DREAM Team was founded in 2021 as a player development organization. The whole vision of the program has always been about developing players on and off the field. As an organization, we have learned a few things over the past few years. Our goal continues to be to learn, grow, and develop our program for years to come.
As an industry, player development in youth travel sports in general is often microwaved or a player is considered as "not developing" if they're not succeeding in terms of statistical outcomes (ie, Batting Average, ERA, or Strikeouts) or if the team that they play for doesn't "succeed" on the scoreboard. This is inherently a shallow viewpoint of what player development is all about; youth player development shouldn't hinge on outcomes, it should be anchored in growth in a player's behavior and growth in a player's skills. DREAM Team as an organization wants to coach and grow our players even more this year by coaching a player's behavior and growing the player's skills and fundamentals.
As the Player Development Project states:
“Performance is a behaviour, NOT an outcome.”
We get so focused on scoreboards and standings that we lose sight of the foundational element of coaching: shaping behaviour. When we get the behaviour right, when we get our athletes to take ownership of the standards for each and every little thing they do, the magic happens.
- Athletes rise to the standard.
- They hold each other accountable.
- They define what are acceptable levels of focus, effort, and execution.
- They train more effectively.
- Great results follow
When you get the behaviour right, the scoreboard starts to take care of itself.
In terms of growing a player's skills, our team has been writing and refining the written practice plans (as seen above with Coach Charlie) for the Spring 2024 season. We are going to streamline our development and work with the athletes to assist them in their growth and knowledge of the game. Each facility and field practice will follow a practice plan designed for optimum learning and efficiency. We are also dedicating each month to working on a concept in a theme. The skills that we will work on will fall into three categories, hitting, fielding, and baserunning. Pitching will fall on a completely separate practice so we can focus on that within that practice. The Fielding, Hitting, and Baserunning practice skills building will be as follows:
Fielding:
- Fielding ground balls.
- Catching a fly ball.
- Throwing to bases.
- Throwing to a base.
- Throwing to a cut off.
- First half of a double play.
- Fly balls.
- Tag plays
- Double plays.
- Lead runner.
- Secondary runners.
- Cuts and Relays.
- Lead runner.
- Secondary runner.
- Trap play.
- Bunt defense.
- 1st-3rd plays.
Hitting:
- Hitting a ball in flight.
- Ball on the tee hitting with backspin.
- Understanding a ball and a strike.
- Simulated at bats.
- Yes-yes-no hitting.
- Ball strike identifiers.
- 2-strike hitting.
- Hitting the outside pitch effectively.
- 2 strike approach.
- Hit-run.
- Hitting approach.
- Hitting the pitch away.
- 2 strike approach.
- Breaking ball.
- Situational hitting.
- Bunting.
Baserunning:
- Running a double.
- Running through first base and chop.
- Rounding first base.
- Getting a lead.
- Secondaries.
- Stealing a base.
- Sliding.
- Tagging up and advancing.
- 1st-3rd.
- Delay.
- Stealing first move.
- Avoiding running into an out.
- Delay Steal.
- Hit-Run.
- Base stealing against LHP.
- Reading Pitchers.
- Anticipation base running.
Our goal as an organization is simply this, we have built a curriculum of practice plans that are built on optimizing player development within each team practice. Our goal is to "win" at practice and from that we will develop a winning attitude on gameday.
Practice plans will be communicated out to parents and players in TeamBuildr and have been built by our Training Director, Charlie Letourneau (pictured) and is executed in each team practice by our outstanding head coaches. Grow More in '24 represents our passion for excellence to strive for optimal player development. Our players deserve the best, let's all Grow More and support them in '24!
-Patrick Moraw
DREAM Team Founder
