The Baseball Badge Story
Baseball Badge was created to support parents and coaches, reward the process of development, and help young players grow into confident, resilient athletes and people, on and off the field
12/26/20258 min read
When we started coaching, we continually ran into new situations we didn't know how to teach. Like nearly every other parent-coach, we found ourselves scrolling social media and browsing the internet for answers to what felt like simple questions:
Hitting and fielding fundamentals: What are the proper hitting, fielding, and throwing fundamentals being taught for today's game?
Age-appropriate coaching: What should be taught for each age group?
Middle infielder positioning: How should a second baseman position themselves to receive throws from different outfielders and apply a tag?
Instead of clarity, we found confusion. Advice was often contradictory, rarely age-appropriate, and disconnected from long-term development.
The Quest for Better Baseball Coaches (and Competition)
As our kids grew older, the game became more complex, and we did everything stay ahead so we could continue helping them improve. Recognizing our own gaps in knowledge, we invested heavily into private lessons and online courses. Our worst fear wasn’t losing games. It was that our lack of knowledge or coaching experience might hold back the development of our own children and the players we were entrusted to coach.
That fear is common.
We understand that parents will do whatever they think is best for their kids. When parents recognize limitations in local coaches and talent, they often seek better perceived opportunities. The logic is simple, "My player will advance faster if they face better talent."
We’ve witnessed talented players move into older recreational divisions to access greater competition. The reality is that the competition is only greater because the kids are older and bigger. The problem with this approach is that many older kids still lack the fundamentals, and that is due to limitations in coaching. We’ve also seen entire age groups leave their local rec leagues for travel baseball, hoping that increased talent and competition would stretch development. We can also admit that we have participated in travel ball for similar reasons.
The Coaching Gap in Youth Baseball
Playing travel baseball doesn’t guarantee better coaching, especially in the younger age groups. Many travel baseball clubs tout paid coaches with college or professional playing backgrounds. Based on our experience interacting with numerous travel clubs, these claims don't seem to apply to the younger age groups (6-12U). Furthermore, while high-level playing experience brings greater knowledge to the field, it does not automatically equate to greater coaching expertise. Without proper coach education and the ability to teach children, even former elite players can struggle translating their knowledge to helping young athletes improve.
As our coaching expertise grew and we immersed further into travel baseball, we frequently observed that even the most talented players we faced struggled to execute the fundamentals. It also became clear that the best coaches we faced were not always former college or professional players. These observations told us something was still missing.
Some families are fortunate enough to encounter a coach who combines high-level playing experience, years of youth coaching experience, formal coaching education, and the ability to teach kids effectively. Unfortunately, finding a coach like that is the exception, not the rule. The reality is that most people coaching youth baseball players are volunteer parent-coaches with amateur coaching and playing experience. And that’s okay. With proper guidance and a structured system, amateur coaches can still give kids exactly what they need. Plenty of athletes from programs led by volunteer coaches have gone on to successful varsity high school, college, and even professional careers.
Rewarding Process Over Outcome in Baseball
We believe kids can grow into complete ballplayers while still enjoying the game and continuing to play alongside their neighborhood and school friends. Beyond teaching baseball skills, creating a fulfilling childhood experience may be the most impactful thing youth coaches can offer.
To help contribute to that experience, we have tested countless ways to motivate and reward our players, such as "hitting candy" for putting the ball in play, gold spray-painted baseballs for the “Golden Glove Player of the Game,” and silver ones for the “Silver Slugger of The Game.”
The kids always enjoy those one-off awards, but they are all based on outcomes, and none of them inspire lasting motivation.
We started to think about rewards differently after observing youth jiu-jitsu classes. Regardless of belt color, the instructor awards a stripe on a child's belt whenever they complete another ten training sessions. Kids light up when they earn a stripe. The next belt color might be far away, but the allure of earning another stripe kept them motivated, engaged, and excited to return.
Youth baseball, by contrast, doesn't work that way. For instance, there can only be one shortstop on a team. That position often goes to the best defensive player on the team. The top of batting order is reserved for the best hitters. How disheartening is that for the rest of kids who enjoy playing but don’t get to play the premium positions or bat as often as other players on the team?
Research suggests that enjoyment and intrinsic motivation are critical for youth athletes to stay engaged with their sport. The problem with this fact is that baseball rewards outcomes (usually offensive stats). The game rarely rewards the process required to produce those outcomes. Other things like base running, defense, effort, decision-making, mental skills, and character often go unnoticed. Progress in those areas can be invisible.
We got to thinking...What if the invisible became more important? What if we could reward the process and effort, and not just outcomes in youth baseball?
Those questions led us to the creation of Baseball Badge.
A Youth Baseball Development System Inspired by Martial Arts
Baseball Badge provides a tiered, color-based progression system with clear competency goals at each level. Players wear a colored badge on their helmet representing their rank, and they earn marks on their badges as they accomplish the goals for the specific rank. When they have achieved every goal for a color, they graduate to the next color and are awarded a new badge to wear. Just as a black belt is universally recognized as the highest rank in martial arts, the Black Baseball Badge represents the highest rank in youth baseball development.
Our vision is for Baseball Badge to become a universal symbol that transcends recreational and travel baseball boundaries. When coaches, parents, and players see someone wearing the Baseball Badge, they will know that the player has committed to a well-rounded, long-term baseball development experience.
Supporting a Multi-Sport Childhood
The journey doesn’t end at the Black Baseball Badge. Just as martial artists can earn degrees beyond the black belt, players who achieve the Black Baseball Badge can add distinctions by specializing in different aspects of the game. This timing aligns naturally with when athletes begin to specialize. Baseball Badge supports a multi-sport childhood, and once a color is earned, it is earned for life. After taking time away from the game (e.g., to play other sports), a player may need to refresh certain competencies, but they never start over.
This approach reduces pressure for early sport specialization and helps prevent burnout and early dropout from sport.
Once a player achieves the Black Baseball Badge, typically around ages 12–14, they can choose to specialize further at their own pace. Baseball will always teach us something new, about the game and about ourselves. There is always more to learn, and Baseball Badge facilitates that growth until players reach higher levels of play where truly elite coaching becomes available.
Building All-Around Baseball Players
College coaches and professional scouts seek all-around players who are fierce competitors with resilience and character. They evaluate prospects not only by their baseball skills, but also by their versatility, work ethic, character and how they respond to adversity. The Baseball Badge system intentionally develops these qualities as part of its core philosophy. For each badge color, players must achieve goals in five key areas of development:
Mental Skill Development: The key mental toughness attributes and coping skills that support mental health and performance.
Physical Development: The key physical fitness attributes to stay healthy and resilient to the demands of playing baseball.
Technical Skill Development: The foundation of fundamental baseball skills that support advanced development over time.
Tactical Development: The baseball IQ needed to make accurate split-second decisions and execute the proper technical skills at the right time.
Character Development: A foundation of core behavioral and personality traits that facilitate strong performance and leadership on and off the field.
Our vision is that one day, coaches and scouts will recognize the Baseball Badge as a trusted symbol of preparation. Wearing the badge itself becomes a differentiator, because high-level coaches will trust what it represents.
Empowering Youth Baseball Coaches and Families
Baseball Badge is for the passionate parent-coach, people just like us who want to share the game with their children and ensure a positive, structured experience for everyone involved. It’s for parents who want to trust the team environment and be aligned with the coach’s approach at home. It’s for families who value a growth mindset and believe in the process of becoming great players on the field and even better people off it.
Putting Kids First
Most importantly, Baseball Badge is for kids, because if it wasn't for the kids, there would be no reason for it to exist
No matter how talented they may become, they are still kids and they want to have fun. Baseball Badge ensures development is both fun and rewarding. Young players love earning marks and new badges. Every player we have coached on a team has received a nickname. In fact, the Baseball Badge mascots, Battleship and Gunslinger, are based on real kids who are still working their way through the Baseball Badge system. They can be found in The Dugout (coming soon), a space we have created just for kids to learn more about baseball in a fun way. Any player who earns the Black Baseball Badge distinction will be enshrined as a a mascot in The Dugout.
Baseball Badge was made for kids who:
Love the game and enjoy playing with their childhood friends
Want to be rewarded for effort and improvement, not just stats
Need reassurance that they’re improving, no matter what role they play on their team
Want to have fun while learning America’s pastime, celebrating success one mark and badge at a time
Winning the Right Way
Baseball Badge is for coaches and families 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 through preparation, confidence, and character development.
A Youth Baseball Player Development System Inspired by Parent-Coaches
Baseball Badge was inspired by passionate parents who volunteered to coach their children and teach them this beautiful game.
Like many youth coaches, we grew up playing baseball. We love the game, understood its basics, and believe deeply in what it can teach kids. We don't have high-level playing experience, and once we became baseball coaches, we quickly realized how many questions we couldn’t confidently answer.
A Living Youth Baseball Coaching System
The truth is, we still coach today.
Baseball Badge continues to guide us as coaches and the families we serve. We now feel compelled to share it with others. In the spirit of continual growth and evolution, we fully expect Baseball Badge to evolve over time. But we will always stay true to our mission: to support parents and coaches, reward the process of development, and help young players grow into confident, resilient athletes and people, on and off the field.
We still coach today, and Baseball Badge continues to guide what we do. It is backed by science, but this is not a theoretical program. We continue to use it, test it, and improve it. Regardless of how Baseball Badge will evolve over time, our mission remains unchanged: To support coaches and parents in their effort to to help kids grow into confident, resilient athletes and people.