Coaching tips and developing youth baseball players with Justin Sherman, JustinTime Baseball | Ep. 104

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What You'll Learn in This Episode

Host Ross Hawley sits down with Justin Sherman — an MLB Play Ball Ambassador and owner/founder of JustinTime Baseball — for a wide-ranging conversation about what it actually takes to develop young players and run a thriving youth baseball organization.

Justin's path started with getting cut from his own JV team. Today he runs paid professional development for his coaching staff, partners with 13 little leagues across Westchester and New York State, and travels the country as one of MLB's Play Ball ambassadors. This conversation is about the philosophy behind all of it: empathy, delivery of instruction, and treating every rep like it matters.

The highlights:

  • Why practice management and delivery of instruction matter more than drill selection
  • The empathy test Justin runs every JustinTime coach through: "What is that six-year-old actually thinking?"
  • The gold standards for running an efficient youth practice: age = drill duration, competitions increase focus, coaches = stations
  • How "JustinTime Baseball" grew from neighborhood lessons into a bolt-on solution for 13 little leagues
  • The DJ gig and batting-cage business that taught Justin his first real sales lessons
  • How he landed a role as an MLB Play Ball Ambassador
  • Blunt, specific advice for players, parents, and coaches

The Art of Delivering Instruction

Justin's coaching philosophy centers on one idea: practice management and delivery of instruction matter more than drill selection. Any coach can find drills on YouTube. What separates great youth coaches is how they keep kids engaged, organized, and actually learning.

"That's something that makes us proprietary — it's not necessarily that our coaches are former big leaguers or minor leaguers, because that doesn't always translate to being a great youth coach. It's how well do you deliver your instruction and manage your practice."

From Getting Cut to Becoming "The Pied Piper"

Justin wasn't a can't-miss prospect. He got cut from his junior varsity team, walked up to his high school coach in the parking lot to ask what he needed to do to make it, and eventually did — before playing junior college ball and finishing at Purchase College. Along the way, his parents nicknamed him "the Pied Piper" for always having a crew of neighborhood kids in tow.

"I just knew — like, it felt easy as far as that path. I loved showing or watching the result of what I implemented with a player and seeing that come to fruition, or even just their confidence being built."

Empathy as a Non-Negotiable Coaching Standard

Every JustinTime coach goes through mandatory, paid professional development — not on hitting drills, but on empathy. Justin's litmus test: think from inside a child's experience.

"What is the child thinking? That kid's six years old — there's nine kids standing on a line waiting for one ground ball. What do you think those nine kids are thinking? I'm 34. If I'm on a line waiting for a ground ball, I'm bored. So empathy, empathy, empathy."

That same empathy extends to parent coaches. Rather than dismissing them, Justin's model is to work alongside little leagues as a "bolt-on solution" — bringing trained staff in to support parent coaches, not replace them.

"God bless parent coaches — we need them. I am not a fan of 'get rid of the parent coach.' No. We need to work in unison and help them."

The Gold Standards of an Efficient Practice

Justin's advice for any coach — parent volunteer or lifelong pro — running a youth practice comes down to a handful of repeatable principles:

"The age of the child is equivalent to the duration of the drill. If they're eight years old, make it an eight-to-ten-minute station — it should not be longer than that. Competitions increase focus. And the amount of coaches should be the amount of stations."

He also preaches "reps over lectures": a seven-year-old doesn't care about a seven-minute talk on launch angle, so the best sessions put the coach in a facilitator role — instruct, then play, then sprinkle in more instruction, rather than stopping the flow to lecture.

Building JustinTime Baseball Into a Bolt-On Solution

What started as neighborhood lessons has grown into partnerships with 13 little leagues across Westchester and New York State, plus an indoor winter instructional league in a 400-yard dome where every kid gets a jersey and nobody keeps score.

"We are not a travel organization. We are a youth development enrichment company, and what we've morphed into is a bolt-on solution for little leagues and rec departments. We started with one little league five years ago. We're now in about 13."

From DJ Gigs to Batting Cage Commissions: Learning to Sell

Justin's entrepreneurial streak goes back to age 13, DJing bar and bat mitzvahs with a friend, and later trying to broker a commission deal at a batting cage in college — a venture that only produced two lessons all summer because he never actually went and got the customer.

"I learned business lessons on going to get the customer — go up to them, market, sell. Selling gets a really bad rap, because guess what? As youth coaches, you're selling your message. Everything is sales."

That lesson became a simple framework he still uses today: problem, solution, result.

"My favorite result is when I hear a little league — their enrollment went from 60 kids for T-ball to 130."

Landing the MLB Play Ball Ambassador Role

Now in year three as an MLB Play Ball Ambassador, Justin describes it as one of the great honors of his career — a role built through relationships and persistence across multiple channels at MLB.

"It's their youth initiative to grow the game, and I'm essentially one of the Pied Pipers, along with Ball Game. It's an amazing honor. I pinch myself every day, frankly, that I get to do that."

Advice for Players, Parents, and Coaches

For players: Let go of the batting average anxiety.

"How about just get out there and try to see the ball and hit the ball hard? I'm not worried about my batting average, I'm not worrying about what I did last — did you get a good pitch to hit, and did you put your best swing on it? That's what we control."

For parents: Say less, watch more.

"Stop talking so much to your kid. Great job in the batting cage — you could talk about that. But when they play: love you, Johnny, great job, get out there and play."

For coaches: Take responsibility for your delivery.

"That player is not grasping your instruction — do you think it's their fault, or do you think maybe it's your fault? Be the best coach you could be, and be the coach that you wanted as a kid."

Episode Timestamps

Tap any timestamp to jump the player straight to that moment.

  • 0:37 — Introducing MLB Play Ball Ambassador and JustinTime Baseball founder Justin Sherman
  • 2:49 — A tip of the cap: why Justin's coaching content is so digestible and concise
  • 3:50 — The ABCA story: a Vanderbilt coach's five pages of notes
  • 6:45 — Getting cut from JV, and becoming the neighborhood "Pied Piper"
  • 9:13 — Mandatory paid coach training built entirely around empathy
  • 12:02 — The gold standards: age = drill duration, competitions increase focus, coaches = stations
  • 14:08 — Building JustinTime Baseball into a bolt-on solution for 13 little leagues
  • 17:33 — Reps over lectures, and a nod to co-host Jim Schwanke
  • 19:32 — The diminishing-returns study behind "less is more" coaching
  • 22:12 — Becoming a facilitator, staying in a flow state, and Ross's "loudest fart" story
  • 25:29 — DJ gigs, a rock-painting business, and the batting-cage lesson in sales
  • 29:54 — The problem-solution-result sales framework, and 60-to-130 enrollment growth
  • 32:57 — How Justin became an MLB Play Ball Ambassador
  • 38:09 — Why baseball's "quote-unquote failure" makes it so similar to life
  • 40:06 — Advice for players, parents, and coaches
  • 44:42 — Walkout song: Return of the Mac, Drake, and Jay-Z

Justin Sherman is the owner and founder of JustinTime Baseball and an official MLB Play Ball Ambassador. Subscribe to the Baseball Forward Podcast for more conversations with the players, coaches, and leaders elevating the next generation of the game.