Jim's Four Pillars of Hitting

Mark Gold what are you playing? What's wrong? I'm playing new game where you can go around and play this game in the name of our review tonight! Mark ? because that's that will come because the new game will begin in 9 months Hello everybody welcome in Happy New Year another edition of Cross functionality episode 23 thank you very much for joining us on podcast side the

audio side Apple who will spotify wherever you get your podcast or of course on the YouTube side softball strength academy today episode 23 talking about the four pillars of the swing very excited to do this so this show of course as always we say connecting coaching baseball softball male female and you know what no better day to do it than today because we are talking about

hitting and how it connects between both again baseball and softball so let me bring in softball national champion at the University of Alabama current day and now coach friend co-host Cassie Riley Boche, Cassie what's Cassie or Cassie what's going on? Respect the game baby! Oh all is good all is good yeah I got my my baseballism sweatshirt on respect the game today so I do have

to get some new baseballism clothes and just new like more baseball wardrobe if you will. Yeah this was this is a Christmas present a couple of years ago so this was it's a good one I like this one but what is Cassie Claude's going to be delivering out or already delivered out right Christmas on Christmas well this is this is second Christmas involving two toddlers so

we have a 5 or 6 and a 3 year old that gets to experience Christmas so it's a lot different experiencing that than just you know as an adult alone. Alright let's let's get into it today episode 23 of cross functionality as we discuss the four pillars of hitting I have my four pillars I'll just Raul them off really quickly here and then we'll go down

the list timing and vision and again these just want for more context purposes I want to make sure that everybody knows that these four pillars in my opinion are the absolutes to become a great hitter because you know Cass and let's just let me just get your opinion on this for a second there's so much out there now on social media we're going to be hitting

and there are things that people say you need to do absolutes that you need to have in your swing when quite frankly that's not true so these absolutes today are going to be a little bit different from the actual fundamentals because I see things on social media and I see when people put out certain elements of their students swings that those students need to have to

be successful I don't necessarily agree because I think a lot of that their cues rather than absolutes and we'll say we're not talking about that we're talking about absolutes. And the same thing that I tried to do with my pyramid is try to put an organizational hierarchy to certain things or to try to say hey there's so many things that you could deem important but one

what's real versus feel right it's not just what you're feeling what's actually going on and you know what's going on and you know what's going on. There's probably 10 or 15 different things that fall underneath one category if you want to really say hey well mechanics is supreme in this situation it's like wow is your mechanics important so you can't adjust or is your mechanics important

just to have mechanics and I think that's always a big debate sometimes but I'm excited for you to unveil your four. Well you so you you're you're pretty to them so you kind of already know you're not going to be surprised you've achieved. All right number one and this is important. This is not talked about enough by the way timing and vision okay vision the vision

part you know you really know that story you being an anti fan you probably didn't like David Ortiz all that much but he started to when he was struggling his eyesight was kind of going a little bit right I don't know the exact story but then he went to the eye doctor and he got his eyes check timing and vision if you don't have time it

well vision okay obviously but if you don't have the timing you're not going to be able to hit anything right. Yeah I think you know there's situations where in cases your vision will affect your timing and then there's other situations where your vision can be fine in your time it can still be off and I've I've dealt with that firsthand vision wise I remember I went

in the biggest lump of my life my junior year in college I had a girl come up to me she's a freshman she's like you know you should probably get your eyes checked and I was like in such a frustrate I was in such a bad place but sure enough I started to notice like just little things one of my eyes were fatigued during night games

you might not have noticed this slight shift but because you're so reliant on your vision so got contacts and I couldn't believe I was like oh I forgot I used to see the ball that well you know I thought it was another issue so I felt I felt with that or dealt with that firsthand and you know you could have the pretty swing on the planet

but if you can't time of the pitch it doesn't matter you get it you know you have the pretty swing on the planet if you don't if you're blind it's not going to matter so I'm glad that that is paramount and key because if anything like gosh that makes up for so much so much else you you talk to anybody who's played the game and they're

like yeah I'd rather a better like a day where I'm just timing the ball perfectly instead of a day that my swing feels good yeah and so and you can get away with bad mechanics or struggling mechanically maybe something is off if you have the right yeah and I think the thing is to people people try to put you know mechanics as king because it's very

easy to like critique it it's very easy to just look but how do you critique someone's timing how do you critique someone's vision you know and you know the other piece of it too so couple interesting things off of vision I think they've they've talked about the I'm not sure what the greatest the human eye has ever been able to see but it's not just 2020

that you're looking for you're looking for like 2015 which means where normal people see you 20 feet away you're able to see it as as if it was 15 feet away you're able to see longer distances better and so I think Bryce Harper has extreme vision I think I've I've heard a lot of stories about that but then you know the the other end of it

too is is just like how do you take care of your eyes how do you how there's so many techniques to hey when you lock into a picture don't stare because staring is fatiguing it's almost like you're just holding your arm out for this long your arms eventually going to fit so like I scanning or I breathing as Ted Williams used to call it all those

years ago where you're trying to just relax your eyes relax your eyes and then the first time you pick the ball up that's the most high definition version of that ball that you're going to see it's a great point because when hitters when they're in the box for too long and they're looking out of the picture and pictures now of course they a major at the

major league level they've got the pitch come but they're still going through the series of signs and I was always taught three seconds and then you step out because to your point that you're going to point your eyes become fatigued right yeah yeah gosh I wasn't when I was in college I was so tuned into or I wouldn't say tuned in I was such a believer

that the eyes were so important to my ability to hit my ability to just seen incoming pitch read it sooner know if it was a ball no if it was a strike that if I had a test on a Friday but I also had a game on a Friday I wouldn't stay up studying Thursday night I make sure my studying was on Tuesday or Wednesday so

that I could sleep and not be straining on a computer or a book the night before. Just just a little thing. It's like that and then the other piece of it too is how much better do you see the ball the more times you see the picture so is there this subconscious vision if you will words hey you've seen a picture enough times that you know

by the you know it's not your conscious vision it's not like you saying like wow I'm actually seeing the arm slot go to here but something in your subconscious triggers that's a change up that's a curve ball and preps you for that pitch before it even comes in so that's that's like a whole another that's like a third eye to the game right running but they

talk about right running backs having it when they're trying to find holes how do you know to go right instead of left it's like well I don't know I didn't consciously tell myself to go right it was just this reaction or it's really this anticipation welcome Gladwell's book blank talks about that a lot which is very cool and then the sports scene I think I'm gonna

blank on his first name but Epstein is the author and he talked about that right away they took Ryan Howard from the Phillies and they started looking at pictures and they were like hey at what point do you know and this picture is wind up where they're going to be that pitch is going to be before they release it and it just that was the that

was the impressiveness of hitters is being able to have that third eye look into that into their the pitchers. Okay I'm looking up the book and for the for the record for those crossover listeners who listen to the lab Epstein hitting podcast is not Michael Jake Epstein although they have written two separate books I can't find it. The sports team. Oh it's called sports gene okay

yeah. All right. I'm almost positive Epstein. Oh David Epstein David Epstein. Yes sports gene I'm getting a quick plug here I guess and you know what I'm gonna write this down for later because I want to wear this book I want to read it inside the science of extraordinary athletic performance is the book by David Epstein. The first chapter was really or the first part of

the book got me hooked because you know you know it goes my first audiobook so it was a good lesson too. Oh you okay so you're an audiobook kind of gal me too well I drive two hours every day so audiobook kind of guy but you know you're an audiobook kind of gal very good it's funny because YouTube I have an old section in my saved

videos for you know people and back the onions today on the new year 2000 first episode of 2023 I have an audiobook section of YouTube where I can just put audiobooks in there that are on YouTube legally or legally. You know it's interesting with timing though we we talk so much about mechanics and sport of baseball and softball and it's it's so I have heavily talked

about at nauseam but the reason we need to have good mechanics is so that we can actually have good timing right I mean that's why we want to have good mechanics we can talk how we want about hey we need to have good mechanics to barrel up the baseball but we also need to have adjustable mechanics that if we are fooled on a breaking pitch baseball

or softball we need to have those solid mechanics that can still get us to the point where you can barrel up the baseball and hit it hard or softball. Yeah if you think hitting off a tee is like the easiest piece of it right like hey we're gonna hit off a tee this is the easiest level of entry to hitting everything that we do after that

is trying to create safety nets for the level of difficulty of hitting right so like why we why we teach anything in mechanics is going to be a safety net for trying to react better pitching trying to hit the ball a little bit harder trying to well listen if we're gonna face this type of picture we need the safety net of a really strong front side

if we're gonna face the ball a little bit harder than that. So if we're gonna face this type of picture we're gonna need the safety net of a really quick bat you know it's it's that is why you do it because every every single thing a pitcher is doing is they're trying to screw up your timing and if you have the ability to adjust with your

timing right it's not just you being able to time up the same pitch over and over again give the ability to adjust that's going to be king. Yeah also you made a great point that I want to just circle back to really quick and people watching football games big time now for college football the NFL bowl games etc. When they zero in the camera shot they

zero in on the running back's eyes and they see them in the backfield and you see hands on his knees and his eyes are darting around that goes back to your point of what you said a couple of minutes ago about the eyes and about the vision. Yeah it's something it's it's that it's a gamer right like some of us open a game and just know

exactly what to do it's super cool. Yeah be sure to follow us by the way social media at Jim Tara at coach underscore Kassie R.B. on Instagram at coach Kassie R.B. on Twitter and even tells your questions Jim Bo podcast 21 at gmail.com swing plane bat path that's number two here as we talk today episode 23 of the four pillar of gross functionality the four pillars

of hitting first episode of 2023 swing plane and bat path what are your thoughts on that that's my number two that's Jim's number two pillar of a successful swing of a successful hitter. So I kept having to not mention it when we were talking about timing because I I've always teach my hitters the real thing. And why we care about swing plane is because your timing

isn't going to be your anticipation of where you thought that pitch was going to be is going to be off. There's going to be a little bit late. There's going to be a little early. But when we create that we get on plane early when we can stay on plane as long as we need to. Now we're all of a sudden creating this opportunity to have

a much larger point of entry for our bat to make contact with that ball and not just the bat but the sweet spot part of the bat to make contact with the ball. Yeah. And it's I taught a class coaching soft one and my grad is a very good degree or coaching softball baseball and it was for individuals who were aspiring to be high school gym

teachers and it was essentially trying to equip them with a playbook to be able to go if something needed to hire baseball coach or softball coach they could apply. And this guy said he goes why do we care about extension why do we care about any of this when all that really matters is hitting the ball the point of contact why do you care about anything

else and it's it's a fair question if you've never played the game. If you play the game you understand like the ability to just time that up is not you need that safety net again that I just talked about. Yeah. Yeah. So again you know with swing plane bat path let's not forget to that goes along with adjustability in the swing. You know having a good

hand path and a good swing plane. What I mean in your opinion what is a good swing plan. I mean there's people out there who say well it's this or it's this or to me it's having being being on plane with the pitch. What I've learned from the great Jake Epstein of course Cassia I think you believe in this as well. It's getting be having an

adjustable swing. A flatter swing if the pitch is higher and having a steeper swing plane if the pitch is lower but it's about getting on plane with the pitch and being as adjustable as possible. This may be a little bit more handle or nobloated so that I'm not dropping the barrel as much and then my face is slower dropball pitcher or someone where I need to

get my swing plane a little steeper. I'm going to go use my end load of that you know what I mean like when when are we going to maybe make start to push to those adjustments as hitters and again I don't want to over complicate the game. I love the idea of like sure you need to get up there have like confidence and vision that works

to an extent at some point it's going to turn into chess and I'm waiting for hitters to catch up to the chess game that pitchers have been playing for a while. And that goes back to swing plane bad path and again having an approach having a plan as well. I always say that if a hitter on a higher pitch I'm just going to talk I guess

I'll just talk in baseball terms. When people get this confused a lot with a pitch that is looking like it's rising to the plane right that you hear that you know this pitch you had that that late life and that rise to it. It was on plane with the pitcher's arm slot that's all it is it's not a pitch that's really rising it's on plane with

the pitchers arm slot and on plane with the pitcher on the mound. Now I've always said that if a hitter fouls that pitch back to me it means that they're just cutting under the baseball a little bit and that their swing plane is a little bit off. Is that right correct. I mean yeah we've said it's so funny my dad asked me that one time he

goes you know he goes everyone always says when they foul it straight back. They're just on it he goes but that's the smallest piece of the ball that you could have hit. And I've always said I'm like it it meant like the timing was there everything was there where is if you foul it off in other directions it's usually that your timing is off or you're

or you're you know and I think this to hand path versus barrel path is very different because you want. Okay so when I think of bad path right we don't want to just have our back come on a straight angle down and sweep across right there's certain again creating a safety net. I want my hand path to say tights my body I want to create bat

lag I want to make sure that my my my tension in my hand is not so strong that I'm vacating that risk position too soon and then kind of coming around the barrel the way or having the barrel come around the hands. The way the bat makes contact with the ball is important and that's again why you train mechanics why you have this very natural as

swing to it but it's also why the bat is designed the way it is the bat is not a plank of wood there's a smaller handle a heavier. Barrel you know what it means to the point of entry does become important but I would agree with you that means you're right on path and it's funny because people have been talking about swing plane for a while

they just didn't realize it when you foul three pitches off high outside pitches off to the I'm a lefty so I'd foul it off to the left side. I coach would look at me and be like hit a ground ball to the shore stop he didn't want me to actually do that but he knew that little adjustment would end up being the line drive in the

gap. Yeah or the home run over the opposite field wall right. So we've again we've been talking about it we just have not put a tangible number to it for a while in baseball and softball. Yeah it's a cue right I was a cue for you and that's why I didn't include on this this list. I didn't include any real mechanics because somebody may say hey.

Chop can straight down to the baseball writers chop straight down to the softball they don't actually mean do that but it's a mental cue that then communicates to you physically I'm sound like real scientific coach here today. And there you go that's that's how the magic happens. 100% and you know what if people get eaten alive on social media because they're talking to an athlete and

they're like that's not what is actually happening in the swing. A cue is an interpersonal relationship between the athlete and the coach that's it that that coach is trying to get to know that athlete and trying to figure out what is going to work best for them and if they need to think top half of the ball or completely swinging missing over the ball in order

to get the appropriate outcome that's what's going to work for them that doesn't mean that they're needing to explain the exact mechanics of the swing because that's not what's going to work for every athlete. Yeah great great point. Well said number three on our list here the four pillars of hitting. By the way again Cassie mentions her hitting pyramid we're going to discuss that in long

form a topic here in 2023 but number three the picture trying to get you out so in other words making adjustments right having to make adjustments having a plan understanding what the picture is trying to do to you because that picture I don't care if yours hot as Bryce Harper as he was hot as he was in the postseason I don't care what hitter you are

how hot you are at that time you're going to get out you're not going to go 10 for 10 20 for 20 it's just not going to happen that picture is going to get you out and he's going to throw a really good pitch the higher levels you go he's going they're going to throw you really good pitches and they're going to be able to get

you out baseball or softball now it's your job to be able to make adjustments and figure out a plan of attack of how to get to that picture and stay hot and that's my third pillar it's being able to make adjustments because knowing of course that the picture is going to get you out. Sure you know I think when I hear adjustments I think of two

separate categories one is in flight adjustments we've been talking about those are safety that's right. Pitch is coming in you're not getting fooled in a change up whatever that might be that's a pitch is released it's an in flight adjustment you work all off season to have those in flight adjustments the other adjustments that we're talking about our pitch to pitch at bat to at bat

potentially game to game and if you watch college softball college baseball the pros whatever it is you have some hitters who struggle for an entire season and it takes them it's not that they're not trying but it takes them you know almost an entire season to make those types of adjustments or it's a slew of games that they're not they're struggling with those adjustments I think

when you see hitters who are fairly consistent it's not that they're not failing it's that they have this issue or they get out but then they don't get out three times in a row they don't get out four times in a row my trout is making the adjustment is third and fourth at bat you know where some people maybe are getting fooled and going all for

four right so I think that game IQ the ability to sit with a coach or self analyze what's going on and what the pitch is trying to do and how you're going to do that is is huge. Yeah look videos great and I think that's the first thing you should go to and evaluate yourself what are you doing mechanically is everything in line with where it

needs to be okay good next we check our timing okay check the third thing is then okay let's really bear down here and figure out a really good approach and the adjustments that we have to make to get out of this slump because everything else checks out okay right then we look at the video okay mechanics are fine whatever we'll work on some little thing that

we need to work on how's the timing okay now we spend a bulk of our time being able to make adjustments coming up with a plan of how to to get to that picture and to hit that picture who has been dominating us and has our number as the hitter sure and you know I get asked all the time who hitters just seem really lost on

on a plan and and they have this feeling of like well I've experienced this moment where my mind is blank I'm just going up there trusting myself and it's worked and that's fine but we have to also accept that not every moment is going to be like that and there's also going to be moments where you're going to need more than that and it's it's at

similar for studying for a test. You don't want to be cramming for the test five minutes before you walk through the door and then all of a sudden be trying to think of what you just wrote in your notes as you're taking the test you want to know it and then you're you're you're it you're just like oh well. That's the answer. So we're going to

do a lot of things and then what's good is that you cannot do, you can't do, you know, try to do learn how to do that. Right and you're just like, oh, that's the answer. So when you get into the box, we shouldn't be thinking about our plan. We should know it. And we have somebody who is crushing us on the outside part of the plate

where it's going to be a lot of things that we can do. We're going to do something that we can do, that's going to be a lot of things that we can do, that's going to be a lot of things that we can do. When you get into the box, we shouldn't be thinking about our plan. We should know it. And we have somebody who is

crushing us on the outside part of the plate where it's like as a lefty. I'm standing on top of the plate. I'm trying to drive the ball into the opposite field gap. And I'm just like, you know, before I have two strikes, I'm letting everything else go and I'm zoning in on the side. And you know, maybe someone coming inside, we back off a little bit.

Those are just minor things that can make such a huge difference for someone who's good. You're tipping your hat to the picture and saying you're good and you require more than me just saying, all right. I'm just going to trust my swing. There's a lot more that goes into that. So a broad question for you. How do you make in game adjustments? Just depending on what

the results are good or bad. How are you? How do you go about as a coach? How do you teach your players to make those in game adjustments? You know what? I don't know if I actually knew what I was doing. How I was doing it. I think it was mainly timing adjustments that I would make. Okay. Well, she's doing a little slower. I'll wait a

little longer to come in and fast. I got to be quicker. Just little things like that. But then when I got to college, really made us practice like, hey, one round of BP, you're practicing being on the plate, off the plate, up in the box, back in the box. Little tweaks, because you're not, you're not going to make massive mechanical adjustments. Even, you know, what the

way you would make a mechanical adjustment is like I said, hey, hit a ground all the shortstop. Instead of saying, your swing planes too steep. We need to adjust your swing plane, right? Yeah, get all complicated in game. Right. Something external versus internal. Right. So those are, those are fairly simple adjustments. I think, too, it's trusting your coach. You go back in the dugout, coaches like,

listen, you look super anxious up there. Like you're really aggressive on your front side. And then now you're in the on deck circle. And as you're practicing your timing, you're practicing, you know, land, like you're just your stride being a little smoother, landing on a softer front side, if you will. Not as, not as harshly into your front foot. So those are just small things. But

again, you want to take care of it before you're in the box. When you're in the box, it's, I know my plan. I know what spot I'm looking for. My timing's already been done in the on deck circle. And now it's me, versus you. Yeah. All right. You mentioned your coach in there, your college coach, Patrick Murphy. He was a guest co host, of course, on

this very lovely program cross functionality. So please subscribe to the podcast. Go back to listen to previous episodes, Apple Google Spotify or wherever you get your podcast, watch the show too. Sopple strength Academy YouTube page content, always going up on the Sopple strength Academy YouTube page number four, our final hitting pillar of the day, episode 23. And this is a big big, a real biggie. It

begins the word begins with the sea. Confidence. Nice. After be confident at the play. Yeah, you know, easier said than done. Sometimes, you know what, I, I, maybe it's not, maybe females are just more willing to say that they're not confident. But I predominantly work with females and it's amazing how females will have all this talent, but not be confident in it. And then I'll work

with guys. And they have very little talent. But they think they're very, very good. And it's just, you know, I'm putting a blanket over high school male and females right now. But, you know, I say to people, you know, I'm like, what do we need to work on today? And they'll be like, well, drop my hands, pull my shoulder. I feel really late on the ball.

Cool. And then we, we talk about a little bit. And I say, would you rather have a flawless swing with zero mechanical errors, perfect timing, but you lack confidence in that swing. Or would you rather have a swing that has some holes? As some timing issues, but you, it is just you are so supremely confident in that swing. And they're like, oh, yeah, the second one.

And then more of the story is you're never going to have a perfect swing. You're never going to have perfect timing. There's always going to be some type of issue. But how much our confidence actually plays and us trusting ourselves and letting the best version of ourself actually perform on the field. I guess a lesson in there said it perfectly. People have to remember this kids.

Your swing will never be perfect. You're never going to have the perfect swing. And if you do, you're going to hit a home run. Okay. So, but sometimes even you don't have the perfect swing and you hit it off the end of the bat. And the bat, the barrel goes flying like Bryce Harper did years ago. And you still had a home runs, not the perfect

swing. So in other words, you're not going to have the perfect swing. Every single time you can strive for that, just like you're not going to get a hit every single time. So it's good to put things as a hitter, put things into perspective. That's a great point. Yeah. And and it's, you know, I think it sometimes gets lost because I think parents or athletes have

this. Allusion that, hey, if we just perfect the swing, like they'll be more consistent. They'll have a higher batting average. There's way too many things that go into hitting. And it's, again, it's easy to check the boxable. I worked on my mechanics today. You're working on a small fraction of what actually goes into you being a great hitter. And the hard questions, the difficult things to

work on is how are you feeling at the plate? How are you feeling walking up to the plate? What's your performance anxiety? Like what's your doubt like when you're at the plate? Because typically, high anxiety, high doubt are going to inhibit that ability to have your confidence come to play. And your ability to have great timing and vision, your ability to get on plane, your ability

to make adjustments are all going to be inhibited by this confidence. And if anything, you're probably going to have, you know, I've said this before, your physical game is going to be basically just control by this mental performance ceiling. So until we break through that that mental performance ceiling that anxiety management that failure recovery so that our confidence can remain high. Our physical performance will just

remain where it's at. All right, well, great stuff this week. I hope everybody got something out of today's show. Episode 23 of Cross functionality. Next week, Episode 24, we're doing something called Teachable Moments where we're going to discuss coaches and helping their players with Teachable Moments. When to actually identify those Teachable Moments in game, in practice, things like that. So we're going to discuss that. Episode

24 next week. What do you have coming up in the new year, Soffold Strength Academy in 2023? Sure. Yeah. This is the busiest time of year for our building. We have every pro athlete, every college athlete home, and then obviously baseball, Soffold, the only season you're not playing is winter. So everyone's training. And so we have a lot of teams in the building. We're busy every

night, every day of the week. And it's a fun time. So a lot of in-house stuff. But if you can't get to us in house, we have our drill library online. We have our mental performance. So we have our mental performance course online. So definitely check those out. And as always, reach out to Jim or myself for questions on this podcast. Yes. Line line of the

show, by the way, was just a couple of minutes ago. I see males with less talent. What was the line? Sorry. I don't want to know. I feel like I was with a lot of talent with very little confidence. And I've mails with very little talent with a lot of confidence. And then you guys can guess who that may be. Okay. All right. Thank you for

listening, watching everybody subscribe to the show and we will. Yeah.