by Paul Reddick, http://www.PaulReddickBaseball.com

As a coach today, I often have conversations with parents and coaches about what a pitcher has to do to be successful day in and day out.

Well, I've got to tell you I think it's really difficult today to fine-tune what this is for the pitcher, and the parents to really go out and gather information and figure this out. Because there is so much information out there and it's overwhelming for me at times, and this is what I do for a living! I can only imagine what a task it is for the average player and a parent who is working and going to school, or a coach who teaches all day and has a limited time to really study the game.


The first thing I would say is you have to have something you can stick to, a plan and a program. And much like dieting, the failures of a diet often happen when people go on crash diets.

They've been eating poorly for however long and then one day they're all of a sudden only going to eat healthy foods. And you know how it goes, the changes last a day or two, but it never works out long-term. The real way to change your diet and nutrition is to make small changes. Maybe you give up some soda, then you give up some sweets, and you mix in a salad once a day. Know what I mean?


You have to find something that you're going to stick to and that gradually takes you where you want to go. I could write out a plan for you. I could give you a Rolls Royce plan for pitching success. And you wouldn't be able to do it because it would almost be a full time job. We're talking about...

• nutrition,
• mental visualization,
• a complete work-out program,
• stretching,
• active release,

...and these would take up every moment of your day or a least a very large portion of it.

I usually tell my pitchers, “Here is what you should do.” Now let's figure out from this list of “shoulds” what we can do consistently.


If you're a high school player reading this, or a youth player, or a college player, you're going to school, you've got homework, you've got tests and hopefully you're having a healthy social life which I think too many young baseball players are overly focused on. You do need a good social life. You need to do other things outside of baseball as well. You need to hang out with your friends and be a kid and be a young man or a high school athlete.

It's very difficult to have all that and be a well-rounded person and still have the time to do everything you should do. The fact of the matter is you can't, so let's find something you can do. That's one the reasons we designed the 90 MPH Club work-outs to be so short and effective.

 Here is one little pet peeve of mine, just because something is short does not mean that it's easy. It ain't going to be easy. It's going to be a difficult work-out because you're cramming it into a short period of time. We're squeezing the most we can into the very shortest period of time.


Once we have a plan, now it's all about reinforcing the consistency of the plan.

This theory does not stop at just working out. This is also the method to use when you sit down with your pitching coach and you develop a plan of attack with pitches and how you're going to pitch to certain hitters and how you're going to prepare. It's all the same way.

• Here is what we should do.
• Here is what we can do.

Let's develop a plan, one that we can stick to. That’s the main key to success in baseball and in life.


I think the two main success habits of any pitcher or any person living today is to find a success plan that you can stick to and then figure out a strategy that is going to make you consistent with that. Find the strategies that are going to make you consistent and to carry out that plan every single day.