Random Thoughts....

First of all, Happy New Year and new decade to everyone out there! 2019 was a crazy year for many of you out there and for sure a crazy year for me personally. Quitting a job and leaving a baseball team/family and so many friends and loved ones in Texas and moving to the Athens, Ga area has been a massive but good change. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and I wish you nothing but the best as you start 2020. Now, lets get onto some different topics I have been kicking around in my head over the past few weeks. I apologize that life, two travel trips back home to Indiana/Illinois, and in general it being a slower baseball time, that I haven't posted in a while, but here we go!

Thought #1 - Burnout

As you may or may not know, we have groomed our son Ryan toward the game of baseball literally since the day of his birth. We took a keychain baseball and put it in his hand the day he was born and took advantage of the natural "grasp" that every baby is born with (it's why they seemingly hold your hand from the day they were born). We then had him taking swings with a decorative bat by age 6 months off a six inch cone as soon as he was able to sit up. From there things have just continued to progress and develop. Point being our family is baseball nuts. Because of this passion for baseball and the fact that we spend so much time doing it, we are often told or asked if we are burning him out or if we think we will burn him out. This is a topic I hear a bunch about on forums, or Facebook groups, or just in general with parents and coaches around the ballpark as well. Heck even my dad said to me at Christmas "you better be careful, you are going to burn that boy out".

So, it got me thinking "am I going to burn Ryan out?" I mean he is barely 11 and during the course of his now 7 years (yes he started tee ball at 4 - we lied about his age to get him in the Plano, Tx league) he has literally played about 350-400 games in his career and I wouldn't even venture a guess at how many hours he's spent practicing either organized or on his own, but it's a ton. So, yes, it's possible that he can or may in the future suffer from burnout.

Here's my response though, as I always say that's not the case, he won't get burnt out. For Ryan, at least in his specific situation, baseball is just a way of life. It's what he's known since the very first day as I mentioned above. He attended his first fastpitch softball game at just two weeks old on a brutally cold Saturday morning in Southlake, Tx that saw the 8am game start with frost still on the bases on a cold November morning. From that time, until he started playing games of his own at 4 or 5 years old, he was at the softball diamond for practice or a weekend tournament between 40-45 weekends per year. He grew up at the field, literally, being partially raised by the girls we coached and the parents in the stands. (BTW - to those girls and parents who helped take care of him and read this blog - Thank you! Thank you for being such amazing role models for him and thank you for loving him and taking care of him. It did and still does mean the world to us).

So, no I don't think he will get burnt out because I think it's just what he always has known. For him, going to the field, practicing, going to tournaments all weekend etc. is just as normal to him as brushing your teeth is to you. Now, I get that's not everyone. Not everyone was raised that way and that burnout is a real thing and a real possibility.

Here are a couple of other thoughts I have on the subject. One that I hear often is that "we have these kids play so many tournaments and practice twice a week from the time they are 8 that by the time they are 13 they are burnt out.". Ok, I'm sure that happens to a certain extent. There are a ton of reports that show kids drop out of baseball at alarming rates by ages 13 and 14, but I think those reports are also a little misleading. Yes, hundreds and even thousands of kids drop out, but I don't believe that the reason is solely burnout. As a matter of fact, I don' t think it's even 50% because of burnout. What I think the primary reason is that kids quit at the age is that they simply don't have the skills necessary to play at the level needed to at 13 or 14 years of age. At that age, the field gets much bigger making the minimum requirements of arm strength and power much more of a premium. Hitting a round ball with a round stick is also the most difficult skill in any sport and by that age pitchers are now throwing 75-80 mph on the upper ends and they also now have breaking balls which brings a whole new element into hitting. These things cause the game to be MUCH more difficult and makes many unsuccessful. Not being good at something is extremely tough on people and it seems to be much more difficult even on this generation of youth who have predominantly been raised in the "Everyone Gets a Trophy" world that we currently live in so failure equals "no fun". No fun equals "I'm just not going to do this" and they quit and people mistake it for "well he's just burnt out because he's been doing this for so long and it's just not fun for him anymore so he's going to try other things". No sorry Mr. and Mrs. Snowflake, Johnny just isn't good enough anymore - it doesn't make him less of a human, it just means his talent and skills aren't within the game of baseball. Just like me (Coach Trout) am not a musical talent. Doesn't mean I'm not talented or worthless or that my parents failed me. It just means that dogs cry and howl when I attempt to sing along to my favorite country song. (God's Country - Blake Shelton - BTW).

Thought two, if a player is truly getting burnt out at that age then again, baseball probably wasn't his thing anyway. Listen to me carefully people!!!! Baseball is a game of repetition. It's something that has to be played or practiced almost daily to be successful at it. It's literally the reason why the professional season is twice as long as any other professional sport in the total number of games. You have to get into the rhythm of an at bat, a game, a series, and a season to be good at it and play it at a high level. That's just the way it is. Yes, everyone needs both a mental and physical break. Ryan personally will go 3 months between playing games, but he hasn't stopped putting in work during the off-season as he hits 4 days a week and fields at least 2 days a week. That's just the bare minimum you have to do to be successful. Your child or your players have to "love the grind" of baseball and love the repetition of game or they simply aren't cut out for it. Again, it doesn't make my kid better or worse or anymore important or less important than yours, it just means that they are better cut out to play baseball. Finding those two things out at the age of 12-14 is NOT a bad thing! It gives them a chance to find something else they are passionate about and that they love. Maybe that's another sport, maybe that's band, maybe that's basket weaving. I don't know, but what I do know is they should find their passion and they should do something they love because if they love it they will be more successful at it!

Thought #2 - Coach vs. Manager

This is something that is tough for me to word without sounding personally very arrogant and second without offending other coaches. Typically, if you know my well at all, I don't care if I offend other coaches, but in the effort of a kinder me in 2020 I do want to be respectful of all the coaches out there that dedicate so many hours to helping run a team as no matter how good or bad I may personally believe they are the fact is they are all reaching one ultimate goal which is allowing kids to play the great game of baseball.

Having said that, what I am noticing the more and more I look around, watch teams, and coaches at multiple different ages and in multiple areas of the country is that there are a lack of coaches out there. Let me give you my definition of a coach to better help you understand what I mean. To me a coach is a teacher! A coach is someone that knows the game from the ground up. They know all the little details, fundamentals, strategies, and most importantly the "why behind the what" and they know how to break those things down into simple understandable, digestible, and repeatable chunks for youth to learn and develop from. That's not easy and apparently is extremely uncommon. What I mainly see, however, is what I call managers. I see a ton of guys that know how to manage a team. They know baseball strategy, they have a set of drills they did when they were a player or that they've seen on YouTube or they saw some other really good team do so they think they should do the same drills. Now, those things aren't really bad things. Good drill work is important. Kids ultimately will learn some strategy and baseball IQ from being around and playing games within which the strategies are used etc. but there really is another level in my opinion. That level is the ability to breakdown that drill and teach a kid the individual parts and have them understand why they need to be doing it. You know, we had to learn to add and subtract before we could do multiplication or division. We had to learn multiplication and division before we could do algebra. You get the picture! The reason you may ask? The reason that is so important is that when it's game time or crunch time of the championship game that player isn't going to have you (the coach or dad) or that board behind his foot to keep him from stepping out (lame example only to not hurt someone's feelings) to save him. However, if he's learned the step by step process and knows the why and how then he will be able fall back on that process and still be successful.

Parents what you really want is to find a coach for your player. It's hard and it's difficult, but it's worth it. The place I see so many parents go wrong with this is that they just care about or put too much stock in winning. Especially, at the young ages this is the case. Parents think if their kid is on the best team that wins the most tournaments that it means their kid is good and that they are being developed by great coaches - I mean they have a great teach so they must be a great coach right - and that it somehow will turn into success in HS or in college, and that's simply not a blanket truth. Yes, it's very possible that the best team also has the best coaching. Heck the New England Patriots have proven that many times in the NFL. They have really good players and an all time great coach. They don't always have the most talented roster in the NFL though and they still consistently win. But that's not always the case in youth baseball. So, do your homework. Go watch these teams practice or watch them in a game so you can see the depth of their coaching. Are they just on the surface, meaning, are they just barking out orders like "hey, you got get to that ball" or "Johnny, you're late on your swing start sooner. Or are they coaching and saying things like "hey, you didn't get to that ball because you took a bad angle, if you dropped stepped on that first step and got behind the ball you would have gotten too it, and if you get there early you can always come in and charge it from there" or "Johnny, you were late on that swing that at bat because you dropped your hands initially and then your swing was long because you cast your hands out away from you". A lot of managers are really good at being loud and forceful and "tough" which can be beneficial in the sense that it pushes the player to be better, but are they actually teaching them anything? Are they improving your players skills through tangible knowledge and skill development through teaching them the process? I don't know because I don't know your coach, but I know what I think your player needs - he needs a TEACHER!

3rd And Final Thought - It's go time!

With the start of the year, the start of baseball season is just around the corner. For example, our first tournament is now just 44 days away. I hear people talking about "knocking the rust off" etc. and yeah, if you haven't been keeping the "rust off" all winter then you sure as heck better be knocking it off now.

It's hard to get better in season for many things so hopefully your player identified some weaknesses they had in the fall and have been working on them this off-season, but even if that's not the case it's time to get going.

Some things you should be doing are as follows. You absolutely should have your player on some type of throwing program anytime now or within the next couple of weeks. Many teams in the south are starting practice in the next couple of weeks, so those players should be throwing for 5-15 min a day every other day to get in shape just for practice. You want to avoid any sore arms and because travel teams are limited to 1-3 practices a week at tops coaches have tons to cover and little time to build up the arm so players often throw a bunch in the three hour practice and end up sore for the next 2-3 days.

If you are a pitcher, it's time to start your "build up". By the first weekend of the season I like my pitchers to be built up to within 10-15 pitches of the total maximum pitch count I'd let them go at any point in the season. So for example, if you'd let your ace pitcher throw 90 pitches in a game then by opening tournament I think they need to be built up where they can throw at least 75 pitches. This is very much in line with what college and pro teams do. How you get there is important too. I like to add 10 pitches per week to their previous count starting at the number 40. So to get to 75-80 pitches you are going to need a minimum of 1 month. See why the time is now? I also like to have a week where the pitcher throws 2 flat ground bullpens of 20 pitches each time prior to that first 40 pitch session off a mound so now you are are looking at a minimum of a 5 week build up. There's still time - especially for those of you who won't start until March, but it's time to start counting backwards and getting a plan.

If you are a fielder it's time to do some bare hand stuff, some slow rollers maybe on a turf place indoors or a turf football field to make sure you are the most fundamentally sound you possibly can be. Doing this 2-4 times a week will help you form good habits that will allow you to be more successful when you get on a dirt field and start getting those tricky hops you can fall back on your fundamentals.

As a hitter, it's tee work time. 50-100 swings every other day or so, again focusing on great fundamentals and driving the ball, moving the tee around to different locations and hitting the ball where it's "pitched" will allow you to start getting some timing down and ready to face front toss or living pitching. You don't need to go to an fancy indoor facility or hope for a dry field. Just find a tee and some wiffle balls and hit them in your yard. No excuses. A fun new tool we just purchased is "SwingTracker" from DiamondKenetics. It tracks so many cool things like length of time the bat is in the hitting zone, casting, bat speed, estimated exit velo, and so much more. Our UGA baseball team purchased one for every single position player on their team so they could self-diagnose over the X-mas holiday at home. They are only about $100 and then a $55 annual subscription on the app.

Alright, that just about wraps up this entry. Sorry for jumping all over the place. Hopefully, you enjoyed it and maybe learned a thing or two. As always, I'd love your feedback or questions. I'm always here to help people and kids who love the game! May your 2020 season be blessed and your players continue to grow their knowledge, skill, and love for the game.