Why I Would Choose Practice Design Over Everything Else

If I could become an expert in only one area of player development, I would choose practice design. It influences everything. It shapes the environment, it drives learning, and it determines how well a skill transfers to competition.

Practice design is powerful because it allows for individual depth without losing the group’s structure. You can take a team practice and still build layers that help each player solve their own problems. You can create environments that challenge adjustability, timing, and decision-making while still targeting a hitter’s specific needs.

Mechanics matter, but they often take time to change. In professional baseball, players do not always have time. They have to perform that night. Good practice design lets them compete now while laying the groundwork for long-term development.

What I love most about practice design is the creativity involved. You can use machines, variability, timing constraints, vision challenges, and different field setups to create intentional problems the player needs to solve. And when players solve problems in training, they build patterns that hold up in the game.

Great practice design creates durability, not perfection. It builds adaptable hitters, not rehearsed ones.