Goodhart's Law: Avoiding the Pitfalls of Analytics

Welcome back to finding the edge podcast. I'm Garrett William joined with Robert Fry and Garrett Baker. And today, we're going to talk about a good concept called good Hearts law, which more or less is basically trying to understand the fallacies of chasing a single metric. I think this is this one of those topics. Very pertinent to baseball. Especially, now we're, which I've seen guys starting to really Chase metrics over the game itself and how it actually. He plays within the game,

especially on the pitching side. At least I've seen that a good bit where somebody sells out for a very specific metric and never actually figures out, how that metric may help them in the game, like, how that may actually help you get out. And I think that's where that's where a lot of people could potentially get lost within this whole thing. They're valuable, but only when it actually brings you back to

the game. And so for me, like, I feel like this fits really well with an ecological approach because to me an ecological approach, helps us, stay focused on what is important and what is The the lack of better term specifying about like what it is that we're doing, that's actually going to help us see the results or see what we do in practice transferred to the field. And so that's why today I wanted to go through this this tweet that I put out a long time ago

on good Hearts law. I do want to say for for listeners of the podcast, you are going to definitely be hearing more of Baker. Baker's, one of our new co-hosts who is going to be in the rotation. So today's episode is a two-parter. Well, we were recording the Intro, we started riffing on our thoughts on the topic and kind of gave an updated version of

our thoughts on good Hearts law. And we're currently using it, applying it. Additionally, this episode, there's there's a few visuals, we're talking about a few different Twitter posts, and there's images with it and there's a little bit of video as well. So if you would like to better follow along with what we're talking about in this, Cussing because I kind of forgot that it was. This is mostly an audio podcast. So I didn't describe the pictures quite, as well as I

should have. So if you want to be able to follow along with us head on over to Spotify or YouTube and otherwise, without further Ado, enjoy today's podcast. Also, if you enjoy our content, you would like to learn more about ecological Dynamics. One of our favorite topics here on finding the edge, we encourage you to check out the work by emergence. We got a great deal going on with him right now to get seven percent off.

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for all their social media. It's also used for their website urgent. Movement.com, you can find all their links, do their social media, and their website, and the description below. To flip back to what we're talking about though, about good Hearts law. What? What was it that you're talking about? Even more recently in terms of

chasing metrics? I know we were talking about it earlier, I mean, because I know for myself and this is what we get into in the episode was just talking about bat speed like bat speed is a metric that I think a lot of coaches Chase and I just You know, I haven't seen necessarily a huge correlation at least in some of the, the little bits of data that I've collected. And so, to me, it's like, well, what is the most important thing?

And to me it's like the ability to put the ball where you want on the field. That's really what matters. And so I mean the other thing too, and I think this is something that I've been saying to more my players is like let the ball. Be your feedback, you know instead of looking at. Okay. What's this metric? Like the ball is going to tell you did you hit it while or did you not?

And so I think can't remember if we talked about in this this episode or not but the whole idea of like the the world is its own best model. Instead of trying to go off of these models of you know this is the ideal bat speed and and not saying that like these things aren't necessarily good but if it Doesn't transfer like making sure what you're doing transfers. If you're going to spend all this time on it, you know, and then you don't see it show up on

the field. Then to me that in terms of on-field performance, then to me, I think we wasted a lot of the players valuable time. No you're I mean you're absolutely right case. Then if you want to chase single metric like bats. Now internally that person that you think oh I just got to swim as fast as possible. What holds that create. It doesn't just create possibly

more swing and miss. It could create just very incorrect, imbalances within the swing itself and like you said, like having the world can be your view or the field. And the ball, whatever they creates that kind of that autonomy. Where it's not exactly what you want. You know, if it's like oh I swung the bat fast. I'm good. Or in terms of it, it'll affect your bed of all outcomes. Sorry. What were you going to say

baker? No, I was just going to say, I think this all kind of comes back to the idea of like your action capabilities, are like how what you can actually do versus like it actually being a skill. I've talked to this with our guys about certain pitches like we could get a really good metric for a specific pitch but it's difference between like having a quote-unquote nasty pitch and an actual skillful pitch in a pitch that's going to play with in context and actually produce an outburst

just like one thing. I made Moves a lot more. Yeah. No, now it's moving a ton more which may potentially help us be get a lot more out. But it only matters when it's in context and we're actually skillful with that pitch because like I've seen people get a really good metric with the pitch and never be able to utilize it in a skillful way, within a game context and I think understanding what pitches necessarily need to become a

little better. Which ones don't all rely on the game not based on what output you may see unlike rhapsode or trackman, I think is a decent place to look when you don't

have the game. And it's a good place when the pitches and percent potentially working to look to to like okay if I get it this in this direction it may potentially open the game but it needs to work back all the way to that like getting out within a game so I can prevent runs which I know we go into the episode a little bit.

Hmm. And and I think to to kind of build off of this like even where we are right now in our offseason phase like I've and I think this this actually came up in one of the One of Rob, Gray's recent episodes in terms of like, specificity, like how specific or game like does it need to be. And I think there are times where you can just build or try to build a little bit of like capabilities action Cape, is it actually capabilities or was it

that you take your, we're talking about this but nobody wants to us saying there's, there's a difference between like skill ability, really? Yes skill and ability, right? So like just the ability to express. Press raw power. Like I think there's time to do that and so right now like we're hitting reading off a machine, that's just basically all fastballs, but it's but it's such that guys can actually hit it and then learn how to generate a ton of force into a baseball using a bat.

And so, you know, that's how well that transfers will depend upon. Once you put somebody in there was actually trying to get them out throwing different pitches. That'll be Be kind of the test as to whether or not this transfers but increasing their ability to act like contact the ball with more Force, you know. Sometimes you actually have to simplify the task more so that they're able to actually focus

on that thing. And so that's where, you know, to me it's there's a time and place, right?

Like you were talking about for working on like the metrics or whatever in order for you to be able to For example bro, some sort of other pitch, you may need to do it in a stripped-down context where you're just exploring with the ball and you're just seeing what type of movement can you put on that ball and then eventually you do need to go out and test it against a resisting opponent or a like an actual batter who's trying to hit that ball and then see how does how do batters

react to that pitch? Think that's so I think it just kind of depends where you are. You know like I think back to like pictures playing catch it was that place where you'd mess around and just see how you can get the ball to move before you had cameras. And now I think the cameras help, guys who had less feel and less ability to kind of explore, give them more feedback as to far as how are they interacting

with that ball? And so I mean I've seen it at least with our guys with what our pitching coach is doing like having that visual information and using rep. So do to help guys understand How they're interacting with the ball, then helps them like, you can just take it to the next level of exploration in terms of like, okay, if I start messing with this, and, and with this feel, like how is it?

How my now, interacting with that bowl and then you actually can see how you're actually now, interacting with it and being like, well, why isn't this, why isn't this moving the way that I want it to? And then actually seeing like, oh, I'm not actually getting my fingers or my hand to that spot.

So I feel like that's important to throw out. you know, I don't know what your thoughts are Baker on that as far as having a lot of the The game like information or constraints pulled out of the, the training environment. But that's that to me, is where I'm kind of curious your thoughts, because we very much gone on that all, we want to have all these game like constraints for information sources present in the practice environment.

Yeah, for sure. And I think, I think it also depends on different time scales, like, where we are in the season 2 is like there's like right now, we're not going to get hurt. So like if we're going to we're going to look somewhere one, like we have a general idea of what metrics May potentially help you get out and like, that's going to be in a stripped-down setting because one, like, if you're going to go explore in some ways, I think you can still be fairly representative in Explorer.

But in certain time specially like pictures, like they're not overly comfortable just like ripping on new grip but the dude standing down there like and batter's box, right?

So like taking taking that out, may allow them and See them up to now, go exploring different ways and I think it's actually really cool concept is using that kind of data and exploring with that to learn how to manipulate the ball and like, see, okay, if I do this, this happens like this is now, I get this much movement this way or that much movement that way or even you can take in. And I know I played with this concept like like having guys explore all different ways to

move the ball like alright. I'm going to try to make you have more vertical depth. All right, now I'm going to try to make more horizontal on this one and like now you're becoming a ER, manipulator the ball. May not be your ideal pitch based on Your Arsenal, but like, it's hard to not have pitches when you know, how to do everything to the baseball. And I think that's almost like a little Yu Darvish in a way as you Darvish like as a Litany of pitches.

And I think he just explores and creates an almost has like different variations of his stuff and I think he can Mash that to the context a little bit which is kind of a cool way to kind of think about pitching to. But yeah, I think it is important to take himself out of context at times too. To explore in. Potentially find something else you could use with n again. But you have to keep it in the idea of like it. We want to use this in a game context, that's what we're going towards.

Not just a metric. Like we're still trying to get

out. I think keeping that in mind is really important but you can take it out of context if you keep that in mind that the whole point is to bring back in a context, that's it. Yeah, and the way that I've been, I was kind of thinking about this is that at least, especially for pitchers the way they kind of want to approach this as kind of the same way that a median approaches like their craft, like, you develop, all these different sort of

jokes or pitches. And then when you go out and then like, you get get some sort of hitters or some hitters to stand in. And you now start utilizing those and seeing which, which one's land, which one's actually are deceptive, which Ins do they hit? Well, which types of guys hit these balls. Well, you know, which ones does this? Actually, this pitch perform well against like it.

And so, to me, it's just like a comic, will go out early and just like tell a whole bunch of different jokes and then see which one's land with crowd. And then those are the ones who

runs with. And so, to me, that's that's how pictures should approach the kind of their development of like, okay, when you get into this part of the offseason, which we're most guys are now with getting into of November, December January. And they're not, they're very in the kind of the early stages of the offseason or starting to get but ramp back up. Now, start playing with a bunch of different pitches and doing pitch design and see how many different pitches you can come up with.

And then once you have a bunch of different pitches you go go use them against batters and then start paring down and finding out which one's actually are ones that you can use effectively to get hitters out or to make hitters miss or get weak contact. Yeah, for sure. And I think there's times where you can even like, I've seen

this utilize a lot. I don't know if it's always utilizing the right way and I think this works dangerous, but you can have potentially like knowing there's a specific metric that you like, we know has worked for certain pictures,

like a few get this to happen. Like you're probably going to have some success, but it's still probably and we still need to see that within context and like, as long as the focus is not like the end goal is just a metric like that is A capability that may potentially take us to be able to get out a little easier if my slider does this, or my slider gets this kind of spin in this kind of movement, right?

So that's that's the thing, where I think a lot of people chase that but if that's all you chase and you're trying to force yourself down it, if you if you can't possibly do it and you can't find a way to do it. Like, constantly trying to go after and go after and changing yourself to do it. Like I may not be the best for you. It may not be the best authentic version of yourself, if you Screaming yourself into a metric.

I guess just seen guys, just go all out for a metric and then like actually create a worse version of themself because like they just thought this metric, we work better with what? Their Arsenal, it didn't necessarily work, sometimes it does. But sometimes it doesn't and finding just like, hey, what's my best way to get out, what's a potential way for me to open up my Arsenal and then bring it into the game contacts and find that out.

And I think we need to think I've seen a trend slightly in this direction, but we need to test that earlier on and the off season like For sure and I think that's that's one thing I've been encouraged by looking at there's a lot more live at bats going on and stuff like that but like as long as we're doing that I think you'll be in a decent shape when you're when you're thinking D contextualize work as long as we're like, our goal is to get there to the context as quick as we can.

Robert. What do you got? Any thoughts on on this so far? And, and how we can utilize, how can we better utilize metrics for the Devore Player Development, and harness the analytics, that that that is now becoming much more prevalent or prevalent within within the game of baseball. I mean, especially at the pro level but I think it's also trickling like the findings at the pro level are trickling down to, you know, at least a college

if not high. Cool. Yeah, so I think the biggest thing is there just seems to be a level of Education to these kids pairs. Again, if you're chasing one metric, there's a lot of downsides. Oh, I want my regular to have this or you know like if someone goes to a certain event and said and they find out that their spin rate is 3,000 RPMs, What is what is that mean? Oh, I have a great breaking ball. I'm gonna start throwing well.

May, you know, just because you have 3000 RPMs like everything to have a great breaking ball and that's why I wouldn't bring up like spin rate hits couple of years ago at the MLB level. Like, they were like, you know, that's the next big thing had a nice dinner, but it turns out that there, isn't that relationship from spin to movement, it can Aid movement at then once they remove the sticky stuff, it's like, it doesn't necessarily make that huge of a difference.

I think the biggest thing, it's just education being willing to challenge and of theories, being one of challenge, your own theories. There has to be times where it's like okay, you know, I believe in this. But what if we leave it this to like, oh, you know, I'm a proponent of fats. Well, what if we look at that speed parrot to back to Boston. Or what if we look at that speed, Barrett, two swings things like that. Do you know, have is anybody actually done that?

Looking at bat speed relative to bat ball skills can because that is literally the argument that most people make for why more bat speed, if you have more bat speed, you have more time to see the ball and if you have more time to see the ball, then you can hit it, you'll have better chance of hitting it or you and I mean, in theory that kind of makes sense. But I also see it as being Got better bat speed. You may just swing through the Zone faster and so your ability

to adjust to the ball. You're just going to be on and off the ball faster. Like I don't know. That to me seems to be like one of the one of the possible solutions as well. Like does is that having that definitely improves the The action capabilities of the of the person, or what's the snot? It's kind of like degree is degrees of freedom Baker. You're more in this world than I am right now in terms of all the terminology.

So you have action capabilities and then you have your degrees of freedom that are based upon, you know what I mean? Like so like now that you have basically another degree of Freedom here like you have more to work with, I think I'm talking about action capabilities, right, right. Yeah, I'm Yeah. Swing from the more you have more tools basically, in your tool, belt to, like, work with. Yeah. And I think broader range?

Yeah, I think it goes. Goes back to like the idea if I swing faster then I can technically wait longer supposedly, it's a pickup more information and there may be more affordances in the in the environment for me to act upon because I could wait later. Well, that's true or not. I don't, I don't necessarily think. I mean, it very simply seemed, right? Right. I can wait longer so I can see

the ball more. I'm less susceptible to Like seeing break or seeing break to not seeing break or like not, like, tunneling. Fooling me, like, I know that's what Rob gray was talking about one of his recent podcasts, but yeah, I don't know. I don't know if there's been studies that actually proved that, or it's just like simple thinking, because it makes sense, like, buying swing faster I can technically wait, longer, so I can get more information, which may open up other possibilities.

I would not have seen to act upon if I had been had the swing sooner, you know, right? And then there's that. There's that side of it too because I know in my antenna Quincy. I never. Kind of put this before wish both something. I observed, this is just an observation. And again, take the take this with what you go, but whenever I would see bad speech go up. Typically the on plant efficiency blast, they do but go down.

So let's say, you know, players whenever players average mass meetings around 65 miles an hour with blast is on playing efficiency was 70. Is a good good way to look at it. If you're bad is playing seven percent through the swing. But when they would go up to say 70 miles an hour, it took we drop the like 65 or 67. It was just an observation. The problem was like we couldn't use blasted and so you don't really know the effect.

Yeah, some of those teams that have been like, because I've seen, I mean, I've seen some some D1 teams with guys up to bat with the last sensors on. And so I think it'd be interesting to see what those there's numbers are. I mean, in the same way, it would be interesting to see if there's any correlation between increased bat speed and contact ability. I mean, you'd have to get the

right sample or sample population. to get some good numbers, but That you could actually draw some good conclusions from because obviously if you, if you're comparing like guys, that are throwing 74, you know, Hitting off of guys, throw in 74 is not the same of talking about guys. Trying to hit off guys, throwing 85 or even 90 plus. So it's much too much, a different thing.

Well, yeah. And like the those side of it too is like to your point, like, when you have differences in be low like Sometimes players will with a slower picture will like drop me like oh I'm going to hit this as far as I can, it's when this part again, usually what happens when they spin the tires and they everything goes out the window, like, they're bad smelling plane. And if it got in that exact team tiny spot but they didn't because they're just books about

trying as hard as I can. Well, I mean, I wonder how much that changes your ability to connect with the information? Yeah, it's a good point and that's really the point. I think. Yes. What do you when you sacrifice just to swing harder? I think that's in, that's an interesting because I think that you can bring into pitching to, it's like Jeff's to throw harder. What are you sacrificing? As I remember when I was just in, I still like well, again

Mound occasional. Like, when I'm just trying to throw as hard as I possibly can. Like, there's a batter standing there, but like, I'm not connected to anything about them. Like Just throwing the ball towards home and like I'm hoping I blow the pitch by this guy and I remember doing that, like I was literally remember like there was no information, I was connecting to - like I'm throwing this ball as hard as I freaking can to that.

Catcher burst like a pitcher who's connecting to the batter were now. I'm skillfully throwing this bitch. I'm gonna throw this pitch in a way for me to make sure I'm on his hands. I'm gonna throw this pitch where he's going to be reaching for it. And I'm connecting to the batter in a much different way. Or like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna blow this basketball by him, where it's right above. Hands inside like, that's connecting to who's right there

first. Like I think I sacrifice when I'm just going to throw as hard as I can. I sacrifice the ability to pick up, what's actually out there to act upon in like the only thing I'm acting upon is like I'm doing this as hard as I can and then you get into the higher levels and balls like leave the bat pretty fast when that's all you're trying to do and like if you're running pretty good reason for them, hit right? So it's like I'm not being very

skillful with pitching anymore. And I do think it goes to that a little bit. Like I'm not picking up information nearly as well because all I care about is moving as fast as I can. Can throw it as hard as I can in this one moment. It's I think you'd probably similar to hitting Yeah and it at least on that element of it to with as far as pitching goes, almost think that having a Target to throw to like what. So your intention to of the hitter. Like I think right when it comes

to coordination, it's about. What am I coordinating to? I don't know. I haven't thought about it in the way that you put of like coordinating to the batter because to me, I'm trying to I'm not trying to coordinate to the batter necessarily, I mean a little bit but I'm more trying to coordinate to I want to put the ball. Well, I think that makes sense. Yeah, but I get what you're saying. Like it it's eating because in my head, I'm thinking about like, what?

My coordination is to the Target. I'm trying to hit, but what's shaping that and shaping? The what I'm trying to do with the ball, is the batter. Yeah. You know, and so that orientation like is a better orientation throwing my pitches in a way or I'm going to make the batter do something.

Or is it better that? I'm just throwing the pitch that's called to a Target and I'm on the line of thinking right now Could change but I'm the better orientation in for me to pick up. Good information is for me to throw pitches to make the batter do something. Like I'm going to get this. I'm going to fish this guy or I'm going to freeze them or like, I'm not going to let them.

I'm not gonna lie, I'm hit this. I'm going to give the back off and I'm going to landed in and that's why I talk about one of our guys. Recently is, like, once a better get me over a, get me over where I see curveball called, and I'm just throwing it somewhere in the zone, trying to land it, or I'm a right on, right? And I'm going to get the right E2. Knock off and it land there. What's a better get me over pitch.

Like the better one is getting the batter to move because of how I moved and laying it. There is think about what that may potentially do for all my other pictures later to if I've already gotten the Flinch once and I landed it and like those probably aren't going to get hit like especially if you're making the batter do exactly what you want them to do.

I think the better orientation of how you go about like having your intentions to pitch and how you shape your pitches verse just for playing a Target Sport would be great. If like, we got points for hitting, Target, but we don't. I mean, that's the other thing that I've been on more recently is the game doesn't care. The game doesn't care that you throw plus stuff. It doesn't care. The game doesn't care that you have a leap at Speed. The game doesn't care that you have Elite exit below.

It's just, it doesn't care what you had all your spots, all game game, doesn't care. No, I'm exactly where I want to go. Coach was a good pitch. I throw a great pitch, you just hit it was like, okay, so it wasn't great pitch PC. Absolutely destroyed it like, all right, like then as far as we knew miss something, right? Hmm. And that's that's I think the part that is where a lot of coaches are right now and this is where we're to why I want to bring it up in terms of like the

analytics. Like I feel like people are misplacing have like misplaced emphasis in terms of analytics, in terms of like they there's like based upon the findings that an analyst is found like this is the gospel truth on how things are and that's where I'm like.

I think an adjustment needs to be made so that analytics can serve its proper role of assisting in the search process for more functional Solutions and but it's not the end-all be-all and that's that's where I see a lot of play like People or organizations making mistakes as they are like, well, the metrics

say this. And so while the metric say that your fastball isn't or is getting hit a lot, so you should throw your fastball less instead of asking the question, like why is your fastball getting hit a lot? And so, just taking away a tool from the athlete like, now they have to like. So, for example, I can't remember if this actually well with me. Colors a little bit. And in the world series of the fact that he was just going to Breaking balls for the majority

of his at-bats against hitters. And I don't think they're like even if you just used his fastball to try to get them off, his breaking ball, make that's that's where guys can just

adjust. If you are just a two-pitch pitcher, I mean, some guys can be successful as to pitch pitchers, but if that's not your, if you haven't found a functional solution for Or that having that, that tool set, then it becomes very hard for you to have sustained success because I bet you McCullers is really good when he has all three pitches working and he can start messing with guys more. And this is where to me, the mentality of like, well, just

just trust the metrics. It's like, well, that works up into a point. Because the thing is, is that your opponent, is, it isn't alive, adapting, resisting like somebody who's trying to actively work against you. Like they're going to catch on to that and adapt and that's weird to me, just saying, just saying that. Oh, well the numbers say or the same, the analytics say it's going back to like they're using a model of the world.

When the going back to, I think that the quote that I said before the world is its own best model and it's not even my own quote. I have to go pull. It's from a physicist Ed basically said that um in terms of like talking about living beings.

And so I think that's the thing that we have to remember because analytics can be a very powerful tool to help you in your search process until like with how you want to attack, but it goes back to, you know, once you get into the game and people were talking about during during the World Series about having a plan, and I think plans are good, you should have a plan.

But once you get in there, like then you need to start being pick up information about like what's actually going on instead of being like, well, the plan says this, so therefore, I just execute this plan, the way that we had talked about it before like it's just going to work out like, well if they start changing what they're doing and your plan doesn't match what they're doing, then it's going to be it's going to be rough for you and I think that's where you see sometimes teams just lose

simply because the other team didn't adjust to what the other team is doing. Or one team wasn't adjusting to what the other team was doing and that's why they lost. Yeah. Did the idea of adaptability? I think that's that speaks a lot to other stuff. I've been thinking a lot about and how do, how do we create environments? Again, this is a whole nother ran so I'm not going to go into it.

But like how do you, how do you and you great athletes who are adaptable under any circumstances, that's what it comes down to. It's like you want Solutions under any context under any situation that will actually function. So yeah, I don't know if we should Change subjects on that and dig into that.

But yeah I think that's that's extremely I mean because it's a the quote that I had was like from Ramel about in terms of like if his plan got him into contact with the Enemy then he he would just play it by ear you know and and through sense and tactical feel like a duelist you know. Like and I thought that was really insightful in terms of

okay? Use your analytics to know, get to know your enemy a little bit more your opponent and yourself but once you get in there You're going to have to understand which parts of the plan to adhere to and which parts to let go of. You know, like that's where, for example to of thinking, like, okay once you start pitching like okay, what is it that I'm picking up right now? When can I deviate from the plan, when can I when do I need to adhere to the plan and this is where to me.

D the expert, right? The elite players. There is a higher order variable that there are tuning to that helps them navigate in terms of like when to deviate and when to, you know, like what's guiding their behavior, so to speak. And so that's where to me. Like a plan is just an initial set of conditions that you're working with and then if the condition stay the same, then you can just keep executing your plan, but if they change, are

you going to be able to pick up? Up that information and then adjust what you're doing because I think it comes back to like the way that I think about it is in terms of military, okay. If you understand what your objective is, what your goal is, then, whatever plan you have, okay, that you set up if things change, but your objective stays the same that doesn't change. Like so to me, that's your higher-order variable and so you just adjust your plan based upon your given circumstances that

are going to get you there. And like if you just, you know, play with like Like, for example, how the seals and a lot of special forces are like, okay, we're going to come up with the first simplest plan of attack and go right now. If I remember correctly, they just do simple, quick planning when they're in a combat zone and just move and then they keep reiterating and adjusting the plan as they go.

I mean, that, that to me is the best way to to approach. once you're into the game, because I think that's where, like, kind of I didn't watch the last game of the World Series, but it sounded like the Phillies were especially offensively were kind of What's the, what's the word searching?

Not searching to me. It was like they're kind of getting desperate and kind of grasping and 44 or Solutions against The pictures, you know, they didn't have a way to adapt in a systematic way, in some ways, because I think they're, at least what I'm trying to help our hitters understand. Is there should be a kind of a systematic way that you make adjustments in the box or from it, back to it bat, you know, based upon what what you perceive is is happening.

And so, You know, letting letting the ball, be your feedback or just your swing, be your feedback and how you're relating to that to the pitcher into the ball. Like the you need to be able to make adjustments based upon a swing that you just took on a ball whether you followed it off or missed it completely, did you have to know what you should do next? You know if you're getting another pitch in the like what should you focus on?

What should you should you attack this next next pitch that you see? So The last thing that I'm going to throw in there, probably cut out is, but I'm curious, your guys, thoughts on us. So I was working with one of our to a guys who is now just a picture, but we would just trade back and forth pitching to each other. And the way that I kind of put it was this is, this is a way of

sparring or rolling. And so to me because we weren't going, we weren't going full distance, I think we're probably at like, 45 50 feet. And he's just up there not throwing like a hundred percent mixing in Breakers and throwing different things. And I'm just like this to me. If we could do more of this, This would you would be unbelievably way better because to me this idea of when you Spar in your role you're not actually trying to beat the other guy up.

You're not trying to bury him and get him out. So to speak, instead you're trying to if we're a good sparring partners, we're trying to challenge the other person. We're exploring while we were sparring, we're trying out different things and then sometimes we have to ramp Up and down the intensity so that it stays in a place where we can

both learn and grow. And so sometimes you have to, as maybe you're more talented than the guy you're sparring with, you actually might have to dial it back a little bit and not Carvin quite as much and be a little bit more creative with how you're interacting with them. And I think that's I want to understand MMA culture or fighting culture a little bit better because there's where the best growth is is like there's a culture of that. I don't know. Did you did you listen to that

guy? Talk at smsc. At the sport movement skill conference, who is a MMA guy, you know, now like that was like one of the only ones that I forget what I had to do, but like I was almost there for all these one. I meant to go back and listen to guy. I've actually been listening to a lot of, like, Nashville with Conor McGregor. Like, I've been intrigued with fighting and I got, watch this most recent documentary shot. I could send it to me on Twitter and then, like, just some other stuff.

Listen, I've listened to like, Shawn breakdown, Israel assignment. I would always mess up his life. Sonya has on. Yeah, yeah. I've been beside actually do a little bit sparring with our pitchers, like, in some form or fashion like that. Stole straight from Rafe Kelly but we did it today like you talk the thumbs girl, the fingers and you're like basically playing body shots and like the whole idea of like, because I move you move in, like, trying to trying to play

that, that idea. And then, like, the I wasn't thinking about, like, sparring for for baseball, though. The hard part is, man, that's like, like, I really Lie like that idea because I do think we would pick up extra different. Affordances is another concept. I forget what inch it was from, Sean's blogs. I was like, I wish I wish something speed and I forget, I wish I may be actually have it up now. I don't have an update but it was something about, I don't know what you're talking about.

It was like a roughly 80% of the apis, their actual speed is where they may pick up different things and that's where they lived a lot as far as as far as where they practice and I was like, how can I That's a pitching. Like we, I think you could like, play off the sparring idea, where you can pitch at like, 80% to a header, the still, like, you're still trying to like get him to do, what you want him to do, based on how you're throwing your pitches and he just wanted

value. And then it's kind of like the idea sparring. But I think the limitation in that is just like you have like will have 18 to 20 pictures. We have one game Mound, right? We don't have a cage that can actually match that really well, just where we're at. Okay, just kind of small, maybe we can get a mountain there and to be a shortened version of it, which I think still has value.

But that's a limitation in my opinion because I think there's a ton of value in it. Like, I always thought there was like having pitchers throw to the hitters in a setting like that, where you're kind of sparring and you're just Plum. You're working at like that 80% range potentially a long. This is the yeah, well, it will into I also think that it's important to that the pictures or even the hitters Mess with how like so for example, if I'm pitching and I'm throwing to a

guy I'm not trying to carve him. I'm actually trying to every now and then. So for example, based upon my sequence or whatever, I might give, I might specifically try to throw one in there that I think you can hit to see if he's ready. Like, there's, there's that element of it to of like, I can, if pictures, I think should understand that. When they throw and they start mixing a little bit and then they throw a cookie in there. After a guys seen a bunch of different stuff, he's not always

ready to hit that pitch. I've seen that plenty of times where they'll take a swing and they'll just miss it. Yeah, on a pitch that they should crush and that they've hit while in the past, but simply because of the the previous pitch sequence, they're just not ready for it. And so, I think that's even good for for your offense to as like just understanding that. It's not, it's not when you're sparring, it's not just about about you.

And that's, that's the thing that I think is the important piece of like, when you're doing this and you have your own guys doing it. It's not about necessarily trying to carve the other guy up.

It is, you should throw some pitches in there and see to like, okay, if I throw a ball in there for him to hit, can I sequence in such a way that like, because it'll help you understand, when When when you can just straight attack of hitter and not worry about like if I hang this pitch, if I leave this pitch over the middle of the plate like knowing when to take that risk of like I'm just going to lay this sucker in there and you're not going to be able to do anything about it.

And so like to me that's that's one of the elements of and I'm not sure what on the hitting side to do I think if like you're crushing a guy maybe you need to change where your Like what you're doing in the Box, you know, maybe where you're standing, maybe start playing with some some different moves or whatever and just seeing what else you can explore in, just make it harder for yourself. You know, maybe starting with like a different count whatever I think that's.

I mean, I've always had this idea that pitchers and hitters should actually train together and and and that's right. It just makes Sense it does. And the other the other element of it too is I actually think the pitchers don't need a throw and shouldn't throw at the full 60 feet, 6 inches when their sparring just simply because it's really hard to like again your accuracy is different, you know?

And just when you're when you're all the way at 60 feet, 6 inches and then your how hard you have to throw it just to get it to. The plate is also increased just at that distance. So if you just bring it in a little bit and that's where to me. What I've noticed is when you throw at 30 feet or whatever, whatever it is, most BP throwers throw at Guys are like, even when I throw you a breaking ball, guys, still seem to be able to hit that fairly well.

But then, when I back it up to 45 feet, all of a sudden, those breaking balls, get a lot harder to see out of the hand, but her to see how the hand, it's harder to see the spin. And and I think that's where more deception happens when went over that course of like the ball flight being a lot longer and having to travel a further distance, I really think that is something that people don't appreciate. When it comes to the hitting side of it.

And so, I think that's why for me, it's like I would actually, if I could put the pictures at least, I don't know what the minimum distance is Robert. That would be more for again, this is, this is part of the whole point of like this podcast is understanding where does an analyst become really, really useful to me. It's right here of like we're do. We figure out where that sweet spot is in terms of ball, flight of okay, when when there's that

kind of that Tipping Point where R guys can start to see spend because this is, this is one of the other things. We're like, we're like, oh, they can't see spin. It's like, I don't believe that for a second.

I know some guys can see spin. The question is, when do they start to see spin because as the ball gets closer, guys, who have good Vision can probably start to pick that stuff up guys, with better Vision might pick it up earlier, but still most guys at some point will start to see that and so, Maybe not most

guys, but there will be some. And so, like to me, This is something that I think research and analytics would be really good at trying to parse out where is this balance point that we begin to see an effect come into play. As far as the distance of the pitcher away from the hitter. Yeah, well, I think it's us coaches need to engage in a little exploration to see where that potentially may be and based on how the hitters, coupling, their actions to the

pictures. But yeah, no, I think there's a ton of value in that because I did a little bit when I was trying to ramp up the information, the headers are getting at our Inspiration Academy like for the playoffs and it was like I would I would actually go in the base of the mountain. There's still until screen there. So I certainly wasn't doing that without L screen, but like I was throwing my pitches and like if I felt at least for me, I guess a picture like somewhat

realistic. Like I was at a much lower intensity, I can still throw my pitches, I can still make a move, I can still use pretty much my entire Arsenal and some ways, and I could even like explore and create a little bit in different ways and like the better hitters were able to find a couple or actions and go out and like I kind of carved in the beginning. So I had to like find that fine tune like where where should I be living? And maybe I should have back myself up.

But I still think there is there's a lot of value in them being challenged at that since I mean we did face a 97 mile an hour arm like like that probably had some value in there but also found the term movement. Its ownership speed? Yes, like it. Yeah, the movement ownership speeding. I think I think that's a little bit of and I was thinking about that a lot for pitching. Like, where is that? And how do I keep that a little more couples? The actual information.

So we do lost and insert a lot of umpires. But like guy swings, just So much better than just like, that's, that's the actual information and I've noticed, even with stand-ins, even with moving around stand-ins, even with a stand-in and and umpire like our pictures were not coupling their actions to certain affordances. I thought they would. I thought they would take some invitations based on certain hitters like that.

We're presenting like this in this situation, like I should, we should have done this and I don't know why we miss that affordance and the landscape and I was like it's because we don't have batters And they're not even if I have a stand-in, they're not connecting to the information. The same way they could very much has become a rote repetition, like, just throw your pitches. Even, there's, like, there's no consequence. Like, I think that's the other element of otherwise.

It's like what I saw. I won't get that idea in there, which I think was is extremely important. But yeah, and that's where another thing I was thinking again, we're going to go down a whole Rabbit Hole in this, but the other thing I think it too is like, can I put like, does this, does this play? If I can't get a hitter, her

pictures, does this play? If I were to, if I were to Some context about who this hitter is and like what they could potentially do ahead of time and then they throw a pitch that like, based on the parameters, we set up about the hitter they're facing like meets the criteria of like that ball May been crushed. Like actually like that ball is crushed. Like, all right man isn't a man at second here? And does that is that even enough of a consequence and does that?

Would that help them couple their actions more? I think maybe possibly, I don't know, but something not the same. Why me? Because to me there's an element of when you Of a batter who swinging in there. It begins to highlight certain information for sure. Moves like movements that the batter makes it highlights that it it makes that information speak louder where whereas, when they're just taking and they're

just standing in there. I think sometimes that information again back to there's no consequence there. It doesn't then make that information more Salient or it doesn't doesn't highlight it as much just It's just information there, you know because it doesn't specify anything to them. Because again, big going back to like what is it? Their goal that they're trying to do there. Because that's where I'm wondering. How much does is this stuff?

Like what are the metrics that I really want to look at it? Because, I mean, I have Johnson pulling a ball. Where's Johnson? Probably a second. Oh yeah. He pulls the ball at like 78. I think it was something like, oh, that didn't even feel like it's 1/4 like to it's inside your bat speed. It's just going to measure it faster inside, swing, I'm going to assume inside low or are generally what I've seen in the past. There you go.

There's your 78. The the lower the pitch, the higher, the bat speed to an extent obviously like right because that wasn't that out, that 78 was not that low of a pitch. Well yeah, that was low enough. Also a trick for you. I see that you're like, commenting, like timestamps you can actually like Use YouTube's in Bedding. You like automatically go to it. That makes sense. No explained. I've seen that before. I've definitely seen that.

I mean, I was going to put it in the comments or in the description but I just wasn't like, I was logged in with my account and not the The, the school one. Oh yeah. What are embeds? Oh, you talking like the Things down here. Not necessarily here. I'll show you, I gotta Yeah, do share screen. Well, I can type it in on the the tiny table. Yeah, I'm just trying to think of the exact terminology of it and I don't want to tell you the

wrong terminology. but you're saying that on plane efficiency, Was maybe something more to look at, right? Because my again, in my experience with the guys, I work with, When we see like bad Trend that speeding trending up, right? Like whether it be a heavy bat program or you know like a a you know, heavy bat, like bat whatever kind of program that you want to use. I typically found that you know as your bat speed increases your on plan efficiency will typically be and what does that

mean exactly? Well your back doesn't stand alone. And be really good at crushing that specific pitch and that specific spot. But again, we want to talk about being adaptable, dexterous athletes, being able to adapt and adjust to certain pictures, as we're a metric. Like I'm playing efficiency is key because if your bat Susan Zone water, you can still adjust

and do make a Quality swing. That may not be the best terminology for it, but we'll go with it on that and to be able to, you know, increase your chances of getting something like that. Does it work when I do that, huh? Doesn't like it. When I make it full screen. Because, I don't know, I'm, I'm a little bit questioning, some of these negative attack angles, that which, then makes me question. How correct are? Or is the on plane score?

That's what I want to know, like how accurate are these things. Now having use this again, Because when I first used it with my guys at DCTC long time ago well a couple of don't know what to say 33s years ago, 23 years ago. The and comparing it to zap. I saw Zero negative attack angles on guys that I thought would have - attacking everybody was positive attacking us. I'm blind.

Now, I'm starting to see more - Attack angles and some of it makes sense where I'm seeing it. And then it just makes me wonder. Okay, this is where Robert you would probably have better data for this but now I need to figure out okay do I want to get rap Soto hitting or hit tracks? And now I have like all these metrics lined up and we can look at Exit via low and bat speed and attack angle and all these sort of things that we can then begin to.

See. Okay. If your - attacking will does that mean maybe wraps. Or yeah rhapsode would be better because then you could start to see the spin. Get the spin metrics going, but you can see the ball Spin and then see how, you know, are you creating too much spin on the ball? It's just like hanging up there because From the naked eye, it seems to me guys that swing down on the ball and they clip it a ton. They put a ton of spin on the ball and it just kind of hangs up there.

It doesn't, the ball doesn't seem to just jump off the bat and just go instead it just seems to go up and it just seems to hang up there. And then you're like, wow, that ball took forever to go however far it went and it's hang time was really long. And so, That's where I'd want to know. Does a negative attack angle produce more of those? Spinny fly balls versus getting on plane with it. Getting it more true. Produces that nice, you know, rocket, I want to say rocket

line drive for the ball. Just seems to like fly off the bat, well, from like a I want to say a physics standpoint like assume the ball is right hand. Curve balls breaking right? You know you let's say you can physically, see the seam orientation moving and then you have a negative attack angle when you make contact with it, you would assume that it would kind of this pain would transfer transverse.

I think it's the word and then would create that, you know, that very spinny baseball that you were mentioning But again in my world of being an analyst, it's by how much does that spin tank? Right. Well that's that's to where I was also wondering. Okay, now that we're seeing some of these it's really cool to see at least to me. Like we get batted ball information connected with the bat speed that we see is that bowl. These balls seems like they're

coming off the bat pretty well. And that was only a 64 bat speed in the ball, seemed to just jump off as bad. Granite, it's in the cage, but still Those balls seem to like be flying off the cage and that was what 64. So that's that's where I'm kind of curious. Is this guy's going to be one of our better. You should be a more of a power hitter but he's going to be more of a contact singles doubles type guy or us.

He has fairly decent contact ability. but his bat speed now, that isn't my question is When you say fairly decent, contact ability. How are you? How are you measuring? I'm doing the Old Coach thing in terms of what I've seen on the field, so if you were to look at his spray chart, you're going to see. A lot of line drives and and he's probably going to work more of the gaps. So, You know?

And that's that's what I mean of like, I'm sure his his, if you were to go and take his hardest swing, he probably be in the 70 range, but you can see him to with guy, like this is why I wanted to do it off a machine or something, that's a little bit more challenging because you begin to see. I know some of these guys have higher bat speeds, fair amount of tea and have them swing as hard as they could get easily be in the, you know, in the 70 range.

No problem, and I had another kid who has had decent exit. Be low on flight scope, and like, 92 93. His top was, maybe he touched 70 once. So, that's where. You know, for example, you look at Johnson Johnson hits off this machine all the time. So that's that's why I assume his bat speed is going to be in the higher. It's going to be closer to his true max because he's more comfortable, Hitting off the

machine and letting it eat. Whereas these guys, the freshmen aren't as comfortable Hitting off the machine, their numbers are going to be a little bit lower. But like, for example, if I were to go to Stifler here, I'm trying to scroll on the on the screen. Share great. his his his EV or his Bat speeds are nothing special. Like low 60s upper 50s, and I was, you know, doing using flight scope in the indoor.

His exit via lows were topping out at like 86, but then, because I've used it in game with him, he's hit like a 94 or something in game. Sure. So your question is what everybody talks about bat speed right bat, speed bat. Speed bat speed because it equals x appeal. Oh, This clearly, this kid, this kid doesn't have Elite bat speed but I know he can hit the ball. 90 plus miles an hour off the bat. And he is going to be mostly a singles doubles guy.

So that's where, you know, I I'm kind of wondering I'm asking the question, how much does it matter when I know? And I've seen what, guys in games exit via Lo is You know, in terms of like what numbers I'm seeing here, how do I, how do I evaluate this? In light of those things, right?

Like he's mid-60s 6465. Kind of was his top end range, but you could see his range was like 58 to 64 65 My the one question I have regarding that is when you change batters, are you switching out bat lengths and sizes? They they're all swinging 30 threes. So everyone's swaying 3333 30? Yeah. And I'll be I'll be honest when I first started doing it and this is the, this was before I got the live stream to work.

It was on a 32 or And so they were probably nerfed a little bit but then I eventually changed it and found a 33 bat changed it to a 33 and so they're all 33, whatever 33 30s, right, at least, I think that's what it was supposed to be. I know I'm in my experience like with a higher.

Like let's say you, let's say that better has a 34 but Lassie has a 33. You're going to tend to see, like, higher exit or bad spoon because that's these with the longer bat when you're actually using a shorter one. Yeah. And then vice versa, you're going to see slower when they think it's swimming heavier, even though I might be mixing that up now, it's sounds about,

right? But then in terms of like what you were mentioning, you know, oh, he's got, you know, like the players mentioned how you said, you know, he get like 94 Max exit velocity, but you don't need bad speeds. in the you know a high setting its again, it's wondering if How much of the battery that you use in practice training really applies into a game? Set is like what I found at? Quincy was if we were swinging roughly 68 miles an hour on bat

speed on average. That would equate to roughly 56. 55 56 in a game. Because again the setting is different you more or less know and Baker can be able to comment on kind of like this board because it kind of ties in with

pitching wear. You may not have as much Effectiveness when you're throwing like Max fastball velocity in the same can apply for swinging a baseball bat but there are those tangible people that maybe for that one player like maybe 60 is around his max bat speed and like he's very good at basically swinging around as Max both in practice

and games. But there's that, you know, subset of people that on the pitching side, you know, let's say they're Max fastballs 94, like they can command and you too. Before whereas some of them like passport, Max, fastball at 94 doesn't know where it's gone, but you drop them down to like 89-91, they're a little bit more effect. Same applies here. Where you know, you're not trying to swing as hard as you can. You're trying to swing in an effective manner where you can still be effective.

But you're still like, again there's there's bat speed and a peak level but then there's a controlled back to me. What you got. I'm not telling you like swing soft but swing in a manner that allows you to still enhance. What? We looked at what we found important was on point fishing. Makes sense. Because yeah, this is we had it at 96 or whatever it was is the same kid in game. Maybe 64.

Right? And this goes back to with him, he's not It's not going to be your home run type hitter guy but he's going to hit like I didn't think it was possible just based upon what I saw in the cage. In the in the early preseason and the exit below is that we're getting and then going back to the to the bat speed. You know, like there it is. Right? And like the common misconception that leads to the the subset of people that know like the bat speed formula.

In terms of like, working back from exit, velocity the issue with that is that core or that Collision coefficient that point to that's been tested on only wood bats. So metal bats. Apply a little bit different. So you need to adjust accordingly based upon that Collision coefficient which again it's more of like a that's a bit above my knowledge in terms of like how to compute that in terms of. You know what is exactly the Collision efficiency of a metal bat compared to a wood bat.

But again that's another misconception. So that's why you might see. Like either a lower bat speed numbers be hired at speed numbers, I'm not sure but there's still that misconception to that subset of people. Yeah. Because, I mean, I've heard and this would be curious to hear your thoughts. Wood bats, especially the ones that Pros use, maybe actually a little bit hotter than the BBCOR bats that the college guys use right now. What are what are your thoughts

on that? I've heard similar things and I wouldn't be opposed to it again like I'm not this is all speculation. Like I don't have a, you know, present date in front of me to say like yeah, this this claim is supportive but But yeah, I believe that there is but the one way we could test it theoretically because think about it this way, you're out of Juco right now. Right? The NJCAA and the CCAA CCC AAA are metal, bat view Co but the New Black and the Pacific

Northwest they use wood back. So, if you could do come kind of analysis where like you take a group of teams and the NJCAA in the CCAA, compared with a group of teams in Nowak, then maybe you could start to see. Oh, yeah. Actually, you know what bats might be hard? But I also think it's a type of wood bat, you know what I mean? Like if you grab one of the ash that's like Louisville, Slugger that you can get at Dick's or what's now an absurd amount of

money. What it used to be a $20, don't know how much it is now. But I mean, I would assume that those wood bats aren't nearly as hot as the maple where victus like the top end bats that the pros are you Using today like those bats like you just listen to the sound of the bat and how much it comes off. I wonder though, if bat if the baseball bat roads have actually done a video looking at this, it wouldn't surprise me if they have. These something interesting to look at.

Baseball bathrooms or heard of them. Yeah they go and they test different bats and they go in and they whether they go ahead out on a field or go find a facility with a hit tracks or a wrap. So do and they just do exit via low numbers based upon the different different bats that they're checking out. So I mean there's there's no my family doesn't real juice metal bass nowadays though. I feel like maybe I could be wrong. It's all my picture.

So, let me take it with a grain of salt, but I feel like the BBCOR Now isn't what baby? Or was like when I was started, right? That's fair. It came out like Junior, Senior High School and those are like those. I felt like their dads. I got like the goods, like the goods is kind of. That thing's got some juice to it feels. It feels more like it. The old bastard. I don't know. And this is where it might be, you know, where it things are changing right.

Each new model about that comes out with aluminum and it, but I brought all this up because what you're saying Robert in terms of the coefficient may be being different, you know. It could be that the sweet spots a little bit bigger on the metal bats than it is on the wood bats or vice versa. I don't know. And that's that's where I think

it's interesting. And that's that's why I keep coming back to, it's good to have other metrics to kind of validate what the metrics that you're looking at. And I think this kind of goes into the topic that I wanted to cover today, which was good Hearts law, where when you, you know, set up a metric as a Target you that and use it as a measure it, it's it, what it it ceases to be what it what you're Hours after but this actual article make sure I get get it

right? Yeah. Yeah. Oh I think I know which are not. It's like when a measure becomes a Target, it ceases to be. A good measure. Yeah, yep. and I think, Yeah, I'd be K. I would love to get your thoughts first, Robert on this, before I go off on a tangent on the twins. I mean. There's there's some validity to it like I see it as you know like oh we only chase, you know this thing right? Like oh we only Chase one thing. One thing bats.

Right. Then again I see the blade and because now hey you're gonna you're gonna have guys that can swing really fast made put up good Xbox numbers but in the grand scheme of things like You're sacrificing something else, maybe you're sacrificing. You know the adaptability of being able to spray the ball to various places, 12 being able to

just make contact in general. so, I think, I think in terms of like measures becoming targets, I think if it's the way I see it is, if it's just one measure, becoming a Target, then yeah, it fails to be a good measure, but if you kind of take a collection that kind of like, In a like checks and balances sort where like this metric is good. But you know we need to have quality metric be to be able to validate in some way metric it but that's where I see a medic. Baker.

You got any, any thoughts? I mean, I want to slow you down here, but I feel like this is something I've been talking to Todd about is like trying to figure out what the actual goal is what we're trying to do. You think a lot of guys especially coming to Juco like have their thoughts, about what they need to work on and that's what the one thing I've been collecting at on. Just kind of like in my own way, just trying to get their brains a little bit and always, always

trying to get them to produce something that they're working on or building on like they're already good at this or building

on this. Need to work on this to be the best picture you can be. So like I had them like submit this to me and I'm going to continue to have them submit to me but like you start noticing what they what they're caring about and what they what they're valuing while I'm trying to keep kind of preach the idea and try to get like all the matters that were functional pictures and game, right?

And like we are getting outs. Like that's one thing I talked to Tony about was like where the alligators and like just continue to Hound like I don't care how you do it. We got it. We got to find three outs as fast as we can find. Three outs, we gotta find three outs. All those metrics that were tasting, like all feed into it, even like a bunch of guys. Like, I need to get bigger. Okay, well, great, that's, that's something that may be worth striving for.

But if all we do is get bigger, I've seen plenty of people just get bigger and then they become a heck of a lot less functional. I've seen a heck of a lot of people like, taking more calories and then, again, you better I've seen a heck of a lot people salad for lossy tick up the velocity, but and get it

better pitching. So it's like trying to figure out how to keep people on target to What's actually, the main goal and how speed versus just, like, I'm selling out for this losing sight of like, what's actually important and that's kind of kind of one thing. I'm actually digging into now and I thought that that thing you sent us about about that very that, very first article was kind of fed right into what

is already talking about. But some, with our guys but into what how I found, it was one of those very serendipitous serendipitous things because somebody was posting about the Twins and they didn't understand why. On is still pitching for the Twins and it's like, well, it's because the twins see that he has some of the, like the top 10 and stuff, and it's like, yes. But the guy gives up too many runs like, right? Because I think going off of

what you said. I think you Baker, you made a good point of adding the caveat of get the whole job of the pictures is to get out as quickly as they can. And I think baked within that is the whole goal of A picture is to prevent runs to minimize the number of runs given up, and I think it also depends upon your role, right? So, for example, if you're a starter, you're afforded more of an opportunity to give up runs. It's not the same for a

reliever. It's just, it's just the nature of what it is. That we're asking you to do, is to come in and basically not allow any runs like one or none. I mean, most often and When that's the case, then it becomes like with the gun, okay? You have got great stuff but you're not getting your allowing too many runs. And and this is where I think the analytics are the analytics side of it. Then needs to actually dig a little bit deeper like why is he giving up a ton of runs even

though he's got great stuff. And I think that part is probably the part that's missing because I've talked with Someone who's been in similar organizations who they've emphasized, you know, certain things when it comes to the analytics. And then you start asking them basic questions of like, well have you looked at you know the counts like okay, so his fastball is getting hit and then you just tell him that he can only throw four fastballs in a game or an init. Sorry in a inning.

It's like, well, why is his fastball getting hit? Is it because he is falling behind too much and he's trying to get Back into counts by using his fastball to get them back into counts and that's where he's getting hurt or is it you know, a certain location that he's throwing it.

Can't remember what the other things that he said but they're all very like contextual baseball questions and like your analytics team should be able to tell you this and should have broken down further and done more homework, to understand. Why is it that as fast balls getting hit so that you can better understand how to utilize that pitch because there's like, okay, if he just goes all You know, breaking balls are sliders and guys are just going to sit on the slider if they know that

that's what's coming. And an example that I saw this past year was with the former team that I worked with, at Missouri State, where one of our guys out of the pain, he was really, really good and everybody knows, he's slider, slider guy, so it comes in out of the pen and this year, he didn't have as much success because I think, guys, just our practice hitting more sliders because, right?

This is something that that I think pal, Bode has said on Her looked at the off-speed usage is way higher now than ever. And if you go back to the premise that at the professional level and just even at the top Collegiate level guys, who are there are the best adapters, right? They're the best at making adjustments out of anybody and that's why they're there at the level that they're at.

And so if you start throwing them more sliders or more breaking balls in general, they're just going to get better at hitting more breaking balls. And so Then you're just going to come back to the other way and it's just going to be the Seesaw back and forth. And if you really want to have, this is where, for example, looking at someone like Zack Greinke is, is really actually, it's fun to watch him pitch because he is always messing with the hitter.

He's changing speeds. He is, you know, pitching backwards or he's he's basically throwing the pitch that he thinks that the hitter is not ready for or that's going to fool him or whatever. And so to me, That's where we actually need to get to and that goes back to what we're we're like if you just tell a guy that he can't use his fastball as much, then he can't use that as a weapon to set up his other

pitches. And that's that's um Blake that's an old school baseball thing of like establish the fastball so that you can set up your other pitches but I don't think you necessarily have to say that anymore of establish

the fastball. You just use the fastball to set up. You know, your other pitches or use your other pitches to set up the fastball and that's that's where to me. If we go back to an ecological approach, we don't want to overly constrain a player to have to basically play the game with one hand tied behind their back and I think that that happens too often to players as we actually hamstring them when it comes to their ability, to

play the game. In my mind, what my goal is is I'm trying to give them as many options and tools as possible. To use or take into a game to find success and be able to get out, get hits Etc. Yeah, to go just go off that last the last point, I think, once you kind of like over constrain them, if they're not even picking up the information that should be picking up anymore since like, like, why would you you losing your basically taking away options.

And now you're looking for opportunities to act or maybe like the certain pitch. I throw a certain pitch from certain area and you basically took one off the table. So now you're only looking for your, basically, your intentions is the throw this one pitch in your selections gone way down. So, you're gonna, you've basically Lemonade to some information sources that you just don't want to be using them anymore. So it's like you're almost like not playing the game anymore. In my opinion.

It's like a it's like a totally, a totally different game. When you're over constraining verse, like what you're kind of talking about, like open them off, allow them to, to explore different tools. And like one thing I've been thinking a ton ton about it, be curious, kind of off of this, kind of you thought. There's one thing I did two years ago, is I kind of intentionally eliminated pictures for guys where I wanted the basic dominated.

I took This from a very successful Division, 1 pitching coach was like he wanted them to have two best pitches and possibly a third after that, we're kind of getting rid of the rest and I kind of took that and ran with it a little bit. And I was like, all right, so I want you to best pitches and maybe a third, that's all we're working on.

So I want to spend your time on stuff, but now I'm kind of like shift in my mindset a little bit is like, can I take more of a generalist approach on this a little bit in? Like, is there time for me to just literally allow guys to explore ways to move your fastball? So you have a bunch of different variations Fastball maybe different variations occur will visit different situations based on context like a different variation of that same pitch,

may be very functional. And then you're as you're doing that, you're teaching them to pick up different information sources to be able to act upon. And you're basically it to me, it's a whole different game pitching than a very to like I have a fastball. No, I breaker and I will throw it as hard as I can. I'm gonna break your as hard as I can and this is typically where they work in the zone, which is good, but I think it constrains you sometimes you

don't have to be a have that. Well then what You know, you don't even have another plan. Like, you know, it's not there, like I can. I've been collecting as much data as I can. So we know where you get swings and misses and you know what pitches you have swings and misses, you know, like what pictures you can put in the zone, what counselors be using all that, but then the same time like the moment you lose it. What happened?

Like you're not the only information Source, you know, is the throw this fastball as hard as I can and this location and throw my breaker in this location as hard as I can to usually work. Well happens when something right? So I've been thinking thinking through that a lot possibly changing my philosophy on it or like Like maybe picking certain guys we're constraining them. But opening up there, you're allowed to use within this framework. So, you know, putting guardrails

on them. But allowing other guys to maybe explore a little more become that more generalist and which we have we have some guys that are kind of like that coming in and we have some guys only a few pitches so I don't it's one thing. I've been thinking through a decent bit, was kind of plays off what you're talking about there well in to build off of that, right? We've at least what I think I've seen on Twitter During that Owatonna we added another pitch right now.

How much, like, how, how that's increased his ability to be very devastating and effective pitcher. And what I think this, especially for starters, right? There's the third time through the order penalty, but if you have that other that fourth pitch, or whenever you start mixing that in, once you get to the third time through, or you start using that a little bit more, all of a sudden, I think, It helps reduce that penalty, I would assume that that's the case, granted. I don't think.

Robert. Maybe this would be something for you to look up. How many innings did Owatonna go the last time out? Or when he started adding that was a cutter or splitter? Now, wasn't splitter, he's had the splitter for a long time but I can't remember what it was wrong. But I thought he went seven, which is still good. I'm so used to watching the twins where everybody goes like four Innings.

So when somebody goes seven, you're just like, that's a real like that's a. You went a real like, super long Loading, but that's not super long by General standards. Like that's, that's, just that used to be the norm.

And I think that's where I find it really interesting and what's going on in the pitching world, just in the sense of we've been seeing and we've been seeing like this idea of Staffing, it more using openers Etc. And in a way, the twins have kind of done that and it's kind of worked out. I think now they're both pain situations a little bit better at least from what I had in the last game that I watched. Like if kind of figured out what they're there, three or four

guys are in there. Getting some guys back healthy but I think that's where it becomes a challenge. At least, from what I've seen over the course of 162 games, you run out that Bullpen, you know, in a staff mentality for that many games, I don't know if your Bullpen hangs up like holds up as well. When you when you run them out there that frequently like that, that I think is weird.

That model might work great in the short term, but I don't know if it works over the Long Haul when guys actually their usage starts going way up. I telegraphed that I really think about that because it really but I tend to agree with that and I think it's just more times, like, keep see guys you really write maybe maybe limited going to post season.

Both the throne whole time, like every team's going to morph who's never believe it. And by the time, my opinion, You would think so Robert when you got yeah I got a few things. So one. Yes it was seven Innings to take out like way back on point. So like when you mention it's a Kraang in mess with timing there's actually someone with the White Sox right now. Johnny Cueto that's doing a very

good job of messing with time. They wanted to bring him up but I didn't know what his era was because that is the Aries. He is assuming he pitches how he's been the entire season. This will be his fourth best season of his career behind all, you know, the Royal with the Royals and then once, but I think actually know twice with the rest, but to kind of piggyback off both your points, right? There, is that value of? How do we pitch?

When we know we don't have her best stuff that Because that's still something internally like, get a baker mentioned. It's not as easy as hey. I Gotta Throw This pitch and this spot, you know, every time because frankly just can't do that, but it's also being able to a no possibly have the data there for you. I mean different Learners, different environments, etcetera, or be, you know, the pitching coach is there saying? Hey, like here's what you're

doing differently. Here's how we can adjust because we buy get Quincy, we have specific example, specific pitch, Sure who was like a high spin hike, hairy guy all in the fall and he would succeed there. And then in the spring, it Chapman happened. Don't know. And I went and different, but then it was a lot of more or less. Struggles. His like the plan was to have him throw more up in the zone. But then he had a flatter fastball.

So then he got hit hard so then we had to adjust accordingly. And so there was times where he's like, yeah, I felt really

good. You know, the fastball was carrying and then there's other times where he's like, yeah, I don't feel it. So then we think of like a plan B in advance where it's like, okay, if you don't feel like you're fast was going up, go ahead and play Down In the Zone and use it, you know, pet more or less, change it to us, like, And so the idea behind that is just again, I'm a big proponent of preparation, just making sure to be prepared.

When you know your stuff is not working that day adjust according or pay we can go look at the data. Hey, you know, here's your fastball metrics. This is far-fetched from what you normally throw. Here's what we're going to do, to adjust it for debate. Yeah, and I think I thought I saw I think it's the Yankees Yankees business so they were using trackman free game. I watched Grey's Yankees game, they attract enrolling and it was important to talk about another guy messed with Batman.

Nestor portes when he was actually really, really tearing it up, really in season. But it is how I like his had a role in there. I mean, they looked at it like once or twice, but it kind of, I think it was just giving him a look into how his ball was playing that day and it kind of helps you make a game plan again. There's limitations to that, I think because there's a big difference between Bullpen and game in my in my opinion.

And we're talking about that as a staff, a little bit today and I don't like understanding the differences and like I think every day is because he's real funny, like you had a terrible day in the pain. You go tear it up in the game with your a lot more tuned in the game than you are in the pen. And that's a good question to figure out why my kind of challenge to our guys like think through that a little bit, but you're acting upon much better.

Information within the game, then you are in pain and golf at that. I've had that plenty of times my own career of seeing plenty of players, talk about that, right? But it's, it's like going off of one thing.

You said that Robert is like, having that plan B ahead of time and I think like opening up the toolbox, like you look at a Cueto Greinke. Cortez, like, in a way, it's like, almost a full football baseball and I think we don't we don't think of it that much, but you watch a dude with a little ball and his buddies with with a bath there. He's going to do all kind of crazy stuff. I remember like messing with timing striding across come. Manic, right? Like throwing different angles

and like it was just any way. I could, possibly find a way to get out and we have one of those. Footballs you make food, like crazy was like all the holes in it, like thing with straight most of the time. Those are your the find every way to get out and like, taking that approach to the mound and it's kind of cool. Like, waiters do the Greinke's? Do I think? And the Cortez do is opens a toolbox. Even you don't have your best stuff. Well, I can still part of this time in a little bit.

I can still change arms. Lots, and those are different variations of stuff. I already have You know, I just think to me in my brain, just like next, like, it's a whole different game, it's not the same as like I know my metrics, I'm pitching to my metrics, that's it, that's all I'm doing, which is good. There's hundreds that value in that, but its limitations to that prepare. Well, that's that's what I think we're seeing.

We're starting to see that and I think it's good in the sense that it sucks for the team that I like to report, but it's good. I think for baseball in general because then it opens opens you back up for. Okay. There's more to that or to this than that and it sucks for hitters because there's still a lot left in the tank for pictures, you know. Like if all you've done is focused on the metrics then getting back into being.

Be way more deceptive messing with hitters timing, you know, doing the stuff that Cueto and was it Nestor not as familiar with his name, Nestor strowman like those guys. The way that they try to mess with timing. I mean, the fact that to I've seen now, like a guy who throw from Down Under that's like, 90, like, oh my gosh, I've been

waiting for to see that happen. I figured that that was just a matter of time before somebody was throwing from Down Under and they're going to get hit 90. Like I mean that's got to be just absolutely Really disgusting to me. I'm gonna plug one of our guys real quick. I got a guy and staff. He's like he's like from down down here. He was like first scrimmage 88. That's kind of gross. Yeah that's what I like to hear.

I'm excited for that but anyways and then there's another guy so Justin Lawrence with the Rockies. He's up to 98. Now he's not like a Submariner but like he throws like a low side arm. and he's up to 98, which is again like Just unheard of. And it just goes back to for me looking at like man, how are we going to prepare guys for this? And I don't think I mean I know this came up in our in our Twitter group chat of the pitching machine that is like completely adjustable and throws

different pitches. I do think that like it kind of helps a little bit but I mean, okay, so there's two things I'm going to poke holes in my own argument that I made the fact that there is variation in terms of the release point and the release height, right? So your extension release height, like all of those vary from Pitch to pitch even if it's the same pitch, like I even looked at, Justin Verlander and I can't remember it's it's a significant enough.

It's six to eight to ten inches difference between each of those like you can have a range that It might not be like all the time, those might be some outliers, I mean the other. So here's me, poking holes in it. How much of that is just margin of error for the the technology itself? Right? Track manner, whatever it is that it's collecting it. I would assume. It's Hawkeye now with. So I would assume what I because I pulled the 20 like this season's data. And so, I'd assume that that is

fairly accurate. It was interesting because I saw Paul Glazier. Basically, it was like, So what's the point of doing collecting all this this data? If you know you're still looking at tolerance? If you believe things are self-organized, I can't remember exactly what the the full quote was. But I was looking up like, what he was talking about and it basically just had to do with what's the margin of error? When it comes to a piece of technology?

That's what we're talking about when we're talking about tolerance. so in according to the sabre Stackhouse presentation in 2020, when they were going to roll out Hawkeye for the next year, in terms of like Pitches themselves and like the the metrics in terms of Errors, like, estimated error. According to that presentation, they said that using the Hawkeye unit, you know, prior because they started using it 2020 with for the pandemic. They said it was up to 98 99.8%

of basically accuracy. Yeah, but what does that mean in terms of inches? Right? That's what I'm saying. And that's why I was, you know, getting that you know what does that mean in terms of the engine one and then to you kind of mentioned it in that chat, you know, like like, Then we get into the law of averages, how effective is, you know, using the law of averages. When each one, each one, each event discrete event is unique in and of itself. Now, doesn't mean that you won't

ever repeat combinations. But if you're not used to that variation, how are you going to adjust to it? Because I mean here's here's what I've seen, based upon the research on just pitching machines.

From a gaze Behavior standpoint. And I probably have to should pull up the paper but it's a it's a cricket study and it looked at the Gaze behavior of cricket batters and although do on a pitching machine, even if I think even if they put up a projection of a person pitching it the person the batter just stares at the outlet where the ball comes out. I mean, why wouldn't they? This is something that Rob grade talks a lot about of athletes are lazy, Learners meaning.

They will take the path of least resistance, oral find the easiest way to solve the problem consistently. And so, if all you have to do is just stare at the outlet for the machine, then you never get good at picking up the information of where to find the release point on a picture.

And what's interesting though at least talking to with some players and it's not true of all players but if some players they actually look for hitting off of an actual person because there's more information there to tell you when to get ready where to move and how to move and where to move essentially.

And so, but I still think at least for some guys who struggle their ability to pick up the release point and know where to look on the on the picture really, really is the thing that I think nobody is looking at or talking about. And that's also, I think the biggest struggle with using a machine is that, that whole element is is not a factor

there. So, I mean I've agreed that especially when you start talking again, not everybody uses the app and then we already talked about it but they start going into like yours at going for use in your Johnny cueto's and mr. Cortez is for messing with timing on top of that and coming out of this lot like you literally get none of that of machine like this, I'm in a possibility. So I think machines unless

unless it's that whatever. Whatever that super expensive machine was that they're talking about. I mean that's a question of like how I would assume that you could do it a little bit, but I mean you're going to see beforehand, the outlet moving. So you're going to know where the release point is, if he's going to drop down because the outlets going to have moved lower if you're going to. And that's, that's where I just look at. Like, the machine is cool, but nothing beats a live person.

And this is where it becomes difficult, and I'd be curious. I suppose Baker, I mean I don't know when you're going to announce it but you know, I mean you're in a different spot but I guess here's my, my question to you is, how are you wanting to train your pictures? And especially in does it is it going to help out your hitters the way that you're going to try to train your pictures? I mean, hopefully down the road, it will or again, being a new spot.

It will get there, you know, but I mean a lot of what I'm doing at the moment is like we're trying to get as much live as possible because honestly, the next 36 like sessions, we have with our pictures that are we talking about that with high intensity? All going to be live.

They're going to be scalp like Morrow's me a little scale Down live and Monday and Friday. Maybe a little more vamped up for what we're doing, but it's like in the fall, we're, it's literally as much live as you can possibly get. And when it's not live, like, I'm encouraging hitters to always, at least and in again, I know there's some research, I talked to like, a bunny in my mind who will be organ. They did a research and talking about how the information

Source, just so different. And how you act to find like a stand-in, like how you're tracking when you're standing endorphin, you're heading. So, there may be like, Value in that. But I think there's value in for a great looking at spacing and all that. But pictures right now, I mean, we're, it's always problem.

There's always a problem where I was trying to find a solution for it. So there are always hypothetical stand-ins and whenever just throwing a glove side, basketball like this useless to me, it's a fastball, to a righty trying to get first right off the bat.

They're always like, there's a problem, like, we're trying to get ahead of the radio or even with the breaker it's like, okay, you're there maybe a different context for a pitch but we're trying to try to put them in those Problems, as often as possible. And we'll probably be doing something similar to that in the live situations by putting people in different situations and within a live in the end, it's problem problem Solutions. Always couple trying to keep

those those together. Be as far as headers things you know I mean I think as much as I can get my pitchers throwing against hitters bunch more ramped up like we relatively are now I think there's just there's more value of that and you can scale it up, you can scale down, you can you can do it. It more guided, we're technically poaching. It a little more helping them to notice where to look or kind of like guiding them in certain ways, but it would still alive.

Heck of a lot better than just throwing a bullpen or just taking like regular 30-foot BP, right? Yeah, I mean because I only see that as the solution to trying to help hitters out more. I mean, I do think there's some value in doing the yellow machine and whatever just something so that they can from a perceptual standpoint feel the pressure of the low. I think that's super important but I wouldn't want to spend a ton of time on it though. Like, that's just my my thought I have noticed.

So really good? Really good division. One program. Like I know they spent a ton of time on the veal machine and they they get a dude pumping like that has relatively has been good. Be like they're gonna they're gonna handle a little bit their home run ball park but then you get the left-handed flipper throwing somewhere between 83 May 6, maybe these little breaker, and just kind of filling it up like Probably

gonna probably lose that game. And like, that's, that's something you want to keep happening, right? And then, you know, there's a chink in the armor and you can get beat at any time. If that team has that guy and they can roll them out there. If that they tell you that, you know, but the real machine I helps helps to a certain extent and it helps you get rid of that, be low, but I mean, that's

not being very attuned. Adapter on Deck hitter at the end of the day, only to one very specific variable. I do want to kind of go back just a little bit. See if I can pull this up because I did have it up here. We went down. Another can no not that one. There's a there's a different one. This this this goes for hitting when we're talking about. We're going all the way back to the beginning. We're talking about Click on the right one.

Here we go. Batter ball outcomes because I think this is the other thing of all right. Hit the ball in the air but the question that you should be asking is to like what's the Hang Time? So because okay yeah you can hit the ball super hard it's super high but is it going to carry far enough?

You know? For example if you have a good defense out there that they can cover 60 feet in about three seconds, if your hang time is three and a half, well, he's probably going another, you know, 10 to 15 feet. So that puts him out what like 75 feet. You know, that that means that his circle is going to start to expand more, like you're going to be able to start, get to get balls that you smash into the Gap.

But if you put it up there and it hangs up there, Guys have a chance of going and tracking that thing down and so that's where to me. Hang time is another component. If you're not hitting it out of the ballpark that plays into, if you're just, you know, looking at Exit via low. And you're just looking at potentially. I'm trying to like attack angle or on plane efficiency if you're not also looking at maybe a launch angle.

That that I think especially launch angle is going to play in there as far as how good or a quality is your hit. Because I think that's where It becomes it becomes the challenge of okay, let's say you hit it at like a good launch angle, which is going to hang up there for about two to two and a half seconds. But if it's hit right at the guy, it's probably an out there. Just seeing that enough where if

it's not going over his head. Then it's going right to them and he's catching it in, you're out and so that's where to me like it's harder, right? This is where for me. I really like the idea of doing BP outside as much as I can and I get it at the pro Level, Pro level, I think is different because the amount of games and how much they're outside on the

field. But if we're talking about high school college, we're not playing as many games and they and to here's the other part of it, the players themselves don't have. His many games underneath their belt, either. And I think that's, that's the other element, that separates the pro guy from the college in the high school kid and so I want to hit out on the field as

much as I can. And I want to start putting out like some sort of, you know, if I don't have fielders I want to put something out in center field out in right field where the defense would be playing so that they can get the feedback of man you peace that ball up and you just hit the trash can or whatever. It is that I have out in Centerfield well now you know that that ball in a game.

Yeah you hit it well but that that led to a to an out and if we're if the whole goal is to hit it where they're not then we begin to learn as a hitter. We're on the field to hit the ball because for example, I'm trying to get our hitters to understand that if you go to the six hole here on the ground, that's actually not a bad hit. Like that works out. That gets us on base. Don't be mad if you roll a ball over and you put it in the six hole.

That's really hard to determine when you're in the cage, whether or not that ball was going 6 hole or is going to the shortstop or going to the third basement and the same thing, two of you hit a little Flair ER that probably hangs up there for three and a half seconds. Well this guy is probably not able to get over here and your Dropping it in, or dropping it in over here, but that's going for a double even though you probably didn't have your best eggs of Hilo and your best

launch angle. That's a double. And so when you're talking about your oh PS, your slugging percentage, all that sort of stuff, like your padding, your stats, right there. If you have the ability to if you're a left or right handed hitter to dump the ball over here, that's a very potent weapon to have in your Arsenal. I want to say or Ella last night, hit a double over in here. That scored three runs and broke the game open for the Twins and put them ahead.

And so that's where to me people. Like everybody wants to talk about hitting it here, which I think is okay. But most guys, as you can see here, the right fielder is going to line up, right? Straight off a second base. Same thing with the left fielder and I don't know, maybe you can begin to see to actually that

you have a little bit more overlap. in here and there's more space over here in this in this window here, I mean, you guys can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this area here tends to often times lead to doubles And two, if you got guys in scoring position that guy having to run from here to over here, like you're going to be able to score. From there. So that that to me, if I actually want our guys to have the ability to figure out, how

can they keep the ball Fair? And work down both both sides of the line. I mean I like the idea of going here to the gaps, like this is definitely an affordance but for some reason, it seems as though the way most defenses are set up until they figure out, okay, you're a flare guy as a lefty. I'm going to start laying in and I'm going to start moving over. Well then that opens up this, this Gap over here for you or if they then you're just an Oppo guy.

The shift you over this way, well, got this affordance over here, so That's where I think trying to teach guys. I want to have the whole Field open for them if that makes sense. I want to focus on all of this so to speak or like have us work on this whole gamut versus just being right here. So, That's at least what I

wanted to talk about. Like when you're starting to look at what is it that we want to measure and to make targets, I think this would be something where maybe we have a sheet you know and somebody sitting there charting okay, we're on the field are they hitting it type of the thing and then regardless of whether or not you have hit tracks or flight scope or track man like you could just simply, you know, guy with a stopwatch. And a and a clipboard. And you're just marking and

doing spray charts on guys. And then you could have that for yourself and work on that, you know, with the guy standing behind the turtle, I think that would be one simple way to you. Could actually now start to measure and quantify. A guy's ability to exploit space on the field.

Yes. Yeah, I like that, to me, it connects a lot with the idea, what I was talking with pitching and selling, that's a whole different game because I think the, with the new data people got very one-dimensional, and they're just trying to, like, plug out like that. But that's your strategy of getting extra base hit. Well, there's other ways to get extra base hits and like, exploit defense is right. Then just trying to plug gap to Gap the entire time, just like one.

Some guys may not even have that like they're going to hit it and it's going to end up in one of the circles. And so we caught every single time where there's Options. But to like we're talking about that may open up and a whole nother. Forints if you can, if you put it down there and you can also plug app like you may start opening up something that's a little easier to put it, put it in the Gap and to me it's just different game.

Same thing with pitching, it's like, we're just chasing these metrics because this is what I thought I should be doing because the metrics are saying that and it looks good and it looks good in a video or whatever it may be, whatever. Maybe I was told to do this, my training facility and without game contacts and then you get into a game and you don't Have your plan b or plan C or you don't have many other options to go to feel the, get somebody out, alright?

And then same thing here because you're always in a think this work ages hurt, Tom, like you're talking about like you don't see where the ball is landing, you're not seeing it's a functional functional hit, right? You're you're saying all that wasn't a hard like did the exit below? Doesn't say the same as as the other dealer on, but that was actually more functional swing because we're you beer over the place, baseball, you actually beat the offense, right? So I think that's actually

really like this graphic. It was searching for a little bit. I think it kind of like the talks about, like, if the ball does hang up and I'll how quickly can they get there? And you probably a measure that on field to your half? Wonder, if you could like nvp, have the circles kind of circles there? And like, that's what I was thinking, which I think is

really interesting. I mean, here's here's what I've learned just, you know, through the whole video setup that I showed at the beginning and that took me longer than I wanted to set that up, you know, like I just from having Use Tak and just trying to do all this sort of stuff, like, putting circles out there, I just know that depending upon where this happens in your practice just from a straight logistical

standpoint. Like that's where the challenge comes of like, okay, for example, if I wanted to do the camera set up, I had for our BP, it just wouldn't happen because of the flow of our practice like we're going to do defensive work beforehand before we do BP. Well, I'm not going to have my camera. Has set up necessarily.

I might be able to get some of it depending upon if it's just Mass Bongos. But if it's if it's a defense where we're throwing and stuff, it might be hard for me to have everything set up. His balls are flying around and they may actually want. We may want to use use this space back here behind home plate like that's where I just look at like how long is it going to take you to get this set up? You know what I mean?

For when you're transitioning like this is this is the stuff that if you go and they'll look at like, John would write, this is what he spent a lot of his time on was figuring out okay. Where does the equipment need to be stationed? So we can minimize the amount of downtime between between activities because And this is something that I really appreciated about our head coach.

He's his goal, is to try to not have guys be there for too long, and that's a mistake that I think a lot of us coaches, myself, included fall, into of, we're just like, we're going to be here till it gets done and but then we don't plan very well to execute that to get it done in a quick and efficient manner and making sure things are like ready to go and having like it just from a logistical standpoint. That's where I look at okay it right.

Conceptually A lot of these ideas are great but how do we logistically get them to work out in practicality and I think that's where the question of how do you measure out? This so that you have it done like very quickly, you know, for example of I kind of like this idea of could I have different because like what I did and I spray painted spots on my field

for flight scope. So but I made sure to put them like all the way into the to the ground so that it's not just getting cut continually, but that also means that sometimes is Hard to Find Them. So that's the thing of like, okay. You like how like I wonder if you could put, you know, spray paint will spots in your in your field. Where you? So then when you go out there, you just plop these things down.

And really, I think you could probably just get away with like parts of the Ring. Like really? Visually one cone here, a certain color. Maybe it's a flag. I mean, maybe that would be easier. Put out little Flags, like, the ones that they use for. Where they Mark, you know, where electrical lines are and stuff like that, put little Flags out. And then I'm probably Mark here and I probably, maybe Mark here, you know, these parts of the circle.

I think that might be with different colors, right? Because I think the colors would would be helpful to know, like, okay. This one's going to be a stretch for a guy, you know. Red is going to be these huge Surefire catch and this is going to be maybe you know also but I I would say once you get out to this ring that's probably going down to like maybe 75 percent chance of a catch.

Yeah, I'll write about people less fortunate that have turf fields you know, can't we can't spray paint or true yellow flag. So I mean us less fortunate people don't have that forwarding so I have these cones but our head coach actually did something. It's not like this but we use cones and I think it's more gaps. I don't really know what he's doing.

It seemed pretty good but it's like he it was just like one day where we had more time where BP was kind of prawn and was going to interfere with anything we're doing a Like he's goes and sets up all the cones and then another sister ahead of time takes a little time, but I feel like once you do it once or twice and you can have a, I don't think it's I don't know if that's in every every time thing to me, but I think we highlight

it once or twice. It's going to give the guys that idea of it. And then you got real Fielder's over there and they would have a general idea of the spacing, right? And kind of give them make some little more views, more ecological terms like a little more sensitive to that information, right? Kind of where we're maybe cop not cot so I think that's where my mind. And kind of went with it, it has to be like a practice where you're like, we're doing PP up

front, you can get there. The field ahead of time. Have that have that ready set up and kind of like at least allow them to interact with that play like once or twice I want to give give oh, go ahead, Robert. I wonder if There's a way now, this is kind of like a big brand idea, but like, basic building out like a more or less like a diet. Protractor, in a way where you plant the steak at whatever

Center Spot you want. And then you have like red string, 30 feet, you know, blue string, 45 feet, and then black, string, 60 feet, and then you just basically just walk it around and then dispense the string accordingly. you know, I actually kind of like that idea, you know, because we already do this, I know for us, we have Way too many of the chalk, lion

strings. But like if you just if you just use that, that actually might be a good, a good way to do this, is you use those chalk line, strings? And you put little, I don't know, not in it and then you just, you know, walk it out to those different little knots. Once you have those knots out there, then you can put whatever you want a cone or whatever and then you just walk it like you're talking about in a circle Robert.

That might be a very easy way to get this done in a very quick and efficient manner to use something like this. The other thing too, I was going to say, I think I probably heard this from Nick but I was I was kind of thinking the same thing. of what I've seen that kind of annoys me and this is You know, I've been different places where, you know, pictures are out there, shagging or whatever you have guys, just a bunch of guys just shaking in the Outfield.

I actually get really annoyed when there's too many guys out there because it doesn't give good feedback to our hitters. When you know Joe schmoe is standing out and right-center field guy pieces up a ball and any it somebody goes and runs it down. You're like yeah, that was not a good hit. It's like, yeah, it was, but you didn't get the feedback in the satisfaction and know. That that ball that you hit was going to burn a guy who is playing a normal normal position.

So I almost to to go off of what something that Nick had come up her. At starts implementing with his guise of guys who are not up. Like they need to be a half Neil

and just down. And I almost think like if you want to have guys out there, like, okay, the guy who's not up, he's doing a half kneel and then when that guy goes and takes off for a ball Then the other guy pops up and then he's good to go. And then that other guys, you know, dead and that that I think would give a better look for our hitters to actually get better feedback as to whether or not, you know for what it whenever it was.

They're executing because some of its it's a question of like okay game winner, moving a guy over, is it deep enough for them to tag all those sorts of things begin to play in? To did a guy? Actually execute what he was trying to do there. Based upon where the defense actually isn't, who's up. And where if you just have a bunch of guys just standing around randomly and I think that's going to be something that's probably going to be hard to change from a just a baseball culture.

Standpoint is it's just nobody's really paying attention to what the defensive guys are doing out there? And I think that but I do think you could actually gain something by having Having only certain guys up at a time or just even to, like, I get annoyed when some of our, like, our catchers or whatever. We'll just go stand in the Outfield. It's like no, no go stand somewhere in the infield where an infielder would be, I'd rather see guys standing on an infield or add an infield

position. So the guys can tell hey, that line drive that he just hit Would that actually been caught by a middle? Infielder, you know, was it right to a guy or did it actually have the Loft to get over a guy? Because sometimes I see some of that in like, you know what? He probably that was probably an out. But if you if I actually have a guy there, whether or not he's a true shortstop or not, and he hits it in the hole and seeing a guy move over that direction.

You get a sense of man. He oh, he almost got that one or he had zero shot at getting that one and you hit it hard enough to to punch it through the hole there. And to like, even if you don't have enough guys and you only have one guy over here and you have two guys over here and it's almost like you have a shift going on, right and you this guy

can kind of play wherever. And now all of a sudden you can play with this space over here and so to me this is where I think we can do a lot better when we have a field to helping guys begin to experience and learn how to hit to open space based upon where the defense is. yeah, my I completely agree with you there because again there's just so much value and again it's that instant feedback the motor how we use data that instant feedback, there's that instant feedback.

And you know, was that a hit? But if you know, random picture out there, catches the ball that's in right center like you don't really know what. But my minor thing was like,

with catchers. They're almost needs to be like some Exploration with them because this has happened firsthand, we've had not one, but two catchers like as part of batting practice like ghosts and the Outfield and like make wreaths, both of them are spending time out in the Outfield. You know there's one would his you know with the way the govt see works. Is you play one game Friday to game Saturday, one game son, Okay, so basically I was catching from just trade off.

One would be in right? The other one would catch and then so on and so forth, but I think there's there's still that you know opportunity for exploration And then on the other end, you know, there still needs to be that kind of structure for like what you mentioned earlier? I think, with the kneel down approach could be a really good way to combine, both those elements one.

And then to be able to give pairs that necessary feedback because again, Something I found interesting was, you know, when you mentioned launching with her? I found that at a, I looked at like a ten to twenty degree laundry. And then I looked at 75 85 x, the velocity and then 90 and above and then that kind of 85 and 90. The 7585, had a higher expected batting average at the MLB level. Then in that launching, really then that 90 to 100.

Why? Because of these circles you're showing because they're hit hard enough that there's a Field, whereas, the ones that are head a little bit softer, but have

that enough cloth to go over the infielders head. are in a dropping for hit but when you're in a practice setting and you have, you know, three or four guys, playing short left field and catch the ball, how do you know if that's truly and then you as a hitter have to adjust accordingly based upon I do think in not I've just be reiterating if I would just talk about the good point about like not having too many fields out there. I do think one issue.

I'm not going to go into it but could be talking about some point. It's like I think big an issue with people not being on the change. This is because what do you do with pictures during this time, right? It's like I think that that becomes like we're two hours into our practice last h. BP like well. Okay, what are the pictures doing? Like course, you're gonna throw them out there, right? I mean, I was a pitcher, I wore the shagger Swagger shirt like routine base.

Molly. I was all about it, but I was trying to make reasons, being honest, I wasn't one of those pictures stand around like I was trying to I was once the center fielder took off, I was up in his spot, trying to trying to get the next one before he came back but that I think that's when the baseball Community I need to be talked about. Okay, so what now do you do? You already have your two hours in with your pictures are obviously not throwing any more. There are done, they're throwing.

They've already maybe them there a little bit of conditioning, whatever, and the recovered and now what, you know, and that's a that's a problem that probably needs some solving until until Till then, I think you're going to continue to see pictures of kind of that around, the Outfield like quad spaces, because they're bored. They don't have very good attention spans for the most part.

Unfortunately, I was working that with little mindfulness everyday, but I think that's that's on that we could be talking about down the road and then the last thing I'll say on this is we when I was with a, I see we actually did this. I don't know exactly how it's set up.

Is I wasn't involved. So I was doing stuff with the pictures during the entire time but it was actually a very intense tracking system and our BP went through the roof and I think we played some of the best we ever did but they were tracking the defense the entire time and actually putting different defenses on kind of what you're talking about. It's like we literally had to make so many. Any place you have to turn so many double plays, they're putting them in different situations.

Like you're acting like there's a run on person certain situations there's times where the Outfield maybe going out. They may be playing in at different times. So it's actually like, you're kind of moving around and

exploring with them. But I don't think I was tracked was perfected by the time, we're done with the season because it was like you had to make so many caches in the Outfield, you have turned so many double plays even like a comebacker to the L screen, a picture of the fake like turn turn to.

So there's there's some some Wash to it but I think it ramped up the P for both the header but I think what happened to is like because we tracked so many like we had to get so many like put out some more shortstop like guys intentionally started hitting the shore because really how we're going to be out here forever plus our rollover short. However maybe there's some usefulness in that is now you're working very well.

I don't know. But that was I think that helped a ton as far as like just just as far as for the hitters initially in the fielders. Yeah. No, go ahead, Robert. There's that side of it, too. Like when you mention pictures, like We encourage pictures to be athletic because what does that do in turn, you know, having that, you know, jagger swagger things like that? It allows them to be athletic in the field, which then in turn allows them to be athletic on the month.

So increases athleticism, and then allows them to, you know, understand their movements a little bit better when they're out there, you know, shagging or doing something of the like. So, yeah, there is that, that really tough fine. Lion, it's not easy to be able to say hey but can we create environments where during that time can we use kind of the space that's outside of the field or something to allow

pictures? Yeah flooding that's again that's that's another conversation for another time but that's still a really good point you bring up Avoid all avoid my rent on. This is obvious, have plenty, plenty ideas on that, but I feel like that might be for different topic. I mean, that's that's fair. I guess the, there's one To go all about the cage thing I did and I wish I had all the proper images. I might have it somewhere before.

I believe Riggins, put out a really nice one to show how much how much are the field. The cage takes up, right? It's it takes up such a small portion of the field that we need to be cognizant of yourself. Here, I measured our cage. This is what it looks like on a field. Like it's not. It's super small, you know, like most balls that we were watching earlier, like they're kind of going in here.

And if can't remember what I had this, this is, this is the line, this is where it is. Where I think the first baseman kind of is, if you hit this ball here, it's going to first and then you're standing here and you pull it. This is kind of going to Third. And like, I mean, just look at how small of a window you have between foul and fair or to the third basement. Just from just, you're just talking angles right out of the box like that.

To me is the the craziest thing when you're hitting in in the cage. And I believe these white lines are where your middle infielders are. So if you hit it this way, this is Where traditionally your second baseman is going to be playing, no sorry. I have the mouse in the right spot. So file or follow lines right here, where I think third basement is from where own plate in theory is and then your first baseman hitting it over here, getting it to second base.

Is that white one and hitting it to shortstop, is that other way? And so depending upon to like where your shortstop is playing like if he's playing here and IP and I hit kind of a weak ground ball, back up the middle. That may get be picked up by the shortstop. And you get thrown out. You know, same thing even with this other one over here. So I mean that's where to me. It's should we always be rewarding balls. Hit back to the back of the cage. I think it depends on how hard

it was hit. Like if you hit a hard ground ball to the back of the cage, that's probably squeaking through. But if you hit a ground ball to like the middle part, dear, you're probably looking at at Ground balls to second base, or to your middle, infielders these two white ones, right? Because, like, in our case, like we were thankful to have light scope.

So it gave us somewhat of a, You Know, Field projection that gave us a little bit better idea, but Even then and those in some cases feel like I'm on the other side of the cage. So we had like a two cakes that up the kind of filter in pictures rather quickly. It would be there all day, but on that other cage like, you know yeah you hit it right back to the back of the night. They're like oh Barrel, that's an easy hit. Well, is it really?

That's where it kind of that feedback, makes it really tough for you to be like, might be or in the case of, you know, is a ball Fair. Follow is another thing that you could talk about within that page setting. Yeah. So here just to try to get it, you know, make sure I was kind of, you know, right. Like that's it's not perfectly on home plate but it kind of gets you. The idea of if he is a Sure, to hit it that direction in the cage, or we go first.

So you can kind of see, like, where I had those cones. Like, it's crazy to me how close that is to the foul line. So if you put foul lines in your cage, If you don't basically hit it right here, which is probably not going to stay fair. But you have this tiny little window to hit it through. Just try to keep it, keep it fair, but I do think, though, if you hit it here, that that's a hit. Okay, I think that's that's where it's like, how do we represent? The go back to this one here,

right? If you're able to hit through man, that's where it's like Hit through in this area you have

kind of a chance. This is where again, it's like I can't trying to figure out these angles is to me really tough to try to visualize where those hits and where those holes and those gaps in the infield are four guys and this is where I totally understand why someone like DB you just puts up, launch angle strings and we're going to hit just Rising line drives that clear the infield as if You do that in a general sense. Like, more often than not, those will turn into hits.

But, I mean, it's really hard to try to train a complete hitter inside and quite honestly, DB, you should be able to get outside that. Why would, why would they hit in the cage when you're when you're in Texas? I don't know. I mean I get it when it's like a bazillion degrees outside but it ain't that in the spring party gets cold. I don't know, I'm sure it does. But I mean, I'm going to try this this fall for as long as we can still get outside After Fall Ball ends.

And we get, you know, Are our individual work like I'm going outside. yeah like even if I'm cold we're using that field for as long as we can because I know in the spring there's going to be snow on this sucker and we're not going to be able to use it till May like like Let's let's try to get as much use out of it as possible. So that's, I mean, it's beautiful in the, in a, in the fall.

But man, lays a North bring non non game days and practice days this year, I tallied it up. We had more indoor practice days during the Spring, then we get Outdoors because of weather. Yeah, I mean, it's just, it's just playing in the North like, it's Man. I mean we were talking about we should we need to figure out how to Turf our field.

Like we would be able to get on it at least a little bit earlier but then it does, it brings up a and just beautiful like thought or Point. Like okay, for these tools that are in climates where being outside is rather unfair herbal, how can we get represent representation by being? And that's why I did this, like I have the percentages. I want to say, this is like 20-ish degrees off center. From Center, I believe it's like 20, 25. I don't know. Like it should be 45, right?

So if this is a 90 degree angle, Yo, 45, I don't know. I'm not very good with math, but I remember like taking the numbers and they were about 20-ish degrees. I want to say 20 to 25 degrees From the center and it's like 5 or something, or something absurdly small. Or the corners. Yeah, 20 degrees. And I had basically 35. So if you start dead center and I go 35 degrees. Yeah, that makes sense because

it's a full 45 to this line. So if you basically five degrees from the foul line, over is where your Corners are. And you go basically 30 degrees in from your foul lines is where your middle is, are So yeah, it's kind of absurd how small these gaps are. Where these fielders are it. I mean, it's just it's it just goes to show for younger players, okay? I'm going to make that caveat for younger players. Because I understand why pro guys actually perform better when they hit in the cage.

Before games and they don't go out and do the unfilled stuff. But for younger guys that need the experience, you just it's so hard to replace hitting hitting on a field and I do think you can get away with hitting in a dome. You, you're doing way better when you can get a big cage to hit it. So if you can hit in a big cage that's you know, if you can get basically three wide cage. That's you know, gets you out to here.

On both of these like that. Then makes this you can visualize this way better and begin to see all this because then you can start to get your file lines in there more and I've seen that, and I mean, if I could, I would try to hit in that setting as much as I possibly could. So, you guys got anything else. I feel like we've probably beat this topic. Into the ground. I don't have anything else. I mean, I'd say the last, the last thing I would say to it is just like thinking like indoor

practice. I mean, luckily in the situation I'm here I don't really have to think about indoor practice anymore, but like it's so hard to just make it representative in a cage, it's like near impossible. So to me, it's almost more of a losing game at times like trying to go down that rabbit hole and finding ways since no matter what you do, like, even if you say that all that might have

been down the line like know. They may think it in their head, like, after you say it, but like the feedbacks out there right now. See the ball going in the corner. So, it's almost and I don't know if this is necessarily 100% true, if trying to make it representative and like hitting the exact holes and putting it, where it needs to be, has more value than just simply. Like, giving them problems to solve day off like, finding

finding different problems. Even if it's not technically represented for the angles, don't line up that. That still may carry over. Since they're still, they're still searching for some form of it. Should write and trying to solve the problem within within a, hopefully an arm and with the back, right?

So like that's how I do, that's just kind of where my brain went with it because this this looks really complicated and trying to figure out how to like get them to actually believe that, okay? That this was, that wasn't that, you know what I mean? First like, let's just be problem, solvers and then you can reward. If you solve the problem we gave you and you're searching for that information, right? I agree. And that's where I go back to, I

think it's simpler. To just put up launch angle strings because I do think having some sort of external Focus. And trying to now with being indoors, you're going to just play the odds, you know? And try to figure out, okay. How many different ways can you hit a ball with this launch angle?

But I still think at least to me I would still want to at least keep these in. I think this is too hard to your point but if I if you have an understanding of where your middles are that that at least gives you context for this line drive that hit the cage right here. Is probably going to be a one hopper to your middle like I don't think guys, understand. We clap it up for guys. Oh, good Line Drive. Yeah, when it's really, it's super low on the side of the cage.

You're like that's, that's a ground ball, like it for, for like an 8 foot or I think that's kind of, like, we have eight eight and a half. No, I think it's taller. That's got to be taller. Maybe like 11 or 12 foot cages, right? Like you need to be hitting it kind of near the top of the cage. If you're going into the side walls, for it to not, be a ground ball if you're like at like in the middle of that cage. Like it's not the other thing too.

I was going to say I was joking with guys when we were doing on-field BP and balls were getting hit up in the air and guys were you know they're just going to the outfielders. I would be like hey in the cage that's a double. You know or you know, we'd say that was a home run.

Because I mean that's which because even to you look at the exit via low eggs, appeal is probably a decent decent enough and you're like got balls probably gone like nope right to the guy you know, when we're on the field and that's that's where for me, it's one of those things where you have to your point before. It's the cage is just so hard to to really try to help guys really understand.

Is this going to translate But I think like again to your point, doing all those different sort of, just giving him a bunch of different tasks and trying to get them to be as athletic dextrous. Hitters is is going to be the best way to probably see things translate to the field. Yeah, I'm form pick up some form of information that they have to act upon. I think at least we'll have

someone. Hmm. So one thing that I want to do is plug stuff for you guys a little bit more so to wrap up. How can people find and support you guys? If you have any things, I know at least one of us or one of you guys does. As far as social media, well, I mean social media for sure but also I know Robert, you gotta patreon and you got your YouTube channel and you know, that sort of thing. So I want to at least create a space for you to shout that

stuff out. All right, I will do and I appreciate that Garrett. We will you can reach me at Robert Fry, 40. That's roberts10 re y 40 on Twitter and then same thing for patreon, Patron.com /. And then my YouTube channel as well. Same thing my name is Robert cry.

That allows you to learn how to code in our with baseball data and then, the patron kind of just supports me continuing to create wonderful content, Twitter could be a vast things of, not just YouTube, but maybe analyzing the game in a different way. So, definitely, definitely I appreciate any. And all who follows and always hoping for a good conversation Figured you got anything we're out? Where can people find you on my social media, which is at Coach G Baker on Twitter as parents

post? Whatever comes my mind and whatever I'm thinking. So it usually 110th baseball or Bible content and then entry, I'm not using quite as much anymore, but I'll probably start posting on that again. So, same thing at Coach B Baker, those are my two accounts. And then I'm super excited to let people know that you should

check out emergence of stuff. And if you want to get a little bit of a discount for their courses that they have, use the code, finding the edge 7, and you can either spell that all out, no spaces, or you can just use the initials ft e, 7 to get seven percent off on all courses, except for the movement Academy. I highly recommend that you guys check out the, the movement Academy intro or the TMA intro course, that rich and Michael Zoo.

Eful just put out its really good 12 week course on just the basics of an ecological approach and kind of comparing that between a traditional approach or an information processing approach. They cover a lot of the stuff that we try to cover here on this podcast but in depth and all organized Highly recommend that you guys go check that out and get 7% off on any purchase there and it also it helps support this this podcast as well. I'll put that out there, it does does help me out.

So if you want to use that code to learn more and improve your craft and become a more attuned adaptable, dextrous coach go over there at emergent, movement.com to find stuff out. I'll have all this stuff Linked In the description for all these guys, all the stuff that they posted and till next time,