Coaching Association of Canada publishes Long-Term Athlete Development for Parents document | canadiansportforlife.ca

Coaching Association of Canada publishes Long-Term Athlete Development for Parents document | News | canadiansportforlife.ca:

Coaching Association of Canada publishes Long-Term Athlete Development for Parents document

Tuesday, 7 February, 2012

Many parents are looking for answers to explain what is right for their child when it comes to athletic development.  As a coach, you need something that will help explain the facts in an easy, accurate, and user-friendly manner.  The Coaching Association of Canada, in coordination with Canadian Sport for Life, has created the following document: “Long-Term Athlete Development Information for Parents” to help coaches educate the parents of the children in their programs.

This document provides an overview of the LTAD model, describing each of the seven stages in easy-to-understand language.  It gives solid and concrete advice on what parents can do to encourage their child’s current physical, and athletic development and suggests tips to help them assist their child as they move into the later stages of development. This handy tool is something coaches will want to have readily available at all times to share with parents.  We encourage all CAC Partners to share the following link with their Learning Facilitators, member clubs, coaches and parents.

'via Blog this'

http://www.coach.ca/files/CAC_LTADFORPARENTS_JAN2012_EN.pdf

Master Teaching and Coaching from The Talent Code and SoccerNationNews

I love all of Dan Coyle's stuff from The Talent Code. He really breaks down the process of developing into a great coach or player.

The article Coyle is citing is from The New Yorker magazine by Jeremy Denk http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/04/08/130408fa_fact_denk titled "Every Good Boy Does Fine - A Life in Piano Lessons" and is also a great read.

The following article from soccer coach Wayne Harrison outline many of The Talent Code concepts in a concise outline.

from The Talent Code blog:
How to Spot a Master Teacher: A Field Guide « The Talent Code:

In fact, Denk’s teachers turn out to be a beautiful set of case studies for analyzing what qualities master teachers tend to possess. I’ll list a few here:

 1) Master teachers love detail. They worship precision. They relish the small, careful, everyday move.

2) They devise spectacularly repetitive exercises to help develop that detail — and make those exercises seem not just worthwhile, but magical. As Denk writes, “Imagine that you are scrubbing the grout in your bathroom and are told that  removing every last particle of mildew will somehow enable you to deliver the Gettysburg Address.”

3) They spend 90 percent of their time directing students toward what is plainly obvious. They spend the other 10 percent igniting imagination as to what is possible.

 4) They walk a thin line between challenging and supporting. They destroy complacency without destroying confidence. This is tricky territory, and requires empathy and understanding on both sides — particularly when it comes to understanding the moment when it’s time to move on.

5) They do not teach lessons; they teach how to work. As Denk writes, they “ennoble the art of practice.”  (Isn’t that a fantastic phrase?)

I also like how Denk shows what the master teachers are not; namely infallible superheroes. Master teachers are master teachers because they’re good learners, constantly reaching to build the ultimate skill: constructing the talents of others.

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from soccernationnews.com
A Scientific Concept in Soccer Player Development

By: Wayne Harrison	Print
Posted: Tuesday, November 15, 2011 12:16 pm

A Scientific Concept in Soccer Player Development on SoccerNationNews Soccer News:

In my experience, there are three key ingredients for successful skill acquisition and development.

They are: 

1. Deep Practice
2. Ignition, and
3. Master Coaching

These three elements work together within your brain to create myelin. Myelin is the neural substance that adds vast amounts of speed and accuracy to your movement, thoughts and decisions.

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What is Myelin and why is it important to skill development?

Inside the brain information is transmitted through neurons.  Human skill is created by chains of nerve fibers carrying a tiny electrical impulse from the brain to the body through these neurons. Myelin is the insulation that wraps around the nerve fibers in our brains and increases signal strength, speed and accuracy. Myelin is produced by a person thinking about and analyzing skill situations themselves.

All human skills are created by linking the nerve fibers in your brain that send signals to your muscles. Myelin plays an important role by serving as an insulator for these nerve fibers. According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health, “The purpose of the myelin sheath is to allow impulses to transmit quickly and efficiently along the nerve cells” (NLM/NIH: MedlinePlus).

It has been shown that the more insulation – or more myelin – wrapped around those fibers, the stronger and faster the signal becomes as fewer of these electrical impulses leak out. Therefore, skill can now be redefined as “myelin insulation that wraps neural circuits and grows according to certain signals.” The two – skill development and myelin – are married together.

Myelin acts like an elastic band around the nerve fibers squeezing them and forcing the signal through faster. In football (soccer), with each repetition, myelin responds by wrapping layers around the nerve fibers, speeding up and improving decision making and thought processes.  With each additional layer of myelin added, the player increases the ability to process the football specific skill required.

Everyone has myelin and everyone can improve themselves through its production. The more myelin produced; the thicker the sheath, the faster the message; the quicker thinking the player becomes.

How do the “three ingredients” work to help create myelin and improve performance?

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Deep Practice

For his book Talent Code, Daniel Coyle searched out what he calls “hotbeds of talent” around the world, including a soccer field in São Paolo, Brazil. Through his research, he developed a theory of what he calls “Deep Practice” that helps produce amazing success. This means “training on the edge of your capabilities.” Training in this dynamic capacity leads to mistakes being made, which increases the speed of skill acquisition. Players learn through making errors/mistakes and then correcting them. This method produces results 10 times faster than regular practice.

As deep practice is occurring, the player is wrapping even more myelin around each circuit and increasing skill. Simply put: mistakes lead to better skill acquisition. Deep practice is most important for players 6 to 12 years old. Their spatial awareness and ability to understand tactical concepts is still developing and at its height, and they have an unlimited capacity to acquire and develop new motor skills.

Simply put: mistakes lead to better skill acquisition.

Repetition of themes in small sided games is crucial, and especially in the “sweet spot” on the edge of the comfort zonethat produces errors but also teaches skills. This is where futsal comes in to play.

As Coyle explains in Talent Code, “Most Brazilian players learn their skills through futsal, the ssg equivalent of soccer. Futsal uses a half size and much heavier ball that doesn’t bounce; that promotes touch, technical and skill development. Sharp passing is paramount to have success. Futsal compresses essential skills into a small box, puts players into the ‘deep practice zone,’ making and correcting errors, constantly generating solutions to vivid problems. Players touching the ball 600% more often learn far faster, without realizing it, than they would in the vast expanse of the outdoor game.”

Deep practice needs to be on the edge of the players comfort zones, and maintained in game-related skill-developing situations.

Building myelin takes time, and putting ourselves in a position to fail actually helps fix our mistakes. Failing “better” and continuing this process until we accomplish the task is one of the quickest and most efficient ways to build myelin. We talk about letting players make their own decisions, allowing them to think for themselves – to problem solve; to self correct.  Myelin production does just that.

This learning process can boost the brain's efficiency by increasing the speed with which a signal travels down the nerve fibers by up to 100 times. So think about it: if self-correcting could make signal transport over 100 times faster, why would you not want to help build this into a player’s mentality? By commanding the players, by telling them what to do, you are actually restricting this process from taking place.

Therefore, your players will actually think and react and make decisions more slowly and less efficientlybecause of this command style of coaching. Unfortunately, some coaches are still stuck in this old methodology of command coaching and it has to change. It doesn’t work.

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Ignition

Deep practice is a cool conscious act; ignition is a hot, mysterious burst – an awakening.

Ignition is the motivational fuel that generates the energy, passion and commitment of a person from withinto perform deep practice. It is intrinsic motivation where the athlete has a self-willed drive to succeed. This is the catalyst, and it represents a huge level of commitment that can be borne out of a player’s deepest, often unconscious, desires to succeed.                                             

A person’s motivation is not just intrinsic; it can also be ignited by an event in the outside world, such as being inspired to play for your country after watching the skills of the World Cup Champions. In a famous example, Roger Bannister broke the seemingly-impossible four-minute mile in 1954. This ignited everyone’s belief to go for it, and within three years, seventeen athletes had broken what was previously considered a physiologically impossible feat.

An athlete can also be ignited or inspired beyond the intrinsic by Master Coaches.

Master Coaches

Master Coaches are the final piece in the “jigsaw of success,” and can have an immense amount of positive influence on the player. These coaches create a learning environment where the players are actively engaged and are lead by guided discovery methods of coaching. Training should be player centered not coach centered, where coaches only need to step in at the appropriate moments to make corrections.

Real master coaches are like farmers; they are deliberate cultivators of myelin. They are talent whisperers, and can be the difference between success and failure for athletes.

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In simple terms

1. The more Myelin the person produces the faster, stronger and more accurate the messages are from the brain.
2. Deep Practice ensures myelin is produced.
3. Ignition is the process that serves as the motivation for deep practice. Ignition supplies the energy, and deep practice translates that energy over time into forward progress (increasing the wraps of myelin). Ignition is caused by the inside energy of the person (desire, self belief) and the outside energy of the coach or outside events. Words are the signal most used to trigger ignition.
4. Master Coaches use the words that trigger ignition, which in turn motivates the deep practice that produces the myelin that speeds up and strengthens the decision making signals in the brain of the player. So, the types of words used can influence the player greatly.Negative words can have as much bad influence; as positive words have good influence. Coaches should take note of this important statement.
5. So, working backwards, the formula is: Master coaching creates Ignition, which encourages Deep Practice. Deep Practice – and especiallyspecific practice – enhances myelin production, which produces improvements in accuracy and speed of decision making.

In conclusion

My method of coaching is, as you see, all about inspiring the players to think and make decisions for themselves. We need to encourage them to self determine “where, when, how and why” they need to play a particular way or make a particular decision in a particular situation.

It is encouraging, to say the least, that I have discovered this wonderful work – Talent Code by Daniel Coyle – which supports my work. This book proves scientifically that the way to develop players is to empower them and to give them the reins of thought.

The key is becoming a Master Coach. The Master Coach guides players and steers their path towards greatness. He applies his knowledge and experience to use the “less is more” approach in the right contexts of development. In a way he, is showing them without showing them, guiding them to the light at the end of the tunnel – without showing it directly – until the players themselves find and see it and go through it.

So please, let the players learn for themselves. With guided deep practice and appropriate ignition by master coaches, over time players will develop far better than coaches commanding and demanding and not allowing players to think for themselves.

Related Article: Coach Wayne Harrison's Awareness Training

http://www.soccernation.com/soccer-coach-wayne-harrisons-awareness-training-player-development-cms-1848

Kaizen - LTAD and CS4L (Istvan Balyi) | canadiansportforlife.ca

Dr. Balyi's LTAD approach is IMO as good an overall outline for how sports, physical activity and athletic development should be in this country. And he is right next door. So it's not like we can ignore it or pooh-pooh it because it comes from some god-forsaken communist country. Maybe this time we'll consider the suggestions on their merits more than we consider the source and make some needed improvements "south of the border".

• Canadian Sport for Life (CS4L) is a broad based movement to change the role and function of sport in Canadian society.
•  Long-Term Athlete Development (LTAD) is a structured pathway that follows CS4L principles to optimize the development of our athletes at all ages and stages of their development.
•  Both CS4L and LTAD represent a paradigm shifts in the way we manage and deliver sport and athlete training in Canada.

Long-Term Athlete Development (LTAD) - Canadian Sport for Life (CS4L):
Kaizen - LTAD and CS4L (Istvan Balyi) | canadiansportforlife.ca:

Kaizen - LTAD and CS4L (Istvan Balyi)

March 12, 2012

 In the spirit of Kaizen, Continuous Improvement, we are looking to improve Canadian Sport for Life and Long-Term Athlete Development. With that in mind I announced new and improved 10 Key Factors and expanding the 5 S’s to 10 S’s at the 2012 Canadian Sport for Life Summit.

 The new 10 Key Factors are:

1. Physical Literacy
2. Specialization
3. Developmental Age
4. Sensitive Periods
5. Physical, Mental, Cognitive, and Emotional Development
6. Periodization
7. Calendar Planning for Competition
8. System Alignment
9. Excellence Takes Time
10. Kaizen 

In addition to the original 5 S’s (Stamina/Enduarance, Strength, Speed, Skill and Suppleness/Flexibility), there are now an additional 5 S’s:

1. Structure / stature

1. (p)Sychology

1. Sustenance

1. Schooling

1. Socio-Cultural

With these additional 5 Ss, LTAD now contribute better to the holistic development of the athlete.

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Kaizen (Continuous Improvement) pdf file:
Canadian Sports for Life (CS4L) Long-Term Athletic Development (LTAD) and Kaizen (Continuous Improvement)



Ten Key Factors:

Ten Key Factors | canadiansportforlife.ca:

Ten Key Factors

Long-Term Athlete Development (LTAD) is based on sport research, coaching best practices, and scientific principles. LTAD expresses these principles, research, and practices as 10 Key Factors essential to athlete development.

To optimize the development of our athletes, we need to take advantage of the best sport science and best practices in coaching and training. Long-Term Athlete Development (LTAD) does this by codifying important elements of sport science and coaching practices into the 10 Key Factors of LTAD:

1. 10-Year Rule
2. FUNdamentals
3. Specialization
4. Developmental Age
5. Trainability
6. Physical, Mental, Cognitive and Emotional Development
7. Periodization
8. Competition Planning
9. System Alignment and Integration
10. Continuous Improvement

Along with sport science and coaching, the 10 Key Factors include broader principles behind the way we organize and manage sport.  For example, competition scheduling to optimize athlete development, organizational alignment of different groups and agencies that make up the “sport system”, and the philosophy of Continuous Improvement so we always work to make our science, coaching, and system of athlete development better.

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Coaching Association of Canada publishes Long-Term Athlete Development for Parents document | News | canadiansportforlife.ca:

Many parents are looking for answers to explain what is right for their child when it comes to athletic development.  As a coach, you need something that will help explain the facts in an easy, accurate, and user-friendly manner.  The Coaching Association of Canada, in coordination with Canadian Sport for Life, has created the following document: “Long-Term Athlete Development Information for Parents” to help coaches educate the parents of the children in their programs.



This document provides an overview of the LTAD model, describing each of the seven stages in easy-to-understand language.  It gives solid and concrete advice on what parents can do to encourage their child’s current physical, and athletic development and suggests tips to help them assist their child as they move into the later stages of development. This handy tool is something coaches will want to have readily available at all times to share with parents.  We encourage all CAC Partners to share the following link with their Learning Facilitators, member clubs, coaches and parents.

'via Blog this'


LTAD for Parents Document:
http://www.coach.ca/files/CAC_LTADFORPARENTS_JAN2012_EN.pdf

At what age should kids begin to compete in sports?

One of the age-old arguments in youth sports revolves around the question of when should kids begin to participate in sports competitively?

Are we "playing to win" or do we "just let them have fun and be kids"?

Many old-school, traditionalists feel like sports have become emasculated by the current "everyone gets a trophy", no winners or losers philosophy that has infiltrated sports recently.

Some question whether this helps kids make the transition to competitive situations they will certainly face later in life. Teens will compete for the limited numbers of placements in a favored college, for summer jobs, etc. Is sports the proper venue to teach kids how to compete? And if it is when is the proper time, if there is one?

As is true in many areas, experts continue to differ:

Rachael Lever of the Salt Lake City Parenting Examiner says “fun policy” leagues are wrong and teaching children that everything has to be fair sends the wrong message.

“It doesn’t teach them about being a gracious loser. It doesn’t teach them about being a gracious winner. They gain a false sense of fairness. If no one ever gets out, they don’t learn the real rules of the game.”

“People lose games. People have accidents. People die young. You don’t always get an equal portion of ice cream. Sometimes your words are misinterpreted. Sometimes you get blamed for something you didn’t do. Life is not fair. But it’s a great learning experience, and we are taking that away from our children.”

From the same article child psychologist Tamar Chansky, Ph.D., says children are more resilient than we give them credit for.

“If we want kids to see how they can ride out disappointment we need to let them stay on the ride.”

On the other hand, the “just let them have fun” advocates feel that serious competition should not be introduced until age 10.

Before age 10, sports should be about fun, skill development, coordination, and physical fitness.

Before age 10, children should be introduced to the concept of rules and how to cooperate.

Jay Coakley, professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Colorado, told the magazine. By age 10, most kids are ready to keep score and compete to win.

“Cooperation is the foundation of ethical competition. Unless they have those kinds of experiences, they’re going to turn into difficult-to-coach 12-year-olds.”

“Kids are going to lose in life. If we explain that that’s a terrible thing, they’re going to become competition-avoidant. Instead, use the opportunity to instill meaning in winning and losing and that the way we improve at anything is by trying.”

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The consensus seems to be that somewhere around nine or ten years old is the pivot point where competition can be introduced. The best work I have seen on the subject has been the concept of Long Term Athletic Development popularized by Dr. Istvan Balyi of the National Coaching Institute in British Columbia, Canada.

A summary of Balyi's work provides a common-sense outline for youth sports that I hope catches on south of the border.
- Balyi believes that from ages six to ten the objective should be for kids to have FUN in sports, participate and concentrate on general motor skill development.
- Learn to run, jump, hop, skip, climb, fall, tumble.
- Competition and results are not a priority.
- One or two practice/games per week for six to twelve weeks.
- If the child participates in other sports/activities 2-4 times per week, all the better.

- From ten to twelve fourteen old, INTRODUCTION to competition can begin.
- Some form of general training or sports specific conditioning can begin.
- The season can extend from the 6-12 weeks to as long as 20-30 weeks.
- Training and practicing should occur over game competition at a 3:1 ratio.
- 3-4 games/practices per week is preferred
- Participation in other sports/activities should still be encouraged at this age.

- From fourteen to eighteen years of age, the objective and focus turns more to athletic and sports skills development with competition an increasingly important issue for players and coaches.
- Coaches are focusing on developing and consolidating the physical, mental, technical and tactical skills and abilities of each player so they can compete at the appropriate level.
- Length of seasons progress to 35-45 weeks in length.
- Training/practicing and competing occur at a 1:1 ratio.
- As many as 6-9 games/practices per week are preferred.
- Participation in other sports would still be encouraged, but not during the same season.

- After 18 years of age, competition and high level performance are the objectives. Competing to WIN.
- Physical abilities should continue to be developed and maintained at a high level.
- Mental, technical and tactical skills are improved and developed according to the level of competition.
- Program length can extend to 45-50 weeks.
- Competing and sports specific practice is conducted over training at a 3:1 ratio.

A long-term outlook and commitment to both training, practicing and competing is required to produce elite athletes in virtually every sport. The good news is that the late specialization sports--like baseball--do not require a manifestation of immediate results for success at an elite level.

Your son does not have to be Tiger Woods, demonstrating precocious skills at age 3, to reach the top of the sport.

In sports like baseball, if you have the basic, fundamental athletic skills, you can be up to 16 years old before you start learning the technical aspects of the game itself and still reach your peak.

It is easier to teach an athlete to play baseball than it is to teach a baseball player to be an athlete.

Think Long-Term Athletic Development and not Short-Term Specialization.

It takes ten years of extensive training to excel in anything - Herbert Simon, Nobel Laureate

- Current research indicates that it takes between eight and twelve years of training for a player to reach the elite/expert level.

- Those involved in developing expert performance in sports believe that it generally takes up to 10 years or 10,000 hours of focused practice to achieve elite level of performance in sports activities (as well as playing an instrument, chess, etc.)

- Parents should avoid the tendency to push kids into "peaking by age twelve". Nothing is fundamentally determined by this age that is going to impact the players future.

Conclusions:

- Parents and Players are always searching for the magic drill or the magic coach that is going to take them to the promised land. It's a fallacy.

- There are no short-cuts to success in athletic development.

- An over emphasis on competition in early phases of training or development will always lead to shortcomings in an athlete's abilities later in the process.

- Due to the wide variation in development or maturity for athletes between the ages 10 through 16, any attempts to rank or order players are basically meaningless in the long-term. Some kids are early bloomers, others are late developers.

- Multi-sport participation should be encouraged over early sports specialization in order to develop a wide, solid base of motor skills in young athletes. Guys like Cal Ripken, Carl Crawford, Joe Mauer and many others have not been hurt by multi-sport participation.

I will also say that the biggest fallacy that exists is that some coach or instructor was responsible for a specific player making it to the major leagues. Nothing could be further from the truth, in my opinion. And parents shouldn't rest their hopes and expectations on any one coach or team to elevate the player into being anything he is not capable of being based on his work ethic or love for the game. Those two qualities will overcome a multitude of mistakes.

It is the player who gets himself to the major leagues. In my opinion, the people most responsible for helping a player succeed are his parents. Getting to the major leagues is a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week, 365-day-a-year task. No coach or instructor is capable of making that happen individually. Unless, of course, the coach/instructor is the player's parent. Players will go through many different coaches in their climb up the ladder of success, they will only have one set of parents.

Sadly, in sports it seems as if success has many parents, but failure is an orphan.

The parent-child relationship is more important than any parent-coach relationship in determining the child's future development in and love for the sport. If that relationship is tainted or dysfunctional due to unrealistic or unhealthy expectations, no expert coach will be able to repair the damage.

TRAINING DIFFERENCES OF BASEBALL PLAYERS

This is a reprint of an article that appeared in Coach Peter's Baseball Tips Web Site. The site contains quite a few informative articles from baseball coaches from around the country. The site is a good resource for players and coaches alike, especially the Instructional Articles section.

http://www.baseballtips.com/playertraining.html
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Training Differences of Baseball Players vs. Other Athletes

Charles Slavik, President of Eagle Baseball Club
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George Carlin did a classic bit of comedy on the differences between the sports of baseball vs. football, giving the impression that the two sports couldn’t be more opposite in terms of pace, terminology and other factors. We agree and would add that the training for each sport has to be different as well. Both sports are power oriented sports, but there are differences in how that power is expressed and trained.

Sport & Athlete Needs Assessment
The trainer has to assess the unique needs of the sport and allocate time to improving each quality within the athlete. Athletic abilities assessment should be made for each athlete to match the athlete’s needs to the sport based on the level of competition. Then the athlete has a clear roadmap of where they are and where they wish to go based on their motivation and goals.

All sports differ in terms of the relative importance various physical skills contribute to the game and to individual athlete’s performance. The movements in baseball are ballistic in nature and involve full-body activity. The ability to repeatedly perform near maximal level with limited rest bouts is necessary for baseball players.

Baseball players should not be trained to build excess bulk or muscle mass. They should focus on improving quick, reactive movements, increasing explosiveness and injury prevention, as well as improving speed and trunk rotation. This will lead to improved bat speed and ball velocity.

Energy Systems
Because of the anaerobic nature of the game, baseball players use the phosphagen system as the primary source of energy. About 80% of the body’s metabolic energy will come from the phosphagen system. Training programs involving sprinting and plyometric exercises under 10 seconds in duration that provide complete recovery are indicated. This type of training will improve speed and power development.

Rotational Movements
One of the key differences in baseball is that the main activities of hitting and throwing occur in a rotational plane of movement and are very ballistic or explosive in nature. Therefore, baseball players need to train rotationally with light weights and high speed. Exercise that emphasizes rotating the hips and torso using resistance from cables/pulleys, dumbbells and medicine balls are effective.

Players often lack abdominal or core strength. Abdominal crunches and various rotational twists with a medicine ball should be used to develop a strong muscular base in this area. This will focus on improving strength and power in the rotational muscles of the core area that are vital for swinging a bat or throwing a ball.

Shoulder Stability & Rotator Cuff Work
Another key difference is the unusually high stress placed on the shoulder joint generally and the rotator cuff muscles. The act of pitching occurs at an angular velocity at the shoulder joint approaching 7,000 degrees per second (almost 20 full circles) and is one of the fastest human movements. This places the shoulder joint and surrounding muscles at significant risk of injury from repetitive stress.

Exercises that strengthen the anterior and posterior shoulder muscles in a balanced manner are vital. The shoulder should be flexible to allow for adequate external rotation necessary to throw at high speeds. Deceleration is the phase of pitching most associated with injury. Specific exercises to develop the muscles responsible for deceleration (mainly the rotator cuff and scapula muscles) are crucial.

Plyometric exercises for the shoulder and upper body are useful due to the explosive nature of the pitching motion. Exercises for the rhomboids, lats, pectorals and shoulder area are necessary to throw at high speeds.

Bat Speed Training
Swinging the bat is a skill that is unique to baseball. Players need good lower body and core strength to develop power in the swing. These muscles need to be trained rotationally in a high-velocity, explosive manner.

Strong hip and leg muscles will initiate the swing, the core area then sequentially transfers the rotational speed to the torso and the arms to complete the swing. The efficient transfer of force from the lower body to the upper body, known as the kinetic chain principle, requires that there be muscular balance for optimal sequential transfer of forces.

Strong lats, triceps and forearms will help to continue bat acceleration through ball contact. Squats, bench presses, pull ups, forearm and triceps exercises will develop the potential for power. Bat Speed Training with heavy and light bats within a prescribed range will transfer that potential to the actual sports skill in a specific manner.

Ball Velocity Training
Throwing a baseball with high velocity is an explosive, full-body movement that requires total body development. Strong leg, hip and core muscles are crucial to transfer power from the ground, through the lower body to the torso and eventually to the arm and hand to provide a fast, whip-like release of the ball. The efficient transfer of force through the proper sequencing of body parts through the legs, hips, trunk, and upper limb to the ball is crucial.

In addition to strength training, a weighted ball program or medicine ball throwing progression can be utilized to improve velocity. This will improve the ability to generate power in the throwing muscles. The combination of a heavy load to build power and a light load to build arm speed, thrown in a prescribed manner, has been shown to improve throwing velocity safely.

The athlete should train for proper trunk rotation during arm cocking as well as strength and flexibility in order to generate angular velocity within the trunk for maximum ball velocity. Training should involve trunk rotational exercises to develop the obliques so that maximum arm speed can be generated.

Biomechanical Analysis
We use video analysis of the pitching and hitting mechanics of each player for technique analysis, fault correction and feedback, as well as for assessing progress at a later stage of the program

Visual Skills Training
We also incorporate visual skills training for batters since the ability to accurately track the baseball and predict where it’s going to be is crucial to a hitter. Without this unique skill, all your other training can be rendered useless. Many of the exercises are easy to perform and do not require expensive equipment.

Mental and Emotional Skills Training
We introduce mental and emotional skills training to help players deal with both success and failure, as well as to deal with game pressure. Baseball is unique in that being successful three times out of ten gets you to the Hall of Fame. Players have to deal with consistent failure and still remain confident.

The following are the basics for a Baseball / Softball Conditioning Workout:

Cardiovascular Training: Sprints and interval training, not long distance running
Stretching: Important for increased flexibility and injury prevention.
Strength Training: Important for increased maximum strength. Begin with bodyweight exercises and progress to weights.
Medicine Ball Exercises: Important for rapid powerful upper body movements to develop increased explosiveness and rotational forces.
Plyometrics: Used in conjunction with strength development in an integrated program to improve the link between the strength developed in the weight room and the ability to develop explosive power, speed and agility.
Speed, Agility and Quickness Training: When it comes to baseball, speed and agility are important on both sides of the field. Speed is important in the field where hit balls must be defended. On offense, speed puts pressure on the other team and distracts the pitcher and catcher; this help the hitter get better pitches to hit. The development of speed and agility is as vital as the development of batting power and throwing arm stability.

When you translate the strength developed in the weight room with the speed developed during the plyometric training and then add proper batting and pitching mechanics, you will have a stronger, more powerful, more productive player.

All training needs to be integrated with sports skill training. You cannot do either area in isolation without leaving the player's development lacking. Trainers need to work closely with the team coach and medical staff to ensure a balanced, effective training program. Nutrition and diet and various recovery methods should be discussed with appropriate professionals in those fields.
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Charles Slavik is the President of the Eagle Baseball Club in South Elgin, Illinois. Coach Slavik has helped his players' maximize their athletic performance and avoid injuries by combining his 16 years of experience as a youth baseball & softball coach with his advanced and practical knowledge of the strength and conditioning field. Charles is a Certified Personal Trainer by the National Strength and Conditioning Association and a member of the American Baseball Coaches Association.

THE DEATH OF MONEYBALL?

The recent trade of Nick Swisher from the A's to the Chicago White Sox caused me to revisit the concepts and premises put forth in the book Moneyball by Michael Lewis.

Swisher along with fellow 1st round draft pick Jeremy Brown were a couple of the examples put forth by the author to document the superiority of the A's approach of identifying undervalued, college hitters based on statistical analysis.

As much as I admire the approach, and believe that it is a more efficient approach to drafting hitters, I did not think at the time that it was the proximate cause of the A's success. I believed then that the emergence of the "Big Three" Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder and Barry Zito in fact were. Hindsight, I believe has proven that to be true.

An examination of the A's record:

Three years prior to Hudson-Mulder-Zito:

1996 78-84 .481
1997 65-97 .401
1998 74-88 .457

Basically, a 70-92 team, or the Devil Rays wildest dream year.

During the Big Three years

Year Record Pct Big Three Record Big 3 w/o Big Three Adj Wins Diff
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1999 87-75 .537 Huds 11-2 11-2 76-73 .510 83 Wins +4
2000 91-70 .565 Huds 20-6 Muld 9-10 Zito 7-4 36-20 55-50 .524 85 Wins +6
2001 102-60 .630 Huds 18-9 Muld 21-8 Zito 17-8 56-25 46-35 .568 91 Wins +11
2002 103-59 .636 Huds 15-9 Muld 19-7 Zito 23-5 57-21 46-38 .549 89 Wins +14
2003 96-66 .593 Huds 16-7 Muld 15-9 Zito 14-12 45-28 51-38 .573 93 Wins +3
2004 91-71 .562 Huds 12-6 Muld 17-8 Zito 11-11 40-25 51-46 .526 85 Wins +6

Notes on methodology
(Huds=Tim Hudson Muld=Mark Mulder Zito=Barry Zito)
If you compile the Big Three Record and show the teams record without them you get the adjusted record/winning percentage. If you were to replace them with an average starter (.500 record) you get the adjusted record without the big three and the difference they made in the teams success.

After the Big Three Years
2005 88-74 .543 Zito 14-13
2006 93-69 .574 Zito 16-10
2007 78-86 .469

Clearly the results show the team was built primarily on the success and development of the Big Three, but even more importantly, it shows that Beane and the A's failed to capitalize on the opportunity to rebuild the farm system using the Moneyball premises for the inevitable time when the franchise knew they would lose each of the Big Three piece by piece. They clearly had a six year time frame to rebuild and have failed to do so.

At the time the book was written I tracked the draftees identified and found that they did not appear to follow the premises the statistical analysis indicated the A's were looking for. Players who were dominant hitters in college and therefore developed high OPS (On Base Percentage + Slugging) develop those statistics due to the fact that they are great hitters, feared by the opponent and are pitched around, rather than possessors of a great eye and plate discipline. The stats that are believed to track these abilities melt like a glacier in Florida as hitters face higher levels of pitching. Granted, as they learn and develop and master the pitching, the statistics follow.

That is one of the fallacies I think the book propagated was that there was this innate ability that could be tracked and identified by these new statistical methods over the traditional scouting methods. I think this has been finally proven to be false. The A's did nothing more extraordinary or different than what the Twins have done in recent years, that is capitalize on some young, dominant pitcher rising to the major league level at approximately the same time, resulting in success over and above what the teams payroll would suggest.

I believe Michael Lewis wrote in the past that much of Warren Buffet's success could be attributable to luck or something to be expected within the basic laws of probability rather than an level of innate genius. If that is the case, along with the thoughts and premises expounded in the book Moneyball, in my mind that makes the count 0-2 on Mr. Lewis.

Below is an article I wrote after first reading of the book:
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Money Ball: Myths & Realities
By Charles Slavik, NSCA-CPT*D
President of Eagle Baseball Club


First let me start off by saying the book is a great baseball book. Not quite to the level of “Men at Work” by George Will or “The Game According to Syd” or even the recently released “Numbers Game” by Alan Schwarz as far as useful information regarding the game to the reader, but for the most part, a great read.


The inside information an “fly on the wall” perspective provided an interesting perspective of the issues big league teams face on a daily basis. Moneyball highlights a still somewhat controversial use of statistical evaluation applied to scouting, evaluating and procuring talent at the minor league and major league levels.

Although, as the book mentions (but “Numbers Game” does better), there is a rich history of the use of statistical data in baseball to improve team quality and fan understanding of the game, recently franchises have been almost handing the keys to the franchise over to stat gurus at the expense of traditional “baseball men” whether they be scouts, coaches, ex-players, etc.


Statistical analysis, when properly used, is usually better than the accuracy of subjective “gut feeling” methods of used by traditionalists. Emotional bias is removed from the equation. At least that is the hope and expectation. Moneyball details the way the cost-conscious Oakland A's General Manager Billy Beane built a perennial playoff team by focusing on underappreciated player statistics, such as on-base percentage and the number of walks a player takes, qualities that most general managers tend to devalue.

My problems with the book are that some of the central premises that build the story are specious:

• Whether or not the A’s revolutionary approach is primarily responsible for their success as opposed to other factors (like lucking into the troika of Zito, Hudson, Mulder a big three starting rotation that is the envy of baseball) is ignored, glossed over or batted away in argument. I mean they hit three for three on college pitchers in short order. Subtract one of those guys or replace one or two of them with average starters, as I know SABR-cats have a ready made formula for figuring out and the A’s may be a .500 team. Ballpark though for each one of those guys that goes from producing 70% victories in each start to about 50% provided by an average starter and with 30 starts each, I don’t even need my pocket calculator to tell each stud is worth 5-7 extra wins per season. Enough to catapult a .500 team into a 95-100 win team each season they remain healthy and productive.


• The method of evaluating talent at the collegiate and major league level is primarily dependent on the use of statistical analysis to find players who are “undervalued and under appreciated” by the marketplace for their contribution to building a winning team. Due to the weakness of the systems ability to quantify and evaluate skills such as speed, fielding ability these traits in players are largely ignored. High School hitters are virtually ignored as a class due to the unreliability of the statistical data needed to evaluate them. This would leave Eric Chavez, currently the A’s most successful hitter and a High School draftee from the Sandy Alderson regime the preceded Beane’s, persona non grata under the new system.


• As we’ve seen by the recent retooling of the Red Sox, who under Theo Epstein, is also an advocate of the statistical analysis approach, albeit combined with a hefty checkbook. Hey, you need every weapon in the arsenal when you have to fight THE EVIL EMPIRE (Yankees) on a daily basis. The Sox recognized the importance of fielding as a necessary component of a winning team and went out and got two gloves to firm up the defense. The ripple effect will strengthen an already strong pitching staff.


• The premise and approach may work during the course of a long regular season where small, marginal advantages like focusing on artificially increasing team On Base Averages will produce marginal increases in Total Wins. The season is a marathon not a sprint. However, the playoffs are a sprint. And here the A’s and the approach have to answer to its historical futility. Opposing pitchers focus and control are sharper, more defined. What was the enduring image of the 2003 Playoffs for A’s fans? Not so much Derek Lowe’s fist pumping, jock thumping histrionics towards the A’s bench, although that by itself would be enough. Come on guys focus here. It was Terrance Long striking out looking at the last two strikes (that’s a backwards K if you’re scoring at home). Executing the A’s imposed philosophy to the bitter end. This from a middle of the order type guy, in a clutch, game winning situation. I’m sorry, SABR-cats also don’t believe in the ability of clutch hitting either since it can’t be proven statistically. Talk about your self-fulfilling prophecy, who’s writing these endings, Hollywood?


• An apparent disdain for those skills whose impact cannot be accurately measured using statistics or which the A’s feel are overvalued by the market, such as speed and fielding, are ignored by the team. I believe this is done at their peril and ignores these skills ripple effect on the measurable stats of other players. So if you don’t have speedy, good fielding players you hurt your pitching staff and your other hitter who don’t benefit from the effect of the threat of the stolen base on opposing pitchers minds, catchers framing pitchers and infielders positioning to defense the steal giving succeeding hitters more holes to hit through. Look at the effect Dave Roberts being on base against Mariano Rivera and other Yankee pitchers. The mere threat of the stolen base rattled him right off the mound into an eventual blown save. And a sacrifice bunt the very next inning by the Red Sox to manufacture the go ahead run was pure anti-Money Ball behavior.


Anyway, back to our story. To be honest, I was almost lost at the beginning of the book by author Michael Lewis. The first line of the preface was “I wrote this book because I fell in love with a story”. It just conjured up images of the book “Love Story”. I’m not sure if we should begin to worry about Al Gore saying he was the original model for the Billy Beane character and that he actually invented SABR but I read on despite my fears.

The central premise of the book is that from the front office level to the clubhouse and onto the field, the A’s were unfit, undervalued, underdog players competing against the Yankees of the world. Isn’t that precious? They’re so cute at that age and everyone loves an underdog, so you have me back now. How did one of the poorest teams in baseball win so many games? Of course the Twins have done similar things recently with a more traditional approach and the Marlins have won two World Championships with two distinct approaches and yet have flown under the radar as far as Michael Lewis is concerned. Are they also doing something different that needs to looked at or glorified.

Quote from the book - “Geek numbers show, no prove, that the traditional yardsticks of success for players and teams are fatally flawed”. That’s strong stuff. I’m always a little suspicious when someone uses this type of hyperbole. So everyone’s been wrong all these years and the boy-wonder genius is going to show them the error of their ways, is that it. No wonder the establishment hates him; I’m starting to get a little uncomfortable myself. Look, nobody is reinventing the wheel here; the wheel was a pretty darn good invention. Oh there may be some marginal improvements here and there in design and performance enhancements of the wheel by tire companies, but nobody is reinventing the wheel.

After reading the book, I’m not sure that even the title “Money Ball” is accurate. Money Ball is what the Yankees, Red Sox and now the Angels are playing. The A’s approach is more like “Flea Market Ball”. Not sexy enough I guess and you need a sexy title to sell books and befit the “sexiest General Manager in the Big Leagues”. I actually felt dirty enough when I read that quote to take an immediate shower. That was the kind of inside information about the A’s and Billy Beane I didn’t need. And the fact that he referred to himself by that title in playful banter with another GM’s secretary, Yuck.

For review I’ll summarize some of the key features of the A’s approach and compare and contrast it to another low-budget team, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays:

A’s Red Sox
GM: Billy Beane / Theo Esptein
Budget: Low-Budget
Draft Approach: Older, Collegiate Performance, Stat Based SABR approach (WYSIWYG), Non-Athletic
Players: Non-Athletic, Plow Horse type players (we’re not selling jeans here) Jeremy Brown, Nick Swisher, Khalil Greene, et al

Devil Rays
GM: Chuck Lamar
Budget: Low
Draft Approach: Young High Ceiling, Projectable Athletic, Combine type players
Players: Carl Crawford, Rocco Baldelli, BJ Upton, Delmon Young

Both systems can and do work to develop low budget teams into competitive teams. So to does International scouting and development of players in places like the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

Anyway back to our hero, Billy Beane:

There are several "holes" in the book that could be seen as Lewis embellished some things in order to make the story read better. Hey, love is blind, right. Also, there are aspects of the book that are open to debate, whether those are related specifically to Billy Beane, more generally about the A's organization as a whole, or simply about the way things and people are portrayed in the book.


For balance, here are the positives from of the book were as follows:

• It’s a great story with great characters, the under appreciated hitter, Scott Hattieberg, the draftee Jeremy Brown and the chapter about pitcher Chad Bradford should almost become required reading for pitching coaches and scouts who think you need to have picture-perfect mechanics with a howitzer attached to your throwing arm.


• The success of the A's is an interesting story. Good vs. Evil, David vs. Goliath, Anybody vs. the Yankees makes for an interesting storyline. The reactions of traditionalists to the A’s methodology are an interesting story. And Michael Lewis can tell a good story. Moneyball is perfect for those of us who have ever dreamt of running a franchise, because of it’s of fly-on-the-wall moments. You are in the war room prior to and during the draft. How do they evaluate and decide on players and the teams overall draft strategy? What interaction do scouts, owners have on decision making? Who makes the final call? Trades and late-season roster moves, you are there hanging around A's front office, so to speak.


• The A’s Philosophy itself is a story. This is really the star of the book and has garnered the most attention from the media and baseball types, but it should’t be. Most people recognize the A's are a low-budget team that has a somewhat different organizational philosophy from other low-budget teams, of which there are many. Moneyball examines why they do all the things they do. The key is finding said valuable players on the cheap. The A's simply cannot afford to acquire players that have all the skills a baseball player can have. They have discovered that there are some skills that are at the same time disproportionately valuable and disproportionately cheap. Plate discipline is one of the skills that are undervalued.

• Speed costs money. Defense costs money. Power costs money. Batting average costs money. Athleticism costs money. The one thing that the A's believe doesn't cost as much as all the other things is a player with the ability to see lots of pitches, work lots of counts, draw lots of walks and get on-base. The A's succeed because they are able to identify players that other teams do not value highly, simply because of what those players cannot do and the A's recognize that there is value in what they can do.

• Jeremy Brown, an overweight college catcher, whom the A's drafted in the first round of the 2001 draft, as everyone laughed at them. Baseball America, one of the most respected baseball publications out there, one of the leading "draft experts" and one of the only magazines that I subscribe to, did not have Jeremy Brown ranked among the top 25 catching prospects in the 2002 draft. Not the top 25 overall prospects, the top 25 catching prospects. BA also did not list Jeremy Brown among their "Top 250 Prospects" in the 2002 draft. 250! Heck, BA had Brown ranked as the 12th best player from the state of Alabama. And yet, Billy Beane and the Oakland A's selected Jeremy Brown, the fat catcher from the U of Alabama that no one was even paying attention to and that most people probably didn't even have on their draft list, with the 35th pick in the entire draft. They then signed Brown for $350,000. The guy picked directly in front of him signed for $1,000,000 and the guy picked directly behind him signed for $1,050,000.

Many other teams employ this type of pre-draft agreement to get players on the cheap. I’m still not sold on the fact that they didn’t overpay for Jeremy Brown anyway. They could have drafted him in the tenth round and signed him for less than $100,000 guaranteed. How is that not a waste of $250,000? "Brown's short, squat body turned off many scouts and doesn't fit the mold of the more athletic modern big league catcher. But the A's general manager Billy Beane said, 'We're not selling jeans here.' If [Brown] continues to perform well, he'll be on the fast track to the majors." In the span of less than a year, Brown went from a guy they didn't think deserved to be picked in the first 10 rounds of a draft, to a guy "on the fast track to the majors." And that's no knock against Baseball America, it just tells you a little bit about Billy Beane and the A's. Again here in most organizations, where you’re drafted determines and the signing bonus delivered determines whether player is on the fast-track or slow track to through the system, many times at the expense of performance. Oakland says they can't afford to go after the 5-tool hitters with blazing speed and the ability to fill out a uniform in a way that scouts like. Instead, they go after guys that have been overlooked because of their body or their foot speed or their lack whatever it is that most scouts are looking for.

• The A’s can't afford to take a risk on an 18 year old high school pitcher that is 6 foot 5 and throws 99 miles per hour. Instead, they take a smallish RHP from Auburn (Hudson) and a LHP from USC (Zito), that some scouts project as a #4 or #5 starter, because he doesn't throw hard, and make him the 9th overall pick in the 1999 draft. Then they add another collegiate LHP from Michigan State (Mulder) and all three picks hit big. Now if you can find the story behind how they did that you could right a book that will break the bank in terms of sales.

In a few years, I wonder what the A's will be like without Zito (that lefty from Southern Cal) and Mulder and Hudson (the short righty from Auburn). Some say it won't matter, as long as Billy Beane is running things. I’m not sure they will be able to replace those players cheaply and efficiently.

There's a clear prejudice against many players Beane likes (ie: players who are fat or slow or who can't throw very hard). But books like "Moneyball" should convince enough teams to re-examine and abandon those prejudices, especially when they understand just how much money they can save doing so.

I don’t have a problem with this in theory. I just don’t see that many examples of slow, fat players who can perform in a sport that athletically is a ballistic, fast-speed sport. Heck, you can train a monkey to stand up there with a bat and take pitches, he’ll never hit well enough to progress. It’s one of those wonderful baseball paradoxes, a hitter has to be patiently-aggressive, a pitcher has to have speed and control even though there is inherently a trade-off between these qualities. I don’t believe the A’s approach has solved for this dilemma.

Then, you have to eventually worry about copy-cats within the industry cannibalizing the available number of players who suit their criteria. As other teams take players the A’s like off the unemployment line the value of those players eventually go up. The A’s will eventually have to push some chips to the center of the table. They may believe that for the guys who don’t understand or believe, no to fad-like change will make a difference, at least not for a generation or so. Then, folks will be off in search of the next “big thing”

The last major fundamental change in player procurement began in the late 1940s, when the Dodgers became the first team to sign black players. Most other teams overcame that entrenched prejudice within a decade. Latin American players were next as the cost to sign and develop players are still cheaper than in the good old USA. Currently a higher proportion of players are coming from Latin American countries than ever before.

In both examples however, ultimately the player has to perform well on the field for the success of the “system” to be hailed. If the players stats indicate that he will perform well at the next level, so be it, you draft him. But to draft players simply because they are less expensive than others and have gaudy stats that may not be reliable, well sometimes you get what you pay for.

The other weakness seems to be that the approach looks at stats that are generated which may beg the caveat “past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance”. At some point, skills diminish. One would think a case could be made that the next revolution in player development will be made in player evaluation metrics that are reliable predictors of future performance, as the NFL does in the draft combine. In that case you would evaluate and draft those players that meet these metrics, draft them and rely on your coaching staffs to develop them, as the NFL does.

Using Test Protocols for Evaluation of Players

One of the things that has always fascinated me about baseball, and sports in general, is how players get better. What is it about the superstars that elevates them above the average players? What are the physical attributes, the mental and emotional requirements? In baseball, what are the visual skills that are necessary for success at the highest levels? When I was a player, the emphasis was on using this information to become a better player. When I became a coach, the emphasis changed to learning and developing the most effective methods to allow upcoming players to succeed.

Along the way, I saw examples in football, beginning with Gil Brandt of the Dallas Cowboys, using test protocols to more effectively identify talented college players for his team to draft. It was fascinating to see him use these physical tests, as well as mental and emotional tests, like the Wonderlich test, to identify the players with the highest chances of success, more efficiently than his competitors.

It seemed like a no-brainer intuitively, but in most sports, the coaches and administrators still use hunches and intuition and gut instinct to make these important personnel decisions. There was a great reluctance to use modern tools and knowledge from other fields to aid in the decisions. Baseball men feel that what was done 50-100 years ago to judge and draft players works just fine, thank you very much.

My gut instincts and intuition have always led me to believe that the things that have worked in other sports to improve scouting, talent identification and player development would also work in baseball.

The player draft in all sports that have one is a prime determinant of which teams will be successful in the future and which ones will fail, so the stakes are high. In spite of drafting lower than most of his competitors, a result f the Cowboys success, Brandt’s scouting department consistently identified and drafted better players in the later rounds of the drafts than some teams did in the first and second rounds. Clearly, he was doing things better and more efficiently than other teams in terms of scouting and talent identification.

As front office and scouting personnel left the Cowboys for other team’s years later, the rest of the NFL learned that Brandt was a proponent of using certain physical tests and measurements to compare players at similar positions. For lineman, he wanted large strong men, the larger and stronger the better. So rather than simply compare how well a player performed he would find out how many times the players he was interested in could bench press 225 lbs, for positions where speed was a large component of success or failure, he measured them in the 40 yard dash and so on. He felt that simply judging collegiate players by how they performed in a limited number of games, many times against inferior competition, was inefficient. Most of these test and procedures he developed have since shown to be effective at a statistically significant level. There is a strong correlation between the ranking of players in the battery of tests and future success in the NFL.

The crux of Brandt’s theory is if you give your coaches the players with the best athletic skill sets to succeed, then it’s the coaching staff’s job to teach them the specific sports skills to succeed at that level. That’s what coaches are paid to do.

Most sports teams are copycats, when one team is successful using a certain method or procedure, others begin to copy in droves in hope that the success would follow. The cost of failure in drafting unproductive and players in sorts is too high both economically, in terms of the amount of bonuses paid to high draft picks. Today, almost every team in the NFL participates in the NFL combine, however baseball has stuck with its tradition based scouting methods.

It’s my opinion and that of other coaches and trainers that I work with that the time has come for baseball to start using this type of approach to evaluate the players it chooses. Many top draft picks receive million dollar plus bonuses. With that financial windfall and the notoriety of being a high draft pick, comes a lot pressure. Many players who have the requisite physical skills wash out because they are not mentally tough enough to handle failure. Some don’t have a strong enough work ethic and succeeded at lower levels on the basis of their superior physical gifts. There are tests that other sports have used to identify these traits in athletes.

Once you have the battery of tests that correctly identify the physical, mental and emotional qualities you need in an athlete, you should be able to use that tool to more efficiently identify which players would make your team in a tryout setting or which players to draft in the professional setting. In both cases, the problem facing teams and coaches is there are simply too many players to evaluate in a limited amount of time. The inefficiency is that the scouting department is using poorly defined or subjective parameters to identify talent. In baseball, many scouts still used the old hand-me-down term “he has the good face” to describe a prospect they like and they believe has a high probability for future success. The problem being fifty different scouts are likely to give you fifty different opinions as to what the term means. It’s too subjective and vague. The tests bring a level of accuracy and precision that baseball has never had before.

Scouts and baseball men are very guarded about their traditions and procedures. It’s safer for them to fail “going by the book” than to fail doing something outside the box. That gets you fired. It will take an organization with guts to change the culture in their scouting and player development department to make the change. Or maybe we simply need a man with the courage and conviction of Gil Brandt. So far, I have used the same methodology at every level through high school baseball with excellent results. I would like to see it eventually make its way to the professional level. It would be simply revolutionary.