In this episode, we tackle what true player development actually constitutes. Training for development, tools for development, instincts for the game of baseball, and what young players should be doing to maximize their training time. We also discuss player physical development and how monotony of training turn into good habits. Spoiler Alert…whiffleball is great for baseball development. Check out the podcast and leave us a review (good or bad!) on iTunes. Thanks for listening! Need more development help for pitchers? Check out Dan’s detailed article on pitching mechanics.
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Transcript: EP56 – What is True Player Development
Dan Blewett: all right, folks. This is the morning brush back. It is Friday nine 11. Bobby. How are you, sir? I am
Bobby Stevens: much more lively than you are. Dan. I’ll tell you that
Dan Blewett: much. Yeah.
Bobby Stevens: It’s been a long morning for you
Dan Blewett: long week. Yeah. So yesterday I went home, uh, to spend some time with my folks had like a working holiday sort of, um, you know, had lunch with them.
Did a bunch of work, had dinner with them, did a little work, came home, that kind of thing. And while I was away, D C apparently flooded. And it was like, monsoons has been monsoon season for the past week anyway, but there’s like crazy amounts of water in the streets. And here’s the caveat, which this actually would’ve turned out well in my favor.
However, it did not come to fruition. So I [00:01:00] have a vehicle that I no longer need. Like I live in the city, I don’t need a car. I’ve been trying to get rid of it, but I did, but it’s a lease. And when I moved to DC, it was only like nine months old. So you just like, can’t get out of your lease that quickly without having to like, basically here’s like five grand to take my car because it’s depreciated faster than I’ve paid it off, essentially.
So it’s easy to get out of your lease, like two years in whatever you can sell it to a dealership, just be done with it. It’s great. Whatever. But in my, my situation, I had to keep it longer. So I’ve been keeping this car that I’ve been paying for that I don’t ever, like, I saw it for the first time last week.
And then since I kind of need it for the next two months, I got parking underneath my building and I moved it into the underground parking garage literally yesterday morning. And then I go home and then it’s flooding. And I’ve like, the flooding was like substantial here in DC. And so I’m just picturing, okay.
Literally the day I moved my car under ground water is going to be pouring down and just filling up this [00:02:00] underground garage. And I’m going to come back to a completely submerged car, uh, which if you have like full insurance, like comprehensive insurance, the car is just going to be totaled and you’re going to get like a new car or it’s going to be just done.
If you don’t, then it’s a very bad situation. But since the lease, like I have, it’s like fully covered, like it has to be. So I was kinda like, Hey. This was a weird coincidence, but maybe car under water right now. And that’s not a terrible thing. So maybe this was an act of God and you know, very random coincidence if it is I’m okay with that, there’s nothing about like, my car is literally has not one thing.
And then I’d lose like maybe one pen. Um, But I came back today. My car was fine. There was no water. So it was very sad. Very sad. I, I know, but so here we are. Um, so for those of you listening, thanks for being here. Apologies for Tuesday. Uh, just had like a last minute, um, snafu and just like wasn’t gonna [00:03:00] happen.
So here we are Robert what’s on the docket today. Well,
Bobby Stevens: I want to talk player development say, cause I’ve been. I’ve been going at it, not on Twitter as much, but amongst, uh, some other coaches, like everybody’s preaching like development, right? Player development, player development, you go to the, all these travel programs.
You’ve got these young, you know, coaches doing one on one lessons. Like it’s all about quote unquote development. And as someone who’s in the travel world. Yeah. Development’s great. But how are we developing players? Like what does that even mean? So my guess my overall arching question is what does player development even mean at the, at the youth level?
Like, is it, uh, is it young players? Is it young players is playing the game of baseball. Is, are you teaching them individual skills? I mean, I just want us to, let’s start off with like young kids and this, this is a little bit personal for me, cause I was like, thinking about like, [00:04:00] okay, if this was my, like, I’m about to have a kid.
A son, how am I going to teach this kid baseball? Am I going to do like, am I going to hit him ground balls? Do I want them to play more baseball? So, Dan, I guess first question is,
Dan Blewett: I know, I know what you’re going to do. You’re going to drop them off in a random parking lot in a random area of town and be like play baseball.
Be back in three hours. One day, it’ll be like a beautiful field. One day it’ll be a parking lot full of broken glass. It will just be like this highly variable thing. And your son will be a number one draft pick. At the age of 15, having graduated in high school early and being a community leader because he’s seen so much
Bobby Stevens: and knowing that, knowing his way around the city, because I’m going to drop him off with no phone.
Exactly you want to, you want development. This is the ultimate development. Find your way home.
Dan Blewett: On the days that the city floods you’ll just push them out the door in a boat and say, wherever the boat stops, play baseball for three hours, then paddle home. If it needs you, if it’s [00:05:00] too dry to paddle home, carry the boat
Bobby Stevens: home.
I have been, I have been joking that I like. He’s definitely going to play tennis. Just because I’ve been watching a lot of us open this year or this week. And I’m like, I like tennis key. You don’t even need to win the tournament. You just have to be in the tournament to make some money. What a life you have to be good at it.
You just have to be good enough. Yeah.
Dan Blewett: Individual sport. None of that. No, no. That makes sense.
Bobby Stevens: Yeah, no teammates like what? You just, just go out there, serve and Valley. Serving Valley.
Dan Blewett: Any of that? No, that made sense. Okay. So what’s your first question. What’s your first question.
Bobby Stevens: My question. My question is for younger guys, what’s more beneficial individual skills or actually learning the game of baseball.
Let’s say 12, 12 years old and under,
Dan Blewett: well, you can’t separate them, right? I mean,
Bobby Stevens: you have to,
Dan Blewett: well, you can’t separate them. You can’t learn the game of [00:06:00] baseball. Without developing skills. I mean, if you’re a Sandlot player from 1980 or even we kinda kind of grew up in like the tail end of the Sandlot generation, I guess you can’t, you can’t learn baseball, not have some skills and then they just get honed over time that you can’t like if you’re swinging a bat, like you have skills.
I mean, I mean, I think to your earlier kind of point is that a lot of these terms in baseball are just very muddy and broad and general and vague. Like player development is very vague. Like what does it even mean?
Bobby Stevens: I don’t know what I mean,
Dan Blewett: literally it means nothing and it means everything. I mean, it’s a catchall, same with skill acquisition, which is like the dumbest thing to put in your Twitter bio.
Oh, you’ve acquired a skill. Like I acquired skills when I was an infant. I learned how to stick food in my face. I learned how to walk. I learned how to jump at some point. My nephew is obsessed with. Learning how to jump. He doesn’t know how to do it yet. He goes, jump, [00:07:00] jump, jump. And then like steps off like a curb like that.
Wasn’t a jump. Sorry, you’ll get there one day sport, like, like skill acquisition. It’s just a catch all. And it’s because that one is a. You know, there’s a lot of people who are learning more about how people acquire skills and applying that to baseball, which is great, but it still just a big catchall player development is a big catch all it’s like if you meet a person in a majorly organization that works in player development, do you know what they do?
You don’t, you don’t even know what their background is. I mean, there’s, there’s people in player development that have played in the majors. There’s people in player development that have not played baseball. It and it either, one’s fine. It depends on what their role is, but it’s just a term that doesn’t necessarily have a strong meaning anymore.
And a youth level it’s even less.
Bobby Stevens: So I’m a, we use, we do a lot more on the team side of like the baseball IQ side than we do with the like, but for instance, taking ground balls and [00:08:00] teaching like footwork for round balls, And I bring this up because we have got like, I’ve got guys in the high school program, like that are high school players that don’t understand baseball and it’s mind boggling to me that like, they’ve, they haven’t been with us very long.
Or they come from new programs or other programs they have come from their dad coach team or park team or whatever. And the, the little, the little that they know about baseball is, is absolutely baffling. For
Dan Blewett: example, okay.
Bobby Stevens: Tuesday practice. This is what sparks. This is what sparks my whole thought process on this Tuesday practice, we’re doing a basic infield outfield hitting the ground, hitting by, you know, hitting ground balls, you know, One one uncover two to uncover, you know, back, cancel, roll or whatever.
So once after we do infield outfield, which goes relatively smoothly because the kids have done it before we just jump [00:09:00] into basic situations.
Dan Blewett: Okay.
Bobby Stevens: And balls hit to the outfield, the amount, like it’s very evidence that guys don’t watch enough baseball and that they don’t understand the game. When balls go to the outfield, it’s like four guys in the infield, literally running around, not understanding where they’re supposed to go, where they’re supposed to be like where the ball is supposed to go.
So we do a lot, you know, hit the ball in the gap. Double cuts. When we’ve talked about this before double cuts, aren’t really a thing,
Dan Blewett: right? Like
Bobby Stevens: we don’t, there’s not two throws or there’s two throws. There’s not three throws. You don’t have the backup guy, but it’s like, you hit a ball to the left center gap.
And the shortstop instinctively goes out and then you’ve got the third basement who kind of like starts drifting to the outfield because he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to be doing. And you’ve got the second basement kind of like standing at his position because the ball isn’t [00:10:00] on his side of the field.
And then I’ve got the first baseman basically where he would be on a cut from the center fielder between second base and the pitcher’s mound. And I, I yell, freeze, freeze, whatever everyone stop. And I go kind of go around the infield. I’m like, where are you supposed to be? And they all kind of gave me this blank stare.
Dan Blewett: Okay.
Bobby Stevens: So like this can’t happen. I don’t understand, you know, when the balls hit, you’d need to be thinking, there needs to be some kind of thought process here. Like, Hey, if the ball’s hit to me with a guy on first, like I’m going to turn a double play, like that’s should be instinctive. Right. When the ball’s not hit to you, you still have some responsibility.
So back to the player development side, these kids have always been tough, you know, ground like right left field, ground ball, throw like power position, pitching, whatever, hitting stance, none of us have been taught baseball at all. So [00:11:00] what is more important do you feel like? And I feel like the baseball portion of it is infinitely more important.
Then the skill portion, because you’re going to develop the skills, the more you play, but the baseball IQ side, like you don’t develop baseball IQ hitting in the batting cage. You don’t develop baseball IQ, just taking ground balls at a position with no situational stuff. And it’s becoming more and more evident like in the last a couple of years.
And I’m seeing at the high school level, like these kids have no idea and it’s not their fault. It’s not, you know, rat screaming and yelling at them like, Hey. You should know this. It’s more like I’ve taken a step back. I’m thinking what, like, what are we developing with six, seventh and eight, six, seven, and eight year old kids.
They just don’t play baseball like that. These kids are being quote unquote developed because they go to their one-on-one coaches. Right? Like the guys that do the private lessons, like, Oh, they’re, you know, player development in the Twitter by our player development. I do one on one lessons. You’re not developing [00:12:00] anybody who is practicing a specific skill and baseball so much more than
Dan Blewett: so is this a yelling at clouds like old man yelling in the clouds kind of day or
Bobby Stevens: yeah.
Yes. I feel like I want to just rant about people not knowing what the hell is, how to teach baseball.
Dan Blewett: Well, I mean, I think the question is when I still think you learn it heavily playing backyard baseball. Like Sandlot the Sandlot. Wasn’t a thing when I was a kid like, well, there’s no place we would all meet, but like, you learn a lot in backyard baseball and you learn a lot by watching baseball.
Like we’ve talked about this and, uh, I don’t think that can be replaced because you just don’t get, you don’t get the time doing it. And then there’s a lot of dads coaching and there’s, that’s just like the way the culture is at, you know, young levels. And it’s hard to know the, uh, and the thing is I’m even for like, well-meaning parents, We’re coaches.
There’s just like, there’s just like a lot of stuff that they, they won’t get to cover or they won’t know to cover. And it’s just like, it’s just [00:13:00] different. I think that it was, and there’s so many more teams, right? So like the coaching is spread out. So I don’t know what the percentage would be. Where of how many people who played.
Our youth coaches, like, I don’t know. What do you think it’s one in six. I don’t know. Maybe, maybe last name more. It’s like, that’s a guess. I don’t know, but maybe more.
Bobby Stevens: I’d say there’s muck. There’s more coaches that didn’t play. All the way through varsity baseball then are then there are
Dan Blewett: coaches. So if you could just like re rework then, like, what do you think could be the solution to this problem?
Or what’s an actionable, what’s an actionable solution for parents because for someone who’s listening, they’re like, you’re right, Bobby. Like, I can see the kids. I kind of don’t know where to go. They don’t have the instincts. Like I’ve got, I’ve got time. What do I do with my child to, to rectify this?
Bobby Stevens: I think it’s, I think it would be incredibly difficult.
In a one on one setting or a two on one setting [00:14:00] to develop those like that knowledge of baseball that
Dan Blewett: these kids, I believe are currently not getting.
Bobby Stevens: I feel like the, I feel like the actionable thing to do is to
Dan Blewett: really
Bobby Stevens: put them in positions, like, and play the game. Like. Let’s play. Let’s actually play the game, whether it’s wiffle ball, whether it’s the, you know, fungo, a coach with a fungo, doing situations like to actually get the kids thinking about baseball.
Cause they really don’t like they do not think about the game, how what’s instinctive for myself and you and, and people that are like guys that know baseball that play baseball for a long time where I think, okay, like, They should know this, like, you know, guy on first base stumble, play depth. Like how do we guys not know this?
They’ve never really been taught that they’ve like, kids have just not been taught, like, Hey, double play depth with a guy on first base. You know, if you’re [00:15:00] pitching, communicate with the shortstop or the second basement who’s covered on a double play. Like that was, that was another thing. Yeah. On Tuesday where we had a pitcher out there and every single time we actually, we did have base runners.
So every single time someone got out first. I’m yelling who you working with and the kid pitching is like that. He’s never heard that. He’s never heard that phrase who you working with and it’s just mind boggling to me.
Dan Blewett: Yeah. I think the
Bobby Stevens: first actionable thing is throw the, you seem to be on the field, you know, Sam yeah.
Baseball for as much as maybe might not be around anymore. You can still kind of incorporate that into your practice. You know, if you’ve got a team in most of these teams have 12, 13, 14 players on it. Throw a team out on a field, throw some base runners out there and actually let them work with the game.
Dan Blewett: Like see
Bobby Stevens: the game happen in real time in front of them. Cause you’re just not getting that like there’s that we talked about it before the guys that the kids in a Dominican, for as much as they, [00:16:00] you know, their skills, a Dominican shortstop probably takes 10 times the amount of ground balls that an American shortstop takes.
And, you know, by the time he’s 10 years old, 12 years old, He’s also probably playing 10 times the amount of actual baseball, like he’s got, he’s experienced things he’s experienced first and third situations and he’s experienced, you know, balls in the gap and he’s got to go out there and do it. Whereas like we’re yelling at kids on the player development side, on the youth side, I’m trying to teach baseball and I’m yelling at kids and then I’d take a step back and realize like, they probably never seen this happened before.
And I’m expecting him to do it in real time at full speed.
Dan Blewett: Well, as, I mean, I think one of the things is, I mean, even if you’re just like right out of the minor leagues and you’re going to now coach a youth team, How do you suddenly give kids those skills? That’s a hard, that’s not an easy question. I mean, I remember one of the things that, and I will be the first to admit that I [00:17:00] was a much better instructor slash and much better instructor.
I just prefer smaller groups or one-on-one so like team practices. Cause my little golden skill is not. Making these incredibly complex, like you’re stationary, you’re going to do this and then we’re going to go here and then we’ll go here. This is going to perfectly optimize time. Like good coaches are really special people.
The way they’re very organized and can run like really efficient practices. I don’t feel like that’s my magical skill. Um, but a lot of things that I felt like, you know, for example, say you want kids to get base running instincts, which is something that they definitely lack. It’s hard to get that in game situations, because they’re not like put in positions where they might have to go first, a third it’s like that extra.
I’m going to score. I’m going to tag or I’m going to go first. A third. Those are like the base running instincts kind of place. Right. There’s others, for sure. Also like reading fly balls, but you can’t. I have to, if you act, if you let kids play, they don’t put themselves in situations too. [00:18:00] Have to like, do that all that often, right?
Like if you have a, just simulate a games, how many firsts or thirds are going to come up in that situation? So for us, like, and this isn’t like groundbreaking by any means, but we would, I would either put a coach in the outfield or IB in the outfield, and I’m going to hose these kids at third base for, you know, it’d be like, Hey, you have to steal.
Within four pitches and I’m catching and I’m going to like throw a missile or our catchers are gonna throw bazookas and get them. Uh, so it just puts them in a position where they like need to risk being out or not. Whereas if you just let them play, they’ll do what they’ve always done. Right? Like they’re not going to just automatically go when they don’t feel like they’re safe.
So it’s like, Hey, watch me. Like, we’re gonna hit fly balls to our coach and right field. You’re going to be on second base, you’re going to tag and go to third, watch his first couple of throws, read how deep he is and you have to go within a couple or whatever it is, right. It’s a, [00:19:00] you know, when you can control a little bit better, obviously it’s the way easier to hit a ball to the right side and make kids go first, a third, put someone with a strong arm and right field where they can consistently make throws.
Again. I think the coach is good for that. And just to be like, Hey. You got to read this over. It’s in front of you more towards center field. You can see the ball a little bit, right? If it’s behind you, how hard does it hit? Right. If it’s hit over your head as a runner on first, like over the second baseman’s head, it’s going to be kind of a line drive to the right fielder.
Right. So we’re kind of like helping them pick out which balls off the bat they think they can probably get to third on. Right. Um, so I don’t know, we would do stuff like that, but we, we didn’t have time for that all the time either because you just don’t have that many practices. That’s the other challenge.
Like I think really at the end of the day, you can only get one to two hour practices a week. Yeah. How much do you guys practice a couple of hours? And it’s hard to say, all right, we’re going to do this, all this other stuff. Cause it takes time and it takes, you know, if you want kids to build instincts, they [00:20:00] got to go one at a time.
And like in a game situation, right? You just can’t have stations constantly. That’s not like a game instinct kind of thing. So now they’re all lined out. Everyone’s on the field. You have guys running on first base and now you’re hitting balls the right side. And they’re going first to third. And they got to reset.
And then you guys got to get on. I mean, it just takes a lot of time. It takes like a solid hour out of your practice. And now one out of your four hours for the week, you did that and now maybe infielders didn’t get as many crown balls as they need, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So it’s just challenging.
Like I don’t, I just think if you have to leave kids into a, like, the kids have to just take their extra time and fill with baseball, I think that’s still, I think that’s still like the, would you agree? That’s probably the X factor.
Bobby Stevens: Yeah, I think play, yeah. Playing just the amount of time spent playing the game is just not
Dan Blewett: like it’s,
Bobby Stevens: it’s not just based on, so I think it’s evident in a lot of, in a lot of sports.
I mean, I’ve, you know, I’ve, I’ve been in the youth basketball games over the, you know, watching kids that [00:21:00] gets evidenced. Basketball is evident in football. It’s evident in all these sports that they’re just not like kids time is stretched so thin, like they’re inactive,
Dan Blewett: but they’re not
Bobby Stevens: immersed
Dan Blewett: in those
Bobby Stevens: activities.
So it’s, it’s very difficult to pick up the nuances of all these sports and to perform a medal high level. Again, someone who’s doing that nonstop and we, you know, we consistently referenced kids from the Dominican or Puerto Rico that like, that’s their sole focus. Right. They’re just, they develop so young.
Cause there’s, that’s all they do. I mean,
Dan Blewett: I lived in the Czech
Bobby Stevens: Republic to play baseball and those kids that only play soccer or hockey, I mean, they’re like fat, they’re so fast tracked because all that time that I let’s say American kids are doing, like going to basketball practice, then they’ve got
Dan Blewett: guitar lessons
Bobby Stevens: and they’ve got baseball practice.
All that time is singularly focused. And they’re developing at such a high, like a rapid rate. [00:22:00] They’re picking up all the nuances of their sport or their skill, whatever they’re doing, and they’re doing it at a young age and then they just
Dan Blewett: rapidly
Bobby Stevens: expound on that or
Dan Blewett: it’s yeah. It’s like we continually teach,
Bobby Stevens: you know, we preach development, baseball, you know, player development, but then, you know, first week of November, we’re teaching base running second week in November, we gotta teach base running again.
Third week we gotta teach base running again. You don’t constantly have to harp on things that we can never build. Kind of, you said a skill acquisition earlier. They can’t, we can’t, you know, talent stack and no put a stack these skills together. Cause we consistently have to, you know, repeat our, you know, repeat all this stuff and it’s not that the kids aren’t listening or paying attention, they just need it more.
They need it a lot more than they’re getting and they’re just not getting enough of. The playing aspect.
Dan Blewett: Well, here’s the question? Does this actually like come back to haunt them? [00:23:00] I mean like, is it our kids, like not getting to play in college that throw pretty hard. Like if you’re 84, 86 as a pitcher, as a high school, junior, are you not getting to play college baseball?
Cause you don’t have good baseball instincts. Probably not. You’re probably still getting a chance. I mean, if you’re a shortstop and you’re like, I don’t, I’m not sure. Does it weed kids out, you know what I mean? Like, I don’t know that it’s really weeding them out. And at some point they really get like thrown on the fire probably, but at some point it seems to get ironed out.
Right? Like obviously I don’t think all ballplayers grew up the way that they used to maybe, but. It’s not like we have like guys in the major leagues or guys in college who are, don’t know where to go. Right. So at some point it seems like it gets fixed. Am I wrong?
Bobby Stevens: No, I think you’re right. I think that in the broader aspect, there’s just less of those guys
Dan Blewett: that like, like you said, like you get to college
Bobby Stevens: and [00:24:00] there’s less guys on the team that.
That have an opportunity to maybe advanced past college. Not because they’re not talented enough, but they’ve like, they just, they’re so far behind baseball wise, like at some point, the guys that get on the field of the ones that know baseball and they’re not being pushed from the guys that are on the bench to, to be on the field.
Not, not cause it’s kind of benches in town now, is it enough? It’s because he just can’t be on like can’t trust him on the field. So I think, I just think there’s, I think the pool, like the there’s just
Dan Blewett: less and
Bobby Stevens: then it’s more evident. I mean, college level is different story, but at
Dan Blewett: this level question are the players that are good enough to play in college.
The ones who don’t know where to go. I can’t see. I can’t imagine that scenario. You just mentioned. And correct me if I interpreted it wrong where there’s like a kid who like, could has the skills to play in college, she’s getting benched because he doesn’t know what to do on the field. I don’t see that scenario really happening.
Bobby Stevens: No
[00:25:00] Dan Blewett: cause I’ve had kids like that on my team. And, and a couple of years ago we had a kid. I mean, there’s always, you always have like, you know, there’s a bell curve of talent on a team. And sometimes the tail end where like, maybe they came from a much less competitive organization or wherever, they just didn’t get as much instruction or play as much.
And they’re just below the baseball acumen of other players and that sticks out. Right. And there’s some times where you’re just like, Dude, you can’t misjudge on their fly ball or you can’t like you can’t knock over first base. And other time, like I got a situ like this, we need this game. Right. But I’ve never seen that with like a, you know, here and there they’ll make a mental error, but I don’t see that regularly with like the best players,
Bobby Stevens: not usually with the best players.
And I think it’s more evident and there’s guys that.
Dan Blewett: Like
Bobby Stevens: have the,
Dan Blewett: have that
Bobby Stevens: skill at the younger level, but they just, they don’t have any baseball sense [00:26:00] whatsoever. And all of a sudden their skill starts to suffer because it can’t, it’s hard to use the skill if you can’t get on the field. And I’m more talking on that when I say youth level, let’s say 16 and under, you know, I got, you know, you have kids that are, that might be super talented, you know, at 14 years old and eighth grade.
Dan Blewett: And
Bobby Stevens: you just can’t trust them. You can’t, they can’t progress with their talent because they don’t know. Like they just don’t know the game.
Dan Blewett: You know, you put them out there
Bobby Stevens: and they’re kind of clueless on what’s supposed to happen. And maybe it’s just an engagement, like on their aspect. Like they’re not engaging in the game enough, but I did like, I’ve coached a bunch of 14 new games this year and we’ve got a bunch of kids like that.
They’re super talented. And they just like, it just doesn’t translate because they’re not hitting the ball hard or they don’t have a good arm. They
Dan Blewett: just like
Bobby Stevens: when the balls hit, it’s like a chicken with their head cutoff, you know, out there and having [00:27:00] multiple guys in the field like that is, is tough to watch.
Not only is it tough to watch it’s it’s like it’s absolute chaos. It’s absolute chaos when you’ve got multiple guys in the field
Dan Blewett: that
Bobby Stevens: yeah. In the wrong positions.
Dan Blewett: So let’s talk then obviously you have to have requisite skills. Like this is one of those, this is like, almost like the Vilo versus command debate, which makes me want to just like punch myself in the face, uh, where it’s kind of like, you have to get both, right?
Like if you just spend all your time playing in the Sandlot and not work on individual skills, I mean, it’s super challenging. Um, And this happened with, like, I just went to a team practice here locally, uh, that I’m going to be kind of like volunteering with them. And, you know, like in a team practice, you’re trying to get a lot accomplished with a lot of bodies and it’s hard to like affect anyone’s pitching mechanics.
Like how do you teach a kid a new change up or a new curve ball, or like make a valuable adjustment of their swing and a team practice. It’s super hard. Like we both know that. So [00:28:00] obviously there’s, there’s a need for both. And back in the day, it seems like you just figured it out, right? Like for me as a pitcher, I learned pitching mechanics from, I remember one time we all met at our coach’s house and we like went over the steps of the windup in his living room.
That’s all I really remember. Cause I don’t have that many, like I don’t have a lot of strong childhood memories, but I know I got instruction, but it was always a team practice for the most part. And I had good coaches that really cared. Um, but. I think I otherwise just like, I practiced a lot in my backyard and kind of figured it out and my body.
And I think that’s just really low because if you tell 10 athletic kids just like go practice, you’re pitching a bunch, some figure out how to throw fuel and most are just kind of like mediocre. So, uh, and we’ve got a lot of good questions, uh, in YouTube today. So I appreciate everyone who’s watching. And so well, let’s mention it here.
So, uh, Steve from YouTube mentions that they go to three and a quarter hour, twice a week practices and they do [00:29:00] their last hour scrimmaging. For pitchers throw. And he said, the kids really like it. That’s a long competitive practice. And I think that that is a really good way to do it, where every time they get to compete and, you know, you, you built, you get your reps in, you get your skill work, and then you play some actual baseball at the end.
Is that kind of how you structure yours?
Bobby Stevens: Yeah. So it’s, uh, it’s funny that he says that because. So the last 14 you gained, we had two of our 14, your team is playing a scrimmage game. So let’s call them, you know, team one and team two. Well, game one, as in the double-header it was normal team one versus normal team two.
And then the coaches for the second game, they picked two starting pitchers. And then they said, okay, draft your own team. Kind of like Sandlot pickup baseball and talking to the coach, which afterwards funny, you know, funny enough he’s like this was the most. Like talkative the most energetic game that we’ve had all year, he goes and that, and it was just [00:30:00] because, you know, they were, they got to pick who’s on each other’s team.
They were talking back and forth with each other. Like, it was, it was kind of like a throwback,
Dan Blewett: right. This was fun as a kid. That’s why we would go do it outside. Right.
Bobby Stevens: It’s like,
Dan Blewett: they don’t know. Oh, that right.
Bobby Stevens: Like they didn’t know that until like the coach actually had to structure it that way and said, okay, like draft your teams and go play.
And it was like, it was just unbelievable. The difference in, and we just like, how do you do that? How do you replicate that? You just let them do that all the time. I would love for them to do that all the time. Honestly, if there was space and we live in a, I live in a crappy weather city, you know, nine months out of the year.
So it’s not like we can be outside
Dan Blewett: the worst. Yeah, it has it snowed there recently.
Bobby Stevens: It’s actually raining right now. Uh, it’ll snow soon. But we, you know, he can’t do that inside all the time because he can’t, there’s just not baseball fields domed in Chicago. Uh, but when they’re outside [00:31:00] like that and you get the chance to do that, like, you can just see how competitive, like, it’s like it’s in there.
It’s not like the kids don’t can’t do it, or they don’t want to do it. They just. Haven’t done it. They don’t know, like they don’t know that they can do it. They don’t know that it’s a thing they can do
Dan Blewett: pick up games are really fun. I miss them. Um, so we had a bunch of, a couple of different people asking, um, a couple of kids that are listening, asking about how to develop pitching velocity.
So let’s talk a little bit about. The skills that you do think are valuable. So let’s have you talk about the pitching, are they hitting side? And I’ll chat a little bit about the pitching side, because say you have all these great team practices. Wonderful. What should kids do on their own to like have the bat speed and have the swing quality that they really need?
So
Bobby Stevens: I think that one of the. Like undervalued skills is, is being able to actually like to barrel the ball, like
Dan Blewett: the flyer, should they acquire these skills? Bobby,
Bobby Stevens: they should have the hit tool, right? Like there’s guys, you know, everyone wants to work [00:32:00] on their mechanics hitting coach one-on-one, but just going out and
Dan Blewett: actually
Bobby Stevens: hitting, moving a moving baseball or a moving wiffle ball.
Consistently, like do it over and over, like to develop that hit tool. There’s plenty of kids that I have that don’t have the best mechanics, but they can hit, like they’re just pure hitters and they can barrel the ball. And the only thing I can attribute, I can attribute that to is that they hit a lot.
Like they go to the cave, they go to the park with their dad, they go hit with their, with their buddies, you know, loblolly tennis ball, whatever. So I think from a personal standpoint, if I was a young player,
Dan Blewett: Tell me the be good at hitting let’s frame it this way. Tell me like, you’re gonna have a kid soon.
So tell me, tell me what you would do. Like your son is eight or nine or 10 years old. Tell me what you guys would do on a given week. Like you go in the backyard, what would you do to throw them bottle caps? Throw them, tell me, tell me what you do with them
Bobby Stevens: and wiffle balls, hundreds and hundreds of pitches.
Wiffle [00:33:00] balls. Like just let them hit. And the nice thing, what I liked about hitting with balls when I was younger is that obviously they don’t go very far. Right. But you have to put, like, trying to hit it far. It’s not like you’re not trying to hit a far.
Dan Blewett: So
Bobby Stevens: you, you develop that speed. You develop some power, right.
Because you’re trying to hit that thing as far as you possibly can. And it’s only gonna go so far, even now, like as a grown adult, like that, Paul’s only going so far, but as a younger player, you know, you’re going to swing harder. Like you’re going to develop that speed. By doing it by actually, you know, it’s not taking a heavy bat and doing different drills.
It’s okay. Like, let’s try and hit if I have my own kid, when I do have my own kid. Yeah. If he does like baseball, like we’re going to be out in the yard, hitting wiffle balls and try it, you know? I’m not going to say too much. I don’t, I’m sure I’m going to yell at him until he’s hates me, but I’m going to throw him a football’s like that.
Dan Blewett: You could just not do that. You know, if you don’t want to, you know, not do that,
Bobby Stevens: but want us
Dan Blewett: having the kid, if you can yell at him, [00:34:00] footballs are nice because they’re always unpredictable. And I think they just suck you in attention wise because they always flutter and move a little bit. Like even if you feel you’re right on it, it just like takes a weird turn and you’ve miss hit it.
And you learn to like, pull your hands in the last minute you learn to just like, really keep your focus and your eyes on like I on like eye on the ball, quote unquote, even though it’s, you know, obviously you can’t track it all the way to your bat, but. Little stuff like that. I mean, I think it really is underrated and it sounds like, Oh, great advice, Bobby, you’re going to throw your kid wiffle balls.
But really we all grew up on hitting wiffle balls and they are hard to hit. And how many times where you’re like, you know, your buddy throws on a hard and just like coming in, just suddenly veers in next year. It’s like, Whoa, man, you just foul pull it over the house. But like, those are all, it’s like really good hand eye coordination, especially if it’s like a, it doesn’t have to be competitive, but when wiffle ball gets competitive, of course I would play.
Baseball with a tennis ball in my backyard a lot. I love playing [00:35:00] stickable stickball, take a rag, or like cut up a sock or just ball the sock and tape it really tight. And you play with a broomstick. I mean, the Dominican’s would throw a bottle, hit bottle caps, hit grains of rice hit like popcorn kernels.
I mean, all those things are just, there’s such. Fun. Good. I would go, I would go to hit walnuts. We had a Walnut tree behind my house. I go there all the walnuts after that, like sit in the green, the big green thing comes off them like a normal Walnut size. I was just tossing them up and hitting them all the time.
I don’t know. It was weird.
Bobby Stevens: It’s funny because what’s old is what’s old is new, right? Cause like they don’t that’s right. That was a fat. That was what we did when we were younger. Kids don’t do that anymore. Like they take hitting lessons, they go hit
Dan Blewett: off the tee for 10 minutes. All right. Old man. All right.
Old man, yelling to the clouds.
Bobby Stevens: I’m the guy like I, but I’m the guy that gives as a guy that gives less since like, I can’t bring a kid in. For an hour lesson and literally thrown
Dan Blewett: wiffle balls
Bobby Stevens: the whole time
Dan Blewett: parents would be like, what, what
Bobby Stevens: the hell are we paying for? And honestly, like, that’s, [00:36:00] that is the best way to get better at hitting, not just with the balls, just hitting, like grow and hit moving balls.
I bought a blitz ball. You know, what blitz ball is that lime green wiffle ball? I
Dan Blewett: think I, I think I do. I think it’s hard to find a regular whistle, like a wiffle brand one. I think the blitz falls are more popular. They probably sell better. That’s probably why. I don’t think, I don’t think toy stores want to sell a $2 plastic ball anymore.
Like, where’s the problem in this
Bobby Stevens: God. And I actually saw it football in the dollar store the other day. Um, dollar. Exactly. But the blitz ball got like this blue bat and a lime green ball. And if you throw this thing, just it’s, it doesn’t have any holes in it. So that when, I mean, it takes it all over the place, but like, it’s fun.
We were playing it this winter. We’re playing at the coaches. You know, we were in the cage throwing it, trying to strike each other out and. Same thing, hand, eye coordination, you know that ball’s moving all over the place and we’re trying to hit it and it’s, we’re trying to make it, you know, curve and spin.
I mean, you learn so much by [00:37:00] doing and I just don’t and kids just don’t do it enough. And I’ve been on my soap box for 37 minutes now, but it just don’t do enough. He it’s get where coaches are coming from. Like, yeah, you can’t. You can’t have people paying to play baseball, bring him in and have him play with the ball for two hours.
Cause that’s not like that doesn’t feel like value when it in hindsight or in retrospect it might be the best value. Like that might be the Mo what they get the most out of
Dan Blewett: is playing. Yeah. Well, and it’s funny that you mentioned that because I’m in the area, like I’m not planning on being a head coach or anything like that.
Um, and I actually had a softball clinic, uh, throwing clinic on Tuesday. I have another softball clinic tomorrow. Um, so like I’m doing instruction still, but what I’m actually very excited about is volunteering to teach kids pitching and like small groups. Um, there’s a local organization that I’m gonna start doing that.
Uh, [00:38:00] and it feels, and I think it’s for it’s for exactly that reason. Number one, when I like show up, I don’t like. Oh, anyone my TA, like, I don’t have to feel like I have to maximize these last three minutes for the exact reason that you said where I feel like we could sit here and talk baseball for 15 minutes of our hour, if we want it to, because it’s.
It’s valuable, but it’s not something that people sometimes want to be paying for when you’re there paying a dollar 50 a minute or more. You know what I mean? Um, and you can just, like, I think there’s a lot of, like you said, there’s value in that where we can just like veer off topic and be like, Hey, let’s, let’s like, do you guys just want to like, play, like do something, just like throw more.
It just, it doesn’t have to be as structured. And I think you’re right then in the instruction world. It becomes because you feel that pressure as an instructor, like we charged a hundred dollars an hour in Bloomington, Illinois. Right. Um, I charge more than that now for private lessons here in the DC area.
Uh, [00:39:00] and there’s a certain like, pressure that comes with that. Like you want to like, feel like you gave value. And I think. People want mechanics, right? They want to do stuff. That’s going to see a tangible, measurable benefit. I think a lot of parents also realize that you getting to know their kid and spending four or five minutes asking them about their day and about their week and about their, how they’ve been playing and like getting to know them as people is still valuable.
Like that’s worth paying for quote unquote, but, um, But yeah, there is definitely a pressure as an instructor to give value packed in the whole time, which doesn’t feel like play. Yeah. So let’s chat about pitching a little bit. So for those of you asked about pitching velocity, especially if you’re young.
So I know, I think Tony on YouTube is 10 and Giovanni’s 13. So, and for parents others, and in general, one conversation I had recently with a parent. Is, uh, and his son is 14, but he’s his, son’s probably more like 12 developmentally. And on my website, I have an article about [00:40:00] developmental age versus biological age.
I also have a podcast on my other podcast, your baseball gods about developmental versus biological age. And so for a lot of players, the ones who need velocity the most are often the ones who are lagging behind growth wise. So if you have a 14 year old who looks like he’s 13 or 12, He’s going to be the one like, Hey, how do I, how do I increase my velocity?
Because they want to catch up to the pack. Right. Um, and of course, unfortunately development is not linear. Like it’s, it is for some kids, some kids, when they’re 10, they look like a 10 year old. When they’re 11, they look like an 11 year old. When they’re 12, they look like a 12 year old and they just sort of like slowly grow up in a linear fashion and for other kids.
And this is what I told this father recently. I said, your kid looks like he’s probably more like 12. Developmentally, even though he’s 14 and then in a six month period, he’s going to be gone. He’s going to go from being 12 to 15, all in a six month period. Like he’s, he’s gonna hit a gross for like, and I wasn’t telling him anything.
He didn’t probably already assume, [00:41:00] but I’ve seen this in Bobby. You’ve seen this, that go from I’ve had a lot of kids that go from 12 to six, 15 is six months span, essentially. Yup. Or 14 to 17 in a six month span. And it’s crazy. They add six month, they add six. Inches, you know, the grow six inches, they put on 25 pounds and they go from being like a boy.
So like closer to a man and, you know, suddenly, yeah, there, they were five, three and 120 pounds. And now suddenly they’re five, eight and 145 pounds. And that’s like a pretty typical freshmen size, right? Like five, eight, five, nine, five, 10, 140 pounds. And they catch up really fast. And so, but unfortunately for the kids that are younger, that have that they’re like in that developmental plateau where they’re just stuck, they’re not growing, they’re not hitting puberty yet.
It’s really hard to squeeze extra miles per hour out of it. Like you can’t, you can’t force nature. And so really what you do is you try to wall let’s develop good mechanics and you want to just try to like, have a lot of fun with them. Like. They just want to really love the game and learn to work hard all the [00:42:00] while using an instructor.
You’re like, man, I know, and the right things. And I feel like I’m doing the right things with you. I know you’re not really gaining any velocity or, you know, really hitting the ball very hard, much harder. You’re not really running faster, but if you just keep doing this stuff, when your growth spurt hits, then it’ll just suddenly hit.
Rocket pack. Right. And that’s a really hard thing for parents to, to watch. It’s hard. It’s hard for us to watch too, because I mean, you and I both probably had kids in our facility where for 12 months, they’re still just like making negligible progress. Right. They gain a couple of miles per hour or they get a little bit bigger, a little bit stronger, but it’s.
It’s small because they’re just their body just isn’t ready yet. And then as soon as they get that big dose of hormones, when puberty hits, they just like completely change. And that’s when the strength training really matters because it’s like, it’s like you’re on steroids and lifting versus on steroids and just walking around, you know, being on your couch.
So, um, but anyway, for, for those of you who want to increase your velocity, I mean, the formula is relatively simple. It’s [00:43:00] consistent strength training. Nine months out of the year. And if you’re 10, probably not as much, maybe like twice a week, twice a week, if you’re interested in it. But if you’re not that’s okay.
Um, consistent throwing. So if you don’t throw four or five, six days a week, and that’s not to say you’re throwing hard, just like playing catch a lot and long tossing once or twice a week, throwing bullpens, whatever, depending on the time of year, but throwing a lot is. A big way to, and again, that’s like when I was a kid, when Bobby’s a kid you’re just out playing a lot of baseball in your backyard.
So you’re throwing wiffle balls one day, you’re throwing tennis balls another day, your long toss, and with your buddies, one day, they’re hitting you ground balls. Another day. You’re throwing them across, you know, throwing them across the diamond, just throwing a lot as good for your arm. Obviously throwing too much where it gets really injurious is when you’re pitching all the time.
And that’s the other thing it’s like, if you’re playing backyard baseball all the time and throwing a ton every day of the week, that’s okay. It’s not okay. When you’re. Starting and you’re pitching and you’re throwing 80 pitches in a game on Monday, and then doing it again on Thursday, [00:44:00] all year round as a 12 year old.
Right? Right. So throwing is good, constant competitive pitches, not as much. Um, and obviously then if you’re still, if you’re ready for it, arm care is important. So obviously your shoulder, your rotator cuff, which is part of your shoulder, those are like the tires of your car. Like. If you want to get your arm stronger and feel better doing direct rotator cuff strengthening is important, but arm care is a really tedious, awful boring thing.
That when I was, when I retired, you know, Bobby, what was one thing you were so glad to not have to do anymore when you’re, when you hung up your cleats? The winter, the
Bobby Stevens: workouts, just the overall workouts.
Dan Blewett: A lot of training to training,
Bobby Stevens: to perform, working out to perform is a lot different than just working out to be in shape or, you know, physical human shape.
That that’s a hundred percent and I actually do not. And the number one thing is sprinting.
Dan Blewett: I [00:45:00] did not miss sprinting,
Bobby Stevens: you know, space dealing type sprinting, and, you know, Ladder sprit. No.
Dan Blewett: No, thank you.
Bobby Stevens: Yeah. I have not sprinted since
Dan Blewett: stepped away from the police probably, but, um, her pitcher’s arm care is a ness is a necessary evil.
It’s super boring. It’s tedious. It’s like doing your taxes every day or for you kids who are still in school. It’s like, imagine the most boring homework that you have for class that you hate. That’s what arm care was to me. And I did it religiously, you know, four or five days a week. For 12, 13 years and it’s, and it sucks.
It becomes part of your life. It becomes a habit, but my point is, that’s a good thing to help increase your velocity. If you’re strengthening your rotator cuff, doing all these slow dumbbell raises and external rotations and stuff with your bands and just doing five minutes of a day, five minutes of it a day is better than nothing for sure.
But for most of us that ended up throwing really hard. It’s more like a 20 minute. [00:46:00] Sometimes 30 minute per day routine, again like four or five days a week. And so it’s like literally having chemistry homework every day. That’s just, it’s just boring. So if you’re 13, I don’t always recommend being gung ho about it because it’s just like a.
It makes baseball feel like work. And so for, in my Academy, we would always just include a good amount of arm care into every workout. So kids come in for their strength training. They have some arm care built in and they have some arm care to do, to do at the end. So they don’t have to go home and do it where it’s like this.
Pill that they have to swallow. Yeah. So viable thing that makes you throw harder for sure, because you’re directly strengthening the muscles that accelerate and decelerate your arm and keep it healthy. So that’s obviously a big one. And then just working on your mechanics. So pitching coach, I have tons of drills on my YouTube channel.
Um, Just long tossing and throwing, but it’s just consistency with all of it. So if you’re consistently doing strength and conditioning, if you’re consistently throwing a lot, if you’re consistently trying to improve your mechanics, whether it’s on your [00:47:00] own, looking through videos and trying new drill and whatever, or the coach, and then arm care is another big one.
If you want to do it, but I’d say the last priorities for kids are, do start arm care later when you’re in high school, when you’re. A little more ready for baseball to feel like a job, which unfortunately it has to at some point, um, and I would stick to just like strength training when you’re younger, play a lot of baseball, work on your mechanics, do drills your house, practicing them.
And that’s the biggest thing. I can’t rush how fast you grow, because a lot of, I mean, that’s the thing for, especially if your kid’s listening. A lot of the difference between players, how hard they throw at different levels is their developmental age. So think of the hardest throwing kids, you know, typically they’re bigger than the other kids.
Or they’re dislike or they’re just like more like, they look more muscular. Okay. More muscle tone. Like this is like muscle tone kids when they’re younger, they’re just like, they look more soft and some kids like have a lot of, like, you can see that they’re kind of muscular. That’s like muscle tone. That just means like [00:48:00] the body, these kinds of like more mature, even though they might not be way taller than everybody else, they might not be way bigger, but they’re still like, almost like a mini.
A mini grownup kind of right.
Bobby Stevens: Well, you got that. So the kids that are asking those questions on YouTube. Obviously they have some kind of passion for the game, right?
Dan Blewett: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. That’s great. What you
Bobby Stevens: just, so what you just described, isn’t going to feel like job, you know, quote unquote job to them.
It’s going to like, they want to do that. That’s the thing, those are the things they want to do. And that’s that’s half the battle is the want to. Right. You get kids that get dropped off at practice because they have to be at practice just cause they’re on the team. Any kids that are dragging their parents out the door, like, Hey, we need to, we’ve got practice today.
Uh it’s I just listened to the podcast. Uh, Joe Rogan’s podcast. He just had Mike Tyson on recently and Mike Tyson. I don’t realize how old Mike Tyson is. He’s like 54 now, but he’s fighting again. He’s got a fight coming up in November with Roy Jones jr. And [00:49:00] Mike Tyson, if you’re younger, probably don’t remember or even know who Mike Tyson is, but arguably one of the top heavyweights of all time boxers.
And he said something that was interesting. Joe Rogan asked him how often he spars and sparring, as you know, you’re fighting somebody else in a practice setting. And he asks him how often he spars. And he’s like, I spar every day. And Joe Rogan, who also has a fighting background. He’s like, that’s crazy.
Why would you, why would you get hit every day? And Mike Tyson is like, he’s like, how do I know how I can get hit or how not to get hit? If I don’t do it every single day, he’s like, I need to do it. You have to do it. He’s like, it’s even if you
Dan Blewett: don’t like it and
Bobby Stevens: that’s, and it stuck out as part of the, what Mike is overall point is that a lot of this stuff is stuff you don’t want to do to be good at what you want to do.
He’s like, and that’s, you know, the passion to do that at 54 years old, the passion to just get into the Bible boxing ring and have, and want to do that [00:50:00] is, is a different type of level of passion. But as a young player in any sport, like the passion to want to do it is more than, than anything. Anything else?
Like if you want to be good at something like you’ll, you’ll get there, whether you’re physically. Behind on your timeline or you’re, you know, you’re smaller and everybody else, like if the want to do it is going to outweigh, you know, whatever other, whatever other stuff you’re doing at practice, like you just, you have to want to do it.
Dan Blewett: Yeah. And so two things there. Number one, uh, for kids and parents doesn’t matter. I don’t have to keep talking. I don’t have to keep practicing it with that. But, uh, the big thing is habits. So like for Mike Tyson, that became a habit at some point where he’s like, I need to do this every day. And then you stopped having to think about it once it was a habit.
Like he didn’t have to think about whether he was going to spar that day or what he was going to do. Like what kind of things he’s just like, I know I’m a smart guy. So he just shows up and he’s ready to do it. That’s the only thing with pitching drills and with [00:51:00] arm care, at some point, like you have, you have to want to dedicate yourself to building that new habit, but then you have to just create the habit, which is all right.
I wake up or whatever. I have a consistent time. Like I always, I always do my arm care in the morning for 15 minutes and you don’t have to think about it. And that’s how you can grid it out 13 years, even when, and it’s kind of miserable because there’s just like a thing that you always do, like brushing your teeth.
Like I personally, honestly, I hate brushing my teeth. I also hate showering. I shower every day. Cause I’m a normal, clean human, but I like kind of hate it. And I like, I’m like, ah, I had to go shower. It’s annoying, but you still there’s a lot of stuff they used to do. So
Bobby Stevens: if you could like cleaning the dishes, like you have something you have to do as an adult, something you have to do otherwise you just have a pile of.
Dan Blewett: Yes. I glance around on the places it needs to be cleaned, but the second thing is self discovery. Self discovery is important. So the best players in my Academy, they’re [00:52:00] there. Multiple. I mean, we saw lots and lots of kids. There are lots of different personalities, but one thing that was common amongst all of the best players is when they would come and ask me something, especially a pitcher, he’d be like, Hey Dan, they would have already searched.
So I remember it was one specific example of a kid. Who’s at a division one right now. Um, he came up and he was like, Hey, Dan, uh, I was thinking of doing, I can’t remember exactly what it was, but I was thinking of doing this new thing in my, in my routine. I was like, I was going to add this or add that.
And he’s like, what do you think about that? And I was like, Nick, you’ve already, it sounds like you’ve already made up your mind. He’s like, yeah, but I want you your, but I want your opinion. And my point is that he didn’t come and ask me, Hey, Dan, and like, what should I do between starts? And cause again, I don’t remember the exact topic he was asking me, but he had already done his own.
He had already been pondering this question, searched all over the internet, search wherever, and then. Also brought it to someone that he trusts, which was me. [00:53:00] Uh, that’s consistent with people who are really good because they’re just searching for the answers. Like for me, I was always doing the same thing, trying to find new pitching drills on the web.
Back when I was in college, I was doing pitching girls in my dorm and in my house, my off-campus house all the time. And I was just like searching and there wasn’t that much on the web. I had to buy like pitching books. Like there wasn’t as much out there, but I was like always searching. And then I would also ask my pitching coach.
It wasn’t just like, Hey coach, what should I do at home? And you’re just like, I’ll wait, you know, it’s like, all right, Hey coach, what else? It’s more like, what else can I do? So. But then self discovery is the other important thing. When you do stuff consistently, you just start to figure things out about it.
So like when Mike Tyson’s sparring every day, he’s discovering things that he can and can’t do. He’s discovering new nuances of people, of his fighters or his opponents that he didn’t realize before. There’s a lot of self discovery. It’s like, if, if you don’t know what to do as a pitcher to get better, just like grab a bunch of videos from my YouTube channel or someone else’s YouTube channel or wherever that seem that they seem like they [00:54:00] might be good for you.
And then you’ll start to be like, Oh, when I do it a little bit different, it feels a little bit better. Or when I do this, that seems to make the ball go farther. And when you’re long tossing a bunch, Oh, when I do, when I try to like really reach out, I can like throw it a little bit farther. That’s all self discovery and that’s all stuff you start to figure out over time.
And there’s still a ton that even as a grown athlete, like you learn how to throw the ball a little bit harder. Sometimes you just like, you just know and no one ever taught you that you just like figured it out because you’re doing it so often that you just start to like, Get a feel for what your body does.
So self discovery is a really important thing and the more you’re doing stuff consistently, the more you can get that. So,
Bobby Stevens: yeah, I couldn’t agree with you more. It’s it’s definitely like try it’s trial and error. Right. Learn what works, figure out what works for you and, and run with it. And then if you’ve got the passion for it, you’re going to like, you’ll have success.
So wherever your talent will take
Dan Blewett: you, like, you’re not gonna, you’re not going to be a big leaguer. If
[00:55:00] Bobby Stevens: you’re. You know, if you’re fi if you’re five, one and a hundred pounds and you never work out and never get in the weight room,
Dan Blewett: just because yeah. Like baseball, but, well, that’s also, you know,
Bobby Stevens: part of the, that’s part of the best part of the overarching, you know, toolbox like the passion to want to be good at whatever you’re, whatever you’re doing.
Dan Blewett: Yeah, for sure. And the other, the other thing that’s, uh, important about practices is, is allowing kids to have some of that self discovery. Cause like in the lessons format, Kids are always there for your answer. Right. Okay. What did I do wrong? What do I do? What do I do? What I do that sounded like, what do you think?
What do you, what do you think you did wrong? It’s not that hard to figure out sometimes. Right. Um, and helping kids build that self confidence to that, like, and understand that self discovery is part of it. So it’s like teach them sort of thing. Like just, Hey, go do it. I’m not going to watch you just go, go do it.
And the kids that are really focused that really care they’ll. Be considering. All right. And there’s no adults watching me. There’s no one that he was going to coach me. So, [00:56:00] but he told me what I should be doing so well, let’s see if I can make it happen. So having some of that unstructured stuff at practice is important.
And in backyard baseball, it’s all, it’s all unstructured, right? Like, right. And there’s so much more than instinct stuff. I can just remember, you know, playing with my buddies and it was usually just like one friend, sometimes a second, but. You know, I remember like I’m trying to steal base and I’m just watching, and I know how far away the ball can get from my buddy before I can, where I can take off.
So I’m just staring at the ground, seeing, trying to see if the ball will leave my, you know, my buddy’s hand. So it’s gonna hit the dirt. Like I’m watching his release point. Is this wall gonna hit the dirt? And when I think it is like, okay, I’m almost right. And then I see where, how far it goes. And I’m like looking I’m like, I know if it goes.
24 inches away from my catcher. I’m taken off, but if it’s only 18 inches, I’m not. And that’s where you get that baseline instinct stuff where it’s like, they just know right away. And then they’re gone. Like they’re looking for looking forward, looking [00:57:00] for it, they get this, they get the sign they were looking for and they take off.
And that’s where you, that’s all also self discovery because in backyard baseball, there’s no real consequences for getting thrown out, trying to steal on your friend, except maybe he wins. He wins that game and you’re pissed about it. And so you learned to take that chance and then over time you like, you’re like, okay, okay.
I know how far a ball has to skirt away from the catcher for me to steal second base. And it’s just a thing. And you’re like, Oh man, that kid’s got great, great reads, great baseball instincts. How do you, how do you build that while he built it? Because he was like trying to steal second base for well, you know, with a ghost runner.
Yeah. Yeah. So the self discovery aspect is, is interesting. So like as a coach, if you have a, your team and you have the last hour to play, you could always break them up. And if you have the space for break them up into five on fives or something, or just like. Separate them into little chunks. Like we played a game in the Dominican.
It was, um, I think it was three bases. So it was [00:58:00] home like a first, a second. It was a triangle and it was just like any other backyard game. Like, I don’t specifically remember the rules, but we played on the beach. It was super fun. And then just, there’s like a couple rules. And, but it was very much like how far can you get off between bases before you, you’re going to get out.
Like you have to be really careful. Those games are the best where it’s like pitchers, poison or whatever, where you’ve got to know. Can I make it to the next base before he gets it to this point, he grabs it or whatever. Those are really important. It’s just hard to do that in a game because in a game where you’re like, Oh, I’ll just stay here.
I’m safe. But in those games, you’re always, you’re always trying to get the next base. Like everything is like, go, go, go. And unless you can’t it’s yes, yes, yes, no. Whereas in games for kids, it’s more like default. No, no, no. Don’t get don’t embarrass yourself, you know, maybe. Yes. So there’s always that mental difference don’t make mistakes.
Yeah. And you can make mistakes in back of your baseball all the time. So I think, I think for team practices, if you’re a coach out there just giving your kids opportunities to have that self [00:59:00] discovery time. Cause they don’t. I mean, well, you’ll probably have plenty of that anyway, cause it’s hard to consistently coach a group of 12, 15 kids anyway.
Um, but it just building it in there is I think important sometimes. And then also just giving them a chance to have a little competitive games. So scour the internet for. Games kids can play. I mean, to teach base running, it’s probably better playing games than actually playing a baseball game on the big field.
Just like run down and stuff like that and run down super fun, super, super overrated to, you know, get away. They can peg each other with. Yeah, I pegging
Bobby Stevens: with football pegs was the best part,
Dan Blewett: the best part. That’s
Bobby Stevens: where I want to throw it out of your buddies, throwing a wiffle ball at your buddies.
Dan Blewett: You did not want to get caught off of base
Bobby Stevens: to this day.
It’s still fun
Dan Blewett: as an adult. Yup. You love chaos. I do.
Bobby Stevens: All right. Well that was a, that was an hour of just pure rant.
[01:00:00] Dan Blewett: Awesome for me, moderate ramp. Well, I’m glad you got out of your system. I’m glad I made it back on time because I was trapped in my parents’ house and took the train home this morning quite early.
So I made it, but, uh, thank you for being here. We appreciate you. Um, we will be back on Tuesday, the normal time also we’re considering maybe going to one show a week. Maybe doing some different things. So if you leave us a comment, either on YouTube or Twitter and let us know how you feel about a once a week, really great show versus two, maybe good shows.
We’d appreciate your feedback. But our goal is to produce the. Our goal is to produce the best possible show that we can given our time constraints. And the fact that there’s kind of limited baseball news too. And we’re going to have some more guests coming back up. We have a bunch in the works. I know I say that every week, but, uh, well we’ve got one
Bobby Stevens: coming to you.
He was a strength coach. [01:01:00] Andrew Sachs. Yes.
Dan Blewett: Good friend of mine. Yup. And we good. Oh,
Bobby Stevens: is he a good friend of yours? I just saw you two.
Dan Blewett: How did you not know that? That was why it was weird. So final thought here, uh, this, this week, and I’ve been running around like a chicken also with my head cut off, but, uh, there’s like a, a little Twitter spat, which is actually interesting conversation for another day, but Andrew was, uh, so Andrew’s one of my best friends.
We’ve known each other since we were little kids. Bobby didn’t know this, but I think that we’re both in a Twitter and a Twitter thread the other day. Attacking another pitching coach and Ben, Bobby, I guess, pitched in the show. And I was like, wait, I should be the one to invite him on the show which I had in the past, but he had been busy, but, uh, there’s some really bad research on the web.
So much bad pitching research, fat, everything. Yeah, that’s terrible. And we were both commenting on it and it was just such bad research. And here’s, and here’s why it was bad. I’m going to go in this for five seconds. This [01:02:00] guy, I was talking about how the drag line is important. And so your drag line is a pitcher is like, how long has your foot drag on the ground until, you know, you’re at least the ball.
And does your back foot stay on the ground for a long time through ball, through ball release? Or is it lift off the ground or ball released? It’s a, it’s a very debatable topic. Because a lot of the best, I mean, there’s lots of hundred mile per hour, major leaguers who throw with their back foot slightly off the ground as pitchers.
So obviously you can still have inefficiencies in your delivery and still throw a hundred miles per hour. So you can still throw a hundred miles per hour and not have a perfect. Mechanics. Right. However, to say that this is like a really crucial thing. When there’s so many dudes throwing 90 to a hundred who have their foot off the ground, let me let’s be serious.
Like this can’t be that big of an issue. Uh, but anyway, so they, they released this like overview of a study. They did. And it’s an a and a competitor appropriate dragline to other drag lines. And I’m like right [01:03:00] off the bat. How does no one see how, like, how does your organization not see that calling this an appropriate drag line is just very biased language.
Like it’s ridiculous. You’re like, yeah. As a researcher, you should be looking for. And of course he’s, we’re not researchers, which is why this was junk. Um, Whether or not, when you’re looking for an effect, you’re supposed to do it from a neutral standpoint, like we’re just starting to figure out like, all right, we’re doing a study on apples versus oranges.
We’re trying to figure out are apples more healthy or orange is more healthy, right? You’re not trying to the Prius presuppose what, what the conclusion is. Right. And so the goal is to go in with an open mind everything’s neutral. And so when researchers like defined study conditions and I studied psychology in college, that was one of my, I had two majors.
That was one of them. So I know enough to be. Informed about research design, certainly not researcher. Uh, obviously you try to go in there neutral. Right. And so saying, like it say, you’re comparing the health of apples to chocolate, which we might already assume that apples are more healthy. [01:04:00] Right? You wouldn’t.
Right. So in group a, uh, people were fed the healthy food and group B, they were fed the unhealthy food, you know, apples being the healthy food. And like, you would never use that language. Cause it’s presupposing that chocolates unhealthy and apples are healthy. Right. And we’re using this study to determine that right.
You with me so far, I’m with you. So in this, in this thing, they were talking about drag lines or like here’s an approach. Here’s the approach, those with an appropriate drag line. Had this injury rate compared to people without an appropriate dragline and the fact that you’re using the term appropriate dragline, what do you think of?
What, what do you think when you hear the word appropriate? You think that it’s good and proper and, right, right, correct. Yeah. They’re already presupposing that a dragline is better. They’re already trying to tell you and persuade you that their opinion, which this is just confirmation bias. All over is that drag lines are better like that.
They’re dragline that their opinion of the drag line is the right one. It’s like, this is garbage. And the thing is I tend to agree that if you could [01:05:00] choose to make a pitcher in a, in a, in a, in a factory, he would want his back leg down at release, like his back leg long, like on the ground, still at release.
If I could build a picture in a factory, that’s how I would have him throw. However, I still wouldn’t do research to like, in that biased manner to confirm my own suspicions. Like if I’m really wanting to learn about it and get to the bottom of it, I should do it in a neutral sense and try to determine is this actually better?
I have this opinion that is based on something, but it’s an opinion based on draglines and back legs. But I want to decide if it’s actually correct. So let’s do this the right way rather than, but this is going to be fun
Bobby Stevens: on Tuesday
Dan Blewett: anyway. So we will talk about research. I’m sure a little bit with Andrew, but anyway, ranting over.
I got my little rants in, so we’re all I think we’re done. Thanks for watching. We will see you here on Tuesday. Bobby, send them out.
Bobby Stevens: See everybody Tuesday. Thanks for listening.