Baseball · Issue No. 20
Prep to Beat the Drill vs. Prep to Beat People, in One Line
Week of September 14, 2026
QUICK TAKE - Average players prep to beat an easy drill and feel accomplished doing it. - Elite players prep to mentally beat an actual opponent, pitch by pitch. - The tell: does a player chase the specific thing that's broken, or repeat what's already comfortable?
A 40-year high school coach, MLB scout, and Team USA talent evaluator has a distinction he returns to often when explaining what separates good baseball players from great ones — and it has nothing to do with raw ability.
Average players, in his observation, tend to prep to beat the drill. A dad lobs batting practice, the kid hits it three hundred feet, everyone's satisfied — except that's not remotely close to game conditions, and beating an easy drill teaches a player to feel accomplished without actually being tested. Elite players, by contrast, prep to beat people. They're not measuring themselves against a stationary drill; they're mentally rehearsing beating an actual opponent, thinking about who's coming up in the lineup, what's worked against a hitter before, how to actually get someone out or get a hit off a specific pitcher — not just executing a rep in isolation.
He offers a memorable example: a pitcher who threw a bad curveball in practice would immediately throw dozens more in a row, refusing to leave until it felt right — not because a coach demanded it, but because the player himself wasn't satisfied walking away from a weakness. That instinct — training the specific thing that's broken, rather than repeating what's already comfortable — is, in his experience, one of the clearest tells separating players who plateau from players who keep improving.
There's a broader point buried in this distinction: a player can look busy and productive in a training session, taking swing after swing or throwing pitch after pitch, without actually improving anything, if what's being repeated is already mastered rather than what's actually weak. Real development requires a level of self-honesty about specifically what isn't working yet — and a willingness to spend the uncomfortable extra reps fixing exactly that, rather than the comfortable reps proving what already works.
From an interview with Coach Bruce "Butch" Chafin, 40-year high school coach and MLB scout.
This piece ran in PPA Pro Issue No. 20, alongside a camp spotlight and trainer pick for every sport. Subscribe free.