By choosing an extra year to start his baseball and softball training business, Daniel Tufariello did more than just buy some time. The Bishop Verot High School graduate made valuable connections with professional baseball players as a bat sales representative.

Evolve Baseball held its grand opening Saturday at 7131 Alico Road, Unit No. 2, in south Fort Myers.

Tufariello got lucky with the timing. The baseball training business opened amid a Major League Baseball lockout of its players. That means some of the players, who would have been working out on big-league fields, are looking for other places to train. They’re doing just that at Tufariello’s new business.

“We are a high-level performance, baseball and softball training facility,” Tufariello said. “We service clients ages 8 to 10 all the way up to Major League Baseball players. We have the same technology that MLB players have in their clubhouses and their training centers. We take all their weaknesses and put them on a lesson plan. That allows them to take their games to the next level.”

All players major league 40-man rosters are forbidden from using big-league facilities. Red Sox players cannot use JetBlue Park. Twins players cannot use Hammond Stadium, and Rays players cannot use Charlotte Sports Complex. But many of the players have arrived in Southwest Florida, and they’re looking for places to prepare for whenever competition resumes.

Minnesota Twins outfielders Max Kepler and Alex Kirilloff have been taking batting practice at Evolve in recent days. Pitcher Lewis Thorpe has been throwing bullpen sessions there, too. Markus Solbach, a minor league pitcher with the Detroit Tigers and, like Kepler, a native of Germany, also has discovered Evolve and trained there.

Cody Stashak, a Minnesota Twins pitcher slated to make $575,000 this season, threw a bullpen session at Evolve on Monday morning. “It works out great,” Stashak said. “It’s easy to get to. It’s convenient. It’s a nice little spot. It’s new.”

The professionals have been mentioning Evolve on social media, which has boosted Tufariello’s following.

“It’s incredible,” Tufariello said. “It’s a blessing. I didn’t expect it to go that fast. Alex, he gave us a shout-out on social media, and the floodgates opened the next morning.”

Tufariello leased about 5,000 square feet of warehouse space for his facility. He has invested more than $100,000 in starting the business with the technology and baseball gear.

“It’s a different look to our training facility,” Tufariello said. “We have TVs that display all of our readings. The parents can see all the data measurements of each pitch that their kids throw on the TV.

“For pitchers, it shows their velocity, their spin rate, their release angle, their spin efficiency. For hitters, it shows their exit velocity, launch angle. We have game modes to where we can do a home-run derby.

“They create their own login and password. They have access to every single pitch and every single swing they’ve taken in our facility. That can be sent out to college recruiters.”

Evolve is membership-based.

“Our basic package is four lessons a month, $87.50 per lesson,” Tufariello said. “The more lessons you sign up for, the cheaper it gets.”