As you put closure on the “season that never happened,” there is one invaluable tool that can set the foundation for your program’s future success. I’m talking about “Exit Meetings.” I know many of you dread them, but if handled well, I would argue what you discuss and learn in these meetings might have a greater impact on your program than any other interaction you will have with your players. For college coaches, exit meetings this season will obviously be a bit different, as some of you will say goodbyes to seniors as you prepare to welcome in a new crop of talent, while others will return expected graduating classes that will force you and the players who thought next year was their chance to get on the field into a numbers game. While exit meetings are a long way away at the professional level, this is a perfect time to reflect on how you might make them more productive moving forward.
Given that these meetings often influence the fate of each player, it’s no wonder they can be quite stressful, which is why I believe objective information, honesty, and a well-designed plan are essential prerequisites to lay the groundwork for a productive exit meeting. For every returning player, whether you realize it or not, the manner in which you conduct your exit meetings will have a profound effect on your program. Exit meetings will either boost or erode your credibility with your players. Additionally, they will enable you to provide a roadmap for each of your players to get better, or you will have squandered that opportunity.
Perhaps the simplest part of exit meetings is to communicate to all of your players that everyone will have an exit meeting, and then define your meeting schedule. To avoid having players try to read too much into them, I suggest you schedule them by class, starting with the seniors. I find it particularly helpful to give each player a brief questionnaire to fill out prior to their meeting so you know in advance how much congruency there will be between your and your player’s view of his performance, abilities, strengths, weaknesses, specific things he needs to improve on, and where he currently stands in your future plans.
As to content, while a player may not agree with your assessment, I would argue that if a player is surprised by the views you express about his abilities in the exit meeting, the coaching staff has failed the player by not being open and honest throughout the season. While meetings with some players will be more stressful than others, they should not vary in levels of importance. Given that you have roughly 35 exit meetings at the college level to get through, you may be tempted to rush through the meeting say with your returning all-league shortstop, knowing how tough your next meeting will be with the 13th pitcher on your roster who thinks he should be a Saturday starter, but each one of those players made a commitment when he came to your program, and you, likewise, made a commitment to them. Each one deserves that you give him your honest assessment of his performance and what he needs to do to become the best player possible.
To the extent possible, objective information is key. It is easy as a coach to throw around who you like or how something looks, but whenever possible, if your goal is to not lose the player’s confidence in you, I encourage you to seek out specific information that supports your views. Stats are obviously a great place to start, but they do not always paint the whole picture, as some exceedingly important aspects of performance go beyond the stat sheet. These data points include metrics such as hard hit ball percentage and average exit velocities from both the pitching and hitting side. This may force some creativity in stat keeping or data tracking, but as Tucker Frawley of the Twins (twitter: @infchatter) alluded to in a recent webinar, if a player asks why he isn’t on the field, it is the duty of a coach to provide a legitimate reason why. We are in a day and age where claims without statistical support hold little to no merit, and truthfully, I am a big fan of it.
In order to provide the proper data to offer objective information for players, you may have to get creative. Moving forward, if you are hard-pressed for time or fresh out of ideas, there are plenty of great sources around the twitter-verse with tracking programs. In order to track infield play, I suggest looking into these charts from Clay Cox of Paris JC and Infield U (twitter: @coachcox19 and @infield_u). For outfield play, check out the poor man’s Statcast and accompanying video tutorial created by Dylan Mazzo (twitter: @dylan_mazzo) of the Angels, created when he coached with the University of Charleston. The beauty of these charts is that they can be kept during practice or pre-game batting practice.
As an aside, in a previous post, I discussed how creating a practice environment that best mimics the game is necessary to adequately prepare and statistically justify who belongs on the field. Practice drills and repetitions should directly correlate to on field performance. Other offensive and pitching charts can be helpful as well in performance assessment including Quality At Bat (QAB) tracking, hard hit ball data, and swing and miss percentages. Data extracted from any of these tools can help paint a picture of overall performance beyond the stat sheet. While I agree with the adage that numbers never lie, the phrase deserves a qualifier. Numbers may not lie, but they don’t always tell the whole story, which is why extending data tracking beyond the surface level is key to providing the honesty needed in an exit meeting.
When it comes to exit meetings, performance assessment is only half the battle. Although objective measurement may provide a grander honesty and a true look into a player’s performance, it likely offers little guidance as to how a player should tackle improving on his weaknesses. From my perspective, an exit meeting without a development plan is pointless.
Honesty, paired with the data provided from practices and games, must provide the basis for a developmental plan. Based on the data collected, the development plan should be directly derived from the measurements that matter most. For example, consider our imaginary freshman third baseman, Johnny B. Better (distant relative of Johnny B. Good, you know, deep down in Louisiana, close to New Orleans, that Johnny B. Good). Let’s say Johnny B. Better has a .921 fielding percentage (including all recorded practice ground balls), but fields the forehand drop step and the lateral forehand at an .750 clip, while fielding all other lanes above .945. Additionally, Johnny hit .222 in his 81 at bats, but he hit .307 in games he started. Another interesting breakdown to keep in mind is that he hit 2/26 on breaking balls as an action pitch (either put in play or strike three). Also, slow motion video of Johnny’s swing shows he often has a downward sloping swing plane—this is where having Blast Motion bat sensors would be hugely beneficial. Johnny also ran a 6.81 60 and threw 89 across the diamond at his team’s pro day, and both seem to translate well to his on-field play.
This is where honesty and objective data must work into a development plan. Johnny’s coaches could seemingly go a few directions. Sadly, in their rush to get through with their exit meeting, many coaches would simply look at his average and his fielding percentage, and tell Johnny that he needs to get better if he wants to start next year. Otherwise, he can expect to fill the same role as a pinch runner and backup/spot starter next season and leave it at that. Johnny would then be stuck spending his entire his off-season working his tail off but with no knowledge of what specifically to work on, likely pointing his focus toward bat speed, throwing velocity, and running speed like everyone else.
In a better situation, Johnny’s coaches would suggest that he focus mostly on forehands when working on his defense, especially hard-hit balls requiring him to open up to his glove side. At the plate they would encourage him to simulate pinch hitting in practice only taking a few swings at a time and sitting back down or going into another aspect of practice before simulating another at bat. Additionally, they would suggest he see as many breaking balls as possible and work on his swing plane through a specific laundry list of drills. They would tell Johnny his speed and arm strength are good enough right now to get him on the field and keep him there.
Even better yet, Johnny’s coaches would provide him with an individualized, complete plan including drills, order of importance for improvements to make, sets and reps per training session, and training sessions per week.
As stated previously, it is the coaching staff’s duty to provide the information as to why a given player does or does not belong on the field. That information should be conveyed to each player, so he knows precisely what areas of his game he must focus on. Without this information, there is no point in even having player exit meetings.
For those interested in how professional organizations approach exit meetings, it is a mixed bag. In my facility back in New Orleans, I trained two professional pitchers who finished extremely successful rookie campaigns, in which both received mid-year promotions this past season. In Pitcher 1’s exit meeting, which lasted all of 2 minutes, he received a packet with his average velocities of each of his pitches from each outing, and was told to work hard in the off-season and come back better next season. In contrast, Pitcher 2 was given both a hard copy and computer file consisting of over 100 pages of information including heat maps of every single one of his outings, the success rate of his pitches, all Trackman stadium data, how his metrics compared to others around his league and in higher levels, and his highest ranking off-season needs.
Like many other top level training facilities, we create a performance plan for everyone we train based on our own proprietary assessment, but not every player has this same opportunity. When I looked at the situation as a third party, I couldn’t help but feel badly for Pitcher 1. In a sport where player development is key, Pitcher 1’s organization is doing nothing to help their pitchers improve. It’s no surprise this organization is a perennial bottom feeder, and it is no wonder as to why pitcher 2’s farm system and player development ranks among the best in baseball.
Exit meetings are the culminating conversation to sum up a season. View every exit meeting as a chance for you to help each player get better. Be honest. To diffuse the stress of difficult meetings, rely upon objective data where possible to remove contentiousness surrounding playing time and to prevent the meetings from turning into little more than an airing of grievances. Spend as much time as you deem necessary on past performance, but make sure each player leaves knowing precisely what you believe he needs to do to improve, and provide him with a specific plan on how to do so.
Feel free to reach out if you want to discuss.
Adam Moreau, MBA, CSCS
Director of Player Development and Recruiting Coordinator
Eckerd College
419-250-7243
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