The Hitting Zone w/ Mitch Thomas | Breaking Through the Noise with Josh Cathcart | YBMcast - YBMcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
Definitely a different type of process.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Cut down or freez, you know, being a coach's son
Jackson of course, bikeepree to what still the things say?

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Hit five pick oh my. Welcome everybody to the first
summer episode in studio of the Hitting Zone Podcast. It's
been a while since we've been in the building. We've
had a lot of things going on this summer with

(00:47):
Brett Graves and the premier College Development League that we've
had going on, Legion Baseball celebrating one hundred years, so
we have been busy, and so we have not had
all the time in the world to do our podcast.
But we are back in the building. We're gonna be
off next week for vacation, but we will be back

(01:07):
to the regular scheduled times that we've been doing our podcast,
and the Hitting Zone podcast is where we bring up
baseball topics and we crush those topics. And I'm excited
about this one because I'm been following this gentleman on
the screen for a while now since COVID. It started
with the PVC drills that he had for us, and

(01:30):
it's kind of led into a relationship where I feel
like this guy's a friend. We communicate a lot. We
communicate on engage on each other's content, which has been
a blast to be a part of. And so appreciate
Prime Sports Midwest for sponsoring and Game seven Baseball Game
seven baseball dot Com without further ado, Josh Cathcart hitting

(01:56):
done right? Houston, Texas right are in the Houston, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
Just southeast Pairland to be official, but yeah, Houston. Nobody
knows where Pairland is.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
Never even heard of it. I've heard a pair record,
not Paarland. Yeah, before we get started, I have to
ask this. I know you got excited about getting Carlos
Korea back. It was probably a big move. I guess
with some of the injuries that you have going on
down there, as your done back yet? Or is he
still on the men?

Speaker 3 (02:25):
No? And you know the ass and their injuries and
how they report him is just so frustrating. But no,
he's supposed to do. I think he's actually in a
rehab assignment tonight.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
I got here. We are in the same situation here
with a couple of our guys. It took two weeks
for them to put Brendan Donovan on the IL, and
you know, we went through the weekend against the Yankees,
with very limited bench when we could use some guys,
and it just baffles me with how management handles things.
But they make way more money than I do, so

(02:56):
they know their team way better. Actually, I don't know
if you know this or not. One of our local
guys who's been on this show in Justin Deerden.

Speaker 3 (03:04):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
He was a former farm hand for Houston, was pretty
close getting a call up to the Astros. But there
mars Nick might have been the guy in front of
him got that called up, or however you say his
last name, But Justin was from southeast Missouri, and uh
uh it was you know, spent some time with the

(03:26):
Space Cowboys down there.

Speaker 3 (03:28):
That's funny. It's Jake Marisnick. But that's the only reason
that I'm smiling when I say that is that is
my mom's ultimate Astros crush. She thought Jake Marisnik was
the most gorgeous human to ever grace.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
The planet, even over JJ Reddick. I thought JJ Reddick
was the guy who was whatever theme.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
Is not for my mom, dude, she was a lady
through and through.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
That's awesome, that's hilarious. I guess everybody's got I'm not
gonna lie this may be weird or not, but I
love the rock as in Duayne the Rocks. I have
no problems he hits my man crush if I have to.
I mean, I know that's whatever, but I'm not gonna
go make out with the guy. But that is for
whatever reason. I love everything about him, like the way

(04:16):
that he can, you know, works with the community and
stuff like that. And I just the people's elbow. It's
so plain. I think that's what drew me to Haul
Cogan as a youngster was everything he did was elbow
drop for you know, the people's elbow. Yeah. Sorry, I'm
sure the guy behind the screen over there loves we
love to talk about wrestling. But another random question, what

(04:39):
do you think about those toe shoes?

Speaker 3 (04:42):
Those barefoot Yeah, I've seen him obviously, I haven't tried him.
It's kind of weird, but hey, man tweets their own
just like anything else.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
All Right, you ready for this?

Speaker 3 (04:55):
Do you have him on?

Speaker 1 (04:57):
Look at this?

Speaker 3 (04:58):
Look you there?

Speaker 1 (05:01):
This show is definitely not about baseball, dude. They have been.
They have literally helped my back and my hips out.
I thought, whatever, man, I got them on sale for
like thirty five bucks. They're better than sandals. Believe it
or not. They helped me stay grounded like and feel
So I started hitting in them and I'm like, I

(05:22):
could really feel the ground, So it's going to connect
back to hitting. But I started training with them, and
I'm like, man, I can really feel my feet. Allows
it allows my toes to relax, you know, stuff like
that instead of yeah, instead of being here because you
can't really feel. And I'm like, dude, I should be
an ambassador maybe, but I love corny in these natal

(05:47):
barefoot dot com. I think it's like a UK store
or something like that. I know that they have them
in shops here, but I found these on clearance and
tried to give it a whirl for whatever it's worth.
If you want to try him out, they have it.
They're like they feel like a like a creek shoe,
like if you were to get into creek, you know,
and kind of walk with water shoes. Super lightweight, they

(06:10):
air out real well. But I again going back to hitting,
I feel my feet, you know, and if you if
you roll on one side, if you you know, you
load too much or you you stride too far and
you end up out on your front foot, you literally
slip out of your shoe.

Speaker 3 (06:26):
And you see the post I did yesterday on the
back knee with that kid where he was like rocking
and leaking and he would literally get like on the
side of his foot and then like jump back to
get to the inside.

Speaker 1 (06:37):
I didn't see that one. I think I was watching.
I didn't spend too much time on social media yesterday,
at least for scrolling through folks that I like to watch.
The one I did see, I saw a guy trying
to use a rubber band or a band behind his
knee to try to keep him to load in his
hip and maintain versus that that knee pulling on which
I love. I love goofy stuff. I think we talked

(07:00):
about this plenty of times, where like the Japanese athletes
like the goofy things that they do and we all
laugh at and I'm like, you guys have no idea
what it's like for motor preferences and what it's trying
to actually teach, and so I like getting a little
weird in the instruction when it comes to movement patterns,
and that's and again like I didn't buy these because

(07:22):
I wanted to teach a kid how to hit I
wanted to buy them because I was told it helps
my hips out my knees, and it has because it's
almost realigning the way that I walk instead of forcing
me into position. And then I hit with them, right,
and then I lifted with them and doing my deadlifts
or things like that, I can really feel my feet
pushed through the dirt. But anyways, random thoughts of the day.

(07:45):
But yeah, teally, that's all. But it works, right, And
I think that's at the end of the day when
you think about like the PVC stuff, I bet you
got laughed at when you first started doing it, and
then all of a sudden, that's all you see on
the internet is PVC stuff, Right, I.

Speaker 3 (08:00):
Get laughed at for a lot of stuff I did first,
and now people are doing it all over the internet.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
Five years later. You missed the Pope and you should
have followed you on YouTube a long time ago.

Speaker 3 (08:12):
Yeah, man, Now at this point it's almost that's almost
seven years now, really, yeah, oh yeah, from from the
old like twenty eighteen is when I started my first
online business, and then that one I had just swit
with my business partner in twenty twenty two, and so
I've only like hitting Done Right, it's only been three years.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
Oh I got you.

Speaker 3 (08:35):
I have been three years.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
Everything else was more about just your name, just a
personal brand, like I guess both.

Speaker 3 (08:41):
No, well, yeah, I mean early on it was Baseball
Doctor and that was the first one, and then me
and my business partners had to go separate ways with that,
like late twenty twenty one. I started hitting Done Right
like mid twenty twenty two, and so here we are.

(09:01):
But yeah, there's a there's a lot of stuff, man,
and there Early on, I was a little bit upset,
a little bit annoyed whatever it was with people just
basically ripping off by verbiage, my drills, you know everything.
But then as the online like world grew and just

(09:25):
it's gotten so many you know, everybody's a hitting coach
these days. Now it's just like everybody's taking everybody's stuff.
So it's not that big a deal. But yeah, there's
some like phrases and you know, we can kind of
talk about it when we talk about HLP here in
a minute, but you know, there's phrases and cues that
I used online early on that I had never heard

(09:50):
from any other coach. And now I see it. You know,
three or four times a day on different coaches stuff.
It's like, oh, replace the elbow, Oh I hold the box. Oh,
Like there's.

Speaker 1 (10:02):
Just do you think that because social media is such
a big part of our lives right now, that maybe
that's why you hear it more very because you know
what I was doing, the the double trampoline stuff, you know,
five years ago, I saw it, you know, in a
in a Japanese hitting drill, and you know, now you

(10:23):
see it kind of all over so it's kind of
just spread that wasn't original things to me. I don't
know that how much is original anymore anyways, But do
you think that social media has kind of given you
that kind of broad scope now? On the on the
hitting game is just like, well, actually there is more
people that made me think, Like me, I just didn't

(10:45):
know that, or do you think that it's just somebody
watching it? Was like, I'll take what you're doing, because
you see that with like things like drive line, right
like everybody creates their own drive line, their own you know,
pitching program. They go to it and they make it
their own. If they go to tread, they end up
making it their own thing and calling it their own brand.
I'm not talking things like that.

Speaker 3 (11:06):
Yeah, I think there is some of that. I don't
ever want to just say hey, I'm the first person
to ever do this or say this, because that may
not be true. But when I started in twenty eighteen
online there were only about ten like legit hitting coaches online.

(11:31):
It was you know, Matt Antonelli, teacher man. There was
a guy named Ron Sullivan. You had John at Hugo Sports.
You had me coming up, and then there were some
other like smaller like people. But that was really it.

(11:53):
If you're talking about like big followings, like at one
point before a bunch of these young guys, like after COVID,
at one point there was only about ten of us.
And some of the cues that I say a lot
I just came up with I had never heard before.

(12:14):
It's not like I heard it from my high school
coach or online. I was just in the cage. I
saw something and I said, oh, my brain says this,
try this. Like one of mine that was first was
replacing the front elbow, Like when you're thinking about knob
direction from launch, replace the front elbow with the knob

(12:36):
and that gets you into a really good position instead
of dropping it or raising it or whatever. Just replace.
And that's just one of the one example. I have
a bunch of stuff for like sinking up the backside
like noob and me thinking about the knob and the

(12:57):
back knee working at the same time, I'm and scene
back hip and elbow. As the hip goes, it pulls
the elbow into the slot. So, you know, just cues
like that that I had never heard. I said, I
put out and now two three, four years later, as
I'm scrolling, I'm seeing other coaches saying those exact same things. Now,

(13:22):
whether they got it from me, whether they got it
from somebody that saw one of my videos, I don't know,
but it is interesting, you know, how that stuff goes.
But my mom at one point was like, you know,
I know it may feel like people are stealing your stuff,
but you need to look at it in terms of

(13:43):
they really like your stuff and so they're using it
with their hitters. And that was a big help. Like
that helped me like scroll through and be like, Ah,
somebody's been watching me. That's awesome, instead of damn, he
just stole my stuff. You know, it's been a learning curve.

Speaker 1 (14:06):
Yeah, I bet I be cause I even like when
I think about the knob replace in the elbow, because
I actually have used that, and so I have taken
stuff that you have said, because when I tried to
relay that message, it doesn't sound as simple. So if
I'm trying to have because I you know, when you

(14:26):
coach a certain level for so long and you try
to come back down to like the ten eleven year olds,
it becomes difficult. At least it has been for me
for as far as verbage goes, Right, So when I
think about stuff like that, that's a simple move. Well,
when I'm talking to a college kid, I might be
having a completely different conversation. And so I liked it
because it was a simple cue, right, And I was like, yep,

(14:49):
I'm stealing that. And I had no problems with telling
you I'm taking this because it's on the internet, right,
And I do like, I will look at something that
you do and something that you'll say. This is why
I like to want to work with you, you know
in our camp coming up. It's because of the simplicity
of what you're saying. And there's so much complication in

(15:12):
today's online coaching or what we see on the internet
and what we're we see our athletes trying to do.
We talked about it a little bit with the HLP
stuff and then the high level moves and is it
for everybody? And you know, when I think about just
stuff you talk about, it's super simple that everybody can

(15:32):
relate to, because at the end of the day, we
have to get from point A to point B. Whether
I'm a I have a leg kick or I'm a
no stride, I'm a two strike approach, I'm open stance,
close stance, it's all relative. Where Like HLP, maybe not
because I can't move like that and I had to
be more direct versus trying to really kind of swing

(15:55):
kind of behind my shoulder or whatever like some people
perceive it to be back here. I don't perceive the
information that way. I know that it looks like it
because they train that way. That's not the moves that
these athletes are making. So I can decipher that piece.
And I get frustrated as just as a hitting guy
looking at some of these young coaches and taking stuff

(16:17):
like that. And it's for every nine year old kid
and every eighteen year old kid they have. It is
literally the entire programming and how do you feel about
like that kind of stuff.

Speaker 3 (16:30):
I have gone on record always in saying that if
you are only teaching one method to everybody that walks
in the door, I personally have an issue with that. Now,
if you are good with hey, I'm gonna have twenty
kids walking the door. I'm gonna teach them all the
same thing. And if you know twelve of those, if
fifteen of those pan out, then I'm good forget the others.

(16:54):
Maybe they don't get it whatever it is. I do
not claim to be an expert and HLP, but I
do claim to have studied it as closely as humanly
possible without diving all the way in. I have talked
to HLP instructors and asked them, you know, how did

(17:16):
you get into this? How does it start? And I
have players that are much more HLP oriented. I don't
think that you necessarily have to dive all in. I've
also gone on record on different podcasts and different lives
and whatnot saying for most hitters, if you were to
ask my honest opinion, for most hitters, the best swings

(17:40):
and the most consistent swings are a combination of the
HLP loading style, the coil and stretch with a more
direct or even lead side connection. And so it's not
that I go and I try to force everybody on that,

(18:03):
but I'm big on the motor preferences. You know, when
kids first come in, we go through a warm up
for stability. I love the water bags to see how
kids are really moving, how their balance is. You know,
are they saying we're back and rotational? Are they getting
more front side and linear? You know, things like that,

(18:23):
and then mixing and matching. I said it on my
post the other day, you can't deny that HLP works
for people like at this point, there's too many athletes
at every single level. There are professional athletes, and yes
it's more than just Aaron Judge and Carrie Carpenter. There
are a lot more professionals that are using this than

(18:46):
people realize. There are lots more college programs, not just players,
but full programs that implement that. Now, with that being said,
I have also worked with if I'm not going to
say a lot, but my fair share of college players
who have gone into programs that are exclusively teaching HLP

(19:11):
and it screwed them up. They've come back to me.
I've had to quote unquote fix them and then they
transfer because that's the only method that that school's teaching.
And you went from a you know, first team all
state in high school when you recruited to hitting two
hundred because they tried to revamp you. So there's pros

(19:35):
and cons each way.

Speaker 1 (19:36):
Man.

Speaker 3 (19:38):
Again, like I said in my post, if you are
a player or a parent, if you're you know, and
when I say player, I mean somebody old enough in
high school that you're looking on social media for information,
or a parent trying to help. If you're trying to
piece HLP together that way, that's a tough gig and

(20:01):
that causes a lot of problems. If you go to
one of the guys that really knows what they're doing,
they you know, there are and there are some There
are three or four online that even though we may
not personally get along, when I see their stuff, I'm like,

(20:22):
that's legit. Like I understand how you know your kids
are getting better. The instruction's clear, So it really is.
It's all about experimentation and finding what works. But you
know the bashing that it gets online from people, Oh
this is stupid, that's never worked. That's not what those
guys are doing like, that's just noise man.

Speaker 1 (20:44):
One of my favorites is to watch teacher Man and uh,
Jeff Fry maybe or whoever it is, that the way
that they go back and forth, she Gone Nation or
whatever it like, that was created from the nonsense. And
Richard's actually in our backyard, so his facility is maybe

(21:06):
like five minutes from here. He had a billiard's company before,
and most people know kind of the story of Teacher Mann.
He owned teacher billiards here. But the thing that what
I take from some of the things that he does
is like I think about the down pitch the ball
down in the zone. I think it's a great feel,

(21:27):
great mechanic, And when I watch my videos of hitting
the ball down, that's exactly what I end up being
able to do. I don't know if that's you know,
velocity or or perception. You know, velocity, velo perception and
where ball downs a little bit slower in my mind,
but there's things that I do when I go back
and watch my swings and I'm like, I have a

(21:48):
little bit of that, you know, but I have a
lot of linear stuff too, and I'm like, how do you?
So I go back to thinking about something that hit
me pretty strong. And this was recent trying to learn
more about motor preference stuff or whatever you want to
call it today, it's obviously been around for a long time. Uh,
there was a decathlete that came into the facility. We

(22:09):
had a very big softball tournament out here. He's got
two daughters going to the University of Oklahoma. So you
know what kind of time they've Okay, yeah, so you
know what kind of time they put in. So this
dude's a decathlete. Right, So back in whatever the two
Olympians Dave and Dave or whatever the you remember the
big commercials like Nike did and.

Speaker 3 (22:29):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:31):
Whatever their names were. But that's an this is an
elite level guy like and he goes keep it simple.
He said, take center mass and keep it on your
back toe. That's all he said to me. All of
a sudden, I told I said that to somebody else,
and then I said it to myself, and I went
through my pitching mechanics and I was like, just keep
my center mass over my big toe. He didn't say

(22:51):
anything else. I'm sure there's there's more to this, right,
And all of a sudden, I was like, well, wait
a minute, I'm getting into that separation. I'm feeling the
hip shoulder stuff, and I'm like, all I did was
keep my center mass over back foot. It kept my
hip loaded. Then I got into the hitting side and
I was like, oh, wait a minute, I'm standing here
just like Aaron judged us or carry Carpenter. So there's

(23:12):
some value to it. But if I struggle with things,
I almost go to a no stride and I just
kind of take back to ball. And then once I
start to feeling good, then I realized and I go
back and watch my swings and I'm like, man, look
at my coil. My center mass over backside stayed there
the whole time. I didn't stride three feet with my

(23:34):
front foot and get out of sequence or you know,
change my sequencing or I can't. You know, my adjustability
is not there anymore because I'm moving that far forward.
I'm literally picking it up, holding it and setting it down.
That's my load and stride, and I'm ripping paseballs pretty
you know, far or hard or whatever the case may be.
I just don't like how many people look at that

(23:57):
and go I need to do this and you see
all that this movement's because if you see all of
his drill work, that's what he does. And so people
take the drill work and think that's the swing and
it's not. And so I feel like that's I feel
like it's always been there, right. You look at Barry Bonds,
you know, that's kind of how he started and what
he refers himself to. I go back and think about

(24:19):
guys like your Ted Williams, your Stan Musuals obviously a
great hitter here. Albert Poolholes. You ever hear him talk,
He's like, swing down, be direct, whatever, But he takes
the swing and it's not that you know, and it's like,
it's just whatever works for that athlete. And I think
that's what I love about watching you.

Speaker 3 (24:41):
I appreciate that. I didn't mean to cut you off.
I just have an Albert pool Holes thought those guys,
and this is what I tell like the players that
come in or the parents that come in and say
basically the same thing is, well, why does the pros
talk about chopping down, you know, keeping the barrel above?

(25:01):
And I have to explain to them and show them
when those pros are talking about that, they are strictly
talking about what they are thinking with their hands. They
don't have to worry about their body. Their body is
going to do what it's supposed to do, and so
they always leave out posture and tilt. Always it's always

(25:26):
keep the baril above my hands go down. Well, if
I get my posture set and I go to tilt
and I'm swinging down, all of it comes together. And
that It's kind of the same thing when you see
teacher Man or the HLP guys talk about the snap backwards,
they are showing think about it this way, this is

(25:49):
one option, this is another. Feel Neither one of those
usually tells you about the posture and the tilt. Now,
I understand that teacher Man talks about pelvic tilton and
all of that, but that's where the breakdowns come because

(26:09):
there are very few, very few that put it all together.
The guy from Optimal Power Performance aj Arroyo, he does
a really good job of putting it all together. Like
in his videos, he'll talk about one of the independent moves,

(26:30):
but he usually brings it all full circle. And that's
one of the things that I try to do with
mine is we can have this thought, this can be
your thought. If you need to think pull with the
lead arm, if you need to think you know, top
hand dominant, you know, if you need to think squish

(26:52):
the bug, if you need to think release, whatever it is.
Let's really understand how we put that all together and
when I would use certain drills or certain cues with
certain players. If I got some kid that's spinning on
his back foot and falling back, I'm not about to

(27:13):
use any HLP down the back, lean back stuff. We're
gonna talk about front arm pull and direction. You know.
If I've got a kid that's really lunging out and
getting front side out over their front toe. Now we
go back and I say it a lot like I've
never heard center mass over big toe, but I say

(27:35):
chest over back knee like it's same, basically the exact same,
same thing. And so man, that's what makes it interesting.
That's what makes the world go round. I just wish
that people would have a little bit more of an
open mind about being able to mesh the ideas. But

(27:57):
I also get it's a business, it's a brand or whatever.
But at the end of the day, you know, I
say it, I'm a common sense guy. And if HLP
were the end all be all, and it was the
way to swing. Every major league hitter would do it,
and they simply don't you know, You've got the Alex

(28:21):
Bregman's of the world. You've got the Jose L two
Veays of the world that are you know, lead arm dominant.
Alex Bregman is very anti rotational. I just use them
because they're well. Bregman's not ast anymore. But you know,
like Rooker right now, probably one of my favorite swings,

(28:42):
Miguel Cabrera my favorite swing of all time. There are elements,
like you said, the barrel working back is a non
negotiable and now how that happens totally individual. If we're
a snap it back as I turn, great, If you're
a lay it back as you turn, like a Manny

(29:04):
Machado or a Fernando Tattis, like, that's fine. The barrel
has to work to the back shoulder. We have to
be connected and you have to have good direction how
you get there. If you get there on time, I
don't care what you think, snap it, drop it, slot it, whatever.

Speaker 1 (29:26):
Keyword is, on time. I I think it's crazy because
somebody will add that, they'll change their stance all the time,
you know, and I'm like, what are you doing? And
they tell me why I don't feel this. I don't
feel that, And I was like, just get on time.
And I always think about the guys that had the
goofiest stances but somehow got it done, the Julio Francos
of the world. Most of our viewers probably don't know

(29:46):
who that is, but you know, thinking about the Craig Council,
Hunter Pence, you know, guys that had goofy things do
happening and all of a sudden they'd get into a
good hitting position. But the key always was making sure
that they were on time. And if they're not on time,
then bad habits get created. And you know, it's like

(30:09):
all I ever tried to do was be in a
good hitting position and catch barrels. And I love That's
why I wish I heard a lot more about like
things Barry Bonds was doing through the time that he played. Obviously,
now we see a lot more of it in some
of the interviews that he talks about. You know, like
simply if a catcher can catch it, I can catch

(30:29):
it with my barrel. And he never talked about his
batting average. Only thing that he tried to do was
beat one guy, and that was the picture. After that,
whatever happened happened. And if he beat the pitcher and
hit a hard ground ball to the second basement that
was ninety five plus or whatever the case may have been,
he walked away okay with it. And I don't think

(30:52):
we have enough of that. And I sometimes wonder, you know,
like if our kids are watching YouTube or Instagram and
they're seeing HLP and then they're going out in the
backyard and trying to do that kind of stuff, it
becomes very difficult because the move is again high level,
and if you don't understand it, don't do it. You know,

(31:13):
if you can't go out into a whifflet ball game.
I mean, how many guys you see in a whiffleball
game just kind of whipping bats and doing all this
kind of stuff and all of a sudden will swing
and they make contact and they're like, WHOA, I hit
that ball pretty well. Well, Maybe HLP is for you,
you know what I mean, Maybe it's not like a
guy like me, because right now the way I swing,
I am very very direct because I am not as

(31:35):
mobile as I have been in the past through my
t spine and stuff like that. There's a reason why
you test those things, or you warm up athletes, you
have them do these dumb stretches, and a half hour
of hitting is not really, in my opinion, a great
time to like a you know, it's a setting of time,
thirty minutes. I don't think it's enough to do things properly.

(31:56):
If you come in and you get ready to go
before you hit, fine, so be it. But you know,
you need time to get mobile, and if you're not mobile,
you can't do any of this. At least that's what
and that's what I take from it.

Speaker 3 (32:11):
I totally agree. And I man, I am in a
Instagram group chat with really good, not as well known
online coaches, and we have these talks about There's one
guy on there that really knows Richard very well for

(32:36):
a long time, and you know, he talks about I
really what I take away from it is the loading process.
He really likes the loading process. Now, staying on the
back leg not so much. You know, we got to
get to a good hitting position. You have to use
the ground properly, like all of these things where we

(32:58):
can't they on what HLP says sometimes they're totally disregarding physics, science, biomechanics, whatever.
You know. You got to get into the grounds. You
gotta be balanced all of those things. But there are
certain elements they're really good. The quickness, you know, but

(33:20):
he has said over and over HLP is really good
if you're really strong. And if you look at the
guys that are doing it, like really doing it, they're
all really strong to be able to hold your weight on. Yeah,
well not not even necessarily like tall big. They're strong,

(33:42):
They're they're thick guys. You know, they're not long and
lanky and whippy. They're big, they're tight, they're you know,
kind of boxing. Everything's just happening kind of all right here.
And I brought that up to one of them. I'm
not gonna name drop on one of the HLP guys.

(34:03):
I brought up motor preference, and I said, what do
you do? And I was being I wasn't trying to
start anything. I was I was asking a legitimate question,
like what do you do when somebody comes into your
facility and their motor preferences don't match up with this?
And I kid you not. His answer was, motor preference

(34:25):
is a fad, it will go away, I think.

Speaker 1 (34:31):
Okay, maybe.

Speaker 3 (34:34):
Yeah, but looking at how people move, like you're totally
disregarding how people move. And that's when it was like
time out. You know, that's enough for me, Like you
can't do that as a coach, like just if you're
you know what I mean. And so that was that
was a little bit of an eye opener.

Speaker 4 (34:57):
But I I like that he actually said that because
I even the decathlete that I was talking to said,
motor preferences was a word.

Speaker 1 (35:07):
That was created for baseball. Uh and but it's been
around because we've been moving for how long, you know
what I mean? And so we've always had motor preferences.
It's what your ankle does, why you walk a particular way.
He literally took ten of my athletes, had them walk.
He could tell what injuries that they've had because of
the way that their head tilted, the way that the

(35:29):
shoulders tilted, and all of that stuff, and he said,
he goes, all of that matters and how you teach
a kid how to move. And so I think motor
preferences is a word that had been created, but I
don't know what the word was before that. They used
you know, five years ago, because I feel like motor
preferences kind of new. But you again, we've always told

(35:50):
like if if when I grew up, we'll talk about
squashing the bug, drop the cheet chopping, you know, the
tree down. Uh, you know, negative movements away from the picture.
And you know, my coaches always tell me, just don't
feel like you're falling back. They just didn't know how
to explain that to me. Now science has given us

(36:10):
some information, so I feel like motor preferences maybe the
word might change, but it's all still going to be
relevant for as long as we play sports.

Speaker 3 (36:22):
Visual biomechanics, Yeah, it's it's individual biomechanics is what it is.
And the kinetic chain is undefeated. And it doesn't matter
what type of swing you're making or throw you're making
or anything else. The kinetic chain is real. How our
body sequences is real. The positions that we need to

(36:46):
get into are individual. That's why you have some pictures
that are like and then you have more that are
you know here, that's why you have guys that swing
much more flat versus guys that being much more tilted.
You know, it's like it would be like trying to
take Mike Trout and teach him Alec Bregman swing or

(37:07):
vice versa.

Speaker 1 (37:10):
They're probably not in the league Man's exactly. I I
love that conversation just because it's it's there's so much
to this and you literally have to evaluate the athlete
for what the athlete is. And so I think I
think it was you that said this the other day,
maybe about development, when you had talked about, uh, who

(37:34):
did you who have you if you're a young coach,
who did you develop at in three months when you've
had clients for five and you know, plus years. And
it's like, we literally are always changing in this game
because athletes are always evolving, and we've seen it through
growth spurts from nine to eleven years old, eleven to thirteen,

(37:56):
you you know, high school age groups, and then they
get into being twenty two to twenty six when the
body's really starting to fill and you've changed so much.
I played adult baseball for probably fifteen years, and I
had actually played very heavy. I'm talking like I pushed
four hundred pounds and played real baseball like guys that

(38:18):
played like John Reinecker, former Texas ranger. He had played
in our league and played in the big leagues and stuff,
and so we faced guys that played ninety well. I
didn't have a stride. I couldn't move. I was so big.
The only thing I needed to do was get my
barrel out front in the baseball would go as far
as it would. I couldn't use my legs, my lower half,

(38:38):
none of it. I just knew the game very well.
I had a really good approach, so I always come through.
You know. I felt like I was a part of
the team, and we had won a bunch we won
national tournaments for men's league stuff. You know that I
was very happy playing men's league baseball. I lost a
bunch of weight. I lost like one hundred and thirty
something pounds, and and I tried, all of a sudden,

(39:02):
hitting like Josh Donaldson. I had no clue how to move.
I had to retrain my body how to move because
I had all this extra movement available to me that
I never had before. And I literally went back to
how I hit when I was a big dude. I'm
still a big guy, but I literally went back to that.
And guess what. I started hitting baseballs out again. I

(39:22):
started hitting for a higher average and like to me,
it's like, what is your mold? I think about guys
like Brendan Donovan and you talk about being very direct
to the baseball. He's a guy that's very direct, but
you always still see that elbow slot into good positions.
That's why he's able to hit the way he looks,
you know, sometimes it looks like he's swinging down and
the ball gets that backspin, it takes off, and it's

(39:44):
like he's not really swinging down, it's just where the
pitch location was. Like, nobody looks at that when you're
on Instagram and stuff like that. And I think social
media is great, but I also think that if you're
a youngster looking at it, and you're a parent with
a youngster, tell them to pump the brakes and find
a coach. You can walk to a coach and go, hey,
look at my phone. Can you teach me how to

(40:05):
do that? And run through an assessment and go no,
you can't, you're not that athlete and be okay with it.
Yeah I don't. I don't think we I don't think
we have that enough being okay with Oh, for sure.

Speaker 3 (40:17):
There's not enough of that. And it's funny that you
bring up that post that ruffled some feathers, but it
was true. Like, if you are truly wanting to be
a coach, a hitting coach, a team coach, whatever, don't

(40:38):
post already mature athletes for your advertising, like you know
what I mean? Like I said in my post, like literally,
it's not about your your coaching knowledge. You may be
twenty two years old and a freaking guru knowledgeable, but
you've never you haven't. You haven't been around long enough

(41:01):
to truly develop a number of hitters for different things. Okay, Now,
if you come straight out of college and your college
hires you and they say, hey, I want you to
be you know, our grad assistant hitting coach, dude, post
all the college players you want. That's your college program,
that's your job. But I don't try to be a

(41:22):
you know, a hitting coach trying to build clientele when
you're doing lessons online and be like, oh, the D
one player I work with? Oh you mean the D
one player that just walk in your facility today, because
it's cool, Like that's what you mean. It's not the
D one player that you have worked with, you know
what I mean?

Speaker 1 (41:40):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (41:43):
Yeah, no doubt so yeah, that's what, that's what, that
where that came from. And you know, people at this
point like, oh, you're the grumpy old man on the porch,
and know I'm the guy that's been in this a
long time and the guy that has coached and taught
elementary pe and coached high school baseball and coach travel

(42:04):
ball from thirteen to eighteen year olds and done one
hundred and twenty hours of lessons for the last a
month for the last fourteen years. So I do know
what I'm talking about. I've seen a lot. I've seen
it all. I've seen fake people, I've seen real people.
I've seen all the methods, I've seen all the gadgets,

(42:25):
I've seen everything has come to this space, and these
are my honest thoughts on it. Like it or not,
you know what right?

Speaker 1 (42:34):
And that should be okay. I think Brian and I
talk about this all the time. People don't know how
to communicate and have conversations with different opinions because I
think if somebody was to respond to that with just
a different why, you might be able to look at
that and go, you know what, they got a point.
And there's times where like I'm not big into the
sliding myths and I don't like them in the back

(42:56):
pocket things. And I'm starting to get kind of used
to today's like athlete, if you will, And for the
longest time, it's like you're just that grumpy old man.
I go no, I just was brought up with a
certain culture. My cleats had to be cleaned before every
single game that we played. So if my cleats were
dirty that night and we had a play early game

(43:17):
that morning. When I was in college, I had to
go in and clean my cleats. We all had shoe
polish because we all wanted black cleats, and back when
I played, all we had was black and white cleats.
We didn't have all the other colors that they have nowadays,
or even white. And our coach would only let us
wear white cleats if we could run a sub seven sixty,
and so that's awesome. I literally had black shoe polish.

(43:42):
I blacked my cleats out because I was the slow guy.
So that's what our coach did. Now, he coached for
Team USA and was a part of something and he
literally said, you representing Missouri Western, go clean and make
sure your clothes are proper. And it just sticks with me,
right like the loves on the ground in a straight line.
Like there's something about just the what kind of tone

(44:05):
that sets the way your uniforms put on. I can't
stand when my athletes walk around in flip flops after
a game. I want them in tennis shoes. I don't
want them rolling an ankle because of their in some crocs.
I don't want them untucking their jersey. Take your jersey
off and you could walk around untucked all you want.
If your jersey's on, you leave it tucked in. If
people just kid you're old, I'm like, no, I'm structure.

(44:28):
That's by structure, that's who I am, that's what I represent.
It's okay you don't like it. I'm all right that
you don't like it, But you don't need to bash
me about something ridiculous like that. And you know what,
like athletes are different. You know, there's a lot of
sensitivity things today. And I think if if they literally
looked at what we have in social media right now,

(44:50):
that I could be different than you. But we're both right,
but it's gonna be for what athlete I might. I
cannot tea the same thing I teach with maybe a
player that you might have, and I just you know,
when we have a camp coming up, which I'm excited about.
It's got you. Shane Eames. I don't know if you

(45:13):
ever met Shane Emes. He does Premiere Hitting Development PhD.
And Andrew Keck, who's a CEMO guy Southeast Missouri played
in the Atlanta Braves organization. Those are the three coaches
coming up. And all of the coaches have a little
bit something different that has their own flare on things,
their own niche. And you're gonna get all three guys together,

(45:35):
all kind of different the way they go about business,
but it's all gonna be the same. How do I
get the barrel to the baseball the quickest way possible
to be on time? And it is as hard as
I can and that should be okay. And they're gonna
learn for three hours. They're gonna come in and they're
gonna learn a lot of information from Josh Cathcart down

(45:57):
in Houston, Texas, a guy in Saint Lewis, and and
you know, for me, it's like take it all in
because something is going to click for you. There's a
reason why I hit like Jeff Bagwell, there was a
reason why I hit like Mart McGuire. There's a reason
why I tried to hit like Kim Griffy Junior from
the right side. I literally had I don't know how

(46:20):
many different stances per week, but the one thing I
always was able to do was be on time and
hit the baseball on the barrel for the most part.

Speaker 3 (46:30):
Yeah, well, I'm excited about it. Like with the camp
coming up in particular, I just like collaborating with baseball
guys and being able to get in there. And you know,
I've done shoot at this point, probably ten collaboration camps
with other coaches, and not only are the players getting information,

(46:56):
and I may say something that some kid goes boom,
that's it for me. You know, one of the other
guys may say something boom, that's it for me. And
so those players walk away with the cliche more tools
in the toolbox, right, But me as a coach, I
also walk away with more tools in the toolbox. You know,

(47:20):
I have what I do and I have what you know.
I was talking about that group of online coaches in
our group chat like that type of stuff. But when
you are in the arena, when you're in that practice,
when you're in that camp in the moment with coaches
who are grinding and looking at all of these different

(47:40):
hitters and trying to help everybody. There have been numerous
times or somebody will say something, I'll be like, whoa
time out? What did you? I really like that? Like that?
That sounds great? Can you really like dive into that
a little bit more? For me and for the parents,
it's a chance to just really hear the different type

(48:01):
of verbiage, the different type of energy. You know, who
is your player gonna respond better to me being really
high energy trying to keep it super simple with thoughts
or somebody that's more like laid back. Hey, you know,
why don't you just try this this time? See if
it works out? You know, And so when you get

(48:25):
three of us in there together, even more so so,
I'm stoked.

Speaker 1 (48:31):
Man, I hope we feel that son of going up, Well,
we got spots open. We're running right now. If you
go back and follow my Instagram page, it's underscore MTS performance.
It's Mitch Thomas Sports Performance. It's original. I couldn't come
up with anything better than that because there's only a
few words that rhyme with Mitch that I can't stay

(48:53):
on air so sure. But what I got on there
is it's a life follow tag a couple buddies in
the comments, and we got seventy five dollars off the
camp and right now the camp has set at two
hundred bucks, three hours long, and you can get this
camp for basically one hundred and twenty five dollars. We

(49:14):
have baseball and softball, so we'll have both sports in there,
and then if we fill that up, we'll end up
doing a second session afterwards. I think the biggest thing
is is taking advantage of this opportunity. For one hundred
and twenty five dollars, you have a chance to hit
with coaches for two plus hours. You know, warm up
time is included in there, maybe a little I like

(49:34):
to do trivia because that's how I'll start it, and
we'll bring up some Houston stuff so you can answer
for your guys. But at the end of the day,
like where else are you going to get three hours
of opportunity to work with the coaches that we're bringing in.
And if you don't know who these guys are. That's
why I tagged you guys, is to go follow you

(49:55):
so that you can learn what Josh brings to the
table because I'm telling you you're gonna like what he does,
especially from kind of our area in St. Charles County.
There's a lot of like minded individuals, and I think
your kids are gonna have a blast showing up. We
do have a variety of ages. Of course, it's twelve
all the way up, and we'll pair them accordingly. You know,

(50:19):
we're not gonna put a twelve year old with an
eighteen year old because of just the things we just
talked about, movement patterns and things like that. That's ridiculous. However,
you might learn something because there could be a kid
in there that might be pretty darn good and you're
gonna hear some loud barrels and you're gonna go, who's
that guy? And I think that's what's cool about hitting
camps to different age groups, is that there might be

(50:41):
somebody in there that might wow somebody and create a fan.
And I want that out of this experience. Because again,
I've been following you since pre COVID, so twenty nineteen
ish maybe twenty eighteen. I have non stopped followed your
page and everywhere you've gone on just because of how

(51:02):
you think about hitting. So obviously, it's very easy when
you're like minded. But again, the camp, I can't talk
enough about it. I guess I can, but our have to.
I can't wait to get you up here, Josh. I
think it. I think it's gonna be a blast. I
think you'll like, have you been to Saint Louis.

Speaker 3 (51:23):
I've never been, man, not even stop by, like I've
been in the airport like catching another flight, but I
have never been in Saint Louis.

Speaker 1 (51:30):
Yeah, it's it's a it's a special city for baseball. Obviously,
you know the Cardinals brand. You know Albert Pooholz very well,
the brad Lich Homer probably still haunts you guys.

Speaker 3 (51:43):
Bring it up, dud, Why why bring it up?

Speaker 1 (51:46):
Well, what's worse? Well, you guys went on and still
won the series, so I don't think it mattered, right, Yeah,
you guys still won the series.

Speaker 3 (51:54):
I mean, we want the series. But goodness gracious, that
ball hadn't landed yet. That was the first ball in
and it made that I remember, like vividly, like I
was old enough to really remember that. When he hit it,
I was like, bro, that's gonna land like in the
apartments behind the feet, like it was just an absolute moonshot.

Speaker 1 (52:16):
All right. So that home run or Bregman coming back
home and hitting one his first ABU when he came back,
it was harder, yeah for you, harder on me, yeah,
oh for sure. The Poolholes one just because it's the playoffs.

Speaker 3 (52:35):
Just because it's the playoffs, and it was just so
majestic and Brad Ledge was throwing a hundred and everything else.
See I I Alex Bregman is probably a top five
player for me, like as an adult, like I could
care less, like I understand that baseball is a business.
I was mad at him. I thought that it was

(52:55):
a little ridiculous, like the way that he went about
it and what the Astros offered you. But dode go
make your money, right. But I it doesn't bother me
to my core when guys get traded and do that.
It was Albert Poolholes hitting that bomb off Ldge was
like a knife to the heart. Alex Bregman hitting one

(53:17):
in his first a back was like, hell yeah, dude,
that's awesome. So it was two totally different too, totally
different emotions.

Speaker 1 (53:24):
I cann't buy that, because you know, I had the
same feelings for Albert when Albert left to go to
Los Angeles. You know, I was bummed at the Cardinals
for not making that deal, but that would have handcuffed
the Cardinals and they still went on to win ball
games in you know, twenty thirteen, twenty fifteen. But AnyWho,
the the when he came back and hit his first

(53:45):
home run at Bush Stadium, I could have cried just
because it was just I actually had the luxury of
playing against him when we were in in uh high
school and then college ball, because you know, we when
you're in their fall baseball stuff. You know, you go
play your junior colleges in the area and it's just
some little jamboree things. He hit a baseball with an

(54:07):
aluminum bat, and I go, that's a grown man playing
against eighteen, nineteen twenty year olds. I'm like that dude's
another level, another level. And I and to be crazy,
he's just the thirteenth round, you know, thirteenth round pick
coming out of Maple Wood. I he hit a ball
off of a tree and I watched the tree blow
up at like four hundred feet away. It just hit

(54:29):
the tree on the line. It just blow up, you know,
and you can see bark flying everywhere, and you're like,
how do you not pitch this guy? He hit a
ball at the ground, this tall I hit a ball that,
you know, at his neck and it's like, okay, just
walk him. You know, in college got the Gray Bond's
treatment with the bases loaded kind of deal and very
special ten years that he had here in Saint Louis,
And I don't know if there's been a better ten

(54:50):
years in baseball with all the great hitters out there,
I don't know if there's been another one. Frank Thomas
kind of brings the closest to me with kind of
the one hundred runs underd RBI's you know, three something
batting average, thirty homer club. You know, he had nine
years of that. That's insane.

Speaker 3 (55:08):
Yeah, Mike Trout would have been there if he would
have stayed healthy.

Speaker 1 (55:11):
Man, dude, have you Mike Trout?

Speaker 3 (55:13):
Did he go ahead?

Speaker 1 (55:15):
I feel bad for Mike Trout. He uh, yeah, I
feel bad for that young man. He's making his money,
so maybe not so bad, but yeah, uh did you
see the comparison against him and Salve Salvador Prez that
just posted like maybe two days ago. It's been surfing
around the Internet. So they were both made their major
league debuts in twenty eleven, and they are so very

(55:40):
close in stats. Because Mike Trout's been so jurgery and
I wonder if he's going to be a Hall of Famer.

Speaker 3 (55:50):
I actually posed that question on my Instagram. I asked,
I said, is Mike Child a first ballot Hall of Famer?
And there was absolutely like, how are you so stupid?
Why would you ask that question? And at that point
people didn't know that Mike Trout is my favorite player
as an adult. Mike Trout is my favorite player. And
then you had the people who are like, oh, the

(56:11):
three MVPs and he would have won five, and you
know all of this stuff like he's already you know,
a thousand RBIs, you know, four hundred home runs? Like
of course he is. If somebody put you know, somebody
said you have to give me a definitive answer right now,
I think my answer would have to be yes. But

(56:34):
I had some guys that, you know, were baseball guys
that got on and like broke it down, and it
was like, you know, maybe the injuries did derail him
that much, Like it's gonna be close, man, if he
if he can have if he could have three more

(56:55):
years of like twenty plus bombs, you know, sixty RBIs,
you know, hit anywhere close to like seventy runs, like
anything like that, then I think, yes, if he were
to shut it down next year and say my body
can't do this anymore, I'm done, it would be dicey.

Speaker 1 (57:20):
I sometimes wonder if a guy because you know, when
you think about Salvi Perez, I look at him and go,
I think Salve might be a Hall of Famer, but
I don't know if he's a first ballot guy. I
think what he's done in Kansas City has been absolutely
amazing for a catcher, you know, forty something homers, whatever
it was that he hit. He might have done some
of that, most of that as a DH But to

(57:43):
see kind of his career and go, he's probably going
to be a Hall of Famer. And I look at
Trout and I go, I have this hard time. I
think I want to debate it against myself and saying no,
maybe to be a rebel, but I'm like, what didn't
he not do when he played the game of baseball?
And you're looking at guy that only have six seven years,
eight years in the Big leagues that have very similar

(58:06):
numbers that made it into the Hall of Fame, and
you see guy like that. There's a lot of comparisons
that you'll see, like you know, the Baseball Reference stuff
that they do somebody opposed to, like you know, Kershaw
versus this guy or whatever, you know, Doc Gooden versus
Adam Wainwright. Shockingly, Adam Wainwright has some better numbers, like
more if you look at the stats that they use

(58:28):
better numbers than Doc Gooden. But I don't think Adam
wayn Wright's a Hall of Famer necessarily maybe Veterans Committee
because of what he did for baseball and how he
worked through things. You know, it's like the Lebron James
Michael Jordan stuff there. You know, you can't use counting stats.
You know, there's so many different metrics that that if

(58:49):
if you compared, and you can't do this obviously, But
I don't look at counting stats as identifying that he
is the greatest of all time. I still think Michael
Jordan's that guy. But somebody that's sixty years old is
going to tell me it could have been wil Chamberlain
or Elgin Baylor or somebody like that, and I'm like,
you know what, really, he's just the greatest in the moment,

(59:11):
you know, and that's exactly what our games. I do
have one more question. I'm gonna let you get on
with your day because I know you're going to be busy.
And this one's been bothering me lately because I have
a club team and I've been hearing a lot of
I'm gonna go play baseball with my friends. And these
are very competitive athletes wanting to play at the next

(59:33):
level college, so some of them need to go to
high school first, but you know, most of it's the
college dream, right. I think that that's a croc. I
think that if you're a competitive player and you are
looking to play at the collegiate level, which by the way,
you play with people you don't know, who probably aren't

(59:54):
your friends, who will become those you need to play
in the best situation you can possible, how do you
feel about players kind of giving you that excuse or
that reasoning. I shouldn't say excuse, but that reasoning on
I want to play baseball with my friends.

Speaker 3 (01:00:12):
For me, man, it's when we're talking about teenagers, and
I'm going to talk specifically boys. I've never coached travel softball,
but like I said earlier, I did nine years of
high school and then I did eight years of thirteen
to eighteen year old travel, and for five of those
years of travel I had nationally competitive sixteen, seventeen eighteen teams.

(01:00:38):
So with that in mind and kind of that thought process,
I would have to know what age we're talking when
they give me that excuse. If you are talking about
a thirteen year old that says I want to play
college baseball, but I also want to play with my friends,

(01:00:59):
then the conversation is a little bit different. It's all right, man,
I get down with that. You're thirteen. You don't have
to make any final decisions right now. But if you
truly want to play college baseball within the next one
to two years, you need to really commit to everything
to your nutrition, to your sleep, to your work, and

(01:01:19):
who you are around. Because players that truly want to
get to the next level out of high school, their
mindset and the way they go about their business is
different than even serious high school players. You can be
a serious high school player and not care about going
to college, but you can't be a I have a

(01:01:40):
college dream player and act like a regular high school kid.
So that would be the conversation with that I have
had when I was coaching travel I have had players
who have been on highly competitive whether it be my
team with people they didn't know or other teams, and

(01:02:01):
when they got to be a junior in high school,
they said, I've been doing this, I've been traveling, I've
been working. I just want to have fun for a summer.
I want to play with my friends. And to that, okay, man,
let's weigh the pros and cons. Like, I get it,

(01:02:22):
you've put in five years, six years of traveling and
playing on top level teams and everything, and do you
want to go play with your friends right now? That's fine,
but your timing sucks, like this is not the time
to go do that, you know. And then you have

(01:02:44):
the ones that I want to go play with my friends,
but my friends are on a high level team. And
in the Houston area that happens a lot where your
friends have spread out when you were younger because of
where you live or whatever. You've made these friends through baseball,

(01:03:05):
and now when you're seventeen, all of you say, hey,
we want to go play for the seventeen U bandidos.
We want to go play for the seventeen U Texas
twelve coach. We love you, thank you for all your
time at hardball, But I want to go play with
my buddies. And this is where they're all going. And

(01:03:25):
all those buddies happen to be serious baseball players that
want to go play in college. So there's different levels
to that. But if we're talking just strictly play at
the highest level of competition to prepare yourself for college,

(01:03:47):
going to play with your buddies is not not where
you want to be. Does that make sense? Like that
just that doesn't mesh.

Speaker 1 (01:03:56):
I like how you kind of portrayed that as in
kind of three different areas, you know, like the youth
side and the you know what it sounds like to me,
it's like the fifteen U level is where you really
start having those conversations because thirteen, you there's nothing to
worry about. Fifteen youths things are starting to become real.
It also is when life starts to change because you're
gonna drive soon, girlfriends, you know, things like that. All

(01:04:18):
that stuff starts to change. So I could see how
motivation like maybe not so focused on that on the
high level thirteen or fourteen you side, because what really
is high level that young? I know that there's obviously
good players. I'm that's not what I'm saying, but yeah,
what are you playing for? It's just you're getting prepared
for high school baseball. I like how you broke that down,

(01:04:41):
because I do have a team like that this year.
We're gonna play eighteen you team. All we're doing is
going to have fun. I literally have kids from all
overcoming because they don't want the stress of it. They're
not we're not going to college, and so those are
the things that where I think that that plays. I
just get to the point where it's like, Okay, you're
gonna spend four thousand dollars and you you're not going
to compete, You're not going to push yourself because you

(01:05:03):
want to go play with your buddies. Why spend the
money when the ROI is not going to be there.
It's already not there in club sports because of how
colleges are well used to give scholarships and so you know,
for me, why spend ten grand a summer when you
could spend that much more wisely, you know, training and
getting bigger faster, stronger diet nutrition, working with you instead

(01:05:27):
of playing all over the country. I know that stuff's fun,
and some of us have to maybe play four or
five big events. I just can't. It's shocking how much
it costs to do business. And I'm part of it,
right to go, get me wrong. I'm part of this
on all facets, the training side, the development side, team side,
you know, tournament side, all of it. So it's very

(01:05:49):
interesting to me. I like the way that you kind
of brought that. Uh, there's kind of different variables. We're
actually going through that in Saint Louis. With our high
school side. There's a lot of youth programs, but the
high school side it gets much much smaller, and teams
are going to play for certain organizations that can get
them the opportunities that they need, whether it's getting to college,

(01:06:09):
things like that. So we actually have something similar happening
to us here in Saint Louis.

Speaker 3 (01:06:15):
I didn't even really think about or bring up the
money aspect of it. If if you're going to go
and you're going to play on a team that is
traveling the nation and you're going to the big events,
then playing with your friends should not that shouldn't be
part of the deal. Now. Like I said, if all

(01:06:36):
of your friends are going to play on a high
level team, absolutely, But if you're just going to get
on a team with your buddies and there's a dad
coaching and you're just doing it to play with your buddies,
and y'all are going to the biggest tournaments in the
country just basically for vacations, then you got more money
than since.

Speaker 1 (01:06:56):
Right. It's an interesting day and age for athletics, especially baseball.
I know it's like this in other sports. I'm just
not in other sports, so I can only talk about
baseball and softball. Josh. It's a pleasure of being able
to bring you on the show. September thirteenth at the
Hitting Zone. It's a nine am check in nine thirty.

(01:07:20):
Start will get you stretched out, do a little trivia,
get you stretched, then we will start teaching you young
people how to barrel more baseballs, because that's all I
can promise is a lot to get the barrel to
the ball, and good things happen when I guess the averages.
The law of averages is on your side. If you
can catch barrels more often than handles, and you know
off the end of the bat. So, Josh, I know

(01:07:43):
that I told you that we have your Instagram shared
on one of my posts. I just made it maybe
yesterday this morning. How can people follow you on Instagram?

Speaker 3 (01:07:54):
So Instagram, it's across all platforms. Nothing changes my logos
down there on the bottom. Instagram is hitting done right.
My YouTube channel is at eighty thousand subscribers right now,
trying to get to one hundred. There, it's hitting done right.
Facebook ninety thousand followers, it's hitting done right. And if

(01:08:15):
you're a TikTok person, TikTok is my smallest platform. It's
about sixty eight thousand followers right now, so you can
hit me up on any of those. Also, my website
is www dot hittingdonright dot com and that is where
you can purchase online analysis and customized practice plans.

Speaker 1 (01:08:38):
Let's go. I think I follow you on everything. I
think I've had conversations with you literally on every single
platform on everything, maybe not TikTok. I'm not on TikTok
so much. I only have like two hundred But folks,
if there's a reason why the guys got almost one
hundred thousand followers on certain platforms and over one hundred
almost two hundred thousand probably on all of his platforms.

(01:09:01):
He obviously knows what he's talking about. September thirteenth, nine
am check in. You gotta go online and register first, though.
If you want Josh to get to Saint Louis, I
need information to tell him so he can get on
a flight to get up here. I need about ten
days notice, So if you don't have by September third,
if we don't have good numbers, I'm not bringing him

(01:09:22):
up here. If you've already paid, we'll work with what
we got, with the coaches we have here, We'll work
on something down the road because I got to get
Josh to Saint Louis. He is a heck of a coach.
So thank you, sir for jumping on this show with
me today and talking baseball. You were one of my
first guests on my Hitting Zone podcast, so it's nice

(01:09:42):
to have you back. I think that's been about a
year and some change now, I think close to that.
Maybe I'd love to have you on again, obviously for
the personality, but I think more than anything, the honesty
so awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:09:58):
Man.

Speaker 1 (01:09:58):
What I need you guys to do though, go to
Youth Baseball Midwest if you want to check out episodes
like this, you need to make sure you're already at
Youth Baseball Midwest. But I need you to go hit
the notifications. I need you to hit the dinger, do
all of those things on the YouTube channel so you
can get information like this, see podcasts like this, see
all the fun stuff we have coming up, and all

(01:10:19):
the socials that Youth Baseball Midwest has. Of course, follow
me because you'll get some opinions. I have no problems sharing. Yeah,
I have no problems sharing them. One of my favorite
posts was telling parents to why are you playing travel
ball when you got a little league mentality? And that
went went over very well. I had a lot of

(01:10:41):
people get some hate for it. But why are you
involved invested into this thing when the return is not there?
And I like it drives me bonkers? Well, my kid
gets an experience, you know what, then let me coach.
You know, don't scream at me for every little thing.
Don't scream at your kid for every little thing. That's
probably a whole another conversation to have which I'd love

(01:11:02):
to have with you. I want to have that with you,
so maybe after this, right before you come up. Maybe
we do it the week before you come up. But
I appreciate it and absolutely, man, everybody out there, swing
heart case, you hit it.

Speaker 3 (01:11:19):
Oh that's a great one.

Speaker 1 (01:11:21):
Yeah, swing heart case, you hit it. Close your eyes too,
if you need to. I've hit a few home runs
with my eyes closed, Josh. I appreciate man, Thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:11:29):
Absolutely man. You'll be good, ye,

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The Hitting Zone w/ Mitch Thomas | Breaking Through the Noise with Josh Cathcart | YBMcast

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The Hitting Zone w/ Mitch Thomas | Breaking Through the Noise with Josh Cathcart | YBMcast