BAT R UP - Buck Thomas

3040 Simmons St. Ste. 101
North Las Vegas, NV 89032
Tel: (702) 647-3844

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	Attention Coaches We offer discounted hourly rates for teams using one or more cages.

At the highest level, baseball training revolves around strength conditioning, speed training and flexibility training. Successful baseball players also use Plyometrics and specific lifts to increase their upper and lower body power. Physical training has become a lost method and deemed unnecessary to many coaches during their practices, as many coaches perceive strength conditioning as detrimental to the needed motor skills required by players.

Modern day baseball players are great ball players, but even better athletes. Professional players tend to be lean and extremely quick. And studies have shown that baseball-specific programs can significantly increase production by the common baseball player.

Power training - through Plyometrics (a type of exercise training designed to produce fast, powerful movements) or Ballistics (the science that deals with the motion, behavior) can increase a baseball player's speed and agility. It can also improve throwing and batting velocity much more than the garden variety weight training done in a weight room.

Shoulder injuries tend to be a major concern in baseball, as pitching places an inordinate amount of stress on the shoulder complex. And while strength conditioning can help prevent such injuries, traditional weight lifting exercises may not be suitable in targeting the correct muscles or the correct movement patterns. At Bat R Up, special exercises are easily adopted into a baseball training program to help significantly reduce the risk of overuse damage.

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Buck Thomas

Coach Buck Thomas has been a successful coach at various stops, most recently as the Director of Baseball Operations for Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas, Nevada, and the Southern Nevada Titans’ (Gorman Baseball Summer) American Legion team.

Coach Thomas played college baseball at Victor Valley Community College in Victorville, California, as well as at the University of Southern Colorado, Pueblo, as a catcher. He played one year of independent ball with the Evansville Otters in the Frontier League. He also played one year under Kevin Kennedy with the International Baseball Academy, also in the Frontier League. Buck was then hired as a bullpen catcher for two years for the Arizona Diamondbacks’ Class A affiliate (High Desert Mavericks). Prior to joining the Bishop Gorman coaching staff in 2006, Thomas coached at Nogales High School in La Puente, California, as well as Liberty High School in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The 2006 and 2007 seasons at Bishop Gorman proved to be benchmarks in Buck’s coaching career: Gorman won back-to-back Nevada State High School championships, in addition to back-to-back Nevada State American Legion championships, on their way to an unprecedented four consecutive state titles in two calendar years. The 2006 squad also won the Western District Legion title and competed in the American Legion World Series in Cedar Rapids, Iowa – home to the Angels’ Class A minor league affiliate, the Cedar Rapid Kernels.

This past summer Buck managed the Utah Marshalls in Salt Lake City, Utah, producing a 31-11 mark thanks to some of the nation’s top talent inside baseball’s four corners:

Kyle Beverly, a 2008 graduate of Cottonwood High School in Utah, and who is now at Oregon State

Kris Bryant, out of Las Vegas’ Bonanza High School, is ranked as the No. 17 prospect by Baseball America for the 2010 Draft

Marcus Littlewood of Pine View High School is ranked by Baseball America as the nation’s second-best shortstop for class of 2010.

Mike Dedrick, a 2009 graduate of Canyon View High School in Cedar City, Utah, Mike is a right-handed hurler who can fire from the low- to mid-90s, and is ranked 37th overall by Baseball America for the 2009 class. He has played for Buck on the Marshalls and is a two-year Angels Elite player.

Dedrick, Littlewood and Bryant also played for Coach Thomas’ Angel Elite Scout Team in the fall, and both have verbally committed to D-I scholarships from the University of San Diego. Littlewood was a part of the Gold Medal-winning 16-and-under Olympic team that played Vera Cruz, Mexico, where he was named the No. 1 shortstop in the tournament.

Next summer Buck will manage a summer club based out of El Paso, Texas, where he will play field a top-notch team that will play a competitive schedule that will include stops at Southern Cal, San Diego, Cal State Fullerton, UCLA and Washington State. He opens the summer season playing in the Perfect Game National Showcase, which consists of the top eight summer teams in the country. The event will be held in the Metrodome, home of the Minnesota Twins. He will once again field prospects from across the country, with Bryant leading the crop from Las Vegas.

Buck has also found a way to tap into California and Arizona as well, while scouts will see top players from as far as Florida and South Dakota!

Buck also coaches the Angels Elite Scout Team under full-time area scout Jeff Scholzen, and once again showed his college placement skills by placing 21 of his 25 players in college baseball - 15 of them at Division I schools.

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Are looking for for that edge?

Do you need someone to help you get to the top?

Al Ramirez provides personalized hitting and pitching instruction for students at all levels of play.

Using the first-class ProMirror VTS-1000 system to develop and train via video technology, Al's state-of-the-art technology is exactly what you need - whether you're an athlete or coach.

Read more about ProMirror, and see why this can be beneficial for the aspiring pitcher.

You can also read more about Al's accomplishments as a head coach of one of the most successful club teams ever formed in So. Nevada.