Nate Trosky - Trosky Baseball
Why Latin's Are Dominating Americans in Baseball Development
Nate Trosky owner and founder of Trosky Baseball, is employed by the Milwaukee Brewers, New Balance Area Code Baseball, Major League Baseball / BTS and serves as a private consultant for the German National team. He has served as a baseball clinician for numerous West-Coast colleges and universities (i.e. Stanford, USC, Cal Poly Slo, USF, USB, SCU, Sonoma State, Cal State Monterey Bay, and others).
His coaching endeavors have taken him around the world to South Africa, Japan, Dominican Republic, China, Mexico, Hawaii, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Croatia, and the Czech Republic. Coach Trosky has coached in Europe professionally winning a National Championship and was named German coach of the year. He has coached with the South African, Croatian, and German National teams. Coach Trosky has been an assistant coach in 3 North American minor leagues (Northern, Western and North-East).
At Hawaii Pacific University he received All-American, Mr. Hustle and Scholar Athlete awards. Coach Trosky holds a Masters Degree in Christian Leadership, Youth Family Development.
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Summary and Action Plan below
SESSION SUMMARY
Athletes are athletes. Dominican athletes will take predictible reps (backhand, short hops, etc) for 3 hours, then take fungos for hour and half (upredictable reps).
Secret to success is the amount of QUALITY, gamelike predictable and unpredictable reps taken.
Dominican players don’t have the obligations (school, homework, prom) and alternatives (skateboarding, xbox, etc)
10,000 hours - Dominican infielders get theirs by 14, US players never get there.
In the US we’re grooming A-ballers, not impact big leaguers.
If you want to be a major league player or even a great D1 player, you can’t train like the rest of the guys.
If you want to be a pro you need to train like a pro now. You can’t train like you’re 14 or 15.
One of the biggest advantages DR has is they don’t have so much coaching.
Nikolai Bernstein Quote - The body organizes itself to accomplish the task at hand
All infielders throw from the same arm slot….not release point.
We don;t get to feel and figure it out when we just go to a hitting coach who tells you what to do for 30 mins.
Dominicans are starting to get coached/overcoached like we do now. They’re starting to use more video as phones are getting more prevalent, etc.
“High number of reps, letting the body organize itself, let these guys be athletic and get out of the way.”
Coaches try to fix. He’ll fix himself if you goes out and hits in the backyard every day with his brother. You don’t have to tell him to swing up or swing down, tell him to hit a line drive and his body will organize itself properly.
A kid gets two rounds of five and you’re trying to tweak his elbow...how is he supposed to get any sort of feel?
Warmup routine: jump rope 5-7 mins, jog, agilities, flexibility/stretching, footspeed, do their JBands, throw football, then long toss. Come back in, do hat drill - throw as hard as they can. Long toss is every other day. Rowan - 84-93 in 3 months!!
If HS players took more of a college approach to development (set aside time for strength training, etc) we’d see greater gains.
5 Tool Calendar, came up with it last year.
Average American kid doesn’t ever run fast, unless he’s told to run fast. Dominican they’re running in sand every day.
Complete player development - Teach, Test, Train, Develop
Continually test every 3 months
Dominicans throw 360 days a year, we burn out on a travel ball weekend, arm is so sore so he rests it all week then has another tournament that weekend...and Dominicans have the healthiest arms.
We’re on a recipe for destruction and they’re on a recipe for flourishing.
If they don’t spend 15 mins4 days a week that 7.4 will be a 7.3 (instead of a 6.8)
*Lower half flexibility are big separators between good players*
ACTION PLAN
Woooo I loved Nate's session. Get to work! Let's eat!
It's the good news bad news; Good news: you can get much better at this game and give yourself a shot to play in college and pro. Bad news: it's going to take a lot of work.
So spend more time getting better (PARENTS: this HAS to be the player's idea. If you come to them with "guess what we're going to add an hour of training every night" it'll become a burden and it won't work. This is the game plan for improvement, but it can't be forced on someone).
Track your time. There is a free app simply called "Hours" which you can track how you spend your time (I use it and love it) which will absolutely change behaviors. Make sure you get in the work.
And get more *competitive* reps. Face someone on a regular basis trying to strike you out - even if it's your mom or dad in the back yard with a wiffle ball. More and more and more reps off of the tee will give you diminished returns...you must be focused and competitive.
Lower half flexibility is important, we've heard this several times throughout the summit. Make sure you have the best lower half flexibility and range of motion on your team (and this can begin at any age...the earlier the better). Lunges, over head squats with broom stick above head. These movements will greatly improve dexterity.