“We’re asking coaches to give three hours of their time. This isn’t about big league ballparks and Southeastern Conference stadiums. It’s about ‘how can we make high school fields home base for the area’s baseball community?’ ” Riccobono said. “You don’t need all those amenities to have a good developmental session.”

The new partnership is yet another step in USA Baseball’s growing role as the coordinating driver of amateur baseball in the U.S. In recent years, USA Baseball has announced the Pitch Smart program to establish guidelines for youth pitcher workloads. It’s also worked with the National High School Federation to get pitch limits adopted virtually nationwide at the high school level. It has developed the Prospect Development Pipeline series to help provide free events where players can be scouted. And it now certifies metal bats as meeting standards it has laid out.

The ABCA is also reaching out more and more to coaches at younger levels with a new full-time youth liaison brought in to help work with those coaching younger kids.

Although neither USA Baseball or the ABCA have announced anything publicly about further steps, the logical progression of these increased education efforts would be to eventually have a certification process, something that amateur baseball in the U.S. lacks. That is notable because certification has become the norm for many other youth sports.

Basketball, soccer, football, gymnastics and swimming all have certification programs for coaches. And once they have completed their education, they are given a certification that stamps them as adequately trained.

That’s a potential future step, but for now, the two organizations have announced a significant step towards trying to give coaches easy access to tools to become better coaches.

“I hope this grows into a formal education where you graduate to different levels,” Hinch said. “We can get there, but the first thing you have to do is to get coaches embraced in investing in themselves. And it’s about giving them a platform to do it.”