Marco Rivera, Youth Baseball Father and Coach, Reviews the Ball Coach Radar

We love hearing feedback from users of our products.

We recently sat down with Marco Rivera, a youth parent and coach, who went in depth with us about how he has been incorporating the Ball Coach radar into his training and coaching lessons with his son and teammates.  Hear what he has to say about the value it has brought to their hitting training (Ball Exit Speed is a direct measure of the power of a hit), as well as their on-on-one bullpen sessions, where the new easy triggering of the Ball Coach has allowed him to put all his focus on studying mechanics instead of operating the radar gun.

Here are a few soundbites from the interview:

1.  How has adding the Ball Coach into training sessions helped your son and his teammates improve their performance?

“Look, these are the numbers and I’m not making it up.  So the player will buy into making adjustments based on what the numbers they are seeing off the Ball Coach…It takes some of that burden that, hey I’m not picking on you, I just see some things and here are the measurements to go along with that.”

2.  How has using the Ball Coach helped your coaching methods when training with your son and his teammates?

“One example is Exit Speed off the bat, and we have a drill where we take a tee and put it inside, middle and outside of the plate and I have him hit 10 balls on each side. I then say look, ‘is your exit speed consistent in all those three , and if we see a large variation on one part of the plate to the other, then we know that we need to work better on our approach.”

3.  What speeds have you been measuring using the Ball Coach during training and practices?

“Exit Speed, obviously we use that a lot.  I tell the boys that if you hit it harder, then you hit it harder.  I mean it’s going to go faster, it’s going to be harder for a fielder to make the play.  For pitching,  the boys have fun to see how hard they can throw, but also where we’re teaching them change ups.  It’s a good way for the player to feel what he is doing, instead of just being there saying, oh it’s a change up grip it must come slower.”

4.  Has anything surprised you since you began using the Ball Coach that has made you think about “radar” any differently?

“You can measure improvement, the player loves to see a measurement of that improvement, and you know whether it may be a higher Exit Speed or they change some things mechanically to throw harder.  The player likes to see that and it gives the player intent to beat their high score.  I see that it engages them quite a bit and from my perspective as a coach, it allows me to objectively look at what they’re doing and what they need to work on.”

5.  Would you recommend the Ball Coach to any other coaches and parents?

“Absolutely, just from the feedback I get from parents and coaches when I bring it out to measure what the kids are doing.  They become very interested, and I explain the philosophy behind it which is, this is an objective way of measuring what they’re doing and how hard they’re hitting the ball.  Instead of saying, ‘Billy over here is really big and he can hit the ball really hard,’ well we can measure that. Is he really hitting the ball as hard as you think he is?  From a pitching perspective, did that mechanical change, having him stride longer, add miles per hour to his fastball? Is that change up grip that we’re teaching him taking speed off the ball?  Well it’s hard to do that sometimes by the eye, especially when they’re at this age in little league. But with a radar, you are able to measure it, and say are these adjustments translating into what we are trying to get.  The players buy into it, which is key, and it makes my job easier.”

We look forward to hearing more results from Marco and his son, and if you have any questions or would like to share your Pocket Radar stories, please give is a call toll-free at 888-381-2672 from 9 AM to 5 PM Pacific Time, or e-mail us at info@PocketRadar.com