THE WORLD'S LARGEST AND MOST COMPREHENSIVE SCOUTING ORGANIZATION
| 2,410 MLB PLAYERS | 15,806 MLB DRAFT SELECTIONS
2,410 MLB PLAYERS | 15,806 MLB DRAFT SELECTIONS
Sign in Create Account
Sign in Create Account
General  | General | 7/2/2021

Wolforth Thrower Mentorship: Article 12

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 12th 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'?
Article 9: Swing & Miss Appraisal: How 'Nasty' Is 'Nasty Enough'?
Article 10: 5 Common Mistakes Baseball Players Make In Their Training
Article 11: The Truth About Curveballs, Sliders, and Cutters

 Have you ever wondered just exactly what the similarities are between the best pitchers on a championship team and the worst pitchers on a cellar dweller?
 
I realize for many of you that may be a strange question. Why would we even ask such a question?
 
This basic question is so rarely asked by the typical baseball person…but we at the Texas Baseball Ranch® believe unequivocally that this is one question that should be asked often. Such a question is often highly enlightening and incredibly instructive.
 
NCAA Hall of Fame Coach Gary Ward, a long-time dear friend of ours, is fond of saying, “Want a better answer? Then improve upon the questions you ask!”
 
Stating the obvious and eliminating items the best pitchers and worst pitchers share in common can lead us to important clues on the critical areas in which they are very different. That difference often is the secret sauce to achievement and productivity.
 
All too often we look only for the differences and eventually, because of a lack of intellectual curiosity, we return to safe and time-honored conclusions suggesting that the only differences between the two polar opposite groups are talent and/or experience.
 
Talent and experience are real and are no small influences, but they absolutely do not accurately express the totality of influence upon success and achievement.
 
Many more talented and experienced individuals have been beaten by those with far less talent and less experience. This scenario has been repeated thousands of times throughout history.
 
So then, what is one thing the best and the worst have in common?
 
They both practice. They both throw bullpens.
 
I have maintained for nearly 30 years now that the simple act of practice itself is rarely remarkable. Everyone ‘practices’. Everyone ‘throws bull pens, sides or boxes’. So then, if the simple act of practice is so valuable, why aren’t all the pitchers who practice ‘great performers’?
 
Let’s investigate this question.
 
The science of motor skill development is very clear in this regard. 
 
•   How much time you dedicate to practice is a much more significant indicator of successful performance than is the fact you simply practiced your skill. So, there is that variable…time investment.
 
•   But it is ‘how’ one practices that is really the influencer of growth, skill development and eventually success at game time.
 
The question we should be asking ourselves is not just:
 
Is our pitcher practicing?
 
Or even how much does our pitcher practice?
 
But instead, we must ask how deep and deliberate is our pitcher’s current practice?
 
To help us with that question I’m going to turn to one of my most influential mentors, K. Anders Ericsson.
 
The late K. Anders Ericsson was a Swedish psychologist and Conradi Eminent Scholar and Professor of Psychology at Florida State University who is internationally recognized as a researcher in the psychological nature of expertise and human performance.
 
His incredible books:
 
•   ‘Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise’.
 
•   ‘The Road To Excellence; The Acquisition of Expert Performance in the Arts and Sciences, Sports, and Games’.

•   ‘Development of Professional Expertise: Toward Measurement of Expert Performance and Design of Optimal Learning Environments’.
 
These 3 are seemingly always on my desk and are constantly referenced in our work at the Texas Baseball Ranch.
 
Ericsson believed the 7 gold standards of deliberate practice are as follows:
 
1. Have Specific Goals in EACH of Your Practices. 
 
Create step-by-step objectives focused on improving specific aspects of the pitcher’s target performance. For example: Arm health, recovery, velocity, command, spin/shape/deception. Step-by-step means setting particular targets for each day, week, month and year, over many years.
 
2. Support Your Work With Expert Coaching/Mentoring
 
To achieve elite level performance, athletes almost always need expert coaches, mentors and/or advisors at critical junctures in their career to provide a winning combination of implicit and explicit knowledge.
 
3. Consistent Enlightenment From Feedback - Preferably Immediate Feedback.
 
A primary tenet of growth, skill development and/or simply learning to perform better is to get direct, immediate, relevant feedback. Specifically, in this case, getting the information you need to adjust your behavior, adjust your movement, correct mistakes, and move on to the next stage of growth.
 
Learning from feedback is absolutely invaluable. It’s the best way of managing your performance during or after the event and continuing to grow. We say at the Texas Baseball Ranch that the breakfast of champions is not Wheaties but instead direct, immediate and relevant feedback.
 
4. Dedicate At Least A Portion of Each Practice To Working Slightly Outside Of Your Comfort Zone. 
 
Making continued improvements requires systematically challenging yourself to go one step further than your current capabilities. As soon as you are approaching a semblance of mastery of a specific skill, it’s time to demand more of yourself and challenge yourself further. This is often more challenging than some might think.
 
Practicing outside of your comfort zone almost always, by definition, creates some anxiety and frustration. The good news is that married with persistence and perseverance, deep deliberate practice also regularly results with great satisfaction as you do reach the next levels of performance. You can then move on to new and even more uncomfortable challenges.

5. Building an Exceptionally Sound Foundation in Which Mastery Can Be Expanded.

It’s far easier to acquire new skills if you’ve first created a sound substructure for learning and development. From this foundation you can develop superb skills step-by-step. Never forget, ‘Extraordinary’ is simply doing the ordinary, exceptionally well. Dedicate yourself to being uncommonly good at the foundational stuff.
 
6. Being Focused and Present.
 
Achieving elite level performance demands involvement and ownership, not simply listening passively to other’s advice. Deliberate practice requires high levels of intention, awareness and a willingness to put in hours of effort. No one achieves deliberate practice my accident. The secret is in the name. Deep, deliberate practice is only created on purpose.
 
7. Develop Well Defined Mental Representations.
 
One important characteristic of top performers is their ability to visualize and connect images in their minds with their ideal performance. This is what Ericsson referred to as 'Mental Representations’. When athletes have a clear mental picture of the specifics of their skills, they can far better monitor their performance in real time, make decisions under duress, and adjust and adapt as the situation unfolds.
 
Don Mattingly once was quoted as saying, “The only difference between me and hundreds of other players is that I have a very clear picture in my mind of what I want and spend most of my day coloring it!”
 
As you read down through Ericsson’s 7 gold standards of deliberate practice, I’m fairly certain that your reaction is similar to mine in thinking that the traditional practice in America is far from deep, deliberate practice.
 
As I tell my clients all the time, “Awareness itself is curative. Awareness of the problem is the start. Now is the time to start making changes toward a more effective use of our time, effort, energy and resources.” 
 
I look forward to continuing our discussion.
 
Ron Wolforth
CEO- The Texas Baseball Ranch
 
PS. Next time my topic will be “The Truth About Long Toss”.

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 467 have broken the 90 mph 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, TX 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 | Blog | 4/10/2026

Wolforth Throwing Mentorship: Article 64

Ron Wolforth
Article Image
What Do Barry Zito, Justin Verlander, Trevor Bauer, and Dallas Keuchel All Have in Common? By Ron Wolforth | Texas Baseball Ranch® | PG Arm Care Take a second and think about the question posed in the title before you read on. Four Cy Young Award winners. Four of the most decorated pitchers of their generation. What's the common thread? The first answer is obvious… they all won the most prestigious individual award in pitching. Most of you probably got there immediately. The second answer is less obvious… they all trained at the Texas Baseball Ranch® at some point in their development. Interesting, maybe, but not the point of this article. The third answer is the one I really want you to sit with, because it has direct relevance to your career right now: they all move completely differently. And they all attack hitters completely differently. Don't rush past that....
Read More
College | Story | 4/16/2026

Coppy's Corner: April 16 POY Deep Dive

Perfect Game Staff
Article Image
Each week I huddle with Vinnie Cervino and Craig Cozart  to discuss Top-25 rankings and Players of the Week. In Coppy’s Corner, I dive deeper into these Players of the Week, providing analysis from 20+ years working in baseball front offices at the highest level.   Player of the Week: Jaquae Stewart – Texas State University  If you squint a little bit, you can see some Josh Naylor or Dominic Smith in Jaquae Stewart, with a stout build like a more powerful version of the teacup from the children’s song. Lately, the Sun Belt Conference has been child’s play for Stewart as he has been on fire showing an improved hit approach and power that tracks more with his 2024 performance at Northwest Florida State College than with his 2025 experience at the University of Texas. It’s tough for any player to jump from a JUCO in Florida to the big stage...
Read More
High School | General | 4/16/2026

High School Notebook: April 16

Tyler Henninger
Article Image
Alain Gomez-Gudiño (‘26 AZ) with a pair of backside barrels, including a double. Physical 6-0/215 frame. Switch-hitter with power. Adv. defender with strong C&T behind the dish. @PGAllAmerican alum. #Gamecocks commit #PGHS @PG_Draft @SaguaroBaseball pic.twitter.com/2Vhuu5gYX9 — Perfect Game Four Corners (@PG_FourCorners) April 11, 2026 C Alain Gomez-Gudino, Saguaro (Ariz.) Since I first saw him as a sophomore, Gomez-Gudiño has long been one of my favorite prospects in the state. The backstop features a super physical frame at 6-foot-0, 215-pounds with a thick lower half and strong forearms. Defensively, Gomez-Gudiño has always stood out. He moves well for his size behind the plate and receives with confident hands. The catch-and-throw ability stands out. Gomez-Gudiño looks to be aggressive and will back pick runners often. The glove alone makes...
Read More
Juco | Rankings | 4/15/2026

JUCO Top 25: April 15

Blaine Peterson
Article Image
Another week of undefeated weeks for our top 4 ranked teams. Joining them in the top 5, coming off an undefeated week of their own, is Florence-Darlington, a team we have consistently had as a top 10 team all season long. Cloud County and Midland College continue to put together strong weeks and climb the rankings each week it seems. Jumping into the rankings this week on the strength of a 15-game winning streak is Seminole State (OK). And Linn Benton makes the top 25 for a 2nd consecutive week and looks like the top team in the NWAC this spring. Plenty of high-level matchups at the JUCO level for some of the top teams in the county this next week.  Rk. School Record 1 Johnson County (KS) 42-2 2 Gaston (NC) 43-3 3 McLennan (TX) 34-7 4 Chipola (FL) 37-7 5 Florence-Darlington (SC) 40-8 6 Walters State (TN) 37-10 7 Blinn (TX) 31-11 8 Florida Southwestern (FL) 30-12 9 Southern Nevada...
Read More
College | Rankings | 4/15/2026

DII/DIII/NAIA Rankings Update: April 15

Nick Herfordt
Article Image
Welcome to this week's small school baseball rankings, covering NCAA Division II, the NAIA, and NCAA Division III. As the calendar turns toward the final weeks of the regular season, the urgency is real across all three levels — teams are running out of weekends to build their cases, and the extended postseason invitations that every program is chasing don't go to programs that peak in March. The next few weeks of results will carry more weight than anything that happened before spring break, and the postseason committees in all three divisions are watching closely. Every series dropped to a team you should beat, every road sweep you let get away — it all matters now in a way it simply didn't two months ago. What you'll also notice as you read through the breakdowns below is that the numbers are doing more of the heavy lifting in how these rankings are constructed. Run...
Read More
Press Release | Press Release | 4/15/2026

Perfect Game & Youth Prospects Team Up

Article Image
    667 Progress Way | Sanford, FL 32771 | 319-298-2923  www.perfectgame.org | facebook.com/perfectgameusa | @PerfectGameUSA      FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE    PERFECT GAME AND YOUTH PROSPECTS ANNOUNCE   BROADCAST RIGHTS AND CONTENT PARTNERSHIP    Sanford, Florida (Wednesday, April 15, 2026) - Perfect Game, the world’s largest youth baseball and softball platform and scouting service, today announced a new partnership with content platform Youth Prospects centered around broadcast rights, content collaboration and expanded visibility for elite youth baseball events.    As part of the agreement, Perfect Game will grant Youth Prospects broadcast rights to select games across its premiere events, including marquee matchups at the WWBA World...
Read More
College | Story | 4/14/2026

College Players of the Week: April 14

Vincent Cervino
Article Image
April 14th Perfect Game/Player of the Week:  Jaquae Stewart, INF/OF, Texas State  The Texas State Bobcats (24-12) are sitting in second place in the ultra-competitive Sun Belt Conference, and they have one of the most explosive offenses in the country.  They average right at 8-runs per game and can slug with the best of them, averaging almost 2-home runs per game as well.  Sitting in the middle of the order, Jaquae Stewart, is putting together a career year and is becoming the focus of opposing teams.  The 5-10/234 junior from Sinton, Tx is your classic lefthanded power hitter and is thriving in his move from Austin to San Marcos.  While it wasn’t the best week for his club, Stewart was sensational, collecting 8 hits in his 19 at-bats, scoring 5 runs, launching 5 home runs and driving in an insane 17 runs.  For the season, he is now slashing...
Read More
Showcase | Story | 4/14/2026

PG Announces Prospect Gateway Schedule

Hannah Jo Groves
Article Image
PG has announced the dates for Prospect Gateway events across the country - unique opportunities for young players to receive professional feedback and prepare for the next level. The Prospect Gateways are for players ages 13U-14U and serve as a qualifier for the National Showcase. Kevin Schuver, the senior director of showcases at Perfect Game, said these events are chances for players to step out of their comfort zone and show what they’re really made of. “Perfect Game Prospect Gateways aren’t just events. They’re doorways into something bigger. For young athletes, they serve as the first real step beyond their local fields, where raw ability begins to meet visibility and purpose.” At the event, each player is assigned a PG advisor who will watch and advise them individually. There will also be other scouts giving tips on how to enhance and develop a...
Read More
Press Release | Press Release | 4/13/2026

PG & MLB Clubs Offer Discount Tickets

Article Image
    667 Progress Way | Sanford, FL 32771 | 319-298-2923  www.perfectgame.org | facebook.com/perfectgameusa | @PerfectGameUSA      FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE    PERFECT GAME PARTNERS WITH THREE MLB CLUBS TO OFFER EXCLUSIVE TICKET DISCOUNTS FOR YOUTH TEAMS    Sanford, Florida (Friday, April 10, 2026) - Perfect Game, the world’s largest youth baseball and softball platform and scouting service, today announced a new fan engagement initiative in partnership with three Major League Baseball clubs — the Kansas City Royals, Houston Astros and St. Louis Cardinals — to provide exclusive discounted ticket opportunities for teams participating in Perfect Game events.    Through the collaboration, youth baseball and softball teams competing in...
Read More
College | Rankings | 4/13/2026

College Top 25: April 13

Vincent Cervino
Article Image
In a season where remaining in the Top 25 has become a war of attrition, the No. 1 UCLA Bruins (33-2) are making the game look much easier than it is in all reality.  Winners of 27-games in a row, this club continues to win games by any means necessary as they continue their historic run.  Beyond the incredible win streak, the Bruins have started off Big Ten play (18-0) by sweeping their first six conference weekend.  Adding to their resume, in Game 1 of their series at Rutgers, they won a 14-inning thriller by a score of 4-1where their pitching staff registered an eye-popping 30-strikeouts while only surrendering 1 walk and 4 hits throughout.  In most any other season, the No. 2 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (30-5) would be sitting atop the poll as they are putting together a historic season of their own.  They swept Florida State (24-11) who was previously ranked...
Read More
Draft | Story | 4/10/2026

PG Draft: Favorite Position Group

Tyler Henninger
Article Image
Every draft class has its strengths. Some years its a loaded group of prep infielders, some years its a deep collection of college arms. In this year’s class, certain position groups stand out above the rest to us. This week, the draft team dives into their favorite position groups. Groups that we believe are loaded with depth, upside, and big league potential. College Infielders It’s hard not to get excited about the crop of college infielders in this year’s class because of who is at the top. Roch Cholowsky alone makes the group exciting. He’s got gold glove potential at the next level and an offensive profile that should make him one of the Top 15 to 20 prospects in all of baseball the second he gets drafted. Justin Lebron is another player with as much upside in the class. He is a premium athlete that can really pick it at short and has big upside with the...
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.