BASEBALL COACHES UNPLUGGED
Baseball Coaches Unplugged is a podcast for insights on high school baseball coaching, travel baseball development, and college recruiting from coaches building winning programs. Each episode features real conversations about high school baseball coaching, travel baseball development, college recruiting, player development, practice planning, pitching and hitting development, and building a winning baseball culture. If you’re a baseball coach looking for practical ideas on running better practices, developing players, navigating the recruiting process, and leading a successful program, this podcast delivers insights from experienced coaches across high school, travel, and college baseball. Hosted by 27 year veteran high school baseball coach Ken Carpenter. New episodes drop every Wednesday!
Episodes
Kevin Graeber on Masters Academy International, year-round development, and a practical system for base stealing
Coach Ken Carpenter talks with Kevin Graeber, the coach behind Masters Academy International in Massachusetts, about building an athletics-centered school, developing runners without overloading them, and teaching base stealing with repeatable mechanics. Kevin breaks down his approach to leads, returns, ri...
Win a state championship as a player, win a gold medal with Team USA, then come home and win another state title as the head baseball coach. That is the arc Coach Kristen Caldwell brings to Baseball Coaches Unplugged, and it is packed with practical lessons for anyone building a high school baseball program the right way. We talk about the real transition from assistant to head coach at Caravel Academy in Delaware, ...
The gap between a good high school baseball team and a great one is rarely just talent. It is the coach’s ability to create an environment where “average” players execute like winners and where the team keeps improving when the schedule gets tough. We start with an uncomfortable question: if two programs have the same roster of gritty, ordinary athletes, why does one compete for district and region...
Tommy John surgery shouldn’t feel like a rite of passage for teenage pitchers, yet more high school baseball players are dealing with UCL tears and elbow sprains before they ever graduate. We sit down with Dan Deleandro, a sports physical therapist at Ohio State University Sports Med and an assistant varsity baseball coach, to get honest about what he’s seeing in the clinic and on the field and why the e...
A lot of coaching advice sounds good until the game speeds up and the dugout gets tense. That’s why this conversation with Ben Bizier hit so hard. Ben shares a surprising tool that sharpened his feel for momentum and body language: playing cards. He explains how learning to “scan the table” becomes a real-world coaching skill for reading both dugouts, adjusting your message on the fly, and knowing ...
You can feel it when a program is built to last and Highland Sparta High School baseball in Ohio has had that feeling for decades. We sit down with Donnie Kline and Travis Church, two coaches who have both been head coach and assistant coach in the same program, to unpack what actually drives long-term success when the roster changes every year. The headline is simple but hard to execute: culture first, players seco...
A single late-night email from an angry parent can stick with you for years. That’s where we start: the words you can still quote, the blame that still burns, and the way August silence has a sneaky way of dragging every hard moment back into the room with you. When the field is empty and the dugouts are quiet, it’s easy to wonder if you’re done, especially after a season of pressure, tough losses,...
Baseball can feel like it’s thriving on highlight reels while quietly shrinking in the neighborhoods that used to feed high school programs every spring. We sit down with Pittsburgh coach Joe Capobianco to talk about what happens when you return to your alma mater and try to rebuild a once-proud program at Penn Hills while participation numbers fall and confidence is hard to find. The big question is simple an...
A 14-year-old can have a loose arm, quick feet, and a bat that makes every coach look up and still get pushed out of baseball by one question: “How much is this going to cost by the end of the summer?” That’s the gut-check driving this conversation, because the cost of youth baseball has become more than team dues. It’s uniforms, gate fees, composite bats, turf shoes, gas, hotel blocks, misse...
You can watch a high school baseball game and think it’s all about the swings, the calls, and the final score. Then you talk to a head coach and realize the real game is happening in a hundred small moments: preparation, communication, trust, and the ability to make a decision and live with it when one pitch changes everything.
We’re joined by Jonathan Gelnar, head baseball coach at Claremore High...
A two mile an hour ride on a hospital gurney can do what 27 years in a baseball dugout never could: tell you, without mercy, what actually matters. We step away from signs, stats, and strategy and talk as a coach, a father, and a husband who had to stare down an eight-hour surgery and hear the words “50% failure rate.” When your world shrinks to the ceiling above you, the scoreboard disappears and the re...
Division I baseball isn’t just "more intense"—it’s a daily war of attrition where a single bad day can cost your players an entire week of progress. On this episode of Baseball Coaches Unplugged, two-way standout Keegan Holmstrom pulls back the curtain on the brutal daily discipline required to survive and dominate at the collegiate level.
Keegan breaks down the exact blue-collar routine he uses to ...
Your son makes a top travel or select team and suddenly everything feels urgent. Tryouts, fees, rankings, showcases, guest players, tournament schedules, recruiting promises. We slow the moment down and ask the question that actually protects families: are you buying real player development, or are you buying a uniform and a calendar?
We sit down with Bobby Minor, a former D1 player and longtime coach who now...
A lot of families make the same travel baseball mistake every July: they chase the loudest logo, the flashiest graphics, and the team that “wins the weekend,” then wonder why their player stops improving. I’m Coach Ken Carpenter, and I’m pulling the curtain back on the trophy team versus development team debate so you can make a smarter choice for 2027.
We talk about the red flags that...
The biggest mistake high school players make is treating college baseball like a status contest instead of a development decision. Riley Bender just finished his career at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor after time at the Division I level, and he tells the truth most families do not hear early enough: playing time, relationships, and the right environment can matter more than the label on the jersey when you ar...
What does it really mean to build a “fundamentally sound” baseball program?
In this episode, we sit down with Eddie Hull, Head Baseball Coach at Charlotte Catholic High School in North Carolina, whose teams have earned a reputation for consistency, toughness, and attention to detail. That reputation doesn’t happen by accident. Coach Hull breaks down the everyday standards that drive his program, sta...
College baseball used to give players time to grow up. That window is closing fast, and Troy University head baseball coach Skylar Meade doesn’t sugarcoat why. With transfer portal mobility, rising investment in facilities, and the pressure to win now, coaches have to make quicker decisions and players have to show they can thrive early, not just hang around and develop someday.
We talk through the real...
A winning program can be built on talent, but it’s sustained by something harder to measure: trust, standards, and relationships that outlive the final box score. I’m joined by recently retired West Virginia University head baseball coach Randy Mazey and his wife Amanda for a candid, funny, and sometimes heavy conversation about what it really takes to build champions and keep your family steady while yo...
Preseason rankings feel nice until you realize you start playing the games and now you have to earn everything again. Denison University associate head coach and pitching coach Ryne Romick joins us to explain how a championship-level program keeps its edge, rebuilds identity, and stays hungry while on their way to a national championship.
We get specific on what actually plays for pitchers at the college le...
Most teams chase talent. The teams that last build an environment that makes talent behave like a teammate.
We sit down with Denison University head baseball coach Mike Deegan to talk about what actually drives winning in college baseball, especially at the Division III level where development, academics, and leadership all collide. We get specific about recruiting strategy: why measurable tools are only the ...
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