THE WORLD'S LARGEST AND MOST COMPREHENSIVE SCOUTING ORGANIZATION
| 2,384 MLB PLAYERS | 15,805 MLB DRAFT SELECTIONS
2,384 MLB PLAYERS | 15,805 MLB DRAFT SELECTIONS
Sign in Create Account
Sign in Create Account
General  | General | 5/27/2021

Wolforth Thrower Mentorship: Article 9

Jerry Ford
Ron Wolforth
Photo: Johnny Tergo/Truth Baseball
Ron Wolforth probably knows more about the throwing arm and arm care than anyone we know. Many of you may have heard about the famous Texas Baseball Ranch that Ron has been running for many years. We have built a great relationship with Ron and his wife Jill over the years.

It all started a few years back when Ron sent his son Garrett to a Perfect Game event. His son was a catcher/infielder and set some all-time PG records for pop times (1.75) and velocity (89 mph) at the time. He also threw mid-90s across the infield. He is now playing professionally. Being an average-sized kid, this really drew our interest. Once we realized who his father was, it became clear.



Since then we have followed the Texas Baseball Ranch closely. Ron is a very humble man, which is a reason so many speak highly of him. We have never run across a single person that shows any disrespect for him or the Ranch. So we decided to ask him to help our millions of followers.

Over the years he has helped thousands of pitchers, including many that became Major League All-Stars. Yes, he teaches velocity gains, better control and command, and everything a pitchers needs to be successful. However, unlike many others, he is an absolute stickler when it comes to doing it safely. His interest doesn't just involve velocity gains and other improvements, all of which are very important. He wants his students to understand arm care and how to throw and stay healthy. He does this without a cookie cutter program. He understands that all players are different individuals.

Perfect Game's interest in prospects, arm care and keeping young kids healthy is the major reason we have decided to work with Ron Wolforth.

Below is the ninth of an ongoing column he will be doing on our Perfect Game website. This information will be gold for any player interested in improving their throwing ability and staying healthy. Make sure you read every column he contributes and feel free to comment on them.

If you want to attend one of his camps and improve your throwing ability, here is the link to the website:
https://www.texasbaseballranch.com/

Jerry Ford
President
Perfect Game

. . .

Article 1: Where the Sidewalk Terminates
Article 2: The Exact Location of Your Arm Pain is Incredibly Valuable Information
Article 3: No Pain, No Problem...Right? Not Quite So Fast.
Article 4: The Secret to Accelerated Skill Development: Hyper-Personalization
Article 5: The Case Against Weighted Balls?
Article 6: The Truth About Pitch Counts, Workloads, and Overuse
Article 7: Velocity Appraisal: How 'Hard' Is 'Hard Enough'?
Article 8: Command Appraisal: How 'Accurate' Is 'Accurate Enough'?

Just a quick review of what I led off with last time:

It might surprise a certain percentage of the population who have never been to the Texas Baseball Ranch®, but one of the more common phrases used with our athletes is this…

“While velocity will certainly give you opportunity…

It will be command that will give you more innings in competition…

And it will be creating swing and misses on a regular basis that will give you your best chance at advancement…

And most importantly, having a healthy, durable arm will afford you the only chance for a long career.”

I’m not going to quibble on this one, I’m going to cut right to the chase.

The concept of “Pitch to Contact” is naive at best and a dangerous misconception at worst.

I realize this is going to step on some toes, but I think at the end of this lesson you will at the very least have a slightly different take on the concept of pitch to contact.

The Pitch to Contact Paradigm infers that throwing strikes in competition is sacrosanct (sacred) and that the selfish or arrogant desire for strikeouts may lead to one throwing more pitches, walking more hitters, and failing to utilize the defense behind you.

From the outside looking in, this philosophy sounds very logical…benign even.

For one moment, let’s utilize a scenario that will hopefully guide us to looking at this enigma from a different (and I believe a more enlightened) perspective.

You are the GM of a major league organization. You need to bring up a minor league pitcher to join the staff on your major league team. Which pitcher do you choose?

Pitcher A is right-handed, has an ERA of 3.12, and is averaging 4.5 strikeouts per 9 innings.

Pitcher B is right-handed, has an ERA of 3.95, and is averaging 9.3 strikeouts per 9 innings.

Now, of course there are always far more things to consider than ERA and K% — WHIP (Walks And Hits Per Inning Pitched), BB% (Pitcher’s Walk Percentage), BABIP (Batting Average on Balls in Play), FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching), and wOBA (Weighted On-Base Average) — just as a few examples. I use ERA and Strikeouts per 9 innings specifically because everyone is more familiar with them, and they help us understand the choice that is almost always made by the GM in these scenarios. (And of course, the financial intangibles of the game also greatly affect decision making.)

I would contend that all things being equal (and I openly admit that rarely are all the other influencers equal between pitchers), even with Pitcher A having a moderately better ERA, the GM will overwhelmingly choose to promote Pitcher B. Why?

It’s quite simple.

If you don’t strike out people in the minor leagues, what is the chance that improves when you move to the major leagues? That answer may not be zero but I’m sure you would agree that the chances are extremely low.

What is the opposite end of the continuum from the swing and miss? That would be 100% on-time barrel match.

By definition, the strike zone shrinks in the major leagues and the hitters are better and hit it further/harder.

Therefore, if you are a “pitch to contact guy” in high school, college, or in the minor leagues…the 320-foot lazy fly ball that you used to induce for an out at your previous level…very well may become a 420-foot fly ball into the water spectacular in the big leagues. The 85 mph rollover ground ball that you lived on often turns into a 98 mph screamer that gets through.

So…What to do? What to think?

In my opinion, we need to rethink and rephrase the concept. Instead of the more passive phraseology of “pitch to contact” …We want to be as difficult to square up with 100% on-time barrel match as possible. In essence, we want to be nasty AND be inside of the strike zone when we need to be.

Our goal should be to be as difficult and complicated as possible for the hitter to predict our location and time of arrival with the sweet spot of his bat.

There are many ways we can do that…

We can complicate that by velocity.

We can complicate that by changing speeds.

We can complicate that by hitting and changing specific locations.

We can complicate that by spins and movement.

We can complicate that by deception, pitch sequencing, tunneling, and pitch design.

And this is the takeaway for you in this lesson:

When we dedicate ourselves (instead of pitching to contact) to becoming a pitcher that is extremely difficult to time up and square up as possible…we will, by definition, also get more swings and misses.

Throwing strikes remains sacrosanct but when our goal changes from preferring contact to preferring extreme difficulty for the hitter to create on time, squared-up contact while throwing pitches inside the zone when required…the dynamics flip.

So then how nasty is nasty enough?

The top SwStr% (the Percent Swing and Misses vs. Total Pitches Thrown) in the MLB last year was Shane Bieber (18.7%) and Jacob deGrom (18.3%). The league average is around 10%.

Who are the all-time best in MLB history in strikeouts per 9 innings?

Well, interestingly enough, 11 of the top-15 are still active today: Yu Darvish, Chris Sale, Max Scherzer, and Jacob deGrom are the top-four — all averaging above 10.61 strikeouts per 9. Randy Johnson came in 5th at 10.6, Pedro Martinez in 9th (10.3), and Nolan Ryan in 15th (9.54).

But for today’s high school and college pitcher, these are the standards we use at the Texas Baseball Ranch®:

If you average 1 strikeout every 3+ innings: You are currently behind your competitive peer group in terms of swing-and-miss capability. If not addressed and corrected, it almost certainly will be a primary constraint to your advancement.

If you average 1 strikeout every 2 innings: You are currently slightly behind your competitive peer group in terms of swing-and-miss capability. If not addressed and corrected, it may prove to be a constraint to your advancement.

If you average 1 strikeout every inning: You are on track.

If you average more than 1 strikeout every inning: You are ahead of your competitive peer group in terms of swing-and-miss capability. Something other than swing-and-miss capability will be a greater constraint to your advancement. How is your pain, recovery, and command?

So, the next time you hear someone sing the praises of the Pitch to Contact Paradigm, at the very least it should give you pause.

It is not that our goal should be to strike everyone out.

Throwing strikes does indeed matter.

Inflated pitch counts exacerbated by trying to induce the strikeout absolutely can become a problem.

Generating weak contact is almost always a good thing.

However, I suggest that inducing contact as a primary goal for a pitcher is naive at best. Every time a ball is put into play in fair territory, it has the potential to do us damage.

Therefore, I suggest changing your phraseology and the goal.

Until next time,

Stay curious and keep reaching for the stars.

Coach Wolforth
CEO - The Texas Baseball Ranch®

P.S. Our next topic will cover “The 5 Most Common Mistakes Pitchers Make in Their Training”.

Coach Wolforth has written six books on pitching including the Amazon Best Seller, Pitching with Confidence.  Since 2003, 122 of the players Wolforth has trained have been drafted and 458 have broken the 90mph barrier.  He has consulted with 13 MLB teams, dozens of NCAA programs and has been referred to as “America’s Go-to-Guy on Pitching” and “The Pitching Coaches Pitching Coach”.  Coach Wolforth lives in Montgomery, Texas with his wife, Jill.  They are intimately familiar with youth select, travel baseball and PG events as their son Garrett (now a catcher in the Cincinnati Reds organization) went through the process.  Garrett still holds the PG Underclass All-American Games record for catcher velocity at 89mph which he set in 2014 at the age of 16.

If you would like a free copy of Pitching with Confidence, go to freepitchingbook.com.
Give us your feedback
General | General | 2/23/2026

PG Salutes Chet Brewer, a Youth Baseball Pillar
Jim Salisbury
Article Image
PG Salutes Chet Brewer, a Youth Baseball Pillar A few weeks ago, Perfect Game and its Believe in Baseball foundation held a fundraising event in Los Angeles. The “In the Spirit of the Game” dinner and auction brought in thousands of dollars, all of which will go toward providing deserving youngsters an opportunity to play and grow in the game. Chet Brewer was not at the event – the former Negro Leagues star died at age 83 in 1990 – but his spirit was. Big time. “That night was all about Chet,” PG commissioner Dennis Gilbert said. “He was all about giving kids chances to play the game, especially kids from underprivileged backgrounds. “When you’re 15, 16, 17 years old – those years are the basis of your life. Chet helped put a lot of kids on the right path through the game of baseball.” Brewer’s impactful life has...
Read More
High School | General | 2/27/2026

HS Showdown Scout Notes: Day 1

Tyler Russo
Article Image
High School Showdown Event Page | High School Showdown Preview ‘27 1B Frank Thomas (FL) goes liftoff once again for 2nd HR, again in the L on L. Leveraging w/ such easy juice. #PGShowdown @IMGABaseball @Florida_PG https://t.co/BgWiDyMiMo pic.twitter.com/IC6sdAkhmT — Perfect Game Scout (@PG_Scouting) February 26, 2026 Frank Thomas III (2027, Sarasota, Fl.) was all over a breaking ball in the first inning of an IMG Academy offensive explosion, making it back-to-back-to-back homers to start the game. He did not turn back from there, homering on two more occasions. The ball explodes off the barrel with low effort strength and he showed the ability to manipulate the barrel to lift with authority. Thomas III is built strong and physical and he is just beginning to tap into that huge power upside. He showed no issues handling left on left matchups, with his first two homers coming...
Read More
Draft | Prospect Scouting Reports | 2/26/2026

PG Draft: Early Season Underclass Performers

Tyler Henninger
Article Image
Dax Whitney (@BeaverBaseball) showed LOUD stuff. FB up to 100, cruised at 95-98. Pair of plus secondaries. CB at 77-79 (2923) with sharp, 12-6 action. Firm SL at 89-91 (2714) with bite. Flashed fading CH at 87-88 (1425). Ranked No. 1 on the ‘27 board @PG_Draft So./‘27 elig. pic.twitter.com/9PNbjJ53Zo — PG College Baseball (@PGCollegeBall) February 13, 2026 RHP Dax Whitney, Oregon State (‘27 elig.) Whitney may not just be the best arm in next year’s class, he may be the best arm in the entire country right now. The right-handed sits 98 mph with the heater and has been up to 100 mph. Both the slider and curveball are plus offerings that he spins extremely well. Whitney will mix in a quality Gavin changeup that sits in the upper-80’s and has also introduced a new cutter. All the pitches come from the exact same release point and jump out of the hand. He...
Read More
High School | General | 2/26/2026

PGHS Showdown: Academies Scout Notes

AJ Denny
Article Image
Jordan Burwell (‘26 NJ) going WAY out to right. Rhythmic approach and smooth swing get into big time power. #Mountaineers commit. @PGMidAtlantic #PGShowdown pic.twitter.com/qyDaIPxIol — Perfect Game Scout (@PG_Scouting) February 22, 2026 Jordan Burwell (‘26 NJ) First live look at the left-handed hitting West Virgina commit. The power is real, launched two long homers in game action this weekend. Easy mover with very clean path with sky high offensive ceiling if he continues to show like this. Swing is built for power and lofted pull side impacts.    CJ Alfano (‘26 NY) long PS bomb this morning. Just leaning on everything that’s thrown over the heart. #WVU commit. @PGMidAtlantic #PGShowdown pic.twitter.com/4lGnhOEyrl — Perfect Game Scout (@PG_Scouting) February 22, 2026 Cj Alfano (‘26 NY)Just an impossible out throughout the weekend....
Read More
High School | General | 2/27/2026

SoCal High School Notebook: Feb. 27

Steve Fiorindo
Article Image
5 K's over 4 hitless innings of work for Jared Grindlinger (2026), making first start as member of the 2026 class. 92-94 t95 w/ the FB, SL 80-83, CH 81-83, CB 77/78. Efficient outing, 50 pitches, 39 strikes. #PGHS @PG_scouting @PG_Draft @HBHS_basebll @PG_Uncommitted pic.twitter.com/y7jwX1oPyB — Perfect Game California (@California_PG) February 25, 2026 Jared Grindlinger, LHP, Huntington Beach High School (2026) Gringlinger’s first start as a member of the 2026 class was a good one… 4 innings of no hit ball with 5 strikeouts.  Ran the fastball to 95, lived 92-94, throwing a ton of strikes.  50 pitches on the day, 39 strikes, pretty much landing all four pitches in the zone.  Went to the slider early and often, quadrupling up on the slide piece to the first hitter of the game. The slider shows late lateral action with some vert, living 80-83.  Used...
Read More
Softball | Softball Tournament | 2/25/2026

Perfect Game Softball 16U Winter Elite Showcase

Dave Durbala
Article Image
SPRINGFIELD, IL - Perfect Game Softball 16u Winter Elite Showcase, February 20-22, 2026. Twenty-Four teams arrived in Springfield for the opportunity to showcase some of the best talent in the midwest. After 3 pool play games,  the field was split and seeded into either the Platinum or Gold Division to begin bracket play.  With several highly sought after young arms on display, it was Indiana Magic Gold 16U Carroll and Indiana Magic Gold 14U National making it into the Platinum Division Championship, and through a mutual agreement, they decided to end the tournament as Co-Champions. In the Gold Division, it was Gts 16u Elite-Gonzalez with a 7-2 win over Cedar Rapids Blue Devils 14u, to earn the championship. Below are some of the players that played their way onto the top performers list, including the MVP and MV-Pitcher from both the Platinum and Gold Divisions. Earning the...
Read More
College | Recruiting | 2/25/2026

DII/DIII/NAIA Rankings Update: Feb. 25

Nick Herfordt
Article Image
A few weeks into the season and the shape of the national picture is starting to emerge (slightly, let’s get too silly about early results). Some preseason favorites are humming exactly as advertised, a few dark horses are pawing at the gate, and a handful of early contenders are discovering that February optimism and March reality are not always the same thing. Across DII, DIII and the NAIA, pitching staffs are setting the tone, offenses are either detonating or recalibrating, and the Top 25 is already beginning to feel less theoretical and more earned.   DII UT Tyler is performing as predicted with a 12-2 start that includes a series win at Angelo State. The Patriots’ offense has not exactly been knocking the cover off the ball, but the pitching staff has been stingy, holding opponents to a .228 batting average.  They have not faced a ranked opponent yet, but...
Read More
Juco | Rankings | 2/25/2026

JUCO Top 25: February 25

Blaine Peterson
Article Image
Another strong week for many of the top teams in junior college baseball. Walters State put together another undefeated weak and sticks in the top spot for the 3rd consecutive ranking. Chipola on the strength of a 20-1 start has established themselves early as one of top teams in the country. Johnson County put together a 2nd consecutive undefeated week and moves into the top 5 with a 15-1 overall record. They will play 4 games against #22 Iowa Western this week who is also coming off an undefeated week. Fresno City (15-0) and Midland (13-0) are two undefeated programs to begin 2026. They have gone from not in the preseason top 25 to the top 15 in our rankings in less than a month. And welcome to the PG Juco Top 25 Cloud County (KS) who debuts at #23 and is coming off a huge 3 game sweep on the road in Texas of a previous top 10 program in our rankings. Plenty of good matchups ahead this...
Read More
Softball | Softball Tournament | 2/24/2026

Perfect Game Softball February Frenzy

Dave Durbala
Article Image
BURLINGTON, IA - Perfect Game February Frenzy, February 20-22, 2026.  Twenty-two teams, representing five states, rolled into town for the opportunity to compete in this pool play, then into bracket play, with four games guaranteed,  in both a 14u and 18u division. Taking home top honors in the 14u division was Midwest Sluggers 11, who held off a late charge by the Black Dragons , winning 7-5. In the 18u division, it was Nebraska Gold 319 Berning topping Iowa Gold Prospects 4-0, avenging a pool play opening, 1-0 loss. Below are some of the players that played their way onto our Top Performers list, including the MVP and MV-Pitcher from the championship bracket in each age division. 14U Division Earning the 14u division MVP award was Presley Perkins (2030 Taylor Ridge, IL) who although is listed as a switch hitting OF, was only observed hitting from the left side for tournament...
Read More
High School | General | 2/25/2026

High School Showdown Preview

Cam McElwaney
Article Image
We’re only about 24 hours away from the 14th PG High School Showdown and as we get closer to one of the premier events on the high school schedule, we look ahead to what we’ll see in Hoover. The teams and players are what make this event special along with the environment with scouts packing the stands for this event. As with every year we’ve run this event, there are sure to be names called in the upcoming MLB Draft along with big time contributors at the college level. This year’s field is loaded with five teams ranked inside the Preseason High School Top-50, headlined by a trio of top-10 teams in No. 8 South Walton (FL), No. 9 Blessed Trinity (GA), and No. 10 IMG Academy (FL). Rounding out the list of top-50 teams are No. 34 Parkview (GA) and No. 43 Hoover (AL), along with plenty of other teams that will challenge for state championships in their respective...
Read More
Juco | Story | 2/27/2026

JUCO Notebook: February 27

Troy Sutherland
Article Image
An extended look at Carson Bailey (@mccbaseball1 )…. https://t.co/TltEl9M31H pic.twitter.com/24Lv8q73Yb — Perfect Game Texas (@Texas_PG) February 7, 2026 Carson Bailey (2024, Richardson, Texas) worked up to 97 with his fastball out the gate and lived 95-96 throughout his short burst outing. Fastball got up to 2500 RPM showing subtle tail at times. It plays firm and gets in on hitters quick. Locates fastball well at times. He went to a change in the 85-88 range as his bread and butter secondary killing spin with good dive. Change produced 5 whiffs. He also mixed in a slider in the 80-85 getting upwards of 2500 RPM with it. Slider tight and sharp when around it. Also flashed a curve at 79. Bailey stands in at 6-foot-3 from a deceptive delivery that creates tough angles for hitters. He should be a big follow throughout the Spring with plenty of draft buzz surrounding him. He is...
Read More
Loading more articles...
About Perfect Game :: Contact us :: Terms of Use :: Privacy Policy :: Testimonials :: Job Opportunities
Copyright 1994-2026 by Perfect Game. All rights reserved. No portion of this information may be reprinted or reproduced without the written consent of Perfect Game.