Finding a Player's Intangibles

Hey Hi everybody welcome to another edition of the Lab Epstein Hitting Podcast. Thank you for coming. Today, wherever, however, whatever time of day you are listening or watching, on the audio side Apple Google Spotify, wherever you get your podcast and of course on YouTube, the Lab Epstein Hitting Podcast page, episode 131. Thank you for joining us today, talking about finding intangibles, plus a bevy of what

you're saying about me. I don't like I don't like that word it's it's used by people who are very bougie and people who live in a big house and live in a neighborhood with professional athletes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good to be back. Good to be back. How to week off because we were in we were in Vegas for a softball tournament and luckily we had good

weather down there. It was a nice trip. Well, it's good. Good. Good. You gamble. But mister, no, I didn't. You didn't gamble. We stayed on the strip. I have my college roommate and really good buddy lives lives down there now. So we got to spend time there. But yeah, I mean, yeah, you get kids. We went to top call for a behind the strip. I'm not

a sponsor. So we're going to keep it. We're going to keep it short. There's so many. How is that fun? Different golf kind of places. It was fun. You know, it was a little team bonding. There were like eight of the girls were there. So, yeah, it's good. Good for them to compete outside of softball. So yeah, you know, the parents and golf. Yeah. The parents

and they serve food and drinks and it's fun. They got TVs there. So yeah, and we're out there trying to score points, right. You know, everybody's competing. So, yeah, they're competitive and in you sport. So, you know, the girls are trying to hit targets and doing something they're not good at. So it helps deal with failure. You got to deal with failure because they're not good.

So it actually was a little bit of a learning. Learning lesson as well. All right. Very good. Good to have you back. Episode one 31 today developing intangibles. I saw this tweet from Jeremy booth by the way. Former scout for the Seattle Mariners. I found it interesting about, you know, the Astros just made a GM change and they have talked about it. They've talked about how

they've missed the Astros having Jeremy's talked about this too. How the Astros have missed on their first round picks. They've gotten some really good late round picks. Certainly Chasm McCormick is one that comes to mind, but I don't know if he was a late, late round pick, but nevertheless, the Astros have missed out a lot on some good first round picks. Some, some guys aren't even

playing professional baseball anymore. And the one thing that he talked about is how analytical people are now saying how pitching to contact or going deeper into games is very, very important. As if it's a new idea where baseball men and women prior to that, they were just strictly more baseball oriented valuation oriented rather than analytical are out of the game. And now it seems like, I

don't know, it's funny because the we always say how the data and technology revolution. And the analytical revolution, it will never go away. But we will start to swing back, I think, to the other side. And. Because that's just the life cycle of things in my opinion, especially with with baseball. And now too with the shift going away, I'm not saying that there are analytical roles

are being diminished, but they're changing a little bit. And it seems like these new ideas, right, these new quote unquote concepts are star are really older concepts that are just recycled. I'm just kind of spilling. That's exactly what it is. Yeah, I mean, I'll be interested to see looking for pictures to go deeper in games. I mean, I'm not going to believe that. And I see

it starting to happen, but as it is now last year, what was it? Five innings? That's kind of the maximum. Most guys were going, you know, maybe you would touch sick. So. Yeah. In the Astros again, it's not like they've had a top 10 pick either. So they've had first round picks. But they've also been in the playoffs every single year. So they're getting the 25th

to 30th pick every year. They're not getting the. The Orioles picks, which are the top five. They've picked the last few years. So it goes in cycles with players. And sometimes you miss. But it's a little bit easier when you're picking the top 10 prospects overall every year. Those, those guys are, you know, going to have a pretty good chance of making it to the big

leagues. You know, I get that I will say this though. I have a list here of the Astros first round picks. In the last since 2000, we'll say since 2011, I have the list here. But there is one. I don't understand when people say you really nail that number one overall pick, well, it's easy to nail the number one overall pick. Right. It's easy. It's easy

to nail a top five pick. It's harder. And this shows you how hard it is to draft and how hard it is to scout. I don't care how many tools you have available to you. It shows how hard it is to scout the right players and to draft the right guys when you draft say 15 and beyond 15th and beyond. I mean, it's really, it's really,

really hard. Yeah, it's easy to say, well, you know, we drafted number one and we picked up this guy. Yeah. Okay. Great. You know, like Alex Breggman, for example, right? Yeah. In 2015, he was drafted number two overall. That's an easy pick. That's easy to nail that one. It is. Yeah. And it is. I mean, the Brewers do a pretty good job. I mean, they have

a couple first rounders that are going to, you know, you got Freelink and you got Garrett Mitchell that are, you know, pretty young through the minor league system and work their way up. And they were kind of higher contact guys, less power guys. They play a good defense. And those guys are going to see time, you know, this year at the Big League level, only maybe

three years after the draft. I think this is Freelink. This might be only two years after the draft. Where's this is third. So I mean, yeah. And they've been right around 15 to 20. I think picks, pick wise every, you know, the last few years. They'll have a little bit higher this year. But yeah, I mean, different teams go after different people. They went after college

guys that had a track record of finding barrels. That was what they, that's what they drafted early. They didn't draft arms early. And some people, maybe the Astros drafted arms early. And then, you know, with that comes risk of injury. Burn out and everybody throws hard now. I mean, I was looking going through my international players the last couple days. And, you know, the some of

the video views I get are great. They're live at bats, you know, against pictures that are, you know, 14, 15. You should see these. 15 year old pictures. They're monsters. They're big and strong and polished. And they throw hard at a young age. It's like, there's a lot of people that that throw. There's a lot of people that throw hard. And I think that's why a

lot of teams go the international root firms. Or they'll go, you know, later on in the draft with arms, you're not seeing as many as you used to. You always used to see like the first couple picks were, well, like Jack lighter, right, was was was one. You see that every single year lighter and rocker that the two best college arms would come out. And now

it's not necessarily as prevalent. I've always depending on again. And there's a lot of context that has to be added to this. But depending on the player development system that you have in place, like for example, years, I don't know if it's the same now, but few years ago, the nationals. Their player development system was that of you're going to do it our way. We have

everything lined up for you. Bing bang boom, right. Everything compiled. This is the way you're going to do it. And you're not going to TV. We create other organizations are a little bit more flexible, a little bit more liberal. And how they run their player development system with more player input. So if I'm draft, but to me, if I'm drafting a pitcher, that guy is going

to be a high and I have a high round pick a very high first round pick. It's going to be a college pitcher. But if not, it's going to be a high school pitcher. And then I'm going to take a college hitter rather than the high school hitter. It's going to be inverted for me. Again, it's flexible with that approach. So the Astros. Since 2011 here

are their picks. George Springer, Carlos Corea, Mark Appell, who did pitch briefly the major league level, but considered one of the biggest bus. Unfortunately, although I you give him credit for coming all the way back and getting a chance to pitch for the Phillies this past year. So God bless them for, you know, his comeback and his tenacity to be able to break through everything. Yeah,

yeah, toughness Brady Aiken. I mean, you don't hear about him anymore, right? Then of course, breakman 15 Kyle Tucker from Tampa, Florida, plant high school, the same plant high school I complained about with the kids and crunch fitness. Oh, yeah, a couple of a couple of weeks ago, when they all pile in on a day off from school. Daz Cameron, who unfortunately, I thought he was

going to have a great career, but Daz Cameron, same draft as Kyle Tucker in 2015, he was a 37th overall pick. And he just got out right it off the Orioles roster. So son of Mike Cameron, great athlete. I don't know what happened there. Forrest Whitley, I know what happened. He went to the Tigers player development system and that they ruined him. Forrest Whitley in 2016.

I don't know. JB. How do you say his name? 2017 right handed pitcher from you? Head of host or Bacascus, maybe Bacascus, Seth beer and 18, Corridely in 19, haven't heard of either one or have beer was beer can hit. I don't know how he's been doing. He played a club. He is with currently with the. With the. Diamondbacks came up then got option. Last year.

So he's been up and down. Nothing. Really established and then Corridely in 2019. And then of course they didn't have a pick in 2020 or 2021 because they cheated. So there you go. I guess what I'm trying to say here. And a lot of the like, a Pell was number one Brady, eight can was one Kyle Tucker was five that worked out well. Daz Cameron was

37. Forrest Whitley 17. JB, Bacabapa, Bacabapa 15 Seth beer was 28 and Corridely was 32. So I understand that point, but. Yeah, to what your point was about about drafting a little bit later. But yeah, they have not really hit too much the last few years on those first round picks. And I don't care how late you draft. In the in the first round, if you

continually miss on those first second round picks, the lifeblood of your organization, the player development system is not going to have much to work with. And it's going to trickle up to the major league level. Yeah, you're right. They got, but they've done okay for themselves. So they have no, they want to. A bunch of world series. I get it. I'm just. There will be a

lot of right there will be a low low in a couple years of not having those those homegrown guys coming through the system. Like they had with Korea and. Braggman and Al Tueve and. Tucker right you're going to have a low in there. They're going to have to make some trades for prospects or. You know hope for the best. Yeah. Well, anyway. Um. On the lab

Epstein hitting podcast in the next few weeks. So 131 today finding intangibles. But we're going to be talking about how pictures move a hitter's feet, the psychology of that. And how a hitter could counter that. Plus we're going to be doing some swing breakdowns of your Don Alvarez, Hank Aaron Derek Jeter. Man, we've got some good ones coming up a lot of topics coming up here

in the next year. Next six months. So please subscribe to the podcast Apple Google Spotify wherever you get your podcast. Cheers to that right. We'll drink our coffee together. And. Subscribe to the YouTube page, the lab Epstein hitting podcast YouTube page to watch the show. All right. I'm bringing up a tweet here that you tweeted a couple of days ago. We've recorded this on a Saturday.

The episode comes out of the Monday. Um, and you tweeted February 10th actually. Ever wonder why you quote unquote just miss good pitches. This could be the reason and you linked that to a YouTube video that you have. So let's talk about that a little bit. Shall we. Why do you miss good pitches as a hitter. Yeah, you know, sometimes you you feel like geez, I'm

right on that. I'm right on it. Why did I fell that straight back? Why did I just get under it? Um, usually if you roll over it. That's not considered a just miss. Right. Like I didn't just miss that. Now I might have players say, kind of I felt like I was right on it. And it's just a too hopper to the short stuff. I don't

know what's going on. So that's always always a swing plane issue. Um, and it's very, very common. It's very common players that lose the barrel a little bit early. Um, whether it's their top hand opening up, whether it's their hands dropping a little bit, whether it's the knob, you know, starting down and then violently pulling back up, which, which causes a big scallop in the swing

in the barrel a few frames later. So, um, yeah, it was just everybody's been there. Um, I remember I had a play when I first started teaching 20, 20 years ago. I had a player is really good player. He played trying to think where he played. I think he played at U of A in college. And then he played in the Diamondbacks organization for probably eight

years, you know, triple A. I think you got some big lead camp stuff, but a really good solid player. And he would always just foul ball straight back. So he'd be, he'd be super hot. And then all of a sudden, boom, falling on straight back, falling on straight back. And then he would call me and be like, Hey, I'm, I'm found him straight back again. And

I'd be like, okay, you need to. So his was different. His wasn't a barrel drop. His was just almost like a hand drop right at launch or a vision thing. He may have had a vision issue. So he was really, I'm gonna think of it, you know, 20 years later. But he would be on it, but under. And so the fix was simply swing over the

top of the ball. Like, and whatever that cue did for him, it made him keep his hands up. Maybe a little bit longer. It wasn't like he needed to keep his barrel up. It was just his whole swing plane was too low. But it was a good swing plane. It was very flat. So everyone's a little bit different. The one in that video that I showed

on YouTube or Twitter, it was. I mean, he launched this ball, you know, a million miles in the air. I think it was like a 45 degree launch angle or something like that. And his eye hand coordination timing was so perfect. But with video, you can really spell it out. You can see the swing, you know, the pitch plan or so was coming in. I don't

know, probably seven, eight degrees. And he was swinging up at like 25 degrees at point of contact because he had lost his barrel early. And then he had to correct it. And he had to get his barrel back up. And a lot of times when we do that, then we swing up. But he was still able to get to the bottom half of the ball. And

hence he just skyd it out. So he kept telling me, I'm just missing these. I don't know what's going on. I'm hitting the highest five balls. The left field, which is usually a pretty good sign, except that when you take the video back, if he was one ball late, if he was three inches late, he would have missed the pitch completely. And if you're only on

plane for a three to four inch window, you're not going to have very good success. So yeah, it's very good. Every time people, I heard from a lot of people I haven't heard from in a while, which is kind of weird with that, posting that. Because it's a very common move. And it's part of the issue when we train is, and I'm sorry to keep going

on here, but we train, at least when I look on Twitter and Instagram, everything's off of a tee. It's like, I'm old and I got a bum ankle and a bad knee. And I can look great off a tee. I can do whatever I want to off a tee. I can do whatever I want to off front toss. But as soon as that ball moves a

little bit, it doesn't even have to move a lot. I mean, it can be a small hack attack machine throwing it five or six degree drop, you know, from 35 feet, you know, like an 80 mile an hour pitch. That's a strike every time. That's when everybody falls apart. And that's when players get exposed. So the one thing I listened to a nice, nice webinar yesterday

with Jason O'Chart at Drive Line. He was a drive line guy. He was the Phillies coordinator. I think he's doing some of the Red Sox now. I mean, he's a really sharp guy. And, you know, they try to teach and work with their players in a more of a live setting. You know, there's, there's some front toss and there's some T work. But it's like, you

know, we're not just trying to, you know, drop and drive kind of, know, is this chaos training? Let's let's be clear about that. I wouldn't consider it chaos training. No, I wouldn't consider it chaos training, but it's, anyway, you really don't know what kind of player you have until you get them off of the moving object. And so just be cautious. I use the T a

ton. A lot of a lot of teams and organizations don't use the T at all. The T has a purpose. And when you're changing players and you're trying to get players from one level to the next because they have a mechanical flaw, you can't just go straight to, I mean, if they're 24 years old, yet I had a minor leagrin recently that was, you know, didn't

have a greatest year last year. And so he told me what was going on. And then he had some game video. And then in 10 minutes, we worked it out. 10 minutes, maybe even five minutes. Here's the field. Do this, do this, do this. Oh my God. This is so great. It feels awesome. Right. Well, if the kids 12 years old, it's not going to be

like that. It's going to be a slow process. I had a new player in the online academy start. I think he's nine and he's a little stud. He's from Louisiana. And he's, he like works as a little tail off. But he was doing his drills. And I'm like, okay, we're making progress with the drills. But then after he did his drills, he went in and started

taking live batting practice. You know, 10 minutes after that. And then they sent me the video, of course. And I'm like, well, everything you worked on with the T. Got flushed down the toilet because you just took 20 swings off of a machine or off dad throw into you and everything broke down. So when you're working with young players, you have to layer it. You have

to use it to you have to isolate this. You have to isolate that. That's why it's one of the, you know, without blowing the horn on the Epstein teaching system that my dad started years ago. That's why it works. The information is great. And we have a ton of experience. But it's the process in which we implement the information to said player, whether it's a 20.

This was a 21 and 20 year old professional player and an eight year old, you know, young guy. I don't I think he might be playing travel ball, right? Or just league. All eight, wow. At eight or nine. Yeah. I mean, he's a good little happy. But it's like we're giving him the same information. We're just doing it in different ways. So I don't know how

we got onto that. I'm glad you blew the horn. No, I was. Yeah. I don't know what we originally were talking about. But missing good pitch was missing good pitches. But that's where it starts with, you know, it starts with having a good swing plane. I think we're talking about hand path. Maybe next week, which is you spoiled it for everybody. Yeah. No, I want them

to think about how important it is because hand pass will get rid of the hole in the swing. That's the audience. That's their homework this week. Yeah. We're giving our audience homework. That's where we get good way to get lessons for for hand path. Yeah. Email us, Jimbo podcast 21 at gmail.com. And by the way, if you'd like to subscribe to our newsletters to email us

as well, Jimbo podcast 21 at gmail.com. Yeah. This week on cross functionality, Cassie and I Cassie Riley Boechan. I, so I'm on national champion at the University of Alabama. Her and I are the same age, by the way, Jeff Rolteye, Jake and I, Jake and I are not. Jake is older than me. He's a, as I've said before, mentor and coach. We're not the same age,

although my maturity level people do say I'm like in my 40s. I'm not saying Jake's in his 40s, but I'm not saying Jake acts like he's in his 20s. I didn't say that either. I didn't know to that either. I'm talking about how I'm mature. You are. How I'm mature for my age. I was Cassie though. And Cassie and I talked about the, I've subscribed to

cross functionality, by the way, on Apple, Google, Spotify. And I could say that now my sleep, by the way. Here, I'm paying attention to me. Can I pay attention? What are you looking at over there? I was wondering, I'm doing all of you. Tell me I'm old. I'm glad you're wondering. My, my, my partner here. I had my career. I had a career partner is wandering.

He's, he's true. What do you got for me? I don't know. I was dozing off. I'm just kidding. You were. I know. I was going to lead it into your brain. That's kind of an intangible. Yeah. Having, having the right mindset. It's hard. You know, you can teach mindset. You can teach relaxation. You can teach players to essentially have a slow heart rate. But some do

and some don't. And that's something that usually doesn't show up on a data chart. You know, it usually doesn't show up on a, on a scouting report that is compiled. You know, with a computer, you know, meaning exit velocity, launch angle, speed, quickness, agility, strength. Right. This is the, this is the part that kind of puts it all together. I always go back to Mani Ramirez.

You know, he was such a, I don't even know what he was. He was just an amazing player. He was an amazing hitter. I mean, my, one of my favorite highlights of all time is when he catches the ball. I mean, he's like, I'm going to give somebody a high five. This was in Camden yards, I believe. So he catches the ball. Where they move the

wall back. Yes. He catches the ball like a step short, like full speed. He kind of jumps up the wall. Give somebody a high five turns around throws the ball back into the infield. I don't think that was scripted. Right. This was somebody that's in such a relaxed state of mind. Having fun on the ball field. It's not that he was a great defensive outfielder. It

probably drove his, his manager crazy. But, you know, he has a, he's like, I'm going to have that when you look at him and they're like, there was no stress. Why was he such a great clutch hit or no stress? Like the world doesn't end if I'm making out here. Right. It's going to keep spinning. If I make an air. It's going to be okay. I'm

going to fall asleep. I'm going to wake up the next day. And that mindset is very hard to get through to players and maybe just maybe some of those Astros first round picks. That's where their deficiency was. Maybe it wasn't how good they swung the bat or how fast they ran or what kind of glove they had. Maybe it was what was between the ears. And

that usually is what kills players at that level more than any kind of ability factor. May I just counter with something? No. Okay. I have to counter with something. Okay. So there's a guy who just retired that played here in Tampa Bay. Mm-hmm. You may know him. Maybe not. I don't know. Tom Brady. My opinion, the greatest quarterback of all time. Some people say Joe Montana.

Yeah. Okay. Great. Tom Brady, best quarterback of all time. You mentioned that mindset with Mani Ramirez having that relaxed mindset of well, if I'm making air, the world doesn't end. Right. Mm-hmm. It's fine. But Tom Brady doesn't have that mindset. If he throws an interception, guess what? He's throwing that tablet to where he's yelling at his offensive line. Mm-hmm. He doesn't seem to have that mindset.

All right. I know the sports are different. I get it. But these are two top athletes we're talking about here. Tom Brady, Mani Ramirez. Mani Ramirez. Again, it was a very relaxed state, but doesn't that, if you constantly have that attitude, well, if I make an error, if I strike out, the world doesn't end. If you have that attitude, that's okay. Okay. Fine. Keep yourself relaxed,

but doesn't that invite complacency? No, I could. Yeah. I could. Yeah. I mean, Tom Brady's, you know, he's in control of what he's doing. It's a little bit different. But Mani was too. That's where the... No, but we're not in control in the batter's box. We're reaction. We're reactionary. I'm talking about Mani. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, how many interceptions is it Tom Brady throw? Right?

He probably threw a lot. Yeah. I just, you know. Yeah. Like, he's a perfectionist. That's a different... That's a way different personality type A personality, you know, kind of running the... You could maybe have Jeter and Brady, you know, maybe that kind of... But Jeter is the same way. Like, you know, Jeter made outs. And then he failed. Tom Brady's never going to throw more incompletions

than completions. He's never going to throw more interceptions than touchdowns. Right? In baseball, we're going to strike out a lot more than we get hits. So it's a hard comparison. But... All right. I'm just saying. Yeah. My point was... Yeah. Yeah. Complacing C. Yes. That... Well, you're not going to make it. Right? If you're too complacent and you don't care about what you're doing, then you're

gone. But for someone to succeed at that level, you have to have obviously a combination of... of work ethic and desire and pride. But with this game, like golf as well, you know, you can't dwell on the negative. I guess that's the best way to put it. All right. Well, be sure to watch Cross Functionality. So I'll post right there. Academy YouTube page. Listen to the

show. Apple Google Spotify. Wherever you get your podcasts. Again, this week, Cassie and I talked about the mental side of hitting. So go ahead and listen and get her opinion on that and the mental side and all of the great information. So subscribe and listen to the show. Thank you very much. Let's get to our listener question. We do have a listener question. It was not

sent to us via Jimbo podcast 21 at gmail.com. It was sent to us via our YouTube page. Comment on one of our videos from the same guy who doesn't... Brought up the steak or whatever. The marinating in the state. I did marinate chicken this week, by the way. It was delicious. The chicken marinated. I did not. For the Super Bowl, I'm going to smoke some strip

steaks and New York strip. I'm not going to marinate them and then we're going to pour some chimichurri on top of them. Let it soak that in at the end. Right. Why not just barbecue sauce? No, I can't put barbecue sauce on good steaks. Why not? He's going to comment again on this too. I hope he doesn't. I don't really work and put on chicken. No,

no. You can put it. We can put it on on steak too. Google it. I'm not saying I do it all the time. Marinate a grass fed steak this week though. Yeah, that you may have to do. The grass fed has a little different flavor to it. Grass fed is good though. It really is. So he says he did comment about something about it. What is

the question? So I'll get to the question instead. On a baseball note, he said this from DA, by the way, the guy who commented on YouTube, the lab web sneering podcast YouTube page. I'll be interested in hearing how you would quantify equality at bat say for you player 13 to 15. So I'm guessing DA has a has a kid who's 13 or between 13 to 15.

This is a great question. Is that something you even track? So again, how do you quantify equality at bat for youth player 13 to 15? Is that something that you could even track? Great question from DA sent to us via our YouTube. I got the episode 130 actually on my screen right now as I'm looking at you. Oh, good. You look great here. All right. So

what do you got? Yeah, I think you can't. I always. How do you do that? I might not have my folder, you know, with all the information about good at bats, but I always have notes. I have notes, you know, with with my own kid that we can refer to days later, you know, kind of we could walk through again if she's open to it. I'm

not going to force that because it get a walk. I couldn't go up really quick, but Hey, let's let's walk let's walk through the at bats. For instance, if if that player came up to bat and the first player. The inning, you know, made it out on the first two pitches or the first pitch something like that and then you know your son or daughter goes

up and swings at the first pitch. Okay. Whether she puts right. We don't want that pitcher to get out of the inning early. Depending on what part of the game it is, you know, that's big too. Maybe there's runners in scoring position. I might want to be more aggressive. So a quality of bat in terms of seeing a lot of pitches. I'm not going to see

a lot of pitches. I got runners in scoring position. I may only get one good pitch to hit. I'm ready to rock and roll on the first pitch. Maybe it's later in the game. I'm hitting lead off and the pitcher or I'm hitting second. The pitcher is not throwing. Very many strikes, you know, maybe I'm taking a strike in that situation because we're down by one

or two runs. And we need base runners here in the last inning. So quality at bats for me change based on the situation of the game. And I want players to start thinking about that. I want them to learn. So I don't have to tell them before they're in a bat. Hey, we're down by two runs. We need base runners. Don't swing at the first pitch.

Okay. I like I don't want to have to say that. So we're right. Yeah. You know, if we talk about the game, if we talk about it in meetings, then they'll start to learn on their own. But if we never tell them, they're never going to learn. So I definitely wouldn't at that age 13 to 15. I'm not quantifying a quality of bat by pitches seen.

I'm probably quantifying the bat on pitches. Swung at did we stay inside the zone early in the count? Okay. Where we looking for hitable pitches early in the count. That's number one. Number two, where we aggressive on the pitch. On those pitches or were we feeling for them. I have players that I work with and see. And they're very aggressive in practice. But in a game

situation, they feel for balls, whether it's on the outside corner, it's down the middle, they're feeling for the ball with less than two strikes. Okay. So that's not a quality of bat or quality approach. So I guess we could take everything into consideration. But the simple answer would be chart the bat. If you would like, you know, if you're if you're if you're if it is,

is up for that chart it and give the two cents on it. What were you thinking here? You know, go back to that at bat. A day later and say, what was the situate? Do you remember the situation? Okay, or did you just walk up to the plate, blind? I'm going to hit the ball. Okay. Well, usually it's I do. I don't know. I just kind

of walk up to the plate. So you're. At the 1315 is there more more depth to walk up to the plate blindly than not. Correct. Yeah. If you're in that 13 year age, they're probably just walking up the plate. But I still want them to think about it. Okay, I still want them to know because. By the time they're 15, they do need to have that.

They need to have a little bit of a plan and idea of what's happening, what the game's situation is before they get into the box. So quality of that would be, you know, on a very, very basic level at age 1314, you know, 15, you can get more advanced is, were you aggressive on strikes in the strike zone early in the count with less than two

strikes. Or did you take it? Did you take too many pitches? That would not be a quality of that. Did you swing a pitches outside the zone with less than two strikes when you're ahead in the count? That would be a ding against the quality of that. Or did you stay within your zone and you stay aggressive? But those are two things that you can really

quantify in an easy, quick way and share that with your player. Thinking I wrote something down here. Maybe that should be an upcoming topic for an episode. Yeah. Quality of bats at each level, quantifying quality of bats at each level. Yeah. At age nine, don't get hurt. Have fun, right? Have fun. That's exactly right. So that you're still playing at age 12 and 13. All right.

So that's going to be an upcoming topic this year. I hope we answered DA's question. I think we did. There's something in there. DA. Email is jumbo podcast 21 at gmail.com if anybody has any questions. Also, you can just, you're listening on the podcast side audio. You can just, you know, reverse it, right? 30 seconds. So it's got to be, there's something in there. If you

miss it, you can just rewind. That's the good thing about podcasting. That's why it's, you know, better than radio because you can just rewind. That's right. I don't have to continually recap what we're talking about, which is good. Episode 131, developing intangibles as I recap today's, today's topic, or sorry, finding intangibles. I got to get it correct. Finding intangibles. Get into our topic here. Subscribe to

the podcast, Apple Google Spotify, wherever you get your shows and whatnot. Leave a review. Find intangibles with hitters with players. Little more complicated than you think. But recognizing intangibles in a hitter. What are your thoughts on that? Thought process and trying to recognize those intangibles in a hitter. That's where good scouts come from. That's where those old experience scouts, even if it's one thing, even if

they don't care about exit velocity and launch angle and direction and whatever, they will pick up intangible. How a guy moves. What kind of jumps they get on fly balls? Do they anticipate where the, where the balls going to be hit before it's hit, you know, based on pitch select. So a lot of times you can say this, this outfielder has great instincts. Okay. Or an

infiler has great instincts. They, they have the ability to get a jump quicker, you know, two tenths of a second quicker than the other. The average player. Okay. Well, how do they do that? Right. That's, that's an intangible. How do we find that? Well, maybe it has to do with their, their cognitive ability. How they interpret, you know, they, they see the information with their eyes.

How quickly it goes from eyes to brain to feet to get a good jump. Okay. So that's part of it. That's something you can sometimes work on. But cognitive stuff is, is tough. And hitting is the same way. You know, we're seeing information. What, what a lot of people don't understand is that the feet, that, that's the first thing we do. You know, non, non pitch

or maybe pitch or two. I'm not a big pitching guy, as you might know, from the term Epstein hitting. And the title of the show. But, but if you're fielding, it's not a hand coordination first. It's how quickly you see the information. It goes to your brain. And then we move our feet in the batter's box is the same thing. Our feet are going before that

ball is even coming out of the hand. Then how quickly can we, interpret, you know, ball spin release point strike to get our foot down in time? Okay. So these are things that are, are intangibles. Maybe a center fielder that gets great jumps. Maybe before the ball reaches home plate, they're, they're seeing that that ball is cutting away. They know that maybe they can't see the

sign. You know, all the way from center field with the pitches, but they can see the shape of the pitch and they can see maybe that it's running inside to this hitter. And they just kind of get a little bit more weight on their, on their right foot to move to the pole side or whatever it is. Those are intangibles. And, and those are seen. I

played with guys like that. And you just understand, how do they consistently get better jumps? How do they consistently make those tough plays? And it's not like we hit a lot of balls in the gap and made players dive for it. You know, they just, they were a step quicker to everything. So seeing that at the scouting level and then harvesting that, you know, getting that

player testing them, getting jumps, you know, bringing out with that, they might do better than, than other people is, is, is really important. So, you know, that's one of them. We talked a little bit about, you know, many Ramirez and maybe, you know, he's, you know, just kind of chills out, right? He's got a slow heart rate. But when he gets in the box, my goodness

is he a sharp guy. I mean, he is, he knows what pitch he's looking for. He knows what pitch he's, if it's outside that window or outside that tunnel that he's looking for outside the shape that he's looking for, he has the ability to stick with that plan. And to trust that plan, that's an intangible. I have a lot of players where I say, okay, we're

sitting on fastballs here. We're sitting on fastballs that counts one and oh, you know, you're 14 or 15 years old. If anything is different, we're going to take it. If you see different spin, if you see different speed, if you see a different release point, if I drop down sidearm, if I choke the ball and it squirts out of my hand sideways like a chain jump,

I don't care what it is. You don't have to know what it is. You just have to know that it's different than the first time. Fastball that you're hunting, do you have the ability to take it? Do you have the ability to abort that swing? And so many players don't, but we can practice it. We can help that player. But some players are going to be

better than others just because they see things a little bit different. They have better vision. That would be an intangible. They have better depth perception. That would be an intangible. Players that don't have as good a vision, you know, they're going to be, they're going to be in the dark, so to speak. When it gets nasty out there. So from experience, my dad had bad vision,

I had bad vision. My poor kid has bad vision. And make sure if you don't have 2015 vision, that you try to get 2015 vision. Okay. And there's a lot of major leaders that see 2025 that got laced and now see 2015. So when you go to the eye doctor, learning lesson for your parents and you as players, go to the eye doctor, find a specialist

that you can't do. That will tweak and tweak and tweak. Even if you have almost perfect vision, haven't put a light lens on where a pair of, you know, light Oakley shields that maybe don't seem like they do much, but maybe it gets you from 2020 to 2018. Maybe you have a split second longer. You can see the ball, whatever it is. But those intangibles, you

could call them God given, right? And this isn't a religious show or whatever given from birth from your parents. But we're both Catholics or whatever. They're, they're special. There's, there's special things that maybe our player development department can't help you with. You know, we can't, we can't build that. We can't say, oh, I want you to get a better jump. We can teach you how to

get a better jump. We can teach you the mental process of thinking your way through this. Okay. I mean, every outfielder has a card, right? This guy tendency to pull the ball early in the count. Okay. So maybe I'm kind of leaning that way and I'm cheating a little bit. But to have the ability, you know, to, to see the ball. To see if the, the

hitter was maybe a little bit early with his stride and to be able to cheat to that direction instinctively. That would be an intangible. And we just want to harvest that. We want to let that player run with it. But there's a lot of players that have intangibles and things we can't control. That'll be big ligters. And there's a lot of players that have amazing mechanics

and amazing physics and amazing vision. But if they don't have the right mental aspect and they get stressed that those players never make it to the big level. And that's why player development department scouting is so difficult. Now before we wrap up today's episode of finding intangibles and hitters, are there any intangibles mechanically? The hitter that they need that makes them successful. If any, no, I'm

not counting my four pillars of hitting. Although approach, having that approach, that's kind of an intangible. It is, but that's not mechanical. Right. So, you know, if we, you know, as far as mechanics are concerned, possibly flexibility. Okay. Physically, physically flexibility, not just mentally. Right. Yes. Physically, physical, almost like where you can have control over your body, where you can move, you know, quick and tidy

with flexibility. With flexibility. So it could be something that's trained with, with strength and performance. But, you know, what? Mike trout moves like he moves real fast. There's a lot of guys that are that size. And he's not, you know, super huge. Like he and Otoni are totally different bodies. But trout, even though he's so stocky and tight, his separate like he turned so quick and

efficiently that it's, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, you couldn't

tell Otoni to do that same thing because Otoni's going to be looser and he's going to have more hips separation. Okay. But that hips separation. It's not necessarily how much that hips separation happens. It's how, how tight it is, how, how quickly the hips open and then boom, it snaps the upper body through. So I would definitely say, you know, mechanically, somebody like trout would be

quicker, quicker to the ball because of his build and his athleticism. All that in Tango ball. I'm, I'm not real sure. But that would probably be the only thing. There's, there are handpath moves. You know, why do some guys have really good hands, you know, I can, I can teach the right handpath. But why do some guys just do it naturally? Is that an insertable? Yeah.

I don't know. I don't know if that's enough. I can teach everybody the right move. But can they do that move quickly and can they do that move in a stressful environment? Maybe that's what makes it intangeable. And then we just don't know that's that's my job as a coach. Your job as a coach and a parent is to, to give the player the right information,

whether they're, they're eight years old or 25 years old. And then what can they do with that information? What can they do with those moves? And, and that's all we can do as coaches. That's our job is to foster good information to give them an environment to succeed. And then to let them take it as far as, as far as they can and, in hopes that

they love it and enjoy it. All right. Next week speaking of hands, since we'll be talking about bat and hand path next week. Fuck you doing hands. Bat and hand path next week. I just look like a torso sitting on the computer screen. I want to people to know I had hands. I don't think that they were thinking about that, especially if they're not watching. Good

point. They could see your brewer. Sure. By the way, later in the year, I mentioned earlier about the other upcoming topics. Later in the year, we're going to be talking about some draft picks and doing some breakdowns of some, some hitters that you are probably looking at and evaluating for Milwaukee right now for your, your organization. So we will be doing that later in the year.

I'm looking forward to that. I have to be very quiet with my comments on those right now. I will say your voice now is playing for team Italy. If I'm not mistaken. Okay. Hold on. For you, like I'm pretty sure he's going to play on the, uh, World Baseball Classic team Italy. You are, are you going to watch that? The World Baseball Classic? Yeah. Of course.

It's basically. Yeah. Okay. Yes. This is according to a report from rotoballor.com. Sal Freelich expected to play for Italy in the World Baseball Classic. That was, uh, six days ago. Yeah. Very good. It's going to head start, baby. Some live at bats before spring training. I'm not, uh, you think he makes the big lead club this year? At some point. I'm not going to be watching,

in a week. College baseball. Yes. Yeah. So, yeah, there's plenty that's going to be on TV. Um, all right. So next week, um, batten hand path episode 132 subscribe to the podcast. Leave review. Do what you got to do. Thank you for listening. Watching and we'll talk to you.