Ep. 17 | Lynn Vanlandingham, Five Tool Baseball

Listen on Apple Podcasts

What You'll Learn in This Episode

Host Ross Hawley, joined by Jim Schwanke, sits down with Lynn Vanlandingham, founder and owner of Five Tool Baseball, for the story of how a regional showcase idea born at a Fort Worth taco stand grew into events across 18 states.

Vanlandingham is a former Hardin-Simmons player and longtime select coach (Dallas Tigers) who built Five Tool around a simple idea: give kids a shot at exposure without asking families to fly across the country to get it. This conversation traces that origin story, why baseball is a regional game, and the same relationship-first advice for parents, coaches, and players that shows up throughout the Baseball Forward catalog — including Rhett Massey's Ep. 112 conversation, where Massey credits watching a Five Tool-connected team at a 2024 event for reshaping how he thinks about culture.

The highlights:

  • The 2012 Torchy's Tacos lunch that turned into Five Tool's first event
  • Why baseball, unlike football, is a regional game
  • Lynn's own path from the Texas Panhandle to Hardin-Simmons baseball
  • Growth that was never planned — just good people saying yes
  • The three days in a father's life he wishes he had cherished more
  • Kade Griffith's dad and the line that mattered more than the box score
  • Advice for young coaches on personalizing losses vs. developing players
  • Choosing a team: research the man, not the logo
  • One change Lynn would make to baseball below 13U

From Torchy's Tacos to a Regional Movement

Five Tool was not the product of a marketing plan. Vanlandingham's 2014-grad travel team had just performed well at a showcase, then played a home game the next weekend with 19 radar guns in the stands. That contrast led to a 2012 lunch with Tony Vitello — then TCU's recruiting coordinator, later the Tennessee head coach — at Torchy's Tacos in downtown Fort Worth.

"I'm just not going to ask my parents to spend three grand to travel when we've got this type of exposure and opportunity right here in our own backyard."

Vitello's answer: invite 8–10 teams, play at TCU, and see what happens. That informal plan became Five Tool's first event. From there, outside operators kept asking to bring the model to their own regions, and the company grew to 18 states without ever writing a ten-year strategy.

Why Baseball Is a Regional Game

Vanlandingham's comparison: four years ago, everyone in Texas could name Clemson's starting quarterback, but almost no one could name its shortstop. Football recruiting is national; baseball recruiting is regional, and most players who go on to play college baseball end up within four or five hours of home — not at the six or seven schools most families think of first.

  • Football and basketball scholarships have long been full rides; baseball scholarships are mostly partial, which pushes cost-conscious families toward regional options
  • Power 5 (now Power 4) programs "don't need a whole lot of help" — the volume of opportunity lives at the smaller schools
  • Junior college baseball exists at a scale football and basketball do not, which keeps more players in the game
  • Playing is playing: staying around the sport matters more than the level

Lynn's Own Playing Days

Vanlandingham grew up in the Texas Panhandle near Canyon, where head coach Tom McPherson (later a 900-win coach and Texas High School Baseball Hall of Fame inductee) shaped his early love of the game — back when a televised baseball game was a once-a-week event before cable brought the Cubs on WGN and the Braves on TBS.

He played his first two years at Hardin-Simmons, part of the only team in program history to beat the University of Texas (a midweek game). He later played for Larry Hayes at Texas Tech, whom he calls one of the most phenomenal people he has ever met for how he held players accountable and did things the right way. Vanlandingham describes himself as a below-average Division I player who had to find a role and work for it — and still talks with former West Coast opponents from a 1988 group text.

Growth Without a Master Plan

Ten-plus years in, Vanlandingham says the most satisfying part of Five Tool has never been the scale — it is watching a 15-year-old mature into a 21-year-old college player, and the relationships built with scouts, college coaches, and regional operators along the way.

  • Ron Brewer (formerly of the Albuquerque Baseball Academy) and Jeff Kahn (formerly CBS Sports' NFL editor, brought on for social media) were early hires who shaped the organization
  • Regional operators — Aaron Cable and Adam Yish in California, Tim Erickawa in Southern California, Allan Dyer in Colorado, Tate Thorson in the Midwest — carry the model into their own markets
  • Five Tool does not dictate to families: "every individual's got to decide what's in the best interest for their son and where you go play"

Advice for Parents: Cherish Every Game

Vanlandingham has three sons and three grandsons, and he says three specific days stand out in his life: the last game each son ever played. Looking back, he wishes he had cherished those games more instead of getting caught up in wins, losses, and stats.

"Make sure that your son knows your love for him has nothing to do with his batting average."

He credits Kade Griffith with the best version of that advice: Griffith's dad greeted him the same way in the car after every game — "Son, I really enjoyed watching you play today" — whether he went 3-for-4 with two doubles or 0-for-4 with three strikeouts. Jim Schwanke adds his own version: applaud effort, not results, and resist the urge to coach from the stands or record every at-bat.

Advice for Coaches: Manage Competitive Spirit

Vanlandingham sees a generational shift in how young coaches handle losses — personalizing them instead of treating them as a team outcome. His standard for a coach worth playing for:

  • Teach the game, build baseball IQ, and let competitive spirit serve development instead of overtaking it
  • A player's goal should be a work ethic that earns "at least one more year than your talent should have allowed you to play"
  • Coaching is a business and a livelihood, but the coaches who last are the ones who keep development and teaching ahead of the scoreboard

Choosing a Team: The Coach Matters More Than the Logo

Asked what a parent should look for when picking a team, Vanlandingham skips the org chart entirely:

"The man that they play for does [matter] ... batting average doesn't, ERA doesn't, but the man that they play for does."

Jim Schwanke's field-tested add: go watch the coach run a practice without announcing yourself. It shows how a coach treats players when no one is being sold anything — the same approach he used scouting programs against LSU, Texas A&M, and Florida.

Life Lessons From the Diamond

A student-athlete line on a resume is a built-in talking point in any job interview, Vanlandingham says — proof of hard work, collaboration, and a shot at belonging during years when bad decisions are easy to make. Sports (or music, or any pursuit that demands the same commitment) keeps kids busy and gives them common ground with future employers and coworkers alike.

His own biggest influences: his wife of 35 years (they started dating at 15 and 14), Coach McPherson, Coach Hayes, and a Caterpillar-era boss, Dave Harris, whose professionalism stuck with him even though he was not always his favorite person to work for.

"If you want to be a better person, look for the good things in other people... if you don't want to be a better person, then look for the flaws in everybody."

One Change Lynn Would Make to Baseball

If he could change one thing, Vanlandingham would fix youth baseball's culture below 13U:

  • Move to smaller barrels (minus-3 and minus-5 bats) at younger ages instead of minus-8/minus-10, which he argues would cut pitch counts more effectively than pitch-count rules alone
  • Play 8-on-8 baseball in the fall the way 7-on-7 has taken over youth football — freeing arms from pitching duty
  • Use tight bases at young ages so infielders actually face situations that teach a double play, instead of a game built around holding runners and stolen bases at every level

Walkout song: neither Lynn nor Jim had one back in their playing days — Lynn leans 80s and Alabama; Jim floats the Eagles and Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Willie and the Poor Boys."

Episode Timestamps

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

  • 0:44 - Meeting Lynn in Frisco in 2013 and Five Tool's early days
  • 1:35 - The 19-radar-gun weekend that started it all
  • 2:17 - The 2012 Torchy's Tacos lunch with Tony Vitello
  • 3:22 - Why Five Tool is built as a regional concept
  • 3:32 - The Clemson quarterback vs. shortstop comparison
  • 4:27 - From a Texas idea to 18 states
  • 5:32 - Scholarships, cost, and why baseball recruiting stays regional
  • 7:26 - Growing up in the Texas Panhandle and Coach Tom McPherson
  • 9:34 - Playing for Larry Hayes at Texas Tech
  • 10:08 - Camaraderie, a 1988 group text, and beating Texas at Hardin-Simmons
  • 11:56 - The coolest part of ten-plus years running Five Tool
  • 13:24 - Jim on the Dallas Tigers, Knoxville, and player development
  • 15:03 - "Are we playing in the Five Tool?"
  • 16:02 - Growth that was never planned
  • 17:06 - The regional operators who make it work
  • 25:04 - The last game each of Lynn's three sons ever played
  • 26:36 - Kade Griffith's dad: "I really enjoyed watching you play today"
  • 27:32 - Jim on applauding effort over results
  • 30:34 - Advice for young coaches on personalizing losses
  • 32:11 - Playing one more year than your talent should allow
  • 33:54 - Choosing a team: research the man, not the logo
  • 36:03 - Jim's advice: go watch a coach's practice unannounced
  • 37:37 - Why a student-athlete resume line matters in the real world
  • 40:08 - Lynn's greatest influences, starting with his wife
  • 41:56 - Look for the good in people, even a boss you didn't love
  • 43:09 - The one change Lynn would make to youth baseball
  • 44:19 - Tight bases, stolen bases, and teaching the double play
  • 46:17 - Walkout songs and closing thoughts

Lynn Vanlandingham is the founder and owner of Five Tool Baseball. Follow Five Tool on Instagram, X, and Facebook, or visit fivetool.org to join The Line.