Tulsa Hitting Lessons The 5 Pillars of The Strategic Advantage Baseball Player Development: Game Day

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Geoff and Darrell talk about The 5 Pillars of The Strategic Advantage Baseball Player Development: Game Day

Geoff Rottmayer Twitter – @geoffrottmayer

Geoff Rottmayer Email – grottmayer@athletic-mission.com

Darrell Coulter Twitter – @darrellcoulter

Darrell Coulter Email – dc@starttpitching.com

Website: www.strategicbaseballpodcast.com

Yeah, man like Game Day is in for me. And you, Jeff, Tulsa Hitting Lessons we know like, this is what we do, man this is, this is the key to this whole strategic advantage baseball process is like we want kids to play better on game day. And, and again, I think that probably feels and seems like Captain Obvious.

But a lot of times when we’re talking about individual player development, that don’t seem to be our focus, our focus seems to be more on one of the four pillars that we addressed earlier, either mindset, or our offseason training plan and goals, and our preseason practice, like really trying to get our pitches game ready. And then eventually, if you trust your pitches, then you’re ready to step in and really do some game planning for your opponent. But all of that is gotta it’s got the end up and showing up and playing well on game day. And again, that doesn’t always mean that we get the outcome we want on game day.

But it does mean that we’ve done the work we’ve done the prep work and and we really have got our mind, right, and we’re ready to show up and play. And so on game day, when we really kind of finish out these five pillars with it, we do we focus on three key things for as pitchers is their pregame routine. And that pregame routine kind of ties it all together. Tulsa Hitting Lessons When we talk about risks. We talked about nutrition. We talked about, you know, the pregame warmups, we talked about the sit down with the coaches and the catcher and kind of finalizing that game plan. And kind of what does it take that 24 hours preceding?

You know, the the start of the game and you getting ready to go pitch, kind of what do we want to do to make sure that mentally and emotionally and physically, that we’re ready to really go out and pitch that next day. And then as we The game starts in, and we really get into the game, it’s really about, you know, what we call the seven second strategy by really understanding like the situation and count, what do you want that hitter to do? Where do you want to throw up pitch to get the hitter to do what you want him to do? And then how do we pick the absolute best pitch to throw to that location to get the hitter to do what we want him to do in that situation and count. And that kind of become by the real chess match that pitching is that that pitch the pitch and situation and count as the situation account.

And as we go through it with each hitter throughout the game, that is baseball, that is the pitchers role, and job. And now we do see it culminating in that game day performance. And then as we go through that man we call through the third piece is really that real time reaction like okay, here’s the stuff that we prepare for, here’s what we thought that it was going to do. Tulsa Hitting Lessons And now like what are we really seeing? Is it true? Is our is our game planning? Is it starting to come to fruition? Are we seeing that hitter do what we thought he was going to do and react the way we thought he would react to the pitches?

And then or has he made an adjustment and and now we got to make that adjustment. And so when we start talking about these five pillars, then how we build up the the mindset and our offseason training in our preseason practice and our game planning, it’s all going to culminate in what shows up on game day. And then how do we really play and I think that’s the key to what we want in this strategic advantage baseball process. We want the guys to start with the end in mind that that game day really is about how do I prepare How do I go out and execute and then how do I react Tulsa Hitting Lessons How do I sit here and and and play the game and play the chess match with each individual hitter pitch the pitch to pitch and I think the guy said grasp the game like that then the game literally becomes truly the the their sanctuary like that’s the the most fun part of the game.

And then it makes all of the training all of the mindset work they done all of the offseason training and the preseason practice worked to get their game ready pitches until they couldn’t get them wrong. And then going in and game planning and then going out there and and competing on game day. And and again I think sometimes we can get so caught up in the training and then the practice and then the measurables and then the things that you know we all think is important. But for baseball players man The truth is and it’s kind of what Jeff you’re and I big mantra is is that if it don’t show up on game day, then we then we got some work to do. And and so that’s really the the final piece of this is understanding on game day that your pregame routine matters.

You know, having having a pitch the pitch strategy, the way you see it matters. Tulsa Hitting Lessons And then how we respond to the real time reactions, what’s going on, you know, with the umpire with the hitter, and just the conditions that we’re playing in that day. And then how all of that shows up on game day really does the finest as a baseball player in and you’re not always going to have your best stuff as a pitcher, man, you got to learn to compete with what you’ve got. And, and the way that they You and I have kind of laid this out with our programming and, and inside of this strategic advantage baseball process, that we found that after years of doing this, that when we can get the guys to buy into these five pillars, then they seem to be a lot more consistent on game day, they have a lot more fun, man.

And at the end of the day, they’re they’re having better results. And and when we’re training young players, and in a game that’s really hard, man, they when they start seeing the consistency and having better results than I think the buy in on the rest of the stuff that really is the grind for baseball players to really to dig into and master. And it makes all of that worth it, man. And so that’s kind of how I want to tie in tie up this final pillar man it’s like game day to us as the most important piece. And and how we prepare for game day matters. And I think what happens then is it kind of lays out these other four pillars why they’re so important. And how that really does get our game day mindset ready?
Yeah, for sure.

And I think what’s what’s cool is like, when you start looking back in my favor, looking back at training, but looking back at them, this is like, there’s a lot of people doing some really cool stuff. But they’re right in Game Day results. So it’s like this is it’s really cool that we have all this stuff. But teaching lead guide and getting them to understand how to use it in game is like, very important. Tulsa Hitting Lessons Like, if we’re going to get the game day result that we have to, then that’s why you and I work backwards, it’s like, okay, at the end of day, this may be cool. But if it doesn’t work for this kid on game day, then it’s not what we need to be doing. And so the whole thing, like there are so many different, you know, things that are going on, but it’s not all connecting. And that’s what you and I are trying to get people to understand.

But even on the hitting side, you know, we’re talking through the pregame routine, and the pre pitch and even the real time reaction then and all that it’s really like, how you get ready to play and and really like the mindset of what you need to do when you’re going through all the stuff in your pregame routine, you know, and when you’re going through your pre pitch routine, like how are you thinking in a way that’s gonna allow you to produce in a game against an opponent?
Yeah, and I think what happens, Jeff is when we start eliminating stuff for these guys, then they focus on what they do really well. And then they can focus on what the opponent does really well. And at the end of the day, that’s the battle that we’re having, whether it’s the hitter or the pitcher, it’s, it really is an individual team sport, man and the hitting and pitching specifically, like, it’s one on one. Tulsa Hitting Lessons And so how we mentally and emotionally and physically prepare and handle that is gonna, is gonna define you as a baseball player, whether you like it or not, you might have a ton of physical talent, man, but, but if you don’t have the right mindset, and you haven’t prepared for all the different scenarios that could possibly happen, then you’re probably not going to respond very well under extreme pressure in a real game.

And so we got to practice that man, like we got to talk about it, we got to prepare the brain for all the different scenarios that can happen. And and then as we start uncomplicate Matt, by reading and studying hitters, or even studying the individual pitcher, then that really does like bring it all into focus. And let these kids show up on game day, and really have fun man and go out and play hard and do all the things that the parents and coaches and everybody wants them to do. But also do it with intent and and purpose. And it really they have an idea and an understanding of what they need to do. And and what we have found is that the kids that get that even from 10 1213, all the way up into pro ball man, like when they see the game that way, then they have more success on game day, which is ultimately what everybody wants is is to go play the game hard man and and have a little bit of success and do your thing. And I think once we see that, then we kind of just turn it over to the kids and let them play man. It’s

cool. Yeah. And also like, when when you get the kid that understand that practice to have game day back Tulsa Hitting Lessons with a lot of time they go into training and like, what are we doing, you know, like, okay, we’re doing that, but why but if you get them to start looking game day back, now they start to understand all the things that they do and then the intent and the everything that they’re doing becomes a lot a lot more clear to them. And then the question They ask the understanding that they want is on another should not another level because now they’re thinking,

Okay, this is I need this to be able to play on game day because of this and so right. It’s really cool when we can have that type of conversation and get those guys to kind of think that way and see the game that way. And not just feel like they’re, you know, wasting time and time from, you know, different guys who have different motivations.

Absolutely, and again, just kind of wrapping this up. I don’t have a problem with a specialist is out there. And the guy said, or just focus on offseason training and focus on you know, maybe bullpens and focus on velocity. There’s some guys like you said earlier man doing some really good stuff and helping a ton of kids. But if we don’t understand how that plays on game day, or if we don’t understand how that helps us master a pitch that we can use in a game and and understand that when and where we would use that pitch, then we’re just developing a physical skill, Tulsa Hitting Lessons we’re not developing a baseball skill and we’re not developing a game ready pitch. And so I think it’s it’s not fashion or breaking down what these guys are doing. We’re just trying to help them tie it to how with how it’s going to show up on game day.

And then how do they use it on game day? And I think that’s the cool thing about what we’re doing, man because I do I think there’s a lot of good guys out there strength conditioning and velocity and different things that guys are doing better good stuff and there’s a lot of garbage to man, let’s just be real about it. But but the guys that are doing the right stuff at the right time of the year, if we help them tie that mindset that offseason training and how that shows up as we transition into pre season. And now how do we go from pre season two getting our pitchers game ready and transitioned in season. Now we’ve actually like created a map for these players to see how all these different components come together. And that’s kind of why you and I built this strategic advantage baseball process, man. So now players can see from Game Day backwards, how all these different things that they’ve been working on actually shows up on game day. Good