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General  | Blog | 1/23/2025

Wolforth Throwing Mentorship: Article 48

Ron Wolforth

If It’s ALL About Timing… 

Then Why Do So Few Teach It? 

 

It is a common refrain in the baseball universe: “It’s all about timing.” The arm is late. The rotation of the torso is too early. Our hands break too soon. We get out of sync. Our front leg immediately disconnects. Our tempo is too fast…or too slow. 

So, what is the ‘standard’ way of addressing these issues? By ‘standard,’ I mean the approach that 97% of the baseball world uses to grapple with timing, sequencing, synchronization, rhythm, and tempo. 



For those who even attempt to address timing, their method is almost exclusively a form of choreography. It’s a rigid “Put your arm here!”; “Move your hips like this!”; “Lift your leg like this!” framework. 

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But how effective do you imagine a one-size-fits-all training choreography would be when applied to seven elite pitchers? 

In my opinion, based on 25+ years of experience, such an approach would likely be detrimental to at least 2-3 of these pitchers and possibly all of them. I speak from personal experience—as recently as ten years ago, I utilized a highly restrictive and limiting methodology. Around 2013, I began to move away from this approach, and the benefits of abandoning it quickly became both obvious and profound. 

My reverence for and dedication to customization, individualization, and hyper-personalization in training protocols has grown exponentially over the last decade. I cannot imagine returning to the standard cookie-cutter method. It simply doesn’t work well. Even when it appears to produce positive results, those gains are often not due to the method itself but rather the innate problem-solving abilities of the athletes. 

Again, I speak from experience. For years, I attributed positive growth to the ‘effectiveness’ of my system and blamed failure on inattentive or inferior athletes. How convenient for me. Eventually, a strong and consistent dose of humility and empathy brought me toward the light. Even today, I wrestle with the demon of one-size-fits-all choreography. Unfortunately, I see very few people even recognizing this demon, let alone attempting to overcome it. 

Many coaches maintain that while cookie-cutter methods are not ideal, their particular version is the exception. Even if it is marginally superior to other one-size-fits-all protocols, it is still inherently less effective. As the saying goes, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig. 

This brings to mind Benjamin Franklin’s words to the delegates at the Constitutional Convention in 1787: “Living as long as I have, I’ve come to the conclusion that we must all, at times, doubt our own infallibility.” Coaches and trainers, in my opinion, should constantly question their own infallibility, objectively assess their results, and recognize the incredible uniqueness of individual athletes. By doing so, we can move closer to a more effective way of training. Unfortunately, many of us are more interested in being ‘right’ or being perceived as brilliant than in sincere self-reflection. 

Hyper-personalization is undoubtedly a more complex, nuanced, and arduous approach for the coach or trainer. However, the extraordinary benefits to the athlete’s development far outweigh the challenges of implementation. 

Drills and Tools as Stimuli 

Over 30+ years of training pitchers, I’ve come to understand what drills and tools truly represent: a specific stimulus to the athlete. The impact of this stimulus varies significantly depending on how the drills are performed and how the tools are utilized. 

Sometimes the stimulus is impactful and positive. Other times, it has no direct impact, wasting precious time, energy, and resources. Occasionally, the stimulus is impactful but negative. 

Here are three critical distinctions regarding drills and connection tools: 

1. Individual Responses to Stimulus: A drill or tool that creates a positive impact for one athlete may have no impact or even a negative influence on another. Coaching Point #1: Recognize this principle from the outset and adjust the stimulus for those athletes whose results are either nonexistent or detrimental as soon as possible. 

2. Transferability of Results: Even if a drill or tool creates a positive impact, transferring that favorable adaptation to game-time performance on the mound is another matter entirely. Coaching Point #2: This is why we at the Ranch highly value and utilize neuromuscular blending in our methodology. 

3. Finite Shelf Life of Impact: Even when a drill or tool produces positive results, its impact has a finite shelf life. At some point, the body adapts sufficiently so that the same stimulus has less and less influence. Without alteration, the stimulus will cease to be effective. Coaching Point #3: This is why the Ranch values and incorporates variety, experimentation, and differential learning into our methodology. 

How We Teach Timing at the Ranch 

Our drills and tools are designed to serve as change agents for the athlete. Because our drills follow backward chaining principles, are sequence-dependent, and elicit problem-solving and kinesthetic awareness at the neuromuscular level, they catalyze change. They reduce degrees of freedom and provide specific motor programming cues that help the body improve timing and organization. 

Sometimes our drills and tools resonate and are highly effective. Other times, they have little impact. Occasionally, they can even be corruptive. The key difference between TBR training and standard methods is that at the Ranch, the athlete is in charge of the learning environment. The tools and drills primarily provide kinesthetic feedback, allowing the athlete to determine which movements feel more synergistic, connected, fluid, or smooth. The goal is to foster self-expression and self-organization. 

In standard training, the goal is for the athlete to conform to a specific choreography deemed by the expert as the most safe, explosive, or effective. By contrast, we empower athletes to discover their unique path to optimal performance. 

Coach Ron 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 579 pitchers break the 90 mph barrier, 208 have toped 94mph or better, and 135 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 professional player) 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. 

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Fall/Winter Events at the Texas Baseball Ranch® 


Join our 3-Day “Elite Pitcher’s Boot Camps”, designed for pitchers aged 12 and above. There is one date remaining before the spring, February 15-17 (Presidents Day weekend) For additional details, visit: https://www.texasbaseballranch.com/elite-pitchers-bootcamp/ 

Interested in learning what sets our boot camps apart? Request our comprehensive information package “What Makes This Bootcamp Different?" by emailing Jill@TexasBaseballRanch.com 

Are you interested in attending the Texas Baseball Ranch “Summer Intensive Development Program?  Details will be released soon.  Please email info@TexasBaseballRanch.com to be placed on the “Priority Notification” list. 
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