Almost everyone will know our guest as a seven-time MLB All-Star and one of the best closers in baseball history, but we invite him in as Billy Wagner, the head coach at Miller School in Charlottesville, Virginia, and one of the newest members of the ABCA. Entering his seventh season as skipper of the Mavericks, Wagner has captured back-to-back state championships, sent countless players into college baseball but it was his humility and commitment to keeping his players first that got our attention. Wagner opens up about the style of play and standards in place for his players, how he works at transforming lives through the game and also how continues to challenge himself to learn and improve for his guys.

This is an episode cloaked with new uniforms for our guests as Jeff Albert, the newly named MLB hitting coach for the St. Louis Cardinals and Dillon Lawson, the newly hired hitting coordinator for the New York Yankees join our podcast. We find out very quickly that both of these guys are deep thinkers. Our listeners will be challenged as they take us on a tour through how they learn, how they see the trends inside of our game, how they have both find themselves moving over from the Houston Astros organization to new clubs which are eager to adapt more fully into the current climate and build for the future. There are a lot of great takeaways inside of this one as we open training environments, body movements inside of the swing and ideas that apply directly to all levels of baseball.

Broadcasting directly from the Vanderbilt University baseball classroom, we connect with skipper Tim Corbin for a face-to-face interview with one of the best in our game. Known for his masterful way of teaching and developing his players, Corbin will be a featured clinician at our upcoming ABCA Convention in Dallas this January, was also chosen as one of the recipients of this year’s ABCA Dave Keilitz Ethics in Coaching Award, and he is a member of the ABCA Board of Directors. In this interview, we uncover Corbin’s passion and spirit for learning, his quest for knowledge and his growth inside the space of coaching and leading young men. There is humility throughout this episode as we unpack his ability to balance home life and baseball, his definitions of words like impact and success, plus one of the darkest times he faced in coaching and how he was able to bring himself, his players and his program to a place of celebration.

We go back into the strength and conditioning world with DJ Edwards from Push Performance in Colorado and Blaine Kinsley from the University of Arkansas baseball program with this week’s episode. Topics include coming back from injuries and the rehab process, coaching specific movements, player assessments and creative ways to train if you don’t have a huge budget or top notch facilities. We also get into some details of where our programs are right now - the offseason and how we can start preparing for the season, which is right around the corner. Both Edwards and Kinsley open their doors to their growth inside this space and are fully transparent, sharing anything and everything they have all in the name of growing other coaches and helping this community of learners.

Episode 108 finds us in Fort Worth, Texas, to connect with TCU’s Associate Head Coach Bill Mosiello, one of the key figures behind the construction of one of the elite college baseball programs in the country. Following the lead of his head coach, ABCA Fourth Vice President Jim Schlossnagle, Mosiello joins our show to break down his extensive and successful career in baseball plus we unpack his passion for teaching, learning and challenging himself to grow each and every day. With over 20 years in the college game and seven years as a minor league manager, Mosiello opens up his growth as a leader and a communicator, how he views development and keeping the game as simple as he can. Plus, he talks about how he learned to step back and make his players the most important people in his life.

This week’s show takes back on the infield grass as we connect with the Cleveland Indians’ Lower Level Infield Coordinator Kainoa Correa and the Associate Head Coach at Yale University Tucker Frawley to cover a myriad of topics that will challenge listeners across multiple fronts. Both Correa and Frawley open up with ideas as to how they have redesigned their catch play routines, daily drill work, teaching proper movements and actions plus a wealth of information that on utilizing game data to guide their development plans. These two are close friends, true brothers of infield play, and our coaches will see them both tackle the main stage clinics in Dallas at our upcoming ABCA Convention.

This week’s show takes us across the Canadian border to visit with Allen Cox from the Okotoks Dawgs Academy in Alberta and Mike Steed from the Ontario Blue Jays right outside Toronto. We find out what is going on inside two of the top Canadian amateur baseball programs and put a spotlight on two of our most loyal international members. They both offer up some great takeaways on indoor training and how they are preparing their players for success on the diamond. Inside this show, both Cox and Steed pull back the curtain on their programs as we open up the state of baseball in Canada, helping educate all of us on how these two coaches are making serious efforts to give their players the best in training environments and also players experiences. This is in an effort to help them move towards their dreams of playing college baseball and, hopefully, for an MLB club one day.

This week's episode connects us with Micah Gibbs from LSU and Russ Steinhorn from Clemson University, both of the Directors of Player Development within their respective programs. In this conversation, we find insight into the day-to-day activities for these guys, discussing the various technologies that each program is utilizing, the strength and conditioning programs, plus the analytics and data that each are tracking that help train their players for success. Gibbs has experience playing in the intense spotlight in Baton Rouge, then six seasons in Minor League Baseball before coming home to LSU. Steinhorn coached four years at the collegiate level, then spent five years as a manager in the Houston Astros organization before coming to Clemson. These guys have a wealth of perspective and experience to offer our listeners, including details of this new and unique position which is becoming more common around the country.

Looking at the demographics of ABCA membership, high school coaches make up around 40 percent of our base. We love to bring those guys into the spotlight and hear about their journeys inside the game. This week, we dialed up Eric Borba, head coach at Orange Lutheran High School in Orange, California, to hear about his unique story in coaching, how he has grown as a leader and truly finding the path that matters at the end of the day – the relationships with his guys! This is a great conversation as Borba discusses how he has built one of the best high school programs in the country, cementing a true championship culture, plus bringing the parents of his players along for the journey. This will hit home for every coach but particularly the other high school and travel coaches listening in. Plus, you will also find out the eight winners of our very first ABCA and Driveline Baseball Convention Scholarship Program which will help more folks find a way to join us at the world’s largest gathering of baseball coaches this coming January in Dallas.

This week, we connected with Larry Owens, head coach at Bellarmine University, and Wright State University assistant coach Matt Talarico to talk about the battle on the base paths between the pitcher and the base runner. They take us into their specific plans to limit steal attempts but then also blow those numbers up. Owens, a longtime ABCA member, has done an exceptional job raising the expectations on campus at NCAA Div. II Bellarmine, setting the school record for wins, leading the Knights to two-straight NCAA Tournament appearances and limiting their opponents to one steal attempt per game played over the past five seasons. Talarico is making his third appearance on the podcast, plus he’s getting prepped for his main-stage presentation at the ABCA Convention in Dallas. He is in his fourth year as assistant coach at Div. I Wright State University and has cemented himself as one of the premier thought-leaders when it comes to creating pressure on the bases. Inside this show, we walk the bases to see how each of these coaches addresses, coaches and teaches the various considerations from the pitching perspective and also the base stealing viewpoint.