What if everything you thought you knew about exit velocity shake was just scratching the surface? Hey there, and welcome back to the Swing Smarter Hitting Training Podcast brought to you by hittingperformancelab.com. Today's guest is one of the most controversial and brilliant voices in baseball science, Perry Husband, the pioneer behind effectivevelocity.com. He's worked with MLB Sluggers, College Phenoms, and even helped powerhouse programs like Oklahoma softball dominate with jaw dropping power and efficiency. But this episode isn't just about metrics.
It's about the truth behind why your athlete might be underperforming and how one misunderstood number athlete might be underperforming and how one misunderstood number, exit velocity, could be the missing link to unlocking their full hitting potential. Deqa, we're diving into why teaching exit velocity isn't about chasing radar numbers. It's about teaching timing, mechanical efficiency, and building hitters who thrive under pressure. Perry brings the receipts with jaw dropping stories, MLB comparisons, and game changing drills that will leave you rethinking how you approach every swing. Whether you're a coach tired of seeing pop ups and strikeouts or a parent wondering why your kid mashes in practice but folds in games, this episode is for you.
Let's flip the switch from eighty five eighty five to a hundred a hundred a hundred hitting and show your athlete what real power feels like. Hello, and welcome to the hittingperformancelab.com. We are going to have a conversation about exit velocity, bat, baseball, the batted exit velocity. And I have on with me the honorable Perry Husband and effectivevelocity.com, and I wanted to start us off. First, welcome, Perry.
Thank you, sir. Always a pleasure. And I figured we we had a a a good conversation, starter that I would start off with. And the question is so the context first. Let me put the context because this isn't just an innocent question.
This is a question that was posed that I saw, and we're not gonna mention mention the name. Most of you out there will probably know who this is. But it was a question posed with a screenshot of a major leaguer. I can't even remember the the hitter. Maybe maybe Perry knows or remembers.
But the hitter the the celebration of it was, well, this this hitter doesn't have a high exit velocity, but he's doing really well right now. And I don't know if they are or not working with with this particular guy, but it was almost being celebrated as bollocks of speed is irrelevant, who cares, why are we even talking about it, and this question was posed. It was a taking the infographic and then tweeting retweeting it with a quote from this particular instructor. And the question was, when your instructor is teaching exit velocity..dot, ask him why. So, Perry, let me throw that over to you.
Why would you teach exit velocity? What's wrong with you? Well, I'll tell you the origin of exit velocity was the very first video that that I did with Jay Bell was the first mention of exit velocity in baseball. We introduced the concept. And the reason that I did was because I coached at a small little junior college, and we had a bunch of kids that could play.
But nobody liked it. They're all too small. They were all too this. They were all too that, and they just didn't fit the mold. And it was very I was bitter because they could hit, and they could really hit.
But the only way you can prove that when they don't fit the mold is measure it. Right? That to me, this this comes down to that, and that alone is if you if you wanna find out which thing, which movement, which philosophy, produces the most, test it. You know what I mean? Don't believe me or you or anybody else.
Test it and find out which produces the most. And exit velocity to me is the number one number in all of baseball. It's in fact, for both pitching and hitting, the the biggest question in this game is how do you produce hard contact. And exit velocity is the measurement for hard contact. So the pitchers that do the best, they keep hitters at 82, 80 three miles an hour of exit velocity.
What what does that mean? Well, they they stop allowing damage. They they limit the damage. And hitters that are producing the most exit velocity, they're the ones that are creating the big hoopla. They're they're the ones that are they're doing the most damage because they're on time, and that's a very complicated statement on being on time.
But they're on time more often than everybody else. So we call it 101. Mhmm. And it's % on time, % maximum efficiency with the swing. And the only way you can measure that is through exit velocity.
Well, it's the number one way. Let's put it that way. And, what's interesting about exit velocity, and and I I just did an article, and this this video will be right over that will be right embedded in that article. So if you're watching watching this and you've seen the article, you know what I'm talking about. So I decided to to to drum up a hundred and one reasons to answer that question of why if you got a coach that's teaching exit velocity, ask them why.
I have a hundred and one reasons why and the the benefits of ball exit speeds. One of the big ones that I remember reading in fan graphs, this was probably four or five, six years ago, and they were talking about the idea of when there there's a certain line, there's a certain ball exit speed that when it reaches that ball exit speed, and I think it's you might know better than me, but I think it's like 94, 90 five, errors on the in the infield. We're talking about major leaguers. Major league errors starts to go up dramatically. Is that right?
94, 90 five? Yep. There's a there is there's so much about that. Like, one of the things I did in a recent book for exit velocity for softball hitters is, I did a a graphic of MLB stats because that's the most readily available. And when you just add five miles an hour of exit velocity to a hitter, crazy, crazy stuff starts to happen.
Slugging percentage goes up significantly. Like like, when you go from 85 to 90, huge jump. You go from 90 to 95 in exit velocity, and that's when the hard hit balls are can are started in Major League Baseball. And the the batting average and I I'm gonna I'm not I don't remember the the stat off the cuff, but it was around a 20, points in batting average was the jump. And you go to that next one.
In fact, it might be it might be, like, 60 points when you jump that one. Well, you go to 95 to a hundred, and that thing goes up way over a hundred points in batting average. But the slugging percentage is is crazy high. I'll share that graphic, for whatever post that you're gonna do. Yep.
Because it was it's powerful. It just keeps going up and up and up and up exponentially when you add exit velocity. Mhmm. So that and that's why it's the number one number. It's why they picked 95 miles an hour because all the stats go crazy at that number.
And when you have certain guys in the big leagues who who that's 75, 70 six percent of their max. So they can stumble out of bed, do whatever methodology they have, and hit a ball off their knuckles at 75% of their max. Mhmm. And and that's great. That's okay.
I'm not I'm not, bashing that. I'm just saying, and this is the core, I essence, I think, of what you and I have been talking about all this time. The argument is is what do you teach kids? What I mean, what's the best method? Not what works for the biggest kid in the league.
What is the best method to teach kids? And the answer is the one that's the most efficient that takes the least amount of energy and produces the most output measured by something, and that something is exit velocity. Sorry. It's the number one number. I have a a good buddy of mine.
He he's up in a a strength conditioning coach up in Santa Cruz, and he he buys into this stuff, but he's more into the movement side. I played ball with him at at he was a college baseball guy. We played freshman year at state together and traveled on the road. We were road road roadies together when we were on the road. And I was we went up this we usually we go up this summer.
I take the family, and and we go I go visit with him and, was just happened that he was sunsetting one of his his middle school travel teams, and he was trying to consolidate the teams that they have and stuff. And so he they were doing their last week with these with these two teams. So I was talking to him and we're talking about another another, fellow teammate who's a couple years older than me, and and he's a area scout in our area in the Central Valley. And he was scouting one of my buddies' players, and he was asking, you know, Joe, what, what's this guy's does this guy have power? And then Joey says, well, it's he he he's got a you know, he's 91 off the tee ball exit speed, and and the scout says, woah.
Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah.
Joe. Joe. Joe. I don't wanna hear ball exit speed. I don't wanna hear you talk about ball exit speed.
He goes, does this guy have power? And so Joey thinks back. He's like, okay. Let me take a different route here. Well, his his launch angle is about blah blah blah blah blah, whatever the range was.
And, yeah, I got it. Joe, I don't wanna hear about launch angles. Joe, does this guy have power? And so Joey sit trying to figure out, okay. Well, what?
Well, you know what? He's got he had one home run this last year, so I guess he doesn't have power. So that was what my buddy had to end up saying. I mean, what else what else is there? But, you know, I'm thinking about when I was doing this article, in in your talks, I'm thinking about as a scout, your job is potential potential performance.
Right? You're you're not drafting a guy based on what he can do now. Present you have to you have to speculate that based on what he has where he's at presently. So if you're only working on maybe maybe this this scout is looking at the swing itself, the mechanics, maybe. I mean, I don't know.
But if he's just looking at stats, if he's just looking at home runs or like, current current home runs and not looking at anything else, to me, he's not doing his job. Right. I agree. I I did a camp one time with a scout who was a good friend of mine. He was with the, with the brewers.
And we did it at Antelope Valley College when I was coaching out there as an assistant, and and he said I told him, I wanna do this weird thing today. It's gonna it's not nobody's ever done it before, but I wanna do it. I wanna put a a a tee at home plate. I wanna have every kid take five swings at the plate. And he's like, oh, man.
I can't even imagine what you're going for there. And the first kid that hit was this 15 year old, and he steps up and hits the ball out about 350 feet over the fence. And the scout's eyes lit up like, wait a second. If he can do that off the tee at 15, this kid is he's got some pop. Right?
Because hitting it off the tee, this is another reason why a lot of the, a lot of the coaches out there hate t exit speed because guys swing too hard, and it's not realistic. But from my money, it's the only one you can really count on because it doesn't have anything to do with getting help or hindrance from the ball the pitch ball. Right. And in fact, in softball, it's the most crucial element, and people don't even know that it exists. Because the baseball bat is heavier than a softball bat, and the baseball is lighter than a softball.
So when the baseball and the bat happen to hit, there's a certain amount of force at impact. And when the body is in a weak position, it absorbs a lot of that shock like a bunt. Right? Mhmm. You know, if I if I lock out on a bunt, the ball's gonna hit and jump off, like, my bat like crazy.
Yeah. They tell you to bend and give. Uh-huh. To create that shock. Right?
So that 90 mile an hour pitch hits my bat at zero bat speed, and it comes off at 10 miles an hour. Mhmm. All the rest goes into me, right, until I do this or until I do this, where I lock out and I push. Mhmm. Now I've got body speed, bat speed, plus that collision, and now the ball jumps off my bat like crazy.
Right? It goes all the way to the outfield. In a stronger position. Stronger position. Stronger position locked and moving.
Mhmm. Right? Yeah. So when you hit, if you're hitting and you're bent, in baseball, you get away with it because the bat and the ball force is different than it is in softball. Like, if you remember, I was on a the sports science episode with Jenny Finch when they had a baseball pitcher throwing a ball, and he was they were measuring how hard it was how much force there was an impact.
In a force field. Plexiglas thing. Right? Mhmm. And he hits the plexiglass at at 90 miles an hour, 95, whatever they said.
And and the ball hits, and it, you know, shakes it, but it doesn't break it. So they had they could measure it. And then Jenny Finch throws us a 68 mile an hour pitch, but it was softball. And it shatters the plexiglass because the force of the softball is so much greater than the force of the baseball, and the the bat is so much lighter in softball that now when those two things hit each other, dramatic. That's why nobody likes t exit velocity because the average hitting instructor, their their t exit velocity is the same as their game exit velocity.
Mhmm. And that's a problem. Right? Because, man, I we can't have that. There's something wrong with that.
Yeah. But what that tells you is that there's something wrong with your philosophy because you should have a jump every time the speed of the pitch goes up, period. If you don't, then there's something in the body at impact that's causing you to lose exit velocity. Because you're absorbing energy, that force. I mean, there's really only two ways to increase it without getting stronger.
Right? Like, right now and you've experienced it. I've experienced it thousands of times. Our average, in fact, through PocketRadar, I had them download my stats because I I couldn't do it. Like, every time I try to pull up my stats because I wanted to get I do a before and after typically when I work with a player.
I wanna do a before, see where you're at, and then I wanna do an after after we get a chance to experiment a little bit and play around. Day one. Right? So our average is six and a half increase. Mhmm.
Because the norm out there is teaching all kinds of weird stuff that just doesn't it doesn't test. And so when when, when he downloaded that stuff for me, it took him a day and a half to download because we have we put her so much of that Mhmm. Exit velocity stuff. But the the bottom line is is that when you when you add or subtract, there's there's two ways, like I said, that you when you add a speed, whether it's body speed or bat speed, Body speed is me moving into the moment of impact versus me falling away at the moment of impact, like a fallaway jump shot or short stop running away from first base throwing. I can do it.
I can even do it with some speed. I can't do it with maximum speed. So, you know, there's a there's a trade off. But so I can add speed, and bat speed is one. Body speed is one.
Rotational speed is another one. But then the the the other way is to decrease how much I lose because there's lots of kids out there producing great bat speed, but it isn't maximized because they they they max they they max out too early and start to desal process by the time the the ball gets to the bat or the bat gets to the ball. And they they're they end up taking that huge bat speed and having it minimized, and it's pretty significant when you when you actually do numbers like that. It's it's pretty significant, the difference. I've had kids at, with massive bat speed that are not producing any exit velocity because there's so many leaks, I guess Mhmm.
For lack of a better term, so many leaks. Like, when a sprinkler is leaking, you got all the other ones are Yeah. All the pressure goes down. Right. Exactly.
And it's exactly the same thing in your swing. Whenever there's something missing, and one of the biggest things missing is what happens at impact. And in softball, it's huge, that difference, because the you have to overcome a lot of force at the moment of impact. And that's one of the reason why Oklahoma is just absolutely lighting it up because they're doing that better than anybody else in the country. We'll go into that.
So there we had a talk a few weeks back where you were talking well, actually Pena Carlos Pena was talking on m o MLB Central. Well, actually, it was on Instagram, but I think it was on MLB Central or something like that. And he was talking about he was comparing Ohtani and Judge to a Reese or a Rise, however you say his name. Right? For the for the Marlins, the guy was hitting almost 400 or, you know, he's still up there.
So talk talk about hard hit rate versus sweet spot percentage and what Carlos what you and Carlos had talked about. Well, what he was talking about was that Arias, gets to 85% of his maximum exit loss, which is right around a hundred. Mhmm. K? So which is really low for major league players.
His exit loss, he gets to eighty five percent twenty four percent of the time. Judge and Ohtani were both at 12% of the time. They get to 85% of their max. So when you do a straight comparison like that, he gets to closer to his max twice as often as they do. And that I mean, you think about that, and a lot of people argue at this point because they're they're it's like, well, if I'm big enough, I'm like Judge and I can hit the ball.
I don't need to be at %. But why not? Yeah. Well, I mean and the answer is is because if you are at if you're not at maximum efficiency, it takes everything you've got to hit one out. Right?
Like, in in softball, it's right around 67 is that number where the ball starts to leave the yard. Maybe 65 on certain conditions. Right. So if you are maxing out at 67, then it takes everything you got to hit one out. Okay.
But what if I get up to 80? I mean, we have girls in high school that are eighty, eighty one. Mhmm. And when you get to that point, you miss it and hit a pop up, and it leaves the yard. And that's the whole difference is that when you maximize everything, you you count on the fact that you're gonna miss hit it way more often than you're gonna hit it perfect, and that's why the numbers are are stupid.
When you when you start maximizing everything, when you when you really focus in on 100, one hundred, you miss at ninety ninety. And the average person walks up to the plate in the big leagues, and they're trying to be at 85, 80 five. They're not trying to be at 100. They're just trying to get, a a smooth move on the ball and trying to be on time and hit a ball firm, and and that's it. That's what they're trying to accomplish.
And so that's why the average exit velocity in the major leagues is somewhere around 75% of their max. Mhmm. It's because when when you do the math of everybody's top out plus their average in games, it's right around 75, maybe 80 with some of them. Arias was higher than everybody else. So what what Carlos said was, well, what if those two guys got more efficient and took the power that they had, and they got to 85% of their max 24% of the time.
What would the numbers look like? And it was through the roof, like, way over a hundred homers. Mhmm. That's been my all star break. So I think Ohtani was at 34 at the all star break, and I think I think Carlos said on in that video that he would be at, like, 64 at the all star break.
Yeah. Yeah. A 28 homers, I think, was one of them, one of those guys. And and that's that's that's exactly the point is when you really start measuring things and you really get to the nth degree of measurement, that that's the only way that you can make speculation stuff like that. Like, my personal feeling is that Major League Baseball's bar is set very low.
Mhmm. It's set at league average. Like, if I'm a little above league average, woo hoo. Mhmm. We're throwing parties.
Right? Because that's that's a really great accomplishment. And I'm not trying to belittle that, but when you look at it like that, like, when you actually take numbers like what Arise is doing and how often he gets to his absolute max out almost, and then you look at the other guys and how how how how often they don't get to absolute max out, There's a there's an issue there. There's some kind of an efficiency thing. There's a contact thing.
There's, you know, leakage somewhere. Something's happening to cause them not to be. And, I mean, my that's been my life's work is is figuring out all those different leak points. You know? A lot of it is is mechanical, but, also, a lot of it is just a misunderstanding of of the game that they're actually playing.
They're playing eighty five eighty five, and I wanna be playing 100, one hundred. Right. Yeah. And why can't we? Right?
I mean, it's when somebody says, well, you got the the coach that's teaching exit speeds, exit, ball exit speeds. You ask them why. And I'm I'm thinking about these hitters that first come in to see me. I have a couple this week that are brand new. One is he's gonna be a he's incoming freshman.
We worked on Monday, and then I have another one that's 12 that is playing with a couple of my hitters that I've worked with, that I still work with, and all of them. So talking about just the 12 year old. So I have three. So two team teammates I've worked with, and we got a teammate coming in on Saturday for the first time. And the the first two, same story as this new guy coming in.
Same story. So they were great at 10, 11 u. They were smashing the ball all over the place. And around that time, because my boy is 10 now, and I'm coaching his team, been coaching his team for the last five years. And at 10 years old, the pitchers that do better are the ones that put in the work that that they just throw, throw, throw, throw, throw.
Not necessarily have a plan or anything. They just throw, throw, throw. They get good at at finding the strike zone. Right? Nine and 10 years old.
About 11, 12, that's when pitchers start to move the ball around. They start using change ups, and they start moving up and down and in and out and things, and they start to have that control. So those hitters that were nine and 10 years old hitting these pitchers that were just trying to throw strikes are smashing. But then once the pitchers start actually using strategy against them, the lights go out, and they're frustrated as hell. And and when they come to see me, I I mean, their shoulders are slumped.
They're they can't they can't get it out of the infield. I mean, they're having a hard time. There's no power, no extra base hits, nothing. So we go to work and we, you know, just like you, we do a combination of different things. We do mechanics.
We do strategy. We do all kinds of different things. And then with I mean, almost instantly, even just with the strategies or the mechanics and or the mechanics, instantly, their ball exits, like, five jumps. If your young hitter is stuck at the plate swinging hard but getting weak results, it's time to stop guessing and start testing. In this episode with the legendary Perry Husband of effectivevelocity.com, we break down why exit velocity isn't just a buzzword.
It's the ultimate measurement of efficiency, timing, and real game power. The pros may have size on their side, but what about your kid? Perry makes it clear, the hitters who dominate aren't the strongest, they're the most efficient, and that's exactly what Swing Shift is built to deliver. With just three to five minutes a day, the Swing Shift daily hitting system helps youth hitters increase exit velocity, sharpen timing, and develop repeatable game day power without burning out or getting stuck in outdated mechanics. If you want your athlete walking up to the plate with confidence and crushing balls the same way they do in BP, it starts with a smarter, measurable approach.
Visit hittingperformancelab.com/swing shift and make every rep count five jumps to a 10, jumps 15. And and now two, three, four sessions later, they're walking in chest out, shoulders. I mean, smile on their face. I mean, they're just, like, self confidence is there. So if you're not teaching based on exit speed and you're teaching something inferior, an inferior model, I'm looking at these kids that don't have exit speed walking in and and their demeanor when they're walking in versus when I teach them exit speed and the difference in their demeanor afterwards.
The before and after is undeniable. I I had a conversation with a high school coach because he hated the way I I taught. And but I had a few of his players. Right? His like, his best players.
Mhmm. And when they started with me, they were they were around 68. Right? They don't use they didn't use exit velocity at all there. So they just went by, does he have power?
You know? And and the my my philosophy was, well, let's measure it and see if he has power. At 68, no. You do not. Because the ball is never leaving the yard if you're at 68.
Well, those kids, when you get them to 88, guess what? When when you're at 88, now you start to hit balls in games. Like, because if you're if you're at 88 off the tee, then you're gonna be at about 92, 90 four off soft toss, hard soft firm soft toss. Or BP is gonna go up to, like, you know, six or seven miles an hour. And then when you get in games, it's gonna go up, like, nine, ten.
Like, Carlos was at 99 when I worked with him, about one zero eight MVP and one nineteen in games. Right? And that's the kind of the jump that should take place Mhmm. Is is around 8%, something like that each time you add a big significant amount of of pitch speed. Yep.
But if your mechanics are are poor, you're not gonna make those jumps. You might even go backwards. There's a lot of players right now in America that their exit speed in games is lower than their t exit speed, which is a crime. And that's that's the problem right there in a nutshell. If the whole world would just test off the tee Mhmm.
And then get live exit losses out of their games, they would be mortified at what those numbers show them. Mhmm. But the powers that be out there with the loud microphones, they they don't want you to know that because that punches a hole right in some of those theories. Because if you are teaching a 10 year old to have a very inefficient swing and hit the ball airborne with 42 miles an hour of exit velocity, what are you doing? There's no point in that whatsoever.
He's never gonna hit a homer in his life, and and all you're gonna do is create pop ups and toppers and and swings and misses and foul tips. And that's what you see, you know, when you do an actual test of players, that's what happens. You know, when I've had I've had pro kids and and minor league kids and, college kids come in, and and we'll do a test. Exit velocity first off the tee, and then we'll do a little easy, comfortable 35 mile an hour overhand soft toss firm. Right?
Somewhat firm, but from, you know, maybe 20 feet away. And same exit velocity. And and then you start moving the ball around. Mhmm. And the x velocity average x velocity goes down.
Mhmm. And then you start mixing in an off speed pitch, obvious off speed pitch. Mhmm. And their x velocity goes down even more. Mhmm.
And so when you test the right things, you start to see what's happening. You start to get the picture of, okay. Yes. Big power off the tee. It doesn't translate into, even soft toss.
Mhmm. Like, if you just did those four tests I just described to every player in the country, you'd be shocked how how low that bar would be because it's it's it's very, it's very telling when you measure the right stuff. Mhmm. And the right stuff is exit velocity under different circumstances, like hitting a basketball. Right.
Hitting a basketball, back when I was doing a lot of of one on one stuff, I had multiple kids at a hundred miles an hour all the time. And I had one kid that was, he would hit a fully inflated basketball as a junior in high school, 83 miles an hour. He He was one zero three off the tee with a wood bat, and he was eighty three with the basketball. So that's 80% of his max, with with a fully inflated full size NBA basketball. Mhmm.
If you test your swing with something and and the reason you use basketball because it it reinforces that that force that happens at impact. Right? You're replacing that. Mhmm. And but you're doing it off the tee.
And the average player, they're not gonna test very well on that until you have them do it a few times. And then as soon as they they pull this, you know, where they're not quite locked out and they're not quite moving through the moment of impact, and then they see their score, I guarantee you something happens automatically the very next time they do that test. Mhmm. That number jumps. Yep.
But then so does their mechanical efficiency. Mhmm. Because instinctively, their body knows because of that vibration that's happening that we called it a self leveling test, self leveling drill. When you hit a basketball and and you put speed to it where exit velocity you're chasing exit velocity, you go up instantly because your body figures out Bernstein's law. You you figure out that the task is I've gotta I gotta get more speed, and I gotta lock out better because I got crazy amounts of vibration when that basketball hits my bat.
And the second you start chasing exit velocity with that, it gets better. And then your game exit velocity goes significantly higher. And you're and you're talking about 80%. So it needs to be at least 80% where Well, I'd say 80 is a pretty really good number. Like, that kid was as maxed out as you can get.
Because one zero three with a wood bat for a junior in high school is very legit. Yeah. I mean, just to put that in perspective, Bryce Harper as a junior was at 98, 90 six. Mhmm. Mhmm.
So that's high. It's very high. That's Right. That's a nuke. That's more than a nuke.
Yeah. Yeah. I had a kid at 107 once. He was a JC kid, though, not not a high schooler. Mhmm.
Right. So what's interesting too is that so when I did this the one zero one reasons, you know, the answering that question of why, you know, the the you ask the coach why they teach exit speeds. So I to be fair, I I also brought in 12 reasons why not to teach ball exit speed. And it's funny because all 12 all 12 were about, well, if you become too obsessed with ball exit speed, then the the hitter's timing suffers. Or if you become too obsessed with ball exit speed, then then the hitter the you know, you're so obsessed with power that their average goes down, things like that.
And is it can we have power and average? Can we have high hard hit rate and high, sweet spot percentage? Can we have a % timing and a % hard hit rate? I mean, what are we doing here? I would tell you that that's the greatest thing that Oklahoma has done with their offense over the last six years, five years, is they have taken those questions, those myths, and they have answered them very succinctly.
Do you have to strike out when you produce more homers? No. They had more homers than strikeouts. Do you have to lose your batting average when you add more homers? No.
They led the nation in batting average and homers, and they struck out less than everybody else, and they walked more. And, you know, I mean, the list is very long. Mhmm. And the reason is because it's really not really 100, one hundred. It's really 100, one hundred, one hundred.
Mhmm. And there's probably a few more of those, but the the three primary ones is were you 100% in the center of the ball. Right? So was your contact, your quality of contact at 100%? And the answer to that question is almost 100% no, never.
Because it's too hard to get a round ball and a round bat to perfectly hit in the center very often. It just doesn't happen hardly at all. So but that's a measurement. Right? And the reason that you have to be so precise, it's like you break the sound barrier.
It's I think it's 757 miles an hour. Mhmm. Not at 740. You're going really fast, but you are not breaking the sound barrier till you break that you get to that magic number. The water is cold, but it doesn't freeze until it gets to a certain degree.
Right? There's a there's an exact moment for those things so that you know what that perfect moment is, and you can measure up to it and beyond it. Right? But that's the magic number. One hundred one hundred one hundred is not about trying to make you perfect.
It's about trying to show you what perfect is to see how close each element that you're doing is to that. Mhmm. And and that's why Oklahoma is is they have changed both games forever. Nobody knows this yet, but, like, Tiger Woods came in and was an athlete, superior athlete when when the golfing world was not. Right?
It was more of a recreation. You know? It was a sport still, but it was but they didn't consider it something that you had to go out and work out for. But he he set the bar so high that he forced everyone else. Now the game is all about that.
Right? You have all these young kids that are that are stud athletes that are now as hitting it as far farther than he is or was. Mhmm. And and that's what Oklahoma has done is they've raised the bar so high in, you know, that Allo, I think, had Jocelyn Allo had five homers to every strikeout. And the reverse of that is true in Major League Baseball.
The average is, like, around five and a half or six strikeouts for every homer. Mhmm. He had the exact opposite of that. Five homers for every strikeout. I think she struck out a dozen times or something like that.
Wow. While hitting 500, while hitting 34 bombs or whatever it was. It was ridiculous. Mhmm. But it's it's 100, one hundred, one hundred.
Quality of contact goes up when you're timing when you're a % on time, your quality of contact gets better. And when your mechanical efficiency gets better, both of those other two things go up. So they're all related super closely. And when you're trying to maneuver the bat through the zone and trying to get extended at the moment of impact, good luck with that. And that's why you're at 75% of your max because you're trying to do something that you're starting at eighty five eighty five, and you're settling for seventy five seventy five.
Five. Mhmm. Whereas if you start at a hundred, you can settle at 85 and be ahead of the game of everybody else by maxing out and averaging 85% of your max. That's that's the point. And, like, going back to Arise, what if he added power?
Right? Because what Oklahoma has done is they've taken the Arias' on their team and bumped them up in power. Mhmm. Are they hitting 34 homers? No.
But they're hitting 20 or 18. Mhmm. And what happens to the the Ohtanis and the judges? Well, they're hitting four eighty with with 30 jacks and carrying that batting average that's ridiculous and and not striking out. So that's that's what they've done is they've taken the the judges and and the Ohtanis, and they've moved them up.
And they've also taken the ones that make really great contact. And and so it's like this. Right? You just keep measuring stuff, and then you find the maximum for everybody. Mhmm.
Why why can't everybody be at max? Why do I have to settle on one of those things or the other? And the answer is you don't. They're tied closely together. When you maximize exit velocity, you also maximize that 100% quality of contact, and you also maximize the your timing.
It your your timing gets better. Mhmm. And that and that's what's crazy is going back to that original question, the you teach an you know, you got run into an instructor teaching exit velocity, ask them why. And that throwing shade at the coaches that do, like yourself and and and myself, and throwing shade at that and parents, team coaches, instructors that just don't know any better, and they they take that and you poo poo it and you make it make it, horrible, like you're radioactive if you teach exit velocity type swings. Like you said, it sets hitting back two, three decades.
Those coaches with that mentality, with the mentality of pooh poohing, throwing shaded exit velocity instruction is setting baseball back. And for the main reason you're talking about is that it will shed light on how inferior their philosophy is. And if you if you don't if you if you don't listen to what we had to say today and think, maybe maybe the question should actually be, if you see the instructor that is not teaching exit velocity, ask them why. Yeah. Because there's a reason.
And I can guarantee you that the reason is is that they don't wanna know. They don't wanna know what your game exit velocity is compared to your t exit velocity. Mhmm. Because that shows some weakness in theory. Mhmm.
Because if it's if you are not jumping, each time pitch speed is added, if you are not jumping and they tried to analytics came out with this thing one time, it was made me almost wanna hurl. They and it because this is what happens in analytics a lot is that they'll they'll get some data that's really actual hard data. And they took Giancarlo Stanton, and they had him they they said that, well, all of his highest exit velocities, all of his 22 mile an hour exit velocities are happening on lower speed pitches. And my hypothesis is that that means that the harder the pitch comes in doesn't mean the harder it goes out. What that means is that the opposite of that's true.
It's like the the highest exit velocities happen on lower speed pitches. So my first question is, well, wait a second. Did you test Giancarlo Stanton at 70 miles an hour, 80 miles an hour, 90 miles an hour, a hundred mile an hour pitches? And did you make sure that his swing was perfect at all those different places? And did you make sure that his exit or his contact quality was at or near absolute max out?
Before you say that, you have to thoroughly test that because they didn't. And and the reason that it's true that it's a true statement that his exit velocity goes up is because he's bent until he's not. And when he gets fooled on those off speed pitches, guess what? He gets to the better locked out position Mhmm. By accident.
It's not even on purpose. Yeah. It's more of an accident than it is on purpose. Mhmm. And and that's not a knock to him.
That's just the philosophy that he's lived with his whole life, probably not even his own, probably, you know, been forced on him by a thousand coaches over the years. Mhmm. But that's what I'm talking about exactly. Like, when you take it to the nth degree, that is that is that's falsely taking real data, putting in a hypothesis on it, and then saying that that's science. That's an absolute fact.
And that's ridiculous. That's not it's not even close to being accurate. Right. Yeah. So I I think the biggest thing and and and we only got a couple more minutes here for this for this video.
I'm sure we'll do more on this because there more is gonna come up, I'm sure. But, you know, you I didn't even get to show any examples, man. I have some I spent, like, an hour trying to get ready for some examples of awesome footage. Let's let's let's do let's set it part two. Once we get off, set up part two.
So we'll schedule that so we so we can we can take advantage of that because that that'd be that'd be great to to show people. You know, we were just talking today, get bringing up anecdotal, stories and things like that. But the the I think the the big thing that and this is what I started hitting Performance Lab with. So it used to be swingsmarter.com. It was when I I was basically teaching what I was taught, swing down and through, swing down and through the ball, swing down and through the ball.
So when hitting Performance Lab came around, I decided I remember our our our strong discussions on locking out versus not. Ben. Yep. Exactly. No, man.
No. But see, that's how I'm but see that's how I'm different than than most is, hey. If you get if you can give me better data and you can show me a better way, I'll listen where that that does not that is not normal. To test it. Right.
And that's what That's the problem in the world is they don't have the courage to test it because it's an argument science kind of versus religion. Yep. Like, I really truly believe that this is true Right. Versus I wanna measure this and find out if it's true. Right.
We've got a weird thing going on right now where where the the science people have started saying that this is true like the like the, you know, the heart of the ball comes in. It's not true. It's not that's that's that's a falsehood, but it's it's said in the name of science. And so everybody believes that it's true. Right.
Right. And and that's the thing is with hitting performance lab, I set out I I was really I fell in love with the scientific method in high school and then revisited it when I started hitting Performance Lab because I started questioning things, and that's where you and I our our connection started to happen and maybe questioned the front arm shape and all that kind of stuff. And so you you take you you form a question. You do a hypothesis, which you think the answer to that question is. You do the research, gather the data, the testing the testing portion of it, and then you form a conclusion.
And that's what I did. I would take, say, I used to call it, showing the numbers, but now we call it neck pressure because that's that's a little bit more accurate of what it is. So neck pressure versus no neck pressure. Hundred swings one way, hundred swings another way. We did we chunked it.
We did, like, 25 swing chunks and and, put it in a certain way. So we took out the we took out the the getting warmed up factor and the getting tired factor and found, like, you for an average an average of a four to six mile an hour increase. So you you take one and the other, boom. Put them up against each other and see which one's inferior and which one's superior. And if, like you said, everybody did that, and they didn't they don't have to go to that kind of lengths.
I use ZEP at the time, and they got their suit butt sued, but BlastMotion or or whatever. I mean, you know, we love we love, pocket radar. I mean, I love pocket radar, and that's that's that's kinda the one that that I use now. I know you use it use it quite a bit. But just make it simple.
Like, just make it simple. A radar gun, a Bushnell, which is, like, $50, I think. I mean, you just use that. It might it might not be accurate. J Bell was that cheap little thing, and it was set off to the side.
So it wasn't accurate because it was reading him from an angle. Mhmm. You know? Because I didn't want it to get killed. So I did it off offline, and so he was probably 12 miles an hour under what he really was.
Mhmm. But It was apples to apples. Right. It's apples to apples. Right?
That's all we're looking for is apples to apples comparison. That's it. So if it's a crappy piece of equipment that you're using to measure, just do it all the time if you're doing an experiment. Just use it for both both sides. And as long as you got apples to apples comparison, now you can decide whether the the crap that you're seeing on Instagram and Twitter and these drills and things, take one of those drills, put it up against one of our drills, and see what happens.
Like, you don't have to take our word for it. Just see what happens to the numbers. I don't want anybody to believe anything I'm saying. Yeah. I want them to go out and test it.
Yeah. But the problem is is they won't. They won't Yeah. In earnest test it because they have they have a belief system already in place. Mhmm.
My dad said this, or my coach said this, or guru on on the Internet said this. He didn't guru number 57, I call him. And he teaches this hitter, and so, therefore, that must be the answer. Uh-huh. And and, again, when you look at it like the way Carlos was looking at it, because my goal with Carlos when I worked with him as a player, my goal his goal was to transform from a slugger to a hitter.
Right? That was that was what he wanted to do. He wanted to become a a guy that was, you know, talked about amongst If you've been nodding along to this conversation about exit velocity, timing, and maximizing swing efficiency, here's your next move. Can the overload training bats at hittingperformancelab.com aren't just about building bat speed? They're your hitters shortcut to increasing exit velocity fast without changing their natural swing.
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This is how. Head to hitting performance lab dot com forward slash overload bats and give your hitter the edge they need to compete at the next level. Best hitters. Mhmm. And for periods of time, that happened.
He was he led the major leagues in exit velocity one year, the first year that they actually considered it a thing. Right. And and that was he called me totally excited. He goes, man, I know you're gonna be pumped, but I just got a new contract as a result of leading the majors in in exit velocity, and I that's what we've been working on the whole time. That was our 100% goal Yeah.
Was to lead the majors in that because that means we're producing the most 101 contact. And what else can you do? That's the process as to how it's how it's done. Right. Right.
The whole world will come around. It there is no way around that Mhmm. When you have the right measurement system. You know what's missing? The thing that's missing is bat speed and ball speed from the same device because I don't trust the interaction between two different devices to tell me which one is which.
Mhmm. I did some work twenty years ago with a a really cool machine that had a listening device that would measure the bat speed, but it would measure the end of the bat. So it would tell you a much faster speed than what I'm hearing now. Mhmm. But it it would measure bat speed, and then the this crack of the bat, it would switch over to exit velocity.
So there was a transition and a smash factor that would happen. And that's how you could tell when a kid was losing bat speed when they were they were they had a great bat speed, but their exit velocity was lower than their bat speed Mhmm. There's a problem because it always should have a a jump, and it should always jump. Mhmm. And that's that's gonna answer a huge amount of the questions because that's part of the reason why I got locked into some of this stuff early on was because we had that device to test and find out.
Mhmm. When you lock out, there was there was bat speed maxed out, and then that maxed out the the exit velocity. And and I'm sure I'm sure it made the numbers much more consistent too when you lock out versus when you don't. Right? I mean, the the makes the numbers much more consistent, so there's more of a spread.
The spread is less spready, and it's more concentrated, right, on the the actual numbers. Yeah. Because you can be you create when you have maximum mechanical efficiency, you buy yourself about this much time I don't know where I'm at. About this much time in line late and about that same amount early Mhmm. Where you can barely even tell the difference.
Mhmm. Whereas someone who's got a launch angle concept, they're coming through the zone, and their margin for error is virtually the width of a bat or a ball. Mhmm. So just a tiny bit early or late, four inches late, and they're fouling it off or popping it up or topping it. Mhmm.
And that's the that's what you're seeing in Major League Baseball right now. I mean, that's why you see a guy like, you know, in my opinion, one of the few guys in Major Leagues that actually has a legit shot at hitting 400. It's Cody Bellinger. Have the couple of the worst seasons you could ever imagine a superstar having was because of a swing plane that just was awful Mhmm. Because it doesn't match up.
And the second that that that changes a little bit, his whole world changes. Mhmm. He still has some some some belts to attain. He's not a black belt yet, but he's done the one that one thing. So have so do you know do you have pretty good close knowledge that he changed?
Because I I was actually talking to one of my hitters today, one of my high school guys, my juniors, who were talking about Bellinger and how awful he was for four years. And I'm I'm watching, and he was apparently working with this guy hitting guru number 57. And I I don't know how many times I'm watching a game and him swinging under a belt high fastball over and over and over and over and over and over again. And pitchers weren't even throwing breaking stuff or or off speed. It was just easier just to throw it up in the zone.
So my hitter was asking, so is he working with somebody else? You know, I had an epiphany, and and this was I was embarrassed about this epiphany because I kept listening to these people talking saying, oh, they're on plane. And I kept thinking, what are you talking about? The ball is like this. Right?
It's going through space, and your barrel is going like this up. Right. How do you call that on plane? And it and it and all of a sudden, it hits me. They're talking about being on plane to the what they wanna hit.
And I'm thinking, what in the world? Like, you're creating a line of the bat to end up at this 20 or 25 degree perfect line. And that's why you want your hands high. That's why you want the barrel to finish up there like that is to take it out of the line of the pitch and and elevate that line. And somebody's gonna have to correct me, but I'm pretty sure that's what they mean.
And and and that might be the the the worst thing other than maybe squish the bug or or foot down early or pull your hands in close to your body to create more speed Mhmm. And bend that lead elbow and get extended, push right through the moment of impact. Stay on your back leg. Stay on your back leg. Yeah.
Those things have set hitting back well, last year was the worst year in fifty five years for batting average in the major leagues. Worst. Because that's the, like, the culmination of all these thoughts and all these experiments, the hypothesis coming to fruition and going, holy. That's just not working. And then a couple of teams, you know, there's no it's it's not it's not a mistake that that Tim Hyers does it different than everybody else.
That's why his rangers are one of the top offenses in in baseball, if not the top. Mhmm. You know, that's it's probably a great argument between them and the braves. And and by the way, Seager's having a really good year this year with the Rangers. Watch him.
He's a lot flatter. Oh, he is. He got to a ball last night. We were watching him, letters. Yeah.
Freaking He never smashed that. It was foul down the line, Oppo, but he freaking smashed it. When you one of the terms that I hear him say a lot is, you know, not like, not not where the plane's taking off. Hit it down the runway. Like like, make the ball travel, like that high kind of line drive.
Right. Make the ball get in that kind of a plane and let the let the misses take care of themselves. Mhmm. But that's the that's the science argument that I would make to a lot of players is that when you swing up trying to hit the ball perfect and to hit it out, scientifically, they're right in saying that this launch angle produces the most. So pitch here, you're talking about swinging up.
So barrel path's here. This is the ball. You're talking about swinging up like this. Yeah. When when you when you do that to try to maximize the amount of balls that you're gonna hit, you got about a one in 10 at best Mhmm.
Chance of that taking place. Mhmm. More realistically, it's about one in twenty five to one in 50 that you make really great contact on that ball. When you get in line with the pitch, you quadruple that number at least. Yep.
And it it's probably way more than quadruple. Yep. So why does Oklahoma hit more homers than everybody else by a lot? Well, because they're quadrupling their odds. Mhmm.
They're not trying to hit the ball at 35 degrees. Mhmm. When you hit a ball at 10 degrees, that's in the middle of that pie shaped, area launch angle area. If you try to hit in the middle of that, you're gonna miss below and above center. I don't care who you are, what how good you think you are.
You're going to miss four times out of 10 underneath the center of the ball and four times out of 10 above the center of the ball because you got two round things. You can't hit them exactly the way you want. Never. Especially when you're not in line with the object. Mhmm.
So if you're in a head on collision, guess what? You're gonna hit four out of every 10 that have a chance to be a homer. Right. Well, I mean and it should be normal. Like, my hitter to figure out.
Well and and and, you know, when I was playing, I was taught taught to just swing down and through. That was it. Down and through. And so for us, our Honestly, I think that that is a total misnomer, though. I don't think anybody actually believes that except maybe A Rod who keeps saying it.
No. I know. No. No. Well, it I think it's we we use it for middle up, middle end pitches.
We we swing down on those because we want more of a tighter, more compact swing. We will use swing up, middle away, and middle down because that's gonna be more of, like, we call it Nike swoosh more middle away, middle down, and more check mark sign, middle and and and middle up. Right? It's not actually happening, but because, the brain knows where it needs to put the barrel on the ball. We differ on that that philosophy, I think, a little bit.
We we should have some conversation about that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
And and again, it's something that I work with my hitters, and it's it's it's a normal thing when they go to a tournament on a weekend, my girls and my boys, to come back with a, four for nine or five for 12 or an eight for 12 or sometimes a 12 for 14. Like, they're getting multiple hits every single game, and a lot of it has to do with, like you said, meeting the plane of the pitch. And, you know, that's just what I teach to get on plane, especially middle up and middle in. Yeah. But see, you and I mean on plane to the pitch.
Yes. World means on plane to the ball they wanna hit. Well, on playing to the barrel, I guess. The barrel path is what you're sounds like what you're saying. And when you say on playing get on they're trying to get on playing to where they want the ball to go, I think.
That's the only thing I can imagine because none of this is anywhere near any of the pitch paths. Right. Right. Yeah. Because a loopy curveball maybe.
Because when they say the elevate well, they said their normal fastballs by 95 or so plus is around five degrees down, middle, middle. Right? And then when you start when you go up in the zone, now you're talking, like, two to three degrees down or something like that. Right? Probably two one to two to three depending on where your angle is.
Up in the zone. So if you got a a swing plane that's shoot. Let's be let's be conservative and say it's 15 degrees up. You got a three two to three degree ball coming down up in the zone, and you got a 15 degree launch angle, which we know is more than that. They're doing 25 twenty twenty five.
Bellinger in those four years was twenty twenty twenty five degree launch angle as he or, barrel barrel angle attack angle as he was coming to the ball. And so then you got these 95 plus elevated fastballs coming in at two degrees. I mean, he like you said, one out of 25, one out of 50, he couldn't even bat his weight. It's amazing. I'm a huge fan of him too.
It was Yeah. I love I like him too. Watch it. Yeah. It's awful.
Yeah. I mean, he has he has a couple more belts to learn in order to to get to that point where he's actually attacking 400. Mhmm. Because I think it's a very possible thing with him because he's so fast. Mhmm.
And he's got power, and he he has the ability to hit the ball hard enough to to jump to that next level of production. Mhmm. Because if you wanna if you wanna see what I'm talking about, just go to baseballsavant.com Mhmm. And and type in what happens when you hit the ball 90 miles an hour or, you know, like, a minimum of 90 miles an hour Mhmm. And watch what happens to the batting average.
Just don't put in launch angle. None of that. Just put in exit velocity. Mhmm. And when you get to 95, it's gonna your your mind is gonna be blown.
Like, how fast that is. When you when you hit, like, a like, a ground ball at 80 miles an hour, the batting average is about two seventy five Mhmm. On if you hit it at least 80 miles an hour, and that's a weak ground ball. Right. You get up to a hundred mile an hour ground balls, and the batting average is four forty Yeah.
With, like, a four eighty slugging percentage. Right. So that whole idea that all ground balls are terrible is is another stupid, stupid idea. 40% of Oklahoma's production is hard rocket ground balls. Right.
Because what they're doing is they're not trying to maximize those. They're trying to maximize them all. Right? Mhmm. I want as many line drives as possible because the batting average is 800.
And I want as I want I know that I'm gonna miss four out of 10 up and four out of 10 down. That maximizes my ground ball batting average, and it maximizes my flight ball batting average. Mhmm. So I'm I'm at the best of all worlds when you find that magic little number. Right.
And, that that's that's been shoved down our throat like ground balls are are like taxes. Mhmm. It's just it it's a it's not that you want ground balls. It's that you trying to hit exclusively fly balls is the worst idea ever. Right.
One of them. It's definitely in that conversation. Right. And that's and that's another probably one of our other videos, part three or so. That's another talk for another day on the ground ball thing because I was there.
You know, at one point, I was, ugly ground balls and things like that. And I've the data, I mean, one of the I think one of the first meetings we had, it it, you're just telling me what it what it was. And so I'll if you got better data, all this the whole pitching world is infatuated with trying to get ground balls because it's not leaving the yard if it's on the ground. Well, okay. But careful what you wish for because if you're producing 85, 90 five, hundred mile an hour ground balls, guess what?
You're you're you know, the aggregate of what you're producing is ridiculous. That's why your ERA is 12 or, you know, the the average team in the Big Leagues is probably around four and a half to five. And the worst teams are well over five as a team ERA. Oklahoma, using the reverse of that, was under one. They had a point eight nine team ERA.
Because when you understand that it's not about ground balls, it's about timing and messing up timing. Mhmm. When you focus on that, the whole everything changes. Changes. Right.
Well, hey. I I I don't wanna keep you too much longer because I wanna also say some juicy stuff for for our part two. But Perry and by the way, for those that kinda he talked about Oklahoma a lot. Perry worked with Oklahoma. Okay?
So that's that's why he can talk on this, pretty good, and we'll probably talk a little bit more about that case study in, part two. But, Perry, where can people find you? I know I'm gonna have a link to your book in this in this post or, you know, if I make this into a, like, a two, three parter or something like that. You know, throw out there what you what you got going on. Yeah.
I'm gonna start doing a lot more YouTube stuff. I can't remember what my handle is there, actually, but I'm sure you can find me on on Evperry husband or something or effective velocity, something like that. And I'm gonna do some stuff on Twitter, some more videos on Twitter. So and that's at E v perry husband for sure. Mhmm.
And then effectivevelocity.com is the website, and we're we're gonna do start doing a lot more. It's kinda been offline for a long time. Mhmm. It was hitting asaguest.com, and and now it's effectivevelocity.com. So we'll be back, you know, trying to take that microphone back a little bit.
At least out there. Spreading some light out there so that people aren't, completely in the dark and, like you said, well, this guy works with so and so and so and so. He's gotta know what he's talking about. You know, use your brain a little bit. I think it's the one thing that we've learned over these last three, four, five, six, seven years.
Yeah. That discernment and critical thinking are like a premium. Let me Or this last question. How's that working out for you? Yeah.
Right. I mean, you like those pop ups? You like poppers? You like swings and misses, foul tips? Yeah.
I I I tried it with my hitters at one point, and I I completely abandoned it. And this is the thing that you're the guy that asked this question. I I tried that for a year, and I got tired of my high school guys coming in. And I'm asking them, how'd you do in in Tuesday's game? And they're going, I went over four with four pop ups.
I got tired of hearing that. And I was like, okay. There's gotta be a better way than that. I had a kid the other night that just was not buying in. Right?
And he's a very good little athlete. Mhmm. 13, I think. Right? Lot of bat speed.
Hit some homers as a 12 year old. Pretty pretty impressive kid. Mhmm. And but he wasn't buying in. And I said, okay.
Well, let's test it. Mhmm. I go, I'm gonna we'll we'll do a little, simple little at bats and see what happens. So we filmed it. Right?
Mhmm. And I'm I'm throwing overhand soft toss, comfortable speeds, like thirty thirty, 30 five miles an hour. It's equivalent probably to, 80, right, at his his his age bracket. Yep. So it was probably a little firm, but it was elevated fastball, swing through, swing through, curveball, see you.
Fastball, fastball, swing through, swing through, curveball, see you. After about 40 at bats and then probably 35 strikeouts. Like, okay. I I'm ready. Let's let's talk about it.
I'm ready to eat. Yeah. So, I mean, I I don't believe a word I'm saying. I couldn't care less. I can't see your swing from here unless you send it to me.
Yeah. You know, it's like, I it for me, it's it's about trying to help people understand that they have to they're their own best instructor. Mhmm. And they're gonna have to they're gonna have to live with whatever results they're producing. Right.
And if and if they're and if they're okay with just taking somebody's word for it and going from there, they could sleep at night, great. They're always gonna be wondering if there's gonna be a better way. I can tell you in the back of your head, you're gonna be wondering, well, this guy what if this guy is not telling me the truth, Or what if this guy is not completely, you know, % optimized, % there? Well, how do you know unless you test it, unless you have a pocket radar or whatever, blast motion, whatever? How do you know unless you know?
If you're a college player in the eighties of exit velocity off the tee, if you're a a high school player and you're not at least at 80 off the tee Mhmm. You're not gonna play at a higher level. If you're not producing hundred mile an hour exit velocity by the time you're a senior in high school with with, you know, like, game exit velocities, which is probably around 90 off the tee, you know, it's gonna be a very difficult road to to make it past that. Now granted, there's some you know, you can get stronger or whatever, but that's that's kind of the you gotta ask yourself those questions. Am I hitting it as hard as everybody around me?
Mhmm. Am I striking out more than other people? Am I striking out 10 times for every homer? I had an argument with this local coach. I think I mean, it wasn't an argument.
I was just trying to decide whether I should even teach his kids. Mhmm. Because he's telling me how much success he had, and thank goodness I hadn't looked at his stats. He had 53 strikeouts for every homer. They hit three homers as a team and hit two fifty in a small high school.
Mhmm. And I'm thinking to myself, dude, what's a bad year look like? What's a bad year look like? Can't even imagine what a bad year looks like. But, you know, those are I think those are people, and we can end on this.
I think those are coaches, and and nothing against these these coaches. There's many of them out there, but they're operating within a little teeny bubble, and they have no clue. They don't have a standard to measure of how much better, like, you talk about the hundred hundred hundred model. Right? They don't know what a hundred is, Hundred hundred hundred is.
What that looks like? What those numbers look like? What those stats look like? You know, they don't they don't know. They're just operating within this little thing, and then they're seeing this guy and that guy on Instagram and Twitter and what he's teaching.
He's trying to teach that to his kids, and he's wondering why. Or maybe he thinks he's doing everything he needs to do. Maybe he thinks he's at a hundred, but he's not. And that's the thing is can Judge and Ohtani hit the ball 30 plus miles an hour? Probably.
And the answer to that question is until the baseball starts to split open, they're not at their max. Right. The Stanton's kinda close, but not really. Mhmm. I I just don't think so because I I saw Judge get up to one nineteen in, in BP at the home run derby, right, with 70 mile an hour pitching.
Mhmm. And when when that's the case and you add that extra thirty, twenty five miles an hour of of velocity, that number is gonna go up if you're doing things right, if you're not, you know, bent at the moment of impact. If you're doing everything right, which you have to be if you're at one nineteen and VP pitches Mhmm. That's what that would be one of my arguments about that philosophy is is that, well, why did he go to that when he was trying to hit the ball out of the yard with with less you know, why did this why did the you get a little closer to being locked out more often. There's a lot of stuff that goes on there because your body's adapting to what you know is is better stuff.
Mhmm. And and there's there's arguments. I mean, there there are some viable things. A lot of stuff works. Mhmm.
A lot of stuff works. Mhmm. But not a lot of stuff works at the highest level. Like, when when you when you test it, you'll find out. Yeah.
And and the and the better the testing gets, the more the more precise you you get with with what you're testing Right. And the and the answers that are coming back. Right. Right. Right.
Cool. Well, again, thanks, Perry, for your time today. I know we're going a little over. Hang out here as I, turn off the record, but thanks for thanks for making your time today. Alright, man.
We'll catch up soon. K. The hitting performance lab wants to know, did you know repeatable hitting power does not start in the hips? Have you heard the expressions load and explode the hips? Power comes from the hips.
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