- Data is becoming more and more mainstream, the folks who have questioned it are seeing they have been left behind and are making strides in catching up. The tech companies are making it easier and easier to understand the data easily. On the flip side this isn’t always a good thing if it’s expected that numbers on an app are assumed to be absolute and coaches don’t know how to interpret the difference.
- Nate Pearson, Tony Seabase and myself, shared an Air BnB with Mark Spencer, Tim Gibbons, Julian Gonzalez, Chad Longworth, and Chase Cunningham. These guys are really good, at coaching, understanding, dissecting, questioning, and the amount of software/platforms to collect data is going to be the next wave.
- Chad Longworth is really really good, like not kinda good, but really really good. Like some hitting coaches are kinda good, but he’s like REALLY GOOD not just kinda good, or even just good, but like REALLY GOOD.
- Bobby Tewksbary is really cool. He said I was funny, I liked that. Then in a matter of 5 minutes he challenged everything I thought I knew about our “mission” or our “why” and I was like “uuuhhh….” Nate, Tony, and I walked away with a lot of great talking points and were able to articulate that better. Thanks Bobby!
- Side Note: I will also nag the crap out of Bobby to talk with me again for more than 5 minutes, be prepared for that Twitter storm. He did tell me to… kinda. He’s definitely a guy I just got a really really good human being vibe from and I like those types of people. Average of your 5 friends.
- Joey Myers was a great time to talk hitting with, talking about biology of the eyeballs and brain was a great time. Looking forward to diving deeper into his book “The Catapult Loading System” something I’ve been looking at for way too long and will now finally pull the trigger.
- The “Hot Stove” with Justin Stone, Bio-Mechanical Consultant for the Chicago Cubs, Donald Ecker Asst. Hitting Coach with the Cincinnati Reds, Jacob Cruz with the Pirates along with the Rockies and Brewers Hitting coordinators was really good. A lot of “Maybe’s,” and “it depends.” Movement assessments and integrating different swings for different types of players at the big league level, as well as trying to new things in conjunction with the timeline of failure when adding pieces in or taking pieces out.
- Those guys like the word “turn” a lot. They enjoy saying “Torso” and “Posture”….. hhhmmm weird #WinkyFace
- Before the Hot Stove and during the Hot Stove, I heard Donald Ecker say the word “Context” a lot in a short amount of time and that made me feel warm and fuzzy inside.
- He also said he believes in Batting Average a lot despite what the analysts say so who knows, maybe this guy is wacko…. Just kidding…. Well he did say that, but he’s really really smart and you know… “context” He’s probably not wrong. #ShoulderShrug
- Donnie also said Legs be ready for fastball, torso think off-speed. Some guys will probably really benefit from that. The biggest take away from all of those guys is get your legs ready for velo. But, none of them said “get down early.” This is very very good, it also made me feel warm and fuzzy, but not quite as warm and fuzzy as “context.”
- Speaking of Jacob Cruz, I liked his product a lot. Definitely need to figure out how it “fits” into our training platform and drill series. If you’re a player with limited space, or a Dad looking for a simple and very good training tool. The Line Drive Pro Swing Trainer is good.
- If you sit in a room long enough with a pen and paper and other people just talking about hitting, and the future, great ideas can take place. (stay tuned)
- 4D-Motion is even better than I thought
- uHit is even better than I thought
- Aaron Chamberlain from Great Lakes Bat Company is changing the game even more than I thought. Other people “testing” bat fitting processes are missing the boat on a lot of things. He is also a better speaker in person than over the phone. Great analogies too, I like analogies.
- A lot of dudes wearing Silverback Sports hats. I wish I stopped and said “What’s up I’m in the #GorillaArmy Too” #FistBump
- Brett Thomas from Blast Motion is really cool, got hang out with him, you know, a cool blast guy, and their Social Media person said I was cool. NBD #BrushTheDirtOffOneShoulder
- Guys will still make fun of movement assessments and the weird and awkward tests that are performed with it if they first see it but can’t hear the context and have never seen it before. i.e. presentation mode from afar.
- Guys will also still make fun of movement assessments even if they have had the purpose explained to them. “Nope, just everybody swing it like ‘this’ simple” ….. okie dokie. For me, I don’t care anymore, we just need to try to help athletes the way we think is best. Guys will always do it totally different or at least slightly different, be open minded and don’t judge the closed minded ones. Let them be, keep asking questions.
- There are college teams with players who record 70mph Exit Velocities, be better at showcasing yourself and being open to schools like that because starting for 4 years is probably better than riding the bench for 4 years to say you played at a “higher division.”
- You can have confirmation bias all weekend and only hang around people you know are like you, or you can argue and yell and defend your point to the death with zero chance of convincing the other person just to argue, or you can tactfully disagree, be challenged, or challenge others to teach/learn something. The latter is best.
- If you invite a group of coaches back to your Air BnB at 2am, get back and they don’t show up for 10 minutes and you crawl into bed… they will definitely knock and text you “here”… and then want to stay up and talk about pitching until 4:30am….. OOF…. pitching… YUCK!
- Tee work still generally sucks… #Context
- I got to meet Jason Ochart in person, the take away was waiting patiently wasn’t an option I was cut by a lot of people while humming the Jeopardy song in my head, had to just kinda go stand immediately next to him blocking others and stare for a few awkward seconds as he finished his conversation. But he’s awesome, I think we get along because we’re both kinda goofy and don’t care.
- SpinBall came out with a ball feeder, Yee Haw to that, I’ll take automated feeding for $800 please. Hi A.J.
- Somebody came up and said “are you the Johansen Baseball guys, I LISTEN TO YOUR PODCAST!” It’s amazing our only listener managed to find us in Dallas, then buy Cowboy boots and that we ran into him again after he bought the boots. Thanks for the support!
- HitTrax is getting better, Rapsodo is getting better, both in different ways. Both good products.
- Justin Stones Ground Force Production talk discussing SwingCatalyst Bertect Force Plates drew a crowd. People are interested in that next wave. Going to be hard to adopt for the masses because of cost. Was a must have for us though. Integrating all the info together is a need for me. Outside of that, Justin and his team are doing some great work in regards to drills/etc that will carry over if you don’t have the Force Plates.
- After a great first ABCA in 2018, we attempted to take the same approach in year 2. We had one extra body, who was going for his first time. Next year a better plan is needed to set specific meetings, divide and conquer and attack the weekend better.
- That being said…. 2019 ABCA…. voted by Johansen Baseball Staff…… SUCCESS! Looking forward to 2020 in Nashville.