122 Kyle Wagner GoWags Baseball Academy

Kyle Wagner Notes

 

Bio

• gowags.kyle@gmail.com
• Founder of GoWags baseball academy in 2008
• Author of How the RiverCats Won
• Author of Green Light hitting
• Green light academy website
• Played collegiately at Wake Forest University from '92-'95. Caught in the California Angels organization for one year (Boise '95)
• Coaching experience Elizabethtown College ('97 and '99) Wake Forest ('98) Red Land High School ('00 - '08)
• @GoWagsKyle

Notes

• Are the people excited when they are with you? 
• Hot practice, cold games. 
• Games for the players.
• Practice becomes critical
• Something the kids could look forward to
  • Pop ups (macro event)
• Broke up between macro and micro events (team and individual)
• Musts - “will they like this?”
• Sell them on the beauty of the game
• Macro event - runner on 3rd 1 out - live ball runner runs
• Fun game at the end to 
• Too much information not enough inspiration (overcoaching)
• Youth coaching is to turn kids over for love of the game
• Implicit and explicit
  • Implicit - no takes, no foul balls
  • Down  3, 6 outs to go - play against the scoreboard
• Do the fun stuff while you are teaching
• Practice time is the coaches time, plan, prepare, and coaches on the same page
• Planning is more important than the plan
• Adaptable in the plan when the coach notices something is not right
• Get them out on time!
• Intent precedes content
• Embrace what they are not doing well and put them in a situation to do it
• Micro event - perfect and deliberate practice
• Macro event - train ugly, and don’t know what will happen. Find out what they are capable. Find failure and embrace it
• If the whole team is there deliberate practice won’t happen, more about competing and reps
• Development is not linear, its sequential
• Green light hitting - sequential hitting approach
  • Core starts and then smaller muscles could work
• Aggression precedes discipline
  • Get players moving fast
• Train them to minimize choices
• Eliminate not swing to train them to elite velo
• Prove to me that you can be too quick
• Show me you can find your barrel on this BB
• You take a pitch because you can’t hit it hard
• Hitter to be able to move Laterally late
  • Inside tee, soft toss away - no toss and hit off tee up the middle
• We want you to be a great hitter not great swinger of the bat
• Turn fast
• Posture
• Post chain
• Hands
• Lower half
• You need to be good enough to keep coming back
• Pre game
  • Count hitting
  • Don’t overcoach
• Lineup is seen more circular than linear
• Stacked it from top to bottom with best hitters
• 4th batter should strikeout least often due to so many runners being on
• 3rd hitter high velo and great eye
• Every manager deserves the right to intuition
• Pitchers need to get swing and missed in the zone and hitters need to eliminate swing and misses in the zone
  • Who is owning the strike zone
• Exit velo coupled with launch angle (barrel %)
• Pitchers - weak contact and how often get swing and misses
• Pitching independent fielding
• Training pitchers more on the game mound
• Visualize on the game mound
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