As the Assistant Baseball Coach at the University of San Diego and a longtime director of youth baseball development, Brad Marcelino is making his mark on both the Southern California and national baseball scenes.
This spring is Marcelino’s sixth season with the 19th ranked Toreros, where he serves as the Hitting Coach, Outfield Coach, and Base Running Coach. From 2013 through 2015, Marcelino coached three consecutive first round MLB Draft picks – including Chicago Cubs All-Star and World Series Champion Kris Bryant.
This past summer, Marcelino was also selected to coach the USA Baseball 14-Under Southwest Region team in the National Teams Identification Series (NTIS) in Cary, NC. Marcelino has been heavily involved in youth development and is the founder of the North County (San Diego) Mavericks high school/college development program, which focuses on development of academics, character, and baseball skills.
Blast Baseball recently sat down with Marcelino to talk about training and how to improve the mental and physical skills necessary for hitters to have quality at-bats.
A MENTAL EDGE
Marcelino’s training methods emphasize developing and fine-tuning a player’s mental approach to the game. Since so much of a player’s performance on the field and in the batter’s box involves extreme focus and discipline, this emphasis helps lay the groundwork for success.
“We talk a lot about the mental side of the game, having a mental edge and performing at the time when it matters most,” said Marcelino. “That’s one of the big things that we do, and I think it really takes our players to the next level.”
Marcelino used his former college pupil, current World Series Hero & NL MVP Kris Bryant, as an example of mental preparation translating to big-time success on the field and at the plate.
“Kris Bryant, and some of these other guys who have been high-round draft picks, they really buy into the mental game,” said Marcelino. “At USD, that consists of visualization for the first 10 minutes of practice, where we take our players through certain aspects of practice and their performance, and just their life. They’re much more productive at practice after we take the time to do that.”
MIND OVER BATTING AVERAGE
Marcelino believes that while starting each practice with mental preparation and visualization is important, so is being willing to accept failure – at least by the conventional measure of success vs. failure, a hitter’s batting average. Baseball is not an easy sport. Understanding and accepting that it’s hard to get hits at any level of the game is key to a strong mental approach.
“We stress from day one that we’re detached from any batting average,” said Marcelino. “You have to understand that you can do everything right in a batter’s box, and on that day, your average could go down. Getting that ingrained into the hitters early, when they first arrive, is huge. You can’t base your success on average. You have to base your success on quality at-bats, which is a big deal for us.”
Just as Marcelino stresses to his hitters not to get caught up in batting averages, he cautions them not to fall prey to the concept of “being in a slump” when a hitter is not putting together quality at-bats.
“I’m the hitting coach, so obviously I hate that term,” said Marcelino. “We make adjustments and we figure out ways to fix things individually, because there’s certain keys to their individual swing that maybe can get them feeling better. A ‘slump’ is when they’re chasing hits. They’re not controlling what they can control. We have four cornerstones that we build for them when they walk to the plate. We want them to control those parts of the game. If they do that and they’re more stable in their thought process, in their preparation, in their visualization before practice or before the game – then the ‘slump’ goes away.”
AN INDIVIDUAL TOUCH
Pairing that strong mental approach with smart adjustments at the plate is where a hitter can find true success – and start to rack up both quality at-bats and hits.
For Marcelino, this is where Blast Baseball 360 plays a role in preparing hitters for success at the plate. He recognizes that hitting is in many ways individualistic – and Blast can help each hitter build and improve their individual swing.
“There are certain checkpoints that have to happen within your swing, and that’s known, but you have your own individual signature on how you hit.”
“We’re trying to teach guys how to hit, not just how to swing,” said Marcelino. “That’s why I think Blast Motion is so important. You can tell a kid something in so many ways, but now with technology and the way it works, the instant feedback that Blast gives is what I’m most excited about.”
The cutting-edge and easy-to-use technology helps provide that individual attention and touch, according to Marcelino.
“We’ve been doing some one-on-one work with the guys,” recalled Marcelino. “So we put their cell phone on the tripod, and they go into their Blast Baseball 360 app, get into the video recording and we record five or six swings, and we play it back and break it down.”
“It’s great because you tell them one thing as far as their hand path or the bat path and figure out how to fix their launch angle by getting down on their legs more and things like that. But then when you show them and then you record it again and they see the result – that’s when you can connect the feeling with what they actually did and that objective feedback. Each guy has something that is going to click different for him. So, each of our guys has an individual hitting plan, which incorporates Blast.”
IMPROVEMENT STARTS WITH MEASUREMENT
Marcelino added that he has even developed his own leaderboard, which he calls the Quality At-Bat World Series. In his eyes, this is more important that leading the team in batting average.
The next step for Marcelino and his coaches is to begin incorporating more and more data from Blast Baseball 360 into these advanced statistics for his leaderboard.
“We’re going to look at their Blast numbers,” explained Marcelino. “We’ll look at what we want from each of them individually – from their target bat path to their target energy transfer to their target swing speed and exit velo. With all the numbers that Blast provides, we know they’re taking a good swing when those are consistent. That’s what we want, number one. We want them to step in with a clear mind and get their best swing on. That’s where Blast makes on impact with our players.”
For updates on the Toreros season, follow them on Twitter @USDbaseball
