Transcript
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Welcome to Baseball Coaches Unplugged with Coach Ken Carpenter, presented by Athlete One.
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Baseball Coaches Unplugged is a podcast for baseball coaches, with 27 years of high school baseball coaching under his belt, here to bring you the inside scoop on all things baseball, from game-winning strategies and pitching secrets to hitting drills and defensive drills.
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We're covering it all.
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Whether you're a high school coach, college coach or just a baseball enthusiast, we'll dive into the tactics and techniques that make the difference on and off the field.
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Discover how to build a winning mentality.
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Inspire your players and get them truly bought into your game philosophy Plus, get the latest insights on recruiting, coaching, leadership and crafting a team culture that champions productivity and success.
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On Baseball Coaches Unplugged.
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Hello and Happy New Year.
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I'm your host, coach Ken Carpenter, and this is Baseball Coaches Unplugged.
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It's a podcast that equips you, the listener, with strategies to elevate your coaching.
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You'll gain practical insights from some of the best coaches across the country that you can implement with your team.
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Today, joining me for my first episode of 2025 is Tim Lee, head baseball coach at Ingram High School in Seattle, washington.
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Before we get to the interview, I'd like to ask a quick favor.
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If you get an opportunity and you like today's show, share it with a friend.
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Tell them to check us out it helps us to grow the show and if you get a chance, hit that subscribe button and leave us a review.
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Hello and welcome to Baseball Coaches Unplugged.
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I'm your host Coach Ken Carpenter, and joining me today all the way from Seattle Washington, head Baseball Coach Tim Lee at Ingram High School Coach.
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Thanks for taking time to be on Baseball Coaches Unplugged.
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Hey, thank you, Ken, for having me.
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Well, it's Saturday, army-navy game's taking place and you decided to go into the school to do this recording and, just like about every baseball coach out there, once we get past the new year, it's, we're really starting to get close to baseball and there you are, you're jumping into uh inventory and uniforms yeah, no, uh.
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I I enjoy the holidays, obviously the break and being with family, but, um, I mean, I'm a true baseball junkie.
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I look forward to getting past the holidays to really get going for baseball season.
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So we've got some sweet new uniforms this year, so I'm just going to go inventory them and organize them out really quick.
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Well, you know, I've never been to the state of Washington.
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You know, and you always hear stories about Seattle.
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Is this as wet and rainy as people always say it is?
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Yeah, I guess it's your definition of wet and rainy.
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It's really gray, it can be kind of muggy and misty all the time, but we really don't get the torrential downpours like you would see in Florida or in the southeast per se, the torrential downpours like you would see in Florida or in the southeast per se, but I mean it is constantly, constantly moist.
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So our guys are used.
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I mean we hardly have any rain outs or rain delays.
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Now we play through the rain, we play through the sprinkles.
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It has to be really coming down hard on us where, like you know, we lose visibility or bats are really flying out of the hands of our kids.
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But other than that, we really, we really push through, because our high school season is so short here that we we really can't cancel on makeup games.
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We really have to play them all and just just just soldier them through.
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When does your season start and when does it, I guess, the state tournament begin?
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Yeah, so our season this year starts on March 3rd and then the state tournament usually is right around the Memorial Day weekend, either before or right after.
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So this year it will be right after.
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Well, here in Ohio we always get challenged with the weather.
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You know, I can recall years ago, you know you'd be playing a game and all of a sudden it would just start snowing.
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And you know now they pretty much set it at 40 degrees.
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It's kind of like a cutoff point.
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It seems like, do you guys, you know you say you kind of battle through the rain?
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Are you in a situation like a lot of schools are getting now, where you have a turf field, or are you the traditional field?
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No, the majority of the fields here are definitely turf now.
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So we're really lucky.
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At Ingram we have a full turf field, including the mounds.
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A lot of schools are still kind of no dirt mounds, turf infield, turf outfield.
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Some schools are just turf infield, grass outfield, so it's kind of a mix, but I would say the majority of the schools have some component of their field is turf.
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So now we we really battle through and we push on.
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We've definitely practiced and have tryouts in the snow before we had to.
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We got to get those practices in and we got to get games in.
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Well, you were recently featured in Inside Pitch Magazine and that's kind of where it drew my my interest.
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Well, you were recently featured in Inside Pitch magazine and that's kind of where it drew my interest and you were discussing how players can overcome anxiety.
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And you know, when I read the article, you know you talked with your team last season when you guys were struggling and you kind of turned things around.
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Take me back to that day and tell me kind of like what you talked about with your players, about self-doubt and you know the, the fear of failure.
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Yeah.
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So the the year prior to that, we had an amazingly strong team.
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We won 39 games, won the league playoffs, won a tournament, won a few tournaments, a lot of college baseball players, that senior class that graduated in 2023, returned a core group of the 2024s.
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Then obviously some new kids came onto the team, but it was still a very strong team and, you know, on paper you could even make the argument that it was just as strong or even stronger than the team before.
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So we were winning games, you know 10 plus runs, uh, for the most part, and then we would win a majority of close games, but we would still lose a lot of close one-run ball games, which was I couldn't really wrap my head around it because it was now.
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We're either really dominant or we were like kind of scared in a dog fight and dominant, or we were like kind of scared in a dog fight and, uh, after our sixth or seventh or eighth, like one run loss, I'm like I I just I had to like stop and say, hey, what is going on with you guys?
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Like, once you have faced a little adversity or you face some kind of challenge, you guys really just back off, because when we're up five, six, seven, like no one can stop us, all right and you know that feeling and everybody knows that feeling, that momentum carries and they just feel unstoppable and we're facing really strong teams all year long.
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It's not like we're facing lower-end teams when we're 10 running them and then we're facing the good teams and we're having a struggle.
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It's all good teams all summer.
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In fact we probably lost a few of the one-run games against weaker teams where we kind of just gave it away.
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So I had to really dissect it and I was like to me it was more of a lack of confidence for them when things weren't going their way, when maybe a key guy was not having a three-for-three day or the starting pitcher had a rough inning to start the game or something.
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They just couldn't seem to rebound from that and I couldn't understand why they couldn't rebound from a diversity, because they are really good, they were a really talented team and I'm like you guys are too good to not feel this confident right now.
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You should never feel unconfident with how you guys can play.
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So that kind of sparked the motivation to talk to them about.
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Hey, you know this fear, this anxiety.
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Everybody feels it.
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The best baseball players in the world feel it Now.
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Mike Trout, otani, they I'm sure they feel this feeling too.
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Right it's.
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And it's not so much about how do we get rid of this feeling for them.
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It's more about how do we just acknowledge it and move on Right Cause if this feeling affects Mike Trout and Otani, there's no way that we're going to be able to not feel this feeling.
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You know the best guys in the world are feeling it.
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So how do we recognize it and how do we move on from it?
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And when you, when you had that discussion, were the players open about talking about their struggles and be willing to talk to you or in front of the team, yeah, that game actually was a road game.
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We had to travel pretty far for it.
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It was like an hour drive for most of the guys, so we got there pretty early.
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We're sitting down right around the bullpen area and I just had them all sit around the bullpen.
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We just chatted for a good 10-15 minutes, uh, gave them the spiel about, no, pretty much what I said in the article about.
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Hey, these are some things we need to focus on today.
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Now we work, focus on our breathing, focus on a positive talk, focus on visualization, and let's focus on those three things and let let the game take care of itself.
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Um, but they were very open to it.
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They were very receptive to it.
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We do a lot of mental training in the program, um, so we, the guys, do regular yoga every week, um, and they.
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We also have a mental strength coach.
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She's a licensed therapist, so she's actually able to talk about mental health and why not?
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But she's she's part of our program where kids can go and talk to her about pretty much anything, but the intent of it is to help them on the mental strength side.
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Well, you're the first coach that I've come across that has that option for their players.
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And let me ask you this do you yourself ever sit down and talk with her?
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That's a good question.
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I have not talked to her personally.
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Uh, one of the one of the boundaries that I've seen where kids are hesitant to use any kind of mental resource or mental aid help is and it's common for professional college baseball players too.
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I got this idea from the, from the air force Academy actually.
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Um, one of the boundaries a lot of these players are afraid of what they say get back to the coach.
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So one of the ways for me to keep that separation is I tell the therapist I don't want to hear anything, right, if there's something really serious, go talk to the parents and the family about it and get them involved.
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But I really want to stay away from it.
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If the kids have something they want to say to me, they're more than welcome to.
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But I try to keep that degree of separation just so they feel like they have that privacy and they feel like they can say whatever they need to say without it getting back to the coach.
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But on the personal side, I have definitely spoken to therapists before and I have definitely done counseling before and I see the value and benefit of it before and I see the value and benefit of it.
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So definitely want, especially young men, to start understanding like, hey, it's okay to feel these things.
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And it's okay to talk about these things, yes, cause I I can recall one year, my athletic director, who happened to be also the head softball coach, and we played in a big tournament game at the end of the season and a game that you know, looking back on it, we probably should have won but we didn't.
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And when she did her end of the year evaluation with me, she's like she goes, you know, I watched you and because they normally would be playing at the same time, but since it was tournament, she was able to come to the game and she's like she almost said like you almost want it more than the players do.
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Do you ever kind?
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of get that feeling.
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As a coach, I've always said this, especially with kids trying to join the program you can't fake passion.
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That's absolutely one thing.
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I mean the most talented baseball players in the world, they can only play this game up to a point and once their passion runs out, their passion's done.
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And no, I can think of instances where, like college programs were begging for this kid to hey, can he commit, can he commit?
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I'm like I just don't know if he wants to keep playing after this year.
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He absolutely can and should be playing at the next level, but I just don't know if he wants to do it.
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So I mean it's painful as a coach because when you see it you're like God, you are so good and you can have so much success at the next level.
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But if you don't have the passion, you don't have the passion.
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There's nothing anybody can do externally.
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It's that kid's life, it's that kid's passion.
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Yes, well, you talked about some of your techniques.
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Can you give me an example of, like a breathing technique that you use with your players?
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That would be beneficial to anybody that might be listening.
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Yeah, a couple of them.
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So there's there's a lot of common methods out there, like the box breathing technique which the Navy SEALs use.
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You just think of like a box you breathe in and you hold it and then you exhale for the same amount to create a box.
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It also kind of makes them visualize just visualize a box of breathing.
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And then also when we do yoga work yoga's a ton of breathing exercises, of anything.
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It's controlling the breath with certain movements.
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And now when I tell guys who I need them let's say they're on the mound and I need them to relax before a foot strike I'd be like, hey, give me a few yoga breaths, right, anchoring them back to what they've they've intentionally done in practice for an hour at yoga and they know that scenario and they know that feeling, they know how to do it.
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I can anchor them back to that moment where you spent an hour just focused on breathing and I need you in this key moment, this key at bat, this key pitch, I need you to breathe especially, especially focused here.
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So I would say use hey, do some yoga rest for me right now before we execute, and that that usually helps a lot with my guys.
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Now you mentioned there were a couple other techniques that you work with with your guys.
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Yeah.
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So positive self-talk and visualization are huge for me, especially the positive self-talk.
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I think one of the one of the key things I talked about pregame that one day was the majority of the world and the majority of our mindset is negative and it's perfectly okay, that's what keeps us alive.
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It's like hey, don't go jump off a bridge, don't burn yourself, don't go run across traffic.
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Like negative thoughts are meant to keep us alive physiologically as humans.
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So it's very natural and innate for us to have negative thoughts, which is why, if you think about it, when you think about those really good teams where there's always that super positive Uber guy, you're like man, that kid's always positive, that kid's always cheerful, like yeah, that's because they're the exception.
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They're like very, very rare.
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Um, so having positive self-talk and uh, when your mind's majority, majority of the time negative, is so crucial for us in a game where we get constantly bombarded with negative thoughts and negative outcomes that we just have to spin it for us Like we have to think of a positive outcome.
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Or one of our techniques was hey, no, you, you boot a ground ball, but you've made a thousand of these plays before.
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Right, you can tell yourself I've made a thousand of these plays before I can make the next one.
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I can boot one.
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I'm allowed to boot one.
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I'll make the next thousand here because I know I've done it before.
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So that positive self-talk to me is so important, especially in today's world where it's so negative.
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Definitely.
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When you mentioned having that one player, I immediately went to the documentary about the Red Sox and Kevin Millar.
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He was that player, that kind of he was almost like the glue for the whole team because of his.
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They're special, they're absolutely special and one of the kid that is that uber positive kid this year for us as a senior and I had to just recently write him a letter for a senior year and I told him, like, you're the type of kid that coaches and managers build a team around, right To your point.
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You're that glue, because you're that valuable to the program, to the chemistry right, and they may not necessarily be.
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Uh, you know you're, you're starting shortstop or center fielder, pitcher, catcher, whatever you know they're.
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They're a guy that just getting them to stay that way is is the key, regardless of their role on the team.
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Would you agree with that?
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A hundred percent You're spot on.
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Those kids are so valuable.
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Well, do you like to talk to your team?
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You know a lot of coaches.
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You know you'll see them as soon as the game's over.
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They take them maybe down the left field line, talk to them a little bit and then go clean the field or go to the bus.
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Or are you one of the guys that?
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All right, hey, let's give this 24 hours and we'll talk about it tomorrow before practice, before the next game.
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I do a little bit of a different.
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There's some common, common similarities between the high school and the summer program, but then I do things a little bit differently with both.
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But from a general perspective, because, no, there's always logistics and timing like, hey, if it's late and it's a school night, we need to get home Right when we need to catch the bus.
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Summer You're a little bit more lenient because it's summertime.
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But overall, the one commonality that I have is we do definitely talk about, um, certain key aspects of the game.
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Right then, and there it's not very long, it might be like two, three key points that hey, just just to hammer home, um, but the rest of the time, for both programs, I actually have each kid give each other a shout out, because I truly believe in baseball where, even if you don't get into the box, square back to that positive teammate, everybody has a contribution to that day, win or lose.
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Every kid gives a kid a shout out for that day and it can be as simple as, hey, that kid picked me up, uh, or grabbed my gear when I was at second base, or he was my bullpen catcher.
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He was a really good catch play partner today for me and, and it might seem really trivial and small, but if you think about it's like hey guys, imagine if we didn't have a bullpen catcher today.
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Do you think any of our relievers would have the same amount of success if he didn't have a bullpen catcher today?
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Do you think any of our relievers would have the same amount of success if he didn't have a bullpen catcher, right?
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Or maybe that kid told him hey, I see this tell in this picture and that one tell was able to help this one at bat, to help us win the game.
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So it's really small factors.
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Or even as simple as hey, that kid courtesy ran and stole second base and he was the winning run.
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Like huge.
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Simple as like hey, that kid courtesy ran and stole second base and he was the winning run, like huge uh.
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But a lot, a lot of these small instances get overlooked sometimes and I wanted to make sure that every kid understands that they're all pulling the rope, they're all rowing the boat in the same direction, especially after it went like you all contributed in some way, um, even if you didn't get into the box score.
00:20:13.692 --> 00:20:20.451
Exactly and little details matter, no matter what it is, whether it's sports or anything in life, you know.
00:20:20.451 --> 00:20:32.346
But I wanted to change it up a little bit because you're not only a high school coach, you're the founder of the Shoreline Royals and it's you know.
00:20:32.346 --> 00:20:42.234
Summer travel baseball, and tell me a little bit how you came up with that idea and you know a little bit how that's, that's working out for you.
00:20:43.506 --> 00:20:43.786
Yeah.
00:20:43.786 --> 00:20:52.250
So the Royals started with a little 12U team that I coached and it was never intended to go on to what it is today.
00:20:52.250 --> 00:20:57.469
It was just me coaching a group of 12U kids that I knew you know, knew from my personal backyard and whatnot.
00:20:57.469 --> 00:21:00.226
These kids are in the community and I knew them growing up from Little League.
00:21:00.226 --> 00:21:04.474
I was 21, 22 years old at the time.
00:21:04.474 --> 00:21:07.971
I just coached this group of 12 U kids and they wanted to stick together.
00:21:07.971 --> 00:21:10.823
They stuck together all the way through 18 U.
00:21:10.863 --> 00:21:12.949
Unfortunately, that class was a COVID class.
00:21:12.949 --> 00:21:15.496
I didn't really get to see them senior year as much.
00:21:15.496 --> 00:21:19.684
Unfortunately, that class was a COVID class, so didn't really get to see them senior year as much.
00:21:19.684 --> 00:21:27.492
But you know, kids under them, they recruited their friends and they recruited their friends and we kept having these 18U teams ever since and they ended up just being really really good.
00:21:27.492 --> 00:21:35.217
Every class was really strong and really good and so really, our first 18U class was 2021.
00:21:35.217 --> 00:21:40.436
And since 2021, we've sent off 23 and counting college baseball players.
00:21:40.436 --> 00:21:47.578
So really just kind of out of the blue, like there was a little bit of a need in this Seattle market.
00:21:47.578 --> 00:21:51.576
I mean, there are a ton of select teams but they are super expensive.
00:21:51.576 --> 00:21:56.457
I mean you're giving up an arm and leg for the, for a traditional family, to play summer baseball.
00:21:57.346 --> 00:21:58.891
And that's where you're different, right.
00:22:00.375 --> 00:22:00.635
I'm sorry.
00:22:01.265 --> 00:22:08.576
And that's where you're different, right, because, yes, we're a complete nonprofit and we're half the cost of our competitors.
00:22:09.205 --> 00:22:13.005
So a typical kid that's paying five, six, $7,000 a summer.
00:22:13.005 --> 00:22:22.910
They're paying two to $3,000 with us and we're still winning the same amount of games, if not more.
00:22:22.910 --> 00:22:25.678
We're still sending the same amount, if not more, kids to on to college baseball.
00:22:25.698 --> 00:22:26.319
That that's great.
00:22:26.319 --> 00:22:31.531
And you know what, since you you're, you're on both ends of the spectrum.
00:22:31.531 --> 00:22:36.136
Your high school and the summer uh, select travel, whatever you want to call it.
00:22:36.136 --> 00:22:37.214
What is your high school and the summer select travel, whatever you want to call it?
00:22:37.214 --> 00:22:39.048
What is your take on that?
00:22:39.048 --> 00:22:43.157
The whole travel baseball industry, I guess?
00:22:44.486 --> 00:22:48.032
Yeah, it's a little bit different in the country, different parts of the country and whatnot.
00:22:48.032 --> 00:22:54.790
I would say the majority of the coaches in the Northwest they do both, so there's less conflict.
00:22:54.790 --> 00:23:00.298
If that's what you're trying to get at, because I know other parts of the country, there's some huge conflicts between the two.
00:23:02.045 --> 00:23:08.537
Yeah, so you're saying a lot of the high school coaches in that area also work in the summer too.
00:23:09.219 --> 00:23:13.817
Right, I would say a good chunk of them, at least 75% of them.
00:23:14.884 --> 00:23:15.326
Really Well.
00:23:15.326 --> 00:23:51.785
That's great to hear, because that kind of you hear stories you know back here in the East and the Midwest where you know maybe a player's working with a summer super elite, premier, whatever you want to call it and you know the player tends to kind of want to do what they're doing, but in the spring they're playing for their high school coach and the high school coach may have a little different approach to how they coach the game or maybe how they handle the pitcher.
00:23:51.785 --> 00:23:58.211
But is that an area where you have players that are are playing?
00:23:58.211 --> 00:24:09.557
Do you think that players need to find a way to get that common ground with both the coaches?
00:24:11.679 --> 00:24:15.685
Yeah, I think I to make it win, win it should be that way.
00:24:15.685 --> 00:24:18.269
Like I can reach out to a high school coach right now who plays for the Royals.
00:24:18.269 --> 00:24:19.391
Yeah, I think to make it win-win it should be that way.
00:24:19.391 --> 00:24:21.073
Like I can reach out to a high school coach right now who plays for the Royals.
00:24:21.073 --> 00:24:22.914
I'd be like where do you see this kid in your lineup?
00:24:22.914 --> 00:24:24.737
Does he need more reps at first base?
00:24:24.737 --> 00:24:26.178
Does he need more reps in the outfield?
00:24:26.178 --> 00:24:27.921
Where can he best serve you?
00:24:27.921 --> 00:24:37.338
So I feel like that is the role, that should be the role, of the summer coaches, where they connect with the high school program and say where is this kid going to fit in your varsity lineup?
00:24:37.338 --> 00:24:41.893
Because that's where I will work with him the most and that's where I'll give him the most reps in the summer.
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