Developing Decision-Makers, Not Just Athletes: The Role of Teaching Leverage in Player Development

In The Last Manager, the spotlight falls on Earl Weaver and the crucial role he played in building the Orioles’ player development machine. Weaver’s approach emphasized creating adaptable, versatile players—true Swiss Army knives—who could handle any role or challenge the game demanded.

Weaver saw baseball as a game of levers—not just matchups or substitutions, but situational decisions that tipped outcomes. Moment by moment, he looked for small advantages to press, understanding the rhythm and flow of the game like few others. At his core, Weaver was a teacher. That mindset powered a system designed not just to develop talent, but to grow players who understood why certain decisions mattered—players with functional mental models of the game.

Before the 1980s, player development revolved around teaching. Lacking today’s advanced tracking systems, organizations invested in coaches who could communicate the game’s nuances and build repeatable decision-making habits. Visionaries like Branch Rickey and Earl Weaver laid the foundation for systems that valued both baseball IQ and physical ability.

Since then, baseball has undergone a data revolution. The game is faster, more powerful, and more measurable. But in the rush to quantify everything, many organizations unintentionally sidelined the most crucial part of development: teaching players to understand and apply what matters under pressure.

The Game Is a Game of Leverage

Baseball is a game of situations that build on each other—a compounding sequence of leverage points. Each pitch, each out, each base taken (or not) creates a new decision tree for both sides. And the teams who understand those leverage points best are the ones most likely to make winning plays.

That’s where modern development often falls short. We see it in postseason lapses—missed cutoffs, bad baserunning reads, over-aggression in low-leverage spots. These aren’t failures of ability. They’re breakdowns in leverage awareness. In other words, poor mental models.

The biggest challenge is helping players build the right internal frameworks—so they can read the game in real time and respond with the right action. That’s what teaching leverage looks like. It’s not about memorizing situations. It’s about understanding how moments connect, how pressure shifts, and how to act with clarity when the game is tilted one way or another.

Teaching leverage is the ultimate job. Coaches must help players internalize the "why" behind decisions. Not just when to be aggressive, but why that moment called for it. Not just where to throw, but why the cutoff mattered in that context.

Building Better Models

This is where player development can evolve: by creating consistent reps not just for physical skills, but for mental framing. Team sessions that walk through leverage situations. Film that doesn’t just review results, but explores decision-making context. Mental reps that layer in score, inning, count, outs, baserunners—and ask players, “What’s the leverage here? What’s the right move because of that?”

The goal isn’t just better outcomes. It’s better mental infrastructure. When players see the game as a series of shifting levers, they begin to anticipate rather than react. They recognize the moment, not just the task.

But here's the problem: this kind of understanding used to come with time—and time is now the scarcest resource in player development. The luxury of letting the game teach players, one mistake at a time, is mostly gone. Players are often fast-tracked through levels, facing major league decisions with minor league experience. The reps that once shaped instincts through trial and error? They’re no longer guaranteed.

Which means we can’t wait for leverage awareness to "click." We have to teach it. Deliberately. Repeatedly. Intentionally.

If players no longer get the benefit of thousands of live-game reps to learn how leverage affects decisions, then organizations must create those reps—through film, through walkthroughs, through language. Not every situation can be simulated physically. But every leverage decision can be trained mentally.

The edge won’t go to the team with the most data. It’ll go to the one that turns that data into leverage literacy—developing players who can apply knowledge in real time, under stress, with clarity.

Teaching Leverage in Action

In a recent team meeting, we focused on a critical moment from a game—not to critique execution, but to teach leverage. We paused the clip before the play unfolded and asked players to think through the different situations that are going to happen in games.