Coach the Right Now & Plan for the Next Right Now

Total Reading Time: 8 minutes

It’s finally here!! Everybody’s off to the races this weekend so this issue will get right to the point and look at how to best prepare yourself for upcoming scenarios plus a look at charting tips.

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Coach the Right Now & Plan for the Next Right Now

From way back in the Fall, we knew this weekend would get here, and most of us couldn’t wait. But now it’s here and it’s easy to let emotions flood our system. Emotions that make us consider things that distract us.

For us to stay helpful and effective as pitching coaches we need to stay less emotional and more “emotionally neutral” and objective. This allows us to plan, predict and prepare. To stay our best selves we need to Coach the Right Now and Plan for the Next Right Now.

For instance, let’s take your pitching staff in it’s current state, right now, as you spend your last few days prepping for this coming weekend.

Let’s say you have 5 total pitchers, your top pitcher has tweaked her ACL and another one has a sore back.

That’s the reality of your current staff for this weekend, and possibly some future weekends. Stay in the facts. Avoid the “whys”. Of course you need everybody healthy, and sure, having your best pitcher 100% would be great - but that’s not the case right now. Coach the Right Now and plan for the next Right Now.

In this scenario of 3 healthy pitchers and 2 pitchers with limited innings let’s look at:

1. How to Coach “Right Now”:

   Coaching the Right Now means in the days you have this week you’ll need to plan down to the smallest detail how you’re going to utilize your staff - in their current status - this weekend:

   • Detail how many pitches your 2 injured pitchers can safely throw this weekend (if any), when you’re planning to best use these innings, and what matchups put these 2 pitchers in the best position to contribute while continuing to recover.

   • Detail out how you will use the remaining 3 pitchers to navigate the remaining innings for the weekend, who best matches up with what opponent and against which hitters within that lineup.

   • What will be your run tolerance for the weekend for each pitcher. Instead of panicking when the other team scores 3, if you’ve already planned out your run tolerance for each pitcher against each opponent - then you’ll already know you can tolerate those runs so you don’t pull too soon and run out of pitchers.

   • Create your plan, then share your plan with your head coach - and with your pitchers, then practice your plan this week. It doesn’t mean that the plan won’t change once you’re in the game, but it does mean you won’t be caught panicking and make a bad decision.

2. How to Plan for the Next Right Now

   Coaching the Next Right Now means that you aren’t jumping ahead of yourself. You’re planning for Right Now (this week and this weekend) but then you’re immediately clicking into the very Next Right Now. Let’s see what that means:

   • Analyze the post-game info to flush the emotion out of the result and get to the keys that impacted the result.

   • Ensure each pitcher takes care of her body and mind as soon as the weekend is over.

   • Then plan in detail your approach for the next weekend…and repeat.

This approach of Coaching the Right Now and Planning for the Next Right Now helps keep you focused, unemotional and in your best self. It’s also a great approach for your pitchers to take. Stay in the NOW and then plan for the NEXT NOW.

Chart What You’ll Use - Use What You’ll Chart

Data, data, data…we have data coming out of our ears and we chart our brains off!! I’m not saying that’s wrong, but if we aren’t using what we’re charting then we’re simply wasting time, and wasting chances to observe or do something else.

You might be set with the charts you use and the data you’re after, but if not, I have some suggestions.

I’m sharing the game chart that I use - but more importantly - I want to share some links to help you do something with all that data!!!

Here’s my game chart. The top row of boxes is for balls, the bottom row for strikes and I list the pitches in the order they’re called. I don’t want a strike zone since I can tell by the pitch called. Also - I write what I called, not where it ended up.

If you’re not going to use the data then don’t spend time gathering it. But data (information) is unemotional and can give you some really helpful insights so using it - even if only using a little bit of it - will REALLY help you!

A few tips for using data:

• Gather what you’ll use

• Use what you gather

• Don’t feel like you need to gather what’s popular. Instead, gather what helps your pitchers.

• Less can be better unless you have a lot of help, or you’ve got a great computer program to help you (I’ve got you covered - see the link below!)

I’ve found a great source for simplistically knowing what data to gather and a google doc form for processing your data. The following links are from Jared Skolnicki @sayhomies. My thanks to Jared for sharing all this info!!.

Hope you enjoyed today’s Curveball Chronicles Issue. If there’s something specific you want to read about send that to me at [email protected], or text me at (813) 368-2048

See You Next Week!