July 21, 2025 • 37 mins
Returning to the mound after injury takes more than rest. It takes a proven protocol, a strong communication loop, and a deep understanding of biomechanics.
In this episode, the OGX team breaks down what that process should look like. They cover the difference between a real return to pitching protocol and just playing catch, why understanding the kinetic chain matters, and how sports medicine and coaching staff need to stay aligned.
They also discuss how biomechanics and in-game data play a role in decision-making, player development, and performance longevity.
🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/fYy1AB9Zymg
#ogxpodcast #pitchingprotocols #softballpitching #playerdevelopment #rehabtraining #athletedevelopment #sportsmedicine
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
All right, we are back for another episode cracking jokes
before we get on here. So I'm laughing as I come on.
We are going to talk a little bit today about what Laura and
Ashley are talking about during pitch talk.
Maybe we'll preview a little bitof what James is talking about
too, and but maybe we'll have him on to kind of cover some of
that as well, because I think that's a good one.
(00:24):
Just some of the OGX topics, I always say, you know, our talks
come out of like necessity. I think it's like a combination
of what we are learning and we want to talk about and share
with everyone and then what we are being asked a lot.
So I think that's kind of what usually brings about our talks.
(00:45):
So let's start with Laura. What are you talking about at
PIT stock this year? The the long-awaited return to
pitching protocol that we've we've had this protocol in
place. You know, Ash, I think you know,
you and I hammered this out a couple years ago now and it's
been in place internally for us for a while, but I I'm really
excited. Years.
(01:06):
Years. While it's years, yeah.
It's been, you know, it's, I'll say battle tested across lots of
different scenarios. We're we'll talk about it at
pitch stock in the context of return from injury with some
asterisks about, you know, what that might mean that the pitcher
has experienced meaning maybe it's surgery, it's a gap of time
off. There's some physical therapy
that they've gone through, but our, you know, our protocol has
(01:28):
been battle tested, not just against injury scenarios, but it
is, it's used extensively for any time a pitcher has had any
gap of time of a break, whether she's gone on vacation, taken a
mental break, physical break, whatever it is, it is a very
thoughtful and structured and, and just easily approachable
progression of returning stress back to the body and pitching.
(01:51):
And the on the other side of thepresentation, I'm also preparing
this for publication because it's, it's got to get out into
the academic community. It's got to get out to the
clinicians. You know, there's, there's just
a very clear reality that the stress jump from, you know,
let's say the PT table or, you know, even late stage
(02:13):
rehabilitation where someone is doing things that are more
functional. They might be, you know, a lot
of PT clinics maybe have strength and conditioning
coaches tied in. They may be doing some things
that are more functional, but there's this aspect of kinetic
chain rehabilitation of being able to really get the body to
tap back into ground up that it one.
There isn't often a lot of time in physical therapy for that and
(02:34):
there isn't sometimes a lot of attention on that either,
especially post surgical cases because they're so focused on
that joint healing and the, you know, the medical necessity of
basically having, you know, range of motion in your shoulder
restored. It's like this idea of kinetic
chain rehabilitation time doesn't happen at all.
It's it, it just isn't enough time for it.
And so we have to have this middle layer of like you got to
(02:54):
apply stress back to the body and pitching smartly,
progressively, 1 variable at a time.
And that's what this protocol does.
And, and we've shared it in the past.
But to be able to, to talk aboutit openly at pitch shock, to be
able to have coaches see it, youknow, ask questions about it, it
is, it's a very simple application.
I think it's going to really help some coaches to have better
(03:16):
conversations as I'm kind of hoping for out of the out of the
talk, have better conversations with their sports medicine staff
about what return to pitching looks like.
And so this concept of like, youknow, they're cleared and what
does it mean to be medically cleared versus ready to throw in
the circle. There are multiple, you know,
stages of that medically clearedand I am ready to begin
(03:37):
progressively adding pitching stress to my body versus I am
ready to step in the circle and I know what my tools are now and
I am ready to go are very different things.
And unfortunately, what often gets missed for a lot of
pitchers is all right, you're cleared medically good to go,
thumbs up. And then they jump right back in
the circle and they end up in this just dysfunctional cycle
(03:57):
of, OK, the patterns that we didn't adjust that cause you to
be injured in the 1st place or cause you to have pain and
dysfunction in the 1st place. And it just this, this protocol
is a way to break that cycle very thoughtfully.
And yeah, I'm just excited to get it out to the public and get
out to our coaches to have it beat a point where, you know,
hopefully the academic communityembraces it and the clinical
community embraces it. We need it, you know, our, our
(04:20):
return of pitching protocols. It's the most common
conversation I have any more with parents is, you know, we,
my, my daughter has scapular dyskinesis or, you know, some,
you know, sort of overuse soft tissue concept and they don't
know, they don't know what to do.
Like our PT says she's ready forpitching, but we don't know what
to do. Those are the, the conversations
that I have often with parents. And the protocol is, I mean, it
(04:40):
is 4 weeks and it's 4 weeks and it's thoughtful and it gets you
to the point of, you know, beingable to step in the circle, not
to go out perform your best, butat least to see how you tolerate
game stress, likely in very low stakes environments.
Maybe you're ahead by a lot, butit at least gives you enough of
a pitch count to go in for a couple of innings and, and get a
sense of, OK, I'm in a game. What does that mean?
(05:04):
How do I feel does my body showing up for me?
And it's, it's testing that through those progressions.
And then once that, you know, those first four weeks are done,
then you can start talking aboutperformance.
And that's what we often see with, you know, return to injury
or returning from injury is fourweeks of that protocol and then
we jump into a performance plan and that transition is usually
pretty seamless. I don't think we've really had
anybody that's really challengedwith going beyond four weeks.
(05:27):
We've had a couple of surgeons who have said, Hey, I'd like you
just to double every week. So spend two weeks on each week.
No problem, Just take a little longer.
It's, it's up to them. You know, we provide this to
clinicians too, to see and review.
It's it's, it's a game changer, I think for pitchers that are
either have some time off and want to come back in a healthy
way. For sure.
(05:48):
I was going to say Laura. Like I feel like the topic the
the title of the talk, like return to pitching, ramp up
protocol, whatever the hell it'sgoing to be called, doesn't
sound that sexy and like. I know I thought my title was
good. Krista, didn't I send it to you?
I thought my title was great. Oh, this was not a jazz how you
(06:08):
titled it. I'm just saying just generally
like a title that's like using high technology and bio
mechanics, Like it's just like return to pitching, you know,
like it's sort of like wah wah, but it is it's a huge deal.
I mean, I think like we use this, I think we take it for
granted because we've been usingit probably for about four years
now and it just works so seamlessly.
(06:30):
It's such a well thought out protocol.
We can explain. It's not just like a random like
let's try this, let's try this. It's super methodical as it
progresses and literally, so notonly is it solid as hell, have
we tested it over years and had incredible success with it,
There's nothing the reason why this talk is so powerful.
(06:51):
There's freaking nothing out there that's any good.
So you have some of the best surgeons in the country
performing, you know, these, these procedures on athletes and
then where they steer them is like an overhand protocol is
like you can throw. Someone told me their day, she's
allowed to throw. Oh, this is on a college call
(07:14):
yesterday. The athlete is on a return to
throw. She's allowed to throw for 45
minutes a day. I was like 45 minutes.
Does that include, you know, like the things you hear are so
ridiculous? I'm like this one, I feel like
this is one of those things where imagine for like Women's
(07:35):
Health or something, they were still sending us to people that
were like, you know, I don't know, like doctors that have
like never looked at anything that were specific to women.
Like we've come so far in understanding that like, there
are things that like, are very important to women and ways in
which we need to look at things differently.
And then there's like this worldwhere we're still cool with just
(07:58):
taking baseball World, dude. Well, I don't even think it's
always taking baseball. I don't think it's always taking
baseball stuff. But I actually have had this
conversation on a lot of the college calls that that we've
had just prepping for this year and kind of the services and
what relationships we're going to have.
And I think one of the the biggest things about this return
to pitch is that it's based off of hundreds and hundreds of
(08:21):
pitchers going, you know, that we've worked with and the things
we've seen and the trends of injuries we've seen and what
they're coming back from and theunderstanding of intensity.
And so I think it's, yeah, sometimes they pull from
baseball, but even more than that, a lot of times to no
faults of them is why we're trying to get it published, is
that you have an AT or a strength staff or whoever it is
(08:41):
working with the college program.
And they might only be assigned to softball and they're really
trying their best to understand softball and work with it.
But they have the experience of five pitchers a year.
So that might be the very first time they've ever experienced
having to ramp a pitcher back upfrom an ACL injury or having to,
you know, whatever it is. That's the first time they've
(09:01):
experienced. And so I think a lot of times
that happens to both at the, thephysician level and then also on
these sort of sports medicine Staffs is that they are, they're
guessing and they're taking educated guessing, but they,
they just haven't ever seen these things.
You know, we always give the example of like the kid with,
you know, we see this a lot. They, this kid has thoracic
outlet syndrome or, or it's presenting as that.
(09:24):
And we've never seen this before.
And we can't get her to do anything.
She can't even throw at low intensity.
She can't do anything. And then it's like, should we
just put her in our return to pitch program and she's fine.
And they're like, how would you do that?
Because we've seen 5060 of thosekids like this isn't the first
time we have ramped up a kid from that process.
(09:45):
The reason we take it for granted is we've done it so
much. But the reason on the other side
that everyone feels like, what am I supposed to do?
It's it's no where would they find this information?
How would they know how to do that?
Like there's just a level of it doesn't exist out there and
you're AT is trying to figure that out case by case for the
very first time. And that's why this is so
(10:07):
important to be out there is like, let's just all help each
other and and give access to this information so that
something we've solved for, you know, hundreds of times.
You don't need to feel like you're the first person standing
on islands ever have to solve for this.
And I think that's the importantpart of the lot of the sort of
data that we've been able to aggregate and the experience
that we've had and why it is helpful when we can help Staffs.
(10:31):
Is that when when it's so novel to you as it should be, because
it's, you know, it's not for lack of experience, it's just
lack of seeing that data in a volume that's that allows.
But when it's so novel to you and you're trying to solve it
for the first time, it's like, you know, that's really hard.
And when it's that's true injury.
Yeah, when it's injury, it's it's it's.
(10:51):
I know, and it's delicate because it's delicate.
I think there's just an element me, you're you, you're right,
but that's it's also kind. I'm also like also anytime
you're designing something for someone don't like all standing
on the roof screaming. Overhand throwing and underhand
throwing are not related. They are two different things.
(11:13):
You can't ramp up a kid in and hitting and say she's ready for
pitching so stop seeing them thesame.
So don't include overhand throwing as any part of a ramp
up for an entirely different skill.
That pisses me off when that happens.
And also you have, I'm not, I'm not saying people should have
like they should get it right, but when they totally discount
(11:33):
the concept of dosing volume andintensity, you are right,
Krista, but I'm like. Yeah, but that still happens in
baseball. That's not a baseball carryover.
That's just an element of for sure.
That's just the element of well,it's it's similar.
We have more information now like when that when the baseball
protocol we all go off of got written and there's multiple
(11:56):
reasons we shouldn't use that insubwall.
It's not subwall pitching and also it's not a great protocol
anymore. Like it was based off of a level
of information where we were like, let's go by throw amounts
and distance. And it's like now we can measure
intensity and we understand intensity, We understand volume
differently and we understand things in baseball.
(12:18):
We can even measure literally arm speed during it to
understand things like there's so many layers that we're
adding. It's like this is very similar
to the conversation of that we've had of like, yes, when we
played right View Pro was all wehad access to.
So looking at slow motion video was what we based it off of.
And so that made sense at the time.
(12:39):
If that's what you're still going off of now, like maybe
let's try to put some more updated information into it.
It's the same with the return toplay type of things, which is
there was a baseball protocol written in whatever year based
on the level of information we had then.
And now we have more informationabout what those ramp UPS should
(12:59):
look like and individual toleration of things and stress
and volume and things like that.And so and then you have that
it's a different skill. And so our return to pitch is
really the sort of melding of those two concepts, which is
let's actually look at football pitching and then let's take
into consideration these ideas of volume and intensity and
stress and so. Yeah, the topic is it's huge,
(13:21):
the protocol is excellent and itneeds to become standardized
across the game. It's game changing, literally.
And also this conversation is reminding me of, you know,
Chris, sometimes you say which Harbour coach is it where like
someone has a leash on the guy? Oh yeah, Jim.
Jim Harbauer. Yeah.
And like, he someone literally has, like, a leash on him.
Like, get the hell off the field.
You know, this conversation is reminding that I'm like.
(13:44):
I. Am not, they are terrible.
They're like Ash pulling that. Like there's actually a couple.
Layers to that. There's a couple layers so that
it's not a leash, it's that he refuses.
I don't know if he's doing this in the professional game, but
when he was at Michigan, he refused to go to the wireless
system, which is hilarious. So he had wired headphones and
(14:05):
then literally a person's job was to follow him with the wires
to make sure and that so multiple levels that that is me
with you one you refusing to usewireless headphones would
definitely happen that we would just be for.
Sure, like this works the best for me.
Yeah, this works. And then I, the person would
have to follow you around and then they do like when he starts
(14:25):
to go to the field they like basically use that.
And you're like, so like you're,you're 30 minutes over time,
like reel it back. Reel it back.
Anyway, as we're talking and I'mlike yelling at the audience
like Ash, bring it back. I'm literally picturing you on
the field. All right, I'm good, I'm reset.
All right. Well on that.
Note Let's see how this goes. But why don't you tell us what
(14:46):
you're talking about? Sure, OK, I'm excited because
every week I'm like, what are you going to talk about, Ash?
But I'm not sure. And let me explain the reason
why I'm not sure, I haven't beensure is because, you know, I
always like to to really reflecton the previous year.
I kind of think about the years like a school year, an academic
year, because it's like a college consulting year.
(15:06):
It's a year of training even forour youth level athletes.
And I like to sit and reflect onthe things that I like learned
along the way that year or realized I don't know enough
about. And so it takes me a minute
because there's a handful of those things.
I mean, obviously there are things each year I'm like, oh,
(15:27):
we're missing something here. We need to see this.
We've got to dig after this. Or if someone asks me this
question and I don't really knowthe answer, where can I go get
it? And so I think there's a handful
of those topics. And so it's important to me to
really think about which of those topics, you know, what
it's going to sort of land with the audience and make the
(15:48):
biggest impact. And I think where we've gotten
to in these two, these two topics are really, really great.
We talk a lot in this podcast about when you talk data and it
doesn't land, like it's not applicable.
It doesn't get to the coach level, particularly bio
mechanics. We had a, you know, an episode
just a few weeks ago about that.And so I really like to stay
(16:10):
sometimes in the like bio mechanics data training data
space, make sure it's specific to coaching concepts.
And so you know, this, the reality is we're coming into
this year with two big time gamechangers for us, like we are, we
keep saying like what totally different business because one
(16:30):
HQ, our data management system is allowing us to see and
visualize data like we've never had before.
And it is taking in in game dataand it is allowing us to
visualize that in game data likewe have never done before.
So HQ is just like whom sending us, you know, out into the
universe, you know, full speed. So that's a whole nother area
that literally like for me personally, I'm seeing data I
(16:53):
never I've never seen before, right?
So that's great. So I'll talk about that in a
second. And then the other side is the
bio mechanics data. So we've got 2, you know,
traditionally, and we just started getting into the bio
mechanics world, we were using those wearable sensors.
They were a great foundation forus to really start to understand
what's even happening with the motion.
It's kind of like crawling before you're walking, before
(17:13):
you're running. And now we obviously have the
markerless system with driveline, which is what we
utilize on a regular basis. It's a much higher level of bio
mechanics. And then we also have our
partnership with UNL where it's a marker lab with worst plates,
etcetera. And so, so there's a really,
really elite level bio mechanicsdata that's coming across our
desk on a regular basis. And so those two pieces are what
(17:37):
I knew I wanted to center talks around.
It was more of just getting to abase of like, yes, but what is
really, really applicable. So with that said, there's like
me rolling out the red carpet here.
With that said, that's enough. We I'm going to take two topics
and 1:00 I'm going to keep very much in the like player
development and training space and start to lay out.
It's essentially like how we debrief, right?
(17:59):
It's like what information we take in, what does bio
mechanics, what does it tell us about how an athlete's like
patterns are breaking down? How does that connecting to her
ball flight data? So what might we say, OK, we
want to change versus we don't want to change, but then we also
need to know her capacity for change.
So then we get things of like the speed at which she's moving,
(18:20):
the force at which she's putting, you know, force into
the ground. We can see from force plates her
power profile where she generates power from in the
body, how much power she produces.
We take in these like 5-6 categories and understand fully.
So it's not just as simple as and I do, I think in the past we
have approached it a little simpler of like this pattern.
(18:42):
If you did this better, then this is what you should see on
ball flight. But it doesn't work because that
athlete is not doesn't actually have that.
So it's really taking in to whatis trainable, what's probably
not trainable or it's not going to get her there enough.
So it's taking into consideration all of those
pieces that go in. And so you can start looking at
(19:04):
your athletes understanding like, yeah, for example, if she
was able to generate this fasterand get into posture faster
here, this would really help hermotion, except in her power
assessment, that's really not where she's doing it.
So if we take away over utilizing stride leg, likely
that's the only way she's able to move quickly.
(19:24):
So what do we do now? So it's really kind of going
through these case studies of laying out all of the data from
bio mechanics, power assessments, speed at which
she's moving, which is obviouslya part of the assessment as
well, not just the positions that she's in and her boss light
and navigating. It's a very complex story, but
it's, I mean, it's like mind blowing when you really look at
(19:46):
you don't have access, not athletes aren't just these blank
canvases that you could do whatever you want with.
Some are and that's amazing, butmost aren't.
And so when you're dealing with that, you want to be able to
know what should I be looking atand what should I be
determining? What I should be going after in
patterns and it's possible to change it and how would I go
about doing that? So I think that's going to be an
(20:08):
excellent talk because I think all of this data that we've been
able to see recently with again,the Uno data and the, the, the
marketless data, it's changed the way we do things internally.
And as soon as that happens for us, as soon as we start seeing
data that starts, we learn, we start changing how we approach
things internally. Boom.
I'm like, we got to hit the ground, We got to share, we got
(20:29):
to talk about it. We got to share, we got to say
why and we got to make sure everyone starts to see it this
way. So that's definitely on the like
training, the training space, the player development space.
And then the other because of HQis in game data based.
And I think what's so interesting is now that we're
visualizing so much data like I think to our pitching
performance summer, which still looks the same and we know it's
(20:50):
going to have some iterations inthe future here.
It's very much like this is what's good if it's wrapped
soda, which right now is what our assessment data collects
because it's just, you know, themobile unit there.
So it's like, OK, if a down ballof 6 inches versus 8 versus 10,
up is 3 inches versus 5, these are the thresholds per elite for
above average. This is good foundation to
(21:12):
understand what's good and what's not good, particularly at
the youth level. But at the college level, what
we're seeing now is like, oh, it's way more complex than that.
It's not just about if someone has a good breaking pitch and
like the amount of break it has.We're now starting to see things
and still like we are digging through this in game data and
learning this stuff of like there are things it's going to
(21:36):
change and it keeps changing. And you know, we stumbled upon
this a couple years ago of like,wait, a pitch that's, you know,
this is an example. A drop ball is usually a low
spin rate. It appears that like a high spin
rate sink pitch actually is generating like more swings and
misses than the typical because it looks different.
(21:56):
And so we're starting like, OK, now spin rate in certain
directions seems to have an impact, right?
And we started to see spin rate impact on things in the past.
We'd like to be more specific about that now.
We're getting into things of like, OK, what if it's last year
we talked about if it's at this velocity versus this velocity,
what does that mean for break? Not all breaks created even now
we're starting to see things of like, OK, what if it's like at
(22:18):
this release height, what if it's at this arm angle?
There's all these nuances to understand so that it's not just
simply this amount of break versus this amount of break.
It's really understanding like when we are first of all, like
what we always say this, but like what is good at different
levels in the college game? What is getting the the highest
(22:39):
results and what is it about that?
And what we're seeing is like, it's not simple.
It's not in a box. An athlete who was one of the
best in the country. It's not just like, oh, because
obviously she does X&Y. It's like, well, we see a lot of
pitchers who break the ball likethat at that below and that spin
rate. So like, what is it?
We're missing something. And it's not just like, oh,
(23:00):
because she's competitive. Being competitive isn't getting
you swings and misses, you know what I'm saying?
So I think there's like this objective approach.
And so the in game piece is about starting to like reveal a
lot of of those layers and complexities and nuances so we
have a deeper understanding of what's good in our game and what
we should be chasing. I, I was thinking as you were
(23:21):
talking one of the conversationswe've been having internally
from the hitting side and why I said like all of this continues
to to change, right. When you watch a game, even that
has a higher level of data, obviously like MLB, every year
you see these changes because everyone's sort of prepping
differently and thinks the way you can train is differently.
And so one of the things that that we've seen a lot of is, you
(23:44):
know, two years ago really was the time period where people
started really using machine to train and softball.
And I think that's there is evensome people still don't use
machine. So that's a different
conversation. But most people at the, I mean,
we don't have many college kids that come back and they're like,
I didn't hit off the machine this year.
I mean, for the most part peopleare using machine.
(24:05):
And So what you are seeing as a result of that as well it has it
has been easier to see pitchers tap into 65 consistently at by
junior, senior year of high school.
But simultaneous to that, the hitters are not fazed by that
because they are able to face speed regularly.
So just speed and of itself. It's not to say there's not a
(24:26):
threshold. You know, we have got Garcia and
Pickens are on 76. I mean, you obviously are going
to hit windows where it's more challenging to catch up with.
But generally the 65 to 72 range, like people who are able
to be athletic enough to play atthat level are not going to be
faced by speeds because they're going to have seen it.
We just haven't. We trained differently.
(24:48):
And what we have seen and what we've had to shift a lot of our
hitting training to is thanks inlarge parts of some of the work
that we've been able to do is that it's been easier to tap
into with things like Insight and Rep Sodo teaching people off
speeds. And so now you have pitchers at
higher levels of games who are just able to learn these
different off speeds really fast.
(25:08):
And So what is more challenging to to train hitting is to make
sure that our hitters are adjustable enough to see that
and to keep up sort of with that.
And so we already, because of the work we've been doing on the
pitching side, have had to sort of simultaneously change how we
do hitting and and start to see slow machine and things like
(25:29):
that, where they're prepping fora level of adjustability to
these off speeds. But that's what the game is
going to continue to push. So it's like 2-3 years ago, four
years ago we were like, we can'tteach anyone backspin.
Like it's just, you know, no onehas backspin and it's so hard to
teach backspin. And it's like, well, we can
teach people about every single person that walks in the door I
look over and Josh is teaching them an off speed backspin
(25:50):
pitch. So I think like that's not, it
might not be a hard backspin pitch, but you're going to be
able to teach people or a kid that only has backspin, suddenly
we can tap into teaching her a nasty off speed sink pitch
because those pitches with the feedback we have so easy.
And so that level of of pushing the game, that in game data and
(26:12):
digging into that in game data like that is going to keep
pushing it. And it also pushes training
more. And so I think it's so like
exciting to watch how that evolution because we'll say,
like at the youth level, everyday assessment walks in the
door and throws 6 pitches that all do exactly the same thing.
But what actually ends up happening, we've talked about
(26:32):
this before, is like you pull that away at the youth level,
you throw one to two things. But now what we're starting to
see is when you get at the highest level of our game, you
are the highest performing pitcher.
A lot of those pitchers legitimately have 6-7 pitches
and it's all these weird off speeds and variations and things
that we're able to now add back because of the level of training
(26:54):
we have and the feedback we have.
So it's like you see skiing, throwing and he has literally
like 8 pitches or something likeHenry was watching the other day
and he's like, oh this why is this guy so many pitches?
But baseball has done that now. It's like everyone went back to
teaching putters and just slightvariations.
You know who has the most and you know, this was just his
(27:14):
first year. So but the most pitches I've
ever seen across the staff is Riker.
We got a whole miss. Every pitcher had 7 pitches, but
every they did because obviouslyhe's not guessing every single
one. It's like, no, but this is the
one that goes that this speed versus this speed, This is when
she adds 2 inches of horizontal to it.
(27:35):
This is when she pulls the horizontal out.
Like obviously you know, and like, and it was right, but it
was all over the map. And because that's what he's
great at. He knows how to maximize
variability. What you're what you're saying
about Josh is and it's like every single picture is getting
in. We get a lot of these pictures
who are like, I just don't throwhard enough.
I'm throwing 58, but they throw some batsman.
And so we're like, OK, honestly,what you just need, it's like
(27:58):
for the reasons I'm talking about, we identify this is not a
kid that V low. We know that batsman is more
effective with high V low. But based on the layers of
information we know about this athlete, she is not going from
throwing 58 or 6162 to 70. She's not and not in the time
frame that she needs to essentially, right, based on
what we now see about it's not just bio mechanics, it's power,
(28:20):
it's all of these things. So we know now that the next
best backspin is most effective when it's 68 plus and then when
it's 55 to 57, right, 58. And so because we know that
we're like, OK, this is what your spin profile is naturally,
the hard 1 is really not doing it for you.
So let's just teach you the slowone and like that's where you're
(28:41):
going to have that. So that's.
Well then you probably on top ofit from the training we get.
Then you can teach our kids the sync off speed too.
It's like you can't tap into. And now suddenly I have
different layers. Like it just gives such a, a
level layer. And I think to tie kind of the
the two talks you're giving is I'm a college coach and we hear
this a lot. Like I go recruit a kid, she
throws smoke and they're like, if she could just nail her
(29:02):
change up and she's going to be great when she comes to me.
And I always think like, like I have two questions.
Yeah, 1 is why can't she nail her change up yet?
And usually that's a pretty big pattern challenge if a kid
legitimately has that much variability in the change up.
And then the second is she probably can, because I, I've
seen us give all kinds of kids off speeds.
(29:23):
But do you, are you using the right sort of like tools and
measurements and feedback of like what direction to go for
that off speed pitch and what itshould look like?
And I think for that, that that loop for us has become so fast
because of the two talks that you're really giving, which is
here's all of the input we get on the mechanic died on the spin
profile side, seeing hand positioning under, understanding
(29:45):
why hand positioning is the way it is, understanding all of
those things. And so that when we then chase
something like an off speed for that kid, it's easy because it
there's so much information going into it that we know kind
of what to tackle, what we can manipulate.
That happened this year, Krista,about, about the sync change up
like we're like, oh, the the change up should really tunnel
(30:06):
with your, with the other pitch that you're throwing.
And and so our criteria, whetheror not a change up is like, if
it tunnels well, and not to say that that's wrong.
So, but this year in the collegeworld, we're seeing a lot of
athletes where their profiles all up and then they had this
like a legitimate sync. It's not like a -, 3 like a real
sink. It's like 7 inches, 8 inches
like and it's change up. And I was saying early on, like
(30:30):
this change up is probably not going to be effective.
It doesn't look like anything else.
And then all the numbers are coming back of like, dude, she's
crushing people with this pitch.So then I started to realize
like, oh, wait a second, there'sthis particular world where that
like drop ball element when it'soff speed is nasty.
It's not like our current pitching performance summary
(30:50):
would say that's a bad change upright now because it was doesn't
tunnel. But we are learning after the
end game of like, no, actually that pitch when thrown with
someone, you know, with other pitches that looks like right.
Well, think about why your pitchers, your hitters are
gearing up for how much time they have to hit that when throw
below up and now all of a suddenyou're trying to match a
different plane at a different speed.
Like, even if you can identify it and, and for all the things
(31:14):
I'm saying, we have a bunch of hitters out there who probably
don't have the adjustability, even if they can't identify it
to make that switch. And so it's like unless you pick
it, that's why you, I mean, we saw all kinds of things trying
to pick pitches. This is why because it's just
like we don't have a level of adjustability right now for
those things. And maybe maybe you, you won't
be able to train that level of adjustability if it gets too
(31:35):
high. It's just that you're going to
have to guess a little bit or try to pick some things or, or
see different release heights orwhatever it is.
But I think those are the concepts of really getting an
idea of what are what are the hitters kind of capable of
doing? And does it matter if they can
identify it, like it, when can they identify it?
What window can they identify it?
And it might be too late. It's like, yeah, oh, I see that
(31:57):
it's going down. Reaction time is so small, yeah.
You know, so tough. So I think that's kind of the
thing. We should know that.
We should know that too, insteadof just being like pissed off at
our hitters. Like we should understand that
about our game. Yeah, well, I mean, you see
people swinging in the MLB at balls that hit them.
So I mean, there's a level of like when you start to get some
(32:18):
weird pitches. I still think my mom probably
watches the Phillies, if not every night, because that's like
what you do, you know, like it'son TV.
So my mom has watched a lot of baseball in her life, But every
time I she happens to like be visiting and I watch a game with
her and someone swings in a ball, it's like in the ground.
She's just like, she can't, you're a professional.
How could you swing in a ball way out there?
(32:39):
Like she's just like I'm like beside herself and I.
Just you're like, that's the point.
That's. What I know, I'm like.
Oh, I guess like barrels. Yeah, she's like what an idiot,
you know, like what an idiot. And I will spare you on what she
actually screamed at the TV. But I'm like, mom, do you know
what that ball looks like comingat that guy?
Like how hard that is? But she's just like, yes,
(33:01):
anyway, it's but I feel I think in that world in softball a
little bit right, It's like, well, and it's just to close the
loop of. OK, here's the things we're
learning for training. Here's how we can impact them
all the way to conversations we've had in past weeks where
it's like, but what based on in game data are we trying to
accomplish just adding a bunch of mix of off speed?
(33:21):
Is that really what we want to do?
Is that helpful? Does that work at the level
whether we tried to accomplish from that standpoint?
And that's really where those two worlds start to close that
gap for us. And I think again it goes to the
return of pitch thing, which is part of the value and what we
are trying to do and why we do things like pitch stock where we
want to give this information and push the game forward.
(33:42):
And this is, is every staff is going to want to hold that
secret. And also every staff is going
off of every staff's information.
And that is such a limited database.
And so for us, it's like we havesuch a high level of data, we
can learn that information much faster, see the trends much
faster. And then we don't really have
any reasoning to, to hold that, right.
(34:03):
It's obviously we're not going to go out and say like, hey,
school A that we work with, thisis school BS data like, but we
don't have a, but we don't have any reason not to share the
aggregate information that we'relearning to help really advance
our game. That isn't part of what we are
offering. And so I think it's really
exciting. I think our talks, you know, I
think back to like 2 years ago, three years ago, we were like,
(34:24):
this is what the doubt Topstone looks like and there's still
importance for that. That was such a good talk, but
it's like continuing and like elevating news.
Yeah, what a news. I think the reason why we're
getting so good at what we do isbecause of this.
Like we always say we're we takethe full picture, we connect
patterns to ball flight is one example.
(34:44):
Here's the example of like we started with just training data
and so now this combination of like we're getting better and
better with understanding patterns to ball flight.
So how to manipulate, you know, just as you're saying, Krista,
how to manipulate buff light data, how to make the athletes
tap into different things and tonow know if we should expect
she's going to be able to do that or not.
(35:07):
But then on the other side, the in game data is allowing us to
know, well, what should we be adding?
What do we want to go for? Is that actually a meaningful
pitch? The types of things that's going
to talk about, it's going to keep changing.
So it's these two worlds that wekeep living in that are just
able to like, really create. It's going to change, it's going
to change and that's the exciting part of you want to
(35:27):
keep on all this data because it's like we joked, but as we
teach more and more people the backspin rise ball that are the.
It's going away. Man off speed then it stops
becoming an effective pitch because now everyone sees it so
it's like it's just that taking your shit or.
Constantly facing. Each other, right.
And it's like then you, you makeit more of an average thing by
(35:49):
introducing it so much. So then it's like, OK, well,
what variation of that can we add that makes it less average?
We can add it with a different kind of take out of the vertical
component or whatever we see from the Indian data, so we can
start to learn how to just keep ticking that thing to pull it.
You just want to keep pulling itout of average because I do
think I'm safe. For a while, because, you know,
(36:10):
I bring this up on everything. I am convinced that the, the
softball hitting world thinks that they're on.
Oh, I think they think they're up here and what they do and I
think they are 2cm off the ground.
So I, I really do. And this is not a like, I'm
trying to like, like pick a fight.
I guess I am because I like thattoo.
But I think of like, I really think that hitting is not nearly
(36:34):
as good as people think it is inour game.
And so I do think we're going tohave the edge for a while.
I really do on some of these pitches.
I don't think it's as like this,like, yeah, cat chasing its tail
or whatever. The hell do cats chase their
tails? I don't.
OK. I'm like the only cat I've ever
met in my life as crystals, and I try to stay away from it.
OK, So anyway, and so anyway, this idea of it like, oh, it's
(36:56):
just spinning and spinning. I just think like hitting needs
to be better. And I think I'm excited about
that for HQ this year because I think you're going to start to
really see this idea of like, what does this hitter actually
do? Like look at all the holes in
her swing. She hits the ball so hard, but
only if it's here or it's here. And so I think like until
hitting actually starts to get better and in my from what I've
(37:16):
seen, I don't think it is. I think it's a false sense of
getting better. Then I still think these pitches
are going to have the advantage,but time will tell.
On that note, on that note, the pitch stock, yeah.
Yeah, from the pitch stock. Come learn more.
Come for the president, stay forthe rants.
Yeah, yeah. All right.
(37:37):
Until next week, need you to like and subscribe and review
the podcast so that we can keep making it every week for you,
and maybe even drop what topic you'd like us to talk about or
rants about or whatever we do every week.
All right, we are back for another episode cracking jokes
before we get on here. So I'm laughing as I come on.
We are going to talk a little bit today about what Laura and
Ashley are talking about during pitch talk.
Maybe we'll preview a little bitof what James is talking about
too, and but maybe we'll have him on to kind of cover some of
that as well, because I think that's a good one.
(00:24):
Just some of the OGX topics, I always say, you know, our talks
come out of like necessity. I think it's like a combination
of what we are learning and we want to talk about and share
with everyone and then what we are being asked a lot.
So I think that's kind of what usually brings about our talks.
(00:45):
So let's start with Laura. What are you talking about at
PIT stock this year? The the long-awaited return to
pitching protocol that we've we've had this protocol in
place. You know, Ash, I think you know,
you and I hammered this out a couple years ago now and it's
been in place internally for us for a while, but I I'm really
excited. Years.
(01:06):
Years. While it's years, yeah.
It's been, you know, it's, I'll say battle tested across lots of
different scenarios. We're we'll talk about it at
pitch stock in the context of return from injury with some
asterisks about, you know, what that might mean that the pitcher
has experienced meaning maybe it's surgery, it's a gap of time
off. There's some physical therapy
that they've gone through, but our, you know, our protocol has
(01:28):
been battle tested, not just against injury scenarios, but it
is, it's used extensively for any time a pitcher has had any
gap of time of a break, whether she's gone on vacation, taken a
mental break, physical break, whatever it is, it is a very
thoughtful and structured and, and just easily approachable
progression of returning stress back to the body and pitching.
(01:51):
And the on the other side of thepresentation, I'm also preparing
this for publication because it's, it's got to get out into
the academic community. It's got to get out to the
clinicians. You know, there's, there's just
a very clear reality that the stress jump from, you know,
let's say the PT table or, you know, even late stage
(02:13):
rehabilitation where someone is doing things that are more
functional. They might be, you know, a lot
of PT clinics maybe have strength and conditioning
coaches tied in. They may be doing some things
that are more functional, but there's this aspect of kinetic
chain rehabilitation of being able to really get the body to
tap back into ground up that it one.
There isn't often a lot of time in physical therapy for that and
(02:34):
there isn't sometimes a lot of attention on that either,
especially post surgical cases because they're so focused on
that joint healing and the, you know, the medical necessity of
basically having, you know, range of motion in your shoulder
restored. It's like this idea of kinetic
chain rehabilitation time doesn't happen at all.
It's it, it just isn't enough time for it.
And so we have to have this middle layer of like you got to
(02:54):
apply stress back to the body and pitching smartly,
progressively, 1 variable at a time.
And that's what this protocol does.
And, and we've shared it in the past.
But to be able to, to talk aboutit openly at pitch shock, to be
able to have coaches see it, youknow, ask questions about it, it
is, it's a very simple application.
I think it's going to really help some coaches to have better
(03:16):
conversations as I'm kind of hoping for out of the out of the
talk, have better conversations with their sports medicine staff
about what return to pitching looks like.
And so this concept of like, youknow, they're cleared and what
does it mean to be medically cleared versus ready to throw in
the circle. There are multiple, you know,
stages of that medically clearedand I am ready to begin
(03:37):
progressively adding pitching stress to my body versus I am
ready to step in the circle and I know what my tools are now and
I am ready to go are very different things.
And unfortunately, what often gets missed for a lot of
pitchers is all right, you're cleared medically good to go,
thumbs up. And then they jump right back in
the circle and they end up in this just dysfunctional cycle
(03:57):
of, OK, the patterns that we didn't adjust that cause you to
be injured in the 1st place or cause you to have pain and
dysfunction in the 1st place. And it just this, this protocol
is a way to break that cycle very thoughtfully.
And yeah, I'm just excited to get it out to the public and get
out to our coaches to have it beat a point where, you know,
hopefully the academic communityembraces it and the clinical
community embraces it. We need it, you know, our, our
(04:20):
return of pitching protocols. It's the most common
conversation I have any more with parents is, you know, we,
my, my daughter has scapular dyskinesis or, you know, some,
you know, sort of overuse soft tissue concept and they don't
know, they don't know what to do.
Like our PT says she's ready forpitching, but we don't know what
to do. Those are the, the conversations
that I have often with parents. And the protocol is, I mean, it
(04:40):
is 4 weeks and it's 4 weeks and it's thoughtful and it gets you
to the point of, you know, beingable to step in the circle, not
to go out perform your best, butat least to see how you tolerate
game stress, likely in very low stakes environments.
Maybe you're ahead by a lot, butit at least gives you enough of
a pitch count to go in for a couple of innings and, and get a
sense of, OK, I'm in a game. What does that mean?
(05:04):
How do I feel does my body showing up for me?
And it's, it's testing that through those progressions.
And then once that, you know, those first four weeks are done,
then you can start talking aboutperformance.
And that's what we often see with, you know, return to injury
or returning from injury is fourweeks of that protocol and then
we jump into a performance plan and that transition is usually
pretty seamless. I don't think we've really had
anybody that's really challengedwith going beyond four weeks.
(05:27):
We've had a couple of surgeons who have said, Hey, I'd like you
just to double every week. So spend two weeks on each week.
No problem, Just take a little longer.
It's, it's up to them. You know, we provide this to
clinicians too, to see and review.
It's it's, it's a game changer, I think for pitchers that are
either have some time off and want to come back in a healthy
way. For sure.
(05:48):
I was going to say Laura. Like I feel like the topic the
the title of the talk, like return to pitching, ramp up
protocol, whatever the hell it'sgoing to be called, doesn't
sound that sexy and like. I know I thought my title was
good. Krista, didn't I send it to you?
I thought my title was great. Oh, this was not a jazz how you
(06:08):
titled it. I'm just saying just generally
like a title that's like using high technology and bio
mechanics, Like it's just like return to pitching, you know,
like it's sort of like wah wah, but it is it's a huge deal.
I mean, I think like we use this, I think we take it for
granted because we've been usingit probably for about four years
now and it just works so seamlessly.
(06:30):
It's such a well thought out protocol.
We can explain. It's not just like a random like
let's try this, let's try this. It's super methodical as it
progresses and literally, so notonly is it solid as hell, have
we tested it over years and had incredible success with it,
There's nothing the reason why this talk is so powerful.
(06:51):
There's freaking nothing out there that's any good.
So you have some of the best surgeons in the country
performing, you know, these, these procedures on athletes and
then where they steer them is like an overhand protocol is
like you can throw. Someone told me their day, she's
allowed to throw. Oh, this is on a college call
(07:14):
yesterday. The athlete is on a return to
throw. She's allowed to throw for 45
minutes a day. I was like 45 minutes.
Does that include, you know, like the things you hear are so
ridiculous? I'm like this one, I feel like
this is one of those things where imagine for like Women's
(07:35):
Health or something, they were still sending us to people that
were like, you know, I don't know, like doctors that have
like never looked at anything that were specific to women.
Like we've come so far in understanding that like, there
are things that like, are very important to women and ways in
which we need to look at things differently.
And then there's like this worldwhere we're still cool with just
(07:58):
taking baseball World, dude. Well, I don't even think it's
always taking baseball. I don't think it's always taking
baseball stuff. But I actually have had this
conversation on a lot of the college calls that that we've
had just prepping for this year and kind of the services and
what relationships we're going to have.
And I think one of the the biggest things about this return
to pitch is that it's based off of hundreds and hundreds of
(08:21):
pitchers going, you know, that we've worked with and the things
we've seen and the trends of injuries we've seen and what
they're coming back from and theunderstanding of intensity.
And so I think it's, yeah, sometimes they pull from
baseball, but even more than that, a lot of times to no
faults of them is why we're trying to get it published, is
that you have an AT or a strength staff or whoever it is
(08:41):
working with the college program.
And they might only be assigned to softball and they're really
trying their best to understand softball and work with it.
But they have the experience of five pitchers a year.
So that might be the very first time they've ever experienced
having to ramp a pitcher back upfrom an ACL injury or having to,
you know, whatever it is. That's the first time they've
(09:01):
experienced. And so I think a lot of times
that happens to both at the, thephysician level and then also on
these sort of sports medicine Staffs is that they are, they're
guessing and they're taking educated guessing, but they,
they just haven't ever seen these things.
You know, we always give the example of like the kid with,
you know, we see this a lot. They, this kid has thoracic
outlet syndrome or, or it's presenting as that.
(09:24):
And we've never seen this before.
And we can't get her to do anything.
She can't even throw at low intensity.
She can't do anything. And then it's like, should we
just put her in our return to pitch program and she's fine.
And they're like, how would you do that?
Because we've seen 5060 of thosekids like this isn't the first
time we have ramped up a kid from that process.
(09:45):
The reason we take it for granted is we've done it so
much. But the reason on the other side
that everyone feels like, what am I supposed to do?
It's it's no where would they find this information?
How would they know how to do that?
Like there's just a level of it doesn't exist out there and
you're AT is trying to figure that out case by case for the
very first time. And that's why this is so
(10:07):
important to be out there is like, let's just all help each
other and and give access to this information so that
something we've solved for, you know, hundreds of times.
You don't need to feel like you're the first person standing
on islands ever have to solve for this.
And I think that's the importantpart of the lot of the sort of
data that we've been able to aggregate and the experience
that we've had and why it is helpful when we can help Staffs.
(10:31):
Is that when when it's so novel to you as it should be, because
it's, you know, it's not for lack of experience, it's just
lack of seeing that data in a volume that's that allows.
But when it's so novel to you and you're trying to solve it
for the first time, it's like, you know, that's really hard.
And when it's that's true injury.
Yeah, when it's injury, it's it's it's.
(10:51):
I know, and it's delicate because it's delicate.
I think there's just an element me, you're you, you're right,
but that's it's also kind. I'm also like also anytime
you're designing something for someone don't like all standing
on the roof screaming. Overhand throwing and underhand
throwing are not related. They are two different things.
(11:13):
You can't ramp up a kid in and hitting and say she's ready for
pitching so stop seeing them thesame.
So don't include overhand throwing as any part of a ramp
up for an entirely different skill.
That pisses me off when that happens.
And also you have, I'm not, I'm not saying people should have
like they should get it right, but when they totally discount
(11:33):
the concept of dosing volume andintensity, you are right,
Krista, but I'm like. Yeah, but that still happens in
baseball. That's not a baseball carryover.
That's just an element of for sure.
That's just the element of well,it's it's similar.
We have more information now like when that when the baseball
protocol we all go off of got written and there's multiple
(11:56):
reasons we shouldn't use that insubwall.
It's not subwall pitching and also it's not a great protocol
anymore. Like it was based off of a level
of information where we were like, let's go by throw amounts
and distance. And it's like now we can measure
intensity and we understand intensity, We understand volume
differently and we understand things in baseball.
(12:18):
We can even measure literally arm speed during it to
understand things like there's so many layers that we're
adding. It's like this is very similar
to the conversation of that we've had of like, yes, when we
played right View Pro was all wehad access to.
So looking at slow motion video was what we based it off of.
And so that made sense at the time.
(12:39):
If that's what you're still going off of now, like maybe
let's try to put some more updated information into it.
It's the same with the return toplay type of things, which is
there was a baseball protocol written in whatever year based
on the level of information we had then.
And now we have more informationabout what those ramp UPS should
(12:59):
look like and individual toleration of things and stress
and volume and things like that.And so and then you have that
it's a different skill. And so our return to pitch is
really the sort of melding of those two concepts, which is
let's actually look at football pitching and then let's take
into consideration these ideas of volume and intensity and
stress and so. Yeah, the topic is it's huge,
(13:21):
the protocol is excellent and itneeds to become standardized
across the game. It's game changing, literally.
And also this conversation is reminding me of, you know,
Chris, sometimes you say which Harbour coach is it where like
someone has a leash on the guy? Oh yeah, Jim.
Jim Harbauer. Yeah.
And like, he someone literally has, like, a leash on him.
Like, get the hell off the field.
You know, this conversation is reminding that I'm like.
(13:44):
I. Am not, they are terrible.
They're like Ash pulling that. Like there's actually a couple.
Layers to that. There's a couple layers so that
it's not a leash, it's that he refuses.
I don't know if he's doing this in the professional game, but
when he was at Michigan, he refused to go to the wireless
system, which is hilarious. So he had wired headphones and
(14:05):
then literally a person's job was to follow him with the wires
to make sure and that so multiple levels that that is me
with you one you refusing to usewireless headphones would
definitely happen that we would just be for.
Sure, like this works the best for me.
Yeah, this works. And then I, the person would
have to follow you around and then they do like when he starts
(14:25):
to go to the field they like basically use that.
And you're like, so like you're,you're 30 minutes over time,
like reel it back. Reel it back.
Anyway, as we're talking and I'mlike yelling at the audience
like Ash, bring it back. I'm literally picturing you on
the field. All right, I'm good, I'm reset.
All right. Well on that.
Note Let's see how this goes. But why don't you tell us what
(14:46):
you're talking about? Sure, OK, I'm excited because
every week I'm like, what are you going to talk about, Ash?
But I'm not sure. And let me explain the reason
why I'm not sure, I haven't beensure is because, you know, I
always like to to really reflecton the previous year.
I kind of think about the years like a school year, an academic
year, because it's like a college consulting year.
(15:06):
It's a year of training even forour youth level athletes.
And I like to sit and reflect onthe things that I like learned
along the way that year or realized I don't know enough
about. And so it takes me a minute
because there's a handful of those things.
I mean, obviously there are things each year I'm like, oh,
(15:27):
we're missing something here. We need to see this.
We've got to dig after this. Or if someone asks me this
question and I don't really knowthe answer, where can I go get
it? And so I think there's a handful
of those topics. And so it's important to me to
really think about which of those topics, you know, what
it's going to sort of land with the audience and make the
(15:48):
biggest impact. And I think where we've gotten
to in these two, these two topics are really, really great.
We talk a lot in this podcast about when you talk data and it
doesn't land, like it's not applicable.
It doesn't get to the coach level, particularly bio
mechanics. We had a, you know, an episode
just a few weeks ago about that.And so I really like to stay
(16:10):
sometimes in the like bio mechanics data training data
space, make sure it's specific to coaching concepts.
And so you know, this, the reality is we're coming into
this year with two big time gamechangers for us, like we are, we
keep saying like what totally different business because one
(16:30):
HQ, our data management system is allowing us to see and
visualize data like we've never had before.
And it is taking in in game dataand it is allowing us to
visualize that in game data likewe have never done before.
So HQ is just like whom sending us, you know, out into the
universe, you know, full speed. So that's a whole nother area
that literally like for me personally, I'm seeing data I
(16:53):
never I've never seen before, right?
So that's great. So I'll talk about that in a
second. And then the other side is the
bio mechanics data. So we've got 2, you know,
traditionally, and we just started getting into the bio
mechanics world, we were using those wearable sensors.
They were a great foundation forus to really start to understand
what's even happening with the motion.
It's kind of like crawling before you're walking, before
(17:13):
you're running. And now we obviously have the
markerless system with driveline, which is what we
utilize on a regular basis. It's a much higher level of bio
mechanics. And then we also have our
partnership with UNL where it's a marker lab with worst plates,
etcetera. And so, so there's a really,
really elite level bio mechanicsdata that's coming across our
desk on a regular basis. And so those two pieces are what
(17:37):
I knew I wanted to center talks around.
It was more of just getting to abase of like, yes, but what is
really, really applicable. So with that said, there's like
me rolling out the red carpet here.
With that said, that's enough. We I'm going to take two topics
and 1:00 I'm going to keep very much in the like player
development and training space and start to lay out.
It's essentially like how we debrief, right?
(17:59):
It's like what information we take in, what does bio
mechanics, what does it tell us about how an athlete's like
patterns are breaking down? How does that connecting to her
ball flight data? So what might we say, OK, we
want to change versus we don't want to change, but then we also
need to know her capacity for change.
So then we get things of like the speed at which she's moving,
(18:20):
the force at which she's putting, you know, force into
the ground. We can see from force plates her
power profile where she generates power from in the
body, how much power she produces.
We take in these like 5-6 categories and understand fully.
So it's not just as simple as and I do, I think in the past we
have approached it a little simpler of like this pattern.
(18:42):
If you did this better, then this is what you should see on
ball flight. But it doesn't work because that
athlete is not doesn't actually have that.
So it's really taking in to whatis trainable, what's probably
not trainable or it's not going to get her there enough.
So it's taking into consideration all of those
pieces that go in. And so you can start looking at
(19:04):
your athletes understanding like, yeah, for example, if she
was able to generate this fasterand get into posture faster
here, this would really help hermotion, except in her power
assessment, that's really not where she's doing it.
So if we take away over utilizing stride leg, likely
that's the only way she's able to move quickly.
(19:24):
So what do we do now? So it's really kind of going
through these case studies of laying out all of the data from
bio mechanics, power assessments, speed at which
she's moving, which is obviouslya part of the assessment as
well, not just the positions that she's in and her boss light
and navigating. It's a very complex story, but
it's, I mean, it's like mind blowing when you really look at
(19:46):
you don't have access, not athletes aren't just these blank
canvases that you could do whatever you want with.
Some are and that's amazing, butmost aren't.
And so when you're dealing with that, you want to be able to
know what should I be looking atand what should I be
determining? What I should be going after in
patterns and it's possible to change it and how would I go
about doing that? So I think that's going to be an
(20:08):
excellent talk because I think all of this data that we've been
able to see recently with again,the Uno data and the, the, the
marketless data, it's changed the way we do things internally.
And as soon as that happens for us, as soon as we start seeing
data that starts, we learn, we start changing how we approach
things internally. Boom.
I'm like, we got to hit the ground, We got to share, we got
(20:29):
to talk about it. We got to share, we got to say
why and we got to make sure everyone starts to see it this
way. So that's definitely on the like
training, the training space, the player development space.
And then the other because of HQis in game data based.
And I think what's so interesting is now that we're
visualizing so much data like I think to our pitching
performance summer, which still looks the same and we know it's
(20:50):
going to have some iterations inthe future here.
It's very much like this is what's good if it's wrapped
soda, which right now is what our assessment data collects
because it's just, you know, themobile unit there.
So it's like, OK, if a down ballof 6 inches versus 8 versus 10,
up is 3 inches versus 5, these are the thresholds per elite for
above average. This is good foundation to
(21:12):
understand what's good and what's not good, particularly at
the youth level. But at the college level, what
we're seeing now is like, oh, it's way more complex than that.
It's not just about if someone has a good breaking pitch and
like the amount of break it has.We're now starting to see things
and still like we are digging through this in game data and
learning this stuff of like there are things it's going to
(21:36):
change and it keeps changing. And you know, we stumbled upon
this a couple years ago of like,wait, a pitch that's, you know,
this is an example. A drop ball is usually a low
spin rate. It appears that like a high spin
rate sink pitch actually is generating like more swings and
misses than the typical because it looks different.
(21:56):
And so we're starting like, OK, now spin rate in certain
directions seems to have an impact, right?
And we started to see spin rate impact on things in the past.
We'd like to be more specific about that now.
We're getting into things of like, OK, what if it's last year
we talked about if it's at this velocity versus this velocity,
what does that mean for break? Not all breaks created even now
we're starting to see things of like, OK, what if it's like at
(22:18):
this release height, what if it's at this arm angle?
There's all these nuances to understand so that it's not just
simply this amount of break versus this amount of break.
It's really understanding like when we are first of all, like
what we always say this, but like what is good at different
levels in the college game? What is getting the the highest
(22:39):
results and what is it about that?
And what we're seeing is like, it's not simple.
It's not in a box. An athlete who was one of the
best in the country. It's not just like, oh, because
obviously she does X&Y. It's like, well, we see a lot of
pitchers who break the ball likethat at that below and that spin
rate. So like, what is it?
We're missing something. And it's not just like, oh,
(23:00):
because she's competitive. Being competitive isn't getting
you swings and misses, you know what I'm saying?
So I think there's like this objective approach.
And so the in game piece is about starting to like reveal a
lot of of those layers and complexities and nuances so we
have a deeper understanding of what's good in our game and what
we should be chasing. I, I was thinking as you were
(23:21):
talking one of the conversationswe've been having internally
from the hitting side and why I said like all of this continues
to to change, right. When you watch a game, even that
has a higher level of data, obviously like MLB, every year
you see these changes because everyone's sort of prepping
differently and thinks the way you can train is differently.
And so one of the things that that we've seen a lot of is, you
(23:44):
know, two years ago really was the time period where people
started really using machine to train and softball.
And I think that's there is evensome people still don't use
machine. So that's a different
conversation. But most people at the, I mean,
we don't have many college kids that come back and they're like,
I didn't hit off the machine this year.
I mean, for the most part peopleare using machine.
(24:05):
And So what you are seeing as a result of that as well it has it
has been easier to see pitchers tap into 65 consistently at by
junior, senior year of high school.
But simultaneous to that, the hitters are not fazed by that
because they are able to face speed regularly.
So just speed and of itself. It's not to say there's not a
(24:26):
threshold. You know, we have got Garcia and
Pickens are on 76. I mean, you obviously are going
to hit windows where it's more challenging to catch up with.
But generally the 65 to 72 range, like people who are able
to be athletic enough to play atthat level are not going to be
faced by speeds because they're going to have seen it.
We just haven't. We trained differently.
(24:48):
And what we have seen and what we've had to shift a lot of our
hitting training to is thanks inlarge parts of some of the work
that we've been able to do is that it's been easier to tap
into with things like Insight and Rep Sodo teaching people off
speeds. And so now you have pitchers at
higher levels of games who are just able to learn these
different off speeds really fast.
(25:08):
And So what is more challenging to to train hitting is to make
sure that our hitters are adjustable enough to see that
and to keep up sort of with that.
And so we already, because of the work we've been doing on the
pitching side, have had to sort of simultaneously change how we
do hitting and and start to see slow machine and things like
(25:29):
that, where they're prepping fora level of adjustability to
these off speeds. But that's what the game is
going to continue to push. So it's like 2-3 years ago, four
years ago we were like, we can'tteach anyone backspin.
Like it's just, you know, no onehas backspin and it's so hard to
teach backspin. And it's like, well, we can
teach people about every single person that walks in the door I
look over and Josh is teaching them an off speed backspin
(25:50):
pitch. So I think like that's not, it
might not be a hard backspin pitch, but you're going to be
able to teach people or a kid that only has backspin, suddenly
we can tap into teaching her a nasty off speed sink pitch
because those pitches with the feedback we have so easy.
And so that level of of pushing the game, that in game data and
(26:12):
digging into that in game data like that is going to keep
pushing it. And it also pushes training
more. And so I think it's so like
exciting to watch how that evolution because we'll say,
like at the youth level, everyday assessment walks in the
door and throws 6 pitches that all do exactly the same thing.
But what actually ends up happening, we've talked about
(26:32):
this before, is like you pull that away at the youth level,
you throw one to two things. But now what we're starting to
see is when you get at the highest level of our game, you
are the highest performing pitcher.
A lot of those pitchers legitimately have 6-7 pitches
and it's all these weird off speeds and variations and things
that we're able to now add back because of the level of training
(26:54):
we have and the feedback we have.
So it's like you see skiing, throwing and he has literally
like 8 pitches or something likeHenry was watching the other day
and he's like, oh this why is this guy so many pitches?
But baseball has done that now. It's like everyone went back to
teaching putters and just slightvariations.
You know who has the most and you know, this was just his
(27:14):
first year. So but the most pitches I've
ever seen across the staff is Riker.
We got a whole miss. Every pitcher had 7 pitches, but
every they did because obviouslyhe's not guessing every single
one. It's like, no, but this is the
one that goes that this speed versus this speed, This is when
she adds 2 inches of horizontal to it.
(27:35):
This is when she pulls the horizontal out.
Like obviously you know, and like, and it was right, but it
was all over the map. And because that's what he's
great at. He knows how to maximize
variability. What you're what you're saying
about Josh is and it's like every single picture is getting
in. We get a lot of these pictures
who are like, I just don't throwhard enough.
I'm throwing 58, but they throw some batsman.
And so we're like, OK, honestly,what you just need, it's like
(27:58):
for the reasons I'm talking about, we identify this is not a
kid that V low. We know that batsman is more
effective with high V low. But based on the layers of
information we know about this athlete, she is not going from
throwing 58 or 6162 to 70. She's not and not in the time
frame that she needs to essentially, right, based on
what we now see about it's not just bio mechanics, it's power,
(28:20):
it's all of these things. So we know now that the next
best backspin is most effective when it's 68 plus and then when
it's 55 to 57, right, 58. And so because we know that
we're like, OK, this is what your spin profile is naturally,
the hard 1 is really not doing it for you.
So let's just teach you the slowone and like that's where you're
(28:41):
going to have that. So that's.
Well then you probably on top ofit from the training we get.
Then you can teach our kids the sync off speed too.
It's like you can't tap into. And now suddenly I have
different layers. Like it just gives such a, a
level layer. And I think to tie kind of the
the two talks you're giving is I'm a college coach and we hear
this a lot. Like I go recruit a kid, she
throws smoke and they're like, if she could just nail her
(29:02):
change up and she's going to be great when she comes to me.
And I always think like, like I have two questions.
Yeah, 1 is why can't she nail her change up yet?
And usually that's a pretty big pattern challenge if a kid
legitimately has that much variability in the change up.
And then the second is she probably can, because I, I've
seen us give all kinds of kids off speeds.
(29:23):
But do you, are you using the right sort of like tools and
measurements and feedback of like what direction to go for
that off speed pitch and what itshould look like?
And I think for that, that that loop for us has become so fast
because of the two talks that you're really giving, which is
here's all of the input we get on the mechanic died on the spin
profile side, seeing hand positioning under, understanding
(29:45):
why hand positioning is the way it is, understanding all of
those things. And so that when we then chase
something like an off speed for that kid, it's easy because it
there's so much information going into it that we know kind
of what to tackle, what we can manipulate.
That happened this year, Krista,about, about the sync change up
like we're like, oh, the the change up should really tunnel
(30:06):
with your, with the other pitch that you're throwing.
And and so our criteria, whetheror not a change up is like, if
it tunnels well, and not to say that that's wrong.
So, but this year in the collegeworld, we're seeing a lot of
athletes where their profiles all up and then they had this
like a legitimate sync. It's not like a -, 3 like a real
sink. It's like 7 inches, 8 inches
like and it's change up. And I was saying early on, like
(30:30):
this change up is probably not going to be effective.
It doesn't look like anything else.
And then all the numbers are coming back of like, dude, she's
crushing people with this pitch.So then I started to realize
like, oh, wait a second, there'sthis particular world where that
like drop ball element when it'soff speed is nasty.
It's not like our current pitching performance summary
(30:50):
would say that's a bad change upright now because it was doesn't
tunnel. But we are learning after the
end game of like, no, actually that pitch when thrown with
someone, you know, with other pitches that looks like right.
Well, think about why your pitchers, your hitters are
gearing up for how much time they have to hit that when throw
below up and now all of a suddenyou're trying to match a
different plane at a different speed.
Like, even if you can identify it and, and for all the things
(31:14):
I'm saying, we have a bunch of hitters out there who probably
don't have the adjustability, even if they can't identify it
to make that switch. And so it's like unless you pick
it, that's why you, I mean, we saw all kinds of things trying
to pick pitches. This is why because it's just
like we don't have a level of adjustability right now for
those things. And maybe maybe you, you won't
be able to train that level of adjustability if it gets too
(31:35):
high. It's just that you're going to
have to guess a little bit or try to pick some things or, or
see different release heights orwhatever it is.
But I think those are the concepts of really getting an
idea of what are what are the hitters kind of capable of
doing? And does it matter if they can
identify it, like it, when can they identify it?
What window can they identify it?
And it might be too late. It's like, yeah, oh, I see that
(31:57):
it's going down. Reaction time is so small, yeah.
You know, so tough. So I think that's kind of the
thing. We should know that.
We should know that too, insteadof just being like pissed off at
our hitters. Like we should understand that
about our game. Yeah, well, I mean, you see
people swinging in the MLB at balls that hit them.
So I mean, there's a level of like when you start to get some
(32:18):
weird pitches. I still think my mom probably
watches the Phillies, if not every night, because that's like
what you do, you know, like it'son TV.
So my mom has watched a lot of baseball in her life, But every
time I she happens to like be visiting and I watch a game with
her and someone swings in a ball, it's like in the ground.
She's just like, she can't, you're a professional.
How could you swing in a ball way out there?
(32:39):
Like she's just like I'm like beside herself and I.
Just you're like, that's the point.
That's. What I know, I'm like.
Oh, I guess like barrels. Yeah, she's like what an idiot,
you know, like what an idiot. And I will spare you on what she
actually screamed at the TV. But I'm like, mom, do you know
what that ball looks like comingat that guy?
Like how hard that is? But she's just like, yes,
(33:01):
anyway, it's but I feel I think in that world in softball a
little bit right, It's like, well, and it's just to close the
loop of. OK, here's the things we're
learning for training. Here's how we can impact them
all the way to conversations we've had in past weeks where
it's like, but what based on in game data are we trying to
accomplish just adding a bunch of mix of off speed?
(33:21):
Is that really what we want to do?
Is that helpful? Does that work at the level
whether we tried to accomplish from that standpoint?
And that's really where those two worlds start to close that
gap for us. And I think again it goes to the
return of pitch thing, which is part of the value and what we
are trying to do and why we do things like pitch stock where we
want to give this information and push the game forward.
(33:42):
And this is, is every staff is going to want to hold that
secret. And also every staff is going
off of every staff's information.
And that is such a limited database.
And so for us, it's like we havesuch a high level of data, we
can learn that information much faster, see the trends much
faster. And then we don't really have
any reasoning to, to hold that, right.
(34:03):
It's obviously we're not going to go out and say like, hey,
school A that we work with, thisis school BS data like, but we
don't have a, but we don't have any reason not to share the
aggregate information that we'relearning to help really advance
our game. That isn't part of what we are
offering. And so I think it's really
exciting. I think our talks, you know, I
think back to like 2 years ago, three years ago, we were like,
(34:24):
this is what the doubt Topstone looks like and there's still
importance for that. That was such a good talk, but
it's like continuing and like elevating news.
Yeah, what a news. I think the reason why we're
getting so good at what we do isbecause of this.
Like we always say we're we takethe full picture, we connect
patterns to ball flight is one example.
(34:44):
Here's the example of like we started with just training data
and so now this combination of like we're getting better and
better with understanding patterns to ball flight.
So how to manipulate, you know, just as you're saying, Krista,
how to manipulate buff light data, how to make the athletes
tap into different things and tonow know if we should expect
she's going to be able to do that or not.
(35:07):
But then on the other side, the in game data is allowing us to
know, well, what should we be adding?
What do we want to go for? Is that actually a meaningful
pitch? The types of things that's going
to talk about, it's going to keep changing.
So it's these two worlds that wekeep living in that are just
able to like, really create. It's going to change, it's going
to change and that's the exciting part of you want to
(35:27):
keep on all this data because it's like we joked, but as we
teach more and more people the backspin rise ball that are the.
It's going away. Man off speed then it stops
becoming an effective pitch because now everyone sees it so
it's like it's just that taking your shit or.
Constantly facing. Each other, right.
And it's like then you, you makeit more of an average thing by
(35:49):
introducing it so much. So then it's like, OK, well,
what variation of that can we add that makes it less average?
We can add it with a different kind of take out of the vertical
component or whatever we see from the Indian data, so we can
start to learn how to just keep ticking that thing to pull it.
You just want to keep pulling itout of average because I do
think I'm safe. For a while, because, you know,
(36:10):
I bring this up on everything. I am convinced that the, the
softball hitting world thinks that they're on.
Oh, I think they think they're up here and what they do and I
think they are 2cm off the ground.
So I, I really do. And this is not a like, I'm
trying to like, like pick a fight.
I guess I am because I like thattoo.
But I think of like, I really think that hitting is not nearly
(36:34):
as good as people think it is inour game.
And so I do think we're going tohave the edge for a while.
I really do on some of these pitches.
I don't think it's as like this,like, yeah, cat chasing its tail
or whatever. The hell do cats chase their
tails? I don't.
OK. I'm like the only cat I've ever
met in my life as crystals, and I try to stay away from it.
OK, So anyway, and so anyway, this idea of it like, oh, it's
(36:56):
just spinning and spinning. I just think like hitting needs
to be better. And I think I'm excited about
that for HQ this year because I think you're going to start to
really see this idea of like, what does this hitter actually
do? Like look at all the holes in
her swing. She hits the ball so hard, but
only if it's here or it's here. And so I think like until
hitting actually starts to get better and in my from what I've
(37:16):
seen, I don't think it is. I think it's a false sense of
getting better. Then I still think these pitches
are going to have the advantage,but time will tell.
On that note, on that note, the pitch stock, yeah.
Yeah, from the pitch stock. Come learn more.
Come for the president, stay forthe rants.
Yeah, yeah. All right.
(37:37):
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