The Mental Game of Baseball, Control What You Can

the mental game of baseball

Whenever I watch local high school games and I work with younger pitchers it always takes me back to when I played at all these levels. One of the biggest things that I notice at the high school level, after watching nearly 1000 professional games over 7 years with the Indians, is a point my pitching coach made when I was in AA-ball. He said, “don’t try to control the un-controllables, just control what you can!”.  The mental game of baseball is about focusing on the controllables.   Let me explain…

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5 Ways to Get the Most Out of Your Summer Season

Today I am going to address 5 “do’s and don’ts” for those players choosing to play summer ball. These are generally players that are “on the cusp” (1-2 mph) of where they want to be velo-wise and could and should find a local league / team that will allow them to only pitch 3-5 innings per week and play first base on an additional day. Continue reading “5 Ways to Get the Most Out of Your Summer Season”

Pascack Hills Baseball… New Jersey State Champions

Hey Everyone,

Yesterday, the Pascack Hills Baseball Team won the New Jersey State Championship. We would like to congratulate Coach Kirkby and his coaching staff and all the players on this amazing accomplishment.  This past winter we had the pleasure of training many of these amazingly talented group of young men including seniors, Jack Brodsky and Paul Sullivan, and juniors, Brandon Siegenthaler, Chris Curcio and Julian Bulzomi, and sophomore Spencer Berson.  Continue reading “Pascack Hills Baseball… New Jersey State Champions”

Pitcher Development Program… Case Study: Brian Doherty (Class 2020)

The following is a brief review on 15-year old, 6’4”, 205 lbs. RHP Brian Doherty (Class 2020) who has made tremendous progress in our Pitcher Development Program.  Brian trained at RPP this past fall and then rejoined us again recently.  As a part of the development program, he has been working on a variety of topics this spring, including:

Training with VBT… Understanding and Training in the Zones (Part 3)

In Parts 1 (click here) and 2 (click here), we talked about what the Force-Velocity curve is and why it’s important.  We also introduced VBT (velocity-based training), discussing how it’s different from conventional 1RM testing and some of the benefits in using it to train your athletes.  Today, we’ll dive a little deeper and talk about the specific “zones” used to train different traits on the Force-Velo curve as well as how they relate to specific movements on the field. Continue reading “Training with VBT… Understanding and Training in the Zones (Part 3)”