Mechanical Breakdown Series, Volume 37, Gold Editi

Welcome into another edition. Hi everybody. The lab Epstein hitting podcast episode 120. Thank you for making us a part of your day on the audio side. Apple Google Spotify or however, get your podcasts. And of course on YouTube, the lab Epstein hitting podcast page to watch the show mechanical breakdown series volume 37 gold edition breaking down the swing today of Mike Piazzo. We've got some other

stuff to get into as well. So let me bring in professionally evaluator successful business owner former coach friend co host. It kept steam. Oh, are there son. I'm doing well ready for this world series to wrap up. Archa. Yeah, it's getting. I don't know. We were just talking and joking before the mics went on about how it's getting a little bit tedious at this point. It

feels like this season has been kind of just shugging along. And it's sort of I don't know. It was going fast. I'm just going to be in the summer, but then September hit and for whatever reason, it sort of has just come to a halt. And now it's just sort of I don't know going very, very slow and kind of at a snail's pace at this

point. Yeah, it's just it's just been dragging on. There's just so many playoff playoff games and play games are great. They'll give you wrong. Like I really enjoy it. I've enjoyed the world's series. I'm kind of bum tonight. We have softball games at night. For some reason for this tournament. You know, it's Colorado in November. It's not warm. And we're playing. We're playing under the lights

in the world series games on. So I'm a little bummed. I won't be able to watch. Possibly the last game tonight. But yeah, it's it's it's long. I don't know if we need to shorten the season with the extended games. You know, the extended playoff rounds or what? But you know, we shorten spring training. I don't think that's a good idea. I don't know what it

is, but you're right. It's definitely dragging a little bit here. Right. And we're going to end up in the cold. And then we're going to be starting in the cold for a lot of teams come what late March. Next year in 2023. Hey, this week on cross functionality, new episode on Wednesday, Cassie and I discussed performance evaluations and filling out those evaluations for your players. And

of course, you do something very similar at the lab BCS with it tracks and blast motion reports. I got the email this week. How frequent would you say coaches should be doing those type of reports and evaluations for their players? Yeah, usually eight to 10 weeks is pretty good on that. Depending on the other age of the port. I say once a player gets to about

13, 14, pardon me, it's a good idea to do that just to chart progress and make sure that you're moving in the right way. Plus it gives the player a really good sense of accomplishment if they've been working hard. You know, what it's like in the weight room, you know, you've been working hard. You're on a date week program. And then all of a sudden your

max goes up, you know, 20 pounds and you feel really good about yourself and it justifies the work that you put in. So, you know, we try to do, you know, the similar thing. As it pertains to baseball, I mean ours includes motion, you know, range of motion includes strength as well. We have a full time, you know, straight coach at the lab. So it encompasses

everything, but it also encompasses, you know, hitting metrics. Are we hitting the ball hard? Are we hitting ball harder? Are we hitting the most consistent? As we should be is our bat doing the right thing? Are we flipping our wrists? You know, is our vertical bat angle where it should be on certain pitches is our attack angle where it should be. So, yeah, we try to

It's not just a video on a screen. So college coaches appreciate that too. Yeah. And we also discussed in that episode how players can get to do coaching themselves. And we're seeing it in the World Series a little bit, a couple of times, with some offensive players helping out one another, being great teammates. More over seeing those players help one another with their approaches and kind

of coaching each other while the other coaches who coach them and taught them are taking a step back. Isn't that kind of the point though of coaching and teaching you want to be able to groom your players to the point where they can be their own best coach and their own teachers. 100%. Every lesson I give, why are we doing this? When you did this and

you were hitting, you know, balls low to the pole side, what did I tell you to do? Okay. So what's going to happen in a game if the first at bat, you do that same thing. I'm not going to be there. Can you make that adjustment on your own? Yes. And again, what is that adjustment? So I keep reiterating, you know, what the fix is for

all my players so that they can, they can teach themselves and help others. That's what team unity is all about. Why do you think, I mean, the Phillies are not, I mean, they're good, right? They're a good team. They're a gritty team. But there are other teams out there that have equal talent, you know, maybe even better pitching. But they're not in the World Series. You

know, this team came together at the right time. They have relationships. They're pulling for one another. It's a total team concept. The Astros have that. The Astro, I mean, look at the look at the amount of balls where they got jammed. The Astros and got hit. They're trying to move runners. They're trying to sacrifice. There's a hit and run. I'm going to try to hit it

through the opening. There's a shift on. I'm going to take an inside pitch and hit it through the the four hole over there, the three four hole. And they do it and they keep innings going and they keep rallies going. And that's what it takes to win in the postseason because pictures are really good and you're not going to be able to just tee off all

the time and hit three home runs a game. We saw it in one game. But we aren't really seeing that in other games. That are scrapping together and keeping innings going that end up winning. And that's it's fun because now you have everybody in the lineup contributing. Yeah, Molarado is like a great catcher and got crazy hair. And he's contributing at the bottom of the lineup

by trying to move runners or very and and finding holes at the same time and not making out. And it just keeps turning that lineup over. And I think that's why they've been so consistent all year. Yeah, they don't have the peaks and valleys that that other teams have. Right, right. I think what was it? The the wins gap in the regular seasons is the largest

since I think what oh six when the Cardinals won the World Series with 82 wins. I think that's yeah, that's this year's scenario. But anyway, um, subscribe to cross functionality with Cassie Riley Bocha and I. New episodes every Wednesday, wherever you get your podcaster, you can watch the show. Some post strength Academy. We did bring up some great points this week and our discussion. So please

check that out again. New episodes every Wednesday at nine eight. Yeah, I think we'll do more of a section of the World Series next weekend when it's finally over. The World Series going as long as it has, by the way, I hate to belittle this point, but it's election day on Tuesday. So tomorrow, when the seventh cells comes out. The World Series will be finished. If

it does go seven games, I don't know, we're recording this on a Saturday. If it does go seven games, though. Today's the day. The World Series today. It will be the day before the election day. You'll be casting your ballot 48 hours after the World Series ended. It's getting a little ridiculous. Anyway, speaking of the World Series, John Smoltz has a great job, by the way.

I think he gets a lot of flack for no reason whatsoever. Just because people like to hate and dislike something. They find something and they just dislike it. But you can hear the passion he has for the game and his ability to dissect plays. And to me, it's pretty uncanny. But he talked about Alex Braggman's ability to split the plate. I think it was in game

five day after he had that big double off of Alvarado in game four. Let's explain that a little bit further. What he means by Alex Braggman his approach to be able to split the plate like he does. You just look in or out. So it's all about anticipation. Everybody talks about, oh, you can't guess and you can't get what's the difference between guessing and anticipation? Right?

It's having a plan. Why give yourself two strikes when you don't have two strikes, meaning it's two strikes. That's the only time you gotta cover the whole plate. So if you don't have two strikes, why don't you dissect that plate into thirds into certain pitches or halves? How everyone to do it? So my dad used to tell me, you know, when he was with the A's,

they would like to know which side of the plate. So if the runner on second was tipping pitches or picking signs, they weren't necessarily picking what pitch it was, fastball slider, curve. They were just giving location. So if the catcher would tap a certain sign, then, you know, the runner would take like a step back, maybe towards the base if it was that side of the

plate, or they would extend their lead, you know, to the other side, depending on pitch location. And so he said that was more beneficial because on pitches middle away, he could let the ball travel more pitches middle in. He knew he had to be a little quicker on. So obviously things have changed since then. And we're going to be able to do that. So we don't

really tap side decide every location in the strike zone has a number, you know, so they're going with that and they're sequencing. And now we have radios and whatever it may be, catchers are a little bit, they move really late. But knowing that is, you know, my dad also used to preach that when you're younger, just look faster slow, you know, either look, you know, when

you're 14 or younger, look for a fastball, look for a curveball. Don't worry about in and out. But as you get older, you get into college, you get into pro. And you get into the middle ball. That's when you can start looking, you know, different sides of the plate because people have really good control. Or, you know, my daughter, you know, in softball, she's a left

handed hitter. And she's the only left handed hitter on her team. And there's probably six left handers in the league, you know, or this tournaments that we play and most pitches are right handed and they typically went softball pitchers throw. They throw to that right side of the plate, you know, looking for the pitchers. So she gets pitched outside all the time. So we just have

to learn we take it away. From we make sure we keep our front shoulder down if they do make a mistake. It's typically right down the middle. They don't really make a mistake in. So you have to know your situation. No, what kind of hitter you are. Know what pitches are doing with you. And then you can have that sort of approach where I'm going to

look middle in here or I'm going to look middle away. You can't cover both. That was a big thing that Ted Williams told my dad is you can't cover both sides of the plate effectively on the same pitch. Okay. So what's effectively, you know, less than, you know, with less than two strings. You don't want to put yourself in that two strikes scenario. Now you can

cover both sides of the plate, but, you know, you might hit it off the end. You might get jammed. You might be early. You might be late, which is your two strike approach. So again, don't put yourself in a two strike scenario with less than two strikes. Yeah. And John Smoltz also talked about Nick Custy, honest as well on the flip side of things. And there's

no secret that he's had a rough postseason couple of nice swings in there sprinkled in. But John Smolt predicts. Well, and so he predicted. That also is going to ask you what you thought of. Custy, honest as postseason. So I guess I mean, he predicts he's going to have a big year in Philly next year. And we did mechanical breakdown of castyanos last off season. So

check that out. We, yeah, check that out on the YouTube side. The lab abstaining podcast you two page. What are you? Well, you already said it. What do you see? He looks like you placed for the New York Yankees is what he looks like. I mean, that's exactly the swing plate he has where I'm not saying the Yankees were like that. They got exposed in the

playoffs. But that's what he looks like. He's he's dropping his barrel and he's swinging up too much. And so he's he's minimizing his good contacts out. If he's a little bit late, he falls it off. If he's a little bit early, he tops it because he's his, his, you know, his slope is too steep. He's probably OK on curve balls, like a 12 to 6 curve

ball. We say no pitches though. That's where his hit most visits have come. Really. The only pitches he'll be able to get to. So we'll be usually breaking pitches that are down or breaking, I mean, breaking pitches below, we'll say below the thigh. So he's going to be OK on. But you just get, you know, it's kind of the ass or Houston had a big day

off. Somebody with less velocity. Okay. So the one game they were, they really matched, you know, or matched, you know, he was 92 with fast balls. And he was throwing 70, whatever percent 80% breaking balls. And so you have more time to see breaking balls. They were sitting on breaking balls. If he was tipping his pitch. Which is I don't know possibly, but regardless of what

it is, it makes it easier when you, you're, you're 80% of one pitch. And that one pitch is at 98 miles an hour. Okay. So remember with velocity, you can get away with a lot more if you're throwing above 95. You can get away with missing location, but you can't when you don't throw that hard. So. As far as Castellanos is concerned, if he can get

more to a Schwerver routine, which is more of a Kevin Long. Right. Right. Right. Then he's going to go back. He's just off of probably five degrees, which is actually a lot, but he's probably five degrees steeper than he was last year. Or then when we did that video analysis of him, he's, he's definitely steeper than that. I don't remember when we did that analysis, but

he was likely at a red uniform. We did last around last December. Maybe. So it was in the offseason. Yeah. So, yeah, he's, he's definitely in and he had, you know, he's strong. He's such a good hitter. And he's such like a fierce competitor, but it's frustrating. You know, when you know you're good and you're struggling and you know you're off and you can't fix it.

And maybe he's trying to fix it in the cage. And he might be, he probably is. He's a sharp guy. Their staff's pretty sharp. It made us not be showing up. So he's going to need that, you know, hey, here's the offseason, wipe the slight clean and we start fresh. He's not going anywhere. He's got a lot of money. He's got three years left on a

big contract. So he's going to have to figure something out. Luckily, he's playing some defense. Who did not play in great defense? I know. Yeah. Looks good out there. And he's going to have to play a lot of good defense next year because I'm assuming that Bryce Harper is going to be out for a couple of months when he has elbow surgery. Yeah. So he's going

to be playing defense even even more than than two months, probably into mid-summer on the flip side. I have to ask you some might put you on the spot. So I apologize. You can yell at me later. Houston Astros. Okay. They have a dominant pitching staff. There was a graphic that Fox showed about their international born pitchers and their signing bonuses. Framber Valdez, Christian Javier, Jose,

or Kiti was in there. It begs the question now. I thought of this the other day. Do you splurge and spend all of your international resources on one prospect with a high ceiling, a lot of one soda? Or do you spread that money out as the Astros did with their pitchers to try to maximize the value of that year's international market? Yeah. I think you have

to, well, I think every year is different. That comes through. So you definitely have to evaluate. It worked out pretty well for the nationals when they got so though, they worked out pretty well for the Astros. I will say getting international pitchers. Yeah. I like that idea because they have less wear and tear on their arms. Yeah. Good point. They really do. They got a lot

less wear. It doesn't mean they're not going to have surgery. But they just got a lot of work going on. They're not less, they have less tear. And you don't have to pay it as much. Like it's very obvious when there's a position player coming out of international territory, Dominican or Venezuela or wherever you're looking. It's very well known. Okay. This guy moves really well. He

hits really well. And he's head and shoulders above the rest. And that person is going to get a ton of money. Okay. Then you have the majority of players that are, where is their ceiling? Where are they going to fill out? Are they going to put on weight? Where are they going to put on weight? Are they going to get faster? Are they going to be

able to hit for more power? Does their swing point play for making solid contact? Okay. With pitchers, it's like, okay, here's a big body person that throws hard. Well, there's a lot of those guys. And there's 15 years old. So the ceiling, you really don't know. Teachers typically don't get the same amount of money that that freakish position player will out of there. Because you don't

know it's such a development standpoint, getting a 15 year old pitcher and signing them. It's different that you're in the US, right? And you just, you draft Kumar Rocker or Jack Lighter. Okay. Well, they're 20 years old, 21 years old. We've seen them pitch. I mean, these people are five and six years younger than that. So they're not going to command that save money. You can

load up on them. And then you hope your development and your scouting was worthwhile. I didn't answer your question at all. Oh, you did. But I gave you some good information. You gave me, you gave us scenarios. I don't think there's really one answer necessarily to it. It depends on the, the pitcher's age depends on the, the players, I like position player to be a little

bit older. And coming out of college when they're getting drafted. And I think the same thing applies to international prospects as well. But a lot of times those international prospects were 18, 19, 20 years old don't make it because they're signed at 16. So they don't make it to that age without being signed first. But that's where you find the diamond and the rough guy wasn't

at 16 completely developed. And now you have a chance at 18, 19, 20 years old to actually sign that player who was under now now is under the radar who wasn't really being looked at much at 16. So yeah. And that's just from position standpoint pitchers. I think you're the same thing when it comes to the international. Side of things. Well, think about it here in

the US, you're looking at 16 years old, you have a stud. That's on the circuit, the perfect game circuit or whatever it is. And there. Those studs that if they were an international player would make, you know, whatever one, one and a half million bucks or something million bucks or more. They're going to sign to go play college at age 16. Or they're going to give

a verbal commitment to go play college at LSU where they can get paid or. A and M or where you know, they're going to go where they get their NIL or their NIL money. So. But that does that player at 16 that ends up being a shortstop at Vanderbilt or a shortstop LSU. Does that mean they're going to be at every day big league or was

Danzby Swanson at age 16. If he was in an international country, would they have given him two million bucks to be the dude. I don't know. Probably not. So he wasn't drafted the first time around was. Yeah. So it's very and Vanderbilt takes you. You say you're going to Vanderbilt. Well, you're probably going to go to Vanderbilt. But. It's just it's just a riskier move in

age 16. It really is. But. They pan out. I mean, they see him and there's those freaks out there. And you, you can get those freaks. Mike Piazza apparently wasn't one of those freaks. No, no, segue initiated. You're ready to move on, are you sure to. Subscribe to the podcast, the lab, Fstein hitting podcast, YouTube page. I hope I've enjoyed the World Series though. We will

break it down more or at least give a final. Dissection of it next week. But I said the World Series was going to go five games. So I'm wrong. Sorry. I got a chance. To be right. If you do. You're doing it. And although I wanted to go seven now so I can watch it on Sunday. I hope it goes seven now because I don't have

to eat more. I'm eating. I'm going to throw today because it was going to go five. So yeah, that's good. And the form of Halloween leftover Halloween candy. Yeah. I was at the store last weekend, by the way. And baby Ruth, you know, that baby Ruth candy. That was on sale. And. Peter, that's healthy for you. That candy is just about a piece of shit. It

looks like one. It really. It really stinks. And you know what else is really bad too. Sorry, Mike. I mean, my crow. You know what I said I would. You know what else is really bad candy, though? Oh, 100 grand. I rather eat fucking mud than 100 grand. Yeah. I can only show it. It takes three hours to eat because of the caramel. Um, you're working

out your job. Right. No kidding. Let's get into Mike Piazza. You've already said way into that. Thank you very much. Mechanical break down. Mechanical breakdown series volume 3760. He said, I'm going to tell you, because you had a crow in your mouth. 60 seconds. You might as well have been just a 67th round. You know, right. Well, I'm not been drafted at all quite frankly. He

had such a majestic swing, though. What swing attributes with Mike Piazza really stuck out to you. You know, I go back to. He was a guy that I grew up watching. You know, my formative years, you know, high school. He was a little school year's middle school years. And what I, my premonition of him was he didn't use his legs at all. He was very upright

and was a barrel thrower. Like he had great hands and great forearms. And that was kind of what I thought was, you know, I saw him stand there. He was very still. He didn't have much of a load. He just kind of stepped and had a little hand pump. And then it was like if it was a high pitch, he just threw his hands at the

high pitch. It was a low pitch. He just threw his barrel at the low pitch. And I still think that a little bit. He had a funny follow through right where he would stand straight up and his hips would stop. And it looked kind of funny. Like he was a golfer. But, you know, going through his video, which wasn't easy to find. Right. There wasn't a

ton of video back then. But we'll have some to look at. He totally used his legs. He wasn't a squatty guy. He didn't get low with his body. He got low with his hands. He was a very. I see with Castellanos right now. Castellanos hits a low pitch probably with a 40 something degree, 43, 44 degree vertical bad angle. Okay. Where his barrels drop and below

his knob where Piazza, even on the low pitch, he would take his hands lower instead of higher. And he would still keep his vertical bad angle probably under 40 degrees, which is really tough to do on lower pitches. And he was a little bit talented. His eye hand coordination was some kind of amazing because his mechanics were very, very good, but not off the chart. Great.

You know, if you were, if you were looking to write. It's why he was, I mean, why did he go in the 62nd round? He's going to ask you that. He's a weird. He's a Hall of Famer. He's a Hall of Famer. But we look funny. Is that what it is you think he ran funny. He couldn't run at all. Right. I mean, he really couldn't

run. He was very awkward. He was very awkward. Very awkward. I mean, I was a great thrower. He was a catcher in the league when he came up. He wasn't a good catcher. And he probably always hit, but it's not a smooth, you know, it's not a good looking swing. You know, if you think about guys that he played with, I'm trying to think of, you

know, really good players. I don't know what he was after. Griffey a little bit, but you know, Griffey would have been, you know, during during those those times. And he out by on. Yeah. That's not that could have been. Could have been one. But anyway, but he wasn't smooth. Nothing, nothing looked good. Nothing that he wasn't a chipper Jones. Right. I mean, he wasn't a chipper

Jones. Chipper played in that era. And so they see this guy. And that's old school scouting, right. Before metrics are how hard is this guy hitting the ball. Yeah, they see this guy. He throws funny. He runs funny. He doesn't catch very well. Boy, he sure find some barrels. Right. That was the one thing. He was probably a, you know, whatever one skill recruit. You know,

one tool guy. He was a one to maybe two, two tools, right. A average of power. But he that that's what he did. And so they're like, well, we can't risk putting a non athlete. Essentially, it was probably their thought process. On the field every day in the big leagues. And then he shoved it right up their ear. And became a hall of favor. I mean,

you look at his stats. Yeah. Like he was a over 300. He never struck out. I don't think more I'm looking at stats now. Did he ever strike? No, he struck. Okay. So he struck out 93 times. One year. Yeah. Other than that, he was always under 90. What was his career high in home runs? Was it 40? He hit 40 a couple times. You imagine

that? No. I mean, I mean, he hit 40 home runs at every 62. Any struck out how many Moses say we have 40 home runs. He struck any at 32 doubles. He struck out 69 times. Wow. Can you imagine that? I'm sorry, 77 times. He walks. That's not nonexistent in today's game. No. It's amazing how great of a player he really was. He was. And he

wasn't a bad player. And he worked well with he worked well with his pitchers. And there was no DH. Yeah. Like he didn't get days where he could just hit, you know, he had to he caught. Yeah, he played in, you know, 500 games. Most of his career. I was over 500. I'm sorry. He had 500 of bats. 500. What would you make of his hitch

with his hands? I was always fascinated by that. That was just that's what made me like he's a hands guy. Like he feels him feeling his hands getting his hands going. So he was a hands guy. Even though he used his legs, he wasn't like, Oh, I got to drive my legs. I got to load my legs. I got to get my legs in position. He

was a he was a. He felt even when you talk to him, you know, I feel like I'm trying to, you know, you I got to find a barrel, you know, if I have two strikes and trying to put it in play. He was a down through the ball guy. That was his thought. You know, whether or not he did it, you know, he, I don't

he did not swing down through the ball. But that was his feel. That was his first move with his hands, which we'll see in some of the videos. So I think that's where the hand pump kind of kind of came from. That was that was, that's what got him going. Instead of maybe a rock or a set or getting the weight into his back hip. He

was a hand guy. When I get my hands going, I'm ready to go. Right. And we're going to see it on video today. But when you watched him hit in real time, you saw a guy who just looked kind of stiff and the reason that the hands stuck out and his hand load as hand pump stuck out, in my opinion, was because he looked so stiff.

He didn't have a big light kick. It was a simple stride. It was almost like how 10 Williams used to stride, but it was more stiff. And but when you watch him on video, we're going to see it today. You understand how smooth of a hitter. He really was and how his body sequenced so well. Yeah. Now he, it really, it was cool to look at

the video because, you know, again, he was one of my favorite players growing up. Me too. I tried to do it. I had to hit like my piazza. Like that was I know Jose Konseco is my original. That's when I was younger. But piazza. I remember in high school, I'm going to stand like this and just try to use my hands a little bit more. And

I experimented with it. You know it. He was just great. And did I ever mention how he taught me how to, you know, wrap my glove. You mentioned that a couple of episodes ago. You want to sell that story? No. Okay. I just want to see if you're listening a couple of episodes ago. I remember the filthy as much mustache ever for years. He had a

porn stash. Yeah. I know. I know. I was never into that to hold him on my stash look. You know, like the South. Is he a silly guy? Is he from? He's from North town. His father still owns a car dealership. Okay. And I said this. I'm going to test you. I'm to see if you were listening a couple of episodes ago. Probably not. I did

you know that Mike Piazza worked. With Ted Williams and Ted Williams predicted that he was going to be a great majorly player. Did you know that? You told me that. I only knew that because I remember you saying that is true though. Yes. They worked together. Because of his own followers dad or what? It was La Sorta. Short. I got them hooked up because that was

his uncle, right? Godfather something like that. Yeah. We got father. Yeah. It's pretty cool. Well, we, yeah, that was pretty bad. It was pretty cool that Piazza worked with Ted Williams. Because you see a lot of Ted Williams in Piazza. You may not agree with that. I kind of see the correlation though. Yeah. You know, maybe in the mustache or. No. Ted Williams didn't have a

mustache. Yeah. You're right. They looked exactly the same. We just said Piazza looked very stiff at the plate. And Ted Williams looked like a pretzel. Did you guys win last night? What did I win? Softball. No, we didn't play up Friday. Did you this morning? No, we played it right. Oh, tonight. You're in your get you're in your game mode here. I can tell you're intense.

Right. That's right. Always good. One of my one of the girls are catcher. Get a bomb over the fence 12 years old. Yeah. But we only had one empire so they called it a double. It was the saddest thing ever. I was like, well, how does that happen? I'm going to go win over the fence. It went over the fence, but it was like it was

a big field. So they have like a 210 foot fence for softball. Right. So the player is going back. The player. It goes over her head. And then she hits the little fence that's pliable. And then she puts a chain like a chain linked fence. Yeah, but not not hard like a snow fence almost. Right. It's like a netting like a wind. Had a lot of

give to it. Yeah. Had a lot of give to it. And then anyway. So you're mad. Double. So like you couldn't challenge it or anything. Yeah. Did you challenge like, hey, um, buyer, excuse me, then whatever the fence is stupid. There's the ball. Yeah. You should have pointed to the ball and said, look, it's over the fence. How did it get over the fence? He said,

I think it bounced over the fence. I was like, she was up against the wall. I found it. It's over the fence. It was I never know. This guy, an idiot. Well, that was that was my judgment. He said, I said, okay, why don't we go ask the outfielder? She seems she's 12 years old. She probably is very truthful. And did they ask her? He wouldn't.

Did you get ejected? No. Oh, I would have been ejected. I would have been furious. I would have I would have taken the umpire. What was the umpire's name? I don't know. I would have taken Johnny umpire. And I was a commander chief. Let me show you the ball. Oh, that's over the fence. And now let's look for the mark on the indent in the dirt,

where the ball hit. And if it bounced over, I would have been in. Yeah, you you've been run by them. And then it's, you know, you get your kid on the team and you're all over the fence. Like, give her it. She's 12 years old. Like, give her the home run. We're going to do, um, I guess the second we have two clips. You're going to

do the second one, though, because that one also has a side view of. Yeah, so it's magical. The critical breakdown volume. Yeah, the clip where it says, uh, Mike Piazza Hall of Fame class of 2016. Yeah. Is that the one you have? Okay. So we'll start there. Okay. Thank you. Rock and roll. Mike Piazza video breakdown. For the lab, uh, BCS podcast. So if we look

at the lab, Epstein hitting podcast, the lab Epstein hitting. Sorry. Cause that's me Epstein hitting. Right. So if you see here, you can really see how he pulls his hands up and back as he's striding forward. His hands really never come to a complete stop. But you can see where I'm stopping it here. Look at his front hip. Look how much his front hip opens and

look at where it says Piazza on the back of his Jersey. So I'm drawing a couple arrows and one to his front hip, one to the Piazza and then watch how much the hip moves compared to the torso. Okay. That's really, really, really for a guy that never really thought about, you know, probably driving his legs or getting into his legs. If you want to compare

that to Ted Williams, Mr. Jim, then I think you're pretty much right on there. That's a very, very similar, similar move. Okay. Then from here, I'm going to draw a posture line. Um, when he starts to rotate that just kind of goes right down, you know, parallel to his upper body. Or his spine. Okay. And as he rotates to contact, you can see how his spine

comes up a little bit, right? Probably because that pitch is high. Okay. Um, or the cameras moving. I guess the cameras moving. That's going to really mess us up. So, um, but you can see his posture just change. It shouldn't change in and out like that. So now his posture looks like this. It's more straight up. Okay. So we'll look for that on other swings, but

that's something I see with young kids is they don't hold that posture. Meaning their head lifts through the swing because their, their hips move towards the plate. Okay. So they kind of move towards the plate instead of staying in place. Um, kind of hard to see here with this because the camera is zooming out as we're hitting it. But what I love here is his lead

arm where he's throwing. It's almost like he's throwing a frisbee with his left arm. He's getting the knob way out in front to hit this ball to right field. And notice where he extends. We've talked about that in previous episodes. Do you want to have good opposite field power? Well, you can't rotate off the ball. You have to decelerate your hips. How do you decelerate your

hips? Well, your chest then has to decelerate. How do you decelerate your chest? Well, your arms have to accelerate a little bit earlier. So by him pulling the knob forward, which in my opinion is a crucial and very important move that people say you don't want to do. Um, pulling your hands, you know, getting the knob out in front. Notice how the knob is kind of

pointing towards right center in this position. So Jim, if you take the video to where the ball just shows up on the screen. Okay, his, his bats essentially in the approach position, the lag position that knob is not facing the picture. It's like facing the second basement. Okay. So what happens is now his chest is back. So what Breggman does so well. He doesn't over rotate

his chest is back. Now when he releases that barrel and extends. He's extending to the right center field gap or he hit this pitch. That's how we come. Okay. We have to use our hands more on pitches middle away on pitches middle in. You're not going to see that knob face the second basement as much because he's got to rotate his body more. So it's got

to face more to the pole side. Okay. So hopefully that makes sense. Um, the other thing that's very good here is, you know, let's see how consistent his extension is. If we draw a line on the bat. On this, you know, his vertical bat angles. Look at that. My goodness. Less than 20 to 20. 20 degrees. Okay. A lot of times that's frowned upon. Sorry. Hall

of Famer. He only hit 426 home runs. And then we look at, you know, two frames later. And it's, you know, still within. He's only like four. Four degrees less than that. Okay. So he didn't flip his wrist and he didn't dump his barrel too much. Okay. Which is very good. Meaning they closer those lines match up. The better our extension is without flipping our wrists

too much. Okay. So now we'll go to a side view. And we'll see this is not, this is a difference swing. This is a swing that he pulls. He gets tied up a little bit more. Okay. But if you watch his stride. Let's see if I can get it. I mean, he just kind of steps forward his hand. There's his hand pump. He just kind of

pumps his hands up. And then he throws them through. We get to his short approach position. Right. Pretty good. I mean his elbows inside his hands a little bit. His bat is next to his shoulder. He could be shorter to the ball. If you look at somebody like Vlad. Vlad's probably there with the bat. Okay. But then he pulls his hands in a little bit more

at the end. And if you look at his attack angle. How much he's swinging up. You know, it's probably, you know, there's a 12 degree line. Yeah. Pretty close to that 10 to 12 degrees. Okay. And he launches it. So even though he had a 10 to 12 degrees. Here's the blur of the ball. It's up here. Okay. He launched it at 32 degrees. Okay. So

remember, if we were looking more like, Castellanos right now. Instead of 12 degrees by his front foot, Castellanos, I'm going to clear these off just because we were talking about him today. Again, we're talking about it during the world series. He's probably up here closer to 20 degrees. So if I draw that line, you can see how, if he's just a little bit early and hits

it here, he's going to top it. Right. He's going to hit a pole side ground ball. If he hits it a little bit further back, he'll probably be good. But if he hits it, he's going to hit it. He's going to hit it. You know, meaning his timing windows probably only about this big between those two circles. Where piazzas. Looking at a timing window of. Probably

from there to there. Back here. It's like his back thigh probably gets on plan right from there to there. Okay. So that's how you hit over 300. Okay. But again, that's a guy that you know, you used to think about swinging down. Is he. He's still swinging up 12 degrees. So check out this pitch, which is, you know, somewhat down. So now we're at the next

one where he's got a black jersey on. Yep. Okay. You can see how far away from the plate. He's standard. Or he stood my goodness. Can you edit that out, please? Okay. So we're going to we're going to talk about how far. God. Somebody stands. Yeah. And then I he's does he have high tops on. That's awesome too. Okay. But if we look at you, he's

pretty far away from the plate. So he's going to have to get his hands out a little bit more. Okay. You can still see that knob where he really slides the knob out in front right there with his left arm. But this pitch. Fy high. So most of the time, thigh high. A good vertical bat number would be in the 30s. 32 to 35 36. His

is still in the 20s on that pitch. So remember when I talked about on lower pitches, he's still able to keep his vertical bat angle from dropping too much. That's pretty impressive. You have to have very strong. Hands and forms to do that. But in doing so, if you can be in the 20s, you're going to consistently get more backspin than side spin. That's essentially what

we're doing. If you have the bat like that. Now if you have the bat, if your hands are up higher, and then you drop the bat in like this at 35 degrees, then you'll tend to have a little bit more side spin and hook spin if if we're a little bit earlier, a little bit late. But if you're closer to that 25 or inch or he

is. If he's a little earlier, a little bit late, that side spin will be minimized. So again, he hits this ball. Look at his barrel after contact. So there's 25 degrees. We drew it. His next one that he's at 25 right after contact. That's how you hit through the ball. Good extension. You can see his power. He's kind of low on this. I don't think we

have a side angle. But notice where his extension point is here. It's like right back at the picture. He's not an over rotator. Okay. He had a little bit of a scissor move. Didn't he? With his back foot. He did. He did. Was he trying to do that? No, there was no scissoring back then. It's just he had a close stance, right? Yeah. He stepped closed.

Then he tried to get his back knee to his front knee and in doing so that photo go that way. Okay. But typically guys will only scissor on pitches that are far away from him. Well, he was off the plate here. So it happened. He even though he pulled it, you know, he kind of came across his body a little bit more. So again, that move

is not a bad move. You said to be careful on if guys do it. It's great. If it's taught, we got to be careful. So look at this next one. Reason and all white uniform. This is like. This is older Piazza. Look how far away from the plate he is. I don't even know how he reaches this page right down the middle. And well, I guess

not. It's outside. But look at at point of contact. His hands aren't even nearest. It's like this is his body. Like he has reached so much to get to this. Yeah. I mean, his hands are, look at the umpire. Talk about being exposed. Okay. Like his hands are. Here. Way outside of his body. This pitch is down. This pitch is right above the knees. Okay, above

the front knee. Let's go another vertical bad angle. This should be in the deep 30s. Usually with vertical bad angle. I mean, you just have to be to have your arms that far away from your body. You have to be so strong with your hand. And if you look at him, he's not. I mean, he was big and strong, but not like guys today. Not built

like guys today. So he was just he had such great hands. Um, kind of a throwback. Definitely a throwback guy. So anyway, I think we've we've gone through all these look the same. But that was the one thing that I was. I was very. Um, impressed with was the control he had with his vertical bad angle. Okay. There's one here towards the end. This pitch is

at the bottom of the knees. Let's see what it is. So bottom of the knees. Usually what I'll see with players is they'll be at 40 degrees. Forty something. He's at 36 at the bottom. So his range is from what 18 to 36, which is pretty dark impressive. Okay. So he was a guy that had great bat to ball skills. He was a hand. Dominant guy

that you know, he used his hands. He felt whether he uses his body too, but he was a guy that thought about using his hands. You know, if you guys, whoa, he wasn't like, oh, I'm trying to turn the barrel or, you know, I'm trying to rotate fast or that he's like, you know, I'm just trying to kind of throw my hands at the ball and

find a barrel on that work for him. It doesn't mean it works for everybody, but for him it definitely does. So pretty cool. Pretty cool. Look at one of the greatest hitters in him and the greatest offensive catcher. In in majorly history. Well, great job by you. And again, to watch that breakdown, visit the lab, Epstein hitting podcast, YouTube page. I by the way, I gone

fucked up again. Excuse my language. I forgot to do a put Doug's question on the run sheet. I'm sorry. Doug. It's two weeks in a row. Doug. Next week, I promise we'll get to your question. And if anybody has any questions, email us, gimbo podcast 21 at gmail.com. Doug, I apologize. I will get your question. We're not avoiding you. I'm just, I forgot. Sorry. You know,

you're no longer the best in the business. Jim. I took a step down. I need to earn money. Doug, feel free. Doug to send Jim some hate email. Please don't. Then he goes in the spam folder. No, it's Doug. It's not we owe Doug. He has leeway now. Okay. I'll seem to much crow this week. That's the problem. Too many baby roofs. Yeah. All right. Well,

with that next week, understanding the picture part two, the official title. Hitter is getting attacked with a fastball in and away. So kind of like we're talking splitting the plate. Somewhat next week. We'll be discussing that. That'll be episode 121. What is he going to come up there? The lab BCS. This is not the lab BCS. The lab Epstein hitting podcast. Yes, it is episode 120.

Well, as you alluded to, we have our assessment day. Coming up. So it's in a couple days. You better get on that quick. And then my I'll be down there. In for the college. I have all the college players coming in based on softball players from around the country that I trained. So we'll do our little deal there next month. And you know, for the meantime,

now it's nuts and bolts, right? Fall balls over. So now we're focusing a little bit more on, you know, mechanics, swing plane rhythm, making sure hitters. If they needed to make a change based on what they did over the summer and fall, we make that change now over the next six weeks or so. And then once January hits and we prepare for spring ball, then we'll

start to get players game ready with. More velocity, more spin, things of that nature. So now it's developmental time, which is a fun time for for me. We can talk to the kids. What did you need to work on the most? What is your main goal? Not what I think it should be. Not what the whole group is, but what's your main goal? And that's kind

of what we're going to start the process there. All right. Well, great stuff this week. Episode 120. Thanks for joining us. You have anything else to go to go. Mike Piazza taught me to in my catchers. With a sanitary sock, I want all of you to go look at look up sanitary socks and skimmed and know what that means. That's it. What is it now? Sanitary

like clean right. I know what I know what that means. But yeah, sanitary sock thin white socks. You wear underster. You like is it like the wrestler McFolly when you have Mr. Socko like that? You know I'm talking about. You put what you put like that was just finishing. It's not like that at all, but that was pretty awesome. But so you don't. So you don't.

So you don't. You're talking about the sanitary sock. You don't wear it on your hand. No, it goes on your foot. It's a sock. What is that? What does that do with the catchers? You use that sock to wrap around your catchers, maybe because it's long and stretchy. Like McFolly used to wrap his sock around his hand, Mr. Socko. Just like McFolly. Yeah. I will talk

to you next week. Everybody take care. Thanks for thanks for joining us. Bye. Bye.