Quick Guide to Splitting the Plate

[" ni and i may have some demonstration wings? ...!!!?" rolling AND Ryosuke Ryosuke Hi everybody, welcome inside to another edition of the Lab Epstein Hitting Podcast episode 121, discussing splitting the plate today. So please subscribe, of course Apple rules, modify wherever you get your podcasts if you haven't done so already. Or on YouTube to watch the show, the Lab Epstein Hitting Podcast page. Thank you very

much. And we got that out of the way. Let's do this! Please bring in professionally-valuated successful business owner, former coach, friend, co-host, and mentor, Jake Epstein. Come on in, we got a show to do. I'm here. I'm in. Another, I mean I feel like you're in a new room. Not a new room, I just did some shifting. I'm in a new studio. It's gonna be a

great show because of it. The corner of the master bedroom. Hey, next week we're discussing offseason, hitting progression plans, episode 122. Let's crack that shell open a bit today though. The offseason, it's here finally. Next week is Thanksgiving or the week next weekend is the weekend before Thanksgiving. The World Series just ended. We were talking about this off-air. It just ended last week. Rob Malford has

to do something about that by the way. But anyway, we'll get into that right now. How do hitters get into that offseason mindset preparation phase? You have to have, after some time off, you have to figure out what you need to do. It might be different than what other people need to do. Whether it's upper body, maybe it's a swing plane adjustment, maybe it's a rhythm

adjustment, your rhythm was off, your stride didn't feel good. Maybe it's lower body sequencing. Maybe our hips aren't. We just looked at a lot of K-Vess reports. We did some assessments down in Texas. Those tell you, while you're using your upper body, way more than your lower body, we need to even that out. You figure out what is most important to you to get better. Sometimes

it's weight room, sometimes it's nutrition, sometimes it's conditioning. I remember Pablo Sandivall, poor guy had to run up the mountain every single day. You had to lose 30 pounds in the offseason because he'd put on weight during the season. Figure out what's most important for you. Create a timeline. I have 10 weeks to do this. My goal is to fix this move within whatever I just

said, 8, 10 weeks. Slowly start with non-stressful moves. By the end, you want to add in stressful environments to see if that muscle memory has set it. Be careful upcoming for agents across Major League Baseball because I'll tell you what, you might end up like Pablo Sandivall. Where you sign with a red socks, you have some miserable seasons in Boston or wherever you may go. You're

an original team and you become, again, one of the most popular players. By the way, he's one of the most popular players in San Francisco. Giant's history. So fun. I got to go. Bonds Sandivall. I mean, fans love him. I would say fans loved him more than any of the others. Really? Just for his personality. Yeah. What he brought to the team and he got some

rings. But, you know, I mean, Posey was a more of a silent leader. Yeah. Was a very vocal. You know, he's just very business like. And Bonds was just electric. But he wasn't a big press guy. And Sandivall, I think, brought it all together when he was there. He only had, you know, some couple really crazy years. He was a solid player, but he was electric.

Yeah. I like how you brought up that he used to run mountains. Jerry Rice used to run hills as well. In the offseason. That's why he had such good conditioning. I don't know if you knew that. But Jerry Rice, that was when he was with the San Francisco 49ers. I made that correlation. Same build. Those guys had the same build. They did. It's the new studio.

Speaking of the offseason. All right. This list of them I want to give you here. Aaron Judge, Trade Turner, Carlos Correa, Zander Bogart, Dan Cee Swanson. I love them all. I do put an order though. My own order. Who I'd rather have first. Who of those players though? That group. Would you want offensively that fits into your team's lineup identity? Well, I think you got to

throw judge out of that equation because everybody else is a short stop. I mean, I would take. I went on. I'll be calm. The top 20 free. I would say if I needed an outfielder, I'd take judge. If I needed a short stop, I would probably take Trade Turner. I really like Trade Turner. I think he brings. Similar pop to those to those other guys. Correa

might have a little bit more pop. I think he steals more bags. I think he's more electric on the bases. They all are kind of 300 hitters. I don't think you could go wrong. Yes. I don't know what swans it is. I don't know what kind of. I didn't really look up his. I don't think he's a gamer for sure. I don't think he can go

wrong with anyone. But I think if I was taking somebody, I think Trade Turner, I've always. Something about him. I've always really liked. I know his swing plane plays. It's always played. And I think he has popped to go with that. So if he can get you 15 to 20 home runs. With making pretty consistent contact. And then being able to. Dan's be swanson. You mentioned

him. Yeah. What are you doing? I'm doing some math here. Okay. In the last two years, he's played in a combined. 322 games at a 324 possible games. 2021 played in 160 games. Hit that big home run in game four against the Astros in the World Series, which ultimately led to the Braves winning the World Series. And this year, first time in his career, 2022, perfect

timing. And all star played in all 162 games hit 25 home runs, drove in 96. That was a career high. Let's. Struck out on 182 times also career high. Four four. So somewhat average to above above average for him. But in regards to his career numbers, 277 batting average, 329 on base, 447, slugging 776. OPS. I'm more of a bow personally. I'm more of a bow

guard sky. I think you're lined up a lot of flexibility with what he can do. By the way, you mentioned trade turner. We did a mechanical breakdown series on him. I think it was last year, right? Yeah, last offseason, I think. Right. We did mechanical breakdown series on him. We did one also on Exander bow guards. We did one on judge. Who was the other. Korean.

We did one on him as well. But I think that looking at with swan. I like swanson a lot. But I like. I think it's one of the more perfect swings for lack of better term that's out there. But looking at bow guards trade turner same thing. And the speed is athleticism. You've got your any you've got your lead off hitter. Wherever he signs in trade

turner. But Exander bow guards, I think, gives the best lineup identity to whomever he may sign with. Can't go wrong. I mean, really that class is as consistent and has been doing it for a while, defensively offensively. Leadership, you know, Korea has a little bit more outgoing personality, I guess, at least in the media about what he thinks about himself. Other than that, I think those

are all pretty good clubhouse guys from from what I've heard. But Korea is he's a postseason veteran in and so is turner. Right. Those guys have a lot of postseason games under their belts and swanson. I mean, you it's a really great class of short stuffs. I agree. Yeah, you can't it's hard to go wrong with with any of those guys. And so I wonder what

they're going to make what combined what the money that they're going to generate this offseason. I mean, they just combined to altogether generate 500 million themselves combined and total worth of contracts for one year. One year's worth of work. You imagine. No, they will absolutely in one year. That they will. I mean, there's going to be a ton of money thrown up, but I wonder if

it's going to be less because there is competition. Last year it was Korea and Seager. Those were the two main short stops that were out there. And they got huge numbers. Well, now you have four of these guys to choose from. Maybe those numbers are going to be diluted a little bit. I guess only time will tell. So who sets the bar? Which one of those

guys in your opinion, fear the general manager? Whatever team and you're definitely going off of Seager, I would say they're going off as Seager's last year. What about out of those guys? Who sets that bar, that market price? The guys who are free agents this year? The short stops. Judges going to be he's on his own island. Right, because right. I'm sorry. Yeah, the short stops.

Probably Korea. Right. Korea might set it. So he also he sets the market price. He could sign first unless the Dodgers or somebody tries to resign. I saw something the Phillies were going to look at. Try Turner. Try Turner. Yeah. Your favorite team. I called him Sprout because I saw the Sprouts food mark that I passed on my one home from the gym. Yeah. I mean,

geez. Sorry. I just took my team to the world. Series are rookie. Yeah. But yeah, bump bump over the second base. You know, you got a real bump. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm going to get a little bit more. Yeah. So those are free agent breakdown. I don't know. We've broken down all those swings. Except for Swanson. Maybe we'll break his swing. I love Swanson

swing too. He's got really good hand pad. Really, they're all very consistent players. I bet if you compared most of their numbers the last five years, they're going to be somewhat similar. Right. By the way, speaking of pain, you're speaking of the Astros. We really won't touch much on this because we don't know the goings on. But you win the World Series if you're a general

manager. The pinnacle as a general manager, as a coach or whatever that position is, and you lose your job. Hey, kids, you want to work in professional sports? I mean, I think that's mind blowing to me. I don't know what his contract was, but I was a three year deal. It was a three year contract. It expired. And apparently according to reports from Jeff Pisson, Bob

Knight and Gal, they all said, these are this was reports on Twitter. They were verified. By the way, you're going to get the new $8 check mark on Twitter at Epstein hitting on Twitter. Hey, buddy. If I had a blue check mark, I'd pay for it. Okay. At Jim Tara on Twitter, by the way, on Instagram as well for both of those handles, but they said

on Twitter that he was offered a new one year contract. No raise. And he said, no. And Jim Crane said, okay, well, Adios there, amigo. Talk down the road. There must have been something there. How do you give a guy a one year deal? Right. A GM, a GM. One year deal. They just won the World Series. Yeah. So there was, there was some bad blood

or something going on there, especially, you know, you probably signed Dusty to, and I don't know what he makes that GM, but Dusty's probably going to get five or six million or more for his one year deal. And the GM is probably going to work longer, even longer hours. And what's he going to make? You know, what I don't know what his old contract was. I

thought I read something. It may have been the assistant GM was getting a million bucks. But whatever that number was, pissed him off. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder if it's, if it's Dusty Baker that the, the, the tug and the pull of the old school versus new school, you just had a 73 year old manager. When the World Series, he was in Jim Crane's office negotiating with

Jim Crane. You got that contract done, signed it in front of the owner. And the old school won out in this case. And Jim Crane might be leaning that way because some of the players I read last night that were picked up at the trade deadline or in the last few years. From an organization run, baseball operation department run by James, I was called Jim Click,

by the way, James Click, run by James Click. They haven't really produced all that much. And he's more of an analytical type guy. His assistant general manager who also just got fired. He was, and he was an analytical type guy. And baseball centric type general manager or a baseball operator, or the face of that baseball operations department. I don't know. They just won the World Series.

They've been the most consistent team the last six years. I don't think I would have done anything. I would keep, I would keep a mix of analytical guys and traditional guys. I think it's a good combo. If they can, if you can find the right people that can work together, it's the perfect harmony like that. Maybe they, like us, right. I'm smart and so I'm called

for right there. That's really, that's really so mean. Why was it? Why, why were you so mean right there? What are we talking about? No, but I think you have to have the perfect mix of, of old and new school technologies. You got to have experienced people that decipher the crazy analytical information. If you can have that buffer, you can have those translators in there. Then

coach, national champion in his own right on cross functionality, Pat Murphy. He joined me filling in for Cassie. So again, subscribe to cross function out. And I did bring this up to him about Pat. What do you think of all this new technology that's come into baseball. It's come into softball as a coach. You see college coaches. They have all this technology. Sometimes they don't know

how to use all of this data. And how did you decipher through all of this? And he told me that he told his director player development pick five elements that we can use data points technology, whatever that we can use. And we can blame him for the fact that he's not going to use it. After attending with our program, that's I think probably, probably it is

the best way to go. I don't care if it's collegial, or if it's an academy or professional baseball. And you got to figure out what your, your players are like in how they interpret information and the right information. And if they want to change or not change, you have to be careful with that. So again, subscribe to cross functionality, Apple Google Spotify, you can watch the

show on the softball strength academy YouTube page as well. You can watch us on the lab Epstein hitting podcast YouTube page and email us your questions. Jimbo podcast 21 at gmail.com. We will get to Doug's question. Finally, two weeks late here towards the end of today's show. All right. Today's topic, episode 121 last week, by the way, check out the episode on YouTube. We broke down

the swing of Mike Piazza mechanical breakdown series. I think it was volume. Absolutely. You know, why would you look for a pitch with less than two strikes that you're not comfortable with? If you don't handle the pitch in as well, don't look in with less than two strikes. They may be trying to throw you in, but it doesn't mean they're going to get it there. Every

time maybe they miss out over the plate. So know what you do best and then know how to make adjustments. So as the count changes, your anticipation or your plan has to change along with it. So you can cut the plate into however you want it. You can cut it into halves. You can cut it into quarters, thirds. We used to use we use balls. So,

you know, ball one through ball six. Essentially ball one would be. And ball six would be your outside corner. In all likelihood, it's more like ball seven that low and away pitch is going to be called a strike. At most levels, besides professional baseball, college, it still strikes. So, you know, ball one through six and a half seven. And you say, OK, I want to cover

these pitches early in the count. I want to cover. If I want to cover middle and I'm going to cover balls one through three. OK. So three balls with, you know, it's like, you know, it's like a ball. Like whatever eight. What is a ball? What's the diameter of a ball? Three inches, nine, maybe nine inches total. I'm going to cover nine inches of the plate

at a time. Or maybe the count goes two and oh, now I'm just going to maybe a two ball plate. Ball two and three is what I'm looking for. Maybe the count goes oh and two. I got to cover the whole plate now. I got to cover ball one through six and a half one through seven. So, and this is baseball softball is more like one

through six one through five and a half. For the record, just just so because you mentioned it, I did look it up. A baseball regulation baseball is nine to nine and a half inches in circumference. And two point eight six to two point nine four inches in diameter. A weight of five to five and a fourth ounces. OK. So, you know, you're covering if you cover

three balls. It's roughly, you know, eight to nine inches somewhere in there. So figure out. And maybe this picture, maybe you're you're a right handed hitter. You're facing a lefty. The only pitch he's throwing. And then he's going in as is a is a slider or or curve ball. But most of the time he's throwing. He's throwing fast balls away and then he's throwing change ups

away. OK. Well, I'm going to just sit and I'm going to take away ball four, five and six from this guy. I'm going to keep my front shoulder in. I'm going to cheat to right field. Maybe I stride in towards the plate a little bit to help cover that pitch. I have a plan early in the count. Based on what that picture has done to me

previously or what he's done to other players that have hit in this game prior to my at bat. So it all starts with having a plan. As you get older, if you get into college, you get into professional baseball, you're going to have a scotter report plan. You're going to have a hitters meeting that talks about, OK, these are the, these are the pictures we're going

to face today. This is this guy's best pitch. This is what this guy tries to do. You get somewhat of a synopsis of each pitcher. And then as that pitcher enters the game, then you have, you know, you can, you can look at the pitch. And then you can look at that exact chart and see what that pitcher is trying to do. But again, that might

not be exactly for you and your type, the type of hitter you are. Maybe where you hit in the lineup. Maybe you're a different team. Maybe you're on a team that's not very offensive. And that scouting report comes from the weekend before against a team that's really offensive. And so they saw a lot more breaking balls, but maybe against you guys, you're typically late on pitches

and the scouting report against your team is the throw more fastball. Especially late in the count, you have to be very, very careful with with reports because every team is different. And you have a scouting report against that pitching staff, but they also have a scouting report against you as hitters. So they're not going to always do the same thing as pitchers. If if you're a

better breaking ball team or a better fastball team, they're going to counteract that. So we're always making adjustments. We're always learning on the fly. We're watching that pitcher warm up in the bullpen. We're watching him warm up. You're watching him face other players on your team. Then you can adjust your plan accordingly. And that adjustment might be splitting the plate into different parts. Sure, sure. But

how do you split the plate in a different parts based off. You mentioned in there some scouting reports. But what you've done in previous games, what you're going through at that time, you know, going through a hot streak. You might be going through a tough stretch. One for your last 20. How do you decipher then at that point where your strengths are to then splitting the

plate. So you're going to have to work into your advantage. Such a good question, Jim. Thank you. It really is. That's a really good question. So you. I ask you that because there's a lot of information out there. You and I both have experienced this in professional club houses. There's the hitters meetings. There's the scouting reports of this guy. There's the heat maps. There's all this

stuff at that's out there. And that's that's fine. That's great. Information, right. Information is king. But we have to look at what we're doing in that moment as well. And what kind of stretch we're going through. I think you're right. If I'm hot, I'm going to be more selective. That's simple. If I'm seeing the ball good and I'm not falling off or swinging swinging missing, meaning

my timing is on my rhythm is on. I feel good. I'm going to be more selective. I might look for a two ball zone, whether it's, you know, two balls on the inner half or two balls on the outer half. I'm going to sit on that pitch because maybe every time I take a swing, I'm putting the ball in place somewhere. I'm not swinging through stuff.

And I feel good. Now on the contrary, if I'm struggling, if you look at Al Tuy, he actually swung himself out of his slump that he had in the in the World Series. He was not hitting the ball great. But he also wasn't taking a lot of strikes. He was still up there trying to be aggressive because he didn't want to get behind in the count.

And it goes back to my dad telling me this is as a young kid. When he used to say, when I face Nolan Ryan, the reason I had some success against him, not a lot of success, but I had success. I had a lot of success compared to a lot of people was because I didn't want to hit that breaking ball with two strikes. So I

didn't, I wasn't looking for the perfect pitch. I was looking for a fast ball. And I wasn't going to be late. And I was looking at probably a five ball zone with less than two strikes. I was opening up my zone. I wasn't trying to be too picky on pitches because he had something that could put me away. But in today's game, you still have pitchers

that can put you away. And sometimes if that's the case, maybe you split the plate up into halves instead of quarters. It seemed like that's what Yordan Alvarez also did in the World Series. He was looking in. He was not going to swing at anything away from Jose. He got that pitch in pretty much well, Middleton, right down the heart of the plate, to the inside,

and he ripped it 400 plus feet. We saw that a lot with Bryce Harper who Doug has written in about today with his listener question. We saw that in the postseason, what made him really successful. It seemed like he split that plate in half. But at times it changed. It went from looking in to looking away, looking in, looking away. It didn't really seem like he

looked much top to bottom. Then, then, then, it seemed like he looked much vertically. He was looking in, looking away. But that again goes back to my previous question in that it changed because of how things were going, how he was pitched in previous plate appearances. That's why it's so important to learn, right? My right to learn from previous at bats. You have to. It really

is a thinking man's game or thinking woman's game, if you're playing stuff. You can't just roll up there. The really great players are smart. Ted Williams was brilliant. Barry Bond's, we talked about this probably years ago now, when he had a conversation with your V Tori Alba before he went up and said, this is what the pitch is going to do. He's going to throw me

this pitch on the first pitch, this pitch on the second pitch. And I'm going to hit the third pitch. Boom. It's exactly what happened. And they wrote a huge article in the Denver Post about it. But that's what he was. He was smarter. Yes, he had a great swing. Yes, he was strong. Yes, he was talented and had great vision. But he was really, really smart.

And you have to be successful hitter. You have players that have great. Why are there players with really good mechanics that I mean, we draft every year. You know, our organization, other organizations draft these really great players with good mechanics. Why don't they ever pan out? Maybe their mindset isn't right. That's a hard thing to draft. How sharp is this player on the field? Wow. He

moves good. He gets good reads. He seems to have a head for the game. They'll say he has good instincts. But does he have that mental acuity to really lock it at the right times and to make those adjustments? Why are there so many first round quarterbacks in the NFL that never pan out to being a first round quarterback? It's the same reason. So it's hard.

I mean, there's companies, cognitive companies that do test and they're not testing and what not. And that shows a lot of information. But it just doesn't show the game. How do they deal with the game and the pressure and with all the information, how do they filter it out and then create a plan and then put a swing on it. And that's what makes great players

and scouting, scouting, scouting. We'll find players with talent with ability with strength and speed. But it's really hard to get that last piece in there. And sometimes you don't know until they've been in your game. And you're going to have a lot of organization for four or five years. Toronto Blue Jays manager, John Schneider once told me this years ago about Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. He said

he thinks so well along with the pitcher that he has a major league type approach. And he could take a fastball right down the heart of the plate. Best pitch he may get all night at 95. But he will take it for a strike because he wasn't looking for that pitch. And the pitch that he was looking for or could be looking for is coming next.

And he's going to smash that either over the wall or to one of the gaps. And that's really what you're talking about there in the difference with players and their approaches and that cognitive ability to think along with the pitcher and in turn split the plate. It's creating a plan and I stress this so much with players and some players can do it in some people

camp, but you stick to your plan. Yeah. You have a plan, you know what they're going to do to you. You have to you can't deviate from that plan. Players that deviate are not mentally strong. So what you're saying many Ramirez was the same way as Vladimir Guerrero like you would take pitches. You'd be like, how do you take that? That pitch because you was sitting

on something else and think about it. If a guy's throwing 95 and you're looking for 95. It's not going to seem that fast. If a guy's throwing 95 and you're looking for a fastball and a curve ball at 80. 95 is going to jump on you. Right. If you're looking, but if you take that out of the equation. So I'm not going to be late. I'm

looking for heat. You're looking for something up in the zone. I'm going to swing two inches over this ball because the spin rate is so high. He's a four seam for I'm going to swing over this ball. I'm going to aim. This is what a lot of people. This is what you should do. If it's a sinker, I'm going to try to get underneath that sinker.

Right. I'm not going to see it the last couple of inches. I where it when it's going to break. I got a swing underneath that. So if you're sitting on it and you're looking for it, you can have success. But think about it. If you're looking for a four seam or an a two seam or and a cutter and a change up. Everything is going to

be more difficult. You can't really go up there looking for everything. You can't put yourself in that two strike scenario when you have less than two strikes. That's why we don't hit very good with two strikes. Go up there with a plan on what you want to do. It's not guessing if you're sitting on a fastball. Now if you're sitting on a fastball with two strikes,

that could be more guessing. But when you're ahead in the count, sit on a location or sit on a pitch or a speed that you're looking for. Now if you're playing 12-you little league or 12-you travel ball, just look for a strike. Like let's not get crazy with it. Look faster slow. Is it a fastball? I'm going to unload on it. I'm not looking if it's

inside or outside per se because pitchers are, you know, they're just trying to throw strikes unless they're really a league pitchers at that time. But don't get too crazy at the younger ages. Look faster slow. A curve ball at 12-you is going to look way different than a fastball. It's not going to come out of the same slot. I don't care what anybody says. They don't

have the strength to do that yet. So if you see a breaking ball pop, you have to know how to adjust this. I do it with my kit all the time. Every softball is big on the change up at this age, which is great. Take the change up. The girl throws one change up per a bat or per every other a bat. Why would we swing

at that pitch with less than two strikes? It's like 20 miles an hour slower. Just take it. Why can't we do that? Well it's because they haven't seen it yet. And they're just like squirrel. No swing at it. So the key is look for what you're looking for and abort the swing on anything else that doesn't fit that mold. If I'm looking for rhinoceros and an

elephant walks up, I'm not going to swing at the elephant. That might have been, I love you. I do want to practice. I notice I said swing. I wanted to, I want to practice by saying I love you. And you're a genius. But out of 120 and a half episodes, that may have been the worst analogy in the two years we've done this show. And I

was laughing during that. I was laughing during that because there was a guy who's son I played with when I was a kid. And he once told my dad when they were playing fallball, he said, yeah, my son, I won't name the kid. But my son, he's hitting 150. My dad looks at any goes. The guy's name was Steve. He goes Steve. You can't hit that.

It's an impossible vatigab. It's mathematically. It's impossible. Now this was the same father who used to tell everybody else that his kid throws a knuckle curve ball. Right. Well, that kid when he tried to throw that knuckle curve ball, he'd walk people or he gets sheld. So my point is just to circle back to what you were saying when you're younger looking faster, slumped. So you

don't have to worry about looking for certain specific fast or slow pitches. You can just look faster slow. And if it's a strike, let it loose and swing at that elephant. No, don't swing at the elephant, the rhino. Rhino, whatever swing at the rhino. Right. Right. We'll just pull that at it. I'm not editing that state in there. That's forever. That'll be the sound bite for

this. That is the worst and best analogy that we'll ever have in the lab history of the lab. Epstein hitting podcast. You heard it here. You heard it here first. Peter Lonzo said something interesting. I found this morning. He said in this article written by Alex Butler in 2019, for the publication, you P I, he said in regards to his approach, quote, I know if they're

throwing their best stuff and I'm not going to hit it if it's well located. But if it's over the heart of the plate, then I'll have a much better chance. So to me, I just want to stay the same and be able to capitalize on pitches that are in the zone. Now I've always said my theory is that major league hitters, professional hitters, major league hitters,

though, get two pitches per game that are cookies that they can hit out of the ballpark because any major leader can hit a home run many time. That's, no, that's the truth now. Of course, there's ceilings, et cetera. But if you get that right pitch, you can hit a home run minor leagueers player development. You'll get two and a half on average, maybe two and a

half to three pitches. But that's to the quote, Lonzo with that quote there from Pete. I forgot to say, unquote, whatever. But with that quote right there, you get about two pitches per game to hit. That's why it's kind of more imperative to split the plate. So you get better your chances and up the percentage of maybe you getting that pitch. And some nights you won't

get two pitches. Sometimes you only get one pitch to hit. Yeah. Sometimes you fall it off. Right. That's the irony is guys get a lot of good pitches to hit. It's hitting's hard. But if you can have a swing that at least barrels up, that goes back to our Paul Molleter story we've told multiple times like how do you have 3,000 hits? I didn't miss mistakes.

Right. Sometimes those mistakes come with two strikes and you're protecting and you fall it off. But he's exactly right. Alonzo, if a pitcher makes the pitch that he or she wants to make, you're going to lose. They're not trying to. Yeah, they're trying to explain. That's what they're trying to do. They're trying to create a lot of movement, a lot of spin and they're trying to

hit a spot. Well, if they hit those spots, you are not going to hit. You're going to hit under a hundred. The problem for pitchers is the pitchings are two. And they don't always hit their spots and maybe they fall behind in the count. And now they have to miss their spot towards the plate instead of off the plate. So you have to take advantage of

and Alonzo is exactly right. You can't miss that mistake. If it's the first pitch, it's the fourth pitch. Maybe if you swing at the first pitch and ground out, you never get that cookie that may have happened on the third or fourth pitch. Right. So it's just a fun game. Thinking through it in the scenarios and guys that are good and have good plans and other

people that are learning. It's fun to watch. Guys that have been in the league for six months. Philly's had a lot of those guys. Geez, they don't have perfect plans yet. But the more they're going to be around guys like Harper or or Castellanos or Segura. All those guys have such great experiences. Shorber, you lean on those. You have those conversations. And hopefully there are still

having those conversations. And we're not just looking at iPads about, you know, how did I look on that swing or, you know, where did they get it? It's like, have a conversation about what were you looking for there? You know, what was your process with that? Well, in my experience, it would be this. And that's where good hitting coaches become great hitting coaches is that they

have the ability to communicate with the player about what is going on. To that player that night. Yeah. Not what's going on to somebody else. How can I help this player right now? Because as a hitting coach, you put yourself in their shoes in the box during each of that. You know, one player only has to do that for themselves. But a hitting coach, you're trying

to figure out. I mean, that's what I didn't. And I have notes on every single pitch of every at bat for players. I would just write them down. He started off here. The hitter looked bad on this pitch. They're going to continue to go back to that. And then I would share that information with the player between the bats. And hope that they would make an

adjustment. Perfect segue, by the way. So you make up for your awful analogy of Merlier with a perfect segue talking about the Phillies and Bryce Harper. That brings us to today's listener question. I think we covered everything with splitting the plate. Again, if you have any questions, please email us, Jimbo podcast 21 at gmail.com. Reach out to us on Twitter and Instagram at Jim Tara and

at Epstein hitting as well. This question comes to us from Doug sent to us via Jimbo podcast 21 at gmail.com and Doug writes, hi guys. I was wondering your thoughts on the performance of Bryce Harper. It seems like his swing has really changed from when he first came into the league. Yet a massive weight shift and it appeared that he was more of a linear hitter

rather than now using his lower half a lot more Jake thoughts. Question mark. Thanks. Estimation point. Where's Doug from? Do I know Doug? He did not say it does not say sorry. Doug, where are you from? Right us. We'll get to in three weeks. Yeah. That's right. That's right. So thanks giving you a break. I don't know if it's changed all that much. You go back

to Bryce Harper. I just saw it show up on my feed when he's swinging a 36 ounce bat in Vegas or something and he's going and he looks great. Like he's swinging the heck out of that stuff. So I would say Bryce Harper. Maybe he did have a bigger leg kick and a weight shift. I do remember when he when he was younger, he had a

big leg kick. He had a big weight shift. And then when he first came up in the major leagues, they took it away from him. And he just did the no stride. And he struggled miserably that he went back down to the minor leagues, got his rhythm and stride back and then came back up. The reason I bring that up is he still does the no

stride. I think once in a while. Right. Sometimes with two strikes, he sure I think that's great. I think it's cool. Maybe he wasted six months of his life back then when he was first coming up and struggled with the no stride because he had never done it. But now he can do both. I always tell my students, hey, let's try this. If you're facing a

machine that doesn't have any kind of timing mechanism, just do an no stride. Drop your heel of swing. So I don't know if I would agree that his swing has changed that much. I will say he shortened up a lot. He's not nearly as aggressive with two strikes. He lets it go early in the count. Like I would say, he's vicious on strike one. His first

swing of the bat, he is not taking it. He's feces of strike. Even if it's a breaking ball, if it's hit a ball, he's not going to be able to do it. He's taking a lash at it. I will also say that I don't know how many balls he put in play on the first pitch during the playoffs in World Series when I watched him. Hardly

at all. Like he's swung it almost every first pitch and he looked great and didn't really put any of them in play at least hard. So late in the count, he found a lot more barrels, but you could see his approach shifted. All of a sudden his leg kick got not as high still as far. He's still gets very wide with his stride, but maybe not

as high. He still loads into his back hip really well. For me, he was trying to let stuff get deep and he was trying to use the opposite field. I don't know if I've seen a huge drastic shift in his swing. I guess I could go back. I haven't go back to maybe his rookie year and compared it to what we're doing. To me, it seems

when I see old highlights of him. Now he still has a pretty darn good weight shift. His swing plane seems pretty similar. Maybe a little bit flatter now because he's been forwarded. He's probably the last five years to catch up to high fastballs and to stay on top of high fastballs. So in order to do that, maybe he's got to stay a little bit more upright.

Maybe he can't get as wide with his legs because that gets you lower, lower to the ground. So I could definitely see that transformation happening as pitching his change from when he came up to where he is now with more high fastballs top of the zone. That's where they try to get him with higher spin rates. Do you think he gets into his back leg better

more? He might. I don't know if I remember him not doing that though. Well, he got used to getting to his back leg and his weight would really shift onto his leg. I mean, a lot. I mean, he had a huge weight shift when he first came up. And it seems like as he's gotten bigger, as he's gotten stronger, he's matured both physically and mentally that

he's more into his legs. He's using ground force a lot more. That's what it seems like to me just watching him from the open side. Yeah, maybe I really, I don't think I have enough information on his old I guess his back foot, I mean, his back foot still moves quite a bit. Typically, if your back foot moves a lot, then you have a big weight

shift. And his back foot used to move a lot. I just think his head probably drifted forward a little bit more. And when his head drift forward, he kind of lean forward with his upper body, but his front leg always got straight. You know, he rotated after heel plant. It's just I maybe he had more weight going forward. I could see that, especially if his head

went forward with it. That'll bring more weight. If he's keeping his head back over his back hip more now, when he rotates his back foot will still move, but it won't maybe move as much as it did before. Right. Right. Well, great question, Doug. Thank you very much. And if anybody has any other questions, please email us, Jimbo podcast 21 at gmail.com again, Jimbo podcast 21

at gmail.com next week off season progression plans off season is here. Finally, we talked about last week, the world series and the major league season lasted like 18 years. Finally, the off season is here. We'll talk about off season regression plans going through it through the holidays and the January, what you need to do to get yourself prepared for what is and will be the 2023

season. If we are all still here and some asteroid doesn't hit Earth. We got that taken care of now. Oh, we do. Yeah. Yeah, that's a shot. The thing and blew up the asteroid knocked off course. What's going to be like that movie, the arm, Armageddon, where we're going to send people up to try to blow it up. No, I need to watch that movie again.

That's a good one. Yeah, you know, the who has it Roger Ebert, the movie critics hated it. He thought it was like the worst movie of whatever year came out in 1999. Such a feel good movie. I know. But it does get a little corny towards the end. Of course it does. It's a movie. I know, but you know, there's got to be some realism. I

don't want to keep having to suspend my disbelief. I hate doing that in movies and TV. I don't want to suspend my disbelief. Great story though. Great story. But again, what? It could happen. An asteroid knocking out the planet. Yeah. I mean, all right. Maybe they were ahead of their time. Oil drillers. Is now a less headed drill down into the media. They use Jim Jim's

oil drilling oil drilling. Yeah. The rough next out there. That's next week offseason for aggression. Now imagine being though in that movie. Now you want me to be make it believable. Imagine you blow up an asteroid. You come back, you're alive. You should never have you should never have to pay for anything ever again. Or in other words, you should get like $10, $20 million each

from the government. And say okay. Free booze, free beers, free food, free cars. Right. You can just roll in. Hey, I just saved your car dealership. Right. In your life. What do you think? That's pretty much right. I mean, you can roll into like say I want to go like, say I didn't have tickets to the lightning, right? And I wanted to go to watch the

lightning play the caps tomorrow night. Okay. Which is a Sunday. You think anyone's still tuned in? Just curious. To what? To what? To what? To our. Let me just say, let's say I wanted to go to that game tomorrow night. I could just walk in and say, Hey, you guys want me playing right now if it wasn't for me. I saved the planet, baby. What are

you coming up at the lab? We have our college prep stuff coming up. So both in Denver and down there, we're creating offseason plan. So kind of exactly what you're talking about. Oh, man. Perfect. Look at you, man. Yeah. So I have a lot of training here in Denver. The next month or so of players that'll come in from out of state and train. And then

we do the same thing down in Texas. So we're, we're using this time. I'll have everyone send me video. Hey, what do you need help with? How was our fall fallball ended of one or two weeks ago? What was our biggest issue? Boom. Let's attack that issue. So just so we talked about the very beginning of this. What is the main thing we can get better

at? Let's put in the time to do it. Let's create the right way to do it. You know, you can't do it by facing 95 on our balls coming out of a machine. Right. Let's have a process each and every day to build that muscle memory. If we have to make a change, you have to take, you know, a couple thousand proper moves. And zero bad

moves. If you take a couple thousand good moves and then you take 500 bad moves, you still know both. So we have to find the process. Now's the time. If we're not facing live pitching to put in that work and then come January, we start to dial it up with more stress. And then hopefully that sets it. So that's the process. That's what we're doing in

in both Denver and the lab. BCS BCS and the lab of steam hitting podcast. They don't call me the best oil driller in the world from the world. Jim's oil driller. We'll talk to you next week. Everybody, thanks for listening, subscribe, do what you got to do. I'll talk to you next Monday.