Throughout Pro's Pitch, I have outlined my beliefs and provided tips that we use at Pitching Coach Pro to develop players to their highest talent potential. The information I’ve shared has been accumulated over my 34 year pitching and coaching tenure at the highest level in Professional Baseball. Over the decades, I have seen millions of pitches. Through an extensive amount of trial and error, I understand the reality that there will be both successes and failures in baseball while learning to identify what works and what doesn’t.
Throughout my coaching career, I have operated under a philosophy that fosters an open mind. I believe that, like the players I coach, we can all continue to learn each day. I strive to create an environment that doesn’t allow the player to get lost in the data and analytics that consumes baseball today. I do my best to establish a balance between the humanism of baseball, as well as the need for analytics. With this being said, I understand what it takes to pitch at the highest levels and have personally worked with and developed or had a part in developing over 100 Major League Baseball pitchers.
Pitching Coach Pro is growing and developing just like our pitchers. Ultimately, Pitching Coach Pro intends to establish an Elite Program, which will provide Elite MLB style training to those who want a chance to develop to the highest level from a young age onward. Pitching Coach Pro will accept applicants that display the talent, strong work ethic, consistency, and availability needed to complete this Elite Program.
Pitching Coach Pro wants to help you determine a path in baseball that meets your needs, as well as your ambitions. To do so, you need to identify what your ambitions are and how they correlate to baseball.
Elite Training
Because of my well-rounded experience and knowledge at the highest level, I understand what training entails to be able to pitch to your highest capabilities.
I have an eye for how the body works that is needed to establish a solid delivery at an individualized approach. I expertly teach pitches, matching arms slots with pitches and pitches with arm slots. Not everyone can throw a curveball but they could throw a really good slider with their delivery and arm slot. I teach you to understand your strengths to make the best version of you.
Personal relationships with pitchers are highly important. One of my strongest coaching attributes is learning how each individual thinks, how they work, how they respond to situations, what it takes to motivate them, and how each individual responds to instruction, and as well as identifying their inner belief system.
I understand and teach proper mechanics which increases lower half strength and takes the stress off of your arm. Taking all of the steps to remain healthy is a priority when pitching.
Providing valuable information and guidance along the way is necessary.
Pitch design and Rapsodo data analysis
Personalized throwing programs and guidance
How many pitches you should throw in games
Pitch Sequencing
Understand video analysis
College Recruiting
If your goals include college education, you’ll likely be entering into the college recruiting process. Ultimately, college recruiting adds a layer to your college search. Research colleges that you are interested in, but resist the urge to focus only on athletics. The school needs to be a good fit academically, then determine if you would fit into the baseball program.
When does recruiting start? What factors should I be paying attention to? Typically, recruiting starts sometime during your sophomore or junior year of high school. Recruiters tend to focus on evaluating players based on their performance at showcase camps, high school, and on your travel team. While recruiters are evaluating you, you should also be evaluating yourself. Be honest with where you are academically, as well as in baseball. Do your grades and abilities pair best with DI, DII, DIII, or Junior College?
Where do I fit? After evaluating yourself, you should begin developing three lists: safety schools, target schools, and dream schools.
Safety schools include the schools that you know you meet their athletic and academic expectations.
Target schools are the primary schools you're aiming for.
Dream schools are a reach academically, or athletically. They are good schools to strive to meet your goals, but should not hold all your focus.
How to get noticed? One tool that many athletes looking to be recruited to find beneficial is developing a skills video. This video is designed to grab the attention of recruiters. Typically, these videos are about five minutes long, but be sure to lead with your strongest fundamental skills in the first two minutes. Remember that skills videos are different from game day footage!
How to stay relevant by building a connection? When going through the recruiting process, it is important to build and develop connections with coaches and recruiters. A part of building this connection is to respond promptly, as well as maintaining regular communication with those people. This helps coaches and players to determine if they are a good fit for each other! Part of maintaining a good connection is keeping the social media clean, basically if you don’t want your grandma to see it don’t post it!
Like I’ve said there are many routes you can take that can meet your goals when it comes to baseball. College recruiting is a long process with lots of steps. Here Pitching Coach Pro has just provided a basic overview of some of the best practices that can help you meet your recruiting goals!
Professional Baseball
I understand how challenging it may be to become a Major League Baseball player. Is your dream to pitch in the big leagues? Speaking from experience, you have to possess the driving force within you that keeps you striving to achieve your goal of pitching at the highest level.
A player must be the total package which consists of:
Hard Work.
Natural Ability - born with the gift of athleticism.
Talent.
Playing Time is important and will give you opportunities to stand out and be noticed.
Participate in: Travel Ball, High School Ball, Tournaments, College Ball
You have to achieve being one of the top or elite players in your area or state.
Something that makes you special - What separates you from other players? Ties in with pitching to your strengths! Whether it’s a fastball, a slider, your velocity, etc.
With a combination of all these factors, you will gain attention from professional scouts coming to watch you play and get closer to your dream! To give you a little more insight into the process of developing into professional baseball, we will go through Josh Paulina’s journey.
Josh Paulina’s Journey
Josh was a standout pitcher in high school throwing upper 80’s to 90 mph and committed to the University of Pittsburgh. Josh had developed several tools to make him successful. As in every sport with any position, injuries can play a part in setbacks.
I started working with Josh in January 2020 after he was referred to me by physical therapist and athletic trainer, Brian Cammarota, whom I had the pleasure of working alongside when in the Philadelphia Phillies Organization. When I first saw Josh, I liked his size, build, and his natural athletic ability. After assessing his pitching mechanics, I began to show him how to maximize his height, body, and size to minimize the stress put onto his throwing arm. Together, we worked on developing the motion in his lower half to get his legs, core, and trunk rotation more involved, which led to a healthier arm and an increased velocity in his pitch. Essentially, Josh had all the tools needed, but by incorporating those few needed adjustments in his delivery he is maximizing his potential, which by the way is still evolving. Currently, at 18 years of age, Josh has a 93 mph fastball throwing at 80%.
Josh possesses the self-discipline and dedication needed when it comes to the consistency of daily workouts. He is driven by his burning desire to pitch at a professional level to put the work in. In July of 2020, Pitching Coach Pro posted a video of Josh on our social media accounts, as is done with many of our athletes. I often get lots of feedback and questions from my network of colleagues that I have met, worked with, and played alongside within my 34 years in professional baseball. A scout that I had played with in the ’90s reached out to me and trusted my expertise in knowing and recognizing the talent that Josh displayed. One week later, Josh’s talent and hard work enabled him to reach his dream of pitching at a higher level. He signed with the San Diego Padres. We, at Pitching Coach Pro, are so happy for him and proud of him for all the hard work he put in to reach his goal!
Summary
Pitching Coach Pro is dedicated to helping all our athletes reach their highest potential and all the goals they set for themselves! We aim to do so by providing our athletes’ tools that will not only improve their performance on the mound but give them the information they need to reach their goals.
The Elite Program will be designed to give our top athletes a consistent MLB style training for those athletes striving to play at the highest level from a young age. This program may be beneficial to those who display talent, a strong work ethic, consistency, and availability. Ultimately, these traits are needed by any pitcher looking to play at a higher level, whether in college, at the professional level, or both.
As we close out our 10-blog series, Pitching Coach Pro strives to provide information that can help you continue to grow as a player, as well as give you some direction as to where you want to go in baseball. While no one defined path gets you to your goal, we are gladly here to provide additional and essential training to guide you.
In the midst of posting this today, Pitching Coach Pro has had scouts from another MLB team reach out concerning two more pitchers. Stay tuned!
For more information, please visit us at www.pitchingcoachpro.com and keep up to date through our Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter!
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