{"id":18608,"date":"2023-06-21T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-21T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/?post_type=article&p=18608"},"modified":"2025-12-15T05:11:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T05:11:13","slug":"how-the-pittsburgh-pirates-dominican-academy-sets-latin-players-up-for-success-in-the-major-leagues-and-beyond","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/how-the-pittsburgh-pirates-dominican-academy-sets-latin-players-up-for-success-in-the-major-leagues-and-beyond\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Pittsburgh Pirates Dominican Academy Sets Latin Players up for Success in the Major Leagues and Beyond"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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\n 21 Jun 2023 <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>Articles<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

How the Pittsburgh Pirates Dominican Academy Sets Latin Players up for Success in the Major Leagues and Beyond<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n \n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Category<\/div>\n Coaching & Development<\/a> <\/div>\n
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https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/how-the-pittsburgh-pirates-dominican-academy-sets-latin-players-up-for-success-in-the-major-leagues-and-beyond\/<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n\n\n\n\n
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In the first of a two-part interview, Hector Morales, the Pirates\u2019 Director of International Development works to ensure that the club\u2019s Latin players are not at a disadvantage to their American peers.<\/p>\n \n \n \n

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By John Portch<\/h6>\n
How difficult is it to cut a player who hits their ceiling in an academy setting?<\/h6>\n

\u201cA lot of times it\u2019s easy because they see it,\u201d says Hector Morales, the Pittsburgh Pirates\u2019 Director of International Development.<\/p>\n

Dr Morales, from his base in Florida, oversees the Pirates\u2019 Dominican Summer League academy in El Toro in the Dominican Republic. With locals, the academy houses up to a hundred players from nations including Venezuela, Mexico and Colombia.<\/p>\n

In keeping with elite sport, a significant number, around 30 players in this case, are released from the academy each year, but most of these youngsters, as Morales explains, expect it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese young men can look to the left and to the right. They see the writing on the wall, they see the talent of other players, they see they\u2019re not getting as many opportunities on the field. Many of them welcome that conversation,” he says. “They don\u2019t want to be the ones making the decision, they don\u2019t want to come to you and tell you \u2018I recognise where my career is and I don\u2019t want to play no more\u2019. They see it as a welcome relief to say \u2018I was terminated, I did the best I could, it was out of my hands. My career is over and I can transition\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut still, research tells you that a career ending, whether it\u2019s a college career or a professional career, the athletes go through the natural grieving process emotionally as if they\u2019ve lost their best friend\u201d.<\/p>\n

This is an area where Morales feels US baseball has often let down Latin players. \u201cAt times, we forget to provide resources and services on the other end of a player\u2019s career, for people who make it transactional \u2013 \u2018I\u2019m the GM and I\u2019m going to make this transactional. I\u2019m sorry your career has come to an end\u2019 \u2013 there has to be a support system that is part of that process to ensure that the player has a plan and is moving and we\u2019re setting them up for success. That\u2019s one of the things that we do with international players. We find a way to have a final transition approach where we give them a resume, we teach them, we connect them with courses and trade courses and opportunities for them to make a life for themselves and their families after baseball\u201d.<\/p>\n

Setting people up for life<\/strong><\/p>\n

Players are recruited from Central and South America at the age of 16 and, typically, those with a future in the American game will spend three years at the Dominican academy before crossing the sea to Florida, home of Pirates\u2019 domestic operations.<\/p>\n

The Dominican academy hosts two teams \u2013 its Black and Gold teams \u2013 each with a manager and full coaching staff. There is also its fully-staffed Performance Center that caters for all the players\u2019 high performance needs. It is designed to mirror the Pirates\u2019 provisions for American players in Florida.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have eight classrooms where they can take their classes,\u201d says Morales, who explains that the local players complete their secondary education under the \u2018Nivel Medio\u2019 system laid out by the Ministry of Education of the Dominican Republic. Players from Central and South America are enrolled in systems recognised in their homelands. \u201cOur Senior Coordinator of Education manages where the players are assigned and what route they\u2019ll take. We celebrate them all in one graduation at the end of every year. That\u2019s the last event before we go into our off-season\u201d. Additionally, all players take classes in English as a second language.<\/p>\n

This has been a long time in the making and predates Morales\u2019 employment at the Pirates, whom he joined in 2014 as a Spanish-speaking assistant to the Mental Skills Coordinator. His role expanded as he sought to address the shortcomings of the club\u2019s induction program for young Latin players coming to play in the United States. Too often, these players would find themselves at a disadvantage, culturally and socially, in comparison to their American peers.<\/p>\n

In 2015, Morales became the Director of the Pirates\u2019 \u2018Cultural Initiative\u2019, which morphed into the Department of Cultural Readiness and, eventually, adopted its current moniker, the Department of International Development.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea was to research the entire year and learn some of the things that we needed to do differently to ensure our players can transition and compete at this level and get cut only because of their talent. That was my personal goal,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy personal goal was that they sent you home only because your skills reached their ceiling. The second goal I had, because I\u2019m naturally an agreeable person, and I\u2019m an underdog mindset kind of guy, it was that if any scout or anybody told you that the highest you will go would be Rookie ball, then you will be in a Double-A team threatening to take somebody\u2019s job\u201d.<\/p>\n

What you can control<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Leaders Performance Institute asks Morales how academy staff work with players to bridge their developmental gaps. \u201cThe baseball skills are easier to find because we have more baseball coaches than anything else,\u201d he says. \u201cLet\u2019s say a player is recognised for what we value, whether it\u2019s some analytical aspect; spin rate or exit velocity, the fear that that player is not there. It\u2019s a way to centralise our approach to a player.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe try to connect all the resources around that player. \u2018So right now, the primary need for this player has to do with him having more power to exit\u2019. So the analysis is the strength & conditioning coaches analysing the effectiveness of the kinetic chain. \u2018Is he using the body properly? Is his movement maximised for him to be able to generate that power? Or do we need to go to the gym and develop muscle mass? Or do we need to add more motor unit recruitment so he can just develop some natural strength because he doesn\u2019t have that?\u2019 If that\u2019s the case then whatever work we have to do in the gym has to be connected with that need that we know is going to be the primary thing for them to move\u201d.<\/p>\n

The bigger challenges concern cognitive capacity as well as social and emotional learning, all of which are regularly assessed. \u201cWe\u2019re talking about baseball IQ and all that,\u201d adds Morales of cognitive capacity. \u201cCan this player gather and receive information and process it right away or do they need to explain it to him multiple times? How does he problem-solve? Does he have strategies for problem-solving?\u201d<\/p>\n

As for social and emotional learning, questions asked can include: \u201cHow does he relate to others? How does he associate with the coach or the team? How does he respond to feedback? Those things are critical for us to identify and then be able to see based on the knowledge that we have from them and their family background if there were things that were not developed, that they were not exposed to in development?\u201d<\/p>\n

Morales cites the concept of concentration as an example to illustrate this at play. \u201cPeople go to school and people go to college and they tend to have the capacity to be a little bit more focused because they were trained to do so. They were trained to read, they were trained to focus on a book or gaps in information for a long period of time to be able to gather and evaluate research. People who did not do that or did not go to school, they were not forced to focus on things that didn\u2019t matter to them. They only focused on the things they wanted to focus on. Their capacity to be in the moment was diminished because they were not exposed to opportunities to develop that skill. So what do we do to help them improve that capacity and do better in their ability to focus? That\u2019s just another of the many areas we look into for developmental gaps\u201d.<\/p>\n

It goes beyond raw ability. \u201cSome people may say they\u2019re better than you, although they\u2019re not better than you in skill but they were able to be a better teammate because they understood social and emotional learning, they understood how to get information quickly so they could process something. He might have a better toolset but he has two other things that allow him to fit into a culture better and that can cost you an opportunity to reach your maximum potential, if you look at the big picture\u201d.<\/p>\n

The academy has four \u2018controllables\u2019 that guide all athletic development: preparation, attitude, concentration and effort. \u201cPreparation is king,\u201d says Morales. \u201cIn whatever we do, our head and our mind is free and anxieties are diminished; and it\u2019s something that\u2019s completely under your control. You can prepare the night before and have your stuff ready or you can run around at 5:30 in the morning after you overslept to try and put things together and be stressed out for the rest of the day. To me, that\u2019s controllable.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe second one is attitude, meaning how do they approach things? The way that they decide to tackle a task and approach it is going to have a great impact on how people see them and how it\u2019s reflected.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe third one is concentration, which is ability to be in the moment, the ability in the now. Being able to control your mind in the natural battle of fighting forward or going backwards.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd lastly, it\u2019s effort, which for me is defined by them showing up and giving you what they have at that moment. People will say at times \u2018100%\u2019 but in reality we\u2019ll only be 100% at day one of training. After that, you\u2019d never have 100% – what you have is what you have, so can you give me what you\u2019ve got?<\/p>\n

\u201cI say \u2018control what you can control\u2019. And these things, no one else will influence them because your preparation, attitude, concentration and effort belong to you and you only. And if you can control those you give yourself a better chance to not have distractions\u201d.<\/p>\n

Self-assessment<\/strong><\/p>\n

Players are evaluated on a weekly basis and part of that process involves a self-assessment survey, which is sent to each player. \u201cThey evaluate their own week \u2013 \u2018the things that went well in my week, the things I need to do better next week\u2019 \u2013 to give themselves a goal. It\u2019s an opportunity for them to close the door on the last week. That\u2019s pretty much what we\u2019re trying to do. And then, because we have access to\u00a0 mentors and the mental performance coordinators, they go around and have one on one conversations to get clarity; \u2018I saw your report and I saw your review. You did this and you also talked about getting better at this. What are you going to do get better? What are some of the strategies? Or I\u2019ve noticed that you\u2019ve had success in this area but I don\u2019t think that\u2019s the way the orientation defines success. How can we find a way to match the way they are looking at success with the way that you look at success?\u2019 So there\u2019s a lot of things you learn by getting into the mind of them and seeing how they are seeing themselves, how they are evaluating themselves\u201d.<\/p>\n

Are there other common characteristics in those who make it to the United States? \u201cIn general, what we see is connected to the desire to be better,\u201d says Morales. \u201cThat\u2019s one of the things you can\u2019t teach the guys. Their \u2018why\u2019 is pretty well connected to who they want to be for their families, to who they want to be for their siblings, who they want to be for their communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ones that have the most intrinsic approaches and motivations are the ones that tend to do best with all the different challenges associated with a minor league career. In terms of their tools and their potential, it\u2019s putting all those tools together and then, leaning to the expectations, I would say that there are more that come in from more solid structure families and the ones that come with lineage of other baseball people in their families, tend to have a little bit of a leg-up compared to some of the other ones because they know the game better, they understand and they\u2019ve been around the game for a while.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo guys from the Dominican that have dedicated their life to this, you can see right away that they\u2019re more of a gamer; they understand the game a little more. Mexican players, for example, they go through school. They\u2019re almost ready to graduate high school so their cognitive capacity is a little more advanced than some of the others. Venezuela used to be like that but it\u2019s regressing a little. So I think from different places you\u2019ll see some of those differences that helps them set themselves apart just based on the foundations that they were given\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/div>\n \n \n \n <\/div>\n

\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":18609,"menu_order":0,"template":"","categories":[22],"pathway":[304],"topic":[331,332],"sport":[323],"class_list":["post-18608","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coaching-development-performance","pathway-technical-excellence","topic-coaching","topic-talent-development","sport-baseball"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow the Pittsburgh Pirates Dominican Academy Sets Latin Players up for Success in the Major Leagues and Beyond - Performance Institute<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/how-the-pittsburgh-pirates-dominican-academy-sets-latin-players-up-for-success-in-the-major-leagues-and-beyond\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How the Pittsburgh Pirates Dominican Academy Sets Latin Players up for Success in the Major Leagues and Beyond - Performance Institute\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/how-the-pittsburgh-pirates-dominican-academy-sets-latin-players-up-for-success-in-the-major-leagues-and-beyond\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Performance Institute\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-12-15T05:11:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/06\/GettyImages-1468669648-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1736\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:image\" content=\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/06\/GettyImages-1468669648-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/how-the-pittsburgh-pirates-dominican-academy-sets-latin-players-up-for-success-in-the-major-leagues-and-beyond\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/how-the-pittsburgh-pirates-dominican-academy-sets-latin-players-up-for-success-in-the-major-leagues-and-beyond\/\",\"name\":\"How the Pittsburgh Pirates Dominican Academy Sets Latin Players up for Success in the Major Leagues and Beyond - Performance Institute\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/how-the-pittsburgh-pirates-dominican-academy-sets-latin-players-up-for-success-in-the-major-leagues-and-beyond\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/how-the-pittsburgh-pirates-dominican-academy-sets-latin-players-up-for-success-in-the-major-leagues-and-beyond\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/06\/GettyImages-1468669648-scaled.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-06-21T09:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-12-15T05:11:13+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/how-the-pittsburgh-pirates-dominican-academy-sets-latin-players-up-for-success-in-the-major-leagues-and-beyond\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/how-the-pittsburgh-pirates-dominican-academy-sets-latin-players-up-for-success-in-the-major-leagues-and-beyond\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/how-the-pittsburgh-pirates-dominican-academy-sets-latin-players-up-for-success-in-the-major-leagues-and-beyond\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/06\/GettyImages-1468669648-scaled.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/06\/GettyImages-1468669648-scaled.jpg\",\"width\":2560,\"height\":1736,\"caption\":\"BRADENTON, FLORIDA - FEBRUARY 22: (Left to Right) Carlos Santana #41, Oneil Cruz #15, and Rodolfo Castro #14 of the Pittsburgh Pirates poses for a portrait during the 2023 Pittsburgh Pirates Photo Day at Pirate City on February 22, 2023 in Bradenton, Florida. 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