Indiana’s Sagerman gets competitive fix in operations, pitch development

By STEVE KRAH

http://www.IndianaRBI.com

Denton Sagerman no longer stares down batters or tries to get the baseball past them with his pitches.

But he still has a competitive spirit and he uses it in his roles as Director of Operations/Pitching Development for Indiana University baseball.

“I love competing,” says Sagerman, who started working in Bloomington in August 2018. .”It’s very hard to replicate that once you’re done playing.”

As a right-handed pitcher at the University of Dayton, Sagerman had the ball and could dictate to his opponent.

Now he finds a competitive outlet in the weight room, where he can measure his progress, and in his job.

“In my professional development, I compete,” says Sagerman, 27. “I read about what everybody else is doing. I try to replicate that here and be the best at what I do in the country.

“That’s the goal that motivates me every single day.”

Sagerman’s favorite part of playing was development.

“What are the tools I can use to get better?,” says Sagerman. “I could measure where I was at and show quantitatively where I was going.

“I always wanted to be in a baseball development role.”

What does Sagerman do as a baseball operations man?

“All of the administrative tasks,” says Sagerman. “Everything outside coaching and recruiting.”

He is there to support head coach Jeff Mercer, associate head coach/pitching Justin Parker, assistant coach/recruiting director Dan Held, volunteer assistant Derek Simmons, director of player development Scott Rolen and the rest of the Hoosiers.

Sagerman is responsible for budgeting, scheduling, travel coordination, video breakdown and managing the role of analytics within the program; amongst other general program operations.

Some tools at his disposal include TrackMan, Rapsodo Pitching, HitTrax and WIN Reality (virtual reality).

There plenty of challenges. One example is with budgeting.

“It’s hard knowing what the landscape is going to look like one, two, three years out and the costs that can add up and the things that are unforeseen,” says Sagerman. “There are minute details and you make sure all of those are accounted for in your planning process.”

When IU goes on the road, Sagerman works with a travel agent and sets up a bus company. The driver is given a full itinerary. Staying at the team hotel, the driver is available whenever team members need the bus. When possible, drivers who are familiar with the Hoosiers are requested.

Sagerman assists Parker with pitch design.

“I enjoy working with all the different tools and making the data applicable to players and coaches,” says Sagerman. “As each class comes in they know more about technology. The coaches do a good job of explaining what the data means.

“It’s not just overwhelming them with an Excel sheet of data.”

IU’s Bart Kaufman Field is equipped with a TrackMan video system which allows Sagerman to present postgame reports to pitchers on every single pitch. They can learn many things about the quality of those pitches, including location and effectiveness, and apply that in the future.

“They can see that their slider in the game was 1 mph slower with an inch less horizontal break than they’ve seen in practice or other games,” says Sagerman.

Another way to make pitches better is by finding comparable data from professional pitchers.

On the hitting side, a heat map of the strike zone can be created to show exit velocity and launch angle and a profile is built.

Sagerman says since this information is available to the opponent, they can use it to attack a hitter’s weaknesses.

“As a hitter, I need to train myself to not swing or hit that pitch better,” says Sagerman.

A virtual reality system helps hitters with pitch recognition. They see how quickly they can pick up pitch type and location.

“We do a good job of using utilizing all the different pieces of technology to paint a picture for that specific athlete,” says Sagerman. “I didn’t access to any of this stuff in college. The boom of tech/analytics has come about in the last two or three years.

“It would have helped my career immensely.”

Sagerman has that there is a misconception that with technology comes an infinite outcome. It must be applied correctly to help the user.

Also, limited resources can bring about results. Sagerman was a coach and administrator with the Dayton Classics travel baseball organization. The Classics used a radar gun. Launch angle was measured with strings in the batting cage.

Before coming to IU, Sagerman was Director of Baseball Operations at Wright State University, under head coach Mercer, while focusing on analytics and its use in player development. Before that the graduate of Olmsted Falls (Ohio) High School was employed as an aerospace engineer at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base specializing in Computational Fluid Dynamics as well as a varsity coach at Centerville (Ohio) High School.

Sagerman has a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and a master’s in Aerospace, Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering from Dayton and a master’s in Sport and Athletic Administration from Gonzaga University.

“My education taught me problem-solving and organizational skills,” says Sagerman. “The engineering, I use on analytics and the pitching side.”

A typical day for Sagerman when the Hoosiers are at home begins with him arriving at the stadium around 7 a.m. for a workout. He then splits his time between operations and pitching tasks.

He answers general emails and communicates with the opposing director of operations.

Sagerman works with IU’s game management staff and he also makes sure the team has the day’s schedule and knows which uniforms to wear. He sees that the pregame meal is set up. He assists the staff in preparing lineup cards.

During the game, he keeps his own scorecard and makes notes. He is also there to make sure everything goes smoothly and is there to get anything needed by the coaches. Monitoring the weather is also part of his job.

After the game, Sagerman runs pitching and hitting reports and gets those to the coaching staff. He also makes sure the team has the schedule for the next day.

“They’re definitely some long days for sure,” says Sagerman.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Indiana played its last game of the 2020 season March 11 (the Hoosiers finished 9-6).

During quarantine time, Sagerman has been working on long-term projects.

“I’m looking for the most efficient processes and to be more organized, efficient and effective,” says Sagerman. “I’m also doing some prep for next year like ordering equipment.”

Denton Sagerman is the Director of Operations/Pitching Development for Indiana University baseball. (Indiana University Photo)

 

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Ball State assistant Beemer looks to show players how much he cares

BY STEVE KRAH

http://www.IndianaRBI.com

The apple didn’t fall too far from the baseball tree.

“I’ve always known I wanted to coach,” says Blake Beemer, a Ball State University assistant and second-generation college baseball coach.

Blake’s father, Gregg Beemer, was on the staffs at Bowling Green (Ohio) State University and Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. He is now the recruiting director for the Dayton Classics travel baseball organization.

“He loves baseball and passed it down to me,” says Blake. “I think when I was 11 I decided that college would be ideal for me. I’m fortunate to be living the dream.”

Beemer, 28, was born in Dayton, played for Ohio High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Famer Chuck Harlow at Northmont High School in Clayton, Ohio, and played four seasons at Ball State (2010-13) for head coaches Greg Beals, Alex Marconi and Rich Maloney. He was a team captain in his final three seasons with the Cardinals. For his career, he hit .286 with 108 runs scored and 94 driven in.

He also served two years on the Student-Athletic Advisory Committee executive committee as an undergraduate and was one of 30 finalists for the 2013 Senior CLASS Award. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Sport Administration and Master of Business Administration from Ball State.

“I understand game operations and what goes on behind the scenes,” says Beemer. “That goes into planning a practice and the time commitments of a coach.

“Part of our job is managing a budget and scholarships and being good with numbers. That’s where the (MBA) has helped me in this job.”

His first coaching position was with a Dayton Classics high school age team in the summer of 2013.

“We were very average,” says Beemer. “It was very humbling to realize that the game is out of your control at that point and you are just trying to put guys in good positions.

“It’s a lot of fun when guys have success. I learned a lot that summer. I really did.”

Beemer was an assistant to head coach Jason Anderson at Eastern Illinois University (2016-18) before joining Maloney’s BSU coaching crew. He is also the Cards’ recruiting coordinator.

He has learned that to make an impact, it takes an investment.

“The biggest thing we do as college coaches is that we have to care,” says Beemer. “You have to try to create relationships and get to know your guys and what they’re going through off the field as well as on it.”

It just doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time.

“As you create that trust, that understanding, that love, I think that’s when you can start to open up and coach guys a little bit harder or find what makes guys tick,” says Beemer. “When they know you really care that’s when it really can be special.”

In addition to Harlow in high school, Beemer says Beals, Marconi and Maloney all made their mark on him in different ways.

“(Beals) was a very tough, demanding coach,” says Beemer. “But he was quick to make sure you knew he was on your side. (Marconi) was more laid-back, a guy you could really talk to. You didn’t feel intimidated by him.

“(Maloney) has that professionalism, caring and love. When you have that, you can really do a lot of things. He brought that back (to Ball State) when he came in 2013.

“We weren’t talented the year before. He told us he loved us and we were going to be good. The power of belief got us there (the Cards went from 14-36 in 2012 to 31-24 in 2013).”

Beemer says Maloney is “ultra-competitive.”

“He’s still fiery,” says Beemer. “He’s competitive. He wants to win. He challenges myself to bring energy everyday and he challenges our guys.

“It’s fun when we have that coming down from the top. It gets the best out of everybody in the group.”

In his role as recruiting coordinator, Beemer, who addressed the 2020 Indiana High School Baseball Coaches State Clinic about investing time outfield development, has come to see that recruiting never really stops.

“With social media today, you can find players all the time,” says Beemer. “Our recruiting time from an NCAA standpoint is March 1 to Nov. 1. That’s the time period we can be out on the road everyday and go watch players.

“When November comes, we dial it back and can only recruit at camps on our campus.”

It becomes a projectable exercise. The BSU staff has to consider who might be taken in Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft from their roster or their commits from high school and whether or not they are likely to sign with professional teams. They might need to fill a need at the junior college level.

“It’s a balancing act,” says Beemer of juggling the current team with the future of the program. “Recruiting has sped up so much. We’re recruiting (high school) sophomores and juniors pretty regularly now.

“We pride ourselves in being a mid-major team that finds under-the-radar-type guys that may develop a little bit later.”

Beemer notes that 2019 first-rounder Drey Jameson was an undersized right-hander when he came to Ball State out of Greenfield-Central High School and that current junior right-hander Kyle Nicolas has steadily developed since arriving in Muncie from Ohio.

“Typically, we don’t get that blue chip recruit who’s a freshman stud in high school. We get the guy who’s getting better as a junior and senior. Hopefully we aren’t missing and don’t have to over-recruit.

“We want good players wherever they’re at,” says Beemer. “There’s a lot of really good baseball in Indiana. Grand Park (in Westfield, Ind.) is a great complex to recruit (for recruiting). We can go 45 minutes and see just about everything.”

Beemer says as Maloney and Ball State builds the brand, they can go get players from California and other places.

Former Ball State University baseball player Blake Beemer is now an assistant coach/recruiting coordinator for the Cardinals. (Ball State University Photo)