The book
Baseball Player's Guide to the Winning Way is the whole-player development book for players twelve to eighteen: how to play more, train smarter, think better, stay healthier and keep improving, from the backyard to the highest levels of the game.
It's written to the player, in his own language, with his parents and coaches reading over his shoulder. The manuscript is complete. Sign up for the free starter kit and you'll hear first when it's coming out.
The best players in the world don't simply train more. They play and perfect the skills of baseball more than anyone else. Play. Practice. Experiment. Compete. Learn. Repeat.
Three things no other baseball book does
It labels the science
Every claim about training, injury, nutrition and learning carries a tag: Established, Strong, Emerging, Hypothesis, or my own coaching rule. Where I disagree with the research, I say so and explain why. The reader always knows which sentences are science and which are coaching.
It gives the player his own numbers
The Goetz Winning Way Index is twenty-one original measures of development, not outcomes. Process-Result Divergence tells a fourteen-year-old whether his slump is bad luck or a bad swing. The Whole-Arm Ledger counts every throw his arm makes for every team he plays on. The Joy Score tells him whether he still loves the game, which the book argues is the number that predicts all the others. Most start with a pencil and a notebook tonight.
The stories are true
The Blue Jays training room at seven in the morning. The Little League coach who taught me to smile after an out. The ninety-two-mile-an-hour comeback in my forties that my elbow ended. The plywood board. A fourteen-year-old learns from a story what he won't learn from a rule, and every chapter has one.
What's inside
Thirty-one chapters in seven parts.
- The mind. Why you play, what to do with failure, how to guard your dream from the phone and the noise.
- The body. The warm-up, arm care with real workload numbers, strength training that's right for a growing body, first-step speed, fuel and sleep.
- The game. The swing, the throw, defense, the base paths, the eyes, and how to think through nine innings.
- The numbers. What baseball measures today, what it gets wrong, and twenty-one measures a player keeps himself.
- Every age. What matters from six to the big leagues.
- The people around the player. Parents, coaches, trainers and scouts.
Reviewed for safety
The chapters on the arm, strength, nutrition and injury were reviewed and approved by Dr. Michael Brandon, DC.
For programs
Coaches and leagues who'd like copies for their players when it's published can tell me now. A short note is all it takes, and nothing is owed. Get in touch.