Bench Coach help

What Bench Coach is

Bench Coach is a small assistant that reads your program's own files and answers questions about them. You connect it to the assistant app you already use, then ask about your roster, your schedule, who has taken reps at a position, and what is on file about the team you play next.

Every number it gives you carries the id of the fact it came from and the sample size behind it. It never sends anything to anyone. You can delete everything you gave it at any time.

What you need

Three things.

1. An email address and an invite code from YourDataScouting. Codes are handed out by hand. If you do not have one, email [email protected] and ask.
2. A paid assistant account that supports custom connectors. Bench Coach is not an app you download. It plugs into the assistant you already pay for.
3. Your roster and schedule as CSV files, and a few paragraphs about how you talk to players and parents.

Which assistant plans work

Claude, from Anthropic. Custom connectors using remote MCP are available on Claude, Cowork and Claude Desktop for users on the Free, Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise plans, and a Free account is limited to one custom connector. On Team and Enterprise, only an account owner can add the connector for the organization, and everyone else connects to it afterward. Connectors work on Claude web, Claude Desktop and the Claude mobile apps on iOS and Android. Adding a connector from a phone is still in beta, so the reliable path is to add it once on the website and then use it everywhere.

• Getting started with custom connectors
• Using connectors in a conversation

ChatGPT, from OpenAI. Custom MCP servers are added through developer mode, which is available to Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Education accounts, on the web only. It does not run in the ChatGPT mobile apps. Full read and write tool support is in beta on Business, Enterprise and Education; on Plus and Pro you should expect lookups to work and treat anything that writes as limited. Bench Coach only ever reads and drafts, so a Plus or Pro account is enough for everything it does.

• Developer mode and MCP apps in ChatGPT
• Developer mode guide

A free ChatGPT account cannot do this. A free Claude account can, for one connector.

The address you will be asked for

https://mcp.yourdatascouting.com/mcp

If that address does not work for you, the backup address is the one in the mail with your invite code. Both are the same server.

Whichever address you set the connector up with is the one you have to keep using. The sign in you approve is tied to the exact address the connector was added with, so a connector added on the backup address will not start working if you paste the other one into a chat. If you need to move to the other address, remove the connector and add it again with the new one.

Your code, and how signing in works

Read this once. It is short and it saves a phone call.

There is no email step anywhere in Bench Coach. Nothing is ever sent to your address; the address is only how the server tells one coach from another. That is why the code matters.

The first time you sign in, on the setup page or when the connector asks, you type your email and the invite code you were given. The server then shows you a returning code on the screen, once. Write it down. From then on that is the code you type, in both places.

The returning code is stored scrambled. Nobody can look it up for you later. If you lose it, ask for a new one and you will be issued a fresh code to write down. Nothing else is lost when that happens; your files stay exactly where they are.

Codes are not case sensitive, and dashes and spaces are ignored, so abcd efgh jklm and ABCD-EFGH-JKLM are the same code. There is no letter O, letter I, letter L, digit zero or digit one in a code at all, so you never have to guess which one you are looking at.

If a code is refused six times in ten minutes, that address pauses for about ten minutes. That is there to stop somebody guessing at codes, and it clears on its own.

The trade this makes: nothing to leak, nothing to reset by link, no third party holding your inbox, and no verification mail to wait on. What it costs is that a lost code is a message to a person instead of a self serve reset.

Upload your files first

Do this before the connector. It takes five minutes and the connector is not much use without it.

1. On your phone or your computer, go to https://mcp.yourdatascouting.com/setup
2. Type your email address and the invite code you were given, and press Sign in. Write down the returning code it shows you.
3. Press Roster and upload your roster CSV, or paste the rows straight into the box. The server reads it and shows you a table of what it understood. Nothing is saved until you press Save this roster.
4. Press Schedule and do the same with your schedule CSV. Check the dates in the preview before you save.
5. Press Philosophy and paste in a few paragraphs about how you talk to players and parents. There is an example further down this page.
6. Press How to connect. That page has the address to paste and the steps for each app.

Every upload replaces what was there before rather than merging into it, and the setup page always shows you what is on file right now.

Connect it

Four ways in, depending on what you use. Every one of them ends with the same test question, so you always know when you are finished.

• Claude on the web
• Claude on the desktop app
• Claude on an iPhone
• ChatGPT on the web

Claude on the web

For anyone on a computer. This is the path that always works, and doing it once here puts Bench Coach on your phone too.

1. Open https://claude.ai on a computer and sign in.
2. Click your name in the bottom left, then Settings.
3. Click Customize, then Connectors.
4. Click the plus button, then Add custom connector.
5. In the URL box, paste https://mcp.yourdatascouting.com/mcp
6. Click Add.
7. Claude opens a sign in page from us. Enter the same email and code you used on the setup page, then say yes on the page that asks whether to connect it.
8. Go back to a normal chat. Click the plus button at the bottom left of the message box, hover over Connectors, and switch Bench Coach on.
9. Ask: what do you have on file for me? If it answers with your player and game counts, you are done.

If your Claude account is a Team or Enterprise account, steps 3 through 6 have to be done once by an account owner under Organization settings, then Connectors, then Add, then Custom. After the owner has added it, you go to Customize, then Connectors, find Bench Coach and press Connect.

Claude on the desktop app

For anyone who works in the Claude app on a Mac or a Windows computer rather than in a browser.

1. Open the Claude app and sign in with the same account.
2. Open Settings from the Claude menu, then click Connectors.
3. Click the plus button, then Add custom connector.
4. Paste https://mcp.yourdatascouting.com/mcp in the URL box and click Add.
5. Sign in with your email and code when the window appears, and approve.
6. In a chat, click the plus button by the message box, hover over Connectors, and turn Bench Coach on.
7. Ask: what do you have on file for me?

If you already added the connector on the website with the same account, it is already there. You do not have to add it twice.

Claude on an iPhone

For the dugout. You cannot reliably add a new connector from the phone yet, so add it once on the website and then it is simply there.

1. On a computer, follow the Claude on the web steps above all the way through.
2. On your iPhone, open the Claude app and make sure you are signed in to the same account.
3. Start a new chat.
4. Tap the plus button to the left of the message box.
5. Tap Connectors.
6. Switch Bench Coach on.
7. Ask: what do you have on file for me?

If Bench Coach is not in that list, close the app fully and reopen it. The phone picks up connectors that were added on the website, but it can take a minute or a restart.

ChatGPT on the web

For anyone on a paid ChatGPT account, on a computer. This one is web only.

1. Open https://chatgpt.com on a computer and sign in to a Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise or Education account.
2. Click your name in the bottom left, then Settings.
3. Find Connectors, then Advanced, and turn on developer mode. Read the warning it shows you and accept it.
4. Choose Create, or Add custom connector.
5. Give it the name Bench Coach, paste https://mcp.yourdatascouting.com/mcp as the server URL, and pick OAuth as the way to sign in. Save it.
6. Sign in with your email and code in the window that appears, and approve.
7. In a chat, turn the connector on for that chat.
8. Ask: what do you have on file for me?

In ChatGPT it helps to name the connector in your question the first few times. For example, use Bench Coach to show me my roster. Where that setting lives moves around between versions, so if you cannot find developer mode, that is the app and not your account.

ChatGPT on an iPhone

Custom MCP connectors in ChatGPT are web only. They do not run in the ChatGPT phone app, and there is no way around that today. If you want Bench Coach on your phone, use Claude on your phone. That is the phone path we support.

Your two CSV files

Two CSV files and one block of text. Save from a spreadsheet with File, then Save as, then CSV. Somewhere in the first five rows there has to be a row of column names, so a title across the top of your file is fine. The order of the columns does not matter, extra columns are ignored, and a column it cannot find is reported back to you on the page instead of guessed.

Commas, semicolons and tabs all read, so a regional setting that saves with semicolons is not a problem and neither is a block pasted straight out of a table. What still does not read is a workbook with several sheets that was renamed to .csv, and it will tell you that is what happened.

A pitch tracking export is refused before a single row of it is read, in both boxes, recognized by the column names only that kind of file has. That is a hard rule rather than a preference. Those files carry agreements between your program and other people and this stays out of the middle of it.

roster.csv

Recommended columns: Player, Positions, Bats, Throws, Notes.

• Player. Required, unless you have a first name column and a last name column, which get joined for you. First and last is best. The header can say Player, Player Name, Full Name, Name or Athlete.
• Positions. Every position this player has actually taken reps at. Not a depth chart, just what is possible. The header can say Positions, Position or Pos. Separate them however you like: SS/2B/3B, "SS, 2B" and "ss 2b" all read the same.
• Bats. R, L or S. The header can say Bats or B.
• Throws. R or L. The header can say Throws or T. One combined column headed B/T holding something like S/L is split into the two for you, which is how most roster pages print it.
• Notes. Anything your staff already keeps. Keep injuries out of it. The header can say Notes, Note or Comments.

Only the name is truly required. Without a positions column the roster loads fine and position questions come back empty, which is worse than useless in a dugout, so put it in. Two rows with the same player name are read as one player and the second is skipped, and the page tells you how many rows it skipped and why. A file with more than 120 players is refused as a camp list rather than a roster.

Player,Positions,Bats,Throws,Notes
Alex Brown,SS/2B,R,R,Best range on the left side. Handles the bat late in counts.
Sam Taylor,C/1B,L,R,Second catcher. Threw well in the fall.
Jordan Moore,OF/1B,L,L,Best on base bat in the lineup.
Casey Rivera,RHP,R,R,Weekend starter. Fastball and slider.
Drew Ellis,2B/OF,S,R,Runs well. Bunts on his own.

Download the roster template. Open it in your spreadsheet, replace the rows with your players, and save it as CSV.

schedule.csv

Recommended columns: Date, Opponent, Site, Travel, Notes.

• Date. Required. The header can say Date, Game Date, Day or When.
• Opponent. Required. The name you use for them, because that is how you will ask about them. The header can say Opponent, Opp, Vs or Team.
• Site. home, away or neutral. H, A and N are read the same way. The header can say Site, Home/Away or Location.
• Travel. bus, van, flight or none.
• Notes. Doubleheader, conference, first pitch time, anything you want it to know.

Dates can be written any of the ways a spreadsheet writes them: 2027-03-14, 3/14/27, 3/14, Mar 14, 14 March 2027, 14-Mar, Mar-14, and any of those with a clock time on the end. They are all stored the same way underneath, so the schedule always sorts correctly. Two number dates are read American style, month first. A date with no year gets the year in the box on the upload page, which you can change before you upload.

The one date shape it will not take is the five digit number a spreadsheet writes when it has turned your dates into its own internal counter. It recognizes that and tells you to format the column as text instead of quietly dropping the row.

A date the server cannot read at all is skipped and counted, and the preview table tells you how many. Read the preview before you save. That is the moment to catch a wrong date, not in March.

Two games against the same opponent on the same day are a doubleheader, not a duplicate. Both are kept, and the second one comes back described as game 2 of a doubleheader. A file with more than 200 games is refused as more than one season.

Every date it reads back to you comes with the weekday next to it, so a date that came out of your file wrong is obvious on sight rather than in March. There is no time zone anywhere in this. A game is a date, because that is how a schedule is handed out. Put first pitch times in the Notes column as words and they come back exactly as you wrote them.

Date,Opponent,Site,Travel,Notes
2027-03-13,Riverside,home,none,Game one of three. 3:00 first pitch.
2027-03-14,Riverside,home,none,Doubleheader.
2027-03-20,Northgate,away,bus,Conference. Bus leaves 10:00 Friday.
2027-03-27,Fairview,neutral,bus,Tournament pool play.

Download the schedule template. Same idea: replace the rows and save as CSV.

The philosophy document

This is how Bench Coach learns to sound like you when it drafts something. Write it the way you talk. A hundred words is plenty. What matters is tone, what you always say, and what you never say.

This box is storage, and what you type in it is kept until you change it or delete it. Do not put a player's health, eligibility or academic standing in here. It holds up to 8,000 characters, which is far more than it needs, and if you paste in more it tells you and keeps what you pasted on the screen so nothing is lost.

Here is an example of the shape and length. It is an example, not a template to submit: paste this one in and you get an assistant that sounds like somebody else.

I talk to parents like adults and I do not apologize for a decision I made on purpose. Short messages. Times, places and what the player needs to bring, in that order. I do not discuss playing time in a group message, ever, and I do not talk about one player in front of the others. If a parent has a problem, my line is call me this week and we will work it out. With players I am direct and I do not sugarcoat a bad week, but I never make it about who they are as a person. No exclamation points. I sign everything Coach. If something is uncertain, I say it is uncertain instead of guessing.

What it can actually do

Eleven things, and this is the whole list. Everything Bench Coach answers comes out of one of these.

1. Tell you what it has on file for you: which email address it is signed in as, how many players, how many games, how many games are still ahead, whether a philosophy document is loaded, and which opponents have scouting facts. It also says out loud when every game on the schedule is behind you, which is how you catch last season's file still sitting there.
2. Give you the whole roster as you uploaded it.
3. Find players on the roster by position, by which side they bat or throw from, or by part of a name.
4. Give you the schedule, in date order, with upcoming games first.
5. Tell you who is next on the schedule, every game in that series, and whether there are any scouting facts for them.
6. Give you every scouting fact on file for an opponent, or for one of their pitchers.
7. Tell you who on your roster has taken reps at a position.
8. Put the facts on one opponent pitcher next to your roster's left, right and switch hitting split, as preparation material.
9. Draft a message to parents, players or staff from points you give it, written against your philosophy document. The draft also lands in a review queue on your setup page.
10. Check the numbers in a draft answer against the numbers it actually looked up for you, and name any that do not trace back.
11. Delete everything on file for you, after you confirm it in those words.

It can also read your philosophy document and your roster back to the assistant as files, and it carries three ready made walkthroughs your assistant can start from: series prep, roster change, and parent note.

Ten things to ask it

Copy these exactly the first time.

1. What do you have on file for me?
2. What is on my roster?
3. Who is on the schedule next?
4. Which of my players have taken reps at shortstop?
5. My shortstop is out this weekend. Who has taken reps there?
6. What do we have on file about the next opponent?
7. What do we know about their starter, and how many pitches is that based on?
8. Draft a note to parents about the bus time changing for the next away series.
9. Check the numbers in what you just told me.
10. Show me everything you are holding about my program, and tell me how I delete it.

What it will not do

• It will not send anything. There is no send path anywhere in this system. Messages come back as text on your screen for you to copy, change and send yourself from your own email or your own phone.
• It will not make up a number. If a number is not in the files you gave it or in the public data on file, you get told that instead of getting a guess.
• It will not rank your players or tell you who should start, and it will not write you a lineup. It tells you who has taken reps where. The order is yours.
• It will not tell you who is available. It has no way to know that and it is not asked to guess.
• It will not tell you how one of your own players performs. There is no batting average, no ERA, no velocity and nothing else measured about anybody on your roster anywhere in this, and no way to compute one. The roster is names, positions, which side they hit from and your own note. Ask it who your best hitter is and it will tell you that in one sentence rather than guess.
• It will not write anything down for later. There is no notepad in it. If you tell it to remember something, it will say so plainly instead of pretending.
• It will not write down anything about an injury or eligibility that it drafts for you. If you ask for a message that touches health or eligibility, it answers, hands you the draft, and does not keep it.
• It will not read an export from your tracking system. It recognizes one by its columns and refuses it before a single row is read, in both upload boxes. Those files are not part of this and we do not want them here.
• It will not tell you anything about another program. Every query is bound to your account and there is no tool that reaches across.
• It will not talk to a parent, a player or anybody else on your behalf.
• It will not give you medical, eligibility or compliance advice. Ask the people at your school whose job that is.

Your data, and how to delete it

What we hold. The email address you signed in with, a scrambled copy of your code, your roster, your schedule, your philosophy text, the drafts it has written for you, and a log of which tools were called and when. The log records that a question was asked and answered; it is there so we can fix something when it breaks. It does not hold your conversation.

What we do not hold. Anything from a tracking system, video, medical information, or the wording of a draft that touched injury or eligibility.

Where it lives. A database on our own server, not in the assistant you connected. The assistant sees the answer to the question it asked, and nothing else.

Whether it trains a model. Your files are not used to train anything by us. What the assistant company does with your conversation is governed by your own account settings with them, which is one more reason nothing sensitive should be in these files.

Removing the connector is not deleting your files. Taking the connector out of your assistant app unhooks the assistant. It does not touch anything on our side.

How to delete it. Go to https://mcp.yourdatascouting.com/setup, sign in, press Delete my data, and type DELETE in the box. It removes your roster, your schedule, your philosophy, your drafts, the tool log and the account itself, immediately, and it is not recoverable. Any connector you set up stops working at that moment. You can also ask Bench Coach in a chat to delete your data; it will ask you to confirm in your own words first and then do exactly the same thing. If you would rather a person did it, email [email protected] and say delete my program, and it will be done the same day.

Questions, answered

1. What is this, in one sentence?

It is your roster, your schedule and your notes, made askable inside the assistant you already pay for.

2. Do I have to buy new software?

No. You need an assistant account you probably already have. There is no app to install and nothing to download.

3. What does it cost?

Nothing right now. Bench Coach is going out by invite to staffs already working with us while the thing proves itself. If that changes, the staffs already using it hear first.

4. Why do I need an invite code?

Because this is early and it is being handed out on purpose, a staff at a time, so problems get caught with somebody on the other end of the phone. It is also the whole account system: there is no email verification here, so the code is what makes you you.

5. My assistant does not have a Connectors option. What now?

On ChatGPT, developer mode is web only and it is not on a free account, so check that you are on a paid plan and on a computer. On Claude, check that you are in Settings and then Customize and then Connectors, on the website rather than the phone. If it still is not there, email us and tell us which app and which plan, and we will look at it with you.

6. Can I do the whole setup on my phone?

You can upload the files on your phone. Adding the connector has to be done once on a computer. After that it works on the phone in Claude.

7. It asked me to sign in and then went in circles on my iPhone.

Close every open Claude window and try once more on a computer. The sign in window has to be able to hand you back to the app, and a phone browser sometimes drops that handoff. Once it is connected on the computer, the phone does not have to sign in again.

8. My code says invalid.

Codes ignore case, dashes and spaces, so that is not it, and the page tells you which of the two did not match, the email or the code, so read that sentence first. Two things usually are. The first time in, the code has to be the invite code, and each invite works exactly once, so if you have already signed in anywhere the invite is spent and you want your returning code instead. Second, the code is tied to the email address on the account, so check that you typed the same address. If it still fails, email us and we will issue a new one.

9. I lost my returning code.

Email us and we will issue you a new one. It cannot be looked up, by anybody, because the server keeps a scrambled copy it cannot read back. Your files are untouched by this; you just write down a new code.

10. My spreadsheet has different column names.

It reads the common spellings on its own: Player Name, NAME, POS, Game Date, Opp, H/A and others. If it still cannot find a column it tells you which one, on the page, before anything is saved. The templates above are the shortest path: paste your rows into one of them and save as CSV.

11. My spreadsheet saved a strange CSV and the upload complained.

Most of what a spreadsheet does is handled: the hidden character some of them put at the front of the file, Windows and old Mac line endings, commas inside quoted notes, semicolons or tabs instead of commas, and a title row or two above the real column names. What is not handled is a workbook with several sheets that was renamed to .csv, and it will say that is what happened. Save again as plain comma separated values, one sheet. If it still fails, mail us the file and we will tell you what it choked on.

12. Dates came out wrong.

Look at the preview table before you save; that is what it is for, and it prints the weekday next to every date so a wrong one stands out. If a date is wrong there, it is either the year box on that page or the way the date was written in the file. Formatting the column as text in the shape 2027-03-14 before you save fixes both, because a spreadsheet will happily turn 3/14 into something else on its own.

13. Some of my players have the same last name.

Use first and last names in the Player column. Two rows with the same name are treated as one player and the second is skipped, so two Smiths with no first names lose one of themselves.

14. Can my assistant coach use it too?

He can have his own account. Email us and we will issue him an invite code. What the server does not do yet is share one set of files between two accounts, so today he would upload the same roster and schedule under his own sign in, or you share one sign in between you. Sharing one sign in works, and the cost of it is that the log cannot tell which of you did what.

15. Can two of us have it open at once?

Yes. Nothing locks and nothing conflicts. If you are sharing one sign in you are both looking at the same files, and if one of you uploads a new roster the other sees the new one from that moment.

16. Does it use our tracking data?

No. Bench Coach never touches a tracking system export and we do not want one uploaded here. It works from the roster, schedule and notes you give it, plus publicly available conference and national numbers for opponents. If you upload one it is recognized by its columns and refused before a single row is read, in either box. That is deliberate: it keeps your program's agreements with anyone else out of it entirely.

17. Where do the opponent numbers come from then?

Publicly available play by play and box scores. Every number comes back with the sample it came from and the date the underlying data runs to, so you can see whether it is one outing or a season.

18. It does not know anything about our next opponent.

Either that opponent is not on the schedule file you uploaded, or there is no public data on file for them yet. It tells you which of the two it is, lists the opponent names your schedule actually uses, and if one of them is close to the name you asked about it says so and asks whether that is the same team. Add the game to your schedule and ask again, and if there is still nothing, tell us the opponent and we will look at whether the public data exists.

19. Can it text or email a parent for me?

No, and it never will. It writes the message and hands it to you. You send it, from your own phone or your own mail, after you have read it. Every draft is also waiting for you on the setup page, so you can copy it off a computer later.

20. It got a number wrong.

That should be very hard to do and we want to hear about it. Ask it to check the numbers, which makes it verify every figure in what it just told you against what it actually looked up in the last twelve hours. Then send us a screenshot. A number that cannot be traced is a bug on our side, not a thing to work around.

21. Why does it sometimes say it does not know?

Because that is the design. It answers from your files or it says it cannot. A confident wrong answer about your own roster would be worse than useless in a dugout.

22. Is this AI, or is it you?

The assistant part is a model, and it is the one you are already paying for. The numbers are not: they are computed in code from your files and from public data, and there is a check built into the server that catches a number that did not come from a lookup. The setup, the invites and the answering of this kind of question is Matt, a person, by email.

23. What happens at the end of the season?

Upload a new roster and a new schedule and they replace the old ones straight across. Nothing carries over that you did not upload, and there is no archive holding last year's team. If you upload a new roster and leave last season's schedule, it will answer schedule questions off the old one and be right, because that is what you gave it. Do both files at once. If you want to start completely clean, delete everything first, then upload.

24. What if I ask it something about an injury?

It answers you, and it does not write the wording down. A draft that touches health, illness or eligibility is handed to you in the chat and is deliberately not put in your review queue, and the log line for that call says nothing was stored. The rule looks for the words a coach actually types, not just the clinical ones, so tweaked his hamstring, sore arm, we shut him down and in concussion protocol all fire it, and so do the eligibility and grades words. The one place that rule does not reach is a box you type into yourself: the philosophy box and the Notes column of your roster are storage, so keep health and eligibility out of those.

25. Is my program's information visible to anyone else?

No. Every query is bound to your account, and there is no tool that reaches across to another program. The opponent scouting facts are the one thing shared between programs, and those are public data about other teams, not anything you uploaded. Matt can see that your account exists and can look at a broken upload if you ask him to; he does not read your philosophy document for entertainment.

If it is down, or slow

Ask again in a minute. If it stays down, email [email protected] and say Bench Coach is down and what you saw. Nothing you uploaded is lost when the server has a bad day, and you should not re-upload anything.

If you get stuck

Email [email protected]. Tell us which app you were in, which plan you are on, whether you were on a phone or a computer, and what it said on the screen. A screenshot answers most of that at once.

What Bench Coach is, and the example on sample data, is on the Bench Coach page.