Play more.Train smarter.Love the game.
The best young players don't just train more. They play and perfect the skills of baseball more than anyone else, because getting better is fun. I help players 12 to 18, and the parents and coaches around them, do exactly that.
Jim Goetz, CSCS. Strength and conditioning work with the Toronto Blue Jays, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the University of South Florida, and more than twenty-five years coaching players from tee-ball to the pros.
| Day | Did | Joy | Throws easy / normal / max |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mon | backyard tee | 9 | 30 / 0 / 0 |
| Tue | practice | 6 | 30 / 60 / 0 |
| Wed | lesson | 4 same drill | 20 / 40 / 0 |
| Thu | practice | 7 | 30 / 60 / 0 |
| Sat | game | 8 | 30 / 20 / 45 |
| Sun | game | 3 arm | 30 / 15 / 40 |
| Week | 6.2 | arm load 408 |
Nobody wants to hear it because you can't sell it. There is no showcase for it, no app, no private lesson, no radar gun. It's a kid with a plywood board leaned against a fence and a racquetball, fielding a hundred clean before he'll let himself go inside.
Where do you fit?
Parents and players
Start with four one-page sheets a player keeps with a pencil: how much he loves it, every throw his arm makes, whether a slump is bad luck or a bad swing, and the week on one page. Free.
Get the starter kitCoaches, schools and leagues
Free coaches' nights, team clinics and parent nights for New Jersey programs this off-season: healthy arms, practices that keep kids playing, and how parents can help without taking over.
See the clinicsPodcast hosts and media
Topics, a short bio and the questions parents are really asking, on one page.
Media pageKids are leaving the game while families spend more on it.
The answer isn't another lesson or another gadget. It's more real baseball, a body trained for the game instead of the weight room, and an arm that's counted honestly across every team a kid plays on.
- Baseball participation fell 19% among kids 6 to 12, and 16% among 13- to 17-year-olds, over five years. Aspen Institute, Boys in Sports, 2026, citing SFIA data.
- Baseball is now the most expensive of the three most-played youth sports, and family spending on it rose 68% in five years. Aspen Institute Project Play parent survey.
- World-class athletes did less coach-led practice in their main sport as children, not more. Güllich, Macnamara and Hambrick, Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2022.
- Young pitchers who threw more than 100 innings in a year were 3.5 times more likely to be seriously hurt. Fleisig and colleagues, ten-year study of 481 pitchers, 2011.
The free Winning Way starter kit
Four printable sheets from the book, ready for the kitchen table tonight:
- The Player LedgerThe whole week on one page, two minutes a day.
- The Joy ScoreThe earliest warning there is that a kid is drifting away from the game.
- The Whole-Arm LedgerEvery throw, every team, weighted by effort, with green, amber and red.
- At-bat gradesProcess and result, so a fourteen-year-old knows when the box score is lying.