Latest / Dugout Dish Baseball Recruiting Podcast powered by EMD Baseball / The Next Eight Months of Recruiting — Weight Room, Academics & Defense That Give You an Edge | Ep. 191

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The Next Eight Months of Recruiting — Weight Room, Academics & Defense That Give You an Edge | Ep. 191 · Dugout Dish Baseball Recruiting Podcast powered by EMD Baseball

• 0:02
  Speaker A: Hey parents and coaches, are your kids using the right glove? The most important skill for youth athletes to learn is how to play proper catch. The problem is most youth gloves are made with bad leather and are too big for small hands. They actually make it harder to play catch. That's why former Major League Baseball shortstop Kevin Smith created Cali Gloves. Cali gloves are crafted from 100% Japanese kip leather and are the perfect size for kids. All Cali gloves come with palm slits, finger loops and elastic wrist lacing that encourage proper hand placement. The right closing patterns and give kids more confidence to go make plays. Cali Gloves even allow parents to break in the glove without stretching out the fit. It's the glove Kevin wishes he had growing up and the glove all his teammates want for their kids. Visit caligloves.com to learn more and help your kids play better catch. Cali Gloves K a l I gloves.com
• 1:10
  Speaker B: welcome to this week's edition of the Dugout Dish podcast. I'm Andy Kiri. Kitty's joined by my Wonderful Co host, Mr. Keith Glasser. How we doing sir?
• 1:18
  Speaker A: Great. How are you?
• 1:20
  Speaker B: Good. It is October 27th as we record this. This will come out on October 29th. Fall baseball is done for just about everybody across the board, and we are about to step into a window where most collegiate careers are determined. Right? I should say most pursuits of a collegiate career are determined specifically for the 2028 class. And it's about eight months before showtime. You've got that checkpoint with high school baseball, which I definitely do not want to overlook. But as we've talked about many, many times, the vast majority of exposure and recruiting is going to happen in that June through September, even into into mid October window. And decisions that are made now can be either really beneficial or can put you in a tough spot come June when push comes to shove and you're really getting measured up against your competition. So want to take a little bit of time to kind of talk about this. Some things that guys should be doing, things that people should be focusing on and really hammer down how recruiting stories are changed in these next eight months. There's a lot of kids who are thinking they're on the smooth path to go and play in college that aren't going to do what needs to be done and they're going to find themselves having been passed by some of their competition and the road just got a lot tougher and hopefully there's a lot of kids who are on the cusp of it that decide I'm, I'm going all in on this and I'm going to sell out to give myself a chance to play college baseball. And they're going to, and they're going to come up having met their goals, and you're going to have some, some different circumstances that, that fall in between those two spectrums. But big window coming up and we're going to talk about it. What are your, what are your opening thoughts on this, coach?
• 3:34
  Speaker A: Well, I, I think that the next eight or nine months is the most important eight or nine months of your recruiting experience, right? Like, you know, it. You can choose to not really engage and do a whole hell of a lot more over the course of the next eight or nine months and probably find yourself, you know, feeling maybe a tad bit left out or, or feeling like you, you know, aren't getting what you felt as though you should come next June, July, August, September. Or you could, you know, choose to get the weight room and, you know, get with pitching coaches or get with your position coaches and your hitting guys and really put in the work over the course of the next six, seven, eight, nine months to give yourself the best chance to be recruited. When you step into the recruiting arena next spring, summer into the fall, you know, I, I think it's critical and not only from a baseball standpoint, but from an academic standpoint, right? Like, if you're someone who maybe needs to get your grades up and to be maybe a little bit more competitive in the admissions process at some schools that you'd be interested in, you know, these next eight or nine months are critical for you to be able to get your grades up and, you know, get A's, get B's, you know, or get B pluses, get A minuses, get A's so that your GPA continues to climb, you can kind of show that upward trajectory or maintain it at the, from an academic standpoint, but from a baseball standpoint, too, you know, being able to put yourself in the best possible position once spring baseball starts in, you know, we'll call it the Northeast Mid Atlantic in New England, because that's where, where, you know, we live, you know, in late February, March, April, May, and then into the spring, you know, the summer season in June, July, August, so that you can get out in front of the next, you know, get out in front of the coaches and the programs you want to be recruited by and, and hopefully get recruited by them, you know. And then I think the other side of it, too, is the, the preparation and the planning that you want to put in over the Course of the next seven, eight months. That's not baseball driven, right? But you know, what are you going to do in order to put yourself in, in front of those coaches, right? You know, ask for your summer schedule. Like what, what does that look like? What tournaments are we going to? Where, where are we going? And create a, you know, try to create some semblance of a plan that's going to supplement what you do in the outside of your summer season to be able to be seen by these coaches. Because, you know, the reality is that some of these tournaments that you might be going to aren't going to be heavily recruited. They can tell you that coaches will be there, but they don't necessarily know, you know, and the overwhelming majority of these coaches are going to be recruiting the 17U circuit, right? Like, there's not going to be a lot of guys on the 16U circuit. There's going to be virtually zero guys on the 15U circuit and 0, 14 and below. So, you know that the overwhelming majority of these guys are going to be following that 17U circuit of tournaments to find the guys it is that they're looking for. So what tournaments are you going to and how can we maybe supplement what tournaments we're going to to get me in front of some coaches that I want to be seen by? And what I mean by that, it's, you know, let's say you live here in Rochester, New York, where I do. But you know, if, if your summer team isn't really going to leave central or western New York and you want to play in New England or you want to play in the south, like, you have to figure out a way to get in front of those coaches because the likelihood of them showing up at some tournaments in central and western New York, it's never zero, but it's pretty damn close. Unless it's someone that they, they really, really like and they know about and they want to go see. So you have to, you know, figure out a way and you can use the next six, seven, eight months to prep for that so that you're not in a panic mode come July of next year where how the hell do I get in front of these coaches that I want to be seen by? But obviously the overwhelming majority of it is, you know, your baseball, your physical appearance, you know, being able to get bigger, faster, stronger, get in the weight room. Those things are paramount over the course of the next couple of months because those are the, in my opinion, those are kind of the hard ones, right? Like, you know, school. If you're a good student and you know, or you're on track to do okay. Like it's relatively easy just showing up and doing what you need to do, you know, but the baseball stuff and being in the weight room and you know, in mid January when it's pretty cold out and there's snow on the ground and, you know, not a lot of people want to go to the gym or go hit. Like you need to work through that and go do it because it's one more day that I can guarantee you. There's a lot of other people out there that are doing it too. So you want to give yourself the best opportunity to do so.
• 8:28
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, you hit the weight room piece. It's the biggest efficiency for most kids. It really is. And we've hammered this. Coaches have talked about it, but I don't think that people really, truly understand how big of a difference it makes for most kids just to be strong. And I know there's probably some hitting guys out there that listen to this that won't love this statement. I was a hitting coach back in the day and so were you. And I've watched a lot of guys, guys who got paid to play baseball after the college careers were drafted, all that good stuff, who did not have the prettiest swings that you could pick apart. Their approach, angle and their extension and their. Whatever stuff that you want to talk about. Right. But the one common thing that they had across the board is that they were all strong as hell and they could, they could get the barrel going really, really quickly. And that allowed them to maybe be a little bit steep with their approach or maybe be a little bit flat with their approach because they're still able to deliver the barrel with a bunch of bat speed in. I have a couple, couple guys that I trust a lot and some guys who are kind of in the travel ball scene, I've had some good conversations around them is like, if you can't hit doubles in high school, you're not a college baseball player. Like going through a 20 game high school season and having like two or three doubles. Like, unless you're a premium runner, you're not, you are not physically capable of impacting the baseball at a level that is going to get you to college baseball, period. Not even talking home runs, like one home run and three doubles. Like you're not strong enough.
• 10:28
  Speaker A: No.
• 10:30
  Speaker B: And this window of time getting your swings in is super important. And I think it, I think it's important because you need to continue to work on how you Move, how you approach the baseball, tighten up mechanics, all that kind of stuff. But you can fix a lot in somebody's swing by just them getting a lot stronger. Because some of the things that you ask them to do mechanically, they are now capable of doing. And I will not get on this soapbox for long. But I do have to say it's one of my biggest issues I have with swing coaches who are asking young kids to perform movements they are not physically capable of performing because they're not strong enough. And you create really, really bad habits with how a kid moves. And most of the time the answer isn't trying to get them to do something on the back end of their swing or how they're going to enter their barrel into the zone. Like some of the things you're asking them to do, they cannot do it. They're not physically capable of doing. Some of the movements that these big leaguers do that are getting taught and we're trying to mimic is you're just not strong enough to do it yet. That's why the weight room is so important. And if you can pair those things up, you can improve those movement patterns, you can improve the timing, you can improve your ability to deliver the barrel accurately. But if you don't lift, you can take all the swings you want. And you're probably not going to cover enough ground for most kids. You know, the 160 pound middle infielder who's a pretty damn good player. If you want to get into, if you want to be a college player, you're probably going to need to put on 15 pounds. And that 15 pounds is going to be the reason that you hit eight doubles instead of two doubles in your high school season.
• 12:23
  Speaker A: Sure. Like, I'm glad you, you said it. Right. Like there, there's a lot of truth to it. I think that it goes even lower than, than high school baseball that we're asking kids to do hit things that they're not capable of doing. And I think that there's, there's. The recruiting process is not, it's not simple, it's not black and white, it's not cut and dry enter in cliche that you want here. Right. And there will be guys that'll, that'll go be recruited to play in college because they are exceptional at one or two things, you know, two or three things, right. Like they can really defend, they can really run. We feel as though we can put weight on them and figure it out. But their swing is not necessarily going to be something that is going to deter the coaching staff, right? Like, it's more so. Like, yeah, that kid has a really good swing. We just have to get 15 to 20 more pounds on him in order for him to be able to be successful at our level. Like, but I can live with a, a middle infielder who can really defend and who can really, really run and can run the bases and is a, A plus plus defender that is just gonna hit singles and maybe run into a double from time to time because he can handle the barrel and he can deliver it on time versus that kid that you're talking about that the swing is all jacked up. We're. We're trying to hit doubles and we're not strong enough to do it and we're just popping out all the time. Or, or our swing and miss rate is super high. Like that swing and miss rate is actually going to play against you quite frequently in the, in the recruiting process, regardless of what it is that you can do well, right? Like, yeah, you can really defend. But I've watched him play six games and he's punched out 13 times against marginal pitching at best pitchers that he's never going to see at our level. He can't even get the barrel to. And he just punches out. And there's a, there, there's a point of diminishing returns there, right? But I, not to hammer that point home, but like there's guys at the college level that will make it because they don't necessarily do some of those things, right? Like there's going to be things that, and you can. There's guys that are going to be asked to do things at the college level that coaches know they're not necessarily capable of doing just yet, but they're putting them in spots because in the future they're going to be able to hopefully make that jump and they've been there and done it live at the college level. And you know, as that strength gets added, it becomes a hell of a lot easier for them to do it. But I think just, you know, taking swings like that to swing, we're digressing here, is, is more of a detriment to what's going on, you know, but like, I, I think that you're like, you're right if you, if you can't deliver the barrel and hit doubles at the high school level at a higher clip than, you know, you play 20 games, 24 games, if you play in the playoffs and you have three or four doubles and one home run, the likelihood of you being strong enough to play at the next level is, is not that high. Like, you got. You have to be able to hit doubles in the, in the high school game. And in some regards, I think that it's, it's indicative of, of not really being able to do it too, because you see some defense at the high school level that, you know, the right fielder is playing on the line, the left fielder's playing on the line, and the center fielder is like shaded oppo. And you have 7,000ft to hit a ball in the right, the left center gap. And if you can't deliver the ball out over the shortstops, head into that gap. You know, if you're not going poolside, it's going to be really hard to be able to do, you know, But I also think that during these next couple months, like, you know, you have to be able to defend, right? Like, if you're a catcher, you should be trying to catch as many bullpens as you possibly can over the course of the next seven, eight months, right? Like, if you work out at a facility, like, get with the pitching guy and be like, hey, man, like, if you need a catcher, let me know. Like, I'd love to come in here and catch these guys and just get better at my game of receiving and blocking baseballs and work my footwork, things of that nature. You know, I know it's a little bit harder in the, in the Northeast, but, you know, you have to fall in love with some semblance of daily defensive work with what you're doing, right? Like, if it's just glove work or, you know, taking some semblance of ground balls, if you can, on turf or carpet, if you will, or even just a gym floor, just something. Doing something is better than doing nothing over the course of the next eight months. Like, it's really hard to put your glove down in late, you know, mid to late October and then not pick it back up until February and think that you're going to be markedly better as a defender of the baseball. And in two or three months, you're going to make that big of a jump to where guys are really going to want to recruit you because you're that good. Are there some dudes out there that can do it? Absolutely there are, but the overwhelming majority of people are really going to have to work on their defense over the course of the next couple of months. Obviously, it's a little bit harder to do as an outfielder, right? Like, you know, it's really hard to get live reads inside in the Northeast and New England over the course of the next couple months. But you know, if you can catch a couple halfway decent days and you got a turf field to your disposal, like have someone go out and I mean hell to have them throw you pop flies just to, just to work your footwork on reeds or, you know, if you're, if you're blessed enough to have someone hit your fungos, do it. Because those, those extra reps are, could be the difference between you being, you know, further along or further behind when you start come springtime, you know. So I, I, I, I would be remiss to not say that the defensive end of things as a position player, you, you, you can just, you know, let fall by the wayside over the course of the next couple months. And throwing, right? Like, do I think that you should take some semblance of a break off from throwing? Yeah, I do. But come, you know, December, January, like you got to start throwing and getting your arm back into shape, right? Like you don't want to blow it out in, you know, mid February at tryouts and all of a sudden your arm hurts for the next seven months. You have to have some semblance of a build up so that your arm feels good enough to start, you know, to go through what it is that you're about to go through. And I think the other thing too, right, as I talk about this and you kind of catch the trend, you know, if you're, if you're going to hit the summer circuit from a travel baseball standpoint and from supplementing what it is that you want to do from your, your summer team, you know, you're talking playing baseball from February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, right? Like maybe into October. Like you're talking eight, nine months of playing baseball straight. The, the wear and tear in your body. Like you need to be physical to be able to handle that load. You have to be in really good shape to make sure that your arm's not going to break down, that your body's not going to break down. Really, those are things that are paramount because, you know, in, in generally speaking, pitchers are going to be a little bit further ahead than the hitters at the start of the, you know, end of the high school season into the summer where hitters look a little bit better towards the back end. Because now they've, you know, they've seen a lot better arms over the course of the summer. They're a lot more comfortable in the box. But if that's the case, you don't want to Be a position guy that's breaking down over the course of the back half of the summer because you didn't want to get in the weight room and didn't want to get more physical to give your body a chance to really perform when it needs to in June, July and August. So, you know, over the course of the next, you know, I mean, it's what you already said it. October 27th, you have November, December, January, February. I mean, you have four or five months before baseball even starts in the, the, the overwhelming majority of this country to, to dedicate yourself to being really, to get more physical but also sharpen your skill set. And when you're sharpening your s skill set, like work on things that you're not good at too. Like, it's not just about going in there and being like, hey, I really handle BP fastballs really well and I know we just did a podcast on this, but like work on things that I'm not good at. Hey, I struggle on breaking balls away. Okay, let's work on breaking balls away. Let's work on change ups, let's work on sliders way, whatever it might be. Hey, I'm a catcher. I struggle on balls that run glove side on glove side and in on me. That two seamer from a right hander that's going to run back out, you know, glove side on me. And I have to catch outside the framework of my body. Go to work on it. Like, hey, I struggle with that ball. I can't get around that ball, that slider, that, that, that's running away from me. How do I get to that? How do I beat it to the spot or get around that ball? Work on those things because that stuff matters. And when you get to the summer and you're a hell of a lot better at it, people will take notice and you're going to give yourself a better shot to be recruited. If you're the parent of a high school baseball player with college aspirations, you already know the recruiting process can feel overwhelming. Endless showcases, nonstop emails and big promises with very little clarity. That's why we recommend Diamond College Showcase Camps, the nation's premier academic baseball showcase. At Diamond College Showcases, every college coach in attendance is there with a purpose to coach, instruct, evaluate and recruit. Every player is seen, every player is engaged, and every family leaves with a clear understanding of where they truly stand. 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• 22:25
  Speaker B: the the defensive stuff, I, I just want to, I want to triple stamp the double stamp here real quick. We're watching it play out at the highest level of baseball in the World Series. You've got to die. You've got the Devil race, which was actually cool to see them wear the devil raised uniforms and the brewers playing in the World Series right now. And you're talking about two teams that take the details in the really, really small pieces of the puzzle in baseball very, very seriously. Getting the ball in play, running the bases really well, throwing a boatload of strikes, being really competitive in the strike zone, those high quality of bats. But one of the things, and you've, you've watched it happen in this series is like how big of a difference the defensive side of the game makes. You've got Contreras throwing guys out, you've got the relay from Mesa to Williamson to Caminero, big, big time plays that are defensive related plays and like they're the difference in some of these games. And the Rays have had a couple flubs that aren't typical for them, but that's been, it's been one of the bigger differences in the series. But like you're watching how important this is and I swear to you that it is that important in college and like you have to be able to play defensively and it doesn't matter what level you're going to play. Like you need to be able to play at least average defense, most likely above average defensive at your position to play in college. There's just, there's too many guys that can hit a baseball to where we can find guys that can hit. You can figure out how to manufacture offense, but like the defensive side of the game, you cannot match you, you cannot manufacture it in a lot of players, specifically in this window of time, do not spend enough time focusing on getting themselves better defensively. And you nailed it with the catching stuff. Kids don't catch enough bullpens. They catch off machines where the ball's going to the same spot all the time. Great. That's awesome. Like I'm 42 years old. If you put a 90 mile an hour fastball and I wasn't a catcher, if you put me behind the plate at 60ft 6 inches and I know where that ball is going to end up, I'm going to be able to handle it. You need to challenge yourself. The bullpens, they give you that ability to see different pitches. Ball is going to move, guys are going to miss spots. You got to actually do some of the defensive stuff from an infield perspective. Guys don't throw enough. You talked about to take some time. Yeah, you should take a little bit of time off. But I watch this stuff all summer, watch it all spring. Guys with arm strength and it's cool. Yeah, you can light up the radar gun, you can throw it 90 miles an hour off, you know, from a crow hop, from shortstop. Awesome. But you can't throw anybody out because you're pulling the first basement off the bag or you're dumping it. And guys don't work enough on being good throwers. They want to throw hard, but they don't want to be good throwers. Multiple angles, some touch throws, some feelings, being able to understand timing. Right. You don't always have to throw the ball as hard as you can as a shortstop or a second baseman or a third baseman. Right. So this stuff, you can close the gap on so many kids if you put it, if you put it as a focus area of what you're going to do. And I think the same thing goes for pitchers. Right. We talked about the strength rooms, the strength stuff, the weight room, the mobility. Like yeah, a good throwing program is really going to help you. But if you weigh 160 pounds and you get to 180, I pretty sure you're going to throw a lot harder because you're a more physical person. You should be able to move better, all that kind of good stuff. But depart from a pitching perspective. And I'm not a pitching guy per se, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night and happened to specifically try to talk to as many pitching guys as possible because I like to better understand that side of it because it's not what I did as a coach. Every single one of them, to a man, college pitching coaches, one of the things that they stress the most with their guys is how good are their players at catch play? The day to day, moderate to low intensity throwing. How good are you at being able to play catch? Because that translates directly in your ability to be able to manipulate the baseball in the mound. Whether it's shapes, speeds, elevations in out strike zone. The better you are at being able to accurately throw baseball, the better off you're going to be. Velocity is important there. There's no secret to it. Like you gotta, you gotta meet Certain thresholds at most levels or you need to do some super outlier stuff. But you also have to throw strikes. And I think in today's off season game, a lot of guys are super with the velocity piece and like, you can get there with that. But the days in between your high intensity days, being really detailed in how you go about your throwing, I think that can make a huge, huge difference for guys and give yourself a chance to, to, to be recruitable. And that first checkpoint for guys right about to enter November, like your first checkpoint is, is that high school season. And obviously depending on what part of the country you're in, it's going to come at different times. But there's a lot of guys who are 20, 28 right now who have desires and the ability to play college baseball who may have never played a varsity game in their lives yet, which is totally fine. If you find yourself in a really good program, like, and I'm in Northern Virginia, there's a lot of really, really good baseball. It's one of the better pockets of baseball in the country. There's a lot of 28 floating around up here that are going to be college baseball players. Some of them will be Division 1 college baseball players who haven't been regular starters on their high school teams. So like, the first box we need to check is like, let's find a way to get in that lineup every day. If you can do that in a good program, it usually sets you up pretty well for the summer. So, you know, we're talking about, you know, the eight months and yeah, like that window in June, July, August, September is where most kids are going to get seen. But there's some guys who are in this process that need to check that varsity box first. And what you do between now and the start of your season is gonna, it's gonna have a lot of impact on your ability to check that box.
• 29:23
  Speaker A: Yeah, no, you're. If you want to play in college, you have to play in high school first. And it's not necessarily a, a complete requirement. I mean, I recruited guys at RPI from huge, I shouldn't say huge, but very competitive programs in other pockets of this country that didn't really pitch a whole lot on their high school team. But you know, they had three guys that were going and playing in the SEC and acc and he was the fifth arm and didn't really see a whole hell of a lot of time. And you know, some pitch and kid ended up having a really good career at rpi, you know, so those Outliers are out there, but the, the overwhelming majority of them, like, you're going to have to be able to, you know, in those situations you got to be good enough to make the team. In most situations you got to be good enough to be a guy. Right. You know, you can go to the, the, a lot of college baseball programs and pose the question to the, the hitters, like, where'd you guys hit in the lineup in high school? And pretty much everyone is going to hit 1 through 4, 2 through 4. You know, there's probably one or two guys they lead off, but the majority of them are going to hit 2 through 4. You know, the arms are, we're all starters in high school, you know, there wasn't a lot of guys. I can't imagine there's a lot of guys in college baseball that were coming out of the pen in high school unless you're on the, you know, super stacked team and you know, you just throw straight nitro and we're using as a one inning guy, sure. But again, those are outliers. The majority of people are going to be starting pitchers and guys who hit in the play in the middle of the field and hit the top of the lineup. Just what it is. So, you know, if you want to give yourself the best chance, like go be one of those guys and you could be a sophomore that, you know is, you know, it doesn't mean that you have to do it right now as a sophomore. If you do it, awesome, good on you. But if you're a junior, like, hey man, like let's be a guy who's going to go hit the middle lineup, go hit 3, 4, 5, 6 and produce and hit doubles and drive in runs and score runs and play the game hard, play it the right way, and then hopefully by the time you're a senior, you're hitting, you know, 3, 2, 3, 4, right, like, but give yourself the best opportunity to be able to do those things. And it starts with being able to get in the weight room taking, you know, taking your, what you're doing in your off season seriously. Because the other side of this too, Andy, is when, when you go to college, your off season, not that it's a huge off season, right? Like we, we've talked about this a lot on our podcast where like when you're in college, you don't really get an off season. There, there isn't really a, a, a, you don't have five, six, seven months where you're not doing anything for the most part, especially now but you, you're gonna have to figure out a way, if you're at the Division 3 level, to put in a ton of time on your own to get to where you want to be. Because you, you only get 16 to 24 days in the fall, right? Division two, division one. You know, if you're at division one, like, you're going to practice and you're going straight into, like, individual work, eight hours, all that stuff. So, like, you're going all the way up to Thanksgiving where, you know, you're probably talking, having six, eight weeks where you're, you know, quote unquote, on your own, where four of those, like, you might, you know, I don't even know four of them. You're at home, right? Like that a lot of guys and, and I'm, I'm assuming that this still happens, right? I know it was happening when I was at rpi. Like, a lot of my guys came back early because it was just easier for them to come back to school and get all their work done at school where they could lift, they could hit. Like, they had access to everything and there was nobody on campus, so they could just go do what they wanted at any point in time during the day. We did it when we were in college, right? Like, I remember going Back to campus January 3rd, 4th, somewhere in there, like, we lived off campus. It was just easier. Campus is open. We could go hit when we wanted, we go lift when we wanted. We could spend eight hours in the McCann center all day long doing stuff because we didn't have to go to class and do those things, right? So, like, there's not necessarily an off season and it preps you for what it is that you're going to enter into, right? Like, and the other side of it is if you're a dual sport athlete, like, you wrestle, you play volleyball, you play basketball, you play, whatever. Like, that time management aspect is, is what we're talking about too. Like that, that preps you for what it is that you're gonna have to do. If you can still do all of those things and still get your baseball stuff done, it's going to play up in the recruiting process and it's going to help you when you get to college because you understand the time management aspect around. All right, I gotta go to class, then I have practice. We got lift after practice, I would go back to class or I'm gonna stay and do extra hitting, whatever it might be. But it gives you more of an opportunity and more of a leg up on the competition. From that standpoint. So, you know, I, I just think that some of the things that you can prep yourself over the course and it doesn't seem like, you know, you know, I talk about this all the time and so do you. Like there, there's a, there's a inordinate amount of time left, right? Like you have eight, nine months until you commit. You still have a full other year of high school baseball. Being able to do those things before you even set foot on campus. You have two years before you even play a college baseball game. There's a lot of time, but you can waste that time pretty easily if you're not willing to put in the time and the effort to get yourself better. The other side of it is if you're not willing to put in the time and the effort to get yourself better now and get yourself into good habits, it's going to be super hard for you to be able to walk onto a college campus and compete right away for playing time. Really, you're going to struggle and then it starts a cycle, right? So you're going to be better suited if you can do these things over the course of the next, you know, of this off season and into the, you know, January, February, March of next year to, to really put yourself in the best position to, to get recruited and find the right fit so that then you can have a really good high school senior season. Put in more time, energy and effort when you get to campus the following fall, be able to really put your best, best foot forward because that's another. You know, I just talked about what happens during your junior year. If we're talking about you going and playing college baseball like you're going to start playing college high school baseball and we'll call it mid February, but let's just say March for argument's sake. March, April, May, June, July, August. You might have a couple weeks off before, you know, you go to school in August and then you're right back into playing baseball. August, September, October, and into November. Like you're talking 10 months. That's a, that's a heavy load for guys pitching wise, position player wise. Like, it's a lot. You're going to be lifting, you're going to be in individuals, you're going to be playing inner squads, you're going to be playing games. Like there's a lot going on there, right? So you want to, you want to set your foundation hopefully before this, but if, if anything, set it now so that in a year and a half you feel really good about being able to go and playing for 10 straight months and giving the best account of yourself when you get to campus.
• 36:23
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. The other thing I want to add before we close this out is that I think this is an interesting time. It's an interesting window that we're coming up on with regards to people making decisions on exposure. And we're going to paint in generalities here. I think most people rush to get exposure when they're not ready to get in front of coaches yet. And giving your sons an extra couple months to get more physical, to add bat speed, to add velocity before you put them in front of some college coaches for evaluation. I think there's a couple pieces to it because I think some people will argue and I, I'm not as big of a fan of this as I used to be, but some people argue, well, I will do it for the experience so that they're comfortable in the environment. You know what makes a kid comfortable in the environment with college coaches? Freaking confidence and feeling like they're prepared. Right. Like the practice run. With your son being 78 to 81 in late November at a school that he likes isn't going to move the needle for anybody. But if you let that kid go and get after it for three months and the first time that that school sees him, he's 83 to 85 and he's coming off of feeling good because he's busted his butt, he's been in the weight room, he's worked real hard, he's seen some really good results. Like that environment's not intimidating when you feel good about what you're bringing to the table. And I think a lot of people rush, they rush to exposure because they think exposure gets them recruited. When exposure doesn't get you recruited, talent gets you recruited, physical abilities get you recruited. And the timing of which you go and get that exposure can be. You can make really good decisions around that. And I think it's one of the, it's one of the things in the recruiting process that I think that a lot of families do generally need the most guidance on is where are you going, when are you going and why are you going? And this window of time you got to really start to ask yourselves those questions is like, is my son really ready to showcase himself at so and so's camp? Are they healthy enough? Are they physically ready to impress the coaches that are going to be there? And for pitchers, this becomes incredibly important in my opinion, because I think a lot of people rush their, their build up process a Lot of guys will shut down this time of year and I know there's different thoughts. So there's a lot of people who don't want guys to shut down completely. And I'm kind of on that that wavelength too of probably be playing catch at least light, low volume, kind of, kind of non stop. It's not that you're throwing with a ton of attempt, but more around like let's not let that thing stiffen up. But guys not being prepared to go and throw like a really competitive bowl or go throw live to hitters indoors and rushing to go get that exposure in January when you're just not ready to go. If you're on the east coast and you're not in the state of Florida, most high school baseball doesn't start until the middle of March. Start a little bit early in Georgia, but like even in Virginia here it's middle of March. You get into the Northeast, it's April 1st. And if you're a high school kid and you're throwing a full tilt bullpen and you're in one of those regions and you're throwing a full tilt bullpen in January, like you're missing the point of all of this. Your bullpen in January does not get you recruited. And you're so far out from having to throw a meaningful inning that you're rushing the development. Like you have more Runway than you think and just make. Check yourself with some of the decisions that you're making. And like, don't get the emotion of trying to get recruited. Don't let that get in the way of making a better long term decision. And save yourself a few bucks right from traveling to that camp and save that for the summer when your son's going to be a hundred percent ready. Because nobody makes decisions off of an indoor workout. Nobody makes decisions off of a PBR event where they post it on social media. They're still going to want to see you play. And these are conversations that need to be had individually. But broadly speaking, most people rush to this and it doesn't move the needle for them.
• 41:25
  Speaker A: You mean the Valentine's Day massacre isn't going to get me recruited?
• 41:30
  Speaker B: Generally, no.
• 41:33
  Speaker A: No, I couldn't agree more. Like it's you. You need to be ready for the when it matters. And the other side of it is you have a lot of guys that are not going to be at those events in January and February. It can only be Division 2 and Division 3 guys. And if that's not what you're aiming to do, don't ramp yourself up to go to one of those events to be seen by guys that you might not have interest in. And the long term effects can be a lot more harmful than beneficial. You know, I'd argue that you get yourself crossed off a lot quicker in those situations rather than just paying. They're gonna see me four, five, six times in the, in the, during the summer, in the fall. Why do it in January when I have any. I have nothing, nothing else going on.
• 42:30
  Speaker B: Yeah, this is, it's just, it's an important window. And the kids who put their heads down and they're not worried about all the other fluff and they're willing to do work when nobody's watching, they're the kids who are going to come out the other side of this and they're going to be really successful in this process. And. Working when it's convenient, when somebody's there I think is the easy thing for, for people to do. Right. It's easy to go to your hitting coach a couple times a week. Great. Awesome. Like if you're not hitting those other days, you're not getting better. And I think that's, I think it's one of the things that bothers me today about the development culture that we have is that everybody thinks that they need to have a coach with them all the freaking time. And you don't have to be in a facility with a track man or a synergy or like whatever technology or hit tracks to get better. Just go hit, go get swings, move your, move the barrel. And I think we've over complicated some of it. Do if you have a hitting guy that you really like and you really trust and you feel like that guy's going to get you better. Absolutely. Get to that dude and get there a couple times a week if you can't, because he can help you keep things tight and make you feel good and, and maybe put you in some challenging situations, which I think are increasingly valuable for kids in the training process. But there's too many kids that use the excuse of like, well, I don't have a scheduled time with my hitting coach to hit. Like go put up a net in your garage and get some swings off.
• 44:11
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 44:12
  Speaker B: You don't have to go to the gym with your trainer to go and get a workout in. Like, you don't have to be in an indoor facility to get ground balls. Like throw a freaking knitted hat on and some sweatpants and go shovel some snow off a turf and go get some ground balls. Like the kids who are willing to do that they are going to win the race that the kid who only wants to work out in really perfect environments, you're going to beat that kid 100 out of 100 times if all things are equal in terms of ability. Like the kid who's willing to do some of that gritty stuff in the environment doesn't have to be perfect all the time for them to get better. Like, that kid is going to win every time. Every time.
• 44:57
  Speaker A: Yep.
• 44:58
  Speaker B: And I think with schedules and facilities, like, kids use that as an excuse to not go and get some stuff done when there really is no excuse if you want it. Like, you only get one chance at this opportunity to play college baseball. And that kid who's willing to go out when it's 32 degrees and have somebody banging fungos because there's no snow on the turf, like, that kid will be better than the kid who goes, ah, you know what, I might just hit this week. Yeah, I'm gonna hit. It's a little cold out, so I'm probably just gonna go hit in the, you know, the 70 degree hitting facility with the, you know, with the, with the track, man, and the, the hit tracks. That kid who's willing to put on a knit cap and some gloves and go and, and take some ground balls, that kid will be better than you because he's probably tougher, so he's already got that on you. But he's also, he's also willing to go and work on some stuff that isn't all that easy to do.
• 45:57
  Speaker A: Right?
• 46:00
  Speaker B: Just my opinion. Don't get mad at me if you disagree. But
• 46:05
  Speaker A: that's the beautiful thing about it. You can disagree and still, still come find common ground.
• 46:10
  Speaker B: Sometimes we can. Keith, anything else you want to add to this combo, coach?
• 46:17
  Speaker A: No, sir.
• 46:19
  Speaker B: All right, well, thank you for listening, everybody. Obviously, I think you could tell by our tone and our approach to this one that, you know, we think these next, you know, six to eight months are really, really valuable for kids. And it's not just the planning, which is a big, big part of it is having an idea of what you're doing now and how this is all going to play out in the next eight or nine months, but just the sheer effort and the time and the commitment that's needed. And it's an awesome opportunity for so many kids these next eight, nine. Eight or nine months. And the kids who take advantage of it and see it as an opportunity, they're going to benefit from it greatly. So thank you for listening. Tune in next week. We'll talk to you then. Thanks everybody. Thank you for listening this week. If you're watching on YouTube, go ahead and hit that subscribe subscribe button and smash that like button for us. Check us out on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, as well as Spotify. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram MD Baseball. If you want to find out what me and Keith do to help families and players navigate the recruiting process, go ahead and check us out on emdbaseball.com take a few minutes to check out our new online academy. I promise you'll get some good information out of that. Thanks again for listening. Check in with you next week. Just watch.