Baseball player builds pitch sequencing app for experiential learning project

Recent Luther College graduate Brody Von Berge built a baseball pitching app designed to help young players be consistent, strategic and effective pitchers.

“There’s a lack of sequencing awareness in youth baseball, and my background in both pitching and computer science helped me design realistic logic to address it,” Von Berge said.

Experiential learning is a core curriculum requirement at Luther College. Through experiential learning, students have the opportunity to apply their learning in a context beyond the traditional classroom setting.

Many students elect to complete their experiential learning through internships or research. Individual student-designed projects like Von Berge’s project are less common, but his project is an example of how the core curriculum requirement may be tailored to a student’s interests and studies. Von Berge majored in computer science at Luther College.

“At Luther College we believe that learning in context beyond the traditional classroom is a critical part of developing the whole person. For that reason we developed a requirement whereby students can connect their unique interests to experiential learning in a wide variety of settings and types of experiences,” said Brittany Cord, director of experiential learning at Luther College.

Von Berge joined Luther’s baseball team after transferring in 2024. This spring, Von Berge was a valuable member of the Norse baseball team’s outstanding season and was twice named American Rivers Conference (A-R-C) baseball pitcher of the week. Earlier this month, the Luther baseball team was named the outright A-R-C champions. Ending the regular season with a 19-5 conference record, Luther earned the No. 1 seed in the A-R-C baseball tournament and earned an at-large bid into the the NCAA Division Ⅲ Tournament.

Recent Luther College graduate Brody Von Berge built a baseball pitching app designed to help young players be consistent, strategic and effective pitchers.

Von Berge brought years of pitching experience to his experiential learning project. His background shaped the app’s logic for what a pitcher would actually throw in a given count and helped him test the suggestions against his own intuition.

“The highlight of the experience was when the app began generating pitch suggestions that matched my own expectations,” Von Berge said. “Seeing the model reflect realistic pitching logic was quite satisfying. It showed that the system I built was working as intended.”

Built in Apple’s Swift programming language, Von Berge’s app helps young pitchers learn what to throw, when to throw it and how to set up sequences. The finished version includes pitch information, customizable pitch mixes that range across fastball, slider, changeup and other common types, simulated at-bats that respond to the ball-strike count and a history tab. Logic Von Berge wrote into the app accounts for what he calls “pitch decay,” a baseball analytics theory that overused pitches lose their effectiveness. The app also tracks tunnels, where two pitches share the same release look.

“Brody being involved in creating this app is not surprising,” said Luther College Head Baseball Coach Bryan Nikkel. “He is the kind of guy whose brain is always working and he is constantly trying to better himself but also those around him. Brody is what type of student-athlete we get here at Luther. He is the best and brightest and has a great future ahead of him on and off the field.”

Von Berge, of Hudson, Wisconsin, earned his bachelor’s degree in computer science from Luther College on Sunday, May 24.

“I’m very interested in staying in the baseball and sports world and using my degree for analysis or player development,” Von Berge said.

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