Pitch Smart 2.0: From Ranting on Twitter to the MLB Boardroom
In this episode of "the world's most dangerous youth baseball podcast," host Deven Morgan returns after an extended hiatus to deliver a packed update spanning youth baseball policy, sports science research, and the deeply personal side of coaching his son. Deven details the remarkable progress of the Pitch Smart 2.0 initiative — a multi-year coalition effort alongside Rob Hahne and others with the ABCA Youth & Travel Baseball committees, and Major League Baseball — to establish universal pitch count standards and centralized workload reporting across all youth baseball leagues and tournament providers. What started as an idea has culminated in a meeting at MLB headquarters in New York where every major provider in the room signaled their commitment to join the voluntary coalition, a moment Deven describes as "surreal." The episode pivots to a deep dive into Driveline's groundbreaking weighted ball study on youth athletes — the first of its kind — which replicates prior ASMI findings and confirms that heavier balls reduce joint stress because movement speed decreases, framing weighted ball training as fundamentally a resistance training mechanism rather than a risk factor. Finally, Deven shares a raw, reflective segment on parenting through his son Danny's junior season — from a grand slam in the first game to a hitting slump that led to a late-night session at Driveline, unpacking the "see it deep, be flat" approach and ultimately arguing that baseball's greatest deliverable isn't trophies or college offers, but the perspective and problem-solving skills that come from not running away when things go wrong.
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro & Housekeeping
02:28 Pitch Smart 2.0: The Coalition & MLB Meeting
14:55 Workload Science: Acute-to-Chronic Ratio Explained
22:40 Going Around the Room — Everyone Says Yes
28:20 What's Next for Pitch Smart
30:30 Youth Weighted Ball Study: Key Findings
38:40 Weighted Balls as Resistance Training
44:30 Parenting, the Lighthouse Metaphor & Danny's Season
50:50 Late-Night Driveline Session: Diagnosing the Problem
58:00 Baseball as a Life Skill: Don't Run Away From the Fire
01:03:00 Perspective Over Plastic
01:08:00 Closing & What's Ahead
Links:
https://t.co/R7TLVHE2EU
