Part 2: Baseball Development with Dace Kime

In this second episode with Dace, we transition into his college career and the beginning of his time in the pros. We also get to hear more about his thoughts on baseball progression that stem from his own experience. Some of his beliefs in this area do fly in the face of some conventional teachings. Let’s get into it.

Dace states that he is very thankful he ended up going to college. Although he acknowledges you have more leverage if you happen to get drafted right out of high school, opting to go to college can also have it’s advantages. First of all, in the pros baseball is your entire life and that can take some getting used to. He states in college, although baseball is a good chunk of your focus, it’s not everything. You are always reminded that you are a student athlete and other aspects of life are still important.

College can also help with the adjustment to the increased level of talent that you will face when playing at a higher level. In high school as a pitcher, Dace had an ERA of .66 (which is very good). He states in his first game at Louisville he gave up 10 runs before making an out. He feels that the college environment offered a better support system as a young athlete works through these new failures that are necessary in the overall growth of an athlete. It is likely the pros may have been much less forgiving and will simply ship an under performing athlete down or cut them all together. Working through failure is not an easy process, but great athletes embrace the learning and lessons that are gained through this failure.

We also discussed throwing velocity when it comes to baseball. Dace states that when he was in high school he could throw about 90-91 mph. He states he did not lift weights much in high school. It was a good amount of long toss and stretching and band work. When he got to college, their program had him lifting and eating more and he states he put on about 30 lbs in 4 months. His velocity increased to 92-95 mph through college. He states in college their wasn’t much focus put on velocity, it was more placement. However, once he got to the pros there was more of an emphasis on velocity. This progressed his velocity to 95-97 mph in the pros.

Dace’s advice to athletes at or near the high school level is to focus on velocity early. Just learn to throw really hard for a couple of different reasons. First, throwing hard as a pitcher has a larger margin of error as the batter will have to react. So even if every pitch isn’t perfect, the advantages will win in the long run. Second, having a high velocity will get you seen by scouts early on. When asked if throwing hard early will lead to increased injuries, Dace doesn’t think so. His advice is to not overthink mechanics, just be athletic, and throw hard. When you do this the body will have a way of naturally sequencing itself to these movements. He states some of his favorite therapy he did in the pros after his Tommy John surgery was when they had him at short stop just fielding ground balls and throwing to first base. They just told him to be athletic and throw the ball to first. Then they moved to the outfield with the same advice, and then finally back to pitching. When asked if he thinks there is too much focus on throwing mechanics, Dace thinks so.

Finally we discussed Dace’s thoughts on working with kids as a private coach. He did this for a while, but he ultimately stopped doing it. He states it was just hard to tell if it was worth the money for the parents. He was ultimately torn between feeling like just working with someone once or twice a week really wasn’t enough to produce significant change vs feeling like the kids should really just be working on a lot of his lessons at home. He felt that the kids and the parents just didn’t seem to be asking many questions during the sessions and working on certain things at home. Therefore, if you aren’t going to do the work at home, then he would probably need to see you a lot more than once a week, and even with that who knows if it’s worth the money because who knows what the future holds. He ultimately stopped doing private coaching. It was an interesting conversation.

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