Former Seattle Mariners draft pick, NCAA National Champion and 5.0+ pickleball player Billy Cooke joins the World Pickleball Podcast to explore one of the most overlooked areas of player development: reaction training.

Billy explains how elite baseball has spent decades developing vision, hand-eye coordination and decision-making through small-ball training, and why those same principles could help pickleball players improve their speed at the kitchen line, react faster under pressure and become more consistent in fast hands battles.

We also discuss:

• Billy's journey from professional baseball to competitive pickleball
• Why baseball is often described as a "game of failure" and what pickleball players can learn from that mindset
• How reaction time can be trained rather than simply inherited
• The science behind small-ball training and visual processing
• Why most players don't practise at game speed
• How Max PB is adapting proven baseball training methods for pickleball
• Whether technology can give players a genuine competitive edge

Whether you're trying to move from 3.5 to 4.0 or chasing professional competition, this episode offers practical insights into how better training can lead to better performance.

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Most pickleball analytics today can tell you what happened.

Very few can explain why.

In this episode of the World Pickleball Podcast, Chris Beaumont sits down with Scott Ross, founder of PEWPEW Analytics, to explore one of the biggest unanswered questions in the sport.

Has pickleball actually identified the things that matter most when it comes to winning?

Football has expected goals.

Baseball has on-base percentage.

Golf has strokes gained.

American football has EPA.

What is pickleball's equivalent?

Together, Chris and Scott discuss:

• Why traditional pickleball statistics often fail to explain results

• Whether DUPR's biggest weakness is not the rating itself, but the lack of explanation behind it

• How smart courts, AI and player tracking could change the sport

• Why most recreational players simply want to know: "How did I actually play today?"

• Whether pressure, neutralisation and rally control might prove more important than winners and errors

• The search for pickleball's potential Moneyball moment

This is a conversation for players, coaches, club owners, sports data enthusiasts and anyone curious about where the next layer of pickleball may come from.

Warning: Two sports analytics nerds may occasionally disappear down rabbit holes.

Listen now.

This week on the World Pickleball Podcast, Chris Beaumont and Gordon Watson break down one of the busiest weeks in global pickleball.

They discuss the Panas PPA Asia event in Kuala Lumpur, including standout performances from Xiao Yi Wang, Eu Long, Jamie Wei and teenage sensation Tama Shimabukuro, while also looking at what Nasa Hatakeyama’s remarkable run says about Japan’s emerging depth.

The conversation then shifts to Major League Pickleball ahead of the 2026 opener in Dallas, where St. Louis Shock enter as favourites and front-office decisions are becoming almost as important as on-court talent.

Chris and Gordo also explore Anna Bright’s revealing behind-the-scenes vlog and what it says about the growing off-court demands facing professional pickleball players, from sponsor obligations to constant travel and content creation.

Elsewhere, they discuss:

• the competitive balance emerging in Canada’s CNPL
• Selkirk’s acquisition of Bread & Butter
• the growth of pickleball infrastructure in Australia and the UK
• and why the sport increasingly feels like a fully professional ecosystem rather than a fast-growing hobby.

Plus: Gordo wins gold in Townsville, Chris questions his own game again, and Lee Whitwell delivers one of the best lines about pickleball psychology you will hear all year.