ChrisOLeary.com

ChrisOLeary.com

Justin Verlander Pitching Mechanics Critical Thinker. Problem-Solver. Private Hitting coach with MLB clients. Student of the Game of Baseball, especially Pitching and the Epidemic. Starting a podcast about Innovation. Father. Catholic Survivor. Fearless. Relentless. Emboldened by Christ.

Torres' favorite is Pujols. He is in such awe of Pujols' swing that he'll not only watch his at-bats but go online and use Google to find out more. In early 2008 he found some flipbooks breaking down the Cardinals first baseman's swing frame by frame and out of the blue called the website's creator, a St. Louis area suburban dad named Chris O'Leary...

- Joe Lemire
SPORTS ILLUSTRATED
October 13, 2010
Speedy Andres Torres fast becoming invaluable
to Giants

If you're new to my work and me, my more popular pieces include...

My recently updated pieces include...

As part of my efforts to understand what's happening to baseball pitchers, I make predictions about pitchers via my Twitter account @thepainguy.

Alex Reyes makes me nervous. Elbow and also shoulder. pic.twitter.com/J1i0iMckOb
— Chris O'Leary | Baseball (@thepainguy) March 31, 2014

Chris O'Leary

I have a broad range of interests, so there are many elements to my story.

Hitting

Andres Torres 2010 World Series I'm nobody.

I never played organized baseball beyond grade school.

And I've helped multiple players make it to, and be successful in, the major leagues, including...

Andres Torres
Mark Trumbo
Tommy Pham

That started when, in May 2008, Andres Torres called me...

After the 2007 season, (Andres) Torres remained stuck in AAA, and he knew something had to change. With the help of Chris O'Leary, a private hitting coach, he began looking at all the video he could find on hitters he admired, starting with Albert Pujols. He saw the way they generated power by rotating through the pitch.

- Andrew Baggerly
A Band of Misfits

...having seen my analysis of Albert Pujols' swing...

Albert Pujols 2009
Home Run to LCF

...and my flipbooks, particularly my...

Albert Pujols Flipbook Swing Analysis (Pujols7 Clip)

Andres asked me to teach him the principles of the High-Level Swing Pattern, starting with Rotation.

I know about training, but hitting was difficult. And then in ’08... There’s a guy named Chris O’Leary (a St. Louis fan who kept online flipbooks breaking down Pujols’ swing). He’s online. He talks about Rotation. He's got video examples of Pujols and I watched those.

- Joe Lemire
SPORTS ILLUSTRATED
October 13, 2010
Speedy Andres Torres fast becoming invaluable
to Giants

Since then, I've picked up numerous major league scouts and college baseball and fast pitch softball coaches as followers.

Chris,

I appreciate all u do.

I have nothing but great respect for your passion and conviction.

Stay on plane, my friend.

Kevin Schnall
Coastal Carolina Baseball
2016 NCAA D-1 National Champions

Most recently, I helped reinvigorate the offense of HSSU, an NAIA baseball team and HBC for whom I was the Hitting Coordinator from February 2016 thru February 2017.

YEAR	AVG	SLG	OBP
2014	.298	.412	.369
2015	.263	.357	.350
2016	.311	.449	.400
2017	.334	.472	.420
2018	.286	.424	.387
2019	.276	.434	.354

When it comes to Hitting, my most popular pieces are.

Other pieces I've been working on lately include...

Pitching

Justin Verlander Pitching Mechanics When it comes to Pitching, my Point Of View, and Point of Difference, is simple; the conventional wisdom about pitching mechanics is — whether they know it or not — focused on developing RELIEVER grade arms. That's why modern pitchers throw harder, but can't stay healthy.

In contrast, I'm focused on developing STARTERS; pitchers who are BOTH Dominant and Durable.

The pitchers with the best pitching mechanics include...

Justin Verlander (PRE-2020)
- Justin Verlander Injury
- Pictures of Justin Verlander
Aroldis Chapman
- Pictures of Aroldis Chapman

When it comes to pitching in general, and Pitching Mechanics in particular, I've been thinking and writing about a number of topics...

Epidemic

Since 2005, I've been working to try to understand what modern baseball pitchers are, increasingly, having such a hard time staying healthy.

Credentials

My most recent project is an overview of my view of the baseball pitcher injury epidemic and some of the key, related topics...

Baseball & Fast Pitch

What am I?

Just a student of the game.

When I started coaching and working with my kids and their friends, I didn't know anything — less than nothing, in truth — so I did what my Big 5 consulting background taught me to do.

I started studying the industry.

That meant benchmarking great hitters like...

Ted Williams
Mickey Mantle
Stan Musial
Albert Pujols
Mike Trout

...and great pitchers like...

Nolan Ryan
Tom Seaver
Mariano Rivera
Justin Verlander
Aroldis Chapman

...to see what they did and what made them successful.

Actually.

I say "actually" because I quickly came to understand that what I was taught, and what most people were and are still teaching, was and is not what the best players actually do.

If you want to learn what I discovered and what I taught my kids and now my clients, I offer a series of baseball webBooks, eBooks, and streaming DVDs.

Philosophy

More is more.

That's what people seem to think when it comes to hitting and pitching instruction.

More drills, more videos, more of everything. All of which take more time to read, view, and process. While that's fun for some, it didn't work for me.

So I take the opposite approach.

Less is more.

I invest significant money — and, more importantly, time — in getting to the essence of a subject. To its core. To editing, not writing.

My clients tend to be people who want the best information but also value their time.

Free 10-Minute Clinics

Increasingly, instructors seem to believe more is more; that to stand out, you have to overwhelm people with information and drills. The more I work with both youth coaches and college players, the more I'm finding less is more. That's the logic behind my 10-minute...

It's also the logic behind all of my hitting and pitching products.

Innovation

I got into the baseball stuff as a result of my broader interest in Innovation.

Elevator Pitch Essentials

I have long been interested in innovation and entrepreneurship and have worked for a series of software start-ups as a result. Drawing upon these experiences, Elevator Pitch Essentials explains how to get your point across in two minutes or less.

How to Get
Your Point Across in
Two Minutes
or Less

You can buy Elevator Pitch Essentials via my web site. My Elevator Pitch primer is a good place to start if you are unfamiliar with the concept of an elevator pitch.

The Paradox of Pain

I am in the process of writing a second book entitled The Paradox Of Pain that explains the critical — but too often overlooked — relationship between pain, change, and innovation.

Why the Brightest Innovations Grow
Out of the Darkest Emotions

Survivor

Chris O'Leary and Fr. LeRoy Valentine I'm a survivor of the Catholic Church's sex abuse crisis. I was sexually exploited, abused, and ultimately assulated — raped — by a priest named Father LeRoy Valentine at The Church of the Immacolata in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Abuse that was witnessed, at least in part, by My Friend the Cardinal.