Pitch Smart 2.0: From Ranting on Twitter to the MLB Boardroom - Academy Youth Baseball Podcast EP 110 | Driveline Baseball

<p><strong>Pitch Smart 2.0: From Ranting on Twitter to the MLB Boardroom</strong></p><p><br></p><p>In this episode of &quot;the world&#39;s most dangerous youth baseball podcast,&quot; host Deven Morgan returns after an extended hiatus to deliver a packed update spanning youth baseball policy, sports science research, and the deeply personal side of coaching his son. Deven details the remarkable progress of the Pitch Smart 2.0 initiative — a multi-year coalition effort alongside Rob Hahne and others with the ABCA Youth &amp; Travel Baseball committees, and Major League Baseball — to establish universal pitch count standards and centralized workload reporting across all youth baseball leagues and tournament providers. What started as an idea has culminated in a meeting at MLB headquarters in New York where every major provider in the room signaled their commitment to join the voluntary coalition, a moment Deven describes as &quot;surreal.&quot; The episode pivots to a deep dive into Driveline&#39;s groundbreaking weighted ball study on youth athletes — the first of its kind — which replicates prior ASMI findings and confirms that heavier balls reduce joint stress because movement speed decreases, framing weighted ball training as fundamentally a resistance training mechanism rather than a risk factor. Finally, Deven shares a raw, reflective segment on parenting through his son Danny&#39;s junior season — from a grand slam in the first game to a hitting slump that led to a late-night session at Driveline, unpacking the &quot;see it deep, be flat&quot; approach and ultimately arguing that baseball&#39;s greatest deliverable isn&#39;t trophies or college offers, but the perspective and problem-solving skills that come from not running away when things go wrong.</p><p><br></p><p><strong>Timestamps:</strong></p><p>00:00 Intro &amp; Housekeeping</p><p>02:28 Pitch Smart 2.0: The Coalition &amp; MLB Meeting</p><p>14:55 Workload Science: Acute-to-Chronic Ratio Explained</p><p>22:40 Going Around the Room — Everyone Says Yes</p><p>28:20 What&#39;s Next for Pitch Smart</p><p>30:30 Youth Weighted Ball Study: Key Findings</p><p>38:40 Weighted Balls as Resistance Training</p><p>44:30 Parenting, the Lighthouse Metaphor &amp; Danny&#39;s Season</p><p>50:50 Late-Night Driveline Session: Diagnosing the Problem</p><p>58:00 Baseball as a Life Skill: Don&#39;t Run Away From the Fire</p><p>01:03:00 Perspective Over Plastic</p><p>01:08:00 Closing &amp; What&#39;s Ahead</p><p><br><