Play Ball Kid Baseball Development Podcast

Baseball players have shared the importance of strong forearms and grip strength for years. But recently, Daryl & Adam Moreau have taken it to the next level by developing the Flex Pro Grip, that allows specialized protocols to measure and improve each joint in each finger. They spent the last year working with the San Diego Padres organization and they join us to share some of what they have discovered in those trials. Discover how their device trains the 3 flexors muscles that are responsible for keeping our UCL safe, how different finger strength should influence your pitch design and where arm care and performance are headed in the coming years. 

Coach Jacob Tobin is the head coach at SUNY Ulster, a JUCO in the Hudson Valley area of New York. He is the founder of the recruiting account @BUncommitted on Twitter, where he shares videos of student athletes with over 530 coaches and professional scouts. 

Jake Tobin was born and raised in the Greenwich Village Section of New York City. Jake played high school baseball at Dwight High School where he is currently the head coach. As a Sophomore, Junior, and Senior Jake was an All-Conference selection. He played college baseball at St. Joseph’s College Brooklyn.

Jake has served in many roles in scholastic and collegiate sports. He began his coaching career in the Hamptons League as a volunteer assistant for the Sag Harbor Whalers. Since then he has served as assistant coaches for St. Joseph’s College Brooklyn, University of Connecticut Avery Point and Saint Peter’s College.

Currently Jake is also the head coach of the Sag Harbor Whalers of the Hamptons league where he has coached numerous drafted players. Jake also founded a baseball analytics team of college interns to collect, analyze, and distribute graph’s charts and reports to players and coaches.

While a coach at University of Connecticut Avery Point Jake founded a baseball recruiting platform called @BUncommited. The platform was created for his Junior College players during the pandemic. Jake’s platform has helped over 300 kids find college placement.

Jacob lives in Brooklyn, New York with his wife Emily, his daughter Mia and their two bulldogs Otto and Mays.

Marcelo Alfonsin, is the Astros Dominican League Manager and Field Coordinator. He is also the pitching coach for the Argentinian National Team that recently competed in the World Baseball Classic qualifier in Panama. Marcelo grew up playing baseball in Argentina, that as you can imagine does not have a lot of baseball players and has worked his way to be a Manager in the Houston Astros Organization. If you are a fan of the underdog story, you will not want to miss this episode. 

Jarrett Phillips is the owner of TrainPMT Southlake in Southlake, Texas. He trains athletes of all ages including PGA pros, Greg Chalmers and Brendan Todd.   Website: https://www.trainpmt.com/ Instagram: @trainpmt_southlake

“My life goal is to have a positive impact on 1 million people through baseball, education, and exercise.” - Tyler Gillum 

Tyler Gillum enters his 13th year coaching college baseball and his 11th year at South Mountain Community College in Phoenix, AZ. He is the Associate Head Coach at SMCC primarily working with the infielders and coaching third base. He is also a coach with the Savannah Bananas.

Gillum is also Health & Wellness faculty where he oversees exercise science, nutrition, health & wellness, and physical education programs. He is a certified strength and conditioning trainer, holding certifications in FRC (Functional Range Conditioning) and TPI (Titleist Performance Institute) and leads the baseball strength & conditioning program at SMCC.

SMCC Accomplishments:

• 80 D1 transfers
• 7 draft picks
• 344-194 overall record
• 28 all-conference players
• Cumulative Team GPA over 3.0 (10 Total Years)
• 2017 lead the country in Stolen Bases (200)
• 2018 finished 2nd in fielding percentage (.974)
• 2019 14 D1 Transfers (Most in program history)

Baseball Systems, Camps and Courses Creator:

• The GreenLightSpecial Baserunning System
• “All You Can Eat” Infield Camps
• The Growth Toolbox “Developing Skills to Change Your Life”

Gillum is a mainstay on the summer coaching circuit. He currently enters his 11th year coaching summer baseball. He will be returning to the Coastal Plain League with the Savannah Bananas for his fifth year. In his four summers in Savannah, he has compiled an overall record of 139-53 leading the entire league in wins in that time frame. In 2021, the Bananas won the CPL Championship going 40-10 on the summer with 13 ALL-CPL Selections.

He spent the 2017 summer with the YD Red Sox in the Cape Cod League (27-16) where they led the league in stolen bases (68). 2014-2016 was spent with the Brazos Valley Bombers in the Texas Collegiate League, winning 3 TCL championships with an overall record of 138-31. With Gillum coaching 3rd base, the Bombers led the TCL in many offensive categories highlighted by breaking the single-season stolen bases record with 161.

Gillum has spoken at many coaching clinics around the country including the American Baseball Coaches Convention in 2016 and 2018. Some of those topics are Infield Play (Developing Dudes on the Dirt), Baserunning (The GreenLightSpecial System), and Player Development (The Growth Toolbox). He has also been interviewed on multiple podcasts such as “ABCA:Calls from the Clubhouse”, “Ahead of the Curve”, and "Dugout Chatter".

Gillum graduated from Latta High School in Oklahoma in 2005, where he was a member of four state championship teams. He then spent two years at Seminole State Junior College. He finished his playing career at East Central University earning a degree in Kinesiology (Teacher’s Certification) and a Master’s in Education with an emphasis in Sports Administration.

He and his wife Danielle have a 1-year-old boy Camden.

Colter Bostick is the former pitching coach at Rice University. He is the co-author of Play Ball Kid: How to develop baseball players from middle school dreamers through committed college recruits.

As both a coach and as the director of his baseball performance program, Maximized Baseball, Bostick has worked with professional and collegiate pitchers to accelerate their abilities and talents. He has also consulted with major league organizations in their talent evaluation and acquisition.

Bostick developed and refined a program focusing on mechanical diagnostics, pitch design and individualized throwing programs resulting in maximized player development.  Maximized Baseball’s focus on guidance and pitching development produced over 30 all-state selections and 100+ pitchers committed to college programs or drafted as top-rated prospects.

As an area scout for Prep Baseball Report, Bostick built an extensive network of coaches throughout the region while evaluating and scouting talent.

He pitched collegiately at Midland College and St. Mary’s University in San Antonio where he graduated Magna Cum Laude with a B.A. in English Communications.

He launched his post-playing baseball career with the Glens Falls Dragons of the Perfect Game Collegiate League in 2015. Later that same year he founded Maximized Baseball in San Antonio.

Bostick grew up in the northwest region of the country, primarily residing in Cody, Wyoming before he moved to Texas to pitch collegiately.

He and wife, Lauren make their home in Houston.

Tracy Hayes, aka “MobilityChick” is the founder of Amplified Movement and a Movement + Mobility Specialist most known for her 12-Week Baseball Mobility Series launched within the MLB community in 2020 that has garnered the attention of players and strength coaches from 24 of the 30 MLB organizations, from A-ball to All-Star. In less than 2 years since her mobility series’ launch, Tracy has had nearly 1k enrollments in her various mobility routines and programs within pro and non-pro baseball. Tracy has been featured on MLB.com for her work with the Orioles and for personally mentoring their Strength Coach, Liz Pardo. Tracy has been a featured guest on several podcasts. 

Tracy has a unique perspective as a former “baseball wife”, is a mama to 4 young children, two of whom currently play Little League, and she has made it her mission to create a healthy, fun, and effective youth sports experience for all of her children and the millions of other kids who love to get outside and play the game of baseball. Make sure to check out her Youth Warm Up series.

Tracy’s vast background includes Neuroscience, Cognitive Science, and Linguistics during her studies at Northwestern University, a professional career in Research at McKinsey & Company in addition to advanced studies in biomechanics for athletes. Her methods incorporate fundamentals from PRI, FRC, ELDOA, Physical Therapy-based functional yoga (LYT), in addition to Classical Pilates, and over 1,000 hours of specialized yoga training. Tracy is a Master Pilates instructor and published author, an NLP Practitioner, trained in EFT (Tapping), and is a regular with Vipassana meditation.

Please share this episode with every baseball mom and dad that you know. Let's help our kids move better. The payoffs will be amplified.

Javi DeJesus was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico where he learned to love the game of baseball.  His parents moved to Beaumont, TX where he had a lucrative high school career throwing the schools first two no-hitters, District 22-5A MVP and earned a scholarship to the University of Louisiana-Lafayette. From 1990-1992, Javi amassed a record of 23-1 (22-0 as a starter), with a 13-0 junior season which earned him  1st Team All-American Teams Coach’s Poll, 2nd Team All American Collegiate Weekly, and 3rd Team All America Baseball America. He also earned 1st All Louisiana and Sun Belt Co-Pitcher of the Year award.

In 1992, he was invited to represent Puerto Rico in the Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain. His junior season helped capture the attention of the Minnesota Twins who drafted him in the 17th round.  He played 10 years in the minors with a record of 54-33 and a 3.99 ERA earning 4 All Star appearances and Minnesota Twins Pitcher of the Month in 1994.

After retirement, Javi began coaching and working with young men throughout the Northeast Indiana and Northwest Ohio area.  He along with the late Charly Butcher founded the Fort Wayne Cubs, nka FW Diamondbacks, which has helped over 300+ young men of playing at the collegiate level with over dozen drafter to play professionally and two current MLB players, Kevin Keirmaier and Zack McKinstry.

Currently, Javi is the Pitching Coach at Ivy Tech CC where helped lead his staff finish 30th in the country in Pitching.  His passion for teaching the game and developing pitchers has led mat Peters to be considered as an MLB Draft prospects taking him from 89-93 mph to touching 103 and sitting 96-98mph over the course of the spring season.  His work ethic and constant use of video analysis apps has helped transform his pitchers into formidable prospects for 4 year schools.

In this episode we discuss:

• What he is looking for when recruiting pitchers
• What parents and student athletes should look for in a program when evaluating how will they develop players
• Some of the tools Javi brought into his pitching lab at Ivy Tech (PitchAI, The Kinetic Arm and the PitchLogic Smart baseball).
• What he is doing with the 16 year old pitchers he coaches this summer to help their development and recruiting.

Corey Gardner is currently the Assistant Coach and Recruiting Coordinator at Southern Wesleyan University, where he coaches hitters & infielders. Corey had previous stops at The University of Rio Grande and Kentucky Christian Univeristy. He previously owned a travel baseball program as well. 

In this episode we talk about how student athletes can project confidence when speaking to college coaches on the phone or in person. Corey shares the 1 question he would ask over 10,000 student athletes every year on the recruiting trail. Corey shares advice on how to connect with coaches on email and social media. We also answer a few audience questions since this was recorded live on Twitter Spaces on May 27th, 2022. Question include:

"If you get an introduction email from a player and you are not allowed to respond due to age restrictions. How does player know if you are interested or not."

and 

"As Corey mentioned, parents aren’t around their child when in college….  With the surge of student athletes who have taken their own lives, what are some things a parent/athletes can ask when looking for a program in regards to supporting your athletes mentally or safeguarding the athletes whole self?   Second- how do college coaches makes sure their athletes are mentally and emotionally balanced/ being supported with the pressures of being a college athlete?"

Patrick Jones is the host of the Patrick Jones Baseball podcast, a private hitting coach, as well as a former MilB coach & high school coach. Patrick is the first guest on this podcast to be interviewed by both Sammy (3 years ago) and Bryan. Patrick has been spending a lot of time speaking to college coaches, travel ball coaches on his podcast recently and is also helping families with the college baseball recruiting process.  

Kirk Cabana is the founder of Pursuit 4 Purpose and the recruiting coordinator and assistant coach at Carolina University. The Pursuit 4 Purpose podcast brings together the world’s most passionate athletes together to encourage our goals and aspirations. By using the principles of the greatest minds before us, our athletes will become champions of character. Kirk is also the head coach of the Carolina Disco Turkeys independent baseball team. Kirk has a remarkable baseball journey returning to play when he was 30 years old and now coaching just a few short years later.

Sarah Howard, is the founder of Elite Mobility Training (EMT). We spend time talking about how to incorporate recovery routines, why they are so important, why Yoga seems to be taboo, what are the benefits of mobility training and her use of the inexpensive Yoga Tune Up and Coregeous balls with baseball players from youth to MLB players like Jack Flaherty.

Will Carroll writes about sports science, sports medicine, and sports. We chat about his latest book "The Science of Baseball." His “Under The Knife” column was called “essential reading” by Hall of Famer Peter Gammons. Author of two award-winning books (Saving The Pitcher and The Juice), Carroll currently writes about injuries for his own newsletter and consults with several professional teams and players on sports science. His work has been seen on ESPN, Sports Illustrated, Baseball Prospectus, and the New York Times. He lives in Indianapolis and is @injuryexpert on most platforms.

Will and I discuss how our athletes could benefit from data and using science to develop and reduce injury. He offers a great tip for anyone evaluating programs to choose in their collegiate journey. We explore what the future might look like with his NorthStarr.ai project as well. 

Juan Palacios is a professional baseball trainer with over 30 years of experience working with pitchers, catchers and hitters.  He has worked with some of today’s most talented MLB players such as Carlos Correa, Francisco Lindor, Edwin Diaz, Jesmuel Valentin and Yadiel Rivera.  

Juan was born and raised in Caguas Puerto Rico and graduated from the Eloisa Pascual High School in 1988. He went on to play baseball his first two years at George Fox College in Oregon, a NAIA Division I program. There he lettered both years. He then transferred and finished out his collegiate baseball career at Turabo University in PR.  Juan was named to the NAIA Div 1 All-American Team.   

Juan played for the World Champions Puerto Rican National Team in 1993. During his Semi pro career, Juan was the Rookie of the Year in 1988, MVP in 1993 with the Coamo PR Double AA team and National Pitcher of the year with a 8-0 record, and a .063 ERA in 102 innings pitched (1993).  After a short stint in the business world, Juan decided to return to his passion of teaching and coaching baseball. Juan became an assistant coach at Archbishop Spaulding High school in Maryland,  a baseball coordinator and head baseball coach at Notre Dame High school in Caguas PR. He also served as a volunteer assistant coach and baseball coordinator with several organizations in Maryland.  

Over the past 10 years, Juan has been a part of programs that have made it to at least the MIAA Division 1 playoff in Maryland.  Juan is the also the former National coach for the 5 star team National mid Atlantic taking Maryland baseball to levels that haven’t been seen before in the state.    He is a former International Pitching Association Coach (2002) with a reputation for turning pitching staffs around.  In 1996, got his first job as a pitching Coach with Halcones de Gurabo semi pro league in PR and took the pitching staff from a 2-8 record at the time with 6.13 ERA to an impressive 12-2 turn around and .082 ERA after starting his role.  He developed two of his former pitchers to become part of the National team that year.    

He has also had the honor to work with some local Maryland talent such as Tyler Blohm and Zach Thompson from the University of Maryland, Jordan Carr from North Carolina and Jordan Geber at ST. Marys University., Josh Moylan’s at ECU and Jackson Merrill, a first round pick by the SD Padres 2021.  Juan’s diverse background includes being an IFA certified Personal Trainer and a Massage Therapist  who graduated in 2008 in Caguas PR.    

Juan is extremely excited about the opportunity to work with kids of all levels and is building his Palacios Clinics baseball program from the ground up. He sets very high expectations for each of his players both indoors and on the field. He and his beautiful wife Evelyn have been married for 12  years.

Baseball players need to understand how to see the ball in order to hit the ball. We discuss how to train those skills for best results with Dr Peter Fadde from GameSense Sports.

Ken Cherryhomes has been helping hitters for the last 25 years. He has coached hitters at every level from youth to major league hitters. He's also an inventor of the X-Factor system.

This week we are with former high school baseball coach, high school English teacher, podcaster and podcast coach Joe Ferraro [ https://www.damngoodconversations.com ] of the 1% Better Podcast  and the "Damn Good Questions" virtual course. We discuss the importance of communication on and off the field and the power of asking good questions in our player development, recruiting and as a life long skill beyond the baseball field.

Chad was a 12th round draft pick of the Cleveland Indians. He also coached H.S. baseball for 5 years. With the advent of new technology began to take hold of baseball he started questioning a lot of what players do and what they are taught. Today he offers various player development options from his facility in Virginia, as well as remote baseball and softball training as well as a suite of products he has brought to market including the Spinner. Be sure to check out his LPD+ community and his podcast. 

In today's show Bryan and Chad talk about:

• What are people getting wrong when posting swing videos on social media?
• What matters more, Max power or Max accuracy?
• Is there an ideal swing that can be taught?
• How to identify a "hitting" coach over a "swing coach."
• What did the old timers and kids in Latin America have in common in their development?

You can find Chad on Twitter and Instagram.

Harold Mozingo is a former pitcher in the Royals and Blue Jays organizations. He is the inventor of the TorqueScrew training device for training pitchers on how to use ground force effectively. He is the author of Young Guns Eguide, a 90 page complete guide to training youth pitchers. It includes Velocity Development, Mechanics, Strength Training, Workload, Training for Control, How-To Guide's for each pitch type (including pictures of grips), Training Guides by Age, Sample Routines and more! He also offers baseball lessons and training near Tappahannock, VA.

You can find Harold on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

You can follow Chris Young on Twitter. 

He is the creator of The Hitter’s Blackbook  & Founder of The Mental Game Blueprint VIP training program.

As a former division 1 baseball player and division 1 coach, Diamyn has impacted millions of lives around the world through his trainings, books, course, & viral videos on social media.

Diamyn Hall is currently behind the scenes establishing himself as one of the industries leading authorities for online business coaching (where he mentors, coaches, & teaches highly driven online entrepreneurs how to make $10k a month on autopilot).

In the heartfelt episode Sammy and Diamyn discuss:

• How he became the first mental game development coordinator in college history

• What he means when he talks about extreme ownership

• The background story of the viral post on resiliency

• What athletes can do to prepare for the pressure of being in college

• The content of The Hitter's Blackbook

• Establishing a pre and post game process

• Advice he would give his teenage self

You can follow Diamyn on Instagram or Twitter and YouTube. 

Coach Zach Casto started his coaching career at West Virginia State University Student Assistant for 2 years (2016-2018) and is currently the Nitro High School Assistant Coach (Outfield, Base-Running, Analytics, First Base Coach). He is the author of "Rounding Third: Skills, Drills, and Best Practices in the Game of Baseball" and the Rounding Third Leadership baseball blog and Co-Host of "Classroom Chatter" podcast. 

You can follow Zach on Twitter.  

Sammy and Zach discuss: 

• Why he decided to write a new practice and coaching book Rounding Third 
• Why was it important to you to share where you learned these great ideas from 
• His winning formula for teams and how to select players. 
• Coach Butch Chaffin (Cookeville (TN) High School), “Teach your players like they are eight years old every day and you won’t get frustrated with them” and why it was mentioned in the book? 
• Teaching seems to be always controversial but what are the core teachings for hitters 
• How Coach Cal Bailey teaches pitchers to attack batters for our listeners His favorite defensive drills to work on with your teams

Jerry Weinstein began his coaching career in 1966 as a UCLA freshman coach. He was an assistant under Ron Fraser on the 1984 University of Miami Hurricanes, which came in fourth at the College World Series. He then coached at Sacramento City College. He led the school to 831 wins across 23 seasons, and led the team to 16 league titles, the California Community College Athletic Association state title in 1988 and 1998, and one national title. A total of 213 of his players were drafted, including 28 who reached the major leagues.

Jerry has been active in International baseball as head coach of the USA representative in the 1970 University Games, assistant coach of the USA team in the 1989 Pan Am Games, the 1992 Olympic Team, the 1996 Olympic Team (Bronze Medal), and head coach of the 2004 USA Maccabiah Team (Gold Medal). He has spoken at clinics in Italy, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Germany.

In professional baseball, Jerry has been the Brewers catching coordinator, managed for the Expos, Cubs, and for the Rockies in the California League. He also was catching coordinator for the Dodgers and later Director of Player Development for the Dodgers. From 2012-2017, Jerry served as the Catching Coordinator for the Rockies.

Weinstein managed Team Israel at the 2017 World Baseball Classic qualifier, leading them to a perfect 3-0 record, qualifying Israel for their first World Baseball Classic appearance. He returned as the head coach in the main tournament, managing Team Israel at the 2017 World Baseball Classic in South Korea and Japan in March 2017, where the team was 4-2 overall in the tournament.

Jerry is a member of the California Community College Baseball Hall of Fame, the Sacramento City College Athletic Hall of Fame, the ABCA Hall of Fame and the La Salle Club Coaches Hall of Fame.

Jerry has written numerous articles, 3 books, chapters for 2 others, and has produced various instructional videos.

You can follow Jerry on Twitter. 

Perry Husband is a pioneer in the world of Baseball Science.  He introduced many modern hitting metrics to baseball, including Exit Velocity and Launch Angle.  Working with Jay Bell, he used metrics to diagnose and improve performance in both Exit Velocity and Launch Angle in one session with Jay’s swing.  Jay had an increase of 10 MPH in Exit Velocity and improved his Launch Angle to the equivalent of today’s ‘Barrel’, a ball hit at 100 MPH at a Launch Angle of 25-30 degrees.  He also improved his contact consistency by almost 50%.

Perry also introduced ‘Tubing’ to the baseball world, inventing the original J Bands, sold by Alan Jaeger.  The Resistance Belt concept was also a surgical tubing product introduced in the Hitting Is A Guess series for training hitters.  Plyometrics in hitting training was the workout prescribed in that same video series from 2001.  The underload/overload concept in hitting training was designed and introduced by Perry in the Hitting Is A Guess video, promoting explosiveness, balance and proven bat speed and Exit Velocity increases.

Through the groundbreaking discovery of Effective Velocity, there were countless pitching breakthroughs, including Ev Pitch Tunnels, Location Adjusted Speed (True Reactionary Speed) and many, many other Deception Metrics.

Perry Husband is the Author of the Downright Filthy Pitching Series, including 4 books, Downright Filthy Pitching Books 1, 2, 3 & Getting Filthy – Implementing Effective Velocity.

This cutting edge series uncovers the Patented science of Effective Velocity, which has been used by MLB coaches, pitchers and hitters for more than.

The Foreword is by Dr. Tom House, who helped bring the science to light introducing Ev to both Japan and Korea.  Ev has also been adopted by hundreds of university coaches/players in both softball and baseball, including many NCAA champions

Perry also created the Hitting Is A Guess video series that introduced the hitting world to Exit Velocity and Launch Angle, as mentioned.

Perry also authored the Time Training Hitting Programs that helped Carlos Pena lead the American League in homeruns in 2009.  Time Training Level 1 is a book and online video course that focuses on mechanical efficiency.  Time Training Level 2 introduced the world to Pitch Recognition and Timing, as never understood before.  Time Training Level 3 is the most advanced game planning mindsets to date.  These are the same mindsets that helped Carlos Pena lead the MLB in Exit Velocity.  These same advanced mindsets helped the Back to Back National Champions in softball, University of Oklahoma and UCLA softball programs to become two of the most potent offenses in the game this past season.

As a collegiate player, Perry was the MVP of the Division II College World Series in 1984 where he captained the NCAA Champion Cal State University Northridge Matadors.  Perry tied the record for most hits in the Division II College World Series with an 8 for 11 day.  At the Junior College level, he led California JCs in hitting and set a record with a 32 game hitting streak.

Perry is an inductee into the CSUN Hall of Fame as well as the Antelope Valley College Hall of Fame and the Lancaster JetHawks Hall of Fame, minor league affiliate of the Colorado Rockies.  Perry was drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 16th round and played two years in the minor league system, setting records for double-plays with Jay Bell, 17 year MLB vet and 2 time All Star.

You can follow Perry on Twitter. 

Gary Reinl is the Director Pro Teams at H-Wave & MARC PRO, and has spent nearly forty years in the sports-medicine field, with diverse experiences ranging from training professional athletes to pioneering the field of strength-building for women during the pregnancy year to developing rehabilitation programs for injured workers.

Additionally, his ground-breaking senior strength-building protocol has now been implemented in more than 1,000 senior living facilities. Gary has authored two previous books, Making Mama Fit [Leisure Press, 1983] and the 2007 "fat loss" book Get Stronger, Feel Younger [Rodale Press].

You can follow him on Twitter. 

If you are interested in a Marc Pro unit, you can use coupon code "Play Ball".

Sammy and Gary discuss:

• The popular injury phrase RICE and why icing does more harm than good. How RICE came about and why it may not be the best advice for athletes to follow.
  
• What are ways that athletes can get active recovery and why is that the best way to stay healthy.
  
• The different machines with the pads that you place on your body such as TENS, STIM , EMS. What’s the difference and when should each be used.
  
• A video with Trevor Bauer where he talks about using the Marc Pro in between innings of a game and even sleeping with it on. Is this something the typical athlete could benefit from. What are those benefits.
  

Dr. Michael Sonne is the VP of Research and Innovation for ProPlayAI, a company focused on measuring and describing human motion. Mike is also the research director for the Baseball Development Group in Toronto, Canada, as well as an adjunct professor at Brock University. At Brock, Mike and his graduate students focus their research on better understanding the measurement and analysis of pitching mechanics. Mike has also written about pitching biomechanics for The Athletic, Hardball Times, FanGraphs, and Baseball Prospectus. Mike’s workload metric, Fatigue Units, is widely used in the MLB as a better physiological representation of pitching workload, and the metric was recently included in the Motus Baseball app.

Dr. Sonne has a wealth of experience in the research world, receiving his PhD in Biomechanics in 2014 from McMaster University. There, the focus of his research was on the assessment and prevention of muscle fatigue and musculoskeletal injury in workplaces. Since that time, he has applied the findings from the field of ergonomics to the baseball world. In 2016, his paper on the implications of Pitch Clock implementation was published in the Journal of Sports Sciences, and received national media attention. Mike is currently an adjunct professor in the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences at Brock University, and he writes for The Hardball Times, FanGraphs, and Baseball Prospectus Toronto. Moreover, you may heard him as a regular on Pitch Talks or more recently as a ‘Baseball Sports Science Expert’ on the Fan 590. To learn more about Mike and to read some of his awesome content you can check out his website.

In the episode Sammy and Dr Sonne talk about:

• The traditional biomechanics lab analysis
• Where the future is headed with biomechanics and coaching 
• Some key metrics to look at in the biomechanics reports
• ProPlayAI's Deception metric and why the MLB is excited by it.
• Fascinating insights gained by his analysis of all the data collected

You can follow Dr. Sonne and ProPlayAI on Twitter. 

Perry Quartuccio is a former college baseball player. Last February, he made the gut-wrenching decision to quit the sport he grew up playing, the sport He loved. Months later, during a nationwide pandemic, Perry found himself writing and putting together a book with hopes of giving back to the baseball community.   The book is titled Reaching Home Plate: An In-Depth Guide on Getting Recruited, Conquering Adversity, and Achieving Mastery.  In it, Perry shares many personal experiences as he reflects on his playing career up until the collegiate level. One personal experience Perry mentions is the time he threw 16 balls in a row in one of his first college outings. He also has over 60 college/professional players/coaches whom contribute to the book.   Perry is a Mental Performance/Baseball Coach for PPH Baseball in NJ. He works with youth/high-school players leveraging his young age to relate to them and relay the mental aspect of game in an efficient manner.   

Twitter: @PerryQuartuccio

Instagram: @_perryquartuccio

Perry's Mental Performance Google Drive Folder

Tyler Scaturro is the Brand Manager of Pocket Radar Inc., which designs, engineers and manufactures revolutionary speed tracking technology for a wide-range of applications.  After his collegiate baseball playing career ended at the JUCO and Div. II levels, he joined the Pocket Radar start-up team in 2012.  Having a background working for a family-owned restaurant business and playing sports all the way through college, helped him adapt to the fast-moving, juggling multiple hats start-up career.  Over his career with Pocket Radar, he has helped driven marketing and sales initiatives across all sports and traffic markets, at the professional and amateur levels.  As the influx of new technologies begin to percolate throughout the sporting world, Tyler believes the ones that focus heavily on the “who” and not the “what” will be at the forefront of providing innovative solutions.

Pocket Radar creates trusted, high value simple solutions using superior technology to enable people to rapidly achieve their goals by delivering meaningful metrics and actionable insights.  They provide an affordable and convenient solution to pro-performance radar technology, making accurate speed measurement accessible to the masses.  Their doppler radar technology has also been independently tested and certified accurate by the official test lab for the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), the same lab that certifies all of the radar guns for use by law enforcement agencies in the US and Canada.  It is currently being used at all levels of MLB organizations including players, coaches, trainers, scouting departments, rehab coordinators, player development personnel, videographers and more.

Their Smart Coach Radar model is the first pro-level speed radar that can be used stand-alone or with a free companion app.  The Smart Coach App System, with its unique ability to automatically capture videos with embedded velocities, allows you to continue to work remotely with your coaches or players and participate in recruiting/scouting activities. Not only is training with video analysis a powerful development tool, it is also a method of being seen remotely. The Smart Coach Radar System allows you to record videos with speeds directly embedded inside. Share these videos with coaches and scouts and post them to social media for extra recruiting visibility. As a premier provider of training tools, Pocket Radar is working with many top training programs, including Driveline Baseball with their TRAQ system, to help athletes train and develop at home.

Sammy and Tyler discuss:

Tyler's path from college baseball player to Pocket Radar's Product Manager 

Why some people call Pocket Radar the best kept secret in sports

There meeting last year at the ABCA convention and the release of Smart Coach and app

Best practices for capturing velocity and videos with Pocket Radar

What kind of impact teams and coaches have seen from using the Pocket Radar (this one might surprise you)

How kids can leverage the timing window for developing velocity.

You should follow Pocket Radar and Tyler at:

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/PocketRadar

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/pocketradar/

YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/user/ThePocketRadar

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/pocketradar/

LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/pocket-radar-inc-8203491a/

Demetre Kokoris is currently a MiLB pitching coach in the Blue Jays Organization. He got his Bachelor of Science degree from the Univ. of South Carolina and his MBA from Cal St. Fullerton. At Cal State Fullerton, he was fortunate to be mentored by Dr Ken Ravizza, the Godfather of the mental game and author of Heads Up Baseball. He's coached with NCAA Div. 1 skipper George Horton (Cal St. Fullerton/Oregon) and UCSB coach Andrew Checketts when Checketts was the pitching coach at Oregon.

Demetre Kokoris has been the Pitching Coach and Recruiting Coordinator at Chemeketa Community College in Salem, Oregon.  He was the Head Coach of the Central Oregon Bucks of the West Coast Summer Collegiate League from 2011-2012.  He served as a student-manager for Gamecock Baseball, reaching a Regional in 2005 & Super Regional in 2006.

Demetre and Sammy discuss:

Demetre's unconventional path as a Pitching Coach and his time with Dr Ken Ravizza

• What advice would you give to athlete's looking to get noticed and thrive in today's environment
• What are his 3 favorites and how he uses them to improve pitchers
• How the Covid situation made him a better coach
• What he would say to a high school pitcher when he visits the mound
• How he works with pitchers to determine their pitch selection
• The best piece of advice Dr Ravizza gave him

You can follow Demetre on Twitter.

He is currently an executive with F5 Sports, the makers of the PitchLogic smart baseball.

Sammy and Lary discuss:

• His All-Star appearance in 1978
• What advice would Lary give to these broadcasters to help balance out the old world with the new world of baseball
• What PitchLogic is and how you came about to be involved with the company
• How to develop a new pitch or improve their current pitches

You can follow Lary and PitchLogic on Twitter and PitchLogic on Instagram.

1. The back story of their baseball careers and the development of Clean Fuego 
2. How Clean Fuego seemed to catch fire after the release of the viral Joe Kelley video. Dodger's pitcher, Joe Kelley breaking his window while throwing Clean Fuego. 
3. How Sammy did an experiment to see how it would impact his 4 seam fastball. His pitch went from around 85% spin efficiency and a week later he was consistently 90-100% and gained 200 rpm to his overall spin rate. They share other examples of people using it to improve their pitches.
4. If there is a preferred age to start with Clean Fuego
5. What pitch Nolan prefers to work on with Clean Fuego and what specifically he does to practice that pitch?
6. Since this was recorded the night the Cy Young winners where announced, Sammy asked them to make a prediction for next years winners.
   

CleanFuego is an essential baseball training device for any player looking to advance their game. When training with CleanFuego, athletes can polish or learn new pitches, ​learn to better grip and release a baseball, work out subtle changes to their throw in real-time, and more!

CleanFuego was scientifically engineered to replicate a professional regulation baseball, but with two parallel sides to help provide immediate visual feedback to players and coaches about the throw's spin direction, spin efficiency and more.

CleanFuego Regulation weighs the standard 5.25oz like professional regulation balls. CleanFuego Overweight weighs 8oz. Some players have found that when using over weighted baseballs they subconsciously cut the ball. This "cutting" promotes an inefficient spin, which is not what the athlete is trying to accomplish. Unfortunately, with a normal ball the athlete does not have any visual cue as to whether they are cutting the ball.

You can follow Mike, the CEO of CleanFuego on Twitter and Instagram.

The SQUARE 1 System™ was developed by Shawn Sherman. Shawn earned his Exercise and Sport Science degree from Penn State University and operates a private practice in Western Springs, Illinois. Over the years, Shawn has held numerous industry certifications and therefore understands what and how the conventionalists think and believe. Over the past 25 years, his understanding of movement has evolved from that of an apprentice level to a level of mastery by continually seeking answers to his questions. Because he now intimately and thoroughly understands the most basic components of movement, he brings an unparalleled perspective to the table. Not only does he consistently deliver absolutely amazing results to his clients, he teaches his students to be able to do the same.

Additionally Shawn has consulted with hundreds of elite athletes from many organizations including:

• United States Olympic Team – wrestling, men's speedskating, women's soccer
• Canadian Olympic Team – women's soccer
• Russian Olympic Team – men's swimming
• Chicago Cubs
• Chicago White Sox
• Chicago Blackhawks
• Chicago Bears
• Chicago Bulls
• Indianapolis Colts
• San Franciso Giants
• Chicago Red Stars
• Chicago Wolves
• ​Vanderbilt University - basketball

Sammy and Shawn discuss:

• Why the Chicago Cubs hired Shawn to do MATS with their athletes? And what MATS is?
• After years of using MATS with clients you developed Square 1 to address a different need, why and what is that need?
• What does Shawn mean by a compensation and how does a dad or typical baseball coach recognize if their athlete are compensating.
• To help more coaches you developed a program called Signal 6. I remember when you came to Austin in 2018 how when I went through the Signal 6 exercises I gained a bunch of external rotation in my throwing arm. Why is it you developed Signal 6 and how will athletes like me benefit from it?
• Shawn recently launched the Signal 6 course online, and tells us more about it?

You can follow Shawn on Instagram. 

Follow Bill on Twitter and Instagram. 

He is currently a professional pitching coach for the Minnesota Twins Organization. Drafted in the 7th round in 2000 out of Santa Barbara High School. Signing in 2003 after being drafted in the 7th round out of UCSB. He compiled a 12 year career as a professional pitcher, playing for 5 different MLB organizations, 2 stints in the Major Leagues with the Tigers and the Pirates, pitching in 6 countries, and compiling a 101-92 record over 1,300 innings pitched. In 2015, after all of that experience, he met with a pitching coach, Caleb Balbuena, out of Sacramento, CA.  After one session and the cue to "throw around a tree", something clicked and he finally learned how to throw healthy, and where power comes from in the throwing motion. He took it home with him and over the next years blended his professional experience with his love for throwing, his passion for movement, years of experience in Tai-chi, Qi-gong, and science based training. Combining it all to come up with "The Perfect Throw" and its teachings with his good friend Alex Trezza.

Sammy and Virgil discuss:

• Why he created the Perfect Throw tool.
• What the most common challenge you see with younger athletes in achieving good, healthy arm actions.
• How does thinking in revolutions or circles help pitchers increase their velocity?
• His new “sprocket drill”
• How do you define what is a good teammate?

You can follow Virgil on Instagram and Tik Tok at Revolution Throwing.

Sammy and Colter Bostick discuss:

• Colter's benchmark chart for development of velocity, long toss, and other key performance indicators across age groups for pitchers.
• There is a group of coaches who are against using radar guns and other tech for young athletes but your chart starts with 9U, would you use tech with younger athletes?
• How you make the measurements more understandable for the younger athletes.
• There are a lot of kids who are stuck at home and may not have access to tech like Rapsodo what are some things they can do with whatever they have from around their house.

Colter Bostick (@maximized_BSB on Twitter) grew up in the middle of the Rocky Mountains in Cody, Wyoming, a place that only played baseball three months out of the year. After being forced to travel around the country to seek out the best competition, he accepted a full-ride college scholarship that brought him down to Texas. His experiences taught him the importance of having elite-level training available for athletes. He has been able to work with players from every level, and influence great amounts of development for each pitcher he has encountered.

Colter's goal for every pitcher is for them to succeed at the next levels, and to become "complete" athletes.

You can follow Tommy on Twitter and Instagram.

Rusty Kellum is the Pitching Coach at Bishop John J. Snyder High School in Jacksonville, Florida. A pitcher himself, for legendary Coach John Tindall at St. John’s River CC in the early 90’s, Rusty learned to work hard at his craft and has used that training as a foundation to build ballplayers to this day. Coach Kellum has been a youth and high school coach for 27 years in the Sunshine State - beginning at Forrest High School and more recently with the 5 Star National program and the Cardinals at Bishop Snyder. Coach Kellum fuses new school data and methods with his old school temperament and work ethic. A mindset of “always looking to learn, not to replace but to enlarge”, has helped Coach Kellum stay relevant to today’s modern player. Coach Kellum runs summer training in Jacksonville, Florida and also offers private lessons.

Coach Rusty Kellum asks why do you we need to train either velocity or command with our pitchers. What if we could train both. He setup an experiment and found astonishing results you will not want to miss.

Sammy and Rusty discuss:

• Coach Rusty Kellum's baseball background
• The two pitching camps
• His recent experiment to increase command and velocity. What tools he used and what he did in each session.

You can find him on Twitter: @RustyKellum.

Harold Mozingo is a former pitcher in the Royals and Blue Jays organizations. He is the author of Young Guns Eguide, a 90 page complete guide to training youth pitchers. It includes Velocity Development, Mechanics, Strength Training, Workload, Training for Control, How-To Guide's for each pitch type (including pictures of grips), Training Guides by Age, Sample Routines and more! He also offers baseball lessons and training near Tappahannock, VA.

Sammy and Harold discuss:

• How Harold's mom influenced him to become a professional pitcher and coach?
• Why do you think there are parents and coaches who struggle with understanding the things that worked for them might not work the same for everyone.
• The key difference in how baseball players in the Dominican Republic develop and what youth parents should focus on instead?
• What a freshman in high school should be focusing on in the next 4 years so that they can continue to play in college or at a pro level?
• Harold's Young Guns EGuide to developing pitchers. Why he wrote it and what you will find inside.

You can find Harold on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. 

Dr. Stephen Osterer is the owner of Baseball Development Group. He is a chiropractor, strength and conditioning coach living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. A traumatic elbow injury in high school almost derailed his chances to attend Cornell University and pitch for the Big Red. In the process of seeking out treatment options, Dr. Osterer developed a strong passion for manual therapy, rehabilitation, and sports performance. The concept of combining these into a career led him to the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College (CMCC) where he completed a Doctorate of Chiropractic graduating Cum Laude with clinical honours.

Since graduating, Dr. Osterer has gone on to oversee the health and performance of hundreds of amateur, collegiate and professional baseball players, recently culminating in opening up the Baseball Development Group - a high-performance baseball training facility in Toronto.

Sammy and Dr Osterer discuss:

• How he discovered weighted balls back in high school and led him to understand pain & injury.
• How studying to become a chiropractor helps him in his work with the Baseball Development Group.
• The well regarded Baseball Recovery Resource book that Dr Osterer developed.
• What were the surprises he found in his recovery process research
• The best recovery tip for high school athletes
• How is baseball development in Canada different that in the United States
• The @FlatGroundApp and Rawlings sponsored special recruiting showcase event he organized recently with assessments, top coaches and the latest technology.

You can follow Dr Osterer on Instagram and Twitter. 

You can follow Rachel on Instagram and Twitter.