Examining Bat Speed and Quickness

Uh Hi everybody welcome into another edition of the Lab XC mini podcast episode 127 Happy New Year 2023 we're back for another year of talking hitting and baseball and teaching you all about hitting and the game of baseball episode 127 thanks for joining us our topic today first topic 2023 our first episode back after a short break bat speed and bat quickness which one is more

important We're gonna talk about some measurables today got a lot of information that we are going to decipher through and discuss Bat speed bat quickness I'm looking forward to it. Let me bring in the guy couldn't do this without my friend co-host professional evaluator successful business owner Jake Epstein He's going on there, sir Getting ready to talk about bat quickness and bat speed I have an

opinion on this because I've done my research I'm not saying you're insinuating that you haven't because you certainly have and you are an expert but I think I'm just gonna go right for it here and then we'll talk about more later I believe though with bat speed and bat quickness if you don't have bat quickness the bat speed that you may have or may not have

in the at the end doesn't really matter. Yeah, my dad used to say before there were any measurables he used to say You gotta have that quickness. If you don't have that quickness, you're not gonna have bat speed. So you gotta you gotta you know you gotta use science to get it going that's kind of the main thing you gotta use big muscles to pull small

muscles and you have to decelerate big muscles at the right time to accelerate small muscles. So there's a lot that goes into it but all that data can be skewed where you on plane is your bat speed really good but you don't really ever barrel the ball up There's a lot that goes into that final am I a good hitter. So it'll be fun to kind

of dig into that today. I do want to discuss with you and just get your opinion on Rafael Devers as a hitter of course if people don't know the Red Sox finally signed somebody this off season after letting bow guards go and I mean they did pick up they did pick up Turner grants a good point they did pick up Justin Turner but they signed Rafael

Devers another 300 plus million dollar guy I have an opinion on this and I will discuss it down the line on maybe another different podcast project that we'll discuss later on down the line that I'll be doing on my own this time but I just want to get your opinion Rafael Devers what do you think of him as a hitter I think he's kind of wippy

I'll never forget when he came up in August of 2017 you remember that first game I or one of his first games you know home run off a roll just jatman on Sunday night baseball took 100 plus mile per hour pitch into the bullpen and left center. So you knew that this guy had something I think it's sort of a risk for the Red Sox 300

million maybe you could have given that to bets although at the time the financials were in question because of the pandemic and the loss of money and financials within the game of baseball what are your thoughts Rafael Devers as a hitter now going forward he's the centerpiece for the Red Sox. Yeah he's he's a quality I will say I haven't watched a ton of his stuff

you know I haven't seen him play a whole lot what I have seen is a guy that that plays the game you know he reminds me of the guy in Cleveland. A lot. Jose Jose Ramirez. Jose Ramirez and I don't know if it's their build or what or the way they play the game or their positions but you know he does kind of remind me of

that you know he's obviously not a switch hitter but you know the numbers the numbers don't lie guy puts up quality numbers you're in and you're out and yeah I mean he hasn't been in the league for that long but from what he's done at the big league level you know he's right around four 300 probably and hits home runs and drives and runs you know

if his defense and that's what I don't know it you know on the defensive side of his defense is where it is then hey you know you pretty much have to lock guys up now it seems like until they're you know 40 something years old seems to be the way nobody wants to retire at 37 anymore even though they could probably make more money with a

short term deal. You know and then you just have guys kind of wearing out the rest of their career you know still making money so I don't know if the longevity will pay off but I would say for the next five years it's your will. So looking up some of his defensive or trying to anyway some of his defensive statistics I think he's gotten better over

the past few years because there was a point there where he just was not very good over there at third base defensively probably from around 2019 to 2020 so last year playing third base here's a good number for you you played in 138 games started 137 at third base so there is some some longevity there at least in this part of his career where he can

play a good amount of games at third base okay let's see here now it's 28 maybe 27 he made 14 errors last year he was born in 1996 they don't say is a 26 26 years old so that's a good contract right what was it 10 or 11 years I think it was around 10 or 11 years so it's it's a good deal yeah um the

only made 14 errors last year much better than the 22 he made in 2021 he made 22 in 2019 made 24 in 2018 so you're point defensively he wasn't one point bordering on being a liability but not really so much anymore he's a good defender and obviously he can hit both left-handed and right-handed pitching yeah and he's a third baseman he's not shortstop you know that

kind of pressure and and you know damage on the body I think that's the whole career issue is I mean I'm obviously speculating here but it's probably arthritis right there's probably some arthritis that's building up in that ankle that he broke um you think that's what it is I like something like that that's gonna hurt him later on or they think it's gonna hurt I mean

they told me I broke my ankle in 2000 good lord 20 2000 no 2000 2000 1999 right what is that 23 years ago 24 years ago 23 and a half years ago and summer ball fell to ball off it and they're like oh you're gonna have you know really bad arthritis in that foot you know in 20 something years later um knock on wood it's it's

not debilitating yet you know I I it cracks but it's not painful and I think that's what they're probably worried about something in there is yes there's no problem now he moves just fine but that contract goes until he's I don't know if 38 39 40 years old is he gonna be able to still move around and play defense on that foot I think that's what

everybody's concerned about I don't know if it's his left or right ankle if it's his left ankle that's what blocks everything when we hit right if we can't push back and stay behind balls that could create a problem so that would be my guess I mean that the fact that he's not limping around and he doesn't have problems mean it's something there for seeing popping up

in 5 10 15 years and nobody knows when that will happen in a way I'm a little bit relieved that and I hope Carlos Greia is okay but I'm relieved that he might not be going to the meds now because I think that the meds have opened up the floodgates which you know they they're already weak to begin with the whole idea of well there's a

luxury tax and that acts as the game's salary cap but you just need to bet one owner and the meds got it for the one guy who's gonna pay all this money and not really care about having to pay luxury tax fees. Yeah well until they win three or four world series in a row I won't worry about it because at least that luxury tax at

least that luxury tax goes to if I'm not mistaken that money goes to small market teams. I can say a boo boo. Maybe Steve Cohen on kick in a little extra. I was going to say it raised the brewers staff gets raises. I think it was maybe it was after the projected after the career signing. I think Steve Cohen will have to pay 175 million dollars

in tax fees. Yeah. So he's going to Steve Cohen in a way if the brewers a small market team for example. If they'd get that money some of that money. Steve Cohen theoretically is going to be buying some of their free agents. Yeah. He has to come. And Pittsburgh and Colorado. I don't know if Colorado is considered a small market team but you know it. Well

you signed Chris Bryan. I'm not so sure about that. You know like I know how you feel about Colorado. I like Chris Bryan a lot too. It was just a bad deal for the Rockies because he had hurt and played 12 games last year. What's in the water out there? What's in the water? Well it's now in the water too. Right. Hey, Hey, Stan Stocker Steve

SDS reached out to me. Stan Stocker Steve of course, no, no, he's a great academy. He is someone who worked with app offensively of course years ago. He implements app. A lot of I don't want to miss speak for him. He implements a lot of app. I might do it anyway. Sorry. He implements a lot of apps teachings but nevertheless he is a great academy here

in Tampa, Florida. And he reached out to me on Instagram at Jim Tara over the time that we were away in over the new year. And he was working with a player. I won't name who it is. But he was working or still is working with that player who is now in winter balls somewhere maybe I don't know where but he is in winter ball and

he had a home run and we were kind of going back and forth about talking about his swing and and Stan Stocker Steve was working with him. Anyway, my point being and this is a lesson for kids up and you can definitely feel through this lesson through as well. You never know who's watching. I this person professional player who Stan Stocker Steve SDS is working with

that player does not know that I'm watching. And not that really matters at all because it doesn't. I'm not saying it does certainly. But you never know, especially high school players college pro not so much but high school players. This is a lesson for you. You never know who's watching. There are means of communication that didn't exist when Epin I played when Epin I were in

our prime so to speak. Those commutes modes of communication didn't exist. Stan Stocker Steve reached out to me on Instagram didn't exist back then. So players especially now that there's a microscope on you even more and you never know who's watching. That's the first lesson of the Lab Epstein hitting podcast Jake in 2023. Yeah, very I mean that goes back to the whole Demagio story way

back when you know he was 15 years in his career and stretched a single into a double and slid into second base hard and they said you know why'd you do that in a meaningless game and he said well there might be a kid here somebody here that's never seen be played before and I want him to know that that's the way I play the game.

So yeah you never know who's watching. I mean. I can tell you so many stories about college recruiters going to go and to look at one person and somebody else caught their eye you know and just being in the right place at the right time. So yeah I don't know STS you may want to pass you know as Steve if that's okay to you know. I

didn't say STS I said as DS. Yes. Yes. Is a DS a doctor of something Stan Stan. Yes. DDS would be a damn yeah so Steve you know Schwarz is a great story because he was he was my first. You don't think you don't think he'll like Stan's Dr. Steve as DS. I don't know. Yeah maybe not. Sorry. No, no, maybe he will maybe now I'm

gonna text from this week saying I love it. I love it Jim. Yeah. Go ahead. Sure. I'm sure you will. Can I finish my story about. Sorry. Yes. Go ahead. Yes. Please. Yes. So he was the first guy came to certification and said Jake can you do this full time after certification. This was his first one. He's gone. And I was like wow Steve that's a

you know bold prediction to you know quit your job and doing what you're doing and then you know really convert. He didn't have he wasn't doing lessons or anything prior to that he was working with his son. And he got better and better and he he did he just invested in it. He went full board. He got himself a little cage and started doing lessons and

making waves and now he's got a great academy. He's an excellent instructor and it just shows you when you have good information and you put in the time and you love what you do. You work with professional players even though you weren't a professional player yourself right sometimes you just have to be good at what you do and be passionate about it. So. Test DS. Test

DS. Stance Dr. Steve. Yeah but that's a lesson in there as well. You go to app for certification. This is true. Like it's good information. You're gonna make players better. Yeah. So this week on cross functionality. Cassie Riley Boehm and I please subscribe to that podcast as well. Cross dash functionality for those wondering we talked about episode 24 training variability. When to do it. Why to

do it. How to do it. When to implement it. I want to ask you on the hitting side of training variability. And some of this involves chaos training. Yeah. Which is another buzz word. Another big topic that has creeped up in the last year. So some like it. Others don't. And then there's of course the vitriol in the middle. It has to be done at the

right time. So there's stages of learning. There's stages of competence. There's knowing the player you're working with. You can't just throw players in a situation like that that have big swing flaws. Because they're gonna fail. Then they're gonna get frustrated. And then they could pop up. So you have to cater your environment to the players you're working with. I'll give you an example. I was in

at the lab last week. Just got back. And this was kind of my the time of year where I go there. And I get to meet all. A lot of the college players I've worked with over the years. You know, that started training with me when they were 12 and now they're 20 and they're there in college. Some of them are 22 by the way for

you old people. You know who I'm talking about. But they're you know, they're in college. They're preparing for the season. We did allow a couple high school girls in that are very competitive and very good. Just so they could be. You know, surrounded by players that are at the top of their peak. So we had, I don't know, I think we had five baseball and six

softball players, something like that. We treat them. So we go through and I train them and see where everybody is and what are we working on? What do you need to work on? Okay, go do work. Go work on this. Go work on this. You know, let's get your knee here, your foot here, your arm here. Towards the end of the training it's three days. So

it's like, you know, three hours a day. So towards the end, then we start getting them ready. Right. Okay, the swings look good. We've covered what we need to we need to cover. Now let's bounce from this cage. Let's take two swings on a change up two swings on a fastball. Let's bounce here. Let's go one swing off a curve ball then bounce into this machine

that's going, you know, high spin fastballs. And so we kind of do that. And then I'll do some drills where they're not comfortable, right there. They're moving their feet a little too much where it's almost a fun drill. I started working on it with Viv actually about a month ago. It's like a little shuffle drill, but it makes you react. Because some if you get a

slide step or something like that, somebody has a quick delivery and sometimes in softball, though, go a little quicker to with their with their wind up. But sometimes you got to be able to react and move a little bit faster than you're used to. And so we'll kind of adjust timing and and I'll try to mess them up with different timing mechanisms and different speeds. And

it just tells me if their body can get into position. We don't want to do that too much where it creates problems, but it definitely forces the player to organize their body the right way to get to certain pitches. And that would be the chaos trading how I use it. And I think it's very beneficial. I just think it has to be beneficial. It has to

be used at the right time. If we were to using it on 10 year old kids, you know, probably not going to be super beneficial for them. They're going to be better served, you know, making sure that their rhythm and timing is starting on time. What do you make of of training variability when it comes to implementing it? What time to implement it? Is it every

eight to 12 weeks? They always say that when you're working out in the gym, you should give yourself at least eight to 12 weeks for that workout. Go through it so your body can adapt a little bit. A little bit different. Obviously, when it comes to hitting when it comes to baseball and softball, but when do you implement how often do you implement that that training

variability? I would sometimes, depending on the player, I'll implement it for five minutes of an hour lesson. Or it could be every single week, I implement it. For other players, it could be once a quarter because they're just not ready for it yet. Maybe it's not, you know, we're not getting ready for the season. Maybe it's winter time. Maybe it's November, December, January, and we're working

mechanics. Well, I'm not going to implement any kind of crazy stuff until, you know, before the season starting. And that's when I'm going to really kind of hammer in some different variables in terms of timing and reaction. So I would say it. It depends on the player and what that player needs. And that's kind of the root of everything that Epstein hitting is all about. It's,

it's taking a player and assessing that player. And what does that player need more than anything else? Like I said, I had nine or 10 players in Texas. And they all needed to work on something different. I focused on what they needed to be better, not what the group needed to be better. And I think as a quality coach, that's what you have to do. You

have to understand personalities. You have to understand swing. You have to understand strengths and weaknesses. And when you can put all that together and train a player, that player is going to be, you know, hopefully the best that they can be. All right. Well, these sure are subscribed across functionality. Again, that was our topic this week training variability. So please subscribe. Apple Google Spotify, Cassie Riley,

Botion, I former national champion at the University of Alabama on the softball side. So please do indeed subscribe to that podcast. Okay. Let's get into our topic. Today bat speed bat quickness episode 127 your father said this years ago and he said this in his book. He said that when it comes to bat speed. A guy swinging. And by the way, for full context purposes, when

you see somebody on TV, Major League Baseball, a hitter, but the exception of say a Bryce Harper or I don't know somebody who has really, really quick bat speed. And I was like, good Lord. Okay, him that was moving Gary Sheffield. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But with the exception of those guys, Major League players, when an answer say, well, he has great bat speed analyst say, well,

he has great bat speed. So the players have evolved. But overall, in general, when it comes to bat speed and bat quickness, it's how quick you can get your hands bat quickness from the launch position on plane and to the point of contact. But if you swing the bat fast, but you don't do any of those other things, it doesn't really matter in the end, right?

For sure. Yeah. So let me, let me tell you just something I saw this morning, actually. So I was training up one of the players in Texas, who's very electric. This was a younger player, okay, not a college player. And her bat speed is probably in the, on a blast on a blast motion sensor, right? Her bat speed was like 72 to 74, which is unbelievably

fast for, we'll call this player 15 years old. Okay, might still be 14. Actually, I don't know. And her exit velocity, however, was consistently 70, 70, 70. 74. So it wasn't matching how great her bat speed was because her barrel was in and out of the zone for a long time. And she didn't square it up real often. Okay, or often enough. I mean, in front

of you, but you know, in a game, it's going to be a little bit tougher. So it's like super. If you just looked at that number, you're like, Holy cow. Now I don't know where that number is. Okay. So where does it reach 74 miles an hour? And I was blown away. Actually, when I saw that number, like, where is it? Is it in her follow

through? Is it way way out in front that she do something special with her, her hands at the, at the end of the swing point? I don't know. Then I turned on, I don't know, Twitter had this girl hitting and I don't know if this was a real number, but she said that her exit velocity. I think it may have been a former professional player or

trainer or something like that. She hit a ball 80, a softball 88 miles an hour. Well, that's one of the hardest soft balls I've ever seen hit just so you know, like soft balls. If you can be in the 80 mile an hour club, you're a top division one like power hitter. If you're like 82, 83. Okay. So this girl said she had an 88 and

she may have she's strong and really nice swing. And then it said her bat speed was she maxed out at 66 miles an hour. And I'm like 66 miles an hour to hit a ball 88. You know, I'm like, that's a good ball. Yeah, that's a quality that's some kind of really hot ball to be able to have that. But regardless, even if she only hit

an 80 miles an hour at 66, you know, why can she hit the ball, you know, 10 to 50 miles an hour harder than someone swinging a bat 74 miles an hour. Right. So it has to do with consistency. It has to do with can you barrel balls up, you know, and then if you, if your bat speed is is really fast too early in the

zone. Like a lot of players, you know, if you, if you cast, you'll get a reading really high early in the swing. So when you hit the ball, you'll like right field when you're late, that's your highest bat speed. And then you'll decelerate because you're biased. So you have to look at all these variables. So what I look at is at the front toes, at the

front foot, what is your bat speed? And how long did it take you to get there? So back quickness. If again, we're talking about a blast or any other sensor device. What is your back quickness? Most major leaders are 0.15 0.15 to 0.16 from when they launched their swing to when they made a contact. Okay. So what if you make contact at your back hip because

you're late and you're hitting the ball to right field? Well, your bat quickness might be 0.14 seconds. Wow. You were the quickest person to the ball. But then all of a sudden your bat speed might be 6 miles an hour less than it would be at your front toes. So it doesn't do you any good to be super have great back quickness and no, no speed

with it. So a part of the proper swing if you have good mechanics, typically your, your barrels going to reach maximum speed right around your front toes, maybe an inch or two in front depends on how wide you are. So you have to be consistent with your readings. If you can be what I try to get my amateur players, if you can get to be 0.1,

and these are non pros, right. So 0.16 seconds. Okay. That used to be major league average 0.16 seconds at your front toes. And you have decent bat speed. Okay. Depending on your age, then everything. Everything is really good. If your bat speed doesn't reach full speed until 4 or 5 inches in front of your front toes, well, then your swing plane may be off. You may

be swinging down too much. And again, that doesn't play right. You might cut under balls or miss balls. And then vice versa. If you dump your barrel and accelerate too quickly, I would say, meaning you, I don't want to say the snap at is bad because there is some of that. But if you're trying to get on plane like at your back hip or back foot,

typically, what happens is you'll go below the pitch plane and then you won't be as consistent out by your front knee. So there are so many variables that play in here. And quite honestly, you have to max out what you do. You know, what is, what is the purpose of of Epstein, it was a purpose of me. Is it, you know, for every professional player I

work with or for every player that I'm doing my scouting work, you know, whether it's a team USA player or it's an international player or whatever it is. I'm working with 25. To 50 that are 10 to, well, probably not 10 12 to 16, 17 years old that are just regular players that want to play high school baseball. Okay. And that's what I want to do.

I want kids to play the game. I want kids to enjoy their game softball baseball. I don't care. So I'm not going to get electric players. Everybody that walks in the door that has these crazy abilities. So I have to find a way to maximize what the player is. Their body and their athleticism is capable of doing. And that's where you find bat quickness. Right. That's

where how can we be the most efficient. I'm going to let you jump in here and then I'll get back to bat quickness. But, you know, again, we're treating everybody as an individual. And how can we maximize that person? Well, okay. So there's a lot of ambiguity when it comes to bat speed. Yes, bad quickness. Right. Yes. The one thing I want to ask you. You

mentioned a little bit in there with blast motion. Some of the measurables. How can we measure bat quickness? If there is such if we can do that, I'm not sure that that blast motion can do that. We can. Right. Okay. Yeah. How can we launch the contact essentially? How can we measure bat quickness? And come up with some sort of plan based off those measurements to

improve bat speed. I'm not saying that you should swing the bat slow either. By the way, I want to make that clear. Yeah. But the goal to try and the sole goal of trying to swing a bat at 95 miles per hour is not a feasible one. And it's not something that's going to get you better. But we can't do that. And combine the two and

I wonder how we can filter and go through that kind of consolidate everything and do it through the measurables. Yeah. I mean, you're going to get bat speed by having good mechanics and using using your body and being strong. So bat speed has to do with, you know, are you strong? Do your muscles move fast? You know, some players are strong. Their muscles don't move fast.

They're not electric or explosive. So you can build that through strength exercises, swinging heavy bats, things like that. But yes. It has to be, you know, just because somebody swings the bat, they used to, they used to do bat speed with like a radar detector. You would just swing it. Nothing. You would just swing the bat in space like a dry hack. And then it would

register. It would register the fastest speed of your, your bat. But it wasn't barrel speed. It was like the end of the bat. Well, the end of the bat is going to be a lot faster than four, four or five inches from the end of the bat. Right. That's where the sweet spot is. So that's a nice part. Blast actually is telling you, what is your

barrel speed? Not, not the bat, meaning like in golf, if I'm swinging a really long club, it'll swing fast, better short club, just because of leverage and length and whip. So it's just, but that's what it was. Oh, we measured, you know, batsmeat for me. Honestly, what is the ball doing? Right. If you, for instance, if somebody has really good bat speed and it's way out

in front. And they hit a ball really hard. It's probably a one hopper to the shortstop. I don't care about a one hopper to the shortstop. That's, that's not going to, that's not going to get us a lot of success in the box. So what if we move that ball back? Okay. To her front foot or his front foot and they hit a line drive into

the left center field gap because they weren't cheating it. They weren't cheating that number, which is every single showcase you go to now, everybody is cheating a number. They're cheating a throwing number. They're, they can't really cheat. At least when we do our, our speed stuff, when we do our assessments, you know, at the lab, it's like laser time. So it doesn't move until they go

through the, they go through the, you know, it's not a stopwatch. It's all that digitally. So. So you're saying that your players don't feel the ground ball. As if they're at shortstop and then shuffle their feet eight time. Yes. They can. Yes. Right. It's okay. So great things for kids. As a pull down when people like, why do you do a pull down? Well, you're doing

a pull down to try to throw harder. Yeah. I'm assuming I'm not a pitch. They don't do these things, by the way. And you know, because you, you scout these hitters in the Dominican Republic and you internationally, they don't do these things internationally, right? They don't have these show, these types of showcases where these coaches say, okay, try to throw as hard and let's measure your

velocity from short to. They have. There's more. It's more consolidated, right? It's, it's different. They're saying, okay, don't shuffle your feet eight thousand times. Correct. And they do have technology. They'll throw a blast on, but the players aren't manipulating the blast. They're just taking their normal BP with the blast. You know, they're not. Because, you know, why? Because scout to their looking at ball flight to.

Yeah. You know, and they're like, okay, that ball looks good off the bat. And their numbers were this not what is the number that gets posted to a website. And then random people look at the website and say, Oh my gosh, this person's bat speed or exit velocity is 103 miles an hour. Well, they may have only hit one ball. And it was a hooked ground

ball down the left field line. And it was 103 miles an hour, but they went over 10 in the game in the games that we can. So there's, there's just, there's a lot that we do. But, you know, pull downs, getting back to pull downs. That's, that's one of the things that I'm trying to get a number and use the pull down for. And I don't

know if that's good for your arm, bad for I really don't know. I don't have an opinion on that, but I'm assuming it's to get your body into position to throw hard. Okay. Like that's almost like chaos training. If I try to throw hard, my body's probably going to stride the right way. I'm going to, you know, land the right way. I'm going to turn the

right whatever it is. But, oh, my pull down was 102. I'm going to put that up. That doesn't make you pitch like this is a mean you're going to throw harder from a regular pitching position. Right. It just means that if you take, if you sprint halfway down a cage and throw as hard as you can, that your arm strength is getting better. So I think

for a personal note, it's like, yeah, I'm throwing hard rock feel good. But for somebody to post that and be like, wow, look at me. You know, that, that is a throw bullpen. And if you throw it 98 miles an hour, I'm like, okay, I don't care if it's pull down as 93 or 115. You know what I mean? Like he's doing it in a, in

the proper environment. So we have to be careful like anything else. You know, back quickness, like I said before, is super important. If you cast the bat. So, you know, if you lose your top end early, typically your back quickness will be delayed. Okay. If you pre-extend your arm early, your, your bat speed will be delayed. Now, sometimes I use back quickness. Readings on video analysis

because my eyes can tell me a lot more than what that sensor is. Some players have like a weird hitch. Okay. They may have a little hitch with their hands. Well, what will happen is that sensor will, will think that that hitch is the start of the swing. So now all of a sudden, I might have a player that shows bat quickness at 0.20 instead of

0.16. And I'm like, well, that's, that's bad. You know, unless there are 10, right? But maybe this person 16 and they're at 0.2, 0.19, 0.2. And I'm like, what is going on? Their swing looks pretty good. Usually it's, they just do something with their hand that accelerates the knob. And then that sensor reaction says, oh, he's starting his swing. Well, maybe he really didn't start his

rotation yet. Maybe it was part of his, like Gary Schiffield would be a nightmare for the blast. Okay. Like it's going to have a hard time figuring out where. So sometimes there's that, you know, where it's like it looks like a batter reading. And then sometimes you have a bat quickness reading that's just not great. But the players 12 years old. And they find barrel after

barrel after barrel. And it's like, okay, I'm not going to change that. You're 12. You know what's fun when you're 12? Yeah. Right. Getting on base. Not going on with a home run. Right. Going six for 10 with a couple doubles. So, okay. Let's get bigger and stronger. Let's see how you progress. A Tom House posted something or one of his people posted something a few

months ago. And it was like, you really shouldn't evaluate players until they've all gone through puberty. Yeah. And it really is true. Like some people are men at 14 and some aren't. Some don't get to be men until they're 16 or 17. So you don't know, you know, you don't know where they're going to be. But you can't compare those two people. You know, and that's

usually where it is. That that 12 to 14 age. Holy cow. You have some people that are just big and strong and fast and and and through puberty. And then you have some people that are just hanging on, you know, hoping that they don't get cut. So that when they do go through puberty in another year or two. You know, they're still playing the game. So

be careful. Be careful with all those numbers. Yes. Backquickness. When we're talking about the ball, you know, releases from the hand and hits the glove in, I believe on average, 0.4 seconds. Okay. So 0.4 seconds on a 90 mile an hour fastball. Hand a glove. Right. Ball comes out of hand hits the catchers. But as a hitter. Our swing takes, you know, roughly 0.16 seconds. Okay.

So that leaves us 0.2. 0.2.2 seconds to make up our mind. 0.2.4 seconds to make up our mind. We also don't hit the ball at the catchers. Right. We hit the ball. I don't know. If you feet from the catchers. So that means 0.2.4 is probably 0.22. 0.23. So we got to make up our mind to swing. When the balls tend to 12 feet from the

plate. I mean, there's just not a lot of time. Let's be honest. So the quicker you can be, if your backquickness is at your front toes. Okay. And you have a normal, normal load and everything, normal swing, normal hand position. If you're at 0.18 and you can get that to 0.16 at your toes, you're going to be better. You're going to buy yourself three 100s of

a second more to recognize a pitch. And that's why backquickness is important. You don't have to cheat as much. And your father said this years ago, he said, bat speed really isn't all that important. If you have a lighter bat. So if you have bat speed, a bat that's 27, 28 ounces, okay. But if you have bat speed, and that doesn't really work, is what I'm

trying to say. It doesn't. It doesn't matter in the end. If you have bat speed with a bat that's say 35 inches, 35 ounces. Okay. Now you can see the correlation, bat speed and bat quickness. They're starting to work together because scientifically now you're going with the numbers with the metrics and you're using the right equipment. Yeah, and leverage, right? I mean, you're selling a bat

with mass. It's crazy. I think that's the cool thing that Marucci is at the performance lab. Marucci does something that's really cool. And it's really, you know, it's only for big lagers, you know, but that are Marucci guys, but they put all the stuff on them. And they give them different bats that are different weights and different lengths. It doesn't really work in the whole aluminum

or composite, you know, metal bat category. But, you know, more unloaded, maybe a heavier knob, you know, you get it, you know, more, more hand loaded with the bat, put the weight there, increase it, you know, what is all, and then what makes them more consistent. So I'm the cool part is you can test all that. You know, here's 10 bats. It's golf club fitting. The

guy was a golf club fitter for that runs it. He's a really sharp guy. But I'm going to give you a, I'll give you an example. There was a kid I was working with in New York City, actually, at the baseball center. And he was using a, whatever, 30, he was, he was just getting into high school. I think it was like 14, maybe eighth grade.

He was using a 32 and he was a pretty tall kid. He was like 61, maybe a third, maybe a 31 or 32. I don't know what it was. Still drop three. And his bat speed and exit velocity were, I'll just make up numbers. His bat speed was say 65. And his exit velocity was, we'll say, you know, 80. And then he had, he was like,

oh, I have this other bat, Jake. And it was wood. It was a wood bat. The other one was metal. And it was an inch longer and an ounce and a half heavier. I was like, well, that's cool. Let's strap. So we strapped on the blast. And then whatever. So his bat speed was actually a mile and hour less. But he was hitting the ball three

to four miles an hour harder. Because the bat had more leverage and more whip. But even though it considered the bat speed less because they're using an algorithm. And let's be honest, the sensor is at the knob. Okay. So the center is a little bit more. The center isn't in the middle of the barrel. It's not in the middle of the sweet spot. So it's using

an algorithm. Well, if the knob moves this fast, then the barrel is going to move this fast based on how long it is. Okay. So by getting that player to swing a heavier bat, he actually hit the ball harder. That's what it's all about. The ball. I'm care what the barrels do. And how hard are you hitting the ball? Okay. Are you hitting the ball consistently

harder? And then we looked at his back quickness. It was exactly the same. So he was at whatever point one six or point one seven, whatever his number was. That didn't change. So the result was, okay, you need to use this bat. It's a little bit longer. You definitely will do that. So we're working. I don't know if I can say this actually. Well, this is

a big thing. I'm going to say I mean, it's not. We're working with the Texas A&M University Engineering Department. And we're trying to put sensors in different places. On the bat and the hands. To bring it all together to figure out what is the best way. Because there's so many, so many people out there that are like just use your body, right? Like like judge, you

know, judge and rich. Shake, rich or change, right? They're a big, you know, body. Like let's load up that back hip and turn fast and snap, you know, whatever snap in the back hip and the hand and whatever. But it's more of a, it's not like a hand through the zone extension. You know, they're not worried about really staying inside the ball. Even though they do,

you know, it's more of a turn. It's a fast turn. Okay. So you have, you have people like that. But then you have other people that are like the opposite, you know, they're worried about their hands all the time. You know, would be a Gary Schifffield or something like that. You know, well, isn't that a cue though? Isn't that kind of like a cue? Right. It's

a cue. So I'm not going to like judge is thinking more body. He's not really thinking, you know, it's not a good thing. But the hands part, what you mentioned thinking that's kind of like Tony Gwynne used to say that to, hey, you know, hands, hands, hands, hands, right? And just think about his hands. You know, I'm sure. But it's more like the initial move, right?

They're big thing is the initial move with the hands where a lot of big league players are more with extension out in front, right? Late movement with the hands. Right. And so, you know, building kinetic energy. And, you know, what do we do that? Cause you have some, I mean, I look at so much video, right? I consider myself an expert now, Jim. Did we talk

about this? Don't say guru because that's no, no, no, no, expert. Yeah, experts find what makes somebody an expert in a field 10,000 hours a thousand hours. Did we do that? Yeah. Now I also want to say this to another band saying on this show, trust the process. There's a company out there, a clothing company. Yeah. And I really like a lot. I love their clothes.

I won't mention them because they're not a sponsor. Yeah. But they have a shirt and a headband that says trust the process on it. Yeah. I like that. I'm not, I'm not buying that shirt from that company. I'll buy the other stuff. I'm not buying trust the process. You love the process. I hate the process. No such thing as the process. So there's, there's also so

anyway, 76ers would have won the NBA championship. The joke I was trying to make was I've looked at a ton of video, right? I've looked at probably 20,000, 25,000 hours worth of video. And, you know, people do different things. And I see little skinny people with great hands that hit the ball really hard and fall far. You know, you look at, you know, think about Hank

Aaron would probably be your, your main example. Like that dude was all hands. Yes, he rotated. Yes, he got, but he was a front foot hands guy. You know, he had really great control of the bat. And, you know, he had a lot of home around. So why is that? Why is some people create so much hand speed where other people, you know, use their body

more like what's, what's the best combination of that? So anyway, we're working on a project. We have really smart people working on that. Not putting it on, but putting it on the business, you know, some of the presidents answered a question about it. So they wrote a recent video on it. We have the last book tonight that we called it. B pathways why do you need

any sort of identity information? What is it? I am expert. He's fixing the cable. He's fixing the cable. I found a shirt that says I am expert. And I want to wear it. And I want to see how many people think I'm a jerk for thinking I'm an expert or how many people know it's from Carl hungus in the big basket. So there's a, I saw

this on Twitter. There is a certain account like it's like a bow tied type deal. I don't know if you've ever seen these things on Twitter or on social media. Anyway, I'm a huge social media. As I've seen. So this guy had a sweatshirt. He was on a podcast. There was a clip of the podcast on this, of him on this, on Twitter, of him on

this podcast. He didn't show, it didn't show his face, but it showed his sweatshirt and it had three words and listen to the lady listeners tune out now. If you think this might be a little inappropriate, but I have to say it. It was a sweatshirt. It had three little words. And it said, I eat ass. And that was it. Jesus. So I think maybe one

of us should know that one of us is not wearing that gym. You sick bastard. I'm not don't call me sick. I'm not one to war it. I'm just. Yeah, but it's triggered something in your psyche to say, you know what? I think I'm going to say that on the air. It's funny. It's because it's it's entertainment value for the show. It's all right. Final point

here. Bat speed, bad quickness. Yeah. What is the main message? By the way, email us your questions. Jimbo podcast. email.com. What is your main message? I don't care. You know what? Hey, they're all going to spam. Anyway, Jesus Christ. All the emails like get about how horrible we are. Um, what is your main message, bad speed, bad quickness today that you want to relate everybody? Uh,

I would say focus on efficiency and back quickness, especially younger ages, focus. Don't worry about your bad speed and focus on the balls. And the ball consistently, uh, or the ball consistency. I think that's the most important. If you're chasing a number on your blast and it's bad speed, I don't really care. Um, I mean, I kind of care because while that's cool and there's some

explosiveness there. But if the ball isn't coming off of the bat at an appropriate ratio as your bat speed, then it's useless. Meeting if you're swinging the bat. If you're a professional player, I think Albert Pooleholz had average bat speed, right? He was 78 to 82. Most of his career or at least earlier in his career. He had average bat speed. And he would hit the

ball, say 105 to 110 miles an hour. So say he was 80 miles an hour and hit it 100, right? That's 20. When he barrels it up, he's hitting the ball 20 miles an hour harder than he's swinging. Of course, with today's balls, it might be a little bit different. But if I have somebody with 80 mile an hour bat speed and they only hit the

ball, consistently like 92 to 94 miles an hour, then it doesn't match up. Their bat speed is super fast way out in front. But when they're way out in front, they hit the ball off the end of the bat, not the sweet spot. So you have to figure out, where is their sweet spot? Where is their contact point? Then is the bat speed good. So let's

be efficient. Let's be quick to the ball. Let's have good extension so that we can save save our, you know, when our timing, if we're two or three inches early, we can still barrel something. Let's work on that. And then bat speed, let's get in the gym and let's eat right and let's maximize that bat speed for our perfect contact point around our front. All right,

very good. Again, if you have any questions, email us, streambo podcast 21 and Gmail.com. And if they're good ones, I will get back to you and we will read them on the air and answer those questions, concerns, comments, or whatever. I forgot what the topic was next week. So I guess you'll just have to wait until next week, like me, because I just forgot what it

was. I forgot to write it down. What do you got coming up at the lab? I just got back from the lab. So I'll tell you what I got. I'll tell you what I had on the online academy side. Yeah. The online. So Denver, I got, you know, all my, all my high school players were doing like competitive games, the high school seasonal, you know, be

underway. They're practicing. So we're doing Sunday games to create a little competition for on four. We get that machine nasty and we talk a little smack, you know, between innings and get these guys to compete. So we're doing that here. The online academy just exploded because the new year is here. People are like, you know, one of 2023. We got a better set and Jake are

videos and see what kind of progress we're making. So yeah, that's kind of what I got going on between those two. But yeah, if you're out there and you want your swing evaluated and you want to get on a plan to get better, Epstein online academy.com is for you. How was that? So bad. Well, that was so bad. Are you so mad for you? I don't

think it was bad. Wasn't the best. I mean, I've heard you deliver things better, but it wasn't terrible. They got the job done. That was a good way to put it. Yeah. All right. Next week, you're best in 2023. That was I was pretty good too. Where are you trying to voiceover stuff now? Yeah. I know, by the way, I know I saw this on Instagram.

You follow us, by the way, at Jim Tara at Epstein, hitting on both Twitter and Instagram. I didn't mention that once today. We're having so much fun. But I saw the EA sports guy. Do you remember the EA sports guy when he was a EA sports? Yeah. I saw that on Instagram. And he did that to somebody next to him while like a fan or whatever

that asked him to do that. And he did it on Instagram. And now I know what he looks like. I was like, because I remember that from when I was like, high school, he's like in his 50s. So they still do EA sports. It's in the game. I think so. I would think so. I mean, listen to high school, you know, 2006, 2007, wake up Saturday

morning. And if you know, after breakfast, after some baseball stuff, you know, me. I'd go turn on the PlayStation. There's Mad No Six. And the first thing you hear, EA sports. That's great. That's great. And then I would try to build my own franchise to win a Super Bowl. And what I would do is I would sign like every single free. Hi, dad. There was no

player development with me. Steve Cohen. I really was. I'm. I know. I did. All right. We got to get out of here. Episode 128. We will talk to everybody next week. Thank you for listening and watching. Have a great week.