The Sports Farm wants to be a one-stop shop for elite athletes

Weight training, skill training, recovery and analytics breakdowns. 

All at the same facility. 

This is the goal of The Sports Farm, a Lakewood Ranch athletic facility co-founded by former professional baseball pitcher Ryan Reid. Reid spent a decade playing mostly in the minor leagues and appeared in seven games for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2013, accumulating a 1.64 ERA and a save. 

Reid has spent 15 years coaching young athletes, starting before his own baseball career was officially done. It was a passion project, he said, but he hopes that The Sports Farm becomes something more. 

The facility, which Reid co-founded with Daniel McSwain and Matthew Reid, had a soft launch in 2023. All three founders have children in sports, and they wanted a place for them to train in a safe and healthy manner. Reid also brought in a few of the local athletes he was already training. 

A year later, and the Farm has flourished. The facility held an open house event in July to spread word throughout the Lakewood Ranch community that it is open for business. It is located at 7359 International Place.

Reid said the facility has approximately 45 athletes in its various programs, a number he is happy to have. The Lakewood Ranch facility has limited space, Reid said — approximately 4,500 square feet — so he does not want to get too large in order to give everyone the room and attention they need to thrive. 

Photo by Ryan Kohn

Though the Farm is open to athletes of any kind, the majority of the Farm's athletes are baseball players. The Farm has two batting/pitching cages where players can hows off their skills.

The facility uses Rapsodo tracking technology to measure everything about a player's performance. For pitchers, that means things like spin rate and break, while hitters get to see their launch angles and exit velocity.

Giving data you would see on a Statcast edition of ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball to a 12-year-old might sound like overkill at first, but Reid said it is important for young athletes to get a handle on what these statistics mean. 

"College coaches are expecting (players) to know these things," Reid said. "With this, you can actually put a book of data together and have a conversation based off that. 'Here are my strengths and my weaknesses.'" 

It is data Reid wishes he had during his playing days. Reid said organizations kept data similar to what the Rapsodo tracks, but did not share that data with players. The secrecy "drove me nuts," Reid said. By the time MLB started opening up to players, around 2016, Reid was on his way out of the league. He had Tommy John surgery in 2015 and never found his way back to the higher levels of the game.

Reid said he had seen and heard enough about the technology to know it was the future of the sport, however, which led to him investing in it for coaching purposes. 

Reid even let a washed up youth baseball player turned sports writer take a few swings in the Rapsodo cage. My final and best swing, hitting off a tee, had an exit velocity of 69.4 mph, and a launch angle of 9.9 degrees, with the ball landing 112 feet away, just to the left of second base. Rapsodo said it would have likely resulted in an out. I respectfully disagree.

If the incoming pitch had any velocity, I have faith it would have been ripped up the middle for a single. Then again, maybe that is the nostalgia for my Little League All-Star days talking. 

Photo by Ryan Kohn

The Farm will also use statistical analysis in its fledgling golf program, which was started by Trey Tobias in June. 

For all athletes, the Farm offers a lot more than data. In May, the team brought in Travis Koon, a former sports performance coach at Clemson University, to be the Farm's director of sports performance. Under his direction, the Farm's athletes go through gym workouts tailored to their sport and position.

They also get advice on proper nutrition and sleep habits, which the Farm believes is just as important as the on-field training. Koon's wife, Christina Koon, is a help in this area. She's a nutrition coordinator for the Boston Red Sox. 

The Farm also has a table where injured players can get worked on by physical therapist Dennis Colón a few days a week. 

Photo by Ryan Kohn

At Clemson, Travis Koon's focus was on the softball and men's and women's golf programs, and that aligns with the The Sports Farm's focus. In time, Reid said, he would like to add more softball players to mix in with its baseball players — and other female athletes as well, as long as they are willing to commit to the rigorous work the Farm requires of its clients. 

Reid made it clear that this is not a facility for athletes just learning their sports, or people whose commitment might waver. It is for athletes who want to take a shot at playing their sport at the highest possible level.

Reid said the Farm's most intensive package, where athletes come six days a week, comes out to approximately $35 per session, or $750 per month. Other packages, like the Farm's just-finished summer youth program that included speed work and Rapsodo-based training, came out closer to $25 per session. 

Before anyone pays, however, Reid and his team offer a free performance evaluation to get athletes comfortable in the space and see if it is a good fit for them. 

"We're having 'Is the juice worth the squeeze?' conversations a lot," Reid said. "We are looking for dedicated athletes. We are going to work with the coaches of their (school and travel) programs to make sure that we're not overworking them and not underworking them. 

"When they go to a showcase event, we want them not just showing up, but showing out."