Requirements of a Successful Hitting Coach, Part O

Welcome into another edition of the lab at the TV podcast. So 139. Thanks for making this part of your day, night, good morning. Apple, it was by the fire listening on the audio side of our on YouTube watching the show on the lab. Epstasy podcast YouTube page. By the way, we're on Amazon Music in Pandora. I should prefer to listen there. That's great too. Episode 139

today. Requirements of a successful hitting coach, part one, where you're part two in a couple of weeks within part one this week. So let me bring in my friend co-host, professionally evaluator, successful business owner, my former coach, current day renowned coach Jake Epstein. I did like a little mashup between Cassie's intro and your intro today. So Bacon, what's shaking? I just feel so good whenever you

introduce me. It just makes my entire week listening to that. I got to tell you we're both we're recording this at night. I'm coming off a workout after work and Jake is coming off giving lessons. I like doing this. I was telling you off air when you're coming off lessons. We always feel like not that you're not on fire every week because you are. But I

always feel like you're just revved up ready to go in there coming off lessons. So this should be a good episode. And a good topic for that today. Two requirements of a successful hitting coach, part one. I used touched on something last week though. That I really liked and you didn't really expand on I do want to expand on it this week. And we're going to

talk in this episode about a couple of things. One of them being the puck bat handle. Do you know what I'm talking about? We're talking about that later in the episode. You do. Okay. I'm sure you do. Of course you do. Um, do this for a living for God's sake. I'm asking. It's like I should. I mean, I'm part of you. I'm not getting a lot

of Tesla. Yeah. Knowing what's going on in the world. Right. Yeah. Um, last week though, you talked about Bruce Bochi. Maybe it was the week before. I don't remember. But you talked about Bruce Bochi coming into your house. And by the way, for those who don't know, start at the beginning, Jake's father Mike has a hitting certificate. From Ted Williams and those Ted Williams are new

Ted Williams personally. Jake does as well. For those who don't know, Ted Williams was the last guy to hit 400 at the Major League level. Jake also has a whole. We'll call it phone contact book of old friends from the time he was a kid wandering around Major League clubhouses of players that his father played with. And players that he played with growing up in college

in the pros and the professional ranks who are now, by the way, on Major League coaching staff. So my point is later on, no, no, no, well, no, my point though. Okay. You said, not me. I didn't listen. You said you're old. I'm for the record. I didn't say you're old. We're going to do like a topic where not really it's topic. But we're going to

do it episode later on the year or whatever. That's centered around just stories that you have of these players. Because I think there's some really good stuff in there. One of those people, though, being Bruce Bochi, who was a personal kind of a coach to you. And by the way, for those who don't know, I love listening off all the time. I love listening off all

these people that you know, by the way, and that you have relationships with. So take that hitting Twitter, internet, hitting, hitting coaches. Take that fucking surfboard, fucking 102 or whatever your, your brand is out there. You don't know Ted Williams nor do you know Bruce Bochi. None of you know Bruce Bochi. I don't know me personally. But Jake does, you know, that Bruce Bochi, the manager

of the Texas Rangers World Series winning manager of the San Francisco Giants. You mentioned last week, though, he used to come to your house and you guys just discussed baseball. You guys used to discuss and talk about the mental side of things. Let's expand on that a little bit. Do you have any other stories just related to Bruce Bochi? How he helped your career and what

you used to talk about and trying to get you better in the off season? Well, he was, you know, as one I grew up growing up in San Diego. And so I played Greg his, his oldest son. Was it, I think he was a year or two behind me in high school. But we would go, my dad was doing work with the podders at the time.

Essentially we would go hit in the winter. And my dad would, we'd go down to the Jackworthy Stadium and to the, in the, you know, tunnel that they had there. And so my dad would kind of work with me and Greg. And then Bruce would take me aside and just, you know, kind of, he would, he would do catching drills with me because he was a,

I was really tall. I was a good catcher in high school. And he was a big catcher. Obviously major league catcher. And so, you know, we would work through all different situations. So it was pretty cool. I mean, I think I would have that kind of hands on stuff. And just people, my dad came, you know, old friends of his that would come into town and

we'd have dinner. I think that's what we were talking about. Jeff Torborg was the other one. Yeah. I mean, I remember exactly the hand, you know, the drills he was having me do with my hands, you know, so that there was no tension in my hands when I was catching. And I still teach the stuff that Bochi, you know, when I have players that I coach

and I'm trying to help as catchers, the stuff that he was doing. And he taught me, you know, safety stuff is, you know, plays at the plate kind of stuff when, where to stand, how to take it away, how not to, you know, make sure your knees in the wrong angle position when somebody sliding in. So things like that, you just, you take for granted. But,

yeah, I mean, there's, it's cool. You know, I was very fortunate as a kid because, you know, my dad had, he played in the big leagues for nine years. And so there were always people coming into town. And, you know, I have a picture in my office. You know, of me and Ted Williams, I have a picture of myself in Joe D'Amaggio. I have a picture

of, you know, behind me of, that's Pete Rose that you see behind me. So over your shoulder to your wrist. Yeah. So it was really, you know, I go to spring training and I get to meet all these people. And I was young and I didn't know a whole lot about it. But later in life, they actually renamed the road near my high school Ted Williams

Parkway in San Diego. And so Ted, I was older at this point when he came out and they dedicated it to him. And so I was like, I'm going to go to the gym. I'm going to go to the gym. I'm going to go to the gym. I'm going to go to the gym. I'm going to go to the gym. I'm going to go to the

gym. I'm going to go to the gym. I'm going to go to the gym. I'm going to go to the gym So he came and he talked about, you know, all my teammates, all my buddies and he stayed at our house. And, you know, that kind of stuff is really, really cool. And I was pretty, you know, I was still young. I was a teenager. But,

you know, my dad was able to absorb that information. Probably the best, I guess story. I don't know if it's a story, but, you know, just my dad would go. He wasn't in baseball at this time. This was in the probably the late 80s mid 80s. He would go to, we'd go to Florida every year because one of his clients, he was there in Melbourne. He

would go stay with Ted, you know, at his house. And they would just talk hitting, but not only would they talk hitting they would watch games together. And my dad said he learned more. And this was 10 years after my dad retired, 15 years after retired. He said he learned more watching a nine inning game next to Ted Williams. Then he really learned playing the game

the entire time because Williams talked through every scenario, every situation. What the pitcher was trying to do, what the hitter needed to do to counteract that, you know, where were the defense, where was the defense playing? Okay, well, that's tipping you as a hitter. They're trying to throw you away. Are they trying to throw you in? So you hit it into the shift. And all these

things about Ed said, one night in a game, he learned it in cyclopedia is worth of information. And when you have good coaches, and I know that's our topic today. It's more about hitting coaches, but when you have good managers, it's why the boat is so great. There's so many steps ahead in the game. They're figuring out matchups. If we're down a run, if we're up

a run, if we're down three runs, if we're up a run, they're constantly trying to run these scenarios to their head. And that's what it's hard for me. I was before we came on the air. I was watching the Texas A&M Arkansas game. And their interview and, you know, Schlauss be not between innings, but like, he is their head coach. He is the A&M head coach.

So they're interviewing him in a very hostile way. And Arkansas is about as hostile as you're going to get. Really, I wouldn't expect that. It is just it brings out the worst in any team that's playing there. It's just the it's not like the fans are, you know, mean. I mean, there are there's some loud ones that but they're they're into it. They're loud. There's 12,000

people there every single game. And it just there's so much tension for you to to perform there. And anyway, it's a very hard place to play. So A&M's having a rough time. And the umpires kind of aren't going the way that A&M needs them to go. They miss a call. And anyway, so all Schlauss gets on. And they're talking the first ball is a chopper to

the first baseman. And he boots it. And he and the Schlauss is like, you know, he said a bad word. And then he talked about having to go to CVS to get himself some medication to make it through the rest of the game because he was all stressed out. And it just tells you like the amount of the enormity of the situation. And they're trying to

do interviews with these these these head coaches or managers, but everyone to calm when that guy's got to be setting his defense and figure out who's in the bullpen and who's in a pinch hit for if he has to do that. And there's just so much that goes into being a good coach. Yeah, the preparation, the practice time that's paramount, right. You have to prepare your

team the right way. And when you get into games, you have to let your players play. We've talked about that a lot. That's the John wooden, you know, kind of part of me as a as a coach. But you you have to still put the right pieces together. You're not going to sit there and tell the kid he needs to change his stance or his elbows

or his hands or anything like that. But you have to make sure he's matched up against, you know, the right pitcher. So anyway, that's just there's so much knowledge. There's so much and just listening to games. Chris, Chris Burke. What do I feel like that's not that's his name. Yeah. That's his name. Yeah. Astrid. He's so good. Right. X Tennessee, all American Kyle Peterson is good

too. Just by the way, that they spit out watching games, you know, when I said, I learned new information, you said, do you know what the puck is on a bat? Yeah. But you know, how many coaches out there don't update their information. Yeah. You have many coaches out there just teaching the same thing they taught five years ago. Doesn't mean you got to change your

whole philosophy. But there's so much information if you're not continuing to learn, I don't care what you do, especially as a coach and the skill sport. If you're not constantly trying to get better and constantly trying to learn, then you're going to get passed by and your players aren't going to reap the benefits of of you as, you know, a coach. Yeah, I agree. And sorry,

I have to forget to the puck bat handle. I've seen more and more of that across Major League Baseball with hitters by the way, but yeah, I do want to ask you, what was the story? Was it Tommy LaSorta? Is it something about with your dad or something? What was that story? Do you remember? What was that? So I have to write pieces. He got me

my first heart of the Hyde man. I'll never forget that. Walked into, we were in Dodger Town, walked into the Rawlings. It was like a, I don't know, like a trailer. Rawlings trailer came back. I was like, you know, my, blah, blah, blah. He, I shook his hand. And he looked to me in the, and he said, I didn't shake it very hard. Right. I think

it was five. And he said, son, if you're going to shake somebody's hand, shake it. And I'll never forget that. And I tell kids that all the time now and it came from Tommy LaSorta. But he's like, you got glove. And I said, no, sir. And he said, okay. So when this, he brought me back like a big league glove. Like, here you go. But he

would always. So my dad grew up in LA and he played on the Dodger rookies team, which was like essentially your prospect scout team. And LaSorta was a coach. So LaSorta wanted to sign my dad out of college. Because my dad was like, he was an all-American. A cowl. And he was one of the top two or three guys that that we're going to sign out

of college that year. And so he would always, you know, kind of schmuzed my grandfather. And he said, hey, you know, when we're going to do this and they'd go to dinner and all that stuff, the courtship. And then my grandfather died like before I was born. And so every time we would see Tommy LaSorta. And I'm talking the first time when I had that met,

you know, it was probably like 1984, 1983. Hey, Mike, how's your dad doing? Geez, you know, Tommy, my dad died like 10 years ago. Oh, sorry to hear that. And then we see Tommy. Tommy, you know, he's the whatever. He's the big league manager, the Dodgers were inside. So we saw him, you know, probably 10 times over the next few years. As I got older, every

time he, hey, Mike, how's it going? How's it going? How's your dad doing? Tommy, my dad died 40 years ago. You know, sorry. When I had my phone's and everything, but the stories from players back in the 80s, from managers in the 80s, the 90s, some of the restaurant. Found bites are probably. Yeah. Pop up on the internet. What was the one, it was Earl Weaver,

I think, with the Orioles on their, like, radio pregame. Yes. When I don't know if it was fake or not. But he's doing off for these weaver too. He played. I didn't know that I didn't. And the big leagues. And he was, he was just the, he had the short bands. It's he's my dad said he was. I was It was impressive that the curse words

that he would create in a moment's notice, like that, that was just the mouth he had when he was yelling at people. He was a great manager. I mean, I can't wait to do that topic though. Later on when we just hear these, these are good, some really good stories. Yeah, well, my dad on hill, he'll, he'll, we'll get him to do this. He'll, I'll set

up the computer. That's his only hiccup. Right, right. It gives you like a kind of a free weekend off, if you will, right. Thanks. No, it'll take me more time to try to do. So let's talk about this puck bat handle. And I was a kid. The, he didn't see players do this when I was a kid. I, well, in player, I ever remember doing something

like this was Gary Sheffield used to tape the handle as much as he could. I guess to balance out the bat. But now bat companies are making bats to where it's a big, huge handle. And we talked about last week with June, Carlos, Stan, using the 35 ounce bat gets good whip with that thing. It's science kids go back in last week's archive episode and listen

to that, watch it on the YouTube page. But why are, do you, you probably see it now too with the kids that you're instructing the pro players that you're scouting and you're doing work for and work with wire players now going to that bigger puck handle type bat. I don't have my, my wood just in smoke bat with me right now. I was actually planning on

using that as an example. That's a small handle. Small, but wire players now doing that. Why are they going with that? And what's the benefits to that big handle at the bottom of the bat? Well, I think what's happened is there's the, they're fitting players to bats is what's happening. So they've done it. They've done it in golf for years, right. You go in, you get

fitted. They put you in the shaft. They put you in this size grip. They put you in this weight of the shaft based on how you swing and you try all these different ones. And okay, these are the best results. Well, baseball is a little bit harder because again, the balls moving and we're making adjustments. However, they have started to do that. I think it's Marucci

that does it. They have a lab down in bat and Rouge where they'll have big leaders come in and I'm sure it's fairly expensive. They're Marucci guys. So, like Rizzo is then I don't know if the puck is all Marucci or not though, you'll have to look into that. But I know the lab itself is a Marucci deal. And they give these players different size bats,

right. And they have them take X amount of swings off a tee and they set up a machine. And here's a 35 inch bat. Here's a 34 and a half inch bat. Here's one with more weight in the handle. Here's one with a bigger barrel or more unloaded. Here's one that's scalloped out or cupped. And they try all these. They're going to have to do a

lot of things and they say, okay, your bat speed was more with this or less than this and your exit velocity was faster even though your bat speed was less because the density of the bat and the mass of the bat. Yada, yada, yada, there's so many variables. And so what they found is, well, they they've added weight to the to the knob in hopes of

counter balancing it and with some guys it works. Some guys like the feel and then some guys feel like they hit the ball harder or maybe they do hit the ball harder. They have more barrel controller. And so then they, okay, let's put one ounce down here. Let's put an ounce and a half down here. Let's put two ounces. And then that's the different size of

the puck. Essentially that that people are using. So I don't think people are just trying it. I think they're getting tested with it. And then if it passes the test, so to speak, then they're letting it go and running with it. So this is from daily journal online. And this was a story written by Derek Gold of the St. Louis Post dispatch back in March of

2022. If you don't know who that is, he follows the cardinal. He's I think they're beat writer for that newspaper. He's been with the cart with that newspaper covering the Cardinals for years. And he wrote about Paul Goldschmidt using this type of bat. And you were right. Let me see here. There's a baseball performance lab in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Paul Goldschmidt went there, I guess in

the offseason of 2021, 2022. And left with a custom Marucci bat designed to help increase the increase his bat speed with the oversized knob nickname, the hockey puck. Now further more, I did Google, I simply said, bad companies making puck handle. And it came up with dovetail bats. Old Hickory bats, which I've heard they have very strong sturdy good wood. A lot of hitters like to

use old Hickory. The Trinity bad company. Don't know much about them. Yeah. So those are the and of course the one I just mentioned Marucci. Yeah. I think some of them are what do you call it? Training bats? You know, some are training bats. Don't tell makes a lot of training. Yeah. So you just have to figure out what what works. You know, you're taking a

stab in the dark, you know, unless you go to the lab itself and figure out if it works. You know, I always tell, I don't obviously have that kind of technology at my disposal. But what we do have with with blast and what we do have with cave tracks, you know, I can put together and say, okay, here's here's an X amount of bats. Let's swing

your different bats and we can tell which one of player swing most efficiently, right? And which balls drop? And sometimes I think we've talked about this before that. I went with a heavier bat. A kid started a swing a bat that was an ounce heavier and inch longer and wood. And he was hitting the ball harder than his like drop five aluminum bat. Even though he

was using a drop three, you know, it was a big hit. Actually, so it was, is an inch longer. So it was probably three ounces heavier. And even though it was that much heavier, the momentum and the mass and he was able to swing it as consistently was in the ball harder. So you never know until you try. I guess that's the best way to put

it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast. If you don't listen, you never know until you try. It's like when my parents used to say, I want to try some eggplant. Well, I'm not going to like it. Well, you never know until you're going to try. Well, I'm not going to try. It's not visually pleasing. Eggplant is not visually pleasing by the way. Either a spinach.

I don't understand how people eat that stuff. I had spinach tonight, Jim. No, you didn't. I did. You're lying. We had a vegetable, sauteed vegetables and we threw it in with some noodles. I don't know how you eat spinach. There's broccoli mushrooms. Beautiful broccoli. No one too. It's very Italian. It's a very Italian feast. A lot of garlic, a lot of onion, some red pepper flakes.

No, who cooked this meal? Who cooked this meal? That my wife cooked it. Okay. Broccoli, huh? You're broccoli. You're a lot of broccoli, the Epstein household. One vegetable my kids eat. So we don't even like green beans. Green beans are great. I don't know. Green beans are, yeah, most of them eat green beans. Most of them eat asparagus, but hopefully everybody eats. Wow. Yeah, I can't

do it. I'm not going to eat the broccoli. I can't do it. No, it makes me gag. So this isparagus. But eggplant makes me gag too. You can watch the show on YouTube as well. The lab Epstein hitting podcast YouTube page, previous episodes, clips as well. Did you see that new rule? By the way, we can quickly touch on and then move on to our main

topic with the NCAA. Their new rules are designed to slow college baseball's recruiting process. Did you see that this week? Yeah, junior year, right? They can't. Right. So Teddy K. Hill wrote this this past week for baseball America. Story is, yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you ever know he covers college baseball? Yeah, I met him. I don't know where I met him, but I met him once

on the road. Yeah. His story, the NCAA board of directors has prepared this week to approve a significant transformation of college baseball's recruiting calendar. And the idea behind it is to slow down the recruiting process for high school players, the new rules, which already have passed the division one council and just need to clear that final step, whatever that may be. Prohibit any communication. And the

second part of the year is to have a conversation between coaches and potential recruits until August 1st before the players junior year of high school. Now currently for context purposes, coaches are prohibited from initiating contact with players before September 1st of their junior year, but are allowed to contact coaches. The players are allowed to contact coaches. So within the previous system to wrap this up, players

routinely were offered scholarships and committed to schools as high school underclassmen or even, and here's where you are. Now there's a quote from Andrew check it's you see Barbara, you see Santa Barbara's coach saying, I think what we're doing at this point is insane, meaning recruiting 14 and 15 year olds. And I agree because people don't know this and that's fine, but college baseball does not

offer full scholarship. So coaches only have so much money they can go out. And number two, you still, we talked about with a couple weeks ago on the legendary question that we got via Jimbo podcast 21 about showcases. And certain ceiling at a certain age, you don't want that when you go to a showcase and you don't really know 14, 15 years old yet. What a

player see unless you're a professional scout, but even then it's very tough. You don't really know what their ceiling might be. And so offering a guy a scholarship at 14 15 based off strictly potential without even having a clue to what their ceiling is is insane to me, but coaches had to do it because they had to keep up. And you know this being a former

hitting coach at the collegiate level as well. At check it's I actually, I go pretty far back with him when he was an assistant at Oregon, many years is that 10 years maybe. And I remember talking to him about it then. He's like, I have to recruit. I see these people with showcases. I see their numbers. I see them not square up any balls in the

game because they only get to a bat. And I got to figure out if I need to offer him or if Cal is going to offer him or Sanford's going to offer him. Right. And he's 13 or 14 years old. And it was it was it was an arms race. You know, you were trying to beat somebody to the punch and then some schools over commit

guys. And then they pull scholarships. Some guys don't pan out. Kids don't work as hard because they feel like they're locked up. And that's how it used to be. Now it's back. I don't know where it was with you. But with me, we we got letters. I remember my junior. I showed up to high school. This is before travel ball was, you know, really anything. But

this is the way that people coaches could reach out on Instagram. Yeah. Right. But this was like a letter. I remember my first letter. Of course, you remember who I grew up. I played with two first rounders in high school. So they probably just threw me a bone when they sent letters. But LSU is the first letter that I ever received. I never talked anybody from

LSU. But they were just the letter started showing up your junior year when you got back to school in September. So it's kind of going back to that. And I think that worked because it gives you you still have the area code games. You know, after your junior high school, you know, that's the big scouting event. And I think it puts a little bit more, you

know, right now that that if everybody's tied up by then, by the time the area code comes around, everybody's already committed. So it's like, okay, it's just for the major league scouts at that point. Well, now of a sudden it's going to be more for the colleges because they're going to be able to offer guys now after the, you know, their junior year just finishes at

the the area code. And then a month later, they'll be able to make them offers. But they're going to see these kids play and get 15, 20 of that against the best competition in the world. It's fantastic. But do you want to say who the first two first rounders were? Eric Chavez and Eric Monson. So Chavez first round out of high school and then Monson. I

don't know. He was drafted pretty high, but he went to USC and then it ended up being the first rounder. I think Chavez, a friend of the show. Yeah, he's well, the Mets are, the Mets are, Mets are, Mets are going. But yeah, he's going to be, he'll be a big league manager. Yeah, maybe a couple years. Mets hitting coach right now, Eric Chavez for those

who don't know. He's been coached a little bit those bench coach. Oh, he's bench coach. Yeah, he was hitting coach last year and then they promoted. He did a great job because he got promoted. Yep, there you go. Gotta get promoted. Buck must love him. Yeah, he's a good, he just knows every, he played the game for a long time. So if you're surrounded by it

and you soak up that knowledge and you're passionate, you'll be good. All right, email us your questions. Jimbo podcast 21 at gmail.com. You're ending it into today's topic. Ready for any episode? Yeah. Yes, yes, Jim. I am. I am. Let's go. Episode 139 requirements of a successful hitting coach part one again. We'll do part two in a couple of weeks. And for this week's topic and

just this topic in general, I reference a book. By a man named Jim Thompson, the book is called Positive Coaching. It's a 182 page. I don't know. Call it a guidebook, if you will, for coaches that is designed to help people become better overall coaches in their respective sports. I want to say this. I don't know about you, but and Jake and I have adopted today's

topic from that book and the topic in a couple of weeks and we're applying it to the art of coaching hitters in baseball. A couple of weeks we'll be discussing more in depth. The applied science of hitting the terminology, reading data, evolving with technology. But today is more of a broad stroke of the retire of requirements of what it takes to be a successful hitting coach.

My personal experience. I've always, when I played and even now when I look at coaches, I've always wanted someone to have an understanding of what the best hitters in the world are doing on the baseball side and what some of the best college softball hitters in the country are doing at the plate. I never wanted somebody stop me if you've heard this before. You're all fucked

up right now. We got to clean you up as opposed to again, this is arbitrary, but I think it's the right way of a coach saying, this is where we are with you as a hitter right now. This is where we need to get to. I never bought into the cliche ridden type coach who constantly throws cliches out at you and things that they know everything

about the game of baseball self explanatory, but it's all over the place, not just online, but it's in person as well. Nonetheless, there have been a lot of things that I've been doing. Hitting coaches that have used social media, we've seen the last few years, Jake, to earn jobs. They're not qualified for or concepts that they marry themselves to. And I really don't see a nod

on about you. I don't see enough understanding of what it really takes to be a successful hitting coach with students of all ages from ages say eight years old to throw number out there, make it easy 25 years old playing at the professional level. I think he touched on it with the book, you know, positive coaching, positivity is the only way to coach. Otherwise, don't be

a coach. Okay, there's times when, when you can be negative, if you have to motivate, but you have to be positive in your message. Nobody ever gets better by degrading a player. And at the amateur level, that's all I see. It drives me absolutely crazy every single weekend that I go out and help coach softball. I'm helping coach 12 year olds. And we were in Arizona

against really good teams from California, Nevada, and Arizona. And I just see so much negativity and be rating. And there's just such a time to, to help. I don't care what part of the game when a player makes a mistake. Hey, guess what? That player knows they made a mistake. The teammates know the player. It makes a mistake. You don't call out players in the middle

of games or in the middle of tournaments or it's just mind blowing to me. So positivity, a number one, getting to know your player. Okay. Now sometimes this is hard when the kids are six. Okay. So we're going to skip over the six year olds. But if, we're going to go, if I was, if I was a college coach, okay, college hitting coach or a professional

hitting coach, know the player, create a relationship. Get to know the, what kind of, do they have kids? Do they not have kids? They have a girlfriend. Do they have a boyfriend? Do they have a good family life? Did they have a rough childhood growing up? Where they spoiled growing up? What kind of dynamic is it? How can I cater? How can I get my points

across to this player? Talk to them about what they, what they know and what they teach. Or I'm sorry, what they're trying to do. What are you trying to do as a hitter? What is your, what is your mindset? Mechanically, do you, do you just hit? Because you've always been a great hitter. Did your dad teach you something? Did you have a hitting coach? Were you

working on backspin? Were you working on swinging up more? Were you working on hitting balls on the ground? Are they, you know, figure out what their thing is? Then you create a process of, okay, what, what are your misses? What are we not doing? Well, I seem to chase these pitches. I'm a little bit fast with my rhythm. I'm a little bit jumpy. Okay. Let's create

a plan. Okay. So here's our three step plan. For instance, I had a player come in today. An online academy player flew into Denver. He had a weekend off. So we're smashing in five lessons and two and a half days. Okay. So we did about two and a half hours today. Worth of instruction. I had the plan planned out. He sent me videos. I've had conversations

with him of what his games were like. He's a very good high school player. He's a freshman playing varsity. Not very easy. You're, you know, you're 15 years old and you got 18 year olds on the team and they're thrown in the middle lineup and expecting you to perform. There's a lot of outside pressure. You know, so I, we've had conversations about, you know, what are

you feeling in the box? Are you tense? Are you this and that? You know, what pitches are you getting? So I had a plan based on all of that information before we started one drill today. I knew exactly what I was going to do with him. Okay. And then we worked the process. I know that I have five hours, five to six hours of training with

this player. And I got the ball rolling today. Exactly. And it worked like a champ. Like he's on his way and we're going to keep building different pieces that are going to make him better. Now, if you're a coach of a 10 year old team, kids will stop playing fun. Okay. So we're hitting the bat. You know what's not fun? Getting deep in the count. Being

10 years old and telling your players to, hey, make sure you swing it strikes and get deep in the count is bowl. The reason it's bowls because the umpire strikes zones like 24 inches wide and 30 inches high. Like they're, you got to swing. You got to be ready to swing on every pitch. Doesn't mean you're swinging bad pitches, but you have to be ready to

hit ready to be aggressive. As umpires get better and pictures get better, you can dwindle that down. But kids, if they're constantly, if they're not swinging, they're not aggressive, they're not going to play. So it is a big range, you know, between ages. But being a good coach is about understanding the player, understanding the person you're working with. Can I get on? Do I have to

motivate this player? Do I have to give him a little? Can I raz him a little, right? Are they sarcastic? You know, do I need to cut him down a little bit? You know, having that personality. Are they quiet? They just want to listen to music and work on hitting the ball the other way? Do you can you get technical? Does this person want to look

at video? Or do they want to feel more? Okay. I want to feel that ball down and in me. I'm not getting it in the air. Okay. Well, here's, you know, mechanically, I know how you make that happen. But I'm not going to tell a 14 year old kid how to do that. I'm going to try to get them in that position and make them feel

it. Now, if I have a point dexter, that's a, you know, a boy genius. He's a Harvard player and he kind of understands angles and things like that. Well, then maybe that player learns in a more complex way. But for the most part, you're trying to take very, very complicated information. And you're trying to dumb it down so that a four year old can understand it.

That's the side of a good coach. What do you see when you look on the internet? $45 words left and right. Well, you got to decelerate this and accelerate that and resist and blah, blah, blah. How are you going to teach that to a 10 year old? Right. Don't complicate things. Don't, don't, don't use big words to make yourself appear smarter than you are. Right. Good

that are trying to be complex because they're speaking to an audience of adults. But when I do my certification programs. I'll use some big words, but I don't want my guys to use it. This is what this means when a coach, because I'll get these, oh, what does this and that mean? You know, I'll get these questions. And I'll say, well, it means the body's doing

this, that and the other. OK. So how would you explain it? Well, I would have the player do this. That's it. Yeah. Wow. You sure? Yeah. Put them in this position. Make them do this. That's exactly what you're talking about. OK, I can do that. Yeah. That's the idea of good coaching is being able to translate information so that everyone can understand it. I'm not a

parent. You are. But I just want parents for those who are parents in the audience listening. I mean, do have parents in this audience based off the metrics that I see. Not a parent again. So you can tell me to thank God. You can tell me to buzz off. Right. There's a great. Yeah. You know, when you saying that there's a great lie. I saw a

rerun of everybody loves raining the other night. And and raise dad. The late Peter Boyle. He said, yeah, microwaves are dangerous. What if I want to have more children? And Ray goes, if God hasn't stopped you, the government will. So that's my that's my excuse. Well, I don't know if it's God or the government, but somebody stopped me from having children. But parents, I think the

biggest and my father struggled with this too. The biggest disconnect that parents may have with their kids when they're trying to teach their kids other than that, the kids just don't listen to parents and parents have to accept that. I'm going to have to accept it one day. I'm sure you have to. Accept it now as it is. But the biggest disconnect is that parents try

to throw so many things out at kids. And they're giving them terminology and ways that they should be hitting both mentally and physically when they're 10 years old, teaching them ways they should be teaching a 13 or 14 year old. That's probably it's me in my opinion, the biggest disconnect between parents trying to coach their kids. And even some coaches who aren't successful hitting coaches, trying

to do that same thing. It's simplicity. It's finest. It really is. It's the only way it works. We had practice last night. And if my neck looks funny because I can't move it, I pitched for probably an hour and a half to the team. And then I learned how to do like a wind up in softball so that I could give them a little more game

action. Anyway, the body's not for that. My body's not built for that. But one of the players and she's a very advanced hitter. She's probably one of the best hitters I would say in the state of Colorado. She's strong. She's, you know, she's. Quick. She works at it. Anyway, she's been struggling a little bit. So I threw four pitches and she cut under each one of

them. Okay. She popped up each one. And so I knew why, right. She was coming forward a little bit. And when you come forward a little bit with your torso, your swing will tend to come down. And when your swing comes down, then you'll end up cutting the bottom half of the ball usually. Okay. So the fix for that is number one to sit down on

your back. Neymor number two. That helps get your leg down. And then you'll be able to make sure that you're going to be able to eat arm up a little bit more so you come up through the middle of the ball. So, okay, that would have been like a five minute conversation with a 12 year old who would have been like, just shut up and throw

him to batting practice coach. Like that's your job. That's how 12 year old. No, they don't think. So I said, Hey, you know what? I mean, you want to think that way. She's a right handed. I said, I want you to keep your right ear back. And I want you to take your left arm and finish higher. And I don't tell everyone that some players I

tell finish lower, right? So, I'm going to have pitches. She just hit lasers all over the place. She's 12 years old. She's about 67 miles an hour in softball. So elite softball in college is 80 miles an hour. She's 12, right? Like somebody's going to get hurt. But that one little move that took me, I don't know, eight seconds to tell her made all the difference

in the world. And all of a sudden she's back hitting on track. Okay. Doesn't make sense. I said, keep your right ear back longer. I know what it was going to do. She doesn't know what it was going to do. She doesn't need to know what it's going to do. She just needs to do it because she's 12. That's the idea. If I would have made

a complicated three minute proposition of, Hey, this is what you need to do with the bat and the barrel and turn this and turn that and step this way, I would have lost her completely. So as coaches, be positive. Have fun. And take your knowledge and put it in a simple form for players to understand. I think that's a good thing to end on right there.

Thanks, Jay. Very quote classic, Jake Epstein quote. Very good. Yeah. Very good. Not only that's arachistically, I was a good quote. Now, and we can get, and we're going to have a couple, couple layers of this. You know, we'll talk about, you know, major league level, you know, what those guys are going through. But it is, it's, it's much different than if you're coaching amateur. Most

of the people listening to this have kids that are under 18. And we're trying to help them get to the next level, whether you're a parent or whether you're a hitting coach, helping those kids, you know, what's the best way to to further that player's career? That's why we're here. That's why I do what I do. That's why we're doing this podcast. Yes. We can. And

we go. I hear the dogs barking. So I think it's it's time. Did you? Yeah. I did. I think it's time for you to get, get going. you. You know, the deal. Some of them they'll go on this BAM folder. Jimbo podcast 21 at gmail.com that email is open to all emails and you can write to us on YouTube. I had somebody write on YouTube actually,

you know what? Let me find it here. I'll read it off really quick. See here. All right. Somebody wrote to us on our YouTube page, the lab Epstein hitting podcast YouTube page. By the way, next week we're doing a mechanical breakdown series episode 140 breaking down the swing of Jeff McNeil. One of the best hitters in all the baseball. I have to add Randy. I can

do a rosarena sometime too, but the wea's arise a ruse. I got to add him to the to the list as well. But next week we're doing Jeff McNeil, Mr. Hitter himself. Randy Pol wrote this on YouTube. Commenting on one of the episodes. Damn it. Oh, there it is. Okay. Um, I really enjoyed this episode. A breeze back a lot of memories. I copied my favorite

player styles. My first favorite player ready for this Bobby Mercer. All time favorite player Fred Lynn copied him. Yes. Carl Ustramsky not Mikey. Stremski. Maybe Mikey. Stremski. I don't know. Yes, was a player that I copied when I taught myself to get left handed at 13 right handed. I guess this guy's a switch hit. Or good for him. He loved dusty Baker. Steve Garvey Reggie Smith.

His favorites now. Freddie Freeman Max Muncie James Outman. So this guy's 62. So I'm guessing it's Carl Ustramsky by the way. He still loves to hit at age 62. So good for him. Randy. Randy Pol wrote to us. So thank you, Randy. Yeah, that's not your fan now. Yeah, good for you. Good for you. Hitting at age 62. I hope you be doing the same thing.

Maybe I will. Maybe I won't be. Maybe I'll just lose interest by that time. Maybe finally I'll finally lose just lose interest and say that's it. All done. All right. Next week, Jeff McNeil, you got anything before we go? No. No. I want to get back to the kitchen. That was my right. That was my right. Can't know. That's it. I'm about to pull an oral

weaver on you. He's for sure. You want to get back to the kitchen and start eating more broccoli? We start eating broccoli. No, we had early games tomorrow. I got to get to bed. Got to get to plan the bed. All right. Got a breakfast. So my kid eats properly. On that note, we will talk about the next week. Thank you for listening and watching and

we will talk to you soon. Take care.