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General  | General | 9/2/2022

Wolforth Thrower Mentorship: Article 23

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 23rd 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
Article 12: What is Involved in Deep, Deliberate Practice vs. Traditional Practice
Article 13: The Truth About Long Toss?
Article 14: The Truth About Conditioning of Pitchers?
Article 15: Simple and Effective Post Throwing Strategies for Pitchers
Article 16: 12 Common (Yet Often Dangerous) Narratives For Pitchers, Part 1
Article 17: 12 Common (Yet Often Dangerous) Narratives For Pitchers, Part 2
Article 18: 12 Common (Yet Often Dangerous) Narratives For Pitchers, Part 3
Article 19: Things To Consider When Embarking On A Velocity Enhancement Program This Year
Article 20: Is Your Pitcher Headed Straight Toward An Injury?
Article 21: The Season Has Started And You're Struggling With Command: Here's How To Turn It Around Quickly
Article 22: The Challenges & Dangers of an In-Season Velocity Program
In my 40+ years of coaching, I have learned one very important question every athlete should ask himself when heading into his off-season.

That question is this:

This offseason should I be chasing capability, or should I be chasing consistency?

This is what Paul Nyman in 2003 referred to as the ‘ability’ vs. ‘skill’ dilemma.

The answer to this question isn’t always a simple yes or no…either A or B.

I would estimate that 60% of the athletes we come in contact with fall into the category of needing to significantly increase their capability in order to achieve the goals that they have set for themselves. They need to dedicate a vast majority of their time, efforts, energy and resources this off season into building ‘capability.’

In short, they are simply not powerful, athletic, coordinated, connected and/or explosive enough to move to the next level of performance or competition.

Think of the otherwise good college running back that can only run a 4.8 40-yard dash. He may in fact do multiple things very well but for him to play in the NFL, this lack of speed would be a disqualifier. He must improve this specific element, or his career path will be very limited.

In pitching, a classic example would be the junior or senior in high school that is otherwise a very good pitcher, but his throwing velocity is 78-82 mph. Likewise, he must improve this element or his career will be limited.

This specific athlete profile is in large part what the Texas Baseball Ranch® has built our foundation upon. Think no further than our Athletic Pitcher Programs™.

Over the last 10 years, we have significantly expanded our processes to be much more holistic, targeted and inclusive to the needs of pitchers anywhere along the capability/consistency continuum. However, developing ‘capability’ remains today a central part of what we do at TBR.

What if that description doesn’t quite fit my athlete?

Ok. Let’s investigate further.

I would estimate 15% will fall into the category of needing to significantly increase their game time consistency in order to achieve their goals. They need to dedicate a vast majority of their time, efforts, energy and resources this off-season into improving the consistency of their game time execution.

In other words, they are very capable. They simply cannot yet consistently execute those abilities on a regular basis at game time.

This particular avatar would be the junior or senior in high school that sits in the upper-80s and low- to mid-90s but is clearly uneven in his game time performances from inning-to-inning and/or outing-to-outing.

Our quip for these types of athletes is that they are Sandy Koufax one night and Mrs. Koufax the next night. Clearly, they are capable. They are just not as reliable as they need to be.

And finally, roughly 25% will fall into the category of needing to improve BOTH their ability and consistency.

This specific profile example is the junior or senior in HS that sits 83-87 and is also inconsistent in his game time performances from inning-to-inning and/or outing-to-outing.

Of course, I could include similar profiles for 12-15 year old and college pitchers but for simplicity sake I used juniors and seniors in high school to make my point.

Furthermore, certainly there are skills and abilities that are impactful to performance other than velocity such as command, spin/shape/movement and recovery. However, I didn’t want to get too deep into the weeds and risk losing the primary point of this article.

I want to return to the key point in this piece.

The question every athlete should ask himself when heading into his off-season is: This off-season should I be chasing capability, or should I be chasing consistency?

The Mistake 95% Make In The Off-Season

Typically, athletes and their parents make a mistake and take a very generalist approach to their off-season training.

So often if you ask them what their primary goal was, they would tell you something along the lines of … “They just want to get better”… “to be a better pitcher.”

A high percentage of the time I have found that this very common objective of ‘getting better’ is so general that in essence the work often becomes ineffectual and uninspiring to the athlete.

We do not ever want this to happen. Our goals and objectives need to drive us and motivate us. Motivation is critically important to development and anything that limits or diminishes that motivation is a bad idea.

We find less than 3-in-10 athletes we work with is truly clear on exactly what ‘better’ actually entails.

They all realize that if, let’s say, they improve from 82 mph to 86 mph on the radar gun that is a very tangible and apparent ‘improvement.’ So therefore, simple velocity gains often become their default objective.

But does that velocity increase automatically translate to improved game time performance?

Short answer. Of course not.

If you gain 4 mph but now your arm begins to hurt, we have done you no good.
If you gain 4 mph in your velocity enhancement session but none of those miles per hour transfers to the game itself, we have done you very little good.
If you gain 4 mph but after the third inning or 30 pitches, you can’t maintain that velocity going forward, we have done you very little good.
If you gain 4 mph but in consecutive starts, you can’t sustain that velocity outing after outing, we have done you very little good.
If you gain 4 mph but you can’t throw it over the white thing, we have done you very little good.
If you gain 4 mph but the guys you used get out on a regular basis, now are hitting .400 against you, we have done you very little good.
If you gain 4 mph but you have lost all feel of your secondary pitches, we have done you very little good.

Clarity Is Invaluable For Development

Bottom line:

1. If you want better answers you must first ask better questions.
2. Assess yourself honestly and determine what you need to accomplish this off season. Do you need to build capability? Do you need to increase your consistency at game time? Which one is more critical for you to improve at this particular stage of your career? Almost never is that answer equally both capability and consistency.
3. Do not be a generalist. Instead, be precise. Be clear. Be specific. Vagueness, ambiguity and platitudes are frequently the death knell to development.
4. Remember that time is the most valuable of all commodities. Use it well. Deep, deliberate, purposeful practice is the best way to close the performance gap if you trail your peer group and also to further separate yourself if you are ahead.

-Coach Wolforth

Coach Wolforth is the founder of the Texas Baseball Ranch® and has written six books on pitching including the Amazon Best Seller, Pitching with Confidence. Since 2003, The Texas Baseball Ranch® has had over 524 pitchers break the 90mph barrier, 186 have topped 94mph or better, and 129 of his students have been drafted in the MLB’s June Amateur Draft. Coach Wolforth 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.

Upcoming Texas Baseball Ranch® Fall/Winter Events

• 3-Day Elite Pitcher’s Boot Camps for pitchers ages 12 & up. Five camps, one per month, between October and February. More information at https://www.texasbaseballranch.com/elite-pitchers-bootcamp/

• The once-a-year “Youth” Pitchers camp for players ages 8-11. This year’s event will be October 15th & 16th. Space is limited. Details at https://www.texasbaseballranch.com/events/youth-elite-pitchers-bootcamp/

• Elite CATCHER’s Boot Camp December 9-11th for catchers ages 14 & up. Learn more at https://www.texasbaseballranch.com/catcher

To Learn More About the Texas Baseball Ranch, go to: www.TexasBaseballRanch.com
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General | Blog | 1/21/2026

Wolforth Throwing Mentorship: Article 61
Ron Wolforth
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Demystifying the Curveball, Pitch Counts, and Weighted Balls- Part 1 You know what I love about the holidays? Good food, time with family, and the unspoken rule that nobody brings up religion or politics at the dinner table.   Why? Because they're powder kegs. Topics that bring out deep-seated beliefs and strong emotions.  Well, I accidentally lit one of those powder kegs recently, except it wasn't at the dinner table. It was on social media.   Our team posted a short clip of me at Boot Camp making what I thought was a pretty straightforward point: simply avoiding the curveball is far from a guarantee of arm health.   I wasn't trying to be provocative. I was just stating what I believed to be obvious after 30 years of doing this work.  But boy, did a few people have problems with it.   It became one of the most discussed posts in Ranch history....
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College | Story | 1/23/2026

Conference Preview: American

Craig Cozart
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2026 College Preview Index | Preseason Top 25 | Preseason Collegiate All-Americans For all of Perfect Game's conference previews as part of the 2026 college baseball preview content, the 2025 records and all-conference teams are available for free. The conference top prospects and individual team breakdowns can be viewed with a subscription. 2025 Records Teams are listed in alphabetical order*  Team W L W L UBA 24 30 8 19 Charlotte 36 22 18 9 East Carolina 35 27 13 14 Florida Atlantic 37 21 15 12 Memphis 22 33 8 19 Rice 17 40 10 17 South Florida 31 25 16 11 UTSA 47 15 23 4 Tulane 33 25 13 14 Wichita State 19 35 11 16 Preseason All-Conference Team Pos. Name School Stats/Notes C Andrew Stucky UTSA .324/.514/.467 with 6 HRs, 40 RBI; durable 6-0/192 backstop with elite defensive skills and a wealth of experience, returning 1st team all-conference member 1B Cody...
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College | Story | 1/22/2026

Conference Preview: Big 10

Troy Sutherland
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2026 College Preview Index | Preseason Top 25 | Preseason Collegiate All-Americans For all of Perfect Game's conference previews as part of the 2026 college baseball preview content, the 2025 records and all-conference teams are available for free. The conference top prospects and individual team breakdowns can be viewed with a subscription. 2025 Records Teams are listed in alphabetical order*  Team W L W L Illinois 30 24 14 16 Indiana 32 24 16 14 Iowa 33 22 21 9 Maryland 27 29 12 18 Michigan 33 23 16 14 Michigan State 28 27 13 17 Minnesota 24 28 10 20 Nebraska 33 29 15 15 Northwestern 25 27 13 17 Ohio State 13 37 5 25 Oregon 42 16 22 8 Penn State 33 23 15 15 Purdue 31 23 11 19 Rutgers 29 28 15 15 UCLA 48 18 22 8 USC 37 23 18 12 Washington 29 28 17 13 Preseason All-Conference Team Pos. Name School Stats/Notes C Mason Eckelman Ohio State Taken steps forward--...
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Tournaments | Story | 1/20/2026

Back-to-Back MLK East for Phillies

Hannah Jo Groves
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TBT Phillies Scout run rules for second straight MLK East Championship The 14U TBT Phillies Scout Team overtook A3 Academy Futures 14-6 in the final game to win their second straight 2026 MLK East Championship. Though the skies were blue and the sun was out in Fort Myers, Florida, the air was very chilly. The wind whipped through the palm trees as players, parents and friends piled into the 5-Plex Player Development Complex bundled up in blankets, hoodies and beanies.  The A3 Academy Futures were first up to bat - and the TBT Phillies struggled through the first frame. The first run came across on a balk; the second came soon after off a double from Gabriel Messing. “I was surprised that they scored right away off the jump,” Kingston George said, an outfielder for TBT Phillies Scout and this year’s MVP of the 14U East MLK championship. “We were kind of quiet...
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College | Story | 1/21/2026

Conference Preview: Big 12

Tyler Henninger
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2026 College Preview Index | Preseason Top 25 | Preseason Collegiate All-Americans For all of Perfect Game's conference previews as part of the 2026 college baseball preview content, the 2025 records and all-conference teams are available for free. The conference top prospects and individual team breakdowns can be viewed with a subscription. 2025 Records Teams are listed in alphabetical order*  Team W L W L Arizona 44 21 18 12 Arizona State 36 24 18 12 Baylor 33 22 13 17 BYU 28 27 10 20 Cincinnati 33 26 16 14 Houston 30 25 12 17 Kansas 43 17 20 10 Kansas State 32 26 17 13 Oklahoma State 30 25 15 12 TCU 39 20 19 11 Texas Tech 20 33 13 17 UCF 29 26 9 21 Utah 21 29 8 22 West Virginia 44 16 19 9 Preseason All-Conference Team Pos. Name School Stats/Notes C Jackson Natili Cincinnati .338/9/53; well-rounded bat with bat to ball skills and strong catch and throw 1B Brady...
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Tournaments | Story | 1/20/2026

A New Path to the Next Level

Jim Salisbury
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A New Path to the Next Level: Inside Perfect Game’s College Instructional Series An important new PG event will help aspiring college players grow, get noticed COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The changing environment of college baseball has led to an innovative new event at Perfect Game, one that will connect high school players looking for an opportunity at the next level with the coaches who may be able to provide one. On top of it all, there will be plenty of expert instruction along with the spirited, tournament-style competition that PG is known for. The College Instructional Series will take place at six regionalized venues starting this summer. “This event will serve an important purpose for players and coaches,” said Adam Revelette, PG’s senior director of events. “Everybody we’ve talked to is very intrigued about the platform.” The event is geared...
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Tournaments | Story | 1/20/2026

MLK West Scout Notes: Days 3-4

Steve Fiorindo
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MLK West Scout Notes: Days 1-2 Markus Chandler, RHP, Westside HS Class of 2027 A little on the undersized side as a sub 6 footer, but Chandler can generate some velo and spin.  Spun 3 frames of hitless ball for Spects National with zero walks and 6 strikeouts.  Committed to Kansas State, the righty ran the fastball to 92, living 89-92 pumping the zone with 75 percent strikes.  Looked like two different breaking balls, with the SL 80/81 (spin in 2500’s) and curveball 75/76.  No hard contact, little contact at all off the righty in this dominant outing. To follow up the pitching performance, Chandler swung the bat well on Championship Monday (Trademark Pending) with 5 RBI and three hits on the day, regularly on the barrel.  Trevor Alons, RHP, Centennial HS Class of 2028 Lean framed sophomore with a quick, whippy arm.  Playing up a few classes, you might...
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College | Story | 1/20/2026

Conference Preview: Oregon State

Tyler Henninger
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2026 College Preview Index | Preseason Top 25 | Preseason Collegiate All-Americans For all of Perfect Game's conference previews as part of the 2026 college baseball preview content, the 2025 records and all-conference teams are available for free. The conference top prospects and individual team breakdowns can be viewed with a subscription. 2025 Record W L T Oregon State 48 16 1 Impact Player: Easton Talt, OF Impact Pitcher: Dax Whitney, RHP Impact Freshman: Mason Pike, RHP/MIF 2026 MLB Draft Prospects 1. Ethan Kleinschmit, LHP 2. Eric Segura, RHP 3. Zach Edwards*, RHP 4. Easton Talt, OF 5. Jacob Kreig, 1B 6. Wyatt Queen, RHP 7. AJ Singer, IF 8. Eli Gries-Smith, OF 9. Noah Scott, RHP 10. Paul Vazquez*, IF 11. Nyan Hayes, OF 12. AJ Hutcheson, RHP 13. Tyler Inge*, 3B 14. Bryson Glassco, IF 15. Jacob Galloway, C 2027 MLB Draft Prospects 1. Dax Whitney, RHP 2. Adam...
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Tournaments | Story | 1/18/2026

MLK West Scout Notes: Days 1-2

Steve Fiorindo
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Cole Migaki (‘29 WA) w/ one of his 5 K’s thru 2-innings. FB 84-86 coupled w/ a firm BB that has 11/5 shape sitting 77-77. Balanced operation w/ a live, loose arm. Athletic frame at 6-ft, 170 that projects #MLKWest @PG_PacificNW pic.twitter.com/iBgAoajNUM — Perfect Game Four Corners (@PG_FourCorners) January 16, 2026 Cole Migaki (2029 Vancouver, WA) Was lights out in his start on Friday at MLK West, only needing 42 pitches to get thru three-innings and did not allow a hit or run while punching out 8.  Migaki overwhelmed opposing hitters, running his fastball up to 86 and mixing in a firm breaking ball at 75-77 with 11-5 shape and depth.  The athletic 6-foot, 170-pound right-hander is the top ranked third base prospect in the state of Washington for the class of 2029, collecting a couple of hits in his five at-bats and drove in a run.  Excellent start to...
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Press Release | Press Release | 1/16/2026

Perfect Game Hires Blakeley As Regional Dir.

Perfect Game Staff
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    667 Progress Way | Sanford, FL 32771 | 319-298-2923  www.perfectgame.org | facebook.com/perfectgameusa | @PerfectGameUSA      FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE    PERFECT GAME HIRES ERIC BLAKELEY AS REGIONAL DIRECTOR    Sanford, Florida (Friday, January 16, 2026) - Perfect Game, the world’s largest youth baseball and softball platform and scouting service, today announced the hiring of Eric Blakeley as a Regional Director. Blakeley brings more than two decades of experience in elite baseball and softball events, along with an accomplished background as both a collegiate and professional player.    Blakeley joins Perfect Game after building the highly respected Crossroads Baseball Series, where for more than 20 years he developed and operated baseball...
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