Most of these come from the pitcher perspective.
Injuries suck. Staying healthy is the most important rule for baseball development. Don't play football. Like at all, even on the beach... flashback summer 2019.
To throw hard, throw hard. Especially at a young age. Don't over do it and warm up properly, but throw hard early and often.
Just like anything. To be comfortable throwing pitches you must practice. Practice throwing changeups often. Practice, Practice. Practice. Perfects the craft. I felt the Greg McMichael taught change up was a lot on my arm. Growing up, stick to fastballs and cutters. Velo will get you very far and the other pitches can be developed latter on. Limit changeup, curveball use.
From Ken Shuey, think of your arm as a whip and the power coming from hip twitch and core. Hip flexibility, power, quickness was an inhibitor for me that I feel like I could have focused on more.
Changeup must be thrown with the fastball mindset. The grip determines the speed and spin.
Practice OFTEN in the stretch. The stretch is where you make your money and is when you need to be your best.
Baseball is all about. Durability, reliability, and explosiveness. Stretch often. Train for quick twitch explosive performance.
October 1, 2019 update:
Trackman is sweet.
This is Paul Schwendel, class of '12 Emory Baseball alumni. Great seeing those of you who could make it to alumni weekend this year.
I wanted to reach out for some help on something I want to do for the current team. As most of you probably know, Emory just built a brand new baseball locker room. It's fantastic, and a great draw for recruiting efforts that will keep the team competitive for a long time. In the interest of continuing to improve, and hopefully finally get over the hump and win a championship, I think there's an area we can really help Coach T and the current team out.
Right now, there's a tech wave in baseball that is quantifying everything; spin rate, spin efficiency, exit velocities, launch angles etc. While most of our Emory boys aren't trying to get drafted after their senior year, having that kind of data at their fingertips will help Coach T 1. recruit top talent, and 2. get the current players better.
As such, there are a couple of different devices that are great for capturing/evaluating these metrics; Rapsodo and Trackman portable. Rapsodo was something the current pitching coach, Dave Anderson, was expecting to get this year for the staff, but it ultimately didn't make the cut for Coach T's budget.
I've done the leg work on both of these, and the Rapsodo is more of an entry level device for $4500, while the Trackman portable is latest and greatest and comes with a pricetag to reflect that; $14.5k (with a edu discount). Trackman also provides valuable insights for hitters (which Coach T will care about obviously).
I'm blasting this out to you guys because if we can get 150 guys to donate, that's less than $100 a person for the most badass tech out there to help out the current team.
Let me know if you're interested by replying back. I'll kick it off by pledging $500 if we can make this happen. I'm going to have all the funds go to Dave Andersen, current pitching coach, so he can manage.
Here are some details about the tech:
