Bucketing players to improve Development: You Already Do it.
Whether you are aware or not.
Whether you know it or not, you already do this.
If you have ever generalized a player, made a statement about their capabilities or have chalked their current style of play into a certain category, you have already bucketed your player.
“He can’t throw enough strikes, i'll never pitch him in leverage”
“He throws too slow, we cant have him facing top tier talent”
“I have never seen him get a hit off of a lefty”
“Jim cannot play the infield, it is literally not safe”
If you have ever coached, no matter what the level, you have said or thought some of these things.
If you coach 8-10 year olds, you have your “dependable pitchers” your “usable pitchers” and you have “kids who cannot be within 100 feet of the mound”
Right or wrong, you do it.
It’s pretty much wrong, you shouldn't cut off players' chances at youth level because they aren't good. Especially at the recreational level.
But you've thought about it, which is normal. You want to win of course.
So if bucketing already happens subconsciously, how can we actually harness it?
On a deeper/more serious note:
Bucketing is a common technique used by people in many industries to sort their employees/resources into distinct groups or "buckets" based on the specific strengths and needs of each.
For pitchers specifically:
By categorizing their pitchers in this way, coaches can more effectively deploy their resources and optimize individual pitcher usage over the course of a season.
The primary goal of bucketing is to ensure that each pitcher on the staff is being utilized in the situations and roles that best suit their skill set. This allows the team to maximize the potential of the entire pitching corps rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all approach.
The example below is incredibly basic, and almost all of you can understand why this happens and why it would be done by teams, intentionally or not.
Here are some ways to “Bucket” pitchers:
Pitcher Attributes: The first step is to thoroughly evaluate each pitcher on the staff and identify their core attributes, such as:
Velocity - How hard does the pitcher throw their fastball, breaking balls, etc.?
Movement - What kind of movement does the pitcher get on their pitches (sink, cut, curve, etc.)?
Control - How well does the pitcher command the strike zone and limit walks?
Stamina - Can the pitcher effectively work multiple innings or is he better suited for short outings?
Handedness - Is the pitcher a lefty or righty, and how does that impact matchups?
Determine Pitcher Roles With a clear understanding of each pitcher's attributes, the coaching staff can then start to determine the optimal role for that individual within the pitching staff. Common pitcher roles include:
Frontline Starter
Mid-Rotation Starter
Long Reliever
Setup Man
Closer
Situational/Specialist
Create Pitcher Buckets The final step is to group the pitchers into "buckets" based on their identified roles. A typical pitching staff might be divided into the following buckets:
Power Pitchers
Control Artists
Lefty Specialists
Swing Men
Closers & High-Leverage Arms
By bucketing the pitchers in this way, the coaching staff can more easily identify the best usage patterns for each arm. For example, the Power Pitcher bucket may be deployed primarily in high-leverage situations that call for strikeouts, while the Control Artists are used to induce weak contact and efficient innings. (easy money)
In-game, the bucketing framework allows the manager to quickly assess which pitchers in the bullpen best match up against the current situation. Rather than randomly cycling through available arms, the manager can confidently turn to the appropriate bucket based on the game state, score, batter handedness, etc.
But what if we bucketed for player development?
What if we took the principles of roster management and competition and translated them into in season or offseason developmental plans to create the best solutions for your players?
I don’t think anyone would send a 100mph arm who can't throw in high leverage because he has an issue throwing the ball over the plate home for the offseason with the same developmental plan as the undersized pitcher who succeeds by throwing 5 pitches with good command with a 88-90 mph fastball.
So what should you do?
Baseball has been played for a while, so most types of pitchers have been seen before.
The “crafty lefty”
The “wild hard thrower”
The “dude whos better than everyone but gets hurt”
The “command guy”
The “Dude who cant handle the competition”
The “good stuff but gets hit guy”
Spend enough time and you'll see them, likely you'll have multiple of these on the same team.
So…
Why not put the dudes who have the same issues together?
Maybe have them do different things than the other groups.
Maybe after the 20-30 minutes of team defense, you put them in 2-4 different groups and have them do a weekly schedule that is fully tailored to their needs and help them contribute to the team's success.
Athletes do this subconsciously: “hey man, i've been walking the house lately. Do you want to meet up on our off day and throw some live At Bats to get some work in?”
So how would you set it up? In the offseason, this is incredibly easy.
People who Need Velocity:
Monday/Friday: Max Effort Velocity test. Followed by a heavy upper body lift.
Tuesday/Saturday: Recovery throwing, followed by a heavy lower body lift.
Wednesday: Medium throwing (lighter effort but higher volume)
Sunday: Off. Don’t skip your off days.
Easy.
But when you mix in a full schedule and need to have pitchers active, you have to be way more careful.
Players who redshirt can pretty much do whatever they want from a scheduling standpoint, but that's only a few players a year.
Say you have games Friday to Sunday, Monday off and then a midweek on wednesday.
So you've got Tuesday and Thursday to work on stuff.
Now it's harder.
“Why dont coaches maximize more of their practice time? They need to have more viable pitching come the playoffs.”
It's not that simple.
Here are some key points to take into consideration, these points change depending on how you run your team.
The players who don't pitch very much, have the highest chance to pitch in the midweek games that happen on wednesdays.
The players who do pitch a lot but don’t throw hard don't really have enough throwing economy leftover to do true “testing days” to try and maximize velocity.
4 games a week is 36 total innings. So you still need to save enough arms to finish those.
The golden rule to remember “We have a game… and some has to pitch”
Don't forget that.
Another reason coaches might be averse to really maximizing the training and resources available from a player development standpoint is because it increases risk.
Injury risk
Performance risk
All of these things can take an acute turn in the wrong direction following a high effort training day.
So… what can we actually do?
Well, this is the more complex side of it.
Pitchers who want to develop velocity while also have a lot of constraints in regards to in season usage?
It will probably be less about high effort throwing to develop increased output, and probably more so about increasing movement capabilities and ironing out movement patterns that are restrictive.
Focusing on mobility work, weaving a movement quality focused strength program into a throwing program designed to improve throwing via a constraints based approach is most likely the best method to improving pitchers in season.
Having 1-2 days of moderate effort throwing of plyo balls or weighted baseball drills in order to improve movement patterns can be a good place to start for improving players capabilities.
Pitchers who struggle with command?
This one is easier for a few reasons:
1- They likely aren't pitching as much, so the risk of running out of training economy or overthrowing them isn't as high.
2- The methods of improvement are much easier to weave into a practice plan, and they likely help players elsewhere on the team as well.
3- If a player struggles to throw strikes, you can almost guarantee they won't throw on friday night, as it is the opening day of a series that is usually a conference opponent and is important.
Given these things, Thursday is the perfect day to throw live at bats with these pitchers. Their best chance to throw is wednesday or sunday, so if they pitch on wednesday you can simply not have them throw live at bats.
Also, if they fail to pitch Sunday, you can have them throw an unceremonious “touch and feel” after the weekend as many programs do, and then they will be ready for higher effort work on Tuesday if you feel like their chances of pitching on Wednesday are low as well.
Most teams have 1-3 players who really dont have much chance of throwing, and moving these schedules around to get them to continue progressing can be the difference in a few wins/losses at the end of the year.
These are just a few examples, but you can see how engineering ways for your team to improve can be easier than having to completely individualize everything for every player.
You just have to be willing to take a little risk, as do the players.
The biggest risk is your season or career ending because you played it safe trying to save your bullets.
Good Luck
John