How Shelbyville baseball coach turned a passion for pitching analytics into an MLB job.

Royce Carlton is a baseball lifer.

He's the type of kid who dreamed of reaching the majors while still playing Little League. The type of kid who spent hours micromanaging his team on "MLB The Show" franchise mode, with visions of one day working for an MLB organization in real life.

Through an intense love for baseball, the desire to master the art of pitching and a deep appreciation for and knowledge of analytics, the Morristown grad achieved his big-league dreams, leaving his job as Shelbyville's baseball coach to become a pitching coach in the Miami Marlins organization.

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"(Earlier this year), I was going to be a high school baseball coach and a high school teacher the rest of my life, live out my life and be happy," Carlton said. "I thought there was no chance of me ever becoming a professional coach. ... You never see it happen and boom here I am walking into the Marlins' Jupiter complex."

On a mission to help players develop

When Carlton's baseball career at UIndy ended, he wanted to stay involved in the game he loved. His first stop on the coaching ladder was back at his alma mater as an assistant coach for Morristown. He took over as head coach the following year and, after a winning campaign, left to become an assistant under former Montreal Expos 1983 14th overall pick Rich Stoll at Attica, Stoll's alma mater. Two months into his job at Attica, Stoll resigned, and Carlton took over as head coach.

After three seasons at Attica, Carlton had an opportunity to return closer to home and interview for a Physical Education position at Shelbyville. The job came with an assistant baseball coaching position, and on his way down to Shelbyville, he learned that head baseball coach Scott Hughes had resigned, allowing him to take over as head coach at Shelbyville for the 2017 season.

While coaching at Shelbyville, Carlton also worked as a skills instructor on the side. One of his first pupils was current Shelbyville ace Aiden Smith. Smith, still in elementary school at the time, worked with Carlton to do weight training and learn basic pitching fundamentals. Carlton's desire to dig deeper into the finer points of pitching led him to campaign and fundraise, finally getting enough money to have a Rapsodo machine (about $3,000 to $4,000) installed at Shelbyville.

"We got on (the Rapsodo) pretty early, working on pitch designs and just different mechanical stuff," Smith said. "So, everything I started with was a lot earlier than most kids. We've always had a really tight bond. We've always just clicked together. He's always helped me, and he's always been a good coach for me."

A Rapsodo machine is a system of portable launch monitors. The machines started in golf, measuring spin rate, launch angles, smash rates and other data from clubs striking golf balls. In 2016 the company transitioned to baseball, tracking hitter data like exit velocity, spin rate and launch angles. On the pitching side, Rapsodo can track a pitcher's release extension, height off the ground, release angles out of a pitcher's hand and post-release flight data such as spin rate, vertical and horizontal break and velocity. Each pitch has about 20 data points to analyze, helping a pitcher really hone in on how they want their pitches to move.

Carlton helped Shelbyville develop a pitching lab and the Golden Bears love getting the feedback and working to perfect their skills. Over time, Carlton became an advocate for Rapsodo, speaking on the benefits of the technology at multiple American Baseball Coaches Association trade shows. The technology isn't cheap, and some coaches prefer a more old-school approach to teaching the game, but Carlton can speak firsthand to Rapsodo's benefits. His first pupil, Smith has developed into one of the top pitchers in the state. He's the No. 3-ranked sophomore in Indiana and a Top-75 recruit nationally per Prep Baseball Report. Standing 6-3, 170 pounds, Smith's fastball touches 91 mph with a spin rate of 2600 RPMs.

"(Carlton) paved the way to show other schools at that size that they can get quality technology like Rapsodo," said Brian Page, a New Palestine grad and former Anderson University baseball player and current Rapsodo Account Manager. "Our efforts are always to get that professional-grade data in the hands of everyone. That's always been our mission. ... It's not the most expensive tool, but it's still a lot for a high school budget. That was something you never heard any complaints or anything about from Royce.

"His main goal was to get the players exposure to get recruited or get looked at for the MLB draft. That was always his mission, to help these players regardless of what he needed to do to get that going."

Innovators wanted

Rapsodo has a relationship with all 30 MLB teams and every minor league organization. Technology and data are shaping the current generation of baseball, and every player development department is looking for an edge. When Rachel Balkovec, former manager of the New York Yankees' Single-A team the Tampa Tarpons (Balkovec is the first woman to work as a full-time manager of an MLB-affiliated team), was named Director of Player Development for the Miami Marlins in early January, she wanted to hire more forward-thinking minds at the lower levels of the organization.

She reached out to Page to find coaches who embraced technology and had a player development background while still being able to understand the game from a player's perspective. One of the first names Page thought of was Carlton's.

"They wanted some different ideas and people that wanted to innovate the game," Carlton said. "(Balkovec) texted me and I was on the phone with her two hours after that. Went through the whole interview process, Zoom meetings with the pitching coordinators and herself, and different other processes for the interview. And three weeks later, I get the call saying we'd like to offer you the job."

Carlton has relocated to Jupiter, Fla., home of the Marlins' Rookie League team. He works with Marlins rookie league pitchers and coaches, tracking data from bullpens, throwing programs and intrasquad scrimmages. All the data is entered into the team's computers to help them create plans for player development.

In a matter of weeks, Carlton went from coaching baseball in Indiana to working alongside multi-million-dollar bonus signees No. 10 overall pick Noble Meyer and No. 35 overall pick Thomas White, two prep pitchers drafted in 2023 with tremendous upside. By embracing data and technology, Carlton finally made it to the big leagues.

"I'll admit, I haven't had time to really soak it all in yet," Carlton said. "It's been 100 miles an hour every day, but I'm loving it. ... It's a challenge. It's not easy. It's extremely hard. But my whole life I've been challenged. So, this is the next step."

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Miami Marlins outside-the-box thinking leads to Royce Carlton hire