Coaching Baseball: Useful Baseball Coaching Apps part 1

What are the most useful baseball coaching apps?

I use quite a few apps on my iPhone and iPad to help with my baseball practices, games and lessons. Some of the things you can do with the apps that I am going to talk about will blow you away. Many people do not even know they exist. These tools were in your pocket and you never knew it…until now.

Here is screenshot of my iPhone that has all of my useful baseball coaching apps in one folder. They all can be used on the iPad as well or they have special versions that are optimized for the larger iPad. Lets talk about a few that can be really helpful to you, the youth baseball coach, High School baseball coach or player.

Coach My Video

I use this app to video the pitching, hitting or fielding motion of players. You may have heard of “swing analysis” apps, well this is one of them.

Pros:

• Frame by frame: Take a 5 second video of the swing, play it back in slow motion, with very clear frame by frame, and use drawing tools to mark up the screen. You can give that visual feedback to your player in seconds. Also, when you slow down the video, you as the coach will pick up on things that the naked eye would never see.
• Zoom feature: There are quite a few video analysis apps out there on the app store that work just fine, but this one has a very simple zoom feature that zooms indefinitely. So you can actually be a spectator off the field, take video with your iPhone and zoom in to break down their swing, pitching motion, etc.
• Simple & not overly complicated: No instructions needed. Most users can figure out the app pretty easily.

Note, The better your iPhone camera is, the clearer the frame by frame is.

Cons:

• No video overlay or side by side for reference.

Price: $Free

My Coach: Baseball Instructor

I have to admit, I am partial to this App because this is the App that I created with some of baseball coaches (it’s advertised all over the CBI site!!! But what can I say…).

I created it to help the parent/coaches and players that I was giving lessons to better understand the fundamental positions throughout the swing, pitching motion, etc.

This is one of the only interactive baseball training apps on the app store. It uses an image overlay in real time to help you get into specific fundamental positions throughout the swing, pitching motion, fielding motion and catcher stances. It will also help analyze your swing, pitching motion, fielding and catcher fundamentals to see where your player needs help.

Pros:

• Teaches the fundamental positions of the baseball swing, pitching motion, catcher stances and technique and fielding technique.
• Image overlay to help pin-point areas of the motion that needs to change
• Left and right handed references
• Can upload any picture from your camera roll even major league baseball players
• Opacity slider to darken or lighten overlay depending on the light conditions (indoors or out)
• Simply use this app to learn the key fundamental positions in the swing and pitching motion. These should be referenced when teaching each motion.
• Drill Videos:On my recent update to the app, I added this button. It links to a categorized list of videos to help teach hitting, itching, fielding and catching. You can see my list of videos by clicking HERE.
• Baseball Tips: I also added a button on the home screen that links to this site, CBI, so that the user can always have quick reverence to baseball tips, drills and gear in their pocket.

Cons:

• It is only available for iPhone, iPod and iPad. I am hoping to get it on Android marketplace.

Price: FREE-$2.99 depending on sale dates.
If you are reading this on an iPhone, there should be a banner on top of this page that links to the download. Let me know what you think of the app as I am always looking to improve it.

Game Changer

I started using this app on my iPad last spring to keep score and track stats for our varsity baseball team. It is the easiest way to keep score and the best part is, when you connect with WiFi (when coming off the field unless you have a mobile hotspot) you game is automatically uploaded to the gamechanger site. Login and voila…stats!

Pros:

• Sooo easy to use. Huge time saver if you are responsible for managing stats (like many of us High School baseball coaches are).
• Parents, family and fans can register to follow your game online (great for parents that are working and want to know how little johnny is doing). If you have a mobile hot spot, live updates will be pushed out…pretty awesome!
• Can be used on your iPhone. Much easier on the iPad obviously because of the larger screen.
• Replay game feature and saves your games.
• Printable stats that are so specific you have never thought about them before. You can really drill down into the stats to use them as teachable moments, create team goals, etc.
• Pitch count for both teams and pitch type and location.
• Spray charts and so much more…

Cons:

• I really can’t think of any…other than not being able to slam your iPad on the ground after a player misses a sign because you no longer use clipboards. This is a joke of course, but you know who you are coaches!!

Price: $Free!!!

What Apps do you think are helpful to youth baseball coaches? Keep the conversation going by commenting below. Part 2 will be coming shortly.

Stay on plane…