Bat and Hand Path Re-Visited

Hi, everybody. Welcome into another edition of the Lab Epstein Hitting Podcast. This is episode 132 is we bring you information and a teaching seminar about bat and hand path. The difference, the similarities we talk about it all today. We've got a lot to get to, so let me bring in professional bio-eaters successful business owner former coach friend in Goho's. No, he isn't. We got a speaking

of which spring training, major league spring training. It's back last weekend at a chance to watch some college softball. That was a lot of fun. Those girls are very competitive, very, very athletic. That a chance to watch some college baseball as well. There's a kid from Mississippi State of freshman who swung and his swing looks like Tim Anderson. He's great young guy. He only hitting 2.38

right now from Mississippi State. I forget his name, but he's a great athlete and I think that kid's going to be a draft pick. He's got a great swing, but anyway, we'll talk about that. I'm sure some town down the line. So be sure to subscribe to the show Apple Google Spotify or wherever you get your podcast and watch the show on YouTube, the lab Epstein

Hitting Podcast. You two page and again today we're talking about bat and hand path and through everything. I think it's one of the more overlooked mechanical fallacies and times of fallacy, but other times a mechanical. What do you want to call it? I don't know. Yes, just overlooked factor. Yeah, times the Mac. There's two back. And hand path they could be overlooked at times. Yeah, well,

I think that well, it depends who you're talking about, you know, typically major leaders talk a lot about their hand path and they think a lot about their hand path. I think yet the guru stage of of hitting coaches and instructors. I think people neglected a little bit and they they talk more about body and loading and getting in the hip and uncoiling and separation and

yada yada yada that they think will just make the hands work the right way. Sometimes it does help the hands, but the hands are definitely the most overlooked part of the swing. Probably the last. Oh, I don't know, five or six years. Yeah, compared to, you know, if you go back to the, you know, even pre 2010 people, that's all they talked about major leaders, my

hands, my hands, my hands, my hands, my hands. You know, there was the old knob to the ball. There was throw your hands at the ball. There was throw the barrel. All those things. That players and coaches used. They really aren't used as much anymore. I still use quite a bit of them in certain situations with players, but. Yeah, if you have a bad hand path

that really doesn't matter how hard you swing. Just doesn't you're not going to be successful. You're not going to be consistent enough to to make a team. You can only swing and miss so many times. Right. I remember I have a buddy that coaches a high school team here in Colorado. Good good one too. And there was a. The building in town that's not around anymore,

but they were big and huge kind of dolombs and stuff, right. Big leg kicks turn the barrel behind you. That was kind of their thing. And they took these just massive B P swings and these massive on deck, circle swings. And he's like, can someone just square up one ball in a game? He's like, we played six games, and I got eight players that work with

the same. You know, coach or facility and none of them have like hit a barrel yet. He said they look good, they look mean, they look big and strong in the index. And so that's where hand path comes in. If you neglect hand path, then you're just not going to find any barrels. And I think that's why some organizations, they're they're drafting guys that have high

barrel rates that have maybe their launch angle is in as high. Maybe they don't hit, you know, a ton of home runs and high school college, but they are finding barrels because once you do that, once your hand path is good, then you can get crazy with the lower body if you want to. And now, all of a sudden, maybe the ball goes a little bit

further or goes on a different trajectory, but we still have that good hand path where our barrels going to be in the zone for a decent amount of time. Right. By the way, his name, the kid I was speaking about Dakota Jordan, Mississippi State class of 2022. This is his first year freshman, great swing. Yeah. I suggest everybody go check him out on YouTube. You know,

home run the other day. It was that it was a man swing. Yeah. I wasn't a boy swing. That was a man swing went a long way to some people are saying that the ball hasn't even landed yet. Jeff McNeil has run to majorly spring training. We're going to get to the pitch clock here in just a second, but Jeff McNeil, he was being interviewed by

MLP network. And he said this in regards to his approach. I'm really fine here. His off season hitting plan, I guess he talked about his off season hitting plan. He said this quote, that he didn't do much during the off season and went in back to the basics in the last two off season. So he went back to the key highlight thing to highlight there keywords.

He went back to basics. And he's turned down. By the way, we're doing a Jeff McNeil, hitting breakdown later in the year, but it turns out as a word for Jeff McNeil, like I would choke up on the bat that going back to the basics, going back to simplicity, worked out for him last year. Of course, hit what 325 was it. Yeah, led the National League

in batting average. So things are working well for Jeff McNeil. Good approach. Yeah. Yeah. Good for him. We'll have to dive into that a little more. See if we can get some more out of them. That's all you got from me on Jeff McNeil. I don't think there's an album on his bat. He chokes up very high on the bat. He's really like he's really. He's

a guy that fits in. Is that what you want to hear? You know, you surround guys like McNeil who have an on high on base percentage and they get on base and they're gritty and you surround him by, you know, a Wanzo's and more days and guys that can hit the ball out of the park. And that's a good combination. We talked about that with the

Yankees last year. They just had guys that can hit the ball out of the park. And when those guys, you know, those are peaks and peaks and valleys guys when they go in the slumps, they're, you know, 20 at bats. They're not like for at bats. And when everybody goes into a slump or they're not seeing the ball at the same time or the other team

has a good plan to pitch against them and they're hitting their spots. They're going to fail. So when you can mix in guys like McNeil doesn't mean you want nine of them in there. But if you ball wouldn't be bad, you probably still score a lot of rounds if everybody's getting on base that much. But, you know, if you can sand which those guys in between

your high slugging guys, that's usually going to lead to a pretty good offense. I would agree. Yeah. Met's offense is going to be pretty good this year for sure. They're, they've, I think they've opened up as World Series favorites going in to spring training here in 2023. So we'll see poor Phillies. You know, they went to the World Series last year. They're still projected to finish

third and then actually gazed. They can't get by that number two spot. They can't get by the number three spot last year. They're projected to finish third. They did. And they can't finish past the Braves. That's a Braves right now. Underdogs that fits the Phillies. It does, doesn't it? All right. So you want to get to the pitch clock first or do you want to get

to where listen to your question follow last week? Electrified shoes. Let's go with the pitch clock. Okay. You seem excited. I see excitement. Yeah. I think they're talking about the pitch clock. I think there needs to be some, some feel, some umpire feel. Some situational awareness on, you know, winda to bus guys. There was a college game. It was, it was at LSU game. Ushtar. And

I can't remember yesterday. But the game ended. The game. The third out and the ninth inning with runners on ended because of the batter. And he was in the box at the time. So I don't know if he maybe stepped out a second before or what. But he was actually in the box. The umpire called the game said that that's all she wrote. And I think

that's what I'm going to say. I think there needs to be a little bit of discretion and feel when we're, when we're using that. I get it. And we're in the middle of the game or early in the game. And you're trying to, you know, get some pace setup. But to do something like that in the later it is. Is really tough on players. Now I

haven't seen a lot in spring training yet. So I'm going to let you kind of jump on board with that one because I did yesterday. Yeah. So we record this on Saturday, February 25th. There was a game between I forget who it was. But the podries were in it. And then the shot was called for an automatic strike was called because he didn't get back into

the box in time in the pitch clock ran out. And then I was watching Colton Wong lead things off yesterday and Martinez, the pitcher, who was it? Right? And the pitcher, the martina Martinez Nick Martinez, I think. Right. Yeah. He was just pumping them in there. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. The game was very quick. And it was a fast pace. And I just, I don't

know. I was thinking about this. And I've advocated at the minor league level to have. The ghost runner second base. I do at the major league level, by the way. And a lot of people will scoff at that. I think it's a great role because it gets the game done. You know, I don't want to see, you know, hey, we go to the bottom of the

18th inning. Okay, great. Cool. I'm going to bed. But I'll say this with the pitch clock. I advocated for the minor leagues. I don't really advocate much for the major leagues. It's going to take some adjustment for hitters. I think that there will be some pushback, especially with veteran hitters who've got these big contracts. They're used to doing it one way. The pitch clock, I think,

is going to have to be in a real adjustment here. I don't really believe, by the way, the pitch clock is going to make the game faster. And it's going to make the game better. It makes the game faster at the minor league level is because pictures as with their approach, they're taught that in player development. Hey, let's go get the ball back. Go quick. Don't

overthink this thing. Because again, it's it's in a way you're trying to speed up the game to slow the game down for when those guys get to the major league level when they're on the mound. That makes any sense. Right. If it doesn't make sense, email me and I'll explain it better. Jimbo podcast 21 at Gmail.com. Notwithstanding, when it comes to the major league level, I

don't think the pitch clock is going to make the game much better. And I think that a lot of players, especially the veterans, are going to really push back. If not in season, certainly after the season. And there's going to be some adjustments. 15 seconds is a little too short for me. If it was 25 seconds, okay, 15 seconds, though, there's going to be pushback. Well,

I think it's like anything else. It's generational. So the guys that are at the big leagues now, at least the guys that have been in the big leagues by for five years, they've had their routines forever. You can't throw. It's like putting a pitch clock on or a putt clock on a PGA tour player when they get to the green. I mean, if you've ever gone

to a tournament or in person, she's they take forever on the greens. Like they are looking at so many different angles. So if you put a pitch clock on them and they've been doing this same routine for the last 10 years, they're going to blow up the same as true here. So what you're saying, Jim, about keeping it in the minor league system and really training

that generation to get going a little bit faster. They're totally fine. They're younger. They have time to learn. And then when they get to the big league level, they won't have these drawn out routines where they step out of the box and fix their batting gloves and tap their helmet and their pine tar on all this kind of stuff. You know, it'll change automatically, but just

to throw that rule in there. That's going to create some issues. And sometimes as a hitter, you know, this pitchers rolling. I got to get him out of his routine. That's part of the gamesmanship. Like this guy's just carving everybody up. I need to step out. I need to take a break. I need to you know, mess with his rhythm a little bit on the mound

because he's just dealing. And that's why pictures want to go fast because they get they get into a rhythm of just pumping strikes the mechanics or locked in. But as soon as you create chaos, right, you get a guy on base. Now he's got to go out of the stretch. Then some different things can happen. You know, we can get to that hitter or get to

that picture. So. Yeah, you got to be able to slow that picture down at some point. So I'll look more into it. I haven't yet. I don't know how chaotic it was yesterday. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've said again, with the extra innings runner, ghost runner rule, I actually do think that makes. Look, it's not traditional. I get it. But it makes the game. Again, I don't

feel like watching the game going into 50. I don't feel like watching a game going into 13 12 13 innings. I don't have the time. And. Call it tie after 10 or 11 innings. When there's a game going into 13 innings in May, I don't care at that point. I really don't. I only time my car is in September. But I think that, and especially with

the minor league level too, with so many logistics, I like the idea of the extra innings rule. I actually, I like the idea of the pitch clock extra minor league games don't need to be going. What three plus hours. Right. Major league baseball. TV breaks and exactly. And with Major league baseball, there's something inorganic about this new pitch clock. There's going to be there's going to

have to be some adjustments that will be made. I think my opinion. But. Yeah. We'll see. They've got spring training to work it all out. It's amazing how Major league baseball always goes like we're just the game in general goes. One way or the other way, there's no middle ground in between like the NFL always finds in college football. They always find that middle ground when

they're changing their rules to make the game better and make it a better product. But with baseball, it's like, okay, we're going to implement a pitch clock and we're going to do 15 seconds. Okay. Why not 25. Nope, we're doing 15 always. You know, we're going to make the bases bigger. Well, why? Well, we're going to make them bigger. Okay. Yeah. Whatever. Yeah. It's first base

three inches closer to home. Might be because it's bigger now. Might be. Yeah. I know they're closer between the bases. So they're three inches closer and then six inches closer between first and second and second. Third. Yeah. I think that's right. Hey, your boy, South Freelich. I tweeted this at you at Jim Tara on Twitter at X. Dean hitting on Twitter and both in Twitter and

Instagram. South Freelich, the brewers, your organization, hoping that's playing for team Italy will get him get him going. And I'm telling you right now, we will see for South Freelich in the big leagues this year. I hope so. February 25, 2023. As we record this, this episode comes out on February 27, 2023, market, book it, whatever you have to do. James Anthony, Tara Bocchia. As said,

at Jim Tara on both Twitter and Instagram. South Freelich will be a big leader. It was funny. I was looking at there was one guy in the draft. I like that 2020 draft. So that's the year before free like that was my favorite hitter in the draft. It was crow arm strong out of Los Angeles, out of the Valley. And I can't remember who took him

in the draft. But I wanted to look it up because because he was drafted 19th. And so I went and I was trying to figure out where did the brewers. I know they got Garrett Mitchell. You know, where did where did we end up picking and we picked 20 and Armstrong was the 19th pick. And I would have loved to be in that boardroom to see

between those two guys what their thought process was. If they were going to the high school guy, I mean, that guy's tearing up the minor leagues. I think he's hitting. He's hit like over 320 the last three years in the minor leagues. And he's probably. 318 hitter. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, how old is he 20? 21? He's 20 years old. Metz for a matter. I remember

seeing it and talking to a couple of other people and just saying that. That dude can. Who's he with? Who drafted him? Metz. Oh. 6185. Did they draft him or did they? Was he traded? I feel like he. No, they drafted him first round 19th overall. Okay. He's still with the Metz. Yes. Well, that was that was a pretty good pick for them. No doubt. No

doubt. Anyway, that was a good that was a good draft for a lot of teams. And then especially the brewers because Mitchell a few pans out and then Freelik. They're both kind of similar high contact guys that are going to grow into some power, especially Mitchell. He's a big guy. Anyway, it'll be fun to see. Fun to see how that class because I remember going through

all that list and there were some real hitters in that draft. So it'll be fun to see them. Maybe next two years. They should start popping up in the big league level. We'll see who pans out. So you think South real like he'll grow into power. No. I don't know. He'll grow into more power. But I don't think he's going to that's not going to be

his role. You know, I think Mitchell's a bigger guy. You know, Mitchell 632 20 or something to 15. Freelik doesn't have that. But I think Freelik will be a guy that hits 15 home runs. I think he could be a 15 to 20 home run guy above 300 hitter. Play great defense. Still some bags. Oh, you know what I wanted to ask you. Okay. So again,

why does power when Major League when they get to the major league. Why does two things? Why does their last other one second? Why does their power go up? That's just a great question. People always wonder that. And now he's going to grow into power. Usually when your surround my dad used to say this all the time and he used. Charlie Blackman as an example here

in Colorado. It's like you have these guys that are really good hitters in AA and triple A. They come to the big leagues. And then they struggle and then they get sent down. And then they come back up again. And they do a little bit better. And then they send them back down. And then they come up the third time and they're like, okay, I belong

here. And then once they belong here, they're surrounded by experience. They're surrounded by big leagueers who have been here for a while. So in Blackman's case, he had like Todd Helton, you know, left handed power hitter that was here. Hi, average guy too. But all of a sudden you see their swings start to morph a little bit. So they're usually, you know, higher contact guys in

the minor leagues. They're, they're hitting 300 to get brought up for the most part. They're hitting some doubles. You know, you don't hear a 40 home run minor leagueers. No, if you do, they're in the major league. Yeah, but you really don't. I mean, you have, I mean, who was the kid that was played at Arizona State and the Tigers drafted him. He was a first

baseman. And I was like, Oh, central Torkelson. We did a turning. Yeah, Torkelson. Right. And it's like, man, this guy better be able to absolutely match to be a one one as a first baseman. You know, right. And he, I don't think he's had quite the success. I'm not 100% sure on this. You can look it up. But as some of these other guys that have

come to the minor league system, you know, he's a big home run hit 20 something home runs in college. So when these guys get to the big leagues, they have the hand path and they have the swing path to find barrels, which we're going to talk about today. And then they start figuring out what part of the ball to hit. They start figuring out how to

get into their legs a little bit more. They start to figure out maybe they're like the Justin Turner. Well, I'm trying to hit the ball out in front more, but I'm not going to top it. I'm going to think bottom half of the ball and out in front. And they have the swing point to do it. If you don't have the swing point to do it,

then you will struggle with those adjustments. So that in a combination of the balls are harder. The bats are harder. You know what you laugh and the stadiums are smaller. You laugh about the ball being harder, but that is a good, that is a true factor. It is. Yeah. Yeah. The balls are different at the minor league level. The major league level. The balls are different

to college. And they are at the minor league level. The seams and there's not not the seams are not the same. I like the big league, the big league and the professional ball seems rather than the college seams are small now. So they made that change. Yeah. They're flat seam now. They made that change about. She's I don't know four years ago. Well, they used to

be very big and both. They used to be huge. So the ball flies a little bit more. But in terms of so we've tested all these balls, you know, we've tested like a college ball. So if somebody hits a college ball 90. Yeah. That same personal hit a minor league ball 92 93 and a major league ball be 95 96. So you're looking at five to

six miles an hour more of exit velocity just in a ball. Plus. Most college stadiums are bigger than a lot of major league stadiums these days. They really are like if you look at Pittsburgh, you look at Philadelphia, you look at Houston. Like those parts versus like rice, you know, or Texas A, you know, or or or I'm staying in the North. And I'm thinking Stanford,

Washington, these, these the ball travels so much better in major league parks. And they are a little smaller that guys are going to hit a few more homeruns. Just just based on balls. They get top quality wood, you know, fly. And I'm talking about balls that are squared up. But balls that you just kind of miss a little bit, right? You don't totally smoke them. They

go three hundred and seventy five feet. Because you cut them and you launched it. 38 degrees instead of 30 degrees, but they're just going to carry out of the park at the big league level versus at the minor league or college level. So that does play a part of it. Not, not, not a, you're not going to go from like 10 to 30 homeruns. Okay. But

you might go from 25 to 30. Right. to go. And so we do, you know, everybody and the Epstein online academy has a probably four or four rhythm drills that I work on where they're striding a little bit slower and allows them to hold their balance. When do they start moving? So we work a lot of that to help with timing. The worst part about timing

is if you start late, if you start late, then you have to rush and then that stride ends up being too fast. And if the strides too fast, then we're having to start our swing a little bit early, meaning we have to start our hands before sometimes before our foot hits the ground. And then we're toast. If that pitch is moving a little bit more than

we've anticipated or it's slower than what we've anticipated. So there's nothing wrong with seeing pitches. I start working timing off a tee, which sounds kind of stupid, but it is we start working on our rhythm and timing and being slow and controlled off a tee. Then we do the same thing off front toss, moving a little bit early, then we do the same thing off a

machine. And if we can time a machine because that ball always doesn't shoot out the same speed or doesn't go down the shoot the same way, you can use it. One of the long feeders like sports attack or hack attack, you know, makes like a team feeder. And you can time that one a little bit easier, but you know, big league is just time the ball

going in. You know, person putting their hand up, dropping it down the little six in shoot, five in shoot, and they can control it. So the more you really try to do it off machines, the better, the better off your timing in games will be because machines are the machines are the toughest. So we do a combination of all of that. T front toss machines, live

arm, stand-ins, just to find a way to get timing because, you know, DA you're right without without timing. It really doesn't matter how good your swing is. It'll break down. If we're late and rushed, it'll break down or if we're early on everything, you know, if we get our foot down too soon, that doesn't really help us either. A lot of times, of players that are

late and they try to stride to they stride early like when the pitchers breaking his hands, meaning their foot's getting down before the ball's released. But then they don't swing and then they're still late. So even though they're getting their foot down early, they'll still be late. So, you know, we'll do, I'm actually doing a free, I guess I'll plug this right now on on Instagram.

So if you go to Twitter, Instagram or Facebook, you got like three or four days to submit your videos. I'm going to do a free six month online membership where you're essentially you can send me a swing per week for six months and I'll review it and and give you a drill. So I definitely do that, DA with whoever you're working with, see if they can

you can get them in there. But timing, that's the first thing I'm going to look at. So when I look at game swings, I want to see how long that rhythm is. That's how important it is. I just did, I mean, I can't tell you what players they were, but I just did four players and professional players. And that was the first thing I did with

them. That was the first thing we're working on to make sure that their rhythm is how it normally is and it's consistent. Here's one hides were apparent wins for me. The rules for people in this game, what I can say is that they want to need me to make my users think. But I afraid the coach thinks that that's why the reason that I get the.

I want to show our players that I'm in a corner. But when I get a year, we have that telling show here, I'm curious where you talked a lot to it. I know I was saying I don't care what I was doing to do it on Instagram as well at Epstein hitting. And there's a link there to upload your video. It just takes you to the

Epstein hitting website. You type in your name, you upload the video. It goes to me and then I'll randomly choose. I'm going to do three free analysis and then one free six month membership, which is like a six hundred dollar value. So definitely take part of that. The more swings I get in there, the better. And I'll post those back to social media and I'll email

you the. The analysis as well. All right, very good. And again, subscribe or visit the Epstein online hitting Academy YouTube page, right? Yeah, you mentioned that in there. Yeah. All right, very good. Episode 132 bat and hand path. It's getting to our main topic here bat and hand path. I've always said that a good hand path. Is there for me? Okay. So I make this about

me for a second. It's always about you, Jim. Oh. My world. No. Let me, let me, okay. Let's first give the definition. If there is a difference between bat and hand path. Well, there is how your hands work from launch to extension and how your barrel works from launch to extension. There are subtleties that the hands will do to help or hurt your bat path through

the zone. So typically, if your hand path is good, your barrel path will be good. If your hands have a little bit of a drop and then you have a correction with the knob of the bat late in the swing, what happens is the barrel does funky stuff through the contact zone three or four inches before contact three or four inches after contact. So your hand

path really is the key. You can't have a good barrel path. If your hand path is bad. It's going to me or itself. So what I always do when I'm breaking down swings is all I'll chart the hand path. How do your hands work from launch to contact if they go. Down three inches and then up six inches or do they go down one inch and

then up one inch. You know, what is your hand path. And what happens is the barrel will mirror that. Say a foot lower, okay, or two feet lower. It'll mirror the same exact path through the hitting zone. So if you're doing funky stuff with your hands, they drop. And then boom, you yank them back up. Then your barrel is going to drop and then it's going

to be too steep out in front. So hand path is is, you know, totally crucial. And it's where the old saying short to it long through it came from. I don't know why that's not that is the essence of hitting people and consistent consistency is if you are short to the ball, short to the pitch play and the ball coming in. And then you stay through

that pitch plane, your golden. Okay. But if you get long early and your barrel starts to decelerate by the time I guess you're front foot, that doesn't work. Then you're, you're on plane for a short amount like people that are trying to be on plane at their back knee or their back hip. Like you don't want to hit the ball there. You're not your barrel is

going to be so far below your hands. You're just going to slice it the other way or slice it. Fall or probably miss it. So there's. If your hand path is incorrect and you do something like I said, funky early. And it's very easy. Just watch the big lagers for crying out loud. It's not that difficult. Just watch their hand path chart their hand path big

letters. How did it work on this pitch that they hit a line drive at 20 25 degrees. That's what we want to do. And that's where we came from. My dad taught me that like when we were using VHS, copy the big lagers is what Ted told me. Top of the great players. They'll tell you what to do. Right. And that's been exactly what I've done.

And I still do to this day. I pull videos of the best players in baseball. I figure out what they do. They might have different subtlety's in their rhythm and their timing. But for the most part, hand paths are pretty, pretty similar. There might be some very variation on guys that hit for lower averages and hit more home runs. But for the most part, that first

like four to six inches from launch to when they start to rotate. That's pretty much identical. Yeah. Yeah. Also to another thing to bring up with the hand path. And this is something that this is something that always bothers me and bugs me and something I noticed when watching amateur hitters. The hands when they're coming from launch. They're getting from launch to contact. The hands are

drifting away from that back shoulder and creating a very large space between the hands and the shoulder. And that to me is an Aaron bad path and Aaron hand path vice versa. Because bad hand path. You know, is he going to own equal that bad hand. Whatever. Yes, bad bad. A lot of past today. Yeah. So you know, you're right Jim. So I'm creating a. Is

what I'm doing this winter people. I'm creating an online curriculum, if you will, for parents, for parents and for younger coaches. Because once you get to 16, that kid's probably got a decent swing. Otherwise, he's not playing anymore. Okay. It means you can make tweaks to that age. But there are so many players from eight to eight to 14 that unfortunately don't get the right information

at a young age. And they quit. And that's one of the reasons why baseball isn't growing as fast as it should be. So I'm trying to create a step by step approach. How do we help our kids? Yeah. How do we help? I was, you know, I'll use my own kid as an example. Because I was talking to her this morning about it. You know, she's

because she's a right handed. Throw her in a left hand. And she said, how did I end up hitting left handed dad? Like what? What was the process there? I said, well, when you wanted to swing left hand when you were little. And the first thing was when was a golf club. And you like to play golf left hand. And we bought some, you know, little

kid golf clubs and you swing a little bit. And then all of a sudden it was like, okay, let's try right handed. And you were better right handed. And then three years later, you decided to play softball. Softball wasn't the first. And we tried it again. And we tried to have you hit right handed and look funny. So I put you on the left side. And

all of a sudden, like you didn't have any bad habits. Yeah, you didn't have a golf swing from the left side. Your hands didn't drop. So I put the bat on your shoulder. And that's what we did for three years. I put the bat on her shoulder. I had her. Her hands on the right position. I had her armpit open. I had her front shoulder down.

And she never had. Now she's got other issues. Don't get me wrong. She doesn't extend very well because she's not super strong yet. And sometimes her lead arm collapses. But what doesn't she have exactly what you talked about, Jim. She doesn't separate her arms and over rotate her body, which is what we'll see. And that's why I want to get as many videos as I can

from people out there that aren't part of the academy. Those of you that are in the academy are already locked in with that stuff. But just to show the amount of young players that have this issue, if I do a camp for a team of 10 year olds or I'll go work with the team for a couple hours, they all have the same issue. And if

we can get all the coaches around the country, at least the leagues on board of, hey, let's start with these basic drills to fix this one problem, which is exactly what Jim said. The player starts to rotate and they leave their hands behind. Okay, part of the reason is they're flexible and not very strong. The other part is they're not taught to do the move correctly.

And so as soon as the shoulders start to accelerate and the hands do not come with them, it causes drag, it causes arm bar and it causes casting. What do the hands do? They typically go down and back. And once they get stuck down and back, what do they do? They have to come up and then a player will flip their wrist. So everything with hitting

is cause and cause an effect. If we have two or three issues with our swing, a lot of times I can fix the first one. I can get the first issue fixed and all of the sudden, the ones that trail it will be better because they're not compensation moves. So I don't know where we got to, but Jim, how hard is it to, how hard is

it to fix a batten of hand path, as in his hard. Yeah. Yeah. So what what what are kids, young kids have to do. Without giving way too much information. Again, I'm sure there's a lot of drills in the drill library on. What is a quick fix? Like here like boxers, they like to do like shadow. Boxing right at home. Just there is no, what's a

quick fix at home? Yeah. Unfortunately, what it is is it's a step by step process with with increased stress moves. So I, you know, I set them up with their bat on their shoulder and their hands in the right spot and their elbows in the right spot. And we take away, you know, a lot of the lower body. So if you haven't, if you're trying to

fix this and they have a big leg kick and a weight shift, like that's not going to work. So it's the, you know, this is the first sentence I give when people do certification. I always ask them, why are you here? Why did you fly all the way here from Florida or New England or Alaska or California? Why, why are you here sitting in a room

with these other Yahoo's that are trying to learn about hitting. And every one of them say because somebody told us to come here because it works. And that's what we've prided ourself on it works. It's not information. It's how you apply the information. It's the approach of getting a player from here to here to here along the path. Not just knowing what it is. I mean,

you could sit and watch YouTube all day long and be like, oh, I need the players hands to go from here to here. But how do we get them there? How do we teach them there? That's where experience and wisdom comes in. So, you know, we started at, we, we crawl, I guess, is the best way to say it. And then eventually we run and we

don't skip steps in between. It's a methodical approach that some players can fix in two, two weeks. You know, and I'm talking about severe cases. Like if they don't fix it, they're going to play another sport because it's not going to be fun. Sometimes it's two to three weeks. Sometimes it's two to three months. And sometimes it's a, it's a year. And that's okay because you're

eight or nine years old, right? If you start early, if you start at 10, I have so many kids in the academy that are like nine years old, where before I would never even be, I'd be like, look, there's just let them have fun, let them, let them play. Now I say that to like five year olds, but eight or nine. I'm amazed at how diligent

these kids are and their parents are of, of doing their drills. And this, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I have a couple kids that they're, like I said, they're nine years old. I know exactly what they're going to look like when they're 16. They're

going to have the same damn swing, maybe with a little bit, you know, different rhythm. And they're going to be heat, you know, they're going to be bigger and they're going to be stronger on all these line drives. They're peppering around the 10 year old field are going to be off the wall. Like I can't wait. And I used to say that before, you know, a

lot of the players I work with now are in college. Some are done. A lot of players I worked with have kids. They have real careers. They're gym, right? They're real people. But it's so I'm real for watch, you know, where they go. You know, and for those of you that are in the online academy, I know a lot of you guys listen to this, but

the little kid, you know, that does the I'm updating all those drills this winter to with the same drills. I mean, maybe we'll touch upon a lot of few new ones, but I'm going to reshoot them with, you know, maybe a different player or myself, but that little kid and all those videos, you know, is playing it playing at Harvard. He was a starting catcher yesterday.

And went two for four, you know, hopefully he continues to go two for four today. I've started putting all this pressure on him. But that's what it takes. You know, he started at 10, 11 years old and he worked, right? And if you have the moves and you work hard, you're going to maximize your career. I don't care what that career is. That career could be

12 you. It could be 14 you. It could be high school. It could be division three. It could be the big leagues. I don't know what it is, but you never want to look back at your life and say, what if what if I didn't fix that move? I sure was athletic. And I have a kids in the academy, players in the academy, some high school

kids that are so athletic. They're so big and strong. But they don't put in the work to change. Like there's one kid that I can see because I saw his video and he just doesn't he doesn't do the drills enough. And he just sends in game swings. And he is so physical and strong and athletic. He's probably like 15. But his swing players, training doesn't change

because he doesn't put in the work. And if you. It doesn't matter how athletic you are, if you don't put in the work, it doesn't matter. Even if the work is wrong, I mean, this isn't just hitting work. It could be schoolwork. It could be if you don't do your drills, then that tells me you probably don't do your homework. Like you should. Probably tells you

you don't clean your room. Okay, I gotta stop you there. I gotta stop you hold on. I shouldn't be saying this, but because you're gonna find a new column, you can find a place by AI. There's a website where you could actually generate an AI video of somebody basically acting as the talent quote unquote for your video. Yeah, I saw it on Instagram the other day.

I'm like, oh, well, you know, there goes the lab Epstein meeting podcast. It's you to to generate questions. Yeah. That's number one. Number one. Number two, I do have to push back on something. There are a lot of kids out there and you're looking at them. One of them included. Who would rather do his hitting drills or shoot basketball or shoot hoops or whatever. Or do

his running drills or workout. Then do his schoolwork. And I gotta tell you, I don't recommend it, but it worked out well for me. I'm a college graduate. And I had a pretty. Is that is that an accredited university? No, but you did, Jim, like you did your work. You did your SAT work. Dic you. Dic you. But what is your room? Are you a, are

you a clean person? Are you a? Are you asking me? Let me know. I'm very organized. Like I'm gonna look in your closet. So like this podcast has gone through many iterations of rooms. I'm in the, I'm pretty much at the final room, although that may change to fix the other room around, which is also very clean. I'm very clean. I don't make my bed. That's

one thing. But the closet, the closet is very, very clean. The closet is actually very OCD organized. Yeah. Okay. So that makes sense. We. Yeah. I'm pretty clean. I'm just, I'm just saying. I'm just a school guy. No, who is? How you do one thing is how you do everything? Right, Jim? That's true. I'm deciding to put as much effort into my into my homework. Although

I didn't, I did a little bit more in college, but in high school. Yeah, right. Yeah. Doing homework. Get out of here. I mean, the batting cage, I'm playing basketball. I do like that kind of, but make sure you're eligible. Again, college graduate. We'd get us off topic, Jim. I didn't get any. I'm just. A.I. Where do I type that in? You know what? I'll send

you the website. Somebody probably knows out there listening. Batten handpath that we did this episode previously way back when at the beginning. And we're just circling back. And there's one thing with batten hand path that really never changes. If you don't have a good hand path, you're not gonna have a good bat path. There's things that hitting that evolves, you know, new elements that come into

the game. I eat a pitch clock or I don't know whatever. But I wouldn't say, is that one of my absolutes? I can't remember now. But I would say I tell you this much that if you don't have a good hand path, you're not gonna have a good bad path. I don't care what hitting instructor tells you what every hitter that I see. Speaking. We talked

about Man and Machado earlier with that starting down the count. Oh, one that guy is one of the best hand paths you ever see when Bryce Harper is going wrong. His hand path is off. Yeah. The right hand path is nearly perfect. That's the truth. And trout trout. Same thing. They all have a great hand path. And in essence, have a great bat path. Sorry. Go

ahead. Yeah. And it all fits in. Again, we measure hand path. Not during rhythm. If you have a hitch that has nothing to do with hand path. You know, Barry bonds had a great hand path. My goodness. But he had a big hitch. Right. So the hitch isn't part of that. It's from launch to extension. You know, what are you doing? Once your front foot lands.

Do you have your hands high like Craig council used to have his hands super hot? Yeah. And he would bring him down. Most guys have them low. They'll bounce them. Have a hitch back up to launch. So most guys all fit into that window. You know, again, when I'm doing my analysis with big leaders, you know, their top hand is typically from their ear to their

cheek. Right. It doesn't matter how gets there. It matters when it gets there. If it gets there after their foot comes down bad. If it gets there before that's fine. Okay. But it's when we launch our swing when our front foot hits the ground. We start to kick in where are our hands. That's checkpoint number one for me with every video. If it's a big league

or if it's an international player. If it's a nine year old. That's the first stop on the video analysis. Are we getting there correctly? Is the position correct? How long did it take us to get there? Okay. And when did we start the process of getting there? Okay. We haven't even swung yet. But if you're if something is wrong. It's going to be hard to have

a good hand path because we're catching up. We're trying to cheat now to get our barrel to the ball. And if we do that, usually the arms have to kick in early. And that's when the issues that Jim talked about where we get that separation. The back shoulder starts to turn. But the hands are pushing back or out. That's typically because our hands are trying to

go before our body. And that's a big issue with younger players. Well, great episode this week. We're going to have to wait one more week for episode 133. I'm pulling a TB 12 and I'm getting out of town for the weekend. By TB 12, I mean Tom Brady. Go greatest of all time. Don't tell me Joe Montana either. If you tell me Joe Montana is the

greatest of all time. I'm just going to be a little bit more. I'm going to ignore you because he's not opening up too early. Teachable moments. Jeff McNeil hitting breakdown. We've got a lot of great topics coming up this year. So stick with us. And for a newer listeners. If you don't know what we are, we talk about hitting. We dissect hitting a baseball or a

baseball every week. And we enjoy doing it. And we talk some baseball as well and some other things and some life stuff. So stick with you. Right. I'm at Jim Tara on social media, Twitter, Instagram at Epstein hitting on Twitter and Instagram. I married a great grass fed steak the other day. Oh my God. It was so fucking good. Well, grass fed you need to marinate

a little bit. There's not enough fat and grass fed. It's like London. It's like London broil. You need to. Oh yeah. You need to marinate. For sure. But I married. Good work, Jim. You're glowing because of it. I know. That's actually the ring light. All right. So again, follow us and subscribe to the YouTube page. The lab Epstein hitting podcast YouTube page. And we will talk

to you next time.