I attended a coaches clinic in Columbus that was led by the Ohio coaching staff. Really enjoyed listening to these guys, and very nice of them to give up 4 hours to share their approaches, tips, drills, etc that they do. The coaching staff seemed really likable and knowledgeable. It was clear they do believe in analytics and more new-age personalized development plans. Heard a few comments about how excited they were about where the pitching is at right now.

Anyway, just really enjoyed and appreciated these guys. Looking forward to 2020!

I know he's long gone now, but if the same approach was used with the old staff, the baseball team would have been so much better.

There was so much talent that came in and left the last 10-15 years of Carbone's career. Guys underutilized, not used correctly, etc. The lone eventual MLB pitcher Adam Russell being the most obvious example.

The training and game management was very archaic.

It's also not an excuse that analytics is a new thing. Sure, new analytics exist now, but teams have been properly using them for years.

Interesting insider perspective, confirms what many of us suspected from the outside. There were a few mentions at the clinic that kind of rocked my world as a 13U travel coach.

1. They teach their catchers to catch with one knee down, regardless of game situation. Again on analytics, they mentioned the average number of chances per game to throw a runner out (like 2ish), blok a wild pitch (like 6ish), and receive a pitch (100+). Point being they want to position their catchers to be the best receivers of the pitch, everything else is secondary. With the knee down, everything is balanced and still and looks better to an ump. Both my boys are catchers and I spoke to them about it...my 10 year old liked the idea and my 12 year old refused to even consider it.

2. They avoid any BP that involves lobbed slow pitching. They want them to get used to seeing hard stuff so they bring it to them as best they can. They also rotate in and out every few pitches and avoid situations where a hitter gets 30some swings in one session. To that same point, they also put their hitters up against their pitchers as much as they can.

3. They believe too many youth programs focus too much on throwing strikes and sacrifice developing power as a result. They want to see their kids use an approach and mechanics to maximize velocity and then work to hone that control in from there...while many coaches like myself have the exact opposite approach. They feel the control then velocity is hard to execute from a muscle memory standpoint. I really gotta chew on this one.

4. A lot of really good focus on the mental aspect, positive thinking, preparation, etc. Good information that often gets skipped over.

Tennis and baseball are not the same thing at all, but this makes all the sense in the world to me. A lot of control is feel and you have to get used to the feel of amping up in order for it to work. I agree with this approach wholeheartedly.

How that didn't make national headlines is still baffling to me.

The coaching staff called an emergency team meeting (at 6am btw) the first day back from Fall Break to tell us he would no longer be coaching. It was very strange considering the incident happened the year prior and a lot of the current team had not even been enrolled yet. The only reason the issue came to the surface was because a disgruntled player was cut and I believe may have threatened legal action. I can remember this meeting vividly. Lots of questions were left unanswered to say the least. Looking back, I wonder if this incident is ultimately why Carby retired.

News today that the ROBcats brought back former GA, Mitch Mormann, as Pitching Coach and Recruiting Coordinator.

Mitch came from South Dakota State where he was the pitching coach for a few seasons.

He played a season with LSU before transferring to Wichita St and was also drafted twice before singing as a free agent after college.

I really like this hire as he is young and has pitched in high pressure situations for major programs.

Here's a link to his latest bio with SDSU:

https://gojacks.com/coaches.aspx?rc=1897

You know I'm not sure they head one guy that served as the pitching coach, think it has been handled by committee.

Rob has deep pitching coach experience and he oversaw the pitchers when he first came in. Website has former starter Gerry Salisbury as "Director of Pitching Development" but I believe he still plays a professionally in the United Shore Professional Baseball league.

I know two assistants recently just left for positions in MLB organizations so this move is probably to fill a vacancy and give Rob a chance to help out with the positional players more.