Pitch Design, Bullpens, and Long Toss Training

The introduction of the pitchLogic® baseballs into our program has proven to be a huge shot in the arm to our effort to advance our player development efforts. We first deployed pitchLogic Baseballs at the beginning of the fall to collect data- simply to see where every pitcher was at with their metrics. One of the main benefits of the pitchLogic balls was that we were able to collect data in bullpen settings as well as within catch-play. We found there was a strong correlation between the bullpen setting and catch-play setting with spin-related metrics (Spin direction. Spin Axis, and Spin Efficiency), this allowed us to collect more data points in a shorter amount of time. After a few weeks of purely collecting data, we felt that we had a big enough sample size to dive into individualized pitch development. We started pitch development sessions by educating pitchers on their strengths and weaknesses, this way they understood their full arsenal – what pitches need work and how to pitch to their strengths. Leveraging data to make informed decisions has encouraged the pitchers to train with more focus and intent, leading to increased quality of bullpens and catch play. Suddenly, catch play has an objective behind it opposed to just “arm conditioning”. Bullpens start to become more and more individualized and before you know it, pitchers are “driving” their bullpens. The introduction of data has allowed pitchers the opportunity to be more focused in their training and take ownership in their process which leads to more intentional communication between coach and athlete.


Specifically in bullpen settings, we were able to start attacking weaknesses and training pitcher strengths. For instance, if we had a pitcher who exhibited good carry characteristics on his fastball and had an off-speed pairing that was lacking, we would approach bullpens with an intention to learn how to throw “high” fastballs and start to shape the off-speed to compliment the fastball. Instant feedback from the pitchLogic baseballs allows us the opportunity to monitor and alter spin-based characteristics pitch-to-pitch, in real time. This process allows us to shorten the feedback loop and promote quicker development of “feel” which we define as, “knowing when it was good, knowing when it was bad, and knowing how to make it go from bad to good”. Having a shortened feedback loop from the data that the pitchLogic baseball provides allows us coaches the ability to start utilizing all the tools we have in our disposal to better or alter pitches.

We have been fortunate with weather this fall and have been able to spend the majority of our time out on the field. Yet being located in Northern Idaho, we accept the fact that we will eventually be moved inside due to weather in which case training will start to look a little different. Some of the constraints we face moving inside is lack of space for catch play and inconsistent lighting. Luckily pitchLogic baseballs allow an opportunity to combat these constraints and still be productive with our work. We will utilize the “flatground” setting to continue to collect data and monitor spin-related metrics – make sure no bad habits begin to form inside catch-play. Additionally, when a pitcher wants to air it out and we are confined to an indoor setting, we can utilize the metric that shows how far the ball would’ve traveled through the pitchLogic app. This feature allows us to get long-toss in while being able to monitor workloads and distance of all the pitchers. Additionally, we are able to combat many issues that arise while dealing with inconsistent indoor lighting and continue to collect accurate data through bullpens.