Seek Failure

In the private player development sector, I have the responsibility and flexibility to create a training environment that I see as best fit for our hitters. The environment that I try to create is one that accomplishes one “simple” goal: Perform In-Game. 

The word simple is in quotes because performing well in a baseball game is NOT an easy task. This game is always referred to as the game of failure, so my question is: If baseball is a game of failure, why don’t we train to that point of failure and beyond? This style of training is starting to gain traction in the baseball player development world, most notably by the Houston Astros. Their hitting development team started an organization-wide implementation of training at game-like difficulty or harder, including high-velocity pitching machine batting practice before games.

So much of the baseball world is evolving and developing, however many teams in the majors still solely rely on getting their hitters prepared for the game with 45 foot BP at 60 MPH. With this style, the practice environment is not more difficult than the actual game, which makes going into a game and performing far more difficult. The new evolution of pre-game preparation is similar to what the San Francisco Giants implemented in 2020 behind Hitting Coach Donnie Ecker. The team adopted the training philosophy “Practice Dirty, Play Clean.” In an article with the Score, Ecker describes, “Practice to make mistakes. Challenge yourself, push yourself, make it hard, make it not fun. And then when the game comes around, you play clean, and it feels a lot easier.” (Sawchick, 2021).

At Next Pro Training, we have adopted a very similar philosophy when it comes to Hitting Development. “Seek Failure” is a simple philosophy that sets the culture and mindset to our training. Starting to master a certain task or constraint? make it more difficult. Our off-season training should be more difficult than the competition faced during their High School or College Seasons. This can be accomplished through varying drills, setups, and constraints. Challenging velocity off the pitching machine, nasty breaking pitches, foam balls that “rise” with increased spin rates, and even difficult drills off of the tee or front toss are all pieces of the in-depth program that will challenge our hitters offensive abilities. It’s not all gas all the time, though. We want to build a solid foundation most importantly, and then continue to build upon that with difficulty as we get more comfortable with the foundational mechanics of the swing. 

Through my experience in high school and college baseball, I have seen the way that athletes “prepare” for their upcoming seasons. The majority of the training is tee work, front toss, and maybe some BP if a teammate throws it well enough. This training is almost exclusively “feel good” with little to no challenging aspects. It’s about crushing cage bombs off of front toss and riding that ego-fulfuling dopamine hit like it is going to help you perform in-season. While tee-work and front toss are certainly important ways to feel out mechanical changes, solely relying on them will lead to slow trained swings that have trouble catching up with velocity in-game.

There are many benefits outside of making game competition easier when the hitters get into their seasons. One major benefit is the mental toughness side of this philosophy. No one wants to swing and miss and look bad in front of their teammates or friends. The ego that each athlete has will shy away from difficult training because they don’t want to be embarrassed. This is typically where excuses come in and give a way out for not completing the prescribed program. At Next Pro, our culture has been built knowing that failure is welcome, as long as that failure is met with the tenacity to keep stepping back in the box and competing. This may take time to get athletes to buy in, but over time we have seen our athletes welcoming challenges and as a result being motivated to succeed. I truly believe that this will help create a similar mentality in games and help guys be locked in mentally at the plate.

There is a concern that may come along with this style of training: Won’t players be mentally torn down if they’re constantly failing all the time? Having confidence is an extremely important part of being a good hitter and with the Hitting Development program at Next Pro, I build in “feel good” days where the athletes have easier constraints and are able to swing freely and let it eat. Additionally, athletes are consistently getting 1 on 1 instruction with myself which allows them to ask questions and build confidence in their development and understanding of their own swings, feels, and any changes they may be making. As I stated earlier, the program is broken up into phases and as the season approaches we will use those phases to monitor the level of difficulty and make sure guys are in the best place physically and mentally to dominate when the spring season begins. 

Seeking failure is a philosophy in which I am very confident and have already seen numerous positive results in our athletes since its implementation. As we get closer to the winter season and the 3rd Phase of the Hitting program, the difficulty will continue to increase to the highest level the athletes will experience this off-season. The athletes seem more excited than upset about this new phase and all the failure (and subsequent growth) that comes with it. I think that speaks volumes about the type of culture and process-oriented mindset our athletes have cultivated at Next Pro Training.

So my final question is, “Are you truly preparing yourself to perform in-game this spring??”

If not, Next Pro Training is the place to be to take your game to the next level!

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