A Youth Baseball Player Development System Built by Parent-Coaches

Coaching Youth Baseball Without High-Level Playing Experience

When love for the game meets the realities of coaching kids

We love baseball and know the lessons the game can teach, but we didn't play past high school. When we began coaching, we quickly realized how many questions we couldn’t confidently answer. We created Baseball Badge to increase confidence in what we teach, and to win the trust of our players and their parents.

Doom Scrolling for Youth Baseball Drills

Getting overwhelmed by conflicting advice

Like most youth baseball coaches, we turned to social media and the internet for baseball drills and practice plans. Instead of clarity, we found contradictory advice that was rarely age-appropriate, and disconnected from long-term development. The more we searched, the more confusing coaching became. This frustration shaped Baseball Badge’s commitment to proviging age- and ability-appropriate progressions coaches can trust.

Most Youth Baseball Coaches Are Volunteers and That's a Strength

The heart of youth baseball is strong

Every season, thousands of well-meaning volunteer coaches and dedicated parents pour their souls into youth baseball. The passion is there. The commitment is there. But without a unified plan, that energy becomes scattered. Good intentions get lost in disorganized practices, inconsistent messaging, and a frustrating lack of clear progress. Baseball Badge exists to provide clarity, structure, and a clear development framework to the people who are the heart of youth sports.

Inspiring Self-Motivation in Youth Athletes

Traditional baseball awards do not facilitate long-term engagement

Over the years, we have used traditional baseball awards, like game balls and trophies. We have also tested countless other ways to motivate players, like baseball cards for being focused, or hitting candy for putting the ball in play. Kids enjoy these rewards, but they don't inspire lasting intrinsic motivation. Everything changed when we started rewarding effort and the process of improvement.

Influenced by Martial Arts

Youth martial arts reveals what youth baseball is missing

Watching youth jiu-jitsu classes brought the concept of Baseball Badge into focus. There, kids earn stripes on their belts for putting in the time, and each stripe reinforces progress even when the next belt is far away. Baseball lacks this type of visible, ongoing recognition. There has never been a progressive color-based ranking system in baseball, until now.

The Creation of Baseball Badge™

A youth baseball development system that rewards the process

Baseball Badge was created to recognize invisible progress. Youth baseball usually rewards stats, while failing to recognize the process of learning. Progress with other skills that make great baseball players, like decision-making, emotional control, and teamwork often go unrecognized. This can leave kids discouraged despite making real improvement. Baseball Badge solves this by offering a tiered, color-based progression with defined competency goals at each level. Similar to a black belt in martial arts, the Black Baseball Badge represents the highest rank in youth baseball development.

Investing Thousands of Dollars

An unnecessary financial burden for youth baseball development

As our kids grow older, the game has became more complex. Our greatest fear isn't losing games. It is holding back our players because we don't have the knowledge or coaching ability. Like so many other parents, we are guilty for investing heavily in private lessons, clinics, and online courses to help our kids stay ahead and sharpen our coaching ability. Baseball Badge helps reduce that fear by providing cost-effective guidance youth coaches can trust.

Travel Baseball Versus Rec Ball

Greater competition but not necessarily better coaching

Families often seek better competition by moving players into older divisions or travel baseball. Confession: we moved to travel ball too. The competition was stronger, but we quickly realized that travel baseball has a lot of other coaches just like us, who could benefit from guidance. Baseball Badge promotes good coaching and quality development principles that transcend recreational leagues and travel ball environments.

One system that transcends leagues and competitive levels

Our vision is for the Baseball Badge to be universally recognized across recreation and travel baseball boundaries as a valuable long-term baseball development system. The goal is to create a widely recognized icon for coaches, parents, and players that symbolizes process over outcome. When coaches and players see their peers wearing the Baseball Badge, they will know what it stands for, that those players have received a complete baseball development experience.

For Recreational League and Travel Baseball Coaches

For Youth Baseball Parents

Aligning parents and coaches in supporting their players

Baseball Badge helps parents support development at home while staying aligned with coaches. For a fraction of the cost of a private lesson, parents and coaches can help their players pursue achievable goals for weeks and months to come. Baseball Badge has helped us align the entire player support system, and we believe it will do the same for you too.

For Kids Who Love Baseball

Keeping baseball fun while rewarding effort

Most importantly, Baseball Badge is for kids. Having fun is the the #1 reason kids play sports. Baseball Badge was designed with the child's experience in mind, rewarding progress to help kids enjoy baseball as they transform into talented ballplayers. Kids can also visit The Dugout (coming soon) to learn about baseball from Battleship and Gunslinger, our mascots inspired by real-life players.

Winning the Right Way

Baseball Badge is for coaches, families, and players who want to win the right way, and not at all cost. Players with skill, mindset, and physicality are tough to beat. Respecting the process by continuing to prepare and improve are the foundation of success.

Success through effort, preparation, and character

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