws: 10 each with Blue (450g) and Green (1000g)
Plyo Pivot Picks: 10 each with Blue (450g) and Red (225g)
Plyo Roll Ins: 10 each with Red (225g)
Plyo Step Backs: 2 each with Red (225g), Yellow (150g), and Grey (100g)
Plyo Walking Windups: 2 each with Red (225g), Yellow (150g), and Grey (100g)
Long toss: 40-70 throws with baseball, building to 70% intensity (check Long toss distances, keeping that 70% in mind)
Hybrid A: This is the most intense workout of the On Ramp, so we just do it once, near the conclusion of the cycle. Total throws are still 90 to 120, but our intensity can go up to 90%.
Warm Up
J-Bands: 10 of each of the 8 exercises
Wrist weights: 10 of each of the 4 exercises
Training
Plyo Reverse Throws: 10 each with Blue (450g) and Green (1000g)
Plyo Pivot Picks: 10 each with Blue (450g) and Red (225g)
Plyo Roll Ins: 10 each with Red (225g)
Plyo Step Backs: 2 each with Red (225g), Yellow (150g), and Grey (100g)
Plyo Walking Windups: 2 each with Red (225g), Yellow (150g), and Grey (100g)
Long toss: 20-30 throws with baseball, building to 90% intensity
Compression Throws: 5-6 throws with baseball, 90% intensity
Schedule
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
16 Jan Recovery with team
17 Jan OFF
18 Jan Hybrid B with team
19 Jan OFF
20 Jan Recovery with team
21 Jan OFF
22 Jan OFF
23 Jan Hybrid B with team
24 Jan OFF
25 Jan Recovery with partner
26 Jan OFF
27 Jan Hybrid B with team
28 Jan
29 Jan Recovery with partner
30 Jan Hybrid B with team
31 OFF
1 Feb Recovery with partner
2 Feb OFF
3 Feb Hybrid B with team
4 Feb OFF
5 Feb Recovery with partner
6 Feb Hybrid A with team
7 Feb OFF
8 Feb Recovery with partner
9 Feb OFF
10 Feb Hybrid B with team
11 Feb
12 Feb School team practices start
Get Training!
I’m very much looking forward to running this program in the new year and I’m sharing in hopes that others use it for their programs as well. Note that this program is the Driveline 13-14u program. The 9-12u program is a little less intense – 3 days instead of 4 (No Wednesdays) and no Green (1000g) plyo reverse throws. I heartily encourage everyone to purchase a copy of the Driveline Skills that Scale: The Complete Youth Baseball Training Manual. There’s loads more content like this as well as mentoring on how to coach, how to plan, and how to develop your players.
This is the start of a multi-post series on how to use a PitchLogic ball to coach youth pitchers.
How do I use the ball?
You’ve just put down a few hundred dollars to get the latest pitching technology. Your ball came in the mail and you’ve charged it up. Now what? Get familiar with using it yourself. Check the player app video to get the basics.
Once you understand how to pitch the ball and see the data, you can bring it to a practice. Pick a few pitchers to throw your first bullpens with the PitchLogic ball. Make sure that you schedule a minute per pitch – so if you want to have 6 pitchers throw 10 pitches, you need to have an HOUR after they’ve warmed up. That includes getting them ready, some time discussing how to use the PitchLogic ball, showing them some of the data and letting them know what they did well or need to work on. I always think I can get 2 pitches per minute, but it never happens that fast.
Arm Slot and Spin Direction
This is where you start using the tech to coach your pitchers. Trained eyes will pick up the arm slot and spin direction on every pitch, as well as be able to tell you when they vary. Trained eyes are rare in youth baseball, but by using the PitchLogic ball, you get the equivalent of those trained eyes on every pitch. For trained eyes, it also lets you quantify those values and track them over time.
Your first tendency is going to be to change the arm slot to what someone told you it should be. Unless the player struggles to throw at all, you should concentrate on getting them to be consistent with whatever arm slot they use. If the spin direction varies, work on their grip to get it to be more consistent. I’ve usually urged them to have arm slot and spin direction match up, as that is the most efficient. I even have a computed column on my spreadsheets that shows me the difference between the two. Nonetheless, consistency is how they learn to throw strikes.
When you start looking at that arm slot and spin direction, you should share it with the player. Often, the grip is the source of the difference in the two. I’ve coached a number of players who throw with a cutter grip, with their fingers not quite on top of the ball, with the ball sliding out that gap between finger and thumb. A cutter moves similarly to the fastball they’re emulating (2-seam or 4-seam) but not as much. If the player is already throwing that for strikes, you might want to keep that grip while trying to create a fastball grip. That would give them two pitches that are very similar but different enough to confuse hitters.
You might notice that we haven’t mentioned anything about pitch type yet. That’s because the arm slot should be the same for every pitch. What you do with the grip and your wrist is what makes all the difference.
As I continue my evolution as a coach, my use of my tools, especially the PitchLogic ball, in bullpens has gotten more refined and the quality of the training and the information gained has increased dramatically.
Several weeks ago, PitchLogic hosted a webinar for ABCA, “What Pitching Data Really Means & How to Use It at the High School, College and Professional Levels“. It was a terrific webinar that delved into the experiences of pitching coaches at all levels. Truly enlightening, but not as focused on using the technology as I’d hoped. So, as a step toward improving our own bullpens, I’ve decided to share out how we’re doing it. I suspect this will provoke feedback and allow an iterative process to improve this for everyone.
Our environment
I’ve implemented the use of technology in our practices and in in-game bullpens over the course of the last 4 years. The pitchers involved are probably significantly younger than most PitchLogic users, ranging from 10-year-olds up to 15-year-olds. Since I started in Virginia and moved to North Carolina, no individual player has been in the system for more than 2 years. In 2024, it will be the first time that more than 3 of the pitchers involved has been tracked for more than a year. In every case, I’ve been the only person with regular access to the data (and the only one who understood it for most of that time!) For most of the time, I was the head coach. The past six months, I’ve been just a pitching coach and more focused on the process and data. I’ve also started sharing the spreadsheets with one of the players who envisions a career in engineering, since it’s good to have another set of technical eyes on the data.
The tools
For our bullpen tracking, we’re utilizing the Smart Coach Pocket Radar, F5 Sports’ PitchLogic ball, my own bullpen tracking sheets, Microsoft Excel, iCloud Notes, and the apps for PitchLogic and Pocket Radar.
The SmartCoach Pocket Radar was the first piece of technology that I acquired to help me coach my pitchers. While some of the old men that I play with contend that it’s not accurate (they think they throw 75mph while in their 60s), it shows readings matching the stadium signs when we use it at minor league ballparks. It doesn’t read speeds below 25mph, but unless you’re coaching 9u, that won’t be a problem. The best use of this is in-game to track velocity. We use it in bullpens for immediate feedback on the pitches. This is the velocity that we record on the bullpen tracking sheets.
The PitchLogic ball provides the detailed feedback on your pitches, to the extent that it provides far more information than you can use at first. I’m up to using 9 of the 23 columns of data returned after using it for 4 years. At first, we only used velocity, spin direction and arm slot. Then, we added more as we understood the use of each and saw patterns in them.
During the bullpens, we use my own bullpen tracking sheets. Each has room for 20 pitches, which is our standard bullpen. (MLBs PitchSmart guidelines have 20 pitches in a game as the max for pitching the next day, without rest.) For every pitch, we record pitch type, velocity, and location. The pitch location gets marked with an X and for pitches with movement, we draw a line indicating how it moved. There is a spot for any notes on a pitch. At the end of a bullpen session, we take a photo of the bullpen tracking sheet for our records and hand the paper copy to the player.
The data that gets collected by the PitchLogic ball can be downloaded as a CSV file (comma separated variable) and opened in Excel. Over the course of a season, I dump all the data for my pitchers into a spreadsheet and then create tabs for every player. Each of the columns that I use has formulas in it for highlighting good and bad results. By reviewing player data over time, it’s easier to see their improvement and find areas that need more work.
After the bullpen, we upload the photo of the bullpen tracking sheet to the player’s Note on iCloud. This way, all bullpen tracking sheets are in the same place, easily accessible and comparable. Any notes on the bullpen get added, then game stats, commentary or notes on usage get added to the same note. This single location for data collection and commentary ensures that guidance, practice results and game results can be understood.
Coach ‘Em All
Since we’re coaching 13u and it was fall, everyone threw some bullpens, and several players caught them. We discovered a couple of pitchers we didn’t realize we had – one of whom threw a 4-inning, one-run “complete” game win. As a Little League coach, I started every season believing that had 12 pitchers on the roster and you had to prove me wrong. I also started every season with a one or two catchers and finished with four or five, since everyone had to catch some bullpens and some ended up liking it a lot.
By allowing everyone to throw bullpens, you can discover those unknown pitchers and work on the arms of your fielders directly, rather than as part of a broader drill. When you’re coaching kids, you can’t know their potential. You can guess, but you’re likely to be wrong. The USA 12u National generally only contains 1 or 2 kids who make the National team in high school. Early growth and early success do not necessarily lead to continued interest or success. The move from the 60’ diamond to the 90’ diamond ends the youth baseball careers of many young all stars.
Setting up for the Bullpens
Depending on the facility, we might have a full bullpen with two mounds and two plates, or we might have an open space at the field that we have to lay out ourselves. It’s good to have a hard pitching rubber and a throw down plate and your measuring tape (or pre-cut string) handy when you don’t know what you’ll get.
Probably the most important thing to keep in mind is what happens when the catcher can’t stop the ball. I’ve lost a PitchLogic ball in the underbrush and had players chase another down a hill. If you can have a backstop, net or 60′ of open ground behind the catcher, that’s good.
Initializing the PitchLogic Ball
Before the bullpen, connect your PitchLogic ball to whatever mobile device you prefer. We generally get the best connection and display of data on an iPad. Once connected, you need to select the pitcher in the PitchLogic app so that their data is stored properly and, if they have the app, shared with the player. Lary Sorensen of F5 Sports gives a good intro to using the roster.
Remember, for any throw to be recorded, the PitchLogic ball needs to be held stationary for a half second. This reminds players to “make sure you don’t balk”.
Sometimes, we have the camera on for the bullpen and sometimes not. Usually when we do, it’s on the arm side behind the player facing home plate. This allows visual feedback of the movement and location. Sometimes, we have used arm side, 3 quarters in front to provide a different view of the pitch mechanics. When video is used, it’s best to have the iPad or phone on a tripod to keep the video consistent and to allow everyone to focus on the pitcher.
Setting up the Pocket Radar
For bullpens, I usually do not launch the PocketRadar app to record the velocity of pitches or to do the video. Sometimes, there seems to be interference on Bluetooth when I try using both the PitchLogic ball and the PocketRadar. So, I either hold it in my hand, connect it to the fence or have it on a tripod, always behind the pitcher. When there are no problems hooking both devices up with Bluetooth, I’ll put it on a fence using a Nexus Mount – either behind the pitcher or behind the catcher.
The most critical accessory you can get for your PocketRadar is a Power Bank. Relying on the batteries in the PocketRadar itself is a recipe for disaster. When using the app or just running continuously, the batteries die quickly. Better to have the power bank or plug it directly into an outlet at the field. (Often, you can plug in behind home plate, but I’ve never run across at outlet at the bullpens where we’ve practiced or played.)
If you can use the app, it allows you to tag which player is throwing the bullpen. When I use the app with video during a game, I will usually tag the pitches after the game, removing throws from the catchers and hits. Since you can set the threshold for minimum velocity on recording, you can usually prevent the app from recording catchers’ throws. This season, we’re going to start using it with GameChanger when streaming the games.
I wish that I had an application that would create pitch video season collections online for each of my pitchers so that we could easily review that online. If I had employees or interns, they might be able to manually execute that.
Timing
After players do their individual warmups (bands/weights/plyos), they will do their “every days”, throwing and fielding. This is typically followed by a team warm up, with team captains running the show. Coaches don’t necessarily intervene until 20 minutes into the practice. This allows us to validate the rest of our practice plan and finalize assignments, including the order of bullpens.
Each bullpen consists of 20 pitches and takes about 10 minutes of elapsed time. This includes the player throwing to loosen up a little, resetting all the technology and paperwork, some conference time after 15 pitches and assessment at the end. I keep thinking it can be two throws a minute, but there’s a lot of process around it.
Additional prep
Sometimes, we have a few players allocated to the bullpen session before they toe the rubber there. There are a number of additional tools that they might employ and tasks they might perform to help run a bullpen session.
The easiest tool for us to use is the CleanFuego. Our youth players of any age never have any trouble figuring out how to use the CleanFuego. When I pull it out in a group of old men playing baseball, they spend a lot of thought on how to throw it. It’s honestly as easy as the kids make it. When you throw a pitch with no gyro spin, the ball flies smoothly. When your spin direction is not right, it wobbles. Sometimes, it wobbles crazily. Kids adapt to it in 2 or 3 throws. It’s been great for getting them to impart backspin on their fastballs. So, when we have a couple of extra pitchers getting warm before their bullpen, we break out the CleanFuego.
We expect to start using our Core Velocity Belt this year and I think we will be integrating it into bullpens for warm ups at the start. Having just one Belt, we’ll start cautiously and expand it’s use as we get more comfortable with it.
We also occasionally have players do the tracking. This has ranged from having them just monitor and report on velocity to having them fill out the tracking sheets. As we train them in the process, I do expect that we will eventually be able to have players running the bullpens with coaches able to simply focus on coaching instead of dual-hat work as a data-recorder and coach. When we get to that point, we will likely also run more than one bullpen at a time which will greatly increase our data collection.
The Bullpen Tracking Sheet
Every bullpen is recorded, whether we have technology to provide velocity and other details or not. Simply tracking location, type of pitch and the number of pitches is going to useful over the long haul. In fact, if you don’t want to record or track velocity, just tracking the base data is going to help.
We start by filling out the top part of the bullpen tracking sheet. It’s straightforward to name the pitcher and catcher. Date is also an obvious one.
When I coached Little League, we’d have 2 games a week and I had a pitcher throwing a bullpen every inning. At the start of the season, that pitcher was always the one throwing the next inning. By the end of the season, with players throwing 2, 3 or 4 innings, some of those pitchers were just getting work in. Whether we had 1 or 2 practices in addition to the games, there was never enough practice time. By throwing a bullpen during the game, the player got focused attention and practice one more time. Some coaches will argue that the time is better spent in the dugout learning ‘situational baseball’, but we’d rather have them develop their physical skills whenever we can.
”Record By” was added when it was realized that if a player was marking balls and strikes in the bullpen, they might not have the same criteria as the pitching coach.
The initial version of the sheet didn’t number every pitch, so when left to untrained hands (parents or players) sometimes the pitches weren’t recorded in the order that we expected. So, every cell now has its number from 1-20.
I recommend new pitchers or fielders who may not pitch throw exclusively from the stretch. Learn one thing at a time.
For pitch #5 in this bullpen, the Changeup (CH) was thrown from the windup and came in at 52mph. It started high and inside but finished in the top of the strike zone. Needless to say, this was good movement (GD MVMT). You can mark it any way that makes sense to you. I know my own notations have changed in the last year and will continue to evolve. For example, I’ll likely move that W over below the pitch type.
Not every bullpen is the same, but once the pitcher is loose, we have a quick conference on what the pitches are going to be. We might script 5 pitches of three types (FF, CH, CB) and try to throw 60% from the stretch. With some players, like me, it can 100% from the stretch, for simplicity.
The person recording marks the pitch type and whether it’s from the windup or stretch before each pitch, so everyone is on the same page.
At the bottom of the sheet, there is a section for Session Notes. We record the ball/strike ratio for each pitch type here, showing the velocity range (outliers in parentheses). We add comments about the bullpen session, such as a summary or praise or a cue that might be useful. Since the player gets this paper copy of the sheet, they’re likely to retain it to understand their own capabilities and progress.
At the end of the session, we take a photo of the tracking sheet so it can be loaded onto the iCloud page for that pitcher.
iCloud Notes
We create an iCloud Notes page for each pitcher on our team. As pitch tracking sheets are created, each gets added to the bottom of the page. We add notes on the session, evaluations of the player and plans for future use (in games or in bullpens) at the top of the page. For both sets of information, the most recent image or text is placed at the top to allow quick reference.
Thus far, having them stored on the same page, but with images and text separated seems to provide the most value for us. Since we’ve just had this in use for a single fall season, we’re not yet sure whether to have new pages for new seasons or if all the data for a single pitcher should remain on one iCloud Notes page.
Finally
Hopefully, this gives you a good idea of the logistics, technology and paperwork to set up and record information about your team’s bullpens. I do expect to write more on the process and on what we’ve done when evaluating the data. For me, probably the greatest asset is being able to review objective data and recorded video of our pitchers, rather than just relying on my memory of how well their bullpens went.
As I began using my pitch-tracking sheets, I found that I was feeling a little blind about the pitchers that I had warming up in the bullpen each inning. At my most organized, I had one assistant coach that served as the bullpen coach and I would ask him how the session went. Even though it was recorded using the PitchLogic ball, I wasn’t looking at any data when I considered sending in the reliever.
I had good data collection and some guidelines for number and type of pitches, I was only able to use it in retrospect to do an after-action review of the game and bullpen. I was able to discover and share insights with my pitchers – for example, that a high spin rate from one of my pitchers would coincide with a good outing. I didn’t have them use video because that got a little too complicated. I never knew how accurate they were throwing, other than generalities.
I came up with a basic bullpen pitch-tracking sheet. Room for 20 pitches and comments if necessary. It’s simpler than the pitch-tracking sheet for games, since there are no game details (count, runners, result) to worry about.
I’m now helping at practices with a 13u travel team and brought the sheets to a practice in which we did some short bullpens. The most important thing I learned was that it didn’t have enough guidance to how to fill it out. I had 4 pitchers and they rotated between camera, radar, pitching and the tracking sheet. It was a good session and it got me to improve the bullpen pitch-tracking sheet.
Sheet Header
In the header, it provides space to record your pitcher and catcher, as well as the inning and date for reference. It hadn’t occurred to me until our head coach, Sean Willingham, had a look at it that it was REALLY important to know who filled it out. It will almost always be our players recording the data and some players will record the strike zone far tighter or looser than others. If you don’t have them mark down who recorded the session, you might interpret the results incorrectly. It also forces some accountable when recording.
Pitch cells
There are four sets of five pitch cells to allow 20 pitches in a bullpen. While that’s more than I had the 11-year-olds throwing, a little extra seemed merited for older players. For bullpens that happen at practice, 20 pitches feels good for me, even when we’ve got the 14u practicing with us. If they’re throwing a bullpen instead of pitching, it would probably be useful to use two or more sheets. Then, have the pitcher take a break after each sheet, as though he was sitting while his teammates hit. Pairing pitchers on bullpens like this is a good way to simulate game usage.
Pitch type follows the little guide in the upper right (if you prefer FF and FT for 4-seam and 2-seam….) and the next big box is the velocity. Then, the important one for in-game bullpens is the 9 cells for the pitch location. The middle is the strike zone and I prefer they use an X to mark the location, being as granular or vague as their understanding merits. When recording pitches that have good movement, you can always use an arrow to show where it started and where it ended. At the bottom of each pitch cell is a grey box in which a note could be made, like “GRT MVMT” or track the virtual count (2-1, 0-2, etc).
Let me know if you find this useful or if you have editing suggestions. I am probably going to have the good folks over at Always Grind 365 print me some books full of them before the next ABCA. If you’ve read this far, you obviously like recording data on paper like I do, so make sure to check out their Pitcher’s Notebook and Catcher’s Notebook. I use both for myself when I play and will be working with getting our 13-year-olds to try them out this year.
One of the most daunting challenges the first time Little League coach faces is… how do I arrange my batting order to be the most effective and useful to my players?
The Good News: It’s not that important at first
For a team of 8-year-olds, you don’t need to maximize productivity to win. Your two goals are to help your players have fun and help them learn how to play baseball. Winning is incidental. If they have fun playing AND get better, it doesn’t matter what the score is. So, don’t agonize over who your leadoff hitter is and which player to bat cleanup. Productivity in a coach-pitch game approaches randomness. Any ball that is put in play could result in a run and in some hilarity in the process. Concentrate on two things: having them swing hard and cheering the effort.
Equality of opportunity: The Continuous, Rolling Batting Order
One of the biggest challenges facing the kids who end up at the bottom of the batting order or not in the starting lineup in a 9-player batting order is getting enough plate appearances to get better. A Little League team gets better as a group far faster if the “bottom” players work their way up to being “league average” players than if the four best players improve incrementally.
In a team of 12 players, having all 12 players in the batting order is a “continuous” batting order. Every players bats, regardless of whether they’re in the field or not. This is far less complicated than a 9-player batting order and avoids confusing players and coaches with “substitutions”. I’d suggest that you use a continuous lineup until you reach 12u in Little League if your league allows it.
The odd word in my suggestion is “rolling”. In a rolling batting order, the batter on deck at the end of a game leads off the next game. The order of hitters is always the same, but it simply starts with whoever was on deck last game.
Benefits
There are a few benefits to a rolling lineup:
Equal plate appearances: Every batter is going to come to the plate nearly the same number of times over the course of a season. Absences will be the only thing that affects how many times a player comes to the plate.
Improvement for all: Since the players who sit at the bottom of a normal order don’t get as many opportunities to bat, they have fewer opportunities to improve. By getting them an equal number of at bats, they should improve far more quickly than if they got one less at bat than the top of the order in every game. The last batter, in particular, is likely to get 20% fewer plate appearances than the first batter. That last batter needs those plate appearances to get better.
Reduction in stress for players: A player’s spot in the lineup is going to affect their personal opinion of their play and put stress on them. Those at the top of the lineup might be helped or even hurt by being at the top of the order, especially if the order isn’t the same every week. Getting moved up or down is going to occupy their attention and may cause “concern” in their parents. If the batting order is the same all season (or most of it), no questions arise.
Reduction in stress for the coach: One less thing to think about. One less thing for parents to be concerned about. You’ll always know who your leadoff hitter is for the next game.
Drawbacks
What are the drawbacks of using that continuous, rolling lineup?
People are going to think you’re crazy. It’s not what they see in the major leagues, college, high school or even most youth leagues. If criticism bothers you, you probably shouldn’t be coaching because no matter what you do, someone will criticize it.
It does not maximize run scoring potential in the first inning. If you start with your 8th best hitter and the 12th hitter is the “cleanup” hitter in the first inning, you might not see the results you’d hope for in the first inning. On the other hand, once the game is rolling, you’d have the same randomness about who is leading off each inning anyway.
Your best players don’t get more plate appearances than the rest of the team. I think that development of the entire team is going to give everyone more plate appearances and those bottom of the order hitters stop being automatic outs and play “league average”.
How should it be structured?
With the continuous, rolling batting order being established when you play your first game, it’s important to be happy with the order you’ve chosen. Should it be random or skill-oriented?
Random
When coaching at the beginning levels, it’s hard to tell before you’re played any games who is going to hit well other than a few players. You’ll likely have a couple that parents and growth rates have prepared a little better than the others. You’ll likely have players improve at vastly different rates. I’ve used an alphabetic batting order to remove any glory or stigma from where a player hits in the rolling batting order. Probably the biggest drawback is sometimes your best player is preceded or followed by a player that hinders them. A slower runner in front of a player that could hit for extra bases or having the next batter be a player who grounds out or strikes out frequently. You can’t rearrange these orders, so random might be frustrating.
Skill-oriented
By taking player skill and expected performance into account, you can make portions of your batting order more likely to produce runs than the rest. I like to construct it so that there are two parts that are productive, rather than stringing together all of the lesser players. Since you might have any player hitting leadoff, I prefer to avoid more than two players that are more likely outs. As the season goes on, the certainty of unproductive performances by those players is going to go down, which should smooth things out as well.
Phases of the Season
I follow the guidance of the Driveline youth baseball development course and divide my season into three phases: On-boarding, Exploratory and Performance. Each of these phases is normally about a month in our March to May (plus a few days of June) schedule.
In On-Boarding, we’re trying to get everyone acclimating to how we organize practices and games. We also do our “baselining” to determine the skills everyone has started with, so that we can measure and track them over the season. By tracking them, players can see their improvement over the course of the season even if game performance is more random. During On-Boarding, we determine the batting order we’re going to use in a continuous, rolling manner.
In the Exploratory phase, it’s all about trying new things out and helping the players improve. In these first two phases, we really emphasize improving effort and ignore box scores and game results. Winning is nice, but it’s not our focus. We want to get better and have fun doing it.
Depending on the level of play, we might continue to use that continuous, rolling lineup in the Performance Phase. The first few seasons that they play baseball, it’s probably reasonable to simply continue rolling the lineup over from game to game. This past season, with my 11u team, we reset to the top of the order for our playoff games. I kept the order almost the same and it still contained all of the players, but it started at the top. (One player was moved down from 5th to 6th, but moved back the next game as I realized I shouldn’t try to fix something that wasn’t broken.)
Proposal
This has worked for me over a few seasons. I tried it with a 13u team, but it’s hard to tell if it worked or didn’t because we had so many absences that the lineup felt random every game. It was fine for 10u and 11u in Little League. Last year, we went 4-6 in the regular season, 0-3 in pool play (yikes!) but then swept our three playoff games to the championship. The “bottom of the order” was productive in those playoff games. There were no “easy outs” on our team and some “dead” innings by the other team. In the championship game, we knew we just had to survive the top of their order and cruise through. Those three games in the playoffs weren’t very close.
If you’ve got a young team and especially if it’s your first season coaching, I’d love to have you try it and provide feedback.
Imagine a leadership training program disguised as a baseball team
Gathered in the outfield after the championship game, the Captain stood and pointed to each player, citing their contributions throughout the season. Each player beamed with pride as some highlight of his performance was detailed. The victory had truly been a team victory, with contributions by everyone and the Captain let them know how much that was appreciated.
How old and experienced was that Captain? Was he the aging veteran, with a dozen years of major league experience? No? How about a college or high school senior who’d played for year in the same program, leading drills as a Captain, drawing on the example of the senior Captains from years before? No.
The Captain was 10 years old. He’d never had an example of a Captain to emulate on his prior teams. He did have some coaches who’d done similar citations of performance during the 16-game season. He’d often spoken at the gatherings, identifying some good play or extra effort by his teammates, but this final game was different and the words just flowed.
How did he get there?
The simple answer is that he became a good leader the same way he became a good player. Practice. Repetition. Coaching. The slightly more complicated answer is… through the Captain’s program.
When I started coaching Little League, I’d already had 14 years as a Scoutmaster. I was used to being able to provide direction or guidance to one young man and having him lead all of the others in getting tasks accomplished. In Scouting, everyone expects leadership to be taught and the structure is already designed. It only requires proper implementation. So, in Scouting, we produce lots of good leaders.
Youth baseball doesn’t come with any leadership structure. If there is one, it’s usually an autocracy run by the adult coach. I’ve rarely heard of captains in talking to other baseball coaches and gotten raised eyebrows when I bring one of mine to the home plate meeting with the umpires. The coach who got me involved in Little League had suggested that each team bring a captain to those meetings, so I always did. That lead me to wonder how to make that role more meaningful.
Structure of a season
The first part to understand about how Captains are used in this system is to understand the structure of the season and then how Captains are selected for each part.
During the COVID shutdown, I decided to maximize my unexpected free time. Since I wouldn’t be coaching baseball, I decided to take the Driveline course in Youth Baseball Development. In that course, they recommend breaking the season into three phases, each about a month long: On-Boarding & Baselines, Exploratory and Performance.
In the On-Boarding & Baselines Phase, you spend a month implementing your system and determining the beginning skill level for your players. The On-Boarding within a Little League season is bound to require also training the assistant coaches in your system. So, for the first phase, the head coach selects two Phase Captains and then one Game Captain for each game. The Phase Captains serve in that role for the whole month-long Phase and do so at practices and games. A Game Captain is named by the head coach for each game. This way, more players get to serve as Captain.
In the Exploratory Phase, the assistant coaches select the Phase Captains. They will have a slightly different view of the team than the head coach and have had an opportunity to see several players serving as Game Captains in addition to the original Phase Captains. During this Phase, the Head Coach continues to select Game Captains, to ensure that as many players as possible serve and that likely candidates for Phase Captain in the final Phase serve.
When you reach the final month of the season – the Performance Phase – it’s time to turn over the selections to the players. They’re seen a few serve as Phase Captains, and many as Game Captains, so should have an idea what they’re like as appointed leaders. It’s important to be hands-off in this, so that they can make the choice. Any imposed solution will make the players feel powerless instead of empowered. Sometimes, they choose the most talented, sometimes, the most popular and also sometimes, the ones who help teammates the most.
Roles of the Captains
It’s important that you give the Captains some actual duties, rather than just ceremonial ones. My list started with going to the home plate meeting and calling out the lineup, which led to giving each Captain a pocket-sized copy of the lineup. Then, other things got added. Some in these lists are specific to our style of warmup and the gear we have, others are more universal. How strictly you monitor and pay attention to detail on these tasks is going to depend on their age and maturity, plus your own preferences. I’m easy-going and often busy around game time, so there is a lot of leeway for my 11u teams.
When you arrive (slightly more than 30 minutes prior to game time):
Get your pocket copy of the batting order from the head coach (put it in your pocket)
Ask if the coaches need help with raking, removing tarps, lining the field or getting the chalk roller out of storage
Help get the J-bands set on the fence and the wrist weights and plyos nearby
Make sure a bucket of balls is available for throwing
Help get the team warming up with the bands/weights/plyos
Warm up throwing the ball
Before the game
Phase Captain 1 – Lead dynamic warmup with assistant coach
Phase Captain 2 – Go to home plate meeting with head coach (one coach and one player only)
Game Captain – check with each player whether they warmed up with the bands/weights/plyos, especially anyone who arrives late
During the game
Call out batting order when we come in from the inning and after each batter
Call out fielding lineup for the inning when we head to the field
Make sure the next inning catcher is getting ready while we are at bat
Lead your teammates in cheering the team on
Decide who you think deserves to be named player of the game
After the game
Let the head coach know who you think is player of the game (all Captains)
Make sure tags, counters or indicators (balls/strikes) left in the dugout are placed in the bucket (Phase Captain 1)
Make sure team gear gets picked up (Phase Captain 2)
Help with the raking and tarps, as needed
Communication
I did not email my players directly, which allowed the parents to monitor the communication and to be in the loop on the tasks to be performed. I emailed the task list the day prior to the game, so that parents could print it out for their player.
The use of these task lists be a little tricky, as some parents will be tempted to intervene and handle the tasks FOR the player instead of reminding the player to complete those tasks. Here, you have to make sure that the parents understand how precisely the listed tasks must be performed. The major goal is to have the PLAYER perform it, regardless of the quality of execution. The last thing the rest of the team needs is another adult bossing them around or doing what Captain is failing to do.
Once we got to the Performance Phase, my emails no longer listed the detailed tasks. Each email talked about how I’d like them to motivate specific players. These addressed things that the team needed the player to do (have confidence, hit the ball hard, throw strikes) as well as some methods. One of the most effective ways to express and instill confidence in a player is for the Captain to quietly praise them or say, “we’ve got your back.” The loud cheering helps pump everyone up, but those quiet moments often make a bigger difference. Having those things come from a peer who is a Captain instead of an adult Coach is really powerful.
Does it work?
It worked with Boy Scouts. It worked this season with my 11u team.
The Captain described at the beginning of this post served as a Captain for the entire season – having been selected by the Head Coach, then by the Assistants, and then by the players. He’s a talented player who grew in his understanding of his leadership role as the season went along.
Another player was selected as Phase Captain for the first two, then not voted for the Performance Phase by his teammates. He was a little bummed, but kept contributing as a leader as well as on the field. He liked being a Captain and has a better understanding of leadership.
The player elected in his place for the Performance Phase was not among the couple highest performing players, but is a great communicator. He talks to everyone and shares my generally rosy outlook on life (I don’t have a player on the team, so this isn’t me shining his apple!) They chose him because he was such a good teammate. He also grew in the role.
Additionally, all the players named Game Captain (everyone had it at least once in the 16-game season) took their role as a Captain seriously. They performed the duties with varying level of detail and diligence, but all within the range expected for 10- and 11-year-olds.
I expect this will be a continually developed process. I spent 14 years learning to do it as a Scoutmaster and got better over time. I expect that it’s going to continue to change and improve over multiple years of youth baseball coaching as well.
As always, I invite your thoughts and suggestions. If you want advice in developing something along these lines, my Little League season is over and I have 6 months to prep for the next one (because I don’t coach fall ball, so I can spend that time with my lovely wife). If you have advice on how to improve it or a completely different way of teaching leadership or handling your Captains, we could even go so far as to have a guest post discussing your viewpoint.
and came in at 52mph. It started high and inside but finished in the top of the strike zone. Needless to say, this was good movement (GD MVMT). You can mark it any way that makes sense to you. I know my own notations have changed in the last year and will continue to evolve. For example, I’ll likely move that W over below the pitch type.
Old Men Playing Baseball 