March 24, 2025 • 47 mins
In this episode of the OGX Podcast, the team dives into the critical topic of in-season monitoring and its impact on athlete performance. From preseason preparation to real-time data collection, they break down what it takes to manage athlete health, identify root causes of performance dips, and ensure long-term development in both pitching and hitting.
The conversation explores how biomechanics, sports psychology, coaching strategy, and performance metrics all intersect to support athletes during high-pressure seasons. Whether you’re a coach, parent, or athlete, this episode delivers valuable insights into training, recovery, and adjustment strategies that lead to sustainable success.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
All right, back for another episode.
We got the whole game together. It's been a minute since it's
been the three of us today. We thought we could talk a
little bit about in season monitoring.
It's kind of a broad topic, so it might branch off here.
But this time of year, as our like, you know, we've we've
previewed some of the situationsand frustrations that our high
(00:26):
school athletes start to enter this time of year.
We're doing a lot of work with college programs.
They're like, I don't know, halfway through the season
already. That's crazy.
Maybe not quite, but they're starting to kick off.
Obviously, we're underway for conference play, so the back
half of the season. And so this time of year is when
like maybe if you were riding some highs or things like that
of the beginning of the year forcolleges, we're starting to
(00:48):
settle in and get a sense of howthe season is taking its hold on
the players. The same thing happened.
We've we've referenced this or sort of like previewed this, but
we have the same kind of thing happening high school season
where you come off offseason, you're feeling really good and
you hit like that midway point and maybe that's where you start
to to regress and things like that.
(01:08):
So we've all had some like separate different types of
conversations. So I think really the concept
that we want to touch on is thisidea.
I think that a lot of times whatpeople see us as or places like
us where we do assessments, we do training, player development
is like, let's go in the offseason and see where we are
and use that information to get a sense of how I want to develop
(01:30):
an offseason. And what we then find is there's
this disconnect of those same athletes in some cases or, you
know, different athletes who haven't had that experience then
start to struggle in season. And because the last source of
their data or the last sort of like measurements that they did
was just this like one shot assessment.
Or they have to go back so far that they lose sight of maybe
(01:52):
what's actually happening. When did it start to unravel?
Why did it start to unravel? What's the root of it?
And so really kind of laying down the foundation of the
importance of some form of monitoring and kind of different
tiers of monitoring. So the example I'll give, and
I'll kind of get you guys to talk maybe about different
levels is that, you know, I was talking to an athlete who's
(02:12):
struggling a little bit and hitting right now at the
collegiate level and was giving me some things that she feels
like she's struggling with. I'm I'm doing this, you know,
kind of something like mechanical things.
And I said, you know, OK, you'regetting your foot down early.
What does that mean? What's happening when you do
that? How are you working on that?
And I asked, can you send me some video of like this, what
(02:33):
you're referencing? Can you send me some video?
And she's like, I don't have video.
I have some like center field game video.
And I think even that sparked for me of like this is a very
high level athlete who has a pretty extreme level of body
awareness. And So what kind of missed
opportunity to not be tracking even video when things are good
verse when things are bad to allow this athlete to see kind
(02:55):
of like as things are unraveling, what we see in
hitting a lot is that as the season goes on, their first move
will change a lot without them realizing it.
Because it might even be the root might be like fatigue
movement, like who knows what the root is, but they won't
realize that their move is it's slowly starting to change quite
a bit. And by the time they realize it,
(03:17):
their timing is way off like they they've impacted things so
much. And so it is really important to
be one know what your move lookslike at your.
Best. And then to really be monitoring
that over time to see those changes.
And so that kind of sparked my brain on the the hitting side of
like, oh man, we're you know, you're 28 games into the season
(03:38):
and you have no idea what has quite unraveled or where it
started or how to even go back to it or that type of thing.
And so the, like, getting back on track seems like such a
harder journey there where, you know, if you're kind of
monitoring things over time, youhave a better sense of where to
go and where to attack. So that was kind of when my
brain sparked for hitting Ashley.
(03:59):
Maybe if you want to talk about some of the things you're seeing
on the pitching side and some ways that like we are helping
programs get a sense of what they should be measuring.
Yeah, I think the first thing that I'll note is that the in
season management starts an offseason, preseason.
And what I mean by that is what we like to see throughout the
(04:19):
fall when there's competition isthe whole gauntlet of who a
pitcher is. We want to see her reach, you
know, like high levels of success and effectiveness and
understand why it's not random, like, OK, when she does XY and
Z, when she keeps the ball here,when she mixes her all speed,
this amount, when she's able to manipulate the height of this
pitch, this degree, when she reaches, when the break looks
(04:42):
like this, when she stays in this below range, whatever those
specifics are all the way down to like she struggled.
And anytime there's feedback of like, not a great outing from
picture A, the first thing is, OK, let's talk about why.
Let's get into the details of why.
So we start to learn those things about the pitchers over
the fall and then through the like heart of winter and into
preseason, we expose the hell out of like her challenges.
(05:06):
So like when a pitcher is struggling, when any athlete is
struggling, it's not random. They're in their own.
This is like their own spectrum,their own scale.
They just slide through it. Like it's not like, oh,
sometimes this athlete starts tolose stability here.
Sometimes she starts to use her stride like it's the same thing
they go back to they're just to regress back to their neutral
(05:30):
patterns. And So what you want to
understand is how that regression and patterns, which
is theirs, it's like they own that pattern regression when it
regresses to that point, how does it impact ball flight?
And it's not always the same like results, you know, like
sometimes it has more of an impact on command.
Sometimes that's more of an impact on, you know, like
something in their break or their ability to change speeds,
(05:51):
etcetera. So we want to deeply understand
that story. So all of the schools that we
work with really from the time we start, we start with the
initial assessments to get an idea of exactly what we're
looking at. And then we are just really
trying to see like what's her scale?
How far does it go? How far can we push it?
And then what's the bottom of it?
What's the regression look like?We don't ever want to be
(06:13):
surprised. I mean, that's the end of the
day, right? And so training and preseason is
about taking what they struggle with and exposing it and
exposing it and looking through that and building as much
resilience through that as possible.
But you know, like this came up last week, a pitcher was
struggling with something and onthe call with her coach, I'm
like, OK, but this is that athlete.
(06:34):
Like just a reminder. It's like they got lost.
And like that last week she struggled with this, and this
week she struggled with this. And like, it's not separate,
right? The root of it is X.
The root of it is that her patterns are very, very low
efficiency throws hard, but she'll just get in there and
freaking RIP it, you know? And so that is her baseline
regression. And so, so last week that
(06:54):
manifested itself as no off speed because she was just
pulling like hell. This week it manifested itself
with everything elevating. But it's the same root cause,
right? And so we know this.
So what we're trying to do in season, by the time season
comes, all coaches and all pitchers should be on the same
(07:15):
page of that scale, the details of it, what it looks like.
And ideally we would like to thepitchers to be trained well,
trained enough to recognize it in the moment that it's
happening on the ball field and to be trained enough to tap into
what they need to, to kind of get things back on track.
Does that happen often? It does not.
(07:37):
So then the next tier is that they know how to, in between
innings go back and use the physical training tools.
It's just the like intent mentalpiece did not work, then you
physically need to tap into these training tools.
It's usually involving weighted balls, weighted softballs,
plyos, changing plyo weights, tapping into something
(07:58):
different, understanding where your arm is in space more, but
like go back, go tap into that physical piece and then see if
that alone can just like get youback on track and go back out
there. And then in the meantime, during
the week, we are just trying to build those like build that for
them, making sure no one ever feels lost of like, why is this
happening? What's going on?
(08:20):
We don't ever want to slip into that.
So this is how you have to set yourself up.
What you're talking about Kristais like, OK, now the season has
started and let's track it as it's going for sure.
But you should already come in with your like big ass textbook
on that athlete. And you, it's like, you know
(08:41):
what the highs and lows are likely to look like at that
point. Well, and I think that's kind of
to my point. It's like why it's such a missed
opportunity, which is when you have an athlete who does go in,
you have an athlete who goes into the season with that level
of knowledge on themselves and then you're like, don't know.
That's like what? No, we do know.
Actually, we do know pretty wellof what unravels for that
(09:03):
athlete. And so one, let's not guess just
generally, because at least if you're going to guess, let's
guess from three things because you have an idea of where it's
going. But then also when athletes have
that level, it's like feed them,Hey, remember, this happens for
you. So like, here's a video where it
starts to unravel. Here's a this is what's
happening. You know, you're for hitters
like you're the balls start being more on the ground or you
(09:27):
start struggling with dislocation or whatever.
Like let's not forget that's what happens for you.
So let's not just like panic. I think this idea of like
sometimes we have athletes who they do have that level of
knowledge and then all of a sudden we're in season and the
way they're talking is like, wait, why are you talking?
It's like you have no idea what could possibly be happening.
We do have an idea of what couldbe happening.
It's probably pretty likely one of XYZ things.
(09:49):
So like go back to these things,go back and look at whatever.
Can you tell me what's happeningin the the video?
You know, whatever. And I think it's we get lost as
players and coaches when we don't have that sort of like
objective way to go right back to we know this, so we go to
here, we know this, so we go to here and we start to guess in
(10:09):
Guessing always can be like sucha journey, but guessing in
season is definitely not the route you don't have.
Time. You don't have time for it, you
just really don't. And I think that I say this
probably 4 times a week. So I'm starting to get tired of
hearing myself say it, but like I simply don't believe in things
like, Oh, she's just like a headcase or it's mental at this
point. I'm like, are there cases where
(10:32):
legitimately like there's nothing going on physically and
someone has like severe performance anxiety?
Of course, right. I'm not here to argue that
there's not this element of likewhere something could simply be
on this like sports like side. I'm pretty sure do not like hold
me to this percentage, but it's probably like less than 2% of
the time. Is that actually the case?
(10:54):
The reality is when something becomes mental for an athlete, I
see it all the time. It's because no one knows what
the hell they're looking at or looking for and everyone's
panicking. So everyone starts throwing
darts at the dartboard. So that athlete's trying all the
things and nothing's working. And next thing you know, they're
questioning everything and then they're thinking all this stuff.
And so I always say like when when an athlete is starting to
(11:15):
lose it, when they are starting to like like spiral, it's
because no one is able to sit down with them and show them the
X's and O's of the issue. Like you have to be able to do
that. You have to be able to show them
this is what's going on and thisis the game plan.
The part that is not always a sure thing is whether or not the
approach you take to solving that problem is going to work
(11:39):
because that gets more complicated, right?
And so here's the issue, 99% confident, this is what I'm
seeing based on your patterns, your ball flight, it all fits
the puzzle. This is the approach I think we
should take both in the bullpen,stranding and additioning is
usually involved. So this is the approach we're
going to take and this is what it will look like if that
(12:00):
approach is on. This is what you know, things
will start to look like if that approach is on the right track.
And so then all of a sudden there's like they get back into
the like the XS and OS of it, they get back into the
measurement piece. But when you don't know that
route, it's chaos. And then you definitely can't
blame the athlete for turning like into a mental nightmare
(12:21):
because, and I see it with coaches, too, it's just like, Oh
my God, what's happening to her?You've introduced like a new
problem. That's what I felt like when I
was talking to this athlete. And I think, Laura, because I
talk about the underlying stuff here, but like when I was
talking to this athlete, I'm like, wait a minute.
No, no, we don't need to solve anew problem right now.
Like we know this is not. So saying shit that's going to
(12:43):
rear its head for you right every.
Single time all of a sudden it'slike, hey, you got to fix your
posture and she's like, wait what and so there's just this
like I didn't know I had this issue I'm like wait wait, wait,
wait, wait yes, you did yes, youdid like and and not only do you
know that this is an issue for you, but you know how to fix it
like this is not we are not totally unraveled.
So what I was going to say is when that sort of order of
(13:05):
attack, so we have an athlete, things start to unravel as
expected. She knows exactly what to tap
back into because we've we've practiced it, we've done that.
I think the next level that we sometimes when you say like, and
then it's like, OK, well, there's complicating factors.
What that is, and I think Laura for you to touch on this, is
that sometimes the way we attackit from a skill standpoint
(13:25):
doesn't work. And, and there's this level of
monitoring we need to be happening under the skill thing
of sort of strength and conditioning.
What are they measuring so that we know if things are unraveling
from that standpoint, Wellness, what are we, what are we
monitoring? So sometimes all of a sudden
you're like, Hey, you know, whenyour posture unravels, this
drill really helps. We, we use this bat, we do this
(13:46):
drill, we, we work through it. And also the athletes, like, I
can't tap into the things that I've been able to tap into.
What are the other things, Laura, that you've sort of like?
I guess we talked about this a little in last week's episode
with James, so go back to that also.
But what are the types of thingsthat we should be tracking also
of like, hey, our normal strategies are not working.
(14:08):
Let's maybe there's something else going on here.
Yeah, I want to absolutely talk about I think the the sort of
unseen or untapped into value quite yet of markerless motion
capture, but we'll get there. From a bio mechanic standpoint,
the being able to monitor movement quality particularly
power sometimes is a measure more of fatigue general, you
(14:31):
know sort of power output. But the movement quality piece,
it's a big one in terms of just like being able to see, are
there things under her patterns that maybe a change in strength
and conditioning or a particularexercise or the intent of the
strength and conditioning coach,while very well intended, may
have misaligned with maybe bullpen needs or recovery needs
(14:52):
or something. You have to go back into those
pieces. The as you guys were talking, I
think you know, particularly from a health and Wellness
standpoint, I'm always encouraging our athletes to do
their Wellness questionnaires all the time.
I'll take it every day because we don't just want the
information when you feel good and or, or I say or feel bad, we
want it all the time. So the more data points, the
(15:14):
better. So something that fluctuates as
much as your day-to-day subjective feelings of health
and Wellness, your sleep, fatigue, all of it.
We want lots and lots of data points because those fluctuate
wildly from again, 124 hour period to the next.
And so having all those data points just tells a better
story. It's a more complete story.
(15:35):
When we get into things that fluctuate a little less like
movement quality, like power, they may take days, weeks,
months, depending on the athletebefore we would see either a
positive change or a negative change.
Sometimes, right. It's, it's, it's about the
training and AD training concept.
We don't need to gather that as,as frequently, but we need to
keep an eye on it. And so when the, the sort of
(15:56):
pain dysfunction, soreness cyclestarts, the first thing I go
back to is what bothers them in strength and conditioning.
Because to me, that's the, that's the tell before we even
get to pitching or hitting. Tell me what's happening under
those movements and what you're struggling with in the weight
room. And often times those things
that are bothering them in the weight room are perfectly
equivalent to what's happening in the skill.
(16:16):
And so it just that monitoring lets you take a scheduled
planned look. I'll get to the psychology of
that in a second because I have,I thought what you guys were
talking about in terms of like only addressing those things
when they're a problem was very interesting from I think an
athlete psychology standpoint. But movement quality and power
can be collected less frequently, meaning they don't
(16:37):
they're, they're pretty stable. Now we get into something like
bio mechanics. We tend to not in, in our, you
know, athlete population with high schoolers, their patterns
take time to change. And so the frequency that that
we collect bio mechanics is pretty wide, right.
I think in general, you know, for probably high schoolers,
every three months is great. Could it be more frequent?
Sure. But it's not really about
(16:58):
playing level. It's really about the stability
of patterns. And I think the same is for
hitters. And so the beauty of something
like, you know, a markerless motion capture system that is
integrated into a training spaceis like, all right, well,
instead of guessing, you know, where the root of that pitcher
is, pain, soreness, etcetera is we're monitoring her bio
mechanics. We're adding a layer frequently,
(17:19):
I would say in season weekly, we're just monitoring.
It's not it's not data collection that only comes out
when a pitcher or hitter is doing poorly.
That's I think from this like the athlete psychology
standpoint, you're, you're asking for disaster, right?
If the if the assessment processor or technology or whatever rap
(17:40):
sodo, I don't care what it is, only comes out when there's a
problem. Athletes are going to have some
negative attachment to that, right, in terms of like wanting
to use their information to empower themselves.
And so the monitoring piece, it's always there, it's always
in the background. It should ideally not ask a ton
of the athlete. It should not require them to do
things significantly different than what they typically do, you
(18:01):
know, in their training session or bullpen.
And you just monitor, you're just collecting underneath.
It's not this like grand thing that you bring out, you know,
once a month to check on people.It's monitoring because
everyone's response is going to be different.
And so that's, I'm really excited about that application
from, you know, a motion capturestandpoint for at the college
(18:21):
level, because now we're talkingabout athletes who are
phenomenal athletes, really stable.
And what we're monitoring are their swings, their pitching
patterns for the smallest of changes because those small
changes matter. And if we can get out ahead of
them, then the effects on, you know, ball flight and
performance are mitigated. And so from a college
standpoint, you know, the highest levels of our game,
(18:42):
that's critical. That's to me the future of that.
But I say that from monitoring is important.
If you're only bringing this stuff out when things kind of go
wrong, athletes aren't going to want to.
They're not going to want to engage like that with technology
or data, and they won't find value in it.
I was going to say, I was thinking of a few instances
we've had where the athletes have felt like, Oh my God,
(19:04):
there's a, you know, there's a problem.
And you know, a couple examples I can think of are like they're
on their period and they are struggling because they're
proprioceptions off the below's down because of it.
Whatever there's, you know, theyfeel more fatigued at certain
periods in their cycle, certain time periods in their cycle.
And I think like the most this is, you know, kind of an extreme
(19:28):
example, But what I, what I can think of for this monitoring
concept is when you aren't taking in as much information as
you can and you don't know that that the period effects that
athlete like that and she struggles and you're like, oh
man, you are off like we got to go to the drawing board.
You're off that kind of interruption or interference
(19:54):
with that athlete at that time of year can literally derail
someone for weeks because you have chased the wrong thing.
You have not taught the athlete like, hey, this might just
happen this time of year or thistime of month and you sent them
on this like crazy track. So like another example, these
are less like just in season things.
Another example, we've had a fewathletes that in the college
(20:16):
season have had deaths in the family have left, have come back
immediately into the thing. But this has happened with
several of our athletes, actually.
I've watched them in that game and they did horrible.
One because they had a death in the family, 2 because they
travelled in a way that they don't normally.
They just got like thrown into the game.
And I have thought in those instances like this could derail
(20:36):
this athlete for weeks because it's like the most extreme
example. But when you don't really just
say like, hey, like it's going to take a minute.
We're going to put you in anyways, but it's going to take
a minute. Here's the types of things we
would expect. We're not going to go chasing
random rabbit holes because you struggled.
We're not going to go down this path.
If you don't do that, what that can send you on with that
(20:58):
athlete is such a detrimental disaster of, of chasing things
that they don't need to chase. And that's kind of like the most
extreme example of what we're talking about.
What it usually happens is it's more like slow decline where if
you're not always kind of going back to what is the root of it,
you get a little bit less detoured, but then slowly you
end up going after something that's so different than what
(21:20):
you should be going after. You think they can't command
because they don't have the, youknow, competitiveness or the way
that comes out and hitting is like they take pitches they
wouldn't take. They strike out looking.
You're like, why is she not swinging at that pitch?
And it's something physical is starting to happen.
And when we're all starting to point at the wrong things, we
can we can derail athletes for areally long time.
(21:40):
So I think you're really trying to get, as you said, as we come
into the season with the, the, the highest level of
understanding of like what is the order, things are going to
start to unravel. Let's not freak out when that
happens. It's going to happen.
We have the tools to get back ontrack.
These are the things we tap intoand when we tap into them and
then it's like as that's happening, are you monitoring
(22:03):
enough stuff in the background where if you are tapping into
something at the high, you know,like the surface level and
that's not working, Are you thengoing to go down the rabbit
hole? Or do you have sort of like a
quick thing like, you know, is it something?
Are you on your period? Are you was travel different
this week for us, the training conditioning change this week.
Like can you start ticking down the boxes quickly and not start
(22:25):
going all over the place with what you're guessing that?
And I think we see that a lot because it's what we had to do
as coaches. You know, we didn't have any of
this information. So it was a total guessing game.
It was like, hopefully the coachis pretty good at guessing
because otherwise you're going to derail.
And now we're starting to get the sense of, like, what are the
types of things we could be monitoring?
So a coach is good at guessing, but they can have a lot of
(22:47):
things to check themselves against.
Then that's kind of the things we're seeing.
And I think that, yeah, we see athletes get derailed for a
long. You get derailed for two weeks
in the college season. Like, that's not great.
That's not great, you know. Yeah.
And I was going to say to add tothat of like the game is like
such high stakes at certain levels at this stage.
You know that like you don't youdon't get to be down the week of
(23:08):
your period. You don't get to be like, I had
something happen in my family. And so now this like you just
don't, I mean, of course you getto, but you just, if everyone
had that, it would be a disaster.
So this is what I mean of like, of course there's always
external factors that you can't plan for.
Like OK, let's test what's goingto happen if you have to deal
(23:29):
with XYZ and your family. You can't control the external
things. But you must know that when
anything about stress, fatigue, etcetera comes in, what
physically happens to me then? What goes on that?
Wall. To that athlete, very particular
to that athlete. And then what are my training
strategies? So like this is like, OK, on
(23:49):
this this week we have to be super.
We have to assume that when you come back, we have to assume
that this week you need extra ofthis.
We need to assume that's the deal.
It's not just this nonchalant like, Oh yeah, that's the issue.
We'll try next week. Like we don't get to do that.
And so I think it's like This iswhy it can't be like the first
time you're seeing it, you know,it like knowing the context of
(24:11):
that athlete, It's so much of like, this is what pitching is,
right? Like to tap into the craft and
to maximize the craft of pitching.
Often times the external variables are kind of outside of
your control, meaning the weather that day, the umpire
zone, how it changes if your teammates make errors behind
you. That external variables are
(24:33):
often just like chaos. Your job is to keep calm and to
stay connected to you in order to keep tapping into your craft
despite the chaos of the external variables.
That's just the nature of pitching.
But there's no way to do that ifyou don't, if internally you
start creating chaos, right? If internally you're just like
(24:58):
all the things, what's going on?You think you're going to be
able to stay calm when the umpire zone goes from this to
this. You think you're going to be
able to stay calm when there's arunner on 2nd and 3rd and
there's no outs because you people just booted something
because you know, like you just the ability to manage the
external factors, which you can't always train for.
(25:18):
Some you can and some you can requires the internal
understanding to in order to like stay regulated and stay
connected to the craft. And that's just that is
pitching. That is literally what pitching
is. And So what you're saying is
sometimes those external types of things are literally like
(25:39):
life events. Sometimes they're like illness,
right? And so those are other factors
that come in. And so, yeah, we have to go into
the season just like arm. Now the reality is the reason
why we're the best at helping coaches do this, the reason why
even sometimes coaches will justpull these like one off
consulting calls with us, like like help basically because I
(26:00):
don't see it. It is much more difficult when
all I'm thinking of pitching coaches, for example, you have
only 6 bodies that you see over and over and over.
And you may think, oh, it's easier because you have less.
But like from our standpoint, weare seeing so many patterns.
Not only do we study. That well, people are like, have
you ever seen this before? Yeah, yes.
(26:22):
I don't know what you're about to say. 300 times.
Right. And I think what people don't
understand is that like, OK, first tell me what's happening
with the like what's happening with the ball.
Do not tell me what you think you see with the body.
Tell me what's happening. What's the issue with command?
She's missing everything elevated.
Everything's extreme. It's either wide or right
through the zone or like her velos drop.
(26:42):
Like, give me the nuts and bolts, then let's take a look.
It's usually just video. People aren't just pulling open
their markulous motion capture. Not yet.
The launchpads get in right? Give it time.
However, you know, we're lookingat video and it's very
important, like if it's someone we've never, we never did an
essential assessment. We don't really have the context
(27:03):
yet. There might be a couple
questions. The puzzle should always fit
what you see. You have to keep the context of
what's going on with the ball, right?
Of like, Yep, because you've seen patterns like Oh yeah, this
looks different to me then to now.
If this were to happen, if someone's posture looks like
this, if their arm starts to look like this versus this, I
(27:23):
would expect XY and Z match, right?
If it doesn't match, it's not it, right?
And so it's like it's understanding the changes in
patterns and making sure it fitswhat you're seeing there.
And that does get very hard for coaches when they have a very
small sample size they're working with, right?
And so I think the beauty of ourlike the consulting and our like
(27:43):
expertise is that that happened so quickly for us.
It happens in a single phone call for us that we can identify
that route for them because we've seen it a billion times,
you know, across the country. Then then challenge is saying,
OK, here's what we typically do for that, communicate.
This is the strategy to get out of that for the athlete.
And if the root goes deeper thanpitching and goes all the way
(28:06):
down into strength and conditioning, you also do not
have time to sit and wait for that to come through.
So it's important to understand we've got to attack like it's
only March 12th. We've got to start attacking XYZ
in the weight room. In the meantime, the strategy is
that we have to ask the arm to have more adaptability, to have
(28:26):
more adjustability. We have to because your body is
not putting it in great position.
And let's not fool ourselves, you do not need perfect patterns
to get the damn job done. You do not.
So the second you start thinkingthat it's like, no.
But you do have to understand that the normal way the body and
the arm work together, it's off right now.
So we can train it to work differently until the like back
end stuff starts to work. So there's no time to just sit
(28:49):
around for movement quality to come along.
And So what we, that doesn't mean we skip it.
That means it's like that could make an impact.
We start grabbing that, that makes an impact in another 4
weeks. And now it's only April, you
know, so it's like, we don't want this to keep getting worse.
So you start handling the back end of it.
And in the meantime, here's whatwe're going to do.
(29:11):
But yeah, I think that that's the whole deal of it.
The game, man, the game is the best.
The game, the external variablesand all the shit that just
changes from a day-to-day basis.The field sizes are different,
the weather is different, the umpire is missing all kinds of
stuff. The zone is changing like part
(29:32):
of our game. It's literally a part of
baseball, softball, to have to manage that in order to win,
right? And so in order to give yourself
the best shot, it's something that's just inherently a part of
our game. It's like, oh, it's like brutal
sometimes, but it's also kind ofthe beauty of it.
To give yourself the best shot to do it, you have to internally
(29:55):
come as like stable with you as you possibly can before you take
on the external stuff. Yeah, I was going to say, I
think sometimes people like whatwe often see is you get tricked
by, and this happens at all levels.
Like this definitely happens at the high school level is like
you get tricked by these good spells.
And so also it's like you, it's like things you know to be true,
(30:17):
like you're struggling with XYZ,you're going to struggle with
this pitch, You're going to whatever as a hitter.
And you get in a spell where youjust like for some reason are
seeing the ball really well. You're swing at the right
pitches, you get a streak of pitchers.
You kind of feed into your strengths actually.
And you you go, you hit well, you're at a field that's small.
So like you have some success atthat, whatever it is.
(30:39):
And we lose sight of this objective measurement of like,
OK, but are we doing really goodor are we doing it kind of
exactly as expected? And now as we face a tougher
opponent, we go back to a different field, we, whatever it
is, we start to actually have the results we anticipate.
And now we're like, ah, we're freaking out.
(31:00):
And I think, you know, it's justanother level of monitoring.
I've referenced this before, butI always talk about the like
Major League Baseball fields, just like subway fields, they
are insanely different, right? Like the parks are insanely
different. And so as a hitting coach at the
Major League level, you have to have a really good insight into
objectively what is going to give us a shot in most cases to
(31:24):
get the most runs we can. And sometimes, so like Busch
Stadium is one of the worst hitters stadiums, which is
really a bummer for me as a Cardinals fan to have the worst
like offensive stadium. But it's really hard to get the
ball out just because of where the sort of like longer things
are. So we like the Cardinals often
would score like less there, butthe outcomes were still exit
(31:47):
velocities and launch angles anddistances that in most parks
would we would have won the game, you know, And so you have
to even be tracking things like that.
It's to the extent you have access to anything like that to
know like, OK, listen, we lost that game, but in 99% of the
time you performed exactly as wewould expect we would have won.
(32:07):
Like there's nothing to go chasing after.
We can't just focus on the loss or we can't just focus on the
whatever. We had to understand that that
was exactly as we expected or, hey, we won that game, but
actually we won it by hitting bloopers and, you know, do not
doing the things that are normally going to give us
success. And you got away from those
things. And so now when we lose, we
(32:29):
can't be upset. Like, wait, we performed exactly
the same. So I think there's like so many
levels of you have to know who each player is, what is their
actual performance. You can't start just because
you're winning or something, or she's having a little more
success than you thought or she's whatever.
Start expecting more than what we know about that person's
story. That doesn't make sense.
So it's like matching the players, the expectations of
(32:50):
that player, the understanding of that player going into the
season, not all of a sudden like, well, we're doing good
now. So let's let's, you know, try to
let's stretch it, how far we cando so it's understanding that.
And then to the extent things doderail, which they will a little
bit, how fast can we course correct?
And the only way you're going tobe able to course correct is by
knowing what to go to and that there's so many layers that if
(33:11):
I'm the highest level of the game, I want in game data, I
want video, I want, you know, health and Wellness monitoring.
I got a woop and on. I know like the levels that you
can tick through can be so high.And if you're a high school
athlete, we've talked about this.
The way you know is what you've kind of described actually is
you've had this whole journey leading up.
(33:31):
And so if you can come in somewhere once a week and you
start to see a change in bald flight, you know what that
means? You probably don't have to tick
guess through all the boxes because maybe we don't have
every single level of monitoring, but we know when you
lose sync, that means X, which probably means Y is happening.
And so we can make some really educated guesses based on our
past experience. And that's why you want to have
(33:53):
that. So it's like it can be very much
faster if you have a launchpad in your facility and we see
these tiny ticks of bio mechanics, we can be course
correcting like so fast. That would be the most ideal
scenario. But we if you train in a way
where you know what the heck you're doing and what your story
is. That's why I think sometimes
these conversations for us when we talk to athletes and I see
you sometimes like in our Slack channels with pictures,
(34:15):
actually, they'll be like, you know, I had no commands or I
totally lost my change up. You're like, what does that
mean? They're like no idea.
It's like, no, you do haven't. Like you do have an idea.
You know, it's the same conversation I was having with
that hitter of like, wait, wait,wait.
This is not a we don't have to solve a whole new problem.
This is like. And I always say from a training
standpoint, like in between games, doesn't matter if it's
(34:36):
high school or college, never. Just like warm up all your
pitches and mix. If that's the case, like stay
home that day because it is so general, you are just
contributing to just like, I have no idea.
It needs to be super targeted. You need to be thoughtful about
workload. So target the hell out of it.
(34:58):
I am literally working on blending change and drop today.
When an umpire is giving me thisheight in the zone and I'm a
drop ball pitcher, I don't know how to take advantage of it.
So today I'm going to work on this.
And I know that in my program, this is how I learn to kind of
unravel my arm at different times, right?
And So what we do at our high school level is when we ask them
for that level of detail to remind them of what are the
(35:20):
things in their program that help them with that and what
they should say super focused ondo not just like, here's all the
names of my pictures. I warn them up, I locate them
and I move on for the day. It's such a bad approach.
OK with this. I feel like this is a totally
different podcast maybe so you could tell me if it is OK every
this came up last week, but every time I am in a college
bullpen, I'm like, I'm reminded one that I'm home, you know?
(35:44):
Like I'm like, I love it becausepitchers, all the pitching minds
were a bunch of freaks, a bunch of weirdos and a bunch of
freaks. And I love it.
Everyone looks like they hate everyone looks as if they hate
their life because everyone is afreak inside their own brain.
Like you throw a pitch and instantly you're thinking about
XYZ. You're so calculated.
Everyone is like it's silent. No one looks like they're having
(36:07):
fun because there's an internal crazy going on for everyone.
That's what makes me feel at home, Like, oh great, it's all
the freaks are out and I think it's wonderful.
Then you walk around the corner and the hitters are blasting
the. Music.
Always. I mean hitters just blast the
music and everything is big and loud.
(36:30):
So one, I can't get the hell outof there fast enough.
OK, I literally am like, I don'tlike any of this.
None of this feels good to me. How are do you manage your
internal weirdness? You know, and This is why I
belong on this side of things. So one, that's just some it
happens everywhere. And two, is that right?
(36:52):
Like I was, well, I was going tosay to you, I what you were
saying about warmups. I was thinking, so I was asking
some of our, the college tutors I work with like, OK, you're
struggling with that. What will you do this week?
Like what will your drills look like to work on that?
And they're like, Oh no, we're just going to prep for the
pitchers. I think it's So what my brain
went to is. The external before the
internal. Well, no, my brain went to was
(37:13):
like, we don't have the technology yet for you to
actually prep for the pitchers. So we already know that the
pitching machines can't create the break that you're going to
see. And so let's say a kid throws,
you know, you're going to see a kid with and you know the data
because maybe it's a level whereI know the data.
(37:34):
So this kid's going to throw mid60s and she's going to throw +4
and it has three inches of horizontal brake.
Like I know exactly. You can't create that.
The ball fight won't. The machines cannot do that.
There's no machine on the marketin softball that can do that.
And so I think it's not to say don't do that, like don't try to
prep for that pitcher, but the way that you prep for that
pitcher is OK. Can I let me see as similar as I
(37:57):
can? Let me let me get a sense of of
like how similar to that ball fight can I see?
Let's talk about how I would attack that ball fight knowing
me as a hitter. And then let's let's watch video
as a coach and see like, are there sequences?
Like can we attack things when she goes, what is the pitch in a
sequence she throws that this hitter is going to be most
likely to attack? Can we kind of sit on that?
(38:18):
Can we game plan? But you can't just go put the
machine on. There's very, very few break
profiles that you can do that. And so to me, it's very
interesting to think, wait, you can't, we're talking, this is
going to come out probably at the end of March.
But like we're talking early March right now.
We can't already be at a time period where you're not at all
working on your swing. Like I don't even that we are
(38:43):
now we have two months where you're going to unravel, 3
months almost where you're goingto be unraveling.
And so I think that's really interesting too of like, we just
have to be a little careful of what that means.
Like, and, and I was thinking ascoaches, like, do we know that?
Do we know like, OK, just because this pitching machine is
going down, that's not her breakprofile.
(39:05):
So it's not to say it's not helpful at all to be practicing
a down pitch when you're going to sit down or whatever.
But like, let's make sure we know that that there's some
context to that. You know, like what, what's
probably going to be more helpful to prep for is does she
have patterns in what she calls?Do we know anything about the
umpire we're facing and what hisor her zone looks like?
Am I going to have to chase things like it's those types of
(39:26):
it's approach mindset and then like really seeing what a
pitcher throws. It's just about getting rid of
as many holes in your swing as you can, which is a very
particular thing to you as a hitter and really doesn't have
anything to do with what you're seeing from that pitcher and
their ball flight. So we've talked about this a
little bit, but like our hittingstoplight system is like, so I
(39:47):
imagine in a college setting is that like, you know, earlier in
the week, I don't know why a college tutor wouldn't just be
doing her drill work. You know that's going to help
her maintain what she needs to for the season.
You're going to be attacking those things.
And then yes, like if late in the week you want to watch game
mixed with like the location she's going to throw, maybe you
can recreate a little like it's a lefty so you can create that
(40:10):
angle or you want to do some things like that.
Sure, but let's just remember like we've measured our hack
like it throws -11 and plus. 10 or whatever, like you ain't
facing that. Like it's not creating what
you're facing and it's beneficial for development and
you can see fast, which is important.
You know you're going to face 74, you want to see 74, but like
(40:31):
you're not recreating that pitcher.
And if that hitter comes in witha giant hole in her swing, it
doesn't matter if she faced. Doesn't matter.
That's exactly right. You can't take on the external
without the internal. I also think like the reason why
I'm like pictures were just likeobsessed with like like the
internal. Now there's more of like we're
in control of more right, Because obviously we're not like
(40:54):
responding to something. But I don't get the like when
the music is always just going wild.
You can't be in your own like brain.
It's it's like a, what it represents to me is like group
train. Yeah.
And I do know that quantity is an issue with hitters when
there's like 6 pitchers in a bullpen and there's literally 20
(41:14):
hitters, but it's like group train, like this is what we're
doing as hitters. You know, anyway, I definitely,
there's two pieces and I think this is a totally different
podcast probably. So maybe until next time.
But one, like, wow, if you don'taren't positive about who your
people are and who they're not, you know, like in my mind,
there's two different types of there's, you know, they're like,
(41:36):
there's two people in this world.
There's people doing this and people do that.
Like facing the wall in silence and.
Yes, there are people who Jack up the music and train and dance
at the same time, and I love music and I love dancing.
And then there are people who get in there and are absolute
freaks and moving every chess piece inside their own brain,
(41:57):
and those are pictures or those are the good ones, and I'm here
for it. That's one thing.
There's such a different world. And two, it's just like, I think
it's really interesting. Do we individualize skating
enough? My assumption is no, because we
think. Yeah, well, you think about what
the hitter and I've talked aboutthis, but you think about what
the hitters say to each other, and I've talked about this at
the high school level. They'll be like, she threw me
outside, like, yeah, no, no, no,no.
(42:19):
What this is not. First of all, sometimes there's
conversations at the collegiate level I think are funny because
I think like, you know, don't you have this information
already? Like, what are you guys talking
about? Now?
There's the umpire. There's some things of like,
whoa, there's. Some, yeah, you might kick.
Something, something, Yeah. So you see something that you
like. She gives this away or she does
this or whatever, but like generally, sometimes I'm like,
(42:42):
what are you guys saying to eachother that you don't already
know coming into this? But I just think like there's
limitations to how much we can actually prepare for a pitcher's
spin and prepare for that pitcher.
And so there's like, and it noneof it matters if you have one of
your best sitters totally unraveling in the side.
So there has to be some going back to that hitter's game plan
(43:03):
to make sure she doesn't get those.
There's a balance between those things.
And I think even we push back sometimes like we, you know, one
day before game day, they'll do game prep and that they usually
can pick with us of like, are you preparing for the pitcher
you're seeing? Are you preparing for something
you're struggling with? But even that, if a, if a hitter
says to me like I want to do outside, I'm really struggling
(43:24):
outside, I usually am like, well, why are you struggling
with outside? Like me just setting the machine
up outside. That might be something we do
today eventually, but let's first understand that's not
random for you. Outside is something that goes
away. Why does it go away?
Why aren't you able to drive outside before we get to the
outside machine, which we will get to at the end?
Let's go back to the drill set that helps that not be a hole.
(43:45):
Let's tag into those things so that by the time you get to
outside machine that you have any source of ability to make
that adjustment versus like, hey, you're struggling with
this. Let's just go to it, you know,
and I think, I think hitting does that a lot.
Yeah, it's just just go right tolike, yeah, they go right to
step 7 because it's like. Even MLB.
MLB does this less now, but for the longest time think of like
(44:07):
you went to batting practices just like a dude.
Like. Sauce and meatballs and they're
just like crushing home runs now.
I think most good teams don't dothat anymore and they have
machine and it's less and everyone kind of does their own
thing and there's different things that they work on.
So I actually think that has gone away a little bit.
But that concept or our hitters will be like what I do in
pregame, just go like I walk up and watch the hitter.
(44:29):
I'm doing like wiffle full swings.
I'm like, what the hell are you doing?
Like you know exactly you have for six months of the year done.
You know, these drills that, youknow, help you feel good and
swung these bats, like do that. This is not like, do that before
the game. Do it more less, get ready, like
go tap into those. So I definitely think there's
like a fear of those things in hitting or a lack of
(44:52):
understanding. And then everything becomes
around. Like she throws Lowen outside,
So let's just hit Lowen outside this week.
It's like, I mean, there's a lotof layers.
Like, what does she throw Lowen outside?
And like, yeah, it's just not that simple.
And you can't make a hitter to be able to hit low and outside
just by facing low and outside. Like that's not that's not the
problem. Well, I'll leave it with this
(45:12):
because I know we're wrapping uphere, but if I'm suggesting that
we turn one of our next podcastsinto a discussion center on
hitting, you know that I'm feeling really wild here.
Conveniently. But I do think, yeah, I do think
that like in the world that we live in that a majority of the
work that we do externally, internally, obviously we our
(45:32):
player development processes andmanagement system extends to
hitters and pitchers. But a lot of the work that we
extend externally is pitching specific.
It exposes some serious holds. And I do would I, I do think
it's worth asking the question like is generally and of course
there are people on this side ofthe line and this side of the
line is hitting player development in our game like
(45:55):
really at in a spot where it should be my I say no.
Or is the bat just a composite bat in the fields are 190 and
it's it just ain't that, you know right now.
Exactly. A little bit of a tired pitcher
and it's just not that hard. Right.
And so I think like, I just think it's interesting because
when you start to see like how many XS and OS and the weigh in
with the training strategy are going about, it's just, you
(46:17):
know, a lot of times that doesn't happen on the hitting
side. And hitting's more complicated,
not the skill itself, obviously the the skill pitching is
complicated because there's workload, there's there's so
many variables to it from that standpoint.
But hitting's more complicated on the development side because
you are reacting and there is anelement of how much do I prep
for me and how much do I prep for the person who's kind of in
(46:40):
charge of what's happening. You know, and this, this there's
a lot more external variables that you are not in control of
the picture you're facing the field you're on.
The the umpire obviously plays for both, but the umpire, the
there's so like the defense, thethere's so many years in such
reactive mode. And so player development, it
does have to, for hitting, take that into consideration.
(47:01):
It's not like just only focus onyou and you'll be good.
It's like, well, yeah, but the pitcher then throws you
something you're ready for whatever you have to prep.
You have to know the, the breadth of what you're prepping
for. So it's different and it's, I
think it's complicated because of that.
But yeah, it doesn't the, the group mindset for a lot of
reasons doesn't make sense. So until another time where we
can talk about that. Well, apparently I'm also
(47:21):
chiming in, so imagine that. Yeah, All right, Well, almost
April by the time it comes out. Crazy stuff.
Happy spring, getting into the good stuff of season, into all
the conferences where we're all like, who's what conferences is?
Steven, what's happening to thisweek?
Laura said UCLA is playing Purdue.
That's weird, but you know, in the Big 10 matchup, But such is
(47:42):
life right now. So Yep, All right, next time see
you then like and subscribe the OGX podcast anywhere you listen
to your podcast. It helps us and we appreciate
it.
All right, back for another episode.
We got the whole game together. It's been a minute since it's
been the three of us today. We thought we could talk a
little bit about in season monitoring.
It's kind of a broad topic, so it might branch off here.
But this time of year, as our like, you know, we've we've
previewed some of the situationsand frustrations that our high
(00:26):
school athletes start to enter this time of year.
We're doing a lot of work with college programs.
They're like, I don't know, halfway through the season
already. That's crazy.
Maybe not quite, but they're starting to kick off.
Obviously, we're underway for conference play, so the back
half of the season. And so this time of year is when
like maybe if you were riding some highs or things like that
of the beginning of the year forcolleges, we're starting to
(00:48):
settle in and get a sense of howthe season is taking its hold on
the players. The same thing happened.
We've we've referenced this or sort of like previewed this, but
we have the same kind of thing happening high school season
where you come off offseason, you're feeling really good and
you hit like that midway point and maybe that's where you start
to to regress and things like that.
(01:08):
So we've all had some like separate different types of
conversations. So I think really the concept
that we want to touch on is thisidea.
I think that a lot of times whatpeople see us as or places like
us where we do assessments, we do training, player development
is like, let's go in the offseason and see where we are
and use that information to get a sense of how I want to develop
(01:30):
an offseason. And what we then find is there's
this disconnect of those same athletes in some cases or, you
know, different athletes who haven't had that experience then
start to struggle in season. And because the last source of
their data or the last sort of like measurements that they did
was just this like one shot assessment.
Or they have to go back so far that they lose sight of maybe
(01:52):
what's actually happening. When did it start to unravel?
Why did it start to unravel? What's the root of it?
And so really kind of laying down the foundation of the
importance of some form of monitoring and kind of different
tiers of monitoring. So the example I'll give, and
I'll kind of get you guys to talk maybe about different
levels is that, you know, I was talking to an athlete who's
(02:12):
struggling a little bit and hitting right now at the
collegiate level and was giving me some things that she feels
like she's struggling with. I'm I'm doing this, you know,
kind of something like mechanical things.
And I said, you know, OK, you'regetting your foot down early.
What does that mean? What's happening when you do
that? How are you working on that?
And I asked, can you send me some video of like this, what
(02:33):
you're referencing? Can you send me some video?
And she's like, I don't have video.
I have some like center field game video.
And I think even that sparked for me of like this is a very
high level athlete who has a pretty extreme level of body
awareness. And So what kind of missed
opportunity to not be tracking even video when things are good
verse when things are bad to allow this athlete to see kind
(02:55):
of like as things are unraveling, what we see in
hitting a lot is that as the season goes on, their first move
will change a lot without them realizing it.
Because it might even be the root might be like fatigue
movement, like who knows what the root is, but they won't
realize that their move is it's slowly starting to change quite
a bit. And by the time they realize it,
(03:17):
their timing is way off like they they've impacted things so
much. And so it is really important to
be one know what your move lookslike at your.
Best. And then to really be monitoring
that over time to see those changes.
And so that kind of sparked my brain on the the hitting side of
like, oh man, we're you know, you're 28 games into the season
(03:38):
and you have no idea what has quite unraveled or where it
started or how to even go back to it or that type of thing.
And so the, like, getting back on track seems like such a
harder journey there where, you know, if you're kind of
monitoring things over time, youhave a better sense of where to
go and where to attack. So that was kind of when my
brain sparked for hitting Ashley.
(03:59):
Maybe if you want to talk about some of the things you're seeing
on the pitching side and some ways that like we are helping
programs get a sense of what they should be measuring.
Yeah, I think the first thing that I'll note is that the in
season management starts an offseason, preseason.
And what I mean by that is what we like to see throughout the
(04:19):
fall when there's competition isthe whole gauntlet of who a
pitcher is. We want to see her reach, you
know, like high levels of success and effectiveness and
understand why it's not random, like, OK, when she does XY and
Z, when she keeps the ball here,when she mixes her all speed,
this amount, when she's able to manipulate the height of this
pitch, this degree, when she reaches, when the break looks
(04:42):
like this, when she stays in this below range, whatever those
specifics are all the way down to like she struggled.
And anytime there's feedback of like, not a great outing from
picture A, the first thing is, OK, let's talk about why.
Let's get into the details of why.
So we start to learn those things about the pitchers over
the fall and then through the like heart of winter and into
preseason, we expose the hell out of like her challenges.
(05:06):
So like when a pitcher is struggling, when any athlete is
struggling, it's not random. They're in their own.
This is like their own spectrum,their own scale.
They just slide through it. Like it's not like, oh,
sometimes this athlete starts tolose stability here.
Sometimes she starts to use her stride like it's the same thing
they go back to they're just to regress back to their neutral
(05:30):
patterns. And So what you want to
understand is how that regression and patterns, which
is theirs, it's like they own that pattern regression when it
regresses to that point, how does it impact ball flight?
And it's not always the same like results, you know, like
sometimes it has more of an impact on command.
Sometimes that's more of an impact on, you know, like
something in their break or their ability to change speeds,
(05:51):
etcetera. So we want to deeply understand
that story. So all of the schools that we
work with really from the time we start, we start with the
initial assessments to get an idea of exactly what we're
looking at. And then we are just really
trying to see like what's her scale?
How far does it go? How far can we push it?
And then what's the bottom of it?
What's the regression look like?We don't ever want to be
(06:13):
surprised. I mean, that's the end of the
day, right? And so training and preseason is
about taking what they struggle with and exposing it and
exposing it and looking through that and building as much
resilience through that as possible.
But you know, like this came up last week, a pitcher was
struggling with something and onthe call with her coach, I'm
like, OK, but this is that athlete.
(06:34):
Like just a reminder. It's like they got lost.
And like that last week she struggled with this, and this
week she struggled with this. And like, it's not separate,
right? The root of it is X.
The root of it is that her patterns are very, very low
efficiency throws hard, but she'll just get in there and
freaking RIP it, you know? And so that is her baseline
regression. And so, so last week that
(06:54):
manifested itself as no off speed because she was just
pulling like hell. This week it manifested itself
with everything elevating. But it's the same root cause,
right? And so we know this.
So what we're trying to do in season, by the time season
comes, all coaches and all pitchers should be on the same
(07:15):
page of that scale, the details of it, what it looks like.
And ideally we would like to thepitchers to be trained well,
trained enough to recognize it in the moment that it's
happening on the ball field and to be trained enough to tap into
what they need to, to kind of get things back on track.
Does that happen often? It does not.
(07:37):
So then the next tier is that they know how to, in between
innings go back and use the physical training tools.
It's just the like intent mentalpiece did not work, then you
physically need to tap into these training tools.
It's usually involving weighted balls, weighted softballs,
plyos, changing plyo weights, tapping into something
(07:58):
different, understanding where your arm is in space more, but
like go back, go tap into that physical piece and then see if
that alone can just like get youback on track and go back out
there. And then in the meantime, during
the week, we are just trying to build those like build that for
them, making sure no one ever feels lost of like, why is this
happening? What's going on?
(08:20):
We don't ever want to slip into that.
So this is how you have to set yourself up.
What you're talking about Kristais like, OK, now the season has
started and let's track it as it's going for sure.
But you should already come in with your like big ass textbook
on that athlete. And you, it's like, you know
(08:41):
what the highs and lows are likely to look like at that
point. Well, and I think that's kind of
to my point. It's like why it's such a missed
opportunity, which is when you have an athlete who does go in,
you have an athlete who goes into the season with that level
of knowledge on themselves and then you're like, don't know.
That's like what? No, we do know.
Actually, we do know pretty wellof what unravels for that
(09:03):
athlete. And so one, let's not guess just
generally, because at least if you're going to guess, let's
guess from three things because you have an idea of where it's
going. But then also when athletes have
that level, it's like feed them,Hey, remember, this happens for
you. So like, here's a video where it
starts to unravel. Here's a this is what's
happening. You know, you're for hitters
like you're the balls start being more on the ground or you
(09:27):
start struggling with dislocation or whatever.
Like let's not forget that's what happens for you.
So let's not just like panic. I think this idea of like
sometimes we have athletes who they do have that level of
knowledge and then all of a sudden we're in season and the
way they're talking is like, wait, why are you talking?
It's like you have no idea what could possibly be happening.
We do have an idea of what couldbe happening.
It's probably pretty likely one of XYZ things.
(09:49):
So like go back to these things,go back and look at whatever.
Can you tell me what's happeningin the the video?
You know, whatever. And I think it's we get lost as
players and coaches when we don't have that sort of like
objective way to go right back to we know this, so we go to
here, we know this, so we go to here and we start to guess in
(10:09):
Guessing always can be like sucha journey, but guessing in
season is definitely not the route you don't have.
Time. You don't have time for it, you
just really don't. And I think that I say this
probably 4 times a week. So I'm starting to get tired of
hearing myself say it, but like I simply don't believe in things
like, Oh, she's just like a headcase or it's mental at this
point. I'm like, are there cases where
(10:32):
legitimately like there's nothing going on physically and
someone has like severe performance anxiety?
Of course, right. I'm not here to argue that
there's not this element of likewhere something could simply be
on this like sports like side. I'm pretty sure do not like hold
me to this percentage, but it's probably like less than 2% of
the time. Is that actually the case?
(10:54):
The reality is when something becomes mental for an athlete, I
see it all the time. It's because no one knows what
the hell they're looking at or looking for and everyone's
panicking. So everyone starts throwing
darts at the dartboard. So that athlete's trying all the
things and nothing's working. And next thing you know, they're
questioning everything and then they're thinking all this stuff.
And so I always say like when when an athlete is starting to
(11:15):
lose it, when they are starting to like like spiral, it's
because no one is able to sit down with them and show them the
X's and O's of the issue. Like you have to be able to do
that. You have to be able to show them
this is what's going on and thisis the game plan.
The part that is not always a sure thing is whether or not the
approach you take to solving that problem is going to work
(11:39):
because that gets more complicated, right?
And so here's the issue, 99% confident, this is what I'm
seeing based on your patterns, your ball flight, it all fits
the puzzle. This is the approach I think we
should take both in the bullpen,stranding and additioning is
usually involved. So this is the approach we're
going to take and this is what it will look like if that
(12:00):
approach is on. This is what you know, things
will start to look like if that approach is on the right track.
And so then all of a sudden there's like they get back into
the like the XS and OS of it, they get back into the
measurement piece. But when you don't know that
route, it's chaos. And then you definitely can't
blame the athlete for turning like into a mental nightmare
(12:21):
because, and I see it with coaches, too, it's just like, Oh
my God, what's happening to her?You've introduced like a new
problem. That's what I felt like when I
was talking to this athlete. And I think, Laura, because I
talk about the underlying stuff here, but like when I was
talking to this athlete, I'm like, wait a minute.
No, no, we don't need to solve anew problem right now.
Like we know this is not. So saying shit that's going to
(12:43):
rear its head for you right every.
Single time all of a sudden it'slike, hey, you got to fix your
posture and she's like, wait what and so there's just this
like I didn't know I had this issue I'm like wait wait, wait,
wait, wait yes, you did yes, youdid like and and not only do you
know that this is an issue for you, but you know how to fix it
like this is not we are not totally unraveled.
So what I was going to say is when that sort of order of
(13:05):
attack, so we have an athlete, things start to unravel as
expected. She knows exactly what to tap
back into because we've we've practiced it, we've done that.
I think the next level that we sometimes when you say like, and
then it's like, OK, well, there's complicating factors.
What that is, and I think Laura for you to touch on this, is
that sometimes the way we attackit from a skill standpoint
(13:25):
doesn't work. And, and there's this level of
monitoring we need to be happening under the skill thing
of sort of strength and conditioning.
What are they measuring so that we know if things are unraveling
from that standpoint, Wellness, what are we, what are we
monitoring? So sometimes all of a sudden
you're like, Hey, you know, whenyour posture unravels, this
drill really helps. We, we use this bat, we do this
(13:46):
drill, we, we work through it. And also the athletes, like, I
can't tap into the things that I've been able to tap into.
What are the other things, Laura, that you've sort of like?
I guess we talked about this a little in last week's episode
with James, so go back to that also.
But what are the types of thingsthat we should be tracking also
of like, hey, our normal strategies are not working.
(14:08):
Let's maybe there's something else going on here.
Yeah, I want to absolutely talk about I think the the sort of
unseen or untapped into value quite yet of markerless motion
capture, but we'll get there. From a bio mechanic standpoint,
the being able to monitor movement quality particularly
power sometimes is a measure more of fatigue general, you
(14:31):
know sort of power output. But the movement quality piece,
it's a big one in terms of just like being able to see, are
there things under her patterns that maybe a change in strength
and conditioning or a particularexercise or the intent of the
strength and conditioning coach,while very well intended, may
have misaligned with maybe bullpen needs or recovery needs
(14:52):
or something. You have to go back into those
pieces. The as you guys were talking, I
think you know, particularly from a health and Wellness
standpoint, I'm always encouraging our athletes to do
their Wellness questionnaires all the time.
I'll take it every day because we don't just want the
information when you feel good and or, or I say or feel bad, we
want it all the time. So the more data points, the
(15:14):
better. So something that fluctuates as
much as your day-to-day subjective feelings of health
and Wellness, your sleep, fatigue, all of it.
We want lots and lots of data points because those fluctuate
wildly from again, 124 hour period to the next.
And so having all those data points just tells a better
story. It's a more complete story.
(15:35):
When we get into things that fluctuate a little less like
movement quality, like power, they may take days, weeks,
months, depending on the athletebefore we would see either a
positive change or a negative change.
Sometimes, right. It's, it's, it's about the
training and AD training concept.
We don't need to gather that as,as frequently, but we need to
keep an eye on it. And so when the, the sort of
(15:56):
pain dysfunction, soreness cyclestarts, the first thing I go
back to is what bothers them in strength and conditioning.
Because to me, that's the, that's the tell before we even
get to pitching or hitting. Tell me what's happening under
those movements and what you're struggling with in the weight
room. And often times those things
that are bothering them in the weight room are perfectly
equivalent to what's happening in the skill.
(16:16):
And so it just that monitoring lets you take a scheduled
planned look. I'll get to the psychology of
that in a second because I have,I thought what you guys were
talking about in terms of like only addressing those things
when they're a problem was very interesting from I think an
athlete psychology standpoint. But movement quality and power
can be collected less frequently, meaning they don't
(16:37):
they're, they're pretty stable. Now we get into something like
bio mechanics. We tend to not in, in our, you
know, athlete population with high schoolers, their patterns
take time to change. And so the frequency that that
we collect bio mechanics is pretty wide, right.
I think in general, you know, for probably high schoolers,
every three months is great. Could it be more frequent?
Sure. But it's not really about
(16:58):
playing level. It's really about the stability
of patterns. And I think the same is for
hitters. And so the beauty of something
like, you know, a markerless motion capture system that is
integrated into a training spaceis like, all right, well,
instead of guessing, you know, where the root of that pitcher
is, pain, soreness, etcetera is we're monitoring her bio
mechanics. We're adding a layer frequently,
(17:19):
I would say in season weekly, we're just monitoring.
It's not it's not data collection that only comes out
when a pitcher or hitter is doing poorly.
That's I think from this like the athlete psychology
standpoint, you're, you're asking for disaster, right?
If the if the assessment processor or technology or whatever rap
(17:40):
sodo, I don't care what it is, only comes out when there's a
problem. Athletes are going to have some
negative attachment to that, right, in terms of like wanting
to use their information to empower themselves.
And so the monitoring piece, it's always there, it's always
in the background. It should ideally not ask a ton
of the athlete. It should not require them to do
things significantly different than what they typically do, you
(18:01):
know, in their training session or bullpen.
And you just monitor, you're just collecting underneath.
It's not this like grand thing that you bring out, you know,
once a month to check on people.It's monitoring because
everyone's response is going to be different.
And so that's, I'm really excited about that application
from, you know, a motion capturestandpoint for at the college
(18:21):
level, because now we're talkingabout athletes who are
phenomenal athletes, really stable.
And what we're monitoring are their swings, their pitching
patterns for the smallest of changes because those small
changes matter. And if we can get out ahead of
them, then the effects on, you know, ball flight and
performance are mitigated. And so from a college
standpoint, you know, the highest levels of our game,
(18:42):
that's critical. That's to me the future of that.
But I say that from monitoring is important.
If you're only bringing this stuff out when things kind of go
wrong, athletes aren't going to want to.
They're not going to want to engage like that with technology
or data, and they won't find value in it.
I was going to say, I was thinking of a few instances
we've had where the athletes have felt like, Oh my God,
(19:04):
there's a, you know, there's a problem.
And you know, a couple examples I can think of are like they're
on their period and they are struggling because they're
proprioceptions off the below's down because of it.
Whatever there's, you know, theyfeel more fatigued at certain
periods in their cycle, certain time periods in their cycle.
And I think like the most this is, you know, kind of an extreme
(19:28):
example, But what I, what I can think of for this monitoring
concept is when you aren't taking in as much information as
you can and you don't know that that the period effects that
athlete like that and she struggles and you're like, oh
man, you are off like we got to go to the drawing board.
You're off that kind of interruption or interference
(19:54):
with that athlete at that time of year can literally derail
someone for weeks because you have chased the wrong thing.
You have not taught the athlete like, hey, this might just
happen this time of year or thistime of month and you sent them
on this like crazy track. So like another example, these
are less like just in season things.
Another example, we've had a fewathletes that in the college
(20:16):
season have had deaths in the family have left, have come back
immediately into the thing. But this has happened with
several of our athletes, actually.
I've watched them in that game and they did horrible.
One because they had a death in the family, 2 because they
travelled in a way that they don't normally.
They just got like thrown into the game.
And I have thought in those instances like this could derail
(20:36):
this athlete for weeks because it's like the most extreme
example. But when you don't really just
say like, hey, like it's going to take a minute.
We're going to put you in anyways, but it's going to take
a minute. Here's the types of things we
would expect. We're not going to go chasing
random rabbit holes because you struggled.
We're not going to go down this path.
If you don't do that, what that can send you on with that
(20:58):
athlete is such a detrimental disaster of, of chasing things
that they don't need to chase. And that's kind of like the most
extreme example of what we're talking about.
What it usually happens is it's more like slow decline where if
you're not always kind of going back to what is the root of it,
you get a little bit less detoured, but then slowly you
end up going after something that's so different than what
(21:20):
you should be going after. You think they can't command
because they don't have the, youknow, competitiveness or the way
that comes out and hitting is like they take pitches they
wouldn't take. They strike out looking.
You're like, why is she not swinging at that pitch?
And it's something physical is starting to happen.
And when we're all starting to point at the wrong things, we
can we can derail athletes for areally long time.
(21:40):
So I think you're really trying to get, as you said, as we come
into the season with the, the, the highest level of
understanding of like what is the order, things are going to
start to unravel. Let's not freak out when that
happens. It's going to happen.
We have the tools to get back ontrack.
These are the things we tap intoand when we tap into them and
then it's like as that's happening, are you monitoring
(22:03):
enough stuff in the background where if you are tapping into
something at the high, you know,like the surface level and
that's not working, Are you thengoing to go down the rabbit
hole? Or do you have sort of like a
quick thing like, you know, is it something?
Are you on your period? Are you was travel different
this week for us, the training conditioning change this week.
Like can you start ticking down the boxes quickly and not start
(22:25):
going all over the place with what you're guessing that?
And I think we see that a lot because it's what we had to do
as coaches. You know, we didn't have any of
this information. So it was a total guessing game.
It was like, hopefully the coachis pretty good at guessing
because otherwise you're going to derail.
And now we're starting to get the sense of, like, what are the
types of things we could be monitoring?
So a coach is good at guessing, but they can have a lot of
(22:47):
things to check themselves against.
Then that's kind of the things we're seeing.
And I think that, yeah, we see athletes get derailed for a
long. You get derailed for two weeks
in the college season. Like, that's not great.
That's not great, you know. Yeah.
And I was going to say to add tothat of like the game is like
such high stakes at certain levels at this stage.
You know that like you don't youdon't get to be down the week of
(23:08):
your period. You don't get to be like, I had
something happen in my family. And so now this like you just
don't, I mean, of course you getto, but you just, if everyone
had that, it would be a disaster.
So this is what I mean of like, of course there's always
external factors that you can't plan for.
Like OK, let's test what's goingto happen if you have to deal
(23:29):
with XYZ and your family. You can't control the external
things. But you must know that when
anything about stress, fatigue, etcetera comes in, what
physically happens to me then? What goes on that?
Wall. To that athlete, very particular
to that athlete. And then what are my training
strategies? So like this is like, OK, on
(23:49):
this this week we have to be super.
We have to assume that when you come back, we have to assume
that this week you need extra ofthis.
We need to assume that's the deal.
It's not just this nonchalant like, Oh yeah, that's the issue.
We'll try next week. Like we don't get to do that.
And so I think it's like This iswhy it can't be like the first
time you're seeing it, you know,it like knowing the context of
(24:11):
that athlete, It's so much of like, this is what pitching is,
right? Like to tap into the craft and
to maximize the craft of pitching.
Often times the external variables are kind of outside of
your control, meaning the weather that day, the umpire
zone, how it changes if your teammates make errors behind
you. That external variables are
(24:33):
often just like chaos. Your job is to keep calm and to
stay connected to you in order to keep tapping into your craft
despite the chaos of the external variables.
That's just the nature of pitching.
But there's no way to do that ifyou don't, if internally you
start creating chaos, right? If internally you're just like
(24:58):
all the things, what's going on?You think you're going to be
able to stay calm when the umpire zone goes from this to
this. You think you're going to be
able to stay calm when there's arunner on 2nd and 3rd and
there's no outs because you people just booted something
because you know, like you just the ability to manage the
external factors, which you can't always train for.
(25:18):
Some you can and some you can requires the internal
understanding to in order to like stay regulated and stay
connected to the craft. And that's just that is
pitching. That is literally what pitching
is. And So what you're saying is
sometimes those external types of things are literally like
(25:39):
life events. Sometimes they're like illness,
right? And so those are other factors
that come in. And so, yeah, we have to go into
the season just like arm. Now the reality is the reason
why we're the best at helping coaches do this, the reason why
even sometimes coaches will justpull these like one off
consulting calls with us, like like help basically because I
(26:00):
don't see it. It is much more difficult when
all I'm thinking of pitching coaches, for example, you have
only 6 bodies that you see over and over and over.
And you may think, oh, it's easier because you have less.
But like from our standpoint, weare seeing so many patterns.
Not only do we study. That well, people are like, have
you ever seen this before? Yeah, yes.
(26:22):
I don't know what you're about to say. 300 times.
Right. And I think what people don't
understand is that like, OK, first tell me what's happening
with the like what's happening with the ball.
Do not tell me what you think you see with the body.
Tell me what's happening. What's the issue with command?
She's missing everything elevated.
Everything's extreme. It's either wide or right
through the zone or like her velos drop.
(26:42):
Like, give me the nuts and bolts, then let's take a look.
It's usually just video. People aren't just pulling open
their markulous motion capture. Not yet.
The launchpads get in right? Give it time.
However, you know, we're lookingat video and it's very
important, like if it's someone we've never, we never did an
essential assessment. We don't really have the context
(27:03):
yet. There might be a couple
questions. The puzzle should always fit
what you see. You have to keep the context of
what's going on with the ball, right?
Of like, Yep, because you've seen patterns like Oh yeah, this
looks different to me then to now.
If this were to happen, if someone's posture looks like
this, if their arm starts to look like this versus this, I
(27:23):
would expect XY and Z match, right?
If it doesn't match, it's not it, right?
And so it's like it's understanding the changes in
patterns and making sure it fitswhat you're seeing there.
And that does get very hard for coaches when they have a very
small sample size they're working with, right?
And so I think the beauty of ourlike the consulting and our like
(27:43):
expertise is that that happened so quickly for us.
It happens in a single phone call for us that we can identify
that route for them because we've seen it a billion times,
you know, across the country. Then then challenge is saying,
OK, here's what we typically do for that, communicate.
This is the strategy to get out of that for the athlete.
And if the root goes deeper thanpitching and goes all the way
(28:06):
down into strength and conditioning, you also do not
have time to sit and wait for that to come through.
So it's important to understand we've got to attack like it's
only March 12th. We've got to start attacking XYZ
in the weight room. In the meantime, the strategy is
that we have to ask the arm to have more adaptability, to have
(28:26):
more adjustability. We have to because your body is
not putting it in great position.
And let's not fool ourselves, you do not need perfect patterns
to get the damn job done. You do not.
So the second you start thinkingthat it's like, no.
But you do have to understand that the normal way the body and
the arm work together, it's off right now.
So we can train it to work differently until the like back
end stuff starts to work. So there's no time to just sit
(28:49):
around for movement quality to come along.
And So what we, that doesn't mean we skip it.
That means it's like that could make an impact.
We start grabbing that, that makes an impact in another 4
weeks. And now it's only April, you
know, so it's like, we don't want this to keep getting worse.
So you start handling the back end of it.
And in the meantime, here's whatwe're going to do.
(29:11):
But yeah, I think that that's the whole deal of it.
The game, man, the game is the best.
The game, the external variablesand all the shit that just
changes from a day-to-day basis.The field sizes are different,
the weather is different, the umpire is missing all kinds of
stuff. The zone is changing like part
(29:32):
of our game. It's literally a part of
baseball, softball, to have to manage that in order to win,
right? And so in order to give yourself
the best shot, it's something that's just inherently a part of
our game. It's like, oh, it's like brutal
sometimes, but it's also kind ofthe beauty of it.
To give yourself the best shot to do it, you have to internally
(29:55):
come as like stable with you as you possibly can before you take
on the external stuff. Yeah, I was going to say, I
think sometimes people like whatwe often see is you get tricked
by, and this happens at all levels.
Like this definitely happens at the high school level is like
you get tricked by these good spells.
And so also it's like you, it's like things you know to be true,
(30:17):
like you're struggling with XYZ,you're going to struggle with
this pitch, You're going to whatever as a hitter.
And you get in a spell where youjust like for some reason are
seeing the ball really well. You're swing at the right
pitches, you get a streak of pitchers.
You kind of feed into your strengths actually.
And you you go, you hit well, you're at a field that's small.
So like you have some success atthat, whatever it is.
(30:39):
And we lose sight of this objective measurement of like,
OK, but are we doing really goodor are we doing it kind of
exactly as expected? And now as we face a tougher
opponent, we go back to a different field, we, whatever it
is, we start to actually have the results we anticipate.
And now we're like, ah, we're freaking out.
(31:00):
And I think, you know, it's justanother level of monitoring.
I've referenced this before, butI always talk about the like
Major League Baseball fields, just like subway fields, they
are insanely different, right? Like the parks are insanely
different. And so as a hitting coach at the
Major League level, you have to have a really good insight into
objectively what is going to give us a shot in most cases to
(31:24):
get the most runs we can. And sometimes, so like Busch
Stadium is one of the worst hitters stadiums, which is
really a bummer for me as a Cardinals fan to have the worst
like offensive stadium. But it's really hard to get the
ball out just because of where the sort of like longer things
are. So we like the Cardinals often
would score like less there, butthe outcomes were still exit
(31:47):
velocities and launch angles anddistances that in most parks
would we would have won the game, you know, And so you have
to even be tracking things like that.
It's to the extent you have access to anything like that to
know like, OK, listen, we lost that game, but in 99% of the
time you performed exactly as wewould expect we would have won.
(32:07):
Like there's nothing to go chasing after.
We can't just focus on the loss or we can't just focus on the
whatever. We had to understand that that
was exactly as we expected or, hey, we won that game, but
actually we won it by hitting bloopers and, you know, do not
doing the things that are normally going to give us
success. And you got away from those
things. And so now when we lose, we
(32:29):
can't be upset. Like, wait, we performed exactly
the same. So I think there's like so many
levels of you have to know who each player is, what is their
actual performance. You can't start just because
you're winning or something, or she's having a little more
success than you thought or she's whatever.
Start expecting more than what we know about that person's
story. That doesn't make sense.
So it's like matching the players, the expectations of
(32:50):
that player, the understanding of that player going into the
season, not all of a sudden like, well, we're doing good
now. So let's let's, you know, try to
let's stretch it, how far we cando so it's understanding that.
And then to the extent things doderail, which they will a little
bit, how fast can we course correct?
And the only way you're going tobe able to course correct is by
knowing what to go to and that there's so many layers that if
(33:11):
I'm the highest level of the game, I want in game data, I
want video, I want, you know, health and Wellness monitoring.
I got a woop and on. I know like the levels that you
can tick through can be so high.And if you're a high school
athlete, we've talked about this.
The way you know is what you've kind of described actually is
you've had this whole journey leading up.
(33:31):
And so if you can come in somewhere once a week and you
start to see a change in bald flight, you know what that
means? You probably don't have to tick
guess through all the boxes because maybe we don't have
every single level of monitoring, but we know when you
lose sync, that means X, which probably means Y is happening.
And so we can make some really educated guesses based on our
past experience. And that's why you want to have
(33:53):
that. So it's like it can be very much
faster if you have a launchpad in your facility and we see
these tiny ticks of bio mechanics, we can be course
correcting like so fast. That would be the most ideal
scenario. But we if you train in a way
where you know what the heck you're doing and what your story
is. That's why I think sometimes
these conversations for us when we talk to athletes and I see
you sometimes like in our Slack channels with pictures,
(34:15):
actually, they'll be like, you know, I had no commands or I
totally lost my change up. You're like, what does that
mean? They're like no idea.
It's like, no, you do haven't. Like you do have an idea.
You know, it's the same conversation I was having with
that hitter of like, wait, wait,wait.
This is not a we don't have to solve a whole new problem.
This is like. And I always say from a training
standpoint, like in between games, doesn't matter if it's
(34:36):
high school or college, never. Just like warm up all your
pitches and mix. If that's the case, like stay
home that day because it is so general, you are just
contributing to just like, I have no idea.
It needs to be super targeted. You need to be thoughtful about
workload. So target the hell out of it.
(34:58):
I am literally working on blending change and drop today.
When an umpire is giving me thisheight in the zone and I'm a
drop ball pitcher, I don't know how to take advantage of it.
So today I'm going to work on this.
And I know that in my program, this is how I learn to kind of
unravel my arm at different times, right?
And So what we do at our high school level is when we ask them
for that level of detail to remind them of what are the
(35:20):
things in their program that help them with that and what
they should say super focused ondo not just like, here's all the
names of my pictures. I warn them up, I locate them
and I move on for the day. It's such a bad approach.
OK with this. I feel like this is a totally
different podcast maybe so you could tell me if it is OK every
this came up last week, but every time I am in a college
bullpen, I'm like, I'm reminded one that I'm home, you know?
(35:44):
Like I'm like, I love it becausepitchers, all the pitching minds
were a bunch of freaks, a bunch of weirdos and a bunch of
freaks. And I love it.
Everyone looks like they hate everyone looks as if they hate
their life because everyone is afreak inside their own brain.
Like you throw a pitch and instantly you're thinking about
XYZ. You're so calculated.
Everyone is like it's silent. No one looks like they're having
(36:07):
fun because there's an internal crazy going on for everyone.
That's what makes me feel at home, Like, oh great, it's all
the freaks are out and I think it's wonderful.
Then you walk around the corner and the hitters are blasting
the. Music.
Always. I mean hitters just blast the
music and everything is big and loud.
(36:30):
So one, I can't get the hell outof there fast enough.
OK, I literally am like, I don'tlike any of this.
None of this feels good to me. How are do you manage your
internal weirdness? You know, and This is why I
belong on this side of things. So one, that's just some it
happens everywhere. And two, is that right?
(36:52):
Like I was, well, I was going tosay to you, I what you were
saying about warmups. I was thinking, so I was asking
some of our, the college tutors I work with like, OK, you're
struggling with that. What will you do this week?
Like what will your drills look like to work on that?
And they're like, Oh no, we're just going to prep for the
pitchers. I think it's So what my brain
went to is. The external before the
internal. Well, no, my brain went to was
(37:13):
like, we don't have the technology yet for you to
actually prep for the pitchers. So we already know that the
pitching machines can't create the break that you're going to
see. And so let's say a kid throws,
you know, you're going to see a kid with and you know the data
because maybe it's a level whereI know the data.
(37:34):
So this kid's going to throw mid60s and she's going to throw +4
and it has three inches of horizontal brake.
Like I know exactly. You can't create that.
The ball fight won't. The machines cannot do that.
There's no machine on the marketin softball that can do that.
And so I think it's not to say don't do that, like don't try to
prep for that pitcher, but the way that you prep for that
pitcher is OK. Can I let me see as similar as I
(37:57):
can? Let me let me get a sense of of
like how similar to that ball fight can I see?
Let's talk about how I would attack that ball fight knowing
me as a hitter. And then let's let's watch video
as a coach and see like, are there sequences?
Like can we attack things when she goes, what is the pitch in a
sequence she throws that this hitter is going to be most
likely to attack? Can we kind of sit on that?
(38:18):
Can we game plan? But you can't just go put the
machine on. There's very, very few break
profiles that you can do that. And so to me, it's very
interesting to think, wait, you can't, we're talking, this is
going to come out probably at the end of March.
But like we're talking early March right now.
We can't already be at a time period where you're not at all
working on your swing. Like I don't even that we are
(38:43):
now we have two months where you're going to unravel, 3
months almost where you're goingto be unraveling.
And so I think that's really interesting too of like, we just
have to be a little careful of what that means.
Like, and, and I was thinking ascoaches, like, do we know that?
Do we know like, OK, just because this pitching machine is
going down, that's not her breakprofile.
(39:05):
So it's not to say it's not helpful at all to be practicing
a down pitch when you're going to sit down or whatever.
But like, let's make sure we know that that there's some
context to that. You know, like what, what's
probably going to be more helpful to prep for is does she
have patterns in what she calls?Do we know anything about the
umpire we're facing and what hisor her zone looks like?
Am I going to have to chase things like it's those types of
(39:26):
it's approach mindset and then like really seeing what a
pitcher throws. It's just about getting rid of
as many holes in your swing as you can, which is a very
particular thing to you as a hitter and really doesn't have
anything to do with what you're seeing from that pitcher and
their ball flight. So we've talked about this a
little bit, but like our hittingstoplight system is like, so I
(39:47):
imagine in a college setting is that like, you know, earlier in
the week, I don't know why a college tutor wouldn't just be
doing her drill work. You know that's going to help
her maintain what she needs to for the season.
You're going to be attacking those things.
And then yes, like if late in the week you want to watch game
mixed with like the location she's going to throw, maybe you
can recreate a little like it's a lefty so you can create that
(40:10):
angle or you want to do some things like that.
Sure, but let's just remember like we've measured our hack
like it throws -11 and plus. 10 or whatever, like you ain't
facing that. Like it's not creating what
you're facing and it's beneficial for development and
you can see fast, which is important.
You know you're going to face 74, you want to see 74, but like
(40:31):
you're not recreating that pitcher.
And if that hitter comes in witha giant hole in her swing, it
doesn't matter if she faced. Doesn't matter.
That's exactly right. You can't take on the external
without the internal. I also think like the reason why
I'm like pictures were just likeobsessed with like like the
internal. Now there's more of like we're
in control of more right, Because obviously we're not like
(40:54):
responding to something. But I don't get the like when
the music is always just going wild.
You can't be in your own like brain.
It's it's like a, what it represents to me is like group
train. Yeah.
And I do know that quantity is an issue with hitters when
there's like 6 pitchers in a bullpen and there's literally 20
(41:14):
hitters, but it's like group train, like this is what we're
doing as hitters. You know, anyway, I definitely,
there's two pieces and I think this is a totally different
podcast probably. So maybe until next time.
But one, like, wow, if you don'taren't positive about who your
people are and who they're not, you know, like in my mind,
there's two different types of there's, you know, they're like,
(41:36):
there's two people in this world.
There's people doing this and people do that.
Like facing the wall in silence and.
Yes, there are people who Jack up the music and train and dance
at the same time, and I love music and I love dancing.
And then there are people who get in there and are absolute
freaks and moving every chess piece inside their own brain,
(41:57):
and those are pictures or those are the good ones, and I'm here
for it. That's one thing.
There's such a different world. And two, it's just like, I think
it's really interesting. Do we individualize skating
enough? My assumption is no, because we
think. Yeah, well, you think about what
the hitter and I've talked aboutthis, but you think about what
the hitters say to each other, and I've talked about this at
the high school level. They'll be like, she threw me
outside, like, yeah, no, no, no,no.
(42:19):
What this is not. First of all, sometimes there's
conversations at the collegiate level I think are funny because
I think like, you know, don't you have this information
already? Like, what are you guys talking
about? Now?
There's the umpire. There's some things of like,
whoa, there's. Some, yeah, you might kick.
Something, something, Yeah. So you see something that you
like. She gives this away or she does
this or whatever, but like generally, sometimes I'm like,
(42:42):
what are you guys saying to eachother that you don't already
know coming into this? But I just think like there's
limitations to how much we can actually prepare for a pitcher's
spin and prepare for that pitcher.
And so there's like, and it noneof it matters if you have one of
your best sitters totally unraveling in the side.
So there has to be some going back to that hitter's game plan
(43:03):
to make sure she doesn't get those.
There's a balance between those things.
And I think even we push back sometimes like we, you know, one
day before game day, they'll do game prep and that they usually
can pick with us of like, are you preparing for the pitcher
you're seeing? Are you preparing for something
you're struggling with? But even that, if a, if a hitter
says to me like I want to do outside, I'm really struggling
(43:24):
outside, I usually am like, well, why are you struggling
with outside? Like me just setting the machine
up outside. That might be something we do
today eventually, but let's first understand that's not
random for you. Outside is something that goes
away. Why does it go away?
Why aren't you able to drive outside before we get to the
outside machine, which we will get to at the end?
Let's go back to the drill set that helps that not be a hole.
(43:45):
Let's tag into those things so that by the time you get to
outside machine that you have any source of ability to make
that adjustment versus like, hey, you're struggling with
this. Let's just go to it, you know,
and I think, I think hitting does that a lot.
Yeah, it's just just go right tolike, yeah, they go right to
step 7 because it's like. Even MLB.
MLB does this less now, but for the longest time think of like
(44:07):
you went to batting practices just like a dude.
Like. Sauce and meatballs and they're
just like crushing home runs now.
I think most good teams don't dothat anymore and they have
machine and it's less and everyone kind of does their own
thing and there's different things that they work on.
So I actually think that has gone away a little bit.
But that concept or our hitters will be like what I do in
pregame, just go like I walk up and watch the hitter.
(44:29):
I'm doing like wiffle full swings.
I'm like, what the hell are you doing?
Like you know exactly you have for six months of the year done.
You know, these drills that, youknow, help you feel good and
swung these bats, like do that. This is not like, do that before
the game. Do it more less, get ready, like
go tap into those. So I definitely think there's
like a fear of those things in hitting or a lack of
(44:52):
understanding. And then everything becomes
around. Like she throws Lowen outside,
So let's just hit Lowen outside this week.
It's like, I mean, there's a lotof layers.
Like, what does she throw Lowen outside?
And like, yeah, it's just not that simple.
And you can't make a hitter to be able to hit low and outside
just by facing low and outside. Like that's not that's not the
problem. Well, I'll leave it with this
(45:12):
because I know we're wrapping uphere, but if I'm suggesting that
we turn one of our next podcastsinto a discussion center on
hitting, you know that I'm feeling really wild here.
Conveniently. But I do think, yeah, I do think
that like in the world that we live in that a majority of the
work that we do externally, internally, obviously we our
(45:32):
player development processes andmanagement system extends to
hitters and pitchers. But a lot of the work that we
extend externally is pitching specific.
It exposes some serious holds. And I do would I, I do think
it's worth asking the question like is generally and of course
there are people on this side ofthe line and this side of the
line is hitting player development in our game like
(45:55):
really at in a spot where it should be my I say no.
Or is the bat just a composite bat in the fields are 190 and
it's it just ain't that, you know right now.
Exactly. A little bit of a tired pitcher
and it's just not that hard. Right.
And so I think like, I just think it's interesting because
when you start to see like how many XS and OS and the weigh in
with the training strategy are going about, it's just, you
(46:17):
know, a lot of times that doesn't happen on the hitting
side. And hitting's more complicated,
not the skill itself, obviously the the skill pitching is
complicated because there's workload, there's there's so
many variables to it from that standpoint.
But hitting's more complicated on the development side because
you are reacting and there is anelement of how much do I prep
for me and how much do I prep for the person who's kind of in
(46:40):
charge of what's happening. You know, and this, this there's
a lot more external variables that you are not in control of
the picture you're facing the field you're on.
The the umpire obviously plays for both, but the umpire, the
there's so like the defense, thethere's so many years in such
reactive mode. And so player development, it
does have to, for hitting, take that into consideration.
(47:01):
It's not like just only focus onyou and you'll be good.
It's like, well, yeah, but the pitcher then throws you
something you're ready for whatever you have to prep.
You have to know the, the breadth of what you're prepping
for. So it's different and it's, I
think it's complicated because of that.
But yeah, it doesn't the, the group mindset for a lot of
reasons doesn't make sense. So until another time where we
can talk about that. Well, apparently I'm also
(47:21):
chiming in, so imagine that. Yeah, All right, Well, almost
April by the time it comes out. Crazy stuff.
Happy spring, getting into the good stuff of season, into all
the conferences where we're all like, who's what conferences is?
Steven, what's happening to thisweek?
Laura said UCLA is playing Purdue.
That's weird, but you know, in the Big 10 matchup, But such is
(47:42):
life right now. So Yep, All right, next time see
you then like and subscribe the OGX podcast anywhere you listen
to your podcast. It helps us and we appreciate
it.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.