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 explains the outcome of an assessment on the Proteus Motion and how they relate to sport specific force for baseball players. Getting an assessment on the Proteus allows for targeting the strength or acceleration deficient areas of our athletes.
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:
Baseball Systems, Camps and Courses Creator:
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.
This episode was recorded live on Twitter Spaces with Colter Bostick, Javi DeJesus and Corey Gardner.
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:
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.