About
Tad Reida
Dad. Former D1 coach. Founder of CageRat Baseball.
I spent 16 years at CageRat. I built an 84,000 sq ft facility and we had it for five. I thought the work was velo and scholarships. I’m a dad now. The work is helping you stay the person in charge of your son — and raising a man, not a customer.
I spent 16 years at CageRat helping players chase velo, helping them get more reps, and finding college scholarships. Looking back, that wasn’t the part that lasted. The hours between fathers and sons were.
Your son doesn’t need another trainer. To reach his full potential, he needs you working with him, walking him through this process. I will walk with you through this as well.
I have baseball sons of my own. My oldest is 10. I’m a dad walking my own boys through this. I played D1, coached D1, and still have my own concerns. Let’s help our boys reach their goals together.
I also played at Wichita State and Indiana, was drafted by the Phillies out of high school, and coached at the D1 level. I founded CageRat in Colorado. That part is the map. The dad part is why I won’t use it to take your place.
Only you have his best intentions behind every action. Most dads don’t have a clean way to develop him or to navigate recruiting. I’ll walk with you. You do the work with him.
CageRat no longer runs teams or a training facility. The work now is this.
This is not for families looking for someone else to take over, or a promise that more showcases will solve it.
Contributors
Success on the field and off it
I can tell a dad what coaches look for. Mo lived it from El Paso to Wichita State’s captain — Preseason All-AAC, Heart of a Shocker, two degrees. He’s done playing. He’s here because the real win is young men prepared for whatever comes next.
Contributor
Mauricio Millan
Former Wichita State captain · Preseason All-AAC catcher · Two degrees
Mauricio Millan’s story starts in El Paso. Coronado High School. El Paso Community College. Then Wichita State, where he spent three years behind the plate and earned the opportunity to become the Shockers’ starting catcher and a team captain. Nothing about his path was handed to him.
At Wichita State, Mauricio became the type of catcher you could count on every single day. He hit over .300 in each of his first two seasons, earned Preseason All-AAC recognition, and in 2024 set the American Athletic Conference record for hit-by-pitches while fielding .996 behind the plate. He threw runners out, handled a Division I pitching staff, and found ways to stay in the lineup even when his body wasn’t at 100%. That mentality eventually earned him the Heart of a Shocker Award.
But what Mauricio is most proud of goes beyond what he did between the lines. He earned First-Team AAC All-Academic honors, made the Athletic Director’s Honor Roll with a 4.0, and left Wichita State with both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Sport Management. Because baseball was always supposed to create opportunities beyond baseball.
There was a point during COVID when Mauricio seriously considered walking away from the game altogether. He chose to keep going. That decision eventually took him places he never could have imagined at the time — playing Division I baseball, becoming a captain, earning two degrees, building relationships across the game, and creating a career and a life after his playing days were over.
His dad taught him something early that stuck with him throughout the entire journey: baseball is what you do. It’s not who you are. That perspective shaped the way Mauricio played, and now it shapes the way he wants to develop the next generation of players.
Because development should be bigger than a pop time, exit velocity, 60 time, or recruiting ranking. Yes, the tools matter. Yes, becoming a better baseball player matters. Yes, competing at the highest level possible matters. But so does learning how to work. How to lead. How to handle failure. How to carry yourself in a clubhouse. How to take care of business in the classroom. And eventually, how to build a life when the uniform comes off.
Mauricio’s playing career is over. What baseball gave him isn’t. That’s what he brings to CageRat — the perspective of someone who lived the process from El Paso to junior college to Division I baseball, and came out the other side understanding that the real win is not just creating better players. It’s creating young men who are prepared for whatever comes next.
“The development I got in this game opened doors I never dreamed of. That’s led to all the success I have now. That’s what we want for your son — on the field and off it.”