By Carlos Castillo, Co-Founder, Kachi Gloves.
On a typical Saturday at 18732 SW 105th Ave in Miami, there are between 40 and 80 kids on the field. Baseball players from 8U up through high-school varsity. Softball players across the same age range. Travel-team kids getting position-specific work. Recruits running showcases for college coaches. The occasional pro who's in town for the off-season and needs a place to throw.
This is Kachi Baseball. It's the reason Kachi Gloves exists. And on the days I'm not on a flight to a factory or on a call with Julio about a new design spec, I'm here. Usually on a mound. Sometimes on a bucket behind home plate watching a 14-year-old reliever throw his new curveball for the first time.
7:30 AM — Setup
The cages open at 7:30. First bullpens start at 8. Coaches are on the field by 7:15 pulling buckets of balls, chalking the mound, checking the L-screens. You can tell the kind of weekend Miami is going to have by how fast the dew burns off the grass — late June, it's 95% humidity and everything sweats. January, the 8 AM air is 55 degrees and the kids show up in hoodies.
Every glove in the cage racks is a Kachi. Every batting glove on the rack is Kachi Pro. Every wood bat in the rotation is from the Kachi line. Not because we force it — because this is where I test the product. When something's broken, I find out by Saturday afternoon. When something's right, I find out the same way.
8:00 AM — Bullpen Session 1
Group one is the 12U arms. Four of them, 45 minutes each, rotating through the two bullpen mounds. I work one kid at a time. Mechanics check, grip inspection, first five pitches, then they're throwing to a catcher.
This is also when I'm testing glove prototypes. If we're iterating on a pitcher's glove — a new pocket profile, a different web stitch pattern — that prototype is in my hand during bullpens. The kids have no idea they're using test gear. Neither do their parents. But by the time a design ships to the public, it's survived 100 bullpen sessions from me plus real game use from academy kids who don't know they're the pre-launch panel.
9:30 AM — Infield Workouts
Group two is infielders. Eight kids, two coaches, ground balls on the dirt diamond. We run short-hop drills, bare-hand plays, footwork reps for the double play. I'm not always on this field — our hitting coach runs it — but when I am, I'm watching glove function as much as player function. Does the glove close cleanly? Does the pocket hold its shape? Is the weight right for a 13-year-old wrist after 200 reps?
Most of what I know about how a glove really performs, I learned from watching kids use gloves. Pros will adapt to whatever's in their hand. Kids tell you, loudly, when a glove isn't right. A 13-year-old with a too-stiff pocket won't catch the ball cleanly, and you'll know within 5 ground balls.
11:00 AM — The Offseason Pros
Some Saturdays there's a pro in the cages. Julio's been here in the offseason since 2021. Other former Braves teammates have dropped in. Some active MiLB players I coach privately come through between seasons.
They're not here because I advertise it. They're here because this is a private, professional-level facility in a city where a lot of Latin American pros spend their off-seasons, and word has gotten around that Carlos will work you hard and talk to you straight. No social media. No brand deals hanging in the cages. Just the work.
When I shipped Julio's first Kachi pitcher's glove — not the prototype, the actual production version — I handed it to him in the bullpen here. He threw 30 pitches with it. Told me the pocket was half a centimeter too deep. We fixed it for the production run.
1:00 PM — Team Practice
One of our travel teams takes the field for their Saturday practice. Full infield/outfield work, live BP, pitching. I'm in the dugout as a resource — not their head coach, but available. If the catcher struggles with a pop-up, I get up there. If the pitcher's mechanics wobble in the 4th inning, I walk out to the mound.
These are the kids who grow up wearing Kachi gloves because they can't imagine wearing anything else. That's what For Us By Us means. The glove isn't a branded accessory. It's what came out of the building where they got better.
4:00 PM — The Kachi International Kids
Late afternoon on some weekends we run Kachi International sessions — baseball players from Latin America who come through Miami to showcase for US college coaches and pro scouts. Players from Colombia (of course — Julio's pipeline), the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Panama, Mexico.
The field looks different. The Spanish is louder than the English. The music coming out of the outfield speakers switches to reggaeton. And the players wear Kachi gloves that they got as part of the program — a gesture that costs us a little but means something to a 17-year-old from Barranquilla who's six hours off the plane and trying to throw for a scout.
Why the Academy Is the Product
People ask how a custom glove brand can compete with Rawlings, Wilson, Marucci, 44 Pro — brands with more scale, more marketing budget, more retail footprint. The honest answer is: we have something they don't. A real facility. Real players testing real gloves. A former MLB pitcher (me) in the cages every Saturday. A 2× All-Star (Julio) dropping by in the offseason.
Kachi Gloves isn't a Shopify store that pretends to be a glove brand. It's a glove brand that happens to sell through a Shopify store. The difference shows up in the product. Every single time.
If you're in South Florida and you want to come by — to try on a sample glove, to see a cage run, to talk through a custom build in person — email hello@kachigloves.com first to coordinate. The academy is open program hours; visitors happen by appointment.
Kachi Baseball is at 18732 SW 105th Ave, Miami, FL · (305) 218-7542. The Kachi Gloves line is designed and tested here. Carlos Castillo bio. Julio Teherán bio. Kachi International.