Mechanical Breakdown Series - Volume 39: Julio Rod

Rock, Jay, tie a string The music Oh Aands Hi, everybody. Welcome into another edition of the lab Epstein hitting podcast episode 130 mechanical breakdown series volume 39 we've done 38's previous mechanical breakdowns excited to number 39 today as we break Star Julio Rodriguez, he had a great 2022 Specting to do big things in 2023 going forward his sophomore season at the major league level. So it

should be interesting with Julio Rodriguez, a Jackie Robinson award winner, and we're gonna talk about his swing break it down and discuss other points today and the guy to do that with I couldn't do without him. He's my partner in crime professionally value a greater successful business owner, former coach friend in co-host Jay Gettin. Yeah, the Mariners invested a lot of money in a rookie. So

the, be pretty awesome. This guy pans out. I hope he makes some more money because, you know, I was trying to look at the numbers. I think it was a 14 year deal for around 200 and something million to 10, you know, that they locked him up really early, which is a great business move rather than him, you know, just kind of struggling a lot. But

if they have been wrapped up until the how old is he, is he 21? 22 years old. 22. I mean, they have him wrapped up through, geez, until he's 35 or 36 years old. What a wonderful, I don't know. So it's a great business move for the Mariners. If he ends up being as good as everybody thinks he's gonna be. Well, Julio Rodriguez, rookie of the

year Silver Slugger award winner, last year, ep some of his numbers, 145 hits, 560 played appearance. We've talked about this on the show before that at bat plateau. It pertains to players of all levels, professionally college, high school, the context is different when it comes to Collegion and high school players, but looking at that 100 at bat plateau, when it comes to professional players, it gives

an organization chance to look at a player forecast their future long term. Are they a guy like a Julio Rodriguez that you can invest in for 14 years, or are they someone who might be a journeyman. What kind of hitter are they going to be in the future? That's what that 100 at bats. Mark helps organizations determine. Looking at it though, from the broad scope to

short term, the 100 at bat plateau also helps players and coaches understand, okay, what do we need to tinker with offensively when it comes to mechanics? What do we need to fix in our approach? Well, Julio Rodriguez in 560 played appearance is last year 145 hits. He blew that out of the water. And the Mariners knew that and so why they probably signed them. One of

the reasons to that big long term 14 year deal, the 145 hits. Last year hit 284 in his rookie season. At by understand the batting average isn't what is once was it doesn't hold the weight that it did, but the slug 560, you're on base percentage at 345, 145 hits. You were in the home run derby last year and you hit 28 home runs. I think

we're looking at a guy with the possibility if he continues on this track of possibly hitting 35 to 40 home runs and being a 300 plus hitter. In other words, I don't think that we have fully seen Julio Rodriguez. He's hit his true ceiling yet as a hitter. No chance. But what you've seen in one year is amazing. You know, it really is. If you look

at people that put up huge huge rookie years, you know, back in the day, I remember growing up, you know, the Dodgers had a lot of rookie, rookie of the years, you know, they had like Eric caros, they had Raoul Mondesie, they had Todd Hollinsworth, Piazza, you know, any of those guys that were dominant rookies, you would have given a deal like that. Probably would have

paid off. Pretty good. At least for the midterm. So if you look at, you know, 14 years with Rodriguez, he plays great defense too. You probably play better defense than, than most of those rookie of the years, you know, that were just offensive guys. So now you have a guy that can run a little bit. He plays great defense. He obviously finds barrels. You don't hit

nobody hits 284 in the major leagues now. I know he's a rookie and they probably didn't have his, you know, a full scouting report of him yet and wears holes on. He's a guy that lives for the moment. He's got a lot of energy. I think it's just a great move. And, you know, worst case scenario, the Mariners, if they, if they don't end up being

contenders, they can move that contract and get a ton of anything they want because it's a longer deal at a lower cost. What was the, the average of that was, was it 14 at 2 10? I mean, what are we looking at there? Like 16 million a year? So, I think that's a great move. So, looking at his contract status. So, I don't know if it

was 14 years. He signed though through 2029. So seven, okay, seven years, 119 million. Oh, we may have been thinking of somebody else. Oh, thanks. Seven years, 119 million. By the way, you mentioned his defense too. I want to bring that up for a second last year, center field. He was tremendous defensively. Yeah. To your point. And 984 building percentage. She had three assists in total.

Yeah. So, I mean, he was just dry. And he played a little bit of right field too. But he was a tremendous defender to your point as well. But nevertheless, I mean, again, 14 years, 70, okay, he's still signed a long-term deal. Still have the same, you know, it's still 700, 700, right. 17 million a year. Yeah. You know, until he's 29. Yeah. That's dirt. His

arbitration is going to be over that in a year or two. If he puts up a similar, if he puts up a similar season as you put last year. So, I wonder if that is a bonus that kicks in or something to the full 14 years. Or maybe I was looking at something else. But regardless, that's a, that's a pretty, pretty decent deal here until he's

29. But at age 29 now, if he's a superstar, he can go out and sell. And then he's got another deal for 12 years until he's 41, like everyone else, you know, and make another 300 million. Right. Because he'll be great with his 41. So baseball reference was telling me seven years. I don't know what that was all about. Um. So you were close. He signed

a 12 year deal for 200 plus million. Okay. 12 years. Okay. So he signed through 2035. And then after that, he will be a free. Now, some contract notes. And this is according to spot track.com seven years, one hundred and 19 million base value, two hundred nine base guarantee. So the total maximum value is four hundred and 70 million. He has a two thousand, thirty club

option that must be decided on after two thousand and twenty eight. Okay. So he has he's lost in for seven years. Yeah. And then the club option kicks in. And then that's when he might go the full length of that 12 year contract. Yeah. Well, 12 years and 40 million. That makes a little more sense. If he ends up being a superstar. Right. But it seems

like the first seven years, they got a bargain. I agree. And then they can part ways, right. Sounds like smart moves smart move all the way around. Right. I mean, you're a rookie. You're usually not going to get really paid for a couple of years. You get arbitration in a couple of years. But, you know, for him, it's like, okay, great. Now I can just relax

and hit the field. Yeah. Well, subscribe to the show. Apple Google Spotify. We're on Pandora. I listen to Pandora. By the way, at the gym, I listen to our show on Pandora at the gym. I know it's easy. Everybody's using all the kids are using Pandora. Now Pandora and Spotify were on both platforms. Again, Apple Google Spotify, I heart radio, tune in radio, stitcher, we're on

a bunch of other smaller platforms. And the YouTube page, of course, the lab web steen hitting podcast YouTube. I'm not going to sit here and try in front as the kids say or maybe used to say our numbers on the audio side are excellent. We do a great amount of listeners every week, monthly, quarterly. We've got a good demographic that skews a little bit younger. You

used to skew older but now it skews younger. But on the YouTube side, we're struggling a little bit. We need to get those numbers up on YouTube. Watch the show. We've got video clips. You can watch us to the show every week. I want to ask you how I hit her approaches this. I think it's very relevant and pretty interesting. He writes Jerry Weinstein on Twitter

at J1 Catching and I think he tweeted this about a week ago. He wrote according to inside edge data. When you need to strike out, there is value to getting a swing and miss early in the counts. Again, when you need to strike out, there is value to getting a swing and miss early in the count. The accepted belief has always been to save your swing

and miss pitch for when you get two strikes. Okay, so let's put a hitter in that scenario. The picture gets strike one via the swing and a miss. Now you're down in the count, O and one. The picture now has a hint about how to attack you because you're swung and miss at that pitch, whether it's a fastball breaking ball, whatever. Now, how does a hitter

at that point? Because look, O2, I understand. There's some fight that goes into being down O1 as well. There's different approaches too from being down O1 to being down O2. So after swinging and missing, you're down O1 in the count. How does a hitter approach that and get back into that count against the picture? It's just barely under it, if it was right on it. Meaning

a fastball. But when a pitcher saying is that guy as a hitter, he saw that pitch come out of my hand and it looked good and he couldn't hit it. So sometimes if you save that pitch until the very end, the hitter has no reference and they'll just take it because it looks so different. They haven't seen it that bad. Now, you throw it for a

strike, you get a called strike three. But if you throw it for a ball, a lot of times you're not going to get the chase because they don't have a reference of it. But if they have a reference of that pitch that we're swinging missed on, then there's a likelihood of that player swinging at that same pitch. You just got to make sure you get it

out of the zone or you get it in the same spot, which is a lot harder than it seems. So as a hitter, you're figuring out how are they attacking you? A lot of times the first pitch off of the pitcher is how they're going to attack you that day. So if they spin a slider over the first pitch, okay, they're going to want to get

me out on breaking pitches. If they're throwing me a fastball away, maybe that's where they're trying to attack me. If they throw me a fastball up, a lot of times I'm going to get a hitter. Sometimes they're not going to go up on the first pitch for a ball, but they might ride a fastball at the belt, something like that. So it gives you an idea.

Even if you don't swing at it or swing and miss at it, it's telling you as a hitter how they're going to want to attack me. What is the first thing that is written on that report that the pitchers and catchers are using, obviously, if you're at the major league level or in college, in high school, what does that report say on the clipboard? And they're

just going to keep going back to that. That same approach. So I would always see how they're pitching me when I would chart pitches, you know, at the college level, when I was coaching, you know, I had a matrix that I used that that just showed me, you know, what everybody threw to every hitter at what count. And by the second time for the batting order,

then I, we could narrow down with that player. Hey, this is kind of how he's going to attack you. You looked really bad on this pitch. They're going to keep going to that pitch. Or what did you do? You smoked an inside fastball. Everything they throw you now is going to be away. So whether it's going to be an off-speed pitch away or a fastball away,

let's take away the inner half of the play and just focus on middle away to cover that. And it sure makes hitting a little bit easier if you're a little bit smarter. Yeah. So a great tweet there from Jerry. By the way, we had a YouTube comment this week from DA on last week's show. And he has a bone to pick with with us more particularly

with you said, quote, did you just say to marinate a New York strip state? I said marinate a home dream programs system for everyday life. Alright, I'm testing the building, whether that's the point that critically, you know, liketer there you know, I'll be right is the local program you told me, I just want you to decide, does somebody think the right way today, envoys or means

can me? No, I don't know who it is. Well, he has his name, DA, this is like, I forgot we did talk about the reverse sear method. We did. We did. You got to tell me how to do that again, we have to, you have to teach me how to do that. I don't know how to redo a reverse season smoke, sear, boom, done. But, but

the marinate the chicken, you can marinate the chicken. Now, you need to marinate steak, you do, but you don't need to marinate New York strip, which is what you said. You need to marinate. Yeah, you need to marinate cheap steak. That's not no, no, no, no, no, you marinate filet mignon. You might. And you know what, I'm, I enjoy this again, at least he's pissed at

you and I'm good. I hope you unsubscribes. This coming from a guy who is hoping that people would subscribe and get it right. Yeah, Jimbo. No more talk about your steak marination. So your marinade chicken. You don't marinate steak. You smoke steak. Correct. Now I might marinate a skirt steak in like, you know, some carne asada spices. You know, I wouldn't see a lot of people

don't know what cardio sort of spice that are. That's because San Diego has the best carne asada ever. You know, like a feed of meat. You could use a fajita meat or something like that. I use fajita meat. You know, I think I'd be like, I'm just going to say, you know, I'm not a lot of a fan of meat or something like that. Though for

breakfast, which I don't marinate that meat. I don't marinate a New York strip. I didn't say to do that last week. So for a fly. Yeah, you could marinate a T-bone. Although, no, you shouldn't because now you really shouldn't do a T-bone. All right, back to back to the Rodriguez. I'm just telling you though, do you watch what you say when it comes to marinating meat?

You should watch what you're saying. That's all chicken. And if you and if people don't like that. I or others, there's a lot of people out there that marinate their steak in the meat. I don't know what to tell you because it does actually give kick to the meat. And you don't really try to talk sometimes a nice Santa Maria try to marinate is nice. By

the way, we mentioned the contract of Julio Rodriguez earlier Jeff McNeil. We're going to break his swing down. Yeah. This year in 2023 as well, he agreed, you avoid arbitration with the Metz filed for arbitration of voided vats four years right around I think $60 million. But it just goes to show you and you know this being a former professional player now being in a major

league front office that if a team really wants you a lot of times, it should scare a fan base if their start player has to go to arbitration with that that certain team with that certain player. If they have to go to arbitrate, figure out a contract that should scare you because it makes you, first of all, going to arbitration damages your relationship with that team

for future negotiation. So I think it's a four year I thought it was a two year extension four years, huh? I think it was four years, but we were off today on contracts. So let me check here. But it just goes to show you. It gives you a little bit of a insight as to what I'm typing at the same time as I'm trying to talk

to you. It feels just a great piece for that lineup. So you have to have guys, you have to have guys like that in in lineups that have high production players, you know, guys that hit doubles and homeruns. You got to have guys that get base and limit the strikeouts. You know, that's what the Yankees were missing last year in the playoffs. When Ben Atendi was

hurt. I don't know if somebody else was hurt, but they just had too many guys that were if they're not hot, you know, too many guys that are swinging this prone. And then they all got cold at the same time and it hurt them. So you want to have guys in there with high contact rates just to just so it's not a downer. You know, you

go three up three down every inning with two or three strikeouts and inning. You know, mentally, that's really tough. The fans get pissed. But at least if you have guys put in balls and play, even if you're not scoring a lot of runs, at least you're getting guys on base. You have opportunity. You're getting the blood flowing a little bit. So that was a really good

good deal for them to keep, you know, four years, $50 million, by the way. Yeah, bargain. But that tells you though about arbitration. If you're a star player, any fan base, if you're a star player, it's to go to arbitration. Excuse me. That's an indication. Yeah, I don't think he's their star player. He's a good player. He's he, but you can you put him on another

team. Outside the meds were now stacked. You put him on another team. He's considered more than just a mid level type player. Come on. If four years, $50 million, you're you're bordering on star status. Although Brandon Nemo is probably not a star and he got a really big contract. Yeah. All right. Email is Jimbo podcast 21 and Gmail.com. If you do, indeed have any questions this

week on cross functionality at Cassie Riley, Bocha and I we discussed dealing with failure. How athletes could deal with failure. Now looking at it from the lens of hitting, how to hitters deal with failure is there such thing as too much failure and how can hitters propel themselves, take that failure and then turn it into success going forward. There can be too much failure. You know,

and sometimes at the amateur ages, it's tough because you want to push your kid. Yeah, maybe you have a good whatever you got a good 12 year old and you want to play. Instead of 12 you want to play 14 you. They go to 14 you and they just get hammered all the time. Yes, they're getting great experience, but maybe it's just it's tough and you

can only go like one for 10 in the tournament so long before you get up. So there's a fine line between playing and having success. Even if it's artificial success, like yeah, I'm better than the competition, but man, this is fun. I'm getting on base every time. I'm running first. I'm going to second. Sometimes that plays a big part in keeping players active, keeping players in

the game. But if you're out there and you're struggling just to compete, it's almost like your your borderline drowning every at bat or if you're a pitcher, you know, you're getting shelled all the time. It's it's it's really tough. So being you know, struggling or and having failures, it's that's part of the game. And that's why sports are great because it prepares you for life. You're

not always going to to be number one at the office. You're not going to be number one in your in your class. You're graduating class and you're not going to get an A on every test. But how do we deal with that? You know, how do we get we got a D on a test. You've been an A or B student. You got a you got

to D on your test. What can we learn from that? Let's meet with our professor now. We have communication. We have a lot of skills. We're we're we're talking to people in a position of authority. And then that person tells us, well, this is, you know, maybe you should change the way you were studying for this test. What did we have? What did we struggle with?

So it forces you to dissect the situation. Dissect the failure. Why am I failing? You know, as as a hitting coach, why am I, you know, why is my player? One for 30 right now? Okay. Well, let's figure out the cause of that. Is it pitches? Are we swinging at bad pitches? Okay. Is it timing and rhythm? No. It's not looks good. Are hands getting loaded

late? Okay. It looks like they are. You're kind of rushing your hands back a little bit more. Okay. Now we have a solution to the problem. Let's work on that. And when a player has a solution, even if it's not the right solution. It's a very mental game. This could be a made up solution as a hitting coach. You know what? I think you should open

your stance a little bit because you're not really seeing the ball with your back eye as much. What a load of crap. That could be. But you know what? It gives a player another feel. Oh, that's probably why I'm not hitting. Not because of my confidence is because I'm not seeing the ball with both eyes. Okay. I make that adjustment. All of a sudden I find

a few, few barrels off the machine. I have a good BP. I go one for two in the game. Now I'm back and ready to go. So good hitting coaches have to be creative. But they have to be problem solvers. And as a, as a player, you know, if you're a 14 year old player, I don't expect this 14 year old player to know why they're

failing all the time. That's why they come to me. You know, that's why Jake. I was hitting them all so great. I'm going to get to be any of the season. Boom. Here's some video of the last weekend. I was really bad. Okay. I know what the problem is. Here it is. Work on this. Get it done. And then boom. They'll have some success. So it's

sometimes it's really hard as a player. But you know, I guess the best way to deal with failures is to figure out why you're failing because you're going to fail again. If you go one for 20, you're going to go one for 20 again sometime in your life. What was it? What caused it? You know, I gave the example of a player loading their hands to

you late. They usually load it when they pick up their foot and stride. Now all of a sudden, they're loading it when their foot's coming down on their late on everything. Okay, we've, we fixed that problem. Now you've gone on and had some success. Maybe six months later, all of a sudden we're having the same issue and you're one for say seven and you feel like

you're late on everything. What are we going to go back to? Let's go back to the hands. That was what bothered us last time. That's what causes to fail last time. Let's see if we can nip that in the butt early. And instead of going one for 20. One for 30, we want one for 10. And then we fix that problem. So we're learning from the

mistakes because similar mistakes will always haunt the same player. They're not going to just randomly come up with a new mechanical issue or a new load issue. Right. It's in their DNA. And what we have to do is be able to snuff that problem early before it gets out of control. And that's two when it comes to a baseball player and talking about this in a

baseball context. That's why I think it's going to be a big problem. I think that's why coaches and front offices when it comes to professional level, they should at least give a player 100 at bats, give them that ramp up to then determine, okay, is this guy really talented? Is this guy a good, I shouldn't say talented, a good fit for what we're trying to do

here. How do we tinker him or have we lost enough confidence? Have we seen enough in 100 at bats? But if you give a guy 30 at bats, you mentioned it before. Why is he one for his last 30? You give a guy even 50 at the time. You don't really know what we have here. You don't really know concrete where with 100 to bats, you

get a better indication. But again, there's that ramp way to where, and you don't want to go over 100, but you know, 10, 20 at bats, you're still talented. You shouldn't lose confidence, but you're failing. Now let's learn from that failure. Yeah, it's it's hard. You know, especially in college, you only have 56 games on the books. So you really can't give somebody 100 at bats.

A fail. Well, I'm some of them. I'm a ball to. Yeah, that's when the player has to assess their own talent. It's hard. Yeah, I mean, it's really you'd like to you. You give this player, you know, big scholarship. Maybe they had a great fall. They did really well. And then I was on the season starts. And it's like, oh man, like we got to get

this player going. How are we going to get them going in there? Then you have to evaluate what's their mindset? Like, you know, are they having good at bats or are they just have they given up? You know, in the major leagues, you know, 100 at bats, that's only, you know, maybe, you know, out of it's it's a 10. No, no, my math is leaving me

right now. 25% of the bats you're going to get, right? No, less than that. So maybe 20% of the bats you're going to get. One out of five. Yeah, one out of 100 out of 500. So you can afford to give somebody that much. But if you give somebody 50 at bats at the college level or 60 at bats at the college level, you know, that's

almost half a season sometimes. So you have to be careful with it. But let them go. Yeah. I mean, the worst thing to do is you give somebody a weekend start and they fail and then you don't play them again for a while. And that's, that's the hard part, you know, with, with players, you know, what are we trying to do without communicating to the player.

And that happened to me once. I remember my sophomore year of college. I had, I led the the fall in hitting, I think I had a great fall in hitting. And then we started the season and I didn't start the first game. And I was pretty bummed out about it. And then the second game. I started it. And I think I, I hit my first home

run. I think I was two for three or two for four. And then the second, then the third game of the series, I didn't start that game. And, and then I pinned you in and hit a double. Like, so I think I was three for four, or three for five on the series with a home run and a couple doubles. And we played two midweek games.

I didn't get to start neither of them. So I'm trying to figure out what the heck is going on. So I had, I had to, you know, speak to the coach and figure out because I was down. I'm like, what is going like, what do I need to do to play? And I don't remember what it was. I, well, I do remember what it was, but.

Do you want to share or no? Yeah. No, I mean, they, what they essentially said was, you can't hit the way you're hitting. We don't think you're going to be successful hitting that way. And I was doing like a no straight at the time. And so I said, well, I'm whatever, you know, I got four extra bass hits or four or five of that's what, what

you, well, you could probably do that. And I'm like, well, look what I did in the fall. Yeah. But once you face Texas, you know, you, you won't be able to get away with that. So I said, okay, well, what, you tell me what you want me to do. And I'll do it. So they said, well, come meet with the hitting coach. Before practice. Okay. You

know, half hour before, and I had to do some, I'm, granted, this is 2000. This is the late 90s. It is 98. I think I'm going to do it. I think I had a huge year that year too. This was 98. And so they, you know, hitting was different. Hitting was, you kind of want more of a weight shift onto your front leg. So he had

more linear, right? Yeah, more linear. So he had me do these drills. And this was a guy who's a former minor leager was our hitting coach. And second baseman, you know, kind of a little guy and a great dude, but that's what he thought. And so he would throw the ball probably a foot or two in front of my front foot with side toss. And I

would have to lunge and hit a ground ball at the middle. Okay. So that was what I did. So I did it. I mean, I could do anything. You'd, whatever, hit a high pitch, look at whatever I played with football as a kid, right? So I did it for whatever 20 minutes. And then I went and took BP on the field and whatever that looked good.

And then the next day I did the same thing. And had BP, whatever on the field, nothing had changed, right? I kind of changed a swing in 50 swings. And then they put me in the lineup. And I got a couple hits. I think I was two for four. And then I played the rest of the year. Okay. And I never had to do that drill

again. So sometimes you just have to show coaches that you're willing to do what they want you to do. You know, what is it you want me to do? And I'll do it. I want to play. It doesn't do me any good to sit on the bench and be frustrated. You want me to hit on one leg. I'll hit on one leg. But I need that

competition in the lineup. And and maybe it helped. Maybe I maybe it did do something. Maybe it flattened out my swing. I may have been too steep or or whatever it was. But it helped. And then, you know, after being hot for two weeks, there was an article in the paper about how great the hitting coach was changing me for those those two days, you know,

that we spent together doing that crazy drill. And like I said, maybe it did work, but don't don't get frustrated, you know, if somebody gives up on you have try to have communications. And yes, there are some coaches that don't you have to make an appointment to go into their office, you know, at the college level or even the high school level, but try to try

not to wear your coach out by meeting with them, you know, twice a week. But if it is something that's, you know, see what's on their side. What are they thinking? You know, maybe there's something there that you can improve upon as a teammate or as an athlete and and they can help you with that. But I'll tell you what it's like, you know, if you

have a girlfriend or a boyfriend or a marriage that's that's not working as because no one's communicating and no one's talking. And so you open those lines of communication between yourself and the coach. And now you know where everybody stands and you might not like the outcome, but at least you're not guessing why you're not in the lineup. Maybe there's a reason. And then you go,

you know, you'll work your butt off and you know what that coach is going to see that you're working your butt off. And boom, he's going to give you some opportunities. But what I don't understand this guy, you're hitting coach, you know, have to name him. He played professionally. And he's trying to get you hit ground balls back up the middle and trying to get you

to have this huge weight shift. How does he not see the bigger guy that your power ceiling is higher than that of a guy quite frankly that would play his position. And as a hitting coach, he tried to make you into somebody that's more of a slap type linear hitter rather than someone who could generate power, get leverage and get the ball up in the air.

I don't understand. Yeah. No, I don't know either. I think it was what he was comfortable with. That's that's what he was probably probably taught, maybe in the minor leagues. And and maybe he thought by doing that drill. It was, I mean, I do some crazy drills with, well, not that crazy. But I do some drills with if I have a player that's swinging up too

much, I tell him to swing down. I'll put the blast on him. Holy cow, you were swinging up 22 degrees here. I need you to swing up at 10. I want you to swing up at 10. I just chopped this one and then they'll like try to chop it and they'll swing up at like 15 degrees. And I'd be like, did that feel down? Yes. Well,

you were still up 15 degrees. Let's see if we can go down more. So maybe it was something to that effect. Yeah, I guess. But it's just it was a move that, you know, people are always like, Hey, man, you got to stay back. Now I care where you are, whether you're a linear person or not. There was, there was and linear nowadays is different than

linear would like her any act was finish on your front leg. But most people are like, I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that. I'm like, stay back. But yet they wanted you to just drill where all your weight came forward. So, you know, different strokes for different folks. But hey, who knows? Maybe it changed my career. I don't know. Maybe those

20, 30 swings did justice and helped me out somewhere. But regardless. If I didn't have that conversation. I might not be here today. I may equip baseball that year. And just this is stupid. I'm not going to sit here and work all fall and be successful and then never play again. You see when you, so then you probably wouldn't be here doing this podcast. No, with

you Jim and talking about not marinating strip stakes. 129 episodes in now 129 and a half mechanical breakdown series. Volume 39, Holy O Rodriguez. We've done 38 of these. So go back and check those out in the archives and follows and social media at Jim Tara and at Epstein hitting on both Twitter and Instagram. Let's get into Holy O Rodriguez. Shall we? It's a chemical breakdown.

We're going to do a swing attributes. I have a couple of notes that I made in regards to his swing. I have a couple of notes that I made in the last couple of years. I have a couple of notes that I made in the last couple of years. I have a couple of notes that I made in regards to his swing. Let's come up with

the same comp, right? Who was that? Don't say it. Wait, wait, wait, don't say it yet. We'll say at the end. Oh, we'll say it at the end. Okay. All right. Rock and roll. So let's go through here. We have a front view of Rodriguez here. And we can kind of see a stride and how he loads. And you can barely see the picture on the

left side of this screen. But see how his arm. You can see the pictures. I'm going to put a little arrow over there. So we're talking about timing here. He's got his arm out, right, which means his his his throwing hand is down and back. And as his front arm goes down, right, his back arm is probably coming up. And that's exactly when Rodriguez is is

lifting his foot. So if we look at, you know, those two arrows. The arm, the picture's arm pulls down. And that's like pulling his foot up. And then by the time the balls released right about there. He's about it at the top of his swing. Now you can see he's got a pretty good, you know, barrel tip out this way. Okay. He's gets his back elbow

up really high. That's fine. Okay. But Mickey is how does he get to the launch position? You know, there's toe touch. And then we get to heel plan. And this is what I really like. And this is hard to get some players into this. It's actually very hard to get players into this position. But it's almost a straight line across his back and shoulders. Right. And

see how his elbow is back elbow connects to that line. There's so many players. I had a player last night that I was working with from a local high school. And most of the guys from that high school they don't work with me. They work with another guy. In town that's more of the, you know, slot that back elbow really early and then turn really fast.

Okay. So that's kind of their problem. And so they talked about, you know, you don't want your back elbow in that position when pretty much everybody we've looked at here at heel plant has their elbow in that position. So be, you know, be very cautious. Yes, it's going to come down and we'll talk about that. And we'll see that in a second. But just that's a

really good line from the front. That's one of the things that I look for is when that front foot lane. And our hands are hand still back behind our head and about your height. And is our, is our front shoulder closed. We can see his entire number here. 44. And we can also see both of his eyes. So he has good flexibility in his neck, which

allows him to close off this much. If we look at his, his heel line here, I would say it's pretty. I can't see the batter's box line. But there's his heel line. Is that about parallel to that. Yes. So he square that's very, very, very good. He's, he's not closed. He's definitely not open. And then if we go a little bit further, I'm going to draw

a line for his posture. That's one, one thing that is very popular today, keeping your posture after heel plant. And we'll see if he keeps it. So there's his spine angle. And he keeps it pretty good, right? Like that's still his spine angle as he rotates around it. I would say even though his spine is very good there. Let's see what his head does. This is

his head come up a little bit. A lot of times when the head is lifted, it could be just the head. But usually if it lifts up and out, then the spine isn't as good. You can see his kind of comes in just a little bit more. Yeah. I mean, he's got a lot ahead movement on this. Through the swing. So you'd like to keep that

a little bit more stable. But it's not bad at all. The other great thing to see on this angle is is why he's successful and why he's going to be successful. And we talk about this a lot. His vertical bad angle. This pitch is down. Let's see if I can get an angle. I don't want it though. Yeah. This pitch is down. He's only at 29

Why is that? That's important. Well, if you get to contact it, whatever we said that was 29 degrees or so. Okay. I don't think I drew that line properly. Okay. I hope that was after. Go back one more. Here we go. So 29 there. And maybe he flipped it a little bit and it ended up being 26 or so. But if you have a big manipulation

there, that either leads to weak flyballs to write. If you drop your vertical angle. So if you're vertical angle one, I'm going to drop it. If you're not playing back, you're going to drop it. Like I'm going to drop it. And then you're going to drop it from 29 to like 39 or 40. Okay. Then you'll slice the inside of the ball. Or if he flipped

it up and it went less. And it went to 20 degrees instead of 29 degrees, then you'll tend to roll over. So that's why you know all the drills we have where we're focusing on handpath from launch to contact are so crucially important. Okay. We can see, look at me. I'm excited. This may have been a playoff game. I think it was. This was a very

low line drive by the way. He probably had a little top spin at 17 degrees would be my guess. So let's go ahead and go to the side view. And you'll see he's got a pretty big move, right? I mean, as he strides. Okay. We'll let you guys figure out who we think he looks like when he strides. But here's his eye level. He's got a

pretty good leg kick and then you're going to see his eye level drop a decent amount, right? And like we've talked about before, most players do that. What you don't want to do is go the eye level. So the top is a way, which is very common now players overload into their back hip. They overload into their back leg. Then when they go to step their

head goes up. And that's one of the things I see one of the cool parts about my job is seeing trends. Because I've been doing this and video analysis. I've been using since probably 2003 is I've seen house swings change and what's taught and what's hot on the internet and all of a sudden it shows up in the players. And why do players typically send me

videos? You know, they usually don't send me videos because they're like the goal of the game. They're like the greatest 14 year old in their town. They're trying to get better. They're struggling somewhere. And so they're looking for help. And so a lot of times I see all these trends on whatever Instagram or Twitter. I'll see them show up and all these players. All these different

moves. And unfortunately it's it's leading to a lot of problems. So that's one of them players that are trying to load too much into their backside art officially. Then all of a sudden their heads lift like six inches when they go to strides. And I'm not cautious of that. You people or coaches out there that are listening. As we get him a little bit further you

can see he gets super wide distance between his arches are definitely that that that base is wider than his inseam. Okay. So of 10 players that I see on a regular basis. If there were 10 new players I'd see in person. Zero of them would have a base wider than the sides. Okay. Everybody. I kind of see is is more narrow and spinning now. They're really

focused on you know turning fast and and kind of turning the shoulders to turn the hands. And sometimes that's good. Like on an inside pitch. That's that's kind of the thought process. But it's not I'm not seeing a lot of leg drive, which is what we see here. Look at him sink into his back knee here. I love it. That's pretty good. Right. Like if you

take him to the spot where his heel plants and then watch his back knee come in. And as soon as back that knee comes in his back hip comes with it. Okay. And it free wheels through now. If we look at him he has a little bit of a drift. Okay. So I'm going to put this line right in front of his nose at heel plant.

And he's kind of drift because he's really wide. And you have to stabilize a little bit. So he goes forward maybe an inch or two. You do see that head kind of come up a little. As he comes through. But then everything is let's see his back foot. Yeah. His back foot's got to move a decent amount because he's so wide. Okay. But see how low

his back foot is. That's what I'm going to say. But this has been a hard thing for me lately as well with whatever players are being taught or doing is this foot isn't see how his foot's moving forward. But his heel is in front of his toes. So many players. I'm seeing where the heel is back. And the toes are for they're just pulling their toes

forward. So instead of the foot. This is somewhat hard to draw. But his foot's on an angle like this heel to toe. I'm seeing the the heel there. But the toe. And so it looks funny. And when the heel flexes forward. That's what pushes the knee in. So they're moving their foot. But they're not getting the benefit. They're not doing it for the right reason. And

so one of the things I'm trying to tell players to do a lot is, you know, keep these toes in the ground as long as you can. Yes, your foot can move forward. That's great. Because this hips got to come through. And the hip is coming through the knees coming through. Right. We all know that I'm a big proponent of the knee. If the knee moves

forward, the back foot's going to move forward. That's just the way it is. But we don't want this foot to do it by itself. A lot of people are trying to move the foot to like move the knee and hip. And then it's artificial. I want that need to come down and in. And then start working towards our front knee. And that action pulls the back

heel forward. But it keeps the toes in the ground. So, you know, be cautious of that. You players out there. Keep those toes in the ground. He firms up his front side really great. It's back like, I mean, he's got a he's got a great swing. And obviously, this was a home run. If we look at his back shin, sail low, it is in his power

V position in his extension position. Again, this was a bully pulled. He hit out in front. So his power V is going to be more to the left. Again, this is his power V with his arms creates a V there and his bat shooting right out at. If it's an outside pitch, that's just going to face more towards the center of the field, maybe right center

field. And then if we look at his swing plane, you know, he rotates here. You know, his back elbows coming down his back shoulder. He's coming down, but he started to rotate. There's still space in here. Okay. So if there's not space in here, if this elbow comes down too soon, then what is the bad do then the back goes back here. Look how close the

bat is to his head. That creates a short path. Okay. Then it comes here. Now, the sudden that bats still pretty close to his ear, close to his shoulder. Nob and elbow are in line here. That's very, very important. Make sure the knobs not in there. Right. That's bad drag. Okay. So he's not leaving his hands behind, which is what I see with a lot of

young players. He's getting his hands, you know, out in front of his armpits. That's what we're trying to do. We've got to get the hands in front of that back armpit. And then his barrel plan, you know, this frame rates, not the best. So I have no idea connecting the dots here, but I'm going to say he's probably on a swing plane like so. Okay. He

probably drops in. If I can freewheel this thing. He's probably kind of dropping in here like this. And then he's probably made a little bit of a swing plane. He's probably going to be coming up and out of it. And he's probably a little bit flatter than that. So he definitely has a good swing plane. He's got a great combo swing plane, meaning he drops underneath

a little maybe a half a ball. Right. Maybe a quarter of a ball. So by only dropping underneath that much. That means he's not going to miss his many balls. Right. His misses will be fouls. But he also, it also gets him to the bottom of the ball. And then he swings up a little bit more. So that combination gives you a little bit more of

a over balls out in front. So this is a good combination for him. It kind of makes sense. You know, that he's 30 home runs in 280 right that that's a pretty good combo. If he starts to drop his barrel a little bit more say kind of down and back into here. And then he's got to come back up to the ball more. Then what you're

going to see is, you know, maybe you're going to see 30 plus home runs. Okay. But you're going to see maybe like a 255 average something like that. Okay. So everyone does what they do. And you can slightly tweak those kinds of things. But with him at age 22, you would just let the horse run. Man, this guy is a physical, physical guy. So anyway, that's

kind of a cool breakdown of a swing. And again, 170 miles an hour at 17 degrees. That balls pretty much squared up. You know, he didn't cut. He didn't bottom half that and backspin it in the left field. If he did just to give you an idea of how things work, you know, say he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he,

he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he was a little bit more level through the zone. He didn't come back up and hit it. He maybe kind of cut through the bottom half

of it, kind of pool host that ball. Then you would see this ex of velocity go to like 105, okay? But his launch angle would have increased to like, you know, 30 degrees or 28 degrees, something like that. Okay? So that's kind of how it works when you hit different parts of the ball, right? You don't, the hardest balls you ever hit are typically low line

drives because you're, the pitch is only coming in it, say, four, five degrees. So if you hit a ball, it's a five to 10 degrees off the ground, you're hitting most of the ball. If you're hitting a ball, if a ball is coming down at, you know, only five or six degrees, actually, I think this was a breaking ball. If I'm not mistaken, was this a

breaking ball, let's go back to the front. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that was a breaking ball. So this ball was dropping a little bit more. So guys that typically swing up more that have more of an upper cut. Maybe if you can average attack angle in the 15 range, those guys are going to hit breaking balls better. Why? Because when breaking balls enter the zone, they

enter the zone a little bit steeper. Let's see if we can kind of see this. I don't know what the frame rate if we will. Could have been why he was slightly out in front too, because this pitch was a little slower. So he made his, yeah, I don't really see the frame. I don't think he's hit it there yet. I can try to connect the

dots. Well, let's, so the ball. Here's the glove. Yeah, so you can see this was, this pitch was more than that eight degree trajectory coming down where if it was a 90 mile an hour fastball, I'd probably be at like five degrees. So all right, great breakdown. This week, mechanical breakdown series volume 39 of Julio Rodriguez. And again, this probably is better to be enjoyed on

the YouTube side, watch the show and to watch the breakdown, the lab Epstein hitting podcast, YouTube page. But with Julio Rodriguez, a couple of things that I noticed in my prep for today's show, and you see this, you can really tell, and I think evaluators would agree with me on this, you can really tell a guy who can hit based off certain mechanics and certain ways

their body moves and how they get to the baseball. And there's a couple of things that I noticed and we're going to get to his comp here in just a second because we teased it prior to break down his load to me is perfect in every way possible from the feet to the hands to the head to the front shoulder being slightly slanted, getting that torque

angle that he needs to. He is a perfect load and it's timing and rhythm is pretty much, I mean, it's pretty much on point with that load. Again, one of my four pillars of hitting that makes it, I think, what makes great hitters successful and great hitters what they are. Now my comp for him and you and I both agree on this. We talked about it

before the show is Mooky Betts. And it may be something that's a little bit out of the ordinary. All they do play very similar positions. Julio Rodriguez is taller than Mooky Betts, but from the way that Julio is able to generate leverage with the lower body, using his legs, his little bit steeper of a swing plane and his follow through very similar to Mooky Betts. They,

yeah, I mean, they move, they they move almost identically in the middle of the stride to launch. And that, you know what those moves are? Those are natural moves. I mean, this is a Latin born player. I don't know where's Rodriguez from. Do we know Dominican Republic. Okay. So he's not from Tennessee. I think it's where pets grew up. But, you know, by the stp. I

look at 53 East de duda more like the middle of big instrumental where a frog only one fellow on the high finish slide to move. Keep the kill that hasn't even been pulled off of wheels, but Uncle ito. He's in Rajas breathable. Right. The.. Do they run off? Can they be there? You're not, Army maybe. This is a pretty big move. And most people would see

that move and be like, oh, well, he's going to be susceptible to this, that and the other will maybe not. Maybe he's done the move for so long that he knows how to control it. Just like you said, he controls his timing. He starts really early. Right. We talked about that. We saw that. And he doesn't rush it. It's it's not a super fast move. It's

not a herky jerky move. So he can do it. And we can't put limits on players based on what we see. We have to let them do what they do. Meaning, if he showed up at a college program, a division one program, with that load and that bat tip, I would say 80% of those schools would try to change that. Why? That's what I wonder though.

Yeah. So this is well, this is you're not going to be able to get away with that in the SEC. You know, we get away with that. It's a division one level. You're not going to get away with that at whatever level. You know, this isn't high school. I can really just, I'm not going to be able to do that. And that's the difference between, you

know, kind of what we see. So, you know, where he was able to just do this whole life, growing up, age 18 can't hit that yet. Okay. So, you know, that's what they say when you get to college as well. Well, you're going to face on Friday. You're going to face Arkansas's number one. And he throws 98. Okay. Well, let me fail off that player first

before we change everything that got me here. Yeah. I'm not saying my only thing every program does this by I understand it. But my only thing with trying to change, if you were to, if you were to go to division one program and they were trying to change that. I understand how much the hitch or whatever you want to call it. I would just say, back

tip. I understand how that affects the guys timing. But if that's something he's been doing all of his life and he's been successful at doing that all of his life, then we have to go, we have to find something else. If something's not working, we can't just look right at the bat. Why don't we look at one of my four pillars of hitting timing rhythm. What

do we look at his legs, his leverage, his load. We can't just look at his bat tip. And I'm not disagreeing with you. But I disagree at the sediment that SEC coaches or any big time college coach would want to change. You're asking for more trouble and you're creating more problems rather than looking deeper and more of an introspect at the problem that's actually there occurring.

Not with the bat tip. I don't understand that. Yeah. And maybe it doesn't. But I mean, if this was a top five player in the country and, you know, signed. But if he was just a regular, a regular dude that you gave 50% scholarship to that, you know, maybe was on a little bit of the perfect game circuit. But it wasn't, you know, a perfect tan

or, you know, he wasn't a first round draft pick. You know, everybody wants to get their hands on people and sometimes you have like this. Yeah, that's not coaching. Yeah, that's not coaching. But I will. And that's why you have to wait until, hey, is there a problem? And let's see if we can iron out that problem slowly. And he's, again, this move just looks like

he's on every swing, even in a game. He doesn't. He's trying to hit a ball, 170 miles an hour. Like unless he has two strikes, he is getting his body in position to do that. And a lot of players that I work with, I had one player, a high school player who's not big at all, right? High school. And he's a senior and he's a dang

good shortstop. But he was hit in the ball. I think we talked about it 84 miles an hour when I first got to him. You know, this was just a few months ago. And 8485. And it's like, okay, like he's a good high school player. I'm like, I know there's more there. So I put him through kind of what I do. You know, it's the same

kind of drills I have in the online academy for those of you that, you know, are part of that. And we essentially tried to build in some action that Rodriguez has here. Okay. Like, you know, similar. But I wanted to see how he would do it. I didn't teach him a hitch. I just said, I want you to start here. And I want you to end

here. And so yesterday we did a session and he hit balls 94 miles an hour. He's probably 160 pounds. He didn't have every ball 94 miles an hour. But that's where he topped out at 94. So 10 miles an hour and like a month and a half. He didn't put on any weight. He just moves differently. You know, I let his athleticism play that had been

taken out somewhere in his life. I don't know if it was when he got to high school before he got to high school or whatever. But we put that athleticism back and all of a sudden, now he's hitting balls 90 plus most of the time. And that is huge because he was at 80 plus. We raised everything about 10 miles an hour. So let players, you

know, work with this. Let players have fun with this. Now if they fail and they strike out every time and they they can't stay back. And I think that's what I'm saying. You know, with this move, you know, after after the front heel lands, they just keep lunging for, okay, then, you know, we can't let that happen. But if you have players that have some ability,

let their athleticism play through. Because some players are made to play this game. And some players are made to dominate this game. And we don't want to get in the way of those players. Okay. The last thing we want to do. I think that's the best way to and today's show. So again, watch the show on YouTube. Thanks for listening on the audio side. We really

appreciate that mechanical breakdown series volume 30. We have a lot of high schools in now. So high school players going nuts there. We're prepping them for the season, which is right around the corner. So it's cool. We get a lot of college station high school. The team will come in and use the facility. And we'll be back. We'll get ready and prep and crank up the

machines and get ready. And then our normal guys. So we're just we're kind of cranking everything up velocity wise and spin wise to stress them out a little bit to get them ready for first pitch. Perfect. All right. The lab BCS dot com. And again, if you have any questions for us, email us immediately from podcast 21 at Gmail.com. Thanks for listening, watching everybody. Be sure

to subscribe. And we'll talk to you next week.