The Baseball Recruit Letter

The Best Resources for Pitching Development

Author

Matthew Schirm
August 19, 2023

I just Googled “Baseball Instruction.”

Google found more than 61 million results in less than half a second!

There is SO MUCH information out there! It’s impossible to sift through it all.

As a high school player and/or parent, where should you start?

It’s all so confusing:

  • Should youth players throw curveballs, or not?

  • Should catchers set up with one knee down, or not?

  • Should infielders push through or funnel the ball?

  • Should outfielders catch with two hands, or not?

  • Should hitters swing up or swing down?

As an experienced coach at the college, high school, and youth levels, I’ve done A LOT of research on baseball instruction.

I’ve studied almost every theory out there, both old and new.

I’ve developed a master list of resources that I trust the most.

Do I agree with EVERYTHING these source sources prescribe? NO, but I’ve taken ideas from each of them throughout my coaching career.

I KNOW you can find value in at least SOMETHING taught by each of the sources.

My advice:

DON’T take ANYTHING you learn from any source as gospel.

Experiment and find what works best for YOU!

Here’s the list! Enjoy! (Note: These are in alphabetical order).

Pitching

I heard Stephen Osterer, co-founder of Baseball Development Group, speak at Lantz Wheeler’s Pitch-a-Palooza several years back.

I was impressed with Osterer’s presentation, so I started to follow his work closely.

I bought his book, “Recovery for Baseball,” and implemented it’s principles into our pitcher’s recovery programs.

BDG’s website also has it’s own resource guide (similar to this one) that is well worth your time to dive into.

Lantz Wheeler is a former college pitching coach turned well-known pitching instructor who runs a website titled “Baseball Think Tank.” He was/is heavily influenced by the work of Paul Nyman, who is also on this list.

Wheeler invented the Core Velocity Belt, a training tool used by many top college and professional programs throughout the country.

He hosts an annual pitching conference called Pitch-a-Palooza. He brings in top pitching minds from all over to speak at the event. I attended several years back and was blown away by quantity AND quality of information.

Dan is a former professional pitcher who puts out A LOT of baseball-related content.

I especially found his pitching content interesting and insightful when I coached college baseball.

Here are a few of his YouTube videos that I liked the most:

The late Mike Marshall was an MLB pitcher for multiple teams from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. He won the National League Cy Young Award in 1974 while pitching for the Dodgers.

Marshall made a HUGE impact on my coaching career. His unconventional methods drew me in because they are so deeply rooted in science.

I became fanatical about his theories in the late 2000s, studying his material daily and testing his training programs by myself.

Notably, he influenced Kyle Boddy, founder of Driveline Baseball, which is also on this list.

His material is difficult to read. He used a lot of scientific jargon and unapologetically refused to “dumb it down.”

Marshall passed away in 2021, but his website is still live. If you’re willing to dig into his content, it will open your eyes to many interesting theories about all aspects of pitching.

Driveline is arguably the most well-known baseball development hub. The company has exploded in popularity over the past 10+ years.

Driveline focused on pitching in its early years, but has branched into all phases of the game.

I bought and read Driveline’s comprehensive pitcher training manual, “Hacking the Kinetic Chain,” early in my coaching career and integrated much of what I learned into our pitcher development program.

I appreciate Driveline’s commitment to producing scientific, data-driven content.

When I coached college baseball, we took the team to Florida over spring break each year to get away from the cold northern weather for a week.

On our off day one year, I took some of our pitchers to the Florida Baseball Ranch (now called the Florida Baseball ARMory), for a half-day clinic.

Randy Sullivan, the facility’s head instructor, led the pitchers through an extensive assessment, including a movement screen and mechanical analysis.

Based on the assessment results, he provided each pitcher with an individualized program to address his deficiencies.

I was impressed with Sullivan’s knowledge and attention to detail. I learned a lot just by observing him work with our players.

I stumbled upon the Overhead Athletic Institute while surfing the web toward the end of my coaching career.

I haven’t dug into the institute’s content beyond it’s YouTube videos, but I did find the videos interesting and insightful. Here are a few of my favorites:

Paul Nyman is a former engineer whose interest in baseball led to the creation of SetPro.com, his baseball instruction website.

I spent a lot of time on his website studying his ideas throughout my coaching career. I’m fascinated by his scientific knowledge of the game.

One of the pitchers I coached in college spent some time training at the Texas Baseball Ranch, founded by Ron Wolforth. He came back with a lot of material that I read through.

I’ve also know many coaches who’ve attended Wolforth’s annual pitching conference.

I appreciate Wolforth’s willingness to invite speakers with different viewpoints to speak at his conference.

Tom House is a former MLB pitching coach and one of the most well-known pitching instructors.

I studied his content voraciously at the beginning of my coaching career, but admittedly turned to some other resources on this list later on.

His newest project is NationalPitching.com, which is well worth studying.

I know the LEAST about Top Velocity than any other resource on this list, but I’m intrigued by recent video content I’ve seen by the company’s founder, Brent Pourciau.

If I were still coaching, I would definitely take a deeper dive into the Top Velocity program.

Tread Athletics is MY FAVORITE of the resources on this list.

Ben Brewster, a former collegiate and professional pitcher, is the president of the company and creates most of its content.

Brewster wrote a book titled “Building the 95 mph Body,” which should be required reading for ALL pitchers.

Sooooo…..I started this article with the intention of providing resources for ALL aspects of the game: pitching, catching, infield, outfield, hitting, baserunning, strength and conditioning, and the mental game.

HOWEVER, it’s now late Friday night and I JUST NOW finished the pitching section!

I’m going to push the rest off until next week.

Feel free to reply/comment with any questions and/or insights.

All the best!

- Matt

P.S. If you'd like to schedule a free consultation with me about the recruiting process, reply to this email or send me a text at 319-883-0242.

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