Ballplayers AAU is launching April 2025!

Officially expanding geographic area beyond Marshfield. First season in NEAAU will be Spring 2025. 20 games to be played from April 1, 2025 to June 30th, 2025.

Games on Sundays. Double Headers. No weekends with 4 games. Only 2 games. Great competition.

Ran “at cost”, together.

 

 

 

 

Looking for Ballplayers!

Fill the form if you are interested in learning more.

MYBL Instruction Signup

We invite any local kiddo that will play 11U baseball in 2025 to tryout. We specifically would love to see children that play South River or Cal Ripken (or Little League) for Marshfield, Duxbury, Kingston, Plymouth, or Pembroke to check out what Ballplayers is up to. This team is for them.

We started in Spring 2023 and have a squad.

We are looking for perhaps 4 kids that love baseball. 4 kids that appreciate the opportunity to be on the diamond. We have fun playing the game. We work hard. We improve. We learn. The kids are wonderful ballplayers. They can win games together and this can be good for all of us.

The Ballplayers AAU program is to supplement the other spring “rec” teams. We will end up having 12 active Ballplayers that can take the field in games. We will also have alternates that we can swap in where needed. It is going to be exciting to see these local kids take their game to the next level together.

Information for the program is below:

 

Ballplayers AAU is part of New England AAU league and program (effective 1/2025). We will be part of an official AAU league. Like any other AAU team. We will be given our schedule in March. The season will begin in the first few days of April. It will run until early June. We will be active pre-season and post-season. We will keep it going for a large portion of the year. We will do more than other private clubs in terms of workouts.

We will approximately 20 games from early April to July. All games will be on Sundays (unless moved to Saturday). We will not play double headers on Saturday and Sunday in the same week. 10 of the games will be our New England AAU league regular season games. Approximately 8-9 in tournaments. 1-2 scrimmages.

 

A bit of the backstory as to “Why” Ballplayers:

The 10 year old Cal Ripken and South River teams are the summer baseball teams of Marshfield.

Marshfield is a town that has had a strong history with baseball. We are in Boston Red Sox country, and we have a former Red Sox player and current Red Sox announcer in Lou Merloni living in our wonderful town.

Baseball is strong here. It can be much stronger and be a lot of fun for all. There are so many opportunities for the kids and all of us to have some fun with baseball while watching the kids climb the ranks among the local children on the diamond.

Marshfield has the spring “Rec” league and that is great. The kids get to continue their development for approximately 12-14 games. Competition level is not as high as the summer programs but it is still good. Great baseball is played in Rec.

Together, Spring Rec plus Summer baseball, as part of MYBL, is great. The kids have a chance to win the World Series in Marshfield “Rec” and they get to give it their all in the District Cal Ripken tournament.

The Cal Ripken District includes Duxbury, Kingston, and Marshfield. In the past 2 seasons, we have seen the Marshfield current 10U group (Marshfield High School Class of 2032) win the District tournament. Both times were incredibly close. Great games. Great experience for us and for the teams that the boys played. For Cal Ripken summer, there is then the State tournament. The State tournament is very, very competitive. Fun, nonetheless. Dennis-Yarmouth has won the state tournament the past 2 years.

We want to win the State tournament with this group at some point. They can do it!

Following the State tournament, the winner goes to the Regional tournament for Cal Ripken (Cranston, RI for 2024). The winner of that goes to the National World Series (in Indiana in 2024).

Back in 2007, the Marshfield team advanced to the National World Series. Amazing. Well done. This is something that we would love to work to returning to. Why not?

To recap, there is spring Rec plus either South River OR Cal Ripken….

and with Ballplayers AAU, we are supplementing with an AAU Club baseball program. This is truly a special opportunity. We want more of the kids to join us.

Club/AAU programs provide a higher competition level during the same period of time that Spring Rec is happening. Club games occur on the weekend and the schedule is busy. For Ballplayers AAU, we will likely have double headers on Saturday or Sunday, but not both Saturday and Sunday in the same weekend.

Marshfield, Duxbury, Kingston, Plymouth, and Pembroke now have a club baseball program

Ballplayers fills in that missing piece. Kids do not need to go outside of their local towns to play club baseball any longer. It is here. It is going to be a great baseball development program for all the kids that are involved. It will challenge them. It will be fun.

Ballplayers will have a home field, which will be “the Rec”. This is huge news for us. Last year, in our first year, we did not have a home field. We played all games on the road. This will help us a ton. We can practice and have games whenever there is an open slot for us down there.

Not only is Ballplayers based and operating out of Marshfield, but also, it includes extensive player development. That is the focus of the program.

One of the primary goals of Ballplayers is to develop pitchers. We will help them gain confidence in battle, on the mound. We will teach work with them to understand the logic and approach that is required when on the hill. Pitching lessons are part of the program. Not something you need to seek out in private sessions. This will make a huge difference as the years tick by.

We will be running pitching sessions in the offseason and throughout the year. We will then get the kids in game pitching outings against top notch local youth teams.

Some pitching sessions will be ran by Will Greer. Will Greer is a Division 1 right handed pitcher at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU).

VCU just recently beat Wake Forest in the NCAA Regional Tournament. VCU has ballplayers that are on their way to the big leagues.

Will is the son of Ken Greer. The Greer family is from Cohasset, MA. Ken had a 12 year career as a right handed pitcher in the big leagues.

The Greers are a great local family in the world of baseball. 100%.

He is lined up and ready to do sessions with whatever group we pull together. Lessons. Talks. Valuable stuff from an incredibly talented pitcher. This will be something to see. Will record all sessions and send to everyone that attends as well.

I (Joe Capone) will run pitching sessions as well. This is my favorite part of baseball. Pitching.

 

We also will run hitting sessions. We will break down swings and look to identify drills to help hitters improve their swing. We have Mike Gervasi lined up to help with hitting as well.

 

TECHNOLOGY/IMPROVING/LEARNING

_______________

There is a real edge that exists today that did not exist too long ago. Technology has changed things. Ballplayers knows this.

We have technology to help our pitchers break down their mechanics with our pitching coaching crew. Once we identify specific things to work on in the pitching delivery, we will find a drill that will be specifically matched to help that one thing. We will continue to check in with their mechanics in sessions and we will help them have mechanics like this:

or this….

 

We use a product/technology called PitchLogic. The product is literally a baseball that has a computer chip in it. It connects by Bluetooth to an iOS device. You log in and you have access to the same pitching development technology that they use at Florida State University.

We have individual folders that we can assign to any pitcher. It then tracks mechanics data over time, along with velocity, and a score that is generated based on age and some algorithm that they maintain from all the pitching data that they get.

The folder would have all sessions recorded for the pitcher, marked with date/time, with slow motion video of each pitch, and pitch data.

https://pitchlogic.com/

 

 

We have a library of content to work from and use in live sessions from people like Dan Blewett (look him him on YouTube). Dan is  at this point a “YouTuber” pitching coach…he is a former big leaguer (played for the Yankees and through lower level independent leagues). He is brilliant and his content shows things that plain and simple, never really was available before.

Our entire program is built around the same content that is featured in videos such as the above. We have brought in a D1 pitcher to help as well.

 

Example pitching session taught by me (Joe Capone)

CLICK TO OPEN

 

PITCHING MACHINE

_____________

We use a JUGS BP3 pitching machine. Just got it. An incredible machine. This pitching machine throws up to 90mph, but also does some things that are going to be huge. The machine throws fastballs, all types of breaking balls (left hand and right hand), and changeups. Changeups, from a machine. Amazing. On top of that, it has a remote that we will use to manually change speeds on the hitters. The machine also has precise location adjustments (north to south and east to west) so you can work the entire strike zone. Finally, it has a circuit where you load in the pitches that you want and it throws them in random order. The kids will get tons of reps with this professional pitching machine.

 

In addition to the machine being good for hitting, it is great for pitching. We will show the pitchers just how effective a changeup is. If they hit off the machine at a higher speed (55mph), but where all pitches are the same speed…..and then they hit with the machine throwing 50mph while mixing in 45 mph changeups, they will see that option 2, with the changeups, is magnitudes more difficult to hit.

Option 2 will have them swinging and missing on VELOCITY alone for the first time sort of. Up until then, they have swung and missed mostly because of LOCATION.

 

CHANGEUPS/PITCHING MECHANICS/ETC

_____________

A changeup is 100% safe for children to throw. It is a product of repetitions of grip and arm action. It is not “difficult” to throw. A pitcher that starts developing a changeup at age 10 or 11 is going to gain confidence in throwing a changeup in games. Plain and simple.

By giving the kids a changeup, along with sharpening their pitching mechanics, it puts them in the best spot to have fun while advancing on the mound. Having successful outings gets them to advance to the next outing. Changeups also reduce the need to begin to include breaking balls. Breaking balls (slider or curve), if not thrown properly, can and will cause arm issues. The kids will be throwing breaking balls, whether we like it or not, eventually. Teaching them how to pitch will help protect their health in this great game.

I broke the epicondyle in the tip of my elbow throwing a slider when I was in 9th grade. My arm was bothering me. I generally threw a lot of “junk”, in addition to throwing fastballs. I did not have an effective changeup at age 15.  I was pitching in a game and on release of the ball, a bone in my elbow fractured and the ball went over the backstop. That was it for that season. That was game 1 of the season. Oh well.

Point being, I sure wish there was a program that existed when I was 10 or 11, that was part of my town’s baseball program (Hull), where my friends were also playing, that could help me learn to pitch.

Pitching is its’ own thing. It requires specialized focus. Ballplayers knows this.

Ballplayers will be a solid local pitching development program.

The kids will have fun seeing various pitching topics broken down and they will have fun putting in the work. They will be engaged in the learning process.

 

HITTING

_____________

We have tools for hitting. We have MagicTee and the pitching machine. As of this moment, we have a JUGS machine that throws one speed (max of 60mph). It is awesome. The kids love it. It will help Ballplayers kiddos.

 

COST DETAILS

_____________

We do not have a specific cost yet that families need to pay. Working on that…we do have a sample schedule for the entire year that we will share. This includes cost. However we do it, all events will be “pay as you go”. If we rent Starland, we will split the cost among us. The program will be ran “at cost” for all.

 

EVENT SCHEDULE

_____________

We will have the following:

maybe 20 ish games played in total for the Spring of each year. The following year, we will have an 11U team, then 12U, and on…..

A 10 game regular season is the standard, per New England AAU. We all get 10 season games. We all play in tournaments to add more games. We all do scrimmages to play even more if we want.

We did scrimmages and tournaments for Spring/Summer 2024 and it was great. There are lots of teams that want to play a game any time we want, as a scrimmage. We treat these games like tournament games. Great baseball. Fun.

AAU tournaments (perhaps we sign up for 3 total but here are 5 that occur in the Providence area)

When we sign up for tournaments, we split the cost. The average cost of a tournament is $750-$800, for the entire team.

We played in a Memorial Day tournament this year. It was a blast and we are returning. For 2024 we played as a non AAU independent team. For Spring 2025, we will be an official AAU team.

Pitching, hitting, fielding sessions at Starland

Pitching, hitting, fielding sessions at Atlantic Baseball

We will have professional caliber current ballplayers help and get involved with analysis as we advance.

We have Will Greer.

We also have Mike Gervasi. He is ready to come in and help with hitting, catching, and other areas. Mike is an incredible baseball talent. Mike just graduated from UMass Amherst. He was student first and foremost….but also, captain of the baseball team. Great program. He was the starting catcher and led the team in homers this season. He has game. He wants to help do sessions with Ballplayers MYBL.

 

We will have helpers and the product will be solid.

 

The kids will grow as ballplayers with a customized program. We are looking for 20 games so we can do additional “practices” and “clinics” outside of games.

We will play a lot of games. No worries there. We will also do sessions to advance mechanics and to work on hitting, etc. We want to do that. This is the recipe for improvement. Improvements compounds over time to be something truly magical.

We will use technology to help the kids to advance in this regard.

They will have fun. Lots of fun.

With Ballplayers MYBL officially becoming part of MYBL, we have gained a ton of resources and we are ready to go for April 2025.

Get in while you can.

Excited to now be welcoming children from Duxbury, Kingston, Plymouth, and Pembroke. We can field a great team, win some games, have some fun, and watch these kids make memories.

 

 

 

 

Notes on local Club teams

_____________

 

The two most local private club teams to the Rec are part of New Balance Select (Mariners, which is changing to New England Premier, and Northeast Lions). New Balance Select is an alternative to AAU. A private club picks one or the other. “Select” teams play 37-40 games in the same span as we are looking to play 20-25 games. AAU is a highly recognized name in the world of youth sports of course. Everyone knows AAU.

Whether a club team is “Select” or AAU is really just a preference. One or the other. We like the program details of AAU so we are going AAU. Becoming AAU simple requires applying and paying fees to AAU. They set us up with insurance and a schedule. It is then on us to make sure we do not forfeit any games. That is the one thing that they ask of us.

We had 9 or 10 at all our games in Spring/Summer 2024. We need to be at 12 so we can deal with people being away and still having coverage so we have 9+ for all games.

 

AAU teams are allowed to use USSSA bats.

 

“Select” teams are not permitted to use USSSA bats. They are allowed to use BBCOR bats (less pop than USSSA, more pop than USA) or USA bats. Most hitters use USA bats in Select. In order to use BBCOR (more pop), it has to be a bat that has a weight that is no more than 3 ounces less than the length of the bat. USA bats allow a 11 ounce drop, so a 30 inch bat, can weigh 19 ounces. Light and great to swing. If a 30 inch bat is BBCOR rated, it would need to weigh 27 ounces to use in “Select”…too heavy. So the Select hitters tend to use USA bats.

Ballplayers MYBL hitters will be able to use USSSA bats! Woohoo!

 

 

 

Please fill the form if you would like to be included in our workout that we have scheduled. There are no obligations or commitments from filling the form.

MYBL Instruction Signup

 

 

Let us know if you have any questions. Thanks all.

Email joe@ballplayers.co

 

Feel free to text me at (781) 206-9612.

 

Sincerely,

Joe Capone

Marshfield, MA