Development for the next level important to Baseball Directive’s Schlueter

By STEVE KRAH

http://www.IndianaRBI.com

Baseball training for Ed Schlueter is not about being the best today as much as it is achieving big gains over the days, weeks, months and years to come.

“I’m trying to grow the youth programs in our area to be more successful in the long run and not the short term,” says Schlueter, the founder of Baseball Directive in northwest Indiana and a full-time instructor for about five years (he is a former teacher, Rensselaer, Ind., Central High School head baseball coach and painter). “I want players to swing the bat fast and hit the ball hard.

“We might swing and miss more at 8 (years old) with a pitching machine but when we hit the ball, we hit it hard.”

That’s more important to Schlueter than winning games in those young age groups.

“I don’t even know why we keep score at 7 and 8. It just drives me nuts,” says Schlueter. “I’m trying to get more to the development piece of this.”

Schlueter, a 2011 graduate of Saint Joseph’s College in Rensselaer, who majored in History and Secondary Education and pitched for the Rick O’Dette-coached Pumas, currently instructs players at private pole barns in DeMotte (Jasper County) and Francesville (Pulaski County). 

He spends at least an hour everyday doing something to become a better instructor. He takes online courses and does lots of reading — always something related to his business.

He attended the 2024 American Baseball Coaches Association Convention in Dallas and soaked in knowledge that he can impart to his clients.

Schlueter, who has served as president of Wheatfield (Ind.) Little League, has been focusing on development and is seeing methods he’s culled from places like Driveline Baseball, 108 Performance and Tread Athletics begin to pay dividends.

“I’m trying to blend what I think is right from all of them instead of just trying to stay on one track,” says Schlueter.

Many of his students are in elementary school or junior high.

“I’m finally getting players who have been through my system for a longer period of time,” says Schlueter. “Now we’re seeing the ultimate picture where they get to play at the next level — high school or beyond.”

One of his long-time pupils just began his college baseball career. He started going to Schlueter at 13.

“He was tall, lanky, underweight and couldn’t hit the ball very hard,” says Schlueter. “All we did was maximize for hitting the ball hard.

“After one fall of junior college and focusing on development he’s getting a lot of attention from bigger four-year schools — both (NCAA) Division I and Division II.

“People told him he couldn’t because he was too skinny and too small. It’s gratifying for me, but he’s also the one that put in the work. I’m not trying to take any part of success for any of my players and what they do. I’m just trying to point them in the right direction. If you do these things it’s going to give you a better opportunity further on (down the road).”

Depending on the time of year, Schlueter trains 40 to 60 players.

“I’m just trying to get kids more athletic with their swing and their pitching,” says Schlueter. “I’ve gotten more away from the lesson model.

“We’ll do mechanical things. But, especially with the younger kids, I want them to learn how to be athletic through their movements.”

Lucas Schlueter — Ed and Meagan’s 11-year-old son — has been learning the game from his father since he was in T-ball.

“He’s very, very invested in baseball,” says Ed of Lucas. “I’ve always used him as a my guinea pig.

“I’ve seen his growth in the game.”

Father and son are involved with the North Central Cyclones travel organization. The season tends to go from April to mid-July with 30 to 40 games.

“We try to practice two days a week between weekend tournaments and not schedule schedule more than two tournaments in a row,” says Schlueter. “We’re trying to create balance. We let the kids have higher competition but not burn them out.”

The weekend, Schleuter and Ethan Duensing (Calumet Christian Class of 2023) begin leading a 12-week preparation camp. It’s the third year for the program with two-hour hitting and pitching sessions each Saturday.

“We’re trying to get them ready for their season and ingraining hitting the ball hard, throwing the ball hard and let’s keep you healthy,” says Schlueter. “Let’s be athletic and let things fly.”

Players who attend the camp can go onto to their teams at the start of April having already seen pitches at game speed.

“Young kids just need a lot of reps,” says Schlueter. “We use Rapsodo and to measure everything we can.”

Those numbers are displayed on a screen that players can see.

They will get in the cage and be told things like: “This round of 10 you’re just trying to smoke the ball. I don’t care where they go right now. You’re trying to swing as hard as you can and hit the ball as hard as you can.”

A 10-year-old might set a goal of achieving 60 mph for an exit velo.

The next time he can go for 65 and so on.

Schlueter uses the analogy of an elevator.

“If you continue to raise your ceiling your floor is going to come with it,” says Schlueter. 

What often happens is that as the max goes up so does the average.

“Improvements are not linear,” says Schlueter. “It’s going to go up and down a little bit. But over a long period we’re seeing a lot more improvement.”

To promote bat speed and EV, Schleuter incorporates plyoballs, overload and underload bats.

“We get some good outcomes when we go back to our regular bat,” says Schlueter. “It’s not a magic silver bullet. They are just more tools in the toolbox.

“We’re trying to find what works for each player. What is the player going to buy into that clicks with them? We have our standardized ideas of what we want to do, but how do we individualize it to that player?”

Baseball Directive is on social media: X (formerly Twitter), Instagram and YouTube.

Ed Schlueter. (Steve Krah Photo)

Schlueter imparting knowledge with Baseball Directive

By STEVE KRAH

http://www.IndianaRBI.com

Sharing his knowledge, Ed Schlueter is looking to raise the quality of baseball played in his corner of the world.

That corner is located in Jasper County in northwest Indiana — about 20 miles south of Valparaiso and 75 miles southeast of Chicago.

Operating out of a rented 40-by-50 space in a pole barn near Wheatfield with one batting cage and enough room to throw the ball 60 feet, 6 inches, the former college player is passing along his knowledge.

Schlueter, a 2011 graduate of Saint Joseph’s College in Rensselaer, Ind., was a teacher and head baseball coach at Rensselaer Central High School for three seasons (2012-14) then decided to become a commercial and residential painter.

Missing the game he loves, Schlueter started Baseball Directive and began providing private lessons. In the last calendar year, he has worked with about 50 individuals on hitting, pitching and catching.

“I want to spread more baseball to the people around me,” says Schlueter, who was a right-hander pitcher at Saint Joe and before that at Harlem High School near Rockford, Ill., before that. “I want to give direction.”

Schlueter’s lessons are directed to parents and players to “get them headed in the right direction.”

Besides the mechanics of baseball, Schlueter also imparts wisdom about the mental side of the game.

“It’s doing things the right way and being accountable,” says Schlueter. “They have to do more on their own. I give them homework (something to work on before the next lesson) and they spend 5 or 10 minutes a day on it.

“They have to buy into and trust what they’re doing in order to put the work in. A lot of them don’t realize the amount of training that goes into getting to the next level. It’s a mix of talent and hard work. It can’t all just be natural talent.”

It’s important with the younger players to get that work ethic started early.

“By the time they get to middle school or high school, it is instilled,” says Schlueter, who helps players in the Clinton Prairie, Rensselaer Central, Kankakee Valley, Lowell, North Newton school districts and more. A couple of his travel ball clients are the Outcast Thunder (Lowell) and North Central Cyclones (Francesville).

As a one-man operation, Schlueter can focus on each of his pupils.

“I like the whole one-on-one personal connection I can have with players and their parents,” says Schlueter. “They feel like they’re getting 100 percent of the attention all of the time.

“We’re not be rushed to get through everything. I’m providing that customer service.”

He also gets a chance to have quality time with his son. Ed and Meagan Schlueter’s boy — Lucas — is a 5-year-old ballplayer.

For Schlueter, it’s the people that make it worth being in baseball.

At Rensselaer Central, he inherited a good team that won 16 games before bowing to Andrean in the first round of the IHSAA Class 3A Kankakee Valley Sectional in 2012 then struggled the next two seasons.

“The best part of it was developing relationships with my players,” says Schlueter. “It was more about that bond.”

He still shares meals with his former Bombers and regularly communicates with them through phone calls and texts.

Schlueter was part of a tight-knit group at Saint Joe fostered by head coach Rick O’Dette.

“It was a family atmosphere,” says Schlueter. “I’m starting to see other programs envelope that.

“Kids are investing their time and money into college baseball. Ending up with a lifelong family is a huge pay-off.”

Schlueter speaks highly of O’Dette and still maintains contact with the man who has moved on to Saint Leo University in Florida after Saint Joe closed its doors at the end of the 2016-17 school year.

“He’s a great guy and a motivator,” says Schlueter of Coach O. “He pushes you to get the best out of you all the time. He was good at helping guys understand what the game is about. He was always at explaining this is why we do this and why we do that.”

While Schlueter was at SJC, he also encountered assistants Matt Kennedy (now a Saint Leo assistant), Josh Rabe (now head coach at Quincy University) and Jeremy Sheetinger (now American Baseball Coaches Association coaches liaison).

Schlueter’s head coach in high school was Doug Livingston, who has since retired with the most wins in Harlem program history.

Livingston got his players to take ownership and work hard.

With a core of players who grew up on diamonds together, Harlem won back-to-back Illinois High School Association regional titles (equivalent to the sectional in Indiana) in Schlueter’s junior and senior seasons (2005 and 2006).

In 2005, the Huskies became only the second team to go unbeaten in the Northern Illinois Conference (then known as the NIC-9). Schlueter went 7-0 with an 0.91 earned run average in 2005 and 10-2 with one save and a 1.20 ERA in 2006.

“We learned to play as a team,” says Schlueter. “It was not all about one individual. We had depth and learned to rely on one another.”

Baseball Directive is on social media — Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Ed Schlueter (right) operates Baseball Directive out of a rented space near Wheatfield in northwest Indiana.

Ed Schlueter, a graduate of Saint Joseph’s College in Rensselaer, Ind., and the former Rensselaer Central High School head baseball coach, is the founder of Baseball Directive. Baseball near Wheatfield, Ind., he provides instruction and information to area players and their parents.