Start here: https://twitter.com/tomhousesports/status/1378378870458621958
The original tweet is from a well-known baseball account, Pitching Ninja. It’s run by a super-fan who during baseball season regularly tweets out the night’s most devastating pitches. He’s also created a Dropbox collection of the nastiest pitches in the Majors, demonstrating how to throw each pitch. Pitching Ninja is almost as entertaining as it is instructive.
The man who replied with his take is perhaps the most well-known pitching coach in the history of baseball. Yes, it’s the same guy that got a ton of attention during the Super Bowl for working with both Tom Brady and Drew Brees. Tom House also happened to catch Hank Aaron’s 715th homerun. . .and picked me out of a crowded weightroom of pitchers when I was 15 because he was confident that I could demonstrate a skill that he needed demonstrating. (I could.)
Meanwhile, the pitcher is the best college pitching prospect since Tim Lincecum. His name is Jack Leiter. As of today, he’s only 20 years old. Jack already has a no-hitter this year, and regularly throws his fastball in the mid-90s.
And what you’re looking at is an overlay of 2 different pitches, a fastball and a curveball. It’s not uncommon for us mere mortals (amateur pitchers) to not match our mechanics perfectly, even on 2 of the same pitches. It’s much more difficult when throwing different pitches. One of the things that separates a certain class of professionals is how well their mechanics always look the same. Good hitters are able to pick up on the subtle cues or differences in a delivery to help determine which pitch is coming. What Tom House is commenting on is Jack Leiter’s repeatability, and Coach House is also marveling at how much work that took. What Coach House is implying is that this isn’t easy, and any demonstration of a high level skill is like an iceberg -- we only see the tip; we don’t see the mass under the water supporting what we see.
What does this mean to us as parents, coaches of young players? A lot.
If you’ve ever talked to me about how your kid is doing, I use a lot of growth-mindset language. For those of you who are unfamiliar, a growth mindset takes into account the things that are happening today can be changed, and will probably be different tomorrow. Meanwhile, a fixed mindset tends to treat effort and ability as static. . .it doesn’t change much no matter the input. So, the language you’ll hear a lot when talking about players we work with is a lot of “Well, right now,”; “She’s currently. . .”; “He doesn’t yet”. A fixed mindset would be demonstrated by things like “He’s good,”; “Boy he hits the ball hard,”; “She’s uncoachable.” The thing is, I don’t see your kid’s progress as static. I see it on a continuum and totally within their control.
We talk a lot about controlling your controllables, and using what you’re given. Players can’t control their in-born athleticism. We can only blame our genes (aka parents) for our gifts and deficiencies there. I can’t control that I’m not as athletic as Coach Courtney, and we can’t control that Coach Trent makes us both look awkward. What players can control is their effort (well, most of them can), and how well they take coaching (again, I’m a teacher, and I know that some kids are more ready to learn than others). That’s why we work so hard on those two things first. “Those skills scale.” Why the quotes? Because it’s the first of two phrases that I’m going to steal from Deven Morgan, Driveline Baseball’s youth instruction guru.
Skills that scale refers to skills that won’t depreciate over time. Usually Driveline uses the phrase to refer to skills that directly affect competition. Two of the big ones are “How hard the ball is struck” or exit velocity, and “How hard the ball is thrown” or throwing velocity. Both of those skills are always worth developing, because they open doors to opportunity. If you max out on being able to hit a ball 10% harder than your competition, if you miss hit a ball, it’s still got a chance. If you throw 10% harder than last year, what if you use that additional force to make the ball spin a new direction? These skills scale no matter who the competition or situation.
Effort and coachability also scale. As you get better and reach higher levels of competition, if you’re already used to high effort as well as asking questions, taking feedback and looking to learn new ways of performing skills, you have a massive advantage over the folks who will learn on the fly. It’s coming into the situation with a growth mindset. Knowing where to direct the effort through being coachable is massive. The people who can take that coaching and funnel it in the right direction can create something special. These skills don’t only work in baseball or softball. They can be generalized to other places as well. Baseball is just a terrific way to hook so many of the kids and sneakily get them to work on these things. (I’ve written a whole post about this concept. . .”Why Take Lessons?”, below )
So what do Jack Leiter and Tom House have to do with this? I’m going to steal the second line from Deven Morgan to make the point. “Shark’s gonna shark.” I’ve worked with youth athletes for over 20 years now, and agree 100% with Coach Morgan. Shark is always gonna shark. No matter what protocols we give the athletes. No matter how we train them. No matter the cues and coaching. That shark is still gonna be a shark at the end of the day. It’s an inarticulate, but highly accurate metaphor for working with kids. No matter what we do, kids will be inconsistent with physical skills. No matter what we do, sharks will still get the scent of blood, and need to feed. Kids are terrible at making adjustments and then carrying them out consistently in stressful situations. There’s brain research to back this up, and no matter how much time we dig into this with our young athletes, they’re still going to be inconsistent.
It drives us, and other coaches, nuts. NUTS! We spend hours working with kids on their strength and range of motion to make sure that they will be comfortable getting into a good groundball fielding position. We drill. We show them video. We do variable blocks of training to mess with it. Then when we see the kid during the summer, their legs are straight and eyes might as well be looking up to the sky while fielding. Shark’s gonna shark.
We mortals watch professional or college athletes do their thing, and think that A) they’re similarly skilled -- they’re not even close B) they’ve always been like that -- nope. All young athletes go through this “Shark” phase, and it can be really long. Most athletes don’t stick with their sport or activity long enough to get out of this phase. Read that sentence again. Keep it in mind the next time you are watching your athlete or their teammates.
What helps? Coaching, communication, practice (lots, way more than you probably think, and it depends on how good of an athlete you are), reflection, and the ability to be mindful of your body and movements (athleticism). You can see that some of that is in our control and some of it isn’t. One last thing helps . . . acknowledging that inconsistency is a major factor in your youth sports, and not being satisfied with that answer.
The next time you watch a guy like Jack Leiter pitch, understand that some of us still see the last bit of ‘shark’ that they’re trying to shake off (as are most of the guys on the Timber Rattlers). It takes a “blueprint and work put in to be this repeatable by the time you’re in college”, and he’s an unfinished project. Also keep it in mind the next time you’re watching a 14 year-old this summer, sometimes that shark’s just gonna shark. . .but they could be working on it.
The original tweet is from a well-known baseball account, Pitching Ninja. It’s run by a super-fan who during baseball season regularly tweets out the night’s most devastating pitches. He’s also created a Dropbox collection of the nastiest pitches in the Majors, demonstrating how to throw each pitch. Pitching Ninja is almost as entertaining as it is instructive.
The man who replied with his take is perhaps the most well-known pitching coach in the history of baseball. Yes, it’s the same guy that got a ton of attention during the Super Bowl for working with both Tom Brady and Drew Brees. Tom House also happened to catch Hank Aaron’s 715th homerun. . .and picked me out of a crowded weightroom of pitchers when I was 15 because he was confident that I could demonstrate a skill that he needed demonstrating. (I could.)
Meanwhile, the pitcher is the best college pitching prospect since Tim Lincecum. His name is Jack Leiter. As of today, he’s only 20 years old. Jack already has a no-hitter this year, and regularly throws his fastball in the mid-90s.
And what you’re looking at is an overlay of 2 different pitches, a fastball and a curveball. It’s not uncommon for us mere mortals (amateur pitchers) to not match our mechanics perfectly, even on 2 of the same pitches. It’s much more difficult when throwing different pitches. One of the things that separates a certain class of professionals is how well their mechanics always look the same. Good hitters are able to pick up on the subtle cues or differences in a delivery to help determine which pitch is coming. What Tom House is commenting on is Jack Leiter’s repeatability, and Coach House is also marveling at how much work that took. What Coach House is implying is that this isn’t easy, and any demonstration of a high level skill is like an iceberg -- we only see the tip; we don’t see the mass under the water supporting what we see.
What does this mean to us as parents, coaches of young players? A lot.
If you’ve ever talked to me about how your kid is doing, I use a lot of growth-mindset language. For those of you who are unfamiliar, a growth mindset takes into account the things that are happening today can be changed, and will probably be different tomorrow. Meanwhile, a fixed mindset tends to treat effort and ability as static. . .it doesn’t change much no matter the input. So, the language you’ll hear a lot when talking about players we work with is a lot of “Well, right now,”; “She’s currently. . .”; “He doesn’t yet”. A fixed mindset would be demonstrated by things like “He’s good,”; “Boy he hits the ball hard,”; “She’s uncoachable.” The thing is, I don’t see your kid’s progress as static. I see it on a continuum and totally within their control.
We talk a lot about controlling your controllables, and using what you’re given. Players can’t control their in-born athleticism. We can only blame our genes (aka parents) for our gifts and deficiencies there. I can’t control that I’m not as athletic as Coach Courtney, and we can’t control that Coach Trent makes us both look awkward. What players can control is their effort (well, most of them can), and how well they take coaching (again, I’m a teacher, and I know that some kids are more ready to learn than others). That’s why we work so hard on those two things first. “Those skills scale.” Why the quotes? Because it’s the first of two phrases that I’m going to steal from Deven Morgan, Driveline Baseball’s youth instruction guru.
Skills that scale refers to skills that won’t depreciate over time. Usually Driveline uses the phrase to refer to skills that directly affect competition. Two of the big ones are “How hard the ball is struck” or exit velocity, and “How hard the ball is thrown” or throwing velocity. Both of those skills are always worth developing, because they open doors to opportunity. If you max out on being able to hit a ball 10% harder than your competition, if you miss hit a ball, it’s still got a chance. If you throw 10% harder than last year, what if you use that additional force to make the ball spin a new direction? These skills scale no matter who the competition or situation.
Effort and coachability also scale. As you get better and reach higher levels of competition, if you’re already used to high effort as well as asking questions, taking feedback and looking to learn new ways of performing skills, you have a massive advantage over the folks who will learn on the fly. It’s coming into the situation with a growth mindset. Knowing where to direct the effort through being coachable is massive. The people who can take that coaching and funnel it in the right direction can create something special. These skills don’t only work in baseball or softball. They can be generalized to other places as well. Baseball is just a terrific way to hook so many of the kids and sneakily get them to work on these things. (I’ve written a whole post about this concept. . .”Why Take Lessons?”, below )
So what do Jack Leiter and Tom House have to do with this? I’m going to steal the second line from Deven Morgan to make the point. “Shark’s gonna shark.” I’ve worked with youth athletes for over 20 years now, and agree 100% with Coach Morgan. Shark is always gonna shark. No matter what protocols we give the athletes. No matter how we train them. No matter the cues and coaching. That shark is still gonna be a shark at the end of the day. It’s an inarticulate, but highly accurate metaphor for working with kids. No matter what we do, kids will be inconsistent with physical skills. No matter what we do, sharks will still get the scent of blood, and need to feed. Kids are terrible at making adjustments and then carrying them out consistently in stressful situations. There’s brain research to back this up, and no matter how much time we dig into this with our young athletes, they’re still going to be inconsistent.
It drives us, and other coaches, nuts. NUTS! We spend hours working with kids on their strength and range of motion to make sure that they will be comfortable getting into a good groundball fielding position. We drill. We show them video. We do variable blocks of training to mess with it. Then when we see the kid during the summer, their legs are straight and eyes might as well be looking up to the sky while fielding. Shark’s gonna shark.
We mortals watch professional or college athletes do their thing, and think that A) they’re similarly skilled -- they’re not even close B) they’ve always been like that -- nope. All young athletes go through this “Shark” phase, and it can be really long. Most athletes don’t stick with their sport or activity long enough to get out of this phase. Read that sentence again. Keep it in mind the next time you are watching your athlete or their teammates.
What helps? Coaching, communication, practice (lots, way more than you probably think, and it depends on how good of an athlete you are), reflection, and the ability to be mindful of your body and movements (athleticism). You can see that some of that is in our control and some of it isn’t. One last thing helps . . . acknowledging that inconsistency is a major factor in your youth sports, and not being satisfied with that answer.
The next time you watch a guy like Jack Leiter pitch, understand that some of us still see the last bit of ‘shark’ that they’re trying to shake off (as are most of the guys on the Timber Rattlers). It takes a “blueprint and work put in to be this repeatable by the time you’re in college”, and he’s an unfinished project. Also keep it in mind the next time you’re watching a 14 year-old this summer, sometimes that shark’s just gonna shark. . .but they could be working on it.
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