Hitters Know Thyselves

Music Music Hi everybody, welcome into another edition of the Lab Epstein Hitting Podcast episode 133. Thank you for joining us today. If you haven't done so already, please subscribe Apple Groups, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can watch the show online on YouTube, the Lab Epstein Hitting Podcast, YouTube page. All right. Let me bring in professional evaluators, successful business owner, former coach, friend and

co-host Jake Gapstein. How are you handsome? Oh, so well Jim, just best time of year coming up. Baseball basketball is wrapping baseball hot college softball college baseball MLB. Yeah, masters is in a few weeks. Right. Baby, you hear that every year every single year at this time I hear about the master. old school looks like World War II. You like their uniforms. They took a my

Microsoft Word document typed in great Britain and then print printed on their title. It's like career new. Right. You have you have you have you talking about it. We're not talking about Chinese Taipei uniforms. We're talking about great Britain. We're talking about great Britain uniforms because they're so ugly. I know. Now the true litmus test is if you would go out and buy one of those

uniforms. For I just make one at home with a Sharpie. That's right. That's all you need. All you need is a computer Microsoft Word and a printer. They should have just take literally just printed out typed it up printed out on a piece of paper and just taped great. I feel like there's going to be a story behind it because the Brits are, you know, they

they have boring. No, they have like a really crude sense of humor and I feel like there's really. Yeah, I feel like there's something to it. I went to the writer cup years ago and I had more fun with the European fans. You know, especially the British fans because they're funny. They're jovial. They just they make fun of the great personalities. Like, but I don't see

it. Yeah, it's it was wild. Yeah. And the data is people are good too. Obviously, you've never met Italians or Italian people. Sure. I have to live a tie. Okay. Well, but they live in a towel. They live in Italy. Yeah. I spoke at the Italian baseball Federation years ago. Okay. Yeah. They have some of the funniest. They have a lot of personality. Really funny. Yeah.

They say they were fucking a lot. Yeah. But you're both an audience. And then they drop an F bomb. Yeah. Oh, yeah. All the time. Yeah. It's every other word. Yeah. Yeah. I can't really do the impression all that well. But they do it every other. Not really. Yeah. We asked, but you know, in a sense, yeah. Yeah. Episode 133 hitting. I haven't watched hitting to

your strengths is today's episode. I haven't watched much of the world baseball class. I'm not going to either. I made a promise like three. Why was it three weeks ago? We had this debate. And I said, I'm not really going to do much of the world baseball classic. I can't really get into it. Is there pitch clock? No, no pitch clock. No, we're going to get

to the we have some things to talk about with the pitch clock. Okay. I'm sure we're going to be. No, it's okay. I'm sure we're going to be talking about the pitch clock for the next six fucking months. Until until the world series is fucking over. We're going to be talking about the pitch clock every week. Literally every every day on Twitter. I see something new

about the pitch clock. Yeah. Davey Martinez said it perfectly. By the way, manager for the Nationals. It's not going away. So we have to get used to it. It's not going away. Unfortunately, or fortunately, whichever whichever side of the aisle you're on, there are some instances where I'm saying where I say, fortunately, that pitch clock is there. Unfortunately, the pitch clock is is there. I don't

know. I'll get to get to a tone in a second. We're going to be discussing in the coming weeks. A lot of great topics. So stick with us. Subscribe to the podcast. Emails your questions. Jimbo podcast 21 and Gmail.com today episode 133 a brand new episode after a brief couple of weeks there that we had offer. I was in an airport last weekend. I was telling

you before we started. I was going down the YouTube rabbit hole of watching Good Fellows. Good fellows. Good fellows. That's English version. Say the one of my favorite fucking movies. I can't even say it right. Good fellow. I was watching Good Fellows. I'm fucking tall. I feel like such an asshole. Now I should go home and get my fucking shine box. Yes, you should get your

shine box. Hitting to your strengths is today's episode. Matching your strengths and weaknesses to the picture you're facing. It's kind of the main theme today of what we're talking about hitting to your strengths. If you don't know how to hit to your strengths, you're never going to hit successfully. And unfortunately, players don't know if it's a subconscious thing. But it feels like players a lot of

times get into this mode where they think that they are the type of hitter or they see the type of hitter they want to be on TV. And they want to be that type. They want to emulate that type of hitter. But that's not who they really are. And so they instead of matching their strengths and weaknesses to the picture they're facing. They just accentuate the

strengths of that hitter they want to be. And then they get themselves into the way. A whole lot of trouble down the line. Yeah, you got to know thyself. It's that's what you have during your dad's book. Yeah, it really. I mean, you're never going to hit something that your body doesn't like to hit. So you do have to look in the mirror and see what

get off the plate a little bit and be comfortable with that. Oh, I like the ball in, you know, you know, go ahead and crowd that plate. But then when you are working with your plan. If your strength is, you know, pitches that are say down like my trout. Then you need to look for pitches down. Even if you're facing a pitcher that throws up right

and throws stuff hard up. A lot of times if you're looking down. You will lay off that because your sights are set down. Now you might chase something in the dirt because you're looking down. But you're not going to chase that high fastball. There's a good strategy of, you know, good front of mind that coaches. I don't know. Can I say this? Yeah. So he coaches

in college. We probably all know who I'm talking about. And they faced a pitcher. There's a there's a pitcher in the country. That's really good. I will tell you. Yeah, I think everybody. I'm not going to say what an actor. I won't tell you where she put it. You know what you. You know what you. Everybody knows exactly who you're talking about. Everybody knows exactly now.

But she's the best, right? Okay. And so this said pitcher throws an incredible rise ball. And she throws it for strikes. And she throws it 72 miles an hour. And so you're probably not going to hit that pitch. Even if you're sitting on it, that's a really hard pitch. But if you sit opposite of that. If that's how she strikes everybody out, you sit opposite that.

And so their plan was we're going to look away and we're going to look down. So if anything, which is not a good pitch to hit, right? A pitch down in a way is hard to hit. But what happens is if you see that ball come up out of the hand, you're automatically going to abort that swing because it's not in the tunnel you're looking for.

Therefore, you don't chase that impossible pitch to hit. And it worked. And they ended up beating this pitcher who probably lost two games, you know, maybe all of last year. So having a plan and sticking to it and knowing what your weaknesses are will help for myself, I was a, I was a high ball hitter. Okay. I, for whatever reason, I handled the pitch up really,

really well. And the pitch down, I didn't handle as much. And so the good part about that is, I would lay off breaking balls in the dirt. The bad part about that is I would chase with two strikes. I'd chase a fastball the letters. And I would miss it. I really had a hard time laying off that. But if I had somebody that was, you know,

kept pounding, pounding me up and I was, I was having problems with it, I would then look for breaking balls down. I would look for because they weren't getting me out with breaking balls down. They were flipping them over for strikes. And so I had to change my thinking, even though that wasn't my strength, but always stick to your strength. If you're a better fastball hitter,

look for fastballs early in account, then all of a sudden. So, you know, we can talk about Sawyer. He, you know, he's our model in the online academy and planted Harvard. And he went out and got a couple hits his first game. And then the rest of the series, all he saw was breaking. And he sent me a text. He's like, okay, I went whatever the

first game to for two. And then I never saw a fastball again the entire weekend. Okay. Well, that scouting reports can go to the next team too. And you're going to have to start sitting on breaking balls. Otherwise, you're, you're going to continue to struggle if you're, if you don't have the right plan. So we are obviously changing all the time based on what we're seeing.

But if you sit and you look for something, you're not good at. Oh, this picture of those fastballs up really well. Well, that's what he's going to go to. 70% of his fastballs are at the thighs or above. But you don't hit that pitch. Number one, you know, you can work on hitting that pitch the week before practice set up a machine with the high spin

rate and try to get on top of it. Or you just stick to your strength was with less than two strikes. And I think that's what you know circling all the way back to Mike trout. That's what he's good at. Whether it's a breaking ball or a fastball down. He's sitting on it. He's comfortable with that. Even if somebody's trying to throw up. If they're going

to miss a little bit, boom, he takes advantage of it. So know what your strengths are. Adjust from there. If you're not, you know, getting pitches in that location for four, five, six at bats in a row. Otherwise, you're never going to be. Just stop it for a second. Man, just stop it for a second. Yeah. Because you just mentioned the pitches in there. The amount

of number of pitches. And I was talking about this with Cassie when I was recording yesterday on cross functionality. Every Wednesday, new episodes 9 a.m. And we discussed her favorite player right now is Aaron judge because she's a Yankee's fan. Boo. And we were discussing Aaron judge a little bit. And how he only gets about what would you say three to four pitches per game to

hit that he can actually do damage with. Right. That's that's fair. So that's a good. That's a good amount too. Right. Okay. And maybe that's being too liberal with that that pitch amount. Okay. He gets well just for argument purpose. Argument's sake. We'll say he might he might get one per bat. Okay. So let's say he gets three to four pitches per game that he can

really do damage with. Okay. Cool. So he gets three to four pitches. When you have a major league pitcher out there. And we're just looking for a major league perspective. But this stretches across college baseball, minor league baseball as well. You don't see too many pitches that you can actually actually do damage with. So circling back to our topic today, hitting to your strengths. If you

don't know your strengths and weaknesses and you don't properly prepare for that pitcher and match that with your strengths and weaknesses and trying to do something that you can't do or something that you're not built to do in the box. You're going to miss those pitches that you can actually do damage with and be productive with. And that's why mechanics are important too. Because if you

have a barrel drop or you have an arm collapse or you have a wrist roll. You get those good pitches to hit and you miss them. I remember my dad, man, if you were laid on a fastball ahead in the count. When I was growing up because he coached me from maybe like 11 to 16. If we were laid on a fastball ahead in the count,

holy cow, you did not want to make eye contact with that man. I mean, that was his thing. If you pull it foul, fine. If you're early, fine. That's when you miss it, it change up fine. But if you are late and you foul off a fastball with less when you're, you know, the counts in your favor. That was not something he was going to be

happy with. And that's what it is. If you get a good pitch and you're not in position to hit it, you got a barrel drop. You're going to foul it off. If you're late, your timing's not good. You're going to foul it off and you might not get another pitch to hit. Now you got to fight. Now you get to hit that pitch ball six, ball

seven. You know, on the outside part of the plate outside corner. So, taking advantage, you know, having a plan, obviously, having rhythm, having a good swing plan, you're going to run into more barrels. But if you have a good swing plan and you have pretty good timing, but you really don't have an approach like you're talking about. If you don't know what your strengths are. It

doesn't work. And you do have to be able to move on from your strengths. I mean, that's where we start. We start with. You know what? You know what? Yeah. Can I can we hold there? Hmm. We got some other things we got to get to. I might, I might forget. I'm not going to get what I was going to say, but all right. Go ahead.

I was going to say you have to be able to move on. If you're a fastball hitter. And you don't get fastballs. Then you, you got to be able to hit breaking balls. And you got to be able to figure out how to adjust your timing and adjust your rhythm in order to hit that breaking ball. So we start off with the game plan A. And

then as the game progresses, we may have to adjust from there. So we've got a lot of things to talk about with the today's topic. Yeah. We've already. Apparently we do cut my ass off. This is the last podcast ever. 132. That's not true. First of all, it's episode 133 that we're on. Okay. So that would have that would have worked well because we didn't do

it. We didn't record an episode last week. And we went without an episode. So that would have really that really that statement would have went well with episode 132. Because we took a quick week. I ate us had a chance to see my gods done last weekend. And and he does not play baseball. He only plays a basketball. He wants to wrestle. He boxes. He he

he's 11 years old. He boxes. That's awesome. And I'm getting him. I'm getting him already told him this. I'm getting boxing gloves for his birthday. So the surprise it released there. He has a boxing bag in his house that he goes into the basement. And he does, you know, he does drills, whatever. And I'm thinking to myself as he's telling me this. I'm like, God, thank

God. You just didn't do that. week. We're doing a mechanical breakdown series. I don't know what volume it is, but that'll be episode 135. We like to do mechanical break for new our new listeners, our new viewers. We like to do mechanical breakdowns every fifth week. Pretty much. And we like to do. Regular breakdowns of current day players and then what other breakdowns that we call

gold edition, which are players from the past and legends from the past. So I'm going to give you a choice here. Next week, we're doing overrated underrated. We haven't done that in a while. No. You sound really excited about it. No, we haven't done it. No. Okay. So next week we're doing overrated underrated. I think might be like volume. That might be like volume four volume.

Maybe I don't know. But we haven't done, we certainly have not done one in 2023. So we will be doing that next week. Then the week after that, mechanical breakdown series. And then in the week after that, in the coming weeks, managing expectations. That'll be right around like opening day of major leagues of major league base of major leagues. Jesus Christ, major league baseball. I might

as well. I should have said the MLB. You ever hear that when people say, oh, yeah, he plays in the MLB. He plays in the major league baseball. No. Terrible. So we'll be doing those couple of topics coming up here as we wind up March, going into April into the 2023 major league baseball season. But I'm going to give you a choice here. Mechanical breakdown series

in two weeks, episode 135. And you can't go back on this. It's you make a choice. You're not going back on it. We're doing that guy. Okay. Fair Steve Balboni. Yes. John Allerud. No. Have you seen Ken Griffey in the in the day out for team USA? Yeah. Mark Doros was being interviewed last night. When I was watching a little bit of the world baseball classic.

He was being interviewed by the guys in the booth. I swear to God with that guy. He's sound. You know the comedian Jim Florentine. Yeah. That's who he sounds. He does a little bit. He really sounds like Jim Florentine. Yeah. He said something last night. And then I put it in the context of Jim Florentine, the comedian, his voice. And I was like, that's Jim fucking

Florentine managing team USA. Yeah. The Rosta has definitely the way he chops his sentences and his words. I don't like how he's like, he's like, he's like this over. He oversensuates his Italian. Yeah. When he's on TV. If you notice that, it's very it's it's kind of annoying actually. And a lot of people out there don't like his hitting breakdowns. I know it'll be network. For

whatever reason. No, Mark Doros. So we're not breaking his swing down. I just wanted to point that out that he sounds like Jim Florentine. Mark. And what was I saying? Oh, Ken Griffey Jr. looks great, by the way. Yeah. The USA dug out so much knowledge. Like I saw a picture of him. I had some good friends that were sitting right behind the dugout and they

sent me a picture. And it's a picture of him and trouts on one side and bets on the other. And they're just, you know, talking. They're just talking hitting and, you know, talking baseball and so much knowledge that you can pull from generations before. That not unfortunately not everybody does that and they should guys that have been there. Well, I think Ken Griffey might be on

the list to do later in the year. Or I don't know sometime. Oh, yeah, for sure. We're going to be breaking it. But he's not he's not on the list in two weeks. Here are the guys. Here's the list. We can either do. So that we've been teasing this guy for a while. We've talked about him in the last couple of weeks. Jeff McNeil. Arguably and

very under I think under is he on TV USA? Why is he not on TV USA? He was the best hitter. He's the league last year. Oh, he is. Okay. He is because I saw a tweet that says your NL batting champion is batting ninth. Yeah. JT Real Muto's batting eighth. Yeah. Right. So Jeff, we can do either do Jeff McNeil in two weeks. Oh, by

the way, people, listen, if people want to write in about this, Jim podcast 21 a Gmail.com and they want to maybe vote, then, okay. Then that's fine too. Why don't you put up like a little Twitter poll or something? I could do that. Jeff McNeil, Hank Aaron or Derek Jeter, those are your three choices. You got to pick from one of the three. Now that's, I

know. Good choices. I get it. Let's go to Jeter. Griffey's not on that list. So you want to go Jeter. Yeah. I think I'd like to do Jeter just because I think we can get them good clips from the side. Okay. I would like to do Aaron because Aaron's totally different than anyone playing today's game. It's just hard harder to find video of him. You know,

obviously you have some later in his career. I think that was that number seven, 15 that he hit. You know, that was always. But I think Jeter would be fun. I think you'd be really good. I'll be a gold edition though. For sure. It would be okay. Okay. So in a couple of weeks, episode 135 mechanical breakdown series gold edition. We're breaking down Derek Jeter. Yeah.

A new analyst, by the way, for Fox Sports. Do you believe that you ever thought he would be a commentator? No. I didn't. I didn't say it either. That's almost like a business man. Michael Jordan. Yeah. You won't. I didn't see Tom Brady as a being commentator either. But here he is. No. I didn't see that one. You think he's going to be a good commentator.

Yeah. You do. You think it's going to be as good as Greg Olson was this past year. Yeah. Tom Brady is not bad at anything. It's true. I think I prepared and prepares and prepares. He'll prepare for his broadcast as much as he probably prepared for games. Like you and I prepare for this podcast. Yeah. Yeah. It's just a great podcast every week. Yeah. Yeah. Hours

of day just to make sure that we're spot on. Well, it takes us hours of day to log on. Get this. Get the stream. Correct. So that's that's part of the preparation. Hey, Lion. That's part of it. Right. So that's okay. A couple of weeks. Episode 135. It's set mechanical breakdown series gold edition Derek Jeter next week. Overrated underrated. Make sure to follow us on social

media at Jim Tara at Epstein. Thank you very much for doing that Twitter and Instagram. Appreciate it. Episode 133 today. Hitting to your strengths. I do want to get to something with the pitch clock. We have to do it because we're going to be. Like I said, I swear to you, we're going to be. I'm telling you what's going to happen. We're going to be talking

about this is the pitch clock is going to be. There's going to be something new that comes out every week in the regular season. Some some guy I'm waiting for the day when some guy gets called out. Basis loaded or second and third bottom of the ninth inning. It's called out strike three and ends a ball game. And that's going to be the talk. It's going

to be a couple of weeks and then it's going to be something new. So this pitch clock things going away in the minor leagues. Nobody even knew that was happening. People knew, but they just really care. Only the people who are playing here. All right. So I'm going to give you a from a pitchers perspective. Now Roger Clemens recently was on a podcast. It was the

P B D podcast. And he was asked about the new pitch clock. And his main focal point. And his what he talked about here is from a pitchers perspective. He said that as a pitcher, if you're not careful, if you're not focusing, I'll say that again. So you become Roger Clemens said this on the P B D podcast. You become a thrower. If you don't focus,

rather than being a pitcher, if you're following too much of that pitch clock. Now you flip that around. That's from the pitchers perspective. Now there's other guys out there are a garrick hole. Maxures or they're not bothered by that because they've always gone really, really quick. Right. And a lot of younger guys coming up now. A lot of these young stars, a Sandy Alcanta. How do

you say his name? Sandy. And Marlins. Right. He always has worked fairly quick. And he's had success with it. But you flip that around as a hitter, the short amount of time that you have. I'm going to ask your advice here. Give advice to hitters, the short amount of time that you have. The reset to try to get your thoughts. Collect yourself, get back into the

box and be looking at the pitcher in the a lot of time that you have. How do hitters stick to their plan? How do they go about slowing the game down because the game has now sped up because of that pitch clock. And the umpires are watching. They're very strict. You know, I'm a hitting person. So I think it's way harder on a hitter as a

coach at a high level. I mean, we were constantly trying to get pitchers out of their rhythm. You know, pitches that are pounding the strikes on pounding the strikes. They get in the sign and going. They get the catcher gets the sign in quick and he's going. And we're trying to break that up so that we don't have a three minute inning, which is what you're

seeing a lot of now. You're seeing guys are swinging at pitches earlier in the count. Because they everything feels rushed. So as far as pitchers are concerned, I mean, I don't see a problem with whatever. What is it? 15 seconds with no one on base? Yeah. Come on. It's plenty of time to get the ball back. Get your sign. Take a deep breath and go. For

hitters, I think it it's more of a problem. They can't get out. If you get out of the box and start flipping your batting gloves, it's going to be a problem. I think it helps with the pitchers. Some of the pitchers, the stupid wind ups and all that BS that was been going on. And the Astros and like that get rid of that mess. I mean,

that's just that's a buck. Like, that's a buck. In my, I mean, I know as a rule, it's not, I guess, a buck or you should be able to call it with nobody. You should be able to call a ball with it. But should be able to jazz around out there and play around with your wife. There's some moves with a buck though that that it's

almost like in football. You can call holding on every play. You can almost call a buck on every play, especially with a pitcher, a left handed pitcher. You can't, but if you're trying to deceive the hitter or deceive the pitcher with or the runner with deliveries, like that's a buck. Anyway, I digress getting back. You're right. You're right. Hitters have to hitters have to figure out

now. The issue I have is the friggin' umpire doesn't know when a guy is paying attention. Who cares if he's paying attention or not? Who was it? Hosmer got rung up the other day because he was in the box. He was sitting there waiting for the pitcher, waiting for the pitcher. The pitcher got on the rubber. He got in the box and then the pitcher, like,

whatever, and they called a strike on him because the umpire said his eyes weren't on the pitcher. It doesn't matter the dudes in the box. How ridiculous is that? He's ready to hit. If he's in the box, I don't care if it's two seconds left on the pitcher can throw whatever the hell he wants. They created legislation. They created legislation to tell you what to do

with your eyes. That's right. Yeah. That's a sign of things to come with our government to in the United States. They're going to soon be passing legislation. They'll telling you what you can and can't do with your eyes. That's right. If you're in the box, if you're Eric Hosmer in the box into your scenario and what actually happened and you're looking say you're trying to get

your vision or your focal point for your vision and you're not looking at the, it might be like looking at the third base side dog out or something. He was in the box. He was like hitting home plate. He was like, you're not looking at the pitcher. With eight seconds left. That's, wow, it's, it's crazy. Yeah. So really it's, you know, it's amazing to me that

that baseball hasn't figured out that these players and these managers, these coaches and a lot of people in front offices now are very, very smart. And that they will figure out ways to work around these rules. Max shares are already figured it out within two weeks on the mound. I think what was it? Who against the twins? Gosh, who shifted against the red socks shift against

Joey? We galo of the twins, right? They put it over something, they moved them over to it. So then there are three guys really on the right side, but somebody was playing in short right. So my point is we have to really be careful with how much legislation we pass when it comes to baseball and trying to change rules. Now I've always said I'm okay with

the pitch clock, but it has to be there has to be some good solid feel put into place where, where players, umpires, everybody's on the same page and says, okay, well, it's the bottom of the eighth game. So we're excited to runners, it's second and third pitching change. New guy comes in. We're not going to be enforcing the pitch clock as hard, right? Or we're going

to give a warning. If it's a 10 to 2 game in the bottom of the eighth inning, each umpire goes to each dugout and says, guys, let's go speed it up. We're going to be really, really strict with this now. It's hard. It has to, it has to be a feel, but I don't think it's that hard though when you put it in that context. I

mean, to me, some of it is very, it's very self explanatory. You don't use really clock or use it as much. You still use it. So in a sense, but you don't enforce it as much when it's a 2 2 game in the bottom half of the eighth inning. Yeah. I think it, I mean, it's working. Like it's, is it though? Yeah. What's, what's it? How's

it working? Okay. I thought I thought it was like 20 to 30 minutes faster. Well, okay, but that's fine. But there's a lot of people out there who don't like it and don't care about the time of games. Yeah, but that the reason for the pitch clock is to speed up the games. I don't know. I understand that. So it's working there, but is it making

that, but it's also the point of to speed up the game is to make the product better. Is it making the product better? Or are we, or we just the stuff that I read was making it better. It was a faster game and there was more offense. So between the shift and between the bigger bases and that and the pitch clock, you know, something was working

in the positives of faster time and and more runs per game, whether or not that'll continue. But yeah, I think there's more stolen bases too though. Yeah. I mean, I'm not going to umpire bash, but umpires are like, they have egos too. Unless they're full cozy. I don't know. Guy misses pitches right down the middle. Yeah, but I mean, so they're going to, they're going to

want to make that deal. Okay, they're going to want to be like, oh, you know, I'm, I'm as big as this game. I am important. And I'm going to make that call in a tie game in the eighth inning, not every umpire, but there's going to be a big you know, a small percentage that that aren't going to adhere by the field rule. But yeah, maybe

once you get to the eighth inning, if you're within X amount of runs, we bump it to 30 seconds. So we've bumped to 25 seconds. Like you'd mentioned it in an earlier podcast, you know, at five seconds to that. It's a little quick. But I think it's. I don't know. I think some of it is really bad. I've seen guys with one foot in the box

and then they get in the box after the pitcher gets on the rubber and they call strike because they weren't in the box. But it's like, well, they were just waiting for the pitcher to get on the rubber. Why do they have to sit there? And then I look back at games, you know, there's, I'm trying to think of the, what's the Twitter guy? It's like,

is it stir ups? Some vintage stir ups or stir ups now or and he posts all these old, you know, from the 60s and 70s and sometimes 80s, these clips of, you know, games. And it was like, I mean, the hitter didn't get out of the box and the pitcher didn't get off the rubber. There's like Bob Gibson against somebody. And it was just boom. And

then six seconds later, here's the next bitch. And then six seconds later, here's the next bitch. So eventually it'll get back to that because of the rule. And then you probably won't, but it is. It's starting in the minor leagues and then all those players come up that haven't been stepping out of the box, looking around, changing their batting gloves. Then it'll go, you know, then

I think it'll be easier and there won't be complaining and people get used to it. But in the meantime, all these guys that are playing the big leagues now have never had to deal with it. I mean, I'm not asking people that have been there for, you know, 10, 10 years plus some of them to make adjustments. It's not easy. Yeah. All right. Well, we'll see

how it, how it all plays out. Yeah. I got nothing more. We'll see. I mean, I, I'm a baseball guy and I pretty much watch every inning of every playoff game. But I will be honest. I watch the baseball. I need to watch for my job. During the season, I don't just say, oh, there's a game on Sunday night. I'm going to turn it on and

watch it. I don't unless it's the teams I'm working for. And I need to check on hitters. But even then I usually just get chopped video and that saves me even more time. So anyway, we'll see it's not going to affect me during the regular season. We'll put it that way. All right. Let's get this episode flying by. We're having a lot of fun. Pitch clock

fun. I do think it'll make the product better, by the way. I don't think it's making the product better now because nobody really knows there's, there's too much. It's chaos. It's too much chaos. I guess with it. There's not a solid definition of what of when to enforce the actual pitch clock. So I do think it will make the product better once we work out all

the kinks. But that's what they said. Why they say, well, it's pretty draining is for. We got to listen to a question. Then to us via Jimbo podcast 21. At gmail.com. And this gentleman wrote into both Cassie and Jake or for Cassie and Jake cross functionality and for the lab Epstein hitting podcast. And I gave him the option is this question for Cassie or for Jake.

And he said both question mark. And I go, okay. I'm being generous today. So yeah, I know. So his, his name is bear. Be a bear. And bear writes in via Jimbo podcast 21 at gmail.com. He says, hi, my name is coach bear. First and foremost, your shows are outstanding. Keep up the awesome input. He probably might work. Okay. That's fine. Thank you. Bear. My question

as a coach, when, when this is a good one to, by the way, when should you step in and tell a parent they're making the coach. And then he draws to an experience that he's currently having. He says very talented young lady who has a huge upside. But mom, not dad. You think you'll be a dad, right? Usually is that. But I've heard softball moms are

a little, you know, kind of, too. But mom believes she knows best, which is pushing her kid backwards. I would appreciate the feedback. Keep up the amazing work. And that is from coach bear sent to us via. And I think coach bear if I'm not mistaken, send it a bit video of his daughter for the Twitter contest. And who has a really nice swing. How is

that Twitter contest going by the way? I did a Twitter contest to make sure you follow me on. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I was on social media. I grabbed four players and did reanalysis. They submitted their swings. And then I did a free analysis about 10 minutes of each one. Like I do with all the professional players amateur players that I

work with. So it was pretty cool. But he was, he was one of them. And then I believe we traded. We traded some emails. And so I'm pretty sure he's a high school coach. Okay. This is coming from. I don't know if he put that in his email or not. He's a coach. So communication is the key. You know, it really is. And it's hard. Sometimes

with parents and maybe this is his travel team. Maybe coach is a travel team. And I'm wrong with the high school. But yeah, you know, a lot of times you get you get parents that are that are overbearing. And if you have a he put it really well that it's getting in the way it's maybe it's bothering him as a coach. But it's taking away from

the players ability to get the most out of themselves. So whatever that parent is doing, putting external pressure on him. It's a good thing to have a coach like that. But I can't be sure or creating a dynamic where the coach and the parent, you know, the parents saying bad things about the coach at home. And then the poor kid has to hear that. And then

the kid goes to practice and coaches, you know, running practice. And even though this kid may really love the coach and the back of their mind. They keep hearing their parents, you know, just peppering on this and that and the other. So communication is the best. I would. I would sit down and say, hey, can we, you know, spend some time after practice. We can sit

down and talk. And then we talk about, look, your daughter is really great. And, you know, she's progressing this way. These are the things she really needs to work on. But, you know, on a personal level, she's, you know, she's caught between the pressure you're putting on her. And when you show up, she's not at her best. And when you're yelling things from the stance to

her, she's not at her best. Whether you're saying good things or things that are detrimental to what she's doing, it's just the fact that you're saying something when she's trying to compete. And that doesn't work. So that's the big thing for me as a coach. If there's parents sitting, hey, hey, get there. And she's sitting here and do that and look for this bitch and bend

your back knee and get your shoulders up and this and that. Now the game isn't for that. The game is to get in the batter's box and compete or to get on to the mound or in the circle and compete and be aggressive. And I've had to do that with my own kid because, you know, she's like, oh, I didn't feel great on that swing because

we look at video and we hit all the time. And she's a hitting coach now because I tell you, you should work on this. But then sometimes in the game, she'll be in the undecstirical and be like, I'm like, no, like you step into the box and you be aggressive. I want you to be overly aggressive. The first two swings that you take until you get

to two strikes. I know you're going to make contact. Like you have eye hand coordination at a good swing point. Maybe the hardest contact, but with two strikes, I know you're going to put it in place. So when you don't have two strikes, be aggressive. I don't want you to think about your extension or your back shoulder or any of that stuff. And unfortunately, parents, that's

what they throw out, you know, it's like, okay, my kids in the box, they're going to be in the box for like the next 90 seconds. I'm going to tell them five different things to work on. And that just creates doubt of a plan that they may have had or that their coach put in or it just creates tension, even worse, it creates tension in the

box. So, communication, I guess that's the best thing I can say is try to sit down with that parent. You might not make any friends doing it. But if you do it in the right way and in a non aggressive way, non aggressive way, for the benefit of the kid, take your own ego out of it, take the, you know, tell the parent, look, it's, it's

not about me. It's about your kid. I'm trying to get the best out of her right now because of the pressure you're putting on her. She's not showing up. She's not her best. If she's not her best, she's not going to play. So we need to figure out a plan to get her to be at her best because I need her to be in my starting

lineup. Something to that effect. All right. Well, bear. Thank you for the question. If anybody else has questions, comments, whatever email is jimbo podcast 21 at gmail.com. You can reach out on social media at Jim Tara and at Epstein hitting final point today. Our main topic hitting your strengths episode 133. I'm going to draw parallel to what you just said about your daughter and how she's

become her own coach. You become your own coach. I think I'm the, in the box at the plate, you become your own coach when you know your strengths and weaknesses. That's the most important part. If you don't know your, and it sounds so obvious. But if you don't know your strengths and weaknesses, but it's something that's oftentimes overlooked at all levels of baseball and softball. If

you don't know your strengths and weaknesses, if you don't understand how to approach a certain pitcher based off your strengths and weaknesses, you're going to miss. We've already determined that you get four pitches, maybe five if you're lucky, four pitches a game that you can really do damage with and you get a higher levels. Three to four. And if you don't miss, if you don't have

your strengths and weaknesses lined up and you miss those pitches, those three to four pitches, you're not going to have very much success. And you're not going to be playing for much longer. And so that's the key point here. I think we should take away from today's episode hitting to your strengths. Yep. And don't get in your own head. Create a plan. Even if it's a

bad plan, even if it's the wrong plan, at least it's a plan stick to it. When you walk into the box and be aggressive to that plan, we don't want a second guess. Anything that we're doing when we get up to the plate. That's it. That's the best foot forward. That's all I can forward. Episode 133 hitting to your strengths. Very good. And be sure to

subscribe to the show as well on YouTube, the lab Epstein hitting podcast. Do two page, subscribe, Apple Google Spotify, wherever you get your podcast, you got anything coming up. You want to promote anything or should we just get on out of here? Promotion promotion promotion. I don't know. I'll tell you what needs to happen. It needs to happen. I need to get all my players in.

Those of you that are sitting on the bench too. So I have so many players that have been in the academy. And then usually they take up, you know, a month or two after in the off season. Well, the games are starting. So get those. I just got three last night. So I know it's the season in the cold weather areas are starting. Because the videos

are starting to come in. So make sure you sit in your video so I can check your timing and rhythm, even if your mechanics are good. Send me some game video. Cool. All right. Epstein online hitting dot com. Correct. Yeah, you can just go to Epstein hitting dot com. You'll find it. I said online hitting easy. You can go to either one. I have many domains,

but Epstein hitting easy, easy, easy. You know what? I'm going to go to it right now before we stop doing this. Yeah, you are. Boone right now. See, you see me see the first thing the first cap that I've been pulled up has Aaron Rogers news. So it's been the pitch clock and Aaron Rogers in the world of sports. It seems like there you go. All

right. So I'm on Epstein hitting dot com. My internet's going a little bit slow. Oh, yeah, look at that. You get the online academy. You got the instructor certification. You've got the in person training. Yes. And I am building. I guess this is news. It's going to take me a few months, but I'm building for probably this summer. A key teaching platform of like certification type

platform, but for parents for parents and for coaches that want to coach their own kids. It's a step by step approach. It's a great learning management software tool that we're using. It'll have videos. It'll have. Step by step bullet points of different drills to work on and to make you a better coach because I think if we can get players at a young age, you know,

you're a volunteer coach from New York Little League. If we can get the right information to those players when they're set up. It's going to take me 7 to 8 years old. The baseball community in general moving forward is going to be much better. And then more people will play. So that's my goal. Like is a coach. All I'm trying to do is get my players

better. So they have fun. If they have fun, they keep playing. If they keep playing. Then the game of baseball and softball continued to grow. So look for that in the coming months. Been working on it all winter. Yeah, beat that chat GPT. Try. Chat, Jack GPT can't teach hitting. I don't know who that is, but you don't know chat. No, it's the big thing that's

sweeping the the nations, the AI stuff. You gotta be. You gotta know. You might be. Every. I don't know. I haven't. Every adult male or female over the age of 18. No. Every every cousin that I haven't college uses chat GPT for their papers. Now. Yeah. I mean, we didn't have that growing up. I know. Back in our day. I'll be using it for my resume.

We'll see what happens. See if I can get a job as this aerospace engineer. They you can type literally type in the job description. Put that in the chat GPT. And they'll make you a resume of whatever you said, engineer aerospace engineer. Why? Why aerospace? Why? Why not? Fucking must now. Why not? Jake Elon Musk. It sounds good. I guess it does. Yeah. Aerospace engineer. All

the chicks dig it. All right. We will talk to you next week. Overrated underrated episode 134. Subscribe. Thank you very much for watching. You know, listening will talk to you then. Have a good week.