George Bent
Hi Everyone,
My name is George Bent. I’m a co-founder and the Director of Pitching at Lab Baseball, Cape Cod's newest indoor baseball facility and development program. As a staff, we’re passionate about the game of baseball, and we’re constantly learning about and adapting to the latest philosophies and training modalities. With that in mind, our team knew it was important to start a blog, alongside our website, so that we have a place to share our passion, philosophy, and ideas with all of you. To start off, we’re going to tell you a little bit about why we wanted to start our business and what’s important to us moving forward.
Born and raised on Cape Cod, we have an immense passion for our home and the people who live here, especially the kids who want to follow a similar path that Dylan Morris (he'll be writing on here too) and I took from T-Ball to college baseball. Having been involved in the Cape Cod baseball scene as a player, youth coach, and high school coach, and now as a college coach at UMass Dartmouth, I knew that there was a need for a facility and program where a kid can truly do everything needed to develop into the best baseball player he can be.
That is where the idea for Lab Baseball emerged. We wanted to deliver a space on Cape Cod where a kid can walk in the doors while in Little League and keep coming back until they finish their career, wherever that might be, and be able to truly reach their full potential. Every kid who plays the game has goals they want to reach. And those goals are unique to each player. Our plan is to be able to listen to a young player when they tell us their goals, develop a plan to reach them, and then provide the atmosphere and training programs it will take for them to get there. Development isn't just a buzz-word for us to write on our website, it truly is our number one priority with every player who walks through our door. That sounds pretty serious, but it doesn't mean that it will be all business; we will have a ton of fun while we do it.
Player development is the primary focus of what our teams and clinics will be all about as well. Winning games is obviously something that everyone loves to do, but we don’t want these wins to come at the expense of individual player development. We want wins to come as a result of the time our players dedicate to improving their game. Not only will this lead to victories at the youth level, but it will also ensure that our players will be building skills that scale to the highest levels of baseball.
We’ll be putting our money where our mouth is too. I've never liked a simple 30-minute lesson model. I think that when you have to pay for every 30 minute session you have with a coach, it actually encourages less work going into your game. With that model, the more work you put in the more money it costs. To be a great player, you have to work on your game constantly, and the more work you put in the better you will become. For that reason, we are going to encourage our players to implement a different model of training - one that is membership-based and run in a group training environment.
The membership model starts with an assessment process for each athlete. This assessment will involve a number of different sections that are all very important for a baseball player's development. Once we have a summary of where the athlete is in his development, we will be able to develop a plan and an individualized program that will put him on the path to reaching the goals he has communicated with us. Over time, we will continue to test and re-test key benchmarks to see if we are on the right track or if we need to make adjustments moving forward.
Every member will have an individualized training program that is tailored to turning their weaknesses into strengths and making their strengths even better. Having a full weight-room, a multi-cage setup, built in pitchers mounds, warmup areas, and a 16 foot long plyo-wall gives us the tools we need to really develop the complete player. Coaches will oversee all workouts and training to critique and teach when needed. Allowing the training to happen in groups will also breed healthy competition and a great training environment for all.
As time goes on, we will be diving a lot deeper into many of the topics I’ve just discussed, as well as providing more information on our travel teams, training strategies, youth clinics, and much much more.
I know I can speak for the rest of our team when I say we couldn't be any more excited to get down to business and start working with baseball players of all ages at The Lab. Don't hesitate to reach out on social media, by phone, email, or drop by our facility in Hyannis anytime!
