How Pelotero Ended My Search for the Perfect Team, Coach, and Tournament
Most of you reading this probably know who Bobby Tewksbary and Chris Colabello are. These are the co-founders of Pelotero, the company of which I am now CEO, and the company that is going to transform player development forever. The purpose of me writing this is to share my perspective, not as the guy running a tech enabled player development company, but as a baseball and softball dad with an insatiable desire to see my kids succeed.
I have 3 kids who all play baseball and softball. They are all pretty talented and love the game. I myself played growing up and was decent enough to spend a hot minute on a college roster. I try pretty hard to make sure my kids have access to the best resources so they can reach their potential. While overseeing their baseball and softball journeys has been incredibly rewarding, it has also been very stressful at times. I’m sure many of you baseball and softball moms and dads know exactly what I’m talking about.
I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on this trying to figure out why this is, and what I could do better to make the journey a more enjoyable and rewarding experience for everyone involved. What I’ve ultimately realized is that the root cause for much of this stress and anxiety is that nobody knows what good is. We don’t know how to assess it. We don’t know how to benchmark it. And we don’t know how to improve it. So we seek out new coaches, new teams, new showcases, and new tournaments in the hope that that will give us the answers we crave. This is what we at Pelotero call the Performance Potential Gap.
The Performance Potential Gap is real. It has led me to switch club programs for one of my kids 3 times. It has led us to flying across the country to participate in tournaments that we thought we couldn’t say no to. It has led to countless arguments in the garage over swing mechanics and drills.
Why? Uncertainty. At the end of the day, we all are just trying to put our kids and players in the best positions to succeed. That’s it. But it's impossible to know if we are doing that without understanding the bigger picture. Our kids need someone or something that truly understands them…how they move, how they think, and how they play. This is the only way we get them from where they are today to where they want to be.
The challenge is that this understanding just hasn’t been possible. We haven’t had the technology. We haven’t had the data. And we haven’t had the knowledge or time to try to figure it all out. That is…until I met Bobby and Chris.
I was introduced to Bobby and Chris last year through a parent of one of my son’s teammates. One of the first things Chris asked me really threw me off guard. “How good is your son?” I thought about referencing his batting average or the number of homeruns he hit in his most recent season, but immediately realized that's not very telling for a 12-year old. I genuinely didn’t know how to answer the question. “He seems to be pretty dominant for his age.”
Co-founder and former MLB player, Chris Colabello, with my sons after a recent (Pelotero enabled) hitting session.
I thought I knew what it meant to be good but when actually pressed on it, I realized I had no clue. The more I thought about it, the more I realized none of the coaches we had come across did either. We were all just chasing this vague idea of “good” with what our eyes maybe told us.
As Bobby and Chris started talking about what they were building at Pelotero the light bulbs started to go off. Bobby pulled out his phone and showed me a slow motion video of a player with motion markers all around them. He told me this was taken with an iPhone and instantly converted into over 150k data points. Using just that data, Pelotero could analyze the player’s swing, identify their biggest weaknesses, and instantly generate a program with drills that would address them. And he told me they could do it in seconds. Even better, he described the ability to add other readily available data like a bat sensor or batted ball details and generate an even more robust analysis.
I was speechless. What he was describing to me had the potential to change everything.
What I had been chasing for my kids didn’t exist. No single coach could ever do what Bobby was describing. They couldn’t possibly understand a player this deeply, keep track of this much of his data, process it, organize it, and make it actionable. I immediately realized that this was what I’d been searching for. With this, I would never be guessing whether or not my kids or the players I coached were doing the right things. With this level of personalization, I would never question what the development path looked like for them to reach their goals.
This was the future.
Fast forward to today and data continues to explode all around us. Every piece of equipment is now sensor enabled. There are videos and recordings happening for most games. It's hard not to see a future where every single action a player makes on a playing field won’t be captured and tracked. The ability to apply intelligence to all of that data being gathered on players will allow us to dramatically improve the player development process for EVERYONE.
I now understand the massive opportunity right in front of us. What was clear for Bobby and Chris when they started Pelotero is now crystal clear for me. That is why we are building the first player intelligence platform that combines data, coaching expertise, and AI to help coaches deliver personalized development to their players. My hope is that all of you get to experience the same epiphany that I have. The future for our players with Pelotero and Player Intelligence is going to be incredible. Come join us as we build a future of intelligent players!
Pelotero team after a recent content shoot (Bobby, Patrick, Chris, & Bennett)
