EP99 – How Important Is Launch Angle? Distance Running & Are Goals Actually Useful?

Are short and longterm goals really that important? Is distance running useful for pitchers? Or is it the devil? And, what should we all know about launch angle and its importance in baseball?

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Full Transcript: EP99 – How Important Is Launch Angle? Distance Running & Are Goals Actually Useful?

Welcome back to Dear Baseball Gods. On today’s podcast. We’re going to cover three different topics. Number one, is distance running important? Is it bad? Is it good? We’ll figure it out. Number two, how important is launch angle a? Is this something useful to work into someone’s swing? Is it good, bad, the devil, whatever we’re going to solve that as well.

Lastly, we talked a little bit about longterm goals. How important are they? Are they overrated or are they underrated? Okay. So first is distance running important. Now distance running has been demonized by much of the strength and conditioning community of which I’m a part. The basic tenants here are that distance running use a different energy system than you use when doing an explosive, uh, action.

So swinging a bat is an anaerobic, very explosive exercise. And we obviously all know that you can’t maintain that sort of effort level, that sort of intensity or explosiveness over a long distance or long period of time. Right. So where you’re jogging for 30 minutes or biking for 30 minutes or whatever.

You know, those user aerobic system, it’s a much different type of exercise then, you know, doing something like throwing a medicine ball, throwing a baseball, hitting a baseball, sprinting, jumping things that are anaerobic that are very explosive. So. The big thing here is for years and years and years pitchers just ran polls.

And one of my favorite books, ball four, they talk about how much running is done. And there’s a, an ongoing discussion in that book, even back, which was written in the seventh or the, it was written in 1968, I think, uh, that you know, is running actually beneficial. Like we, we run it every day is pictures, but why, why are we doing this?

So there’s just like anything in life. I think there’s balance now. Here’s, here’s the cons of long distance running. If you go off for 30 minute runs five days a week, like if you’re part of the cross country team. You probably will lose a good amount of muscle mass that would otherwise be important for your bat speed or your, uh, your pitching velocity.

You’ll lose some muscle. You’ll become pretty much slower and a little bit less athletic if you’re running probably five days or more weekly running a lot. Now, just like anything everyone wants to get on the, you know, the bandwagon and say, Oh, Running doesn’t use, you know, jogging, doesn’t use the same energy system as hitting.

Therefore if you’re, if you’re jogging, you’re just getting slower. I ran three days a week, four days a week in college, I usually did interval runs. So I wasn’t straight up jogging that much, but. A lot of people will say that you shouldn’t run any more than like 50 yards to really match the same energy system is when you’re throwing a baseball and then repeating it, you know, these full effort, uh, blasts where you’re throwing it as hard as you can, and then swinging a bat as hard as you can there really to match it.

You should be only doing 50 yards at a time. Well, look. You know, it’s I didn’t lose any velocity doing all that. I’ve worked with. Lots of guys. They don’t lose all their velocity, just be going and running for 15 minutes. Great. And a lot of times, especially in the college or program, you get pretty beat down and tired, and sometimes you just can’t monster the ability or the, the intensity, the, the energy to go out and run.

Sprints every day. And I think running sprints pretty consistently is also very tough on your body. So I sort of roll my eyes at the idea that that’s the only conditioning you should do, because if that’s the only conditioning you can do, then you’re going to get really out of shape because you just can’t sprint that much to have any sort of cardiovascular fitness.

And I do think cardiovascular fitness is important for feeling good in general, as a pitcher. So. If you’re a parent or an athlete, and you’re wondering is distance running important? It’s not important in the sense that it’s really going to build anything for you except overall fitness, which I think is valuable.

Some body control, which is valuable. If you don’t have the fitness to go out and run for 20 minutes without feeling pretty sloppy. Then you’re in bad shape and you’re probably not going to be a great baseball player. Now, that being said, there have been some great baseball players who maybe couldn’t do that at certain points in their career.

Um, but on the whole being in better shape is always better than being in worse shape. Even though there’s always some outliers who can get away with having a pot belly or a beer belly and, uh, you know, still go out there and throw a shout out. So. I think just like anything, distance running has its place.

Do I think our long runs are or necessary? No, but if you want to go run for 20 minutes twice a week, I think it’s perfectly fine. If you want to do a third run of 20 minutes or 30 minutes. But I think that’s also probably reasonable, but probably the upper limit. Because again, you should be devoting all your time to the most effective training things in general.

I think that’s a combination of different types of runs and conditioning. I think that it does involve sprints of varying lengths, not just super short and also not tons of tons and tons of distance. So again, just like anything find a balance. I would definitely tip the scale more in the side of.

Sprints, you know, whether that’s short distance or long or medium distance, I think 400 meters, 800 meters are very effective for overall body control and core stability and stuff like that. So don’t be afraid of it. But the question of is distance running important. I think overall conditioning is important and a lot of young players today.

Don’t see the value in conditioning. They just want to go pump iron in the gym and that’s great, but I think there is still something to be said for conditioning.

All right. Let’s talk about launch angle. So launch angle. Is one of the more knowing debates on the web people go, Oh, he’s got a launch English swing. So here’s what a launching a swing is. To me. It’s one of these people who has taken this way too far. And they basically like sit back on their back leg and they swing up Hill.

And it’s a swing that you don’t see in any level of real baseball. You really don’t see people swinging up and you see this on Instagram accounts of. Quote, unquote, really high level academies. You see guys taking swings that I’ve never seen the game just really uphill. I’m swinging for the HitTrax machine, whatever.

So this is what people, quote unquote, say these launch angle swings, these very steep, upward angled swings. Um, and I will tell you that they don’t really exist in pro baseball. If you compare some of these swings to any of the major leaguers you see on TV. You don’t see them crazy swing up. Now launch angle just refers to the angle of which the ball launches off the bat.

So don’t get this mistaken, like the idea of like a launch angle swing. Isn’t really a thing. Now you could still refer to it as someone who’s been working hard on their, you know, trying to achieve more upward launch angle. Therefore they have a swing that’s helping them achieve more upward launch angle of fine.

But there’s not really like a launch angle swing. It’s kind of a misnomer launching will just refers to the, the way the ball comes off the bat. So if you hit it straight down onto the plate, That has a launch angle. If you pop it straight up, that has a launch angle pretty much vertical, right? So it’s just a reference of what angle did the ball leave your bat?

That’s what law strangle is. Now this whole thing came about because of the revolution of saying. You know of the people questioning, why are we doing things the way we’ve always been doing them? And I know when I was in college, the big trend was to kind of swing down the ball. And I specifically remember I was, I was a pitcher, so I was not really subject to this, but, um, I remember I was hitting BP in summer baseball and my teammate, I was like, Joe helped me hit a ball out.

Tell me what I need to do with my swing. Like my swing sucks. What do I need to do? And he goes, well, you got to kind of swing down that way. You hit the bottom half of the ball, and then, you know, you put backspin on it. Um, so I did that and I hit a dinger, but it really probably wasn’t because I swung down.

But I remember that specifically. That’s my only instance of being aware, I guess, back then of swinging down, I was like, huh, that seems interesting. But that was a big thing for a long time where we were stressing, swinging down the ball. Uh, you know, and essentially hitting, not necessarily what Joe was telling me, my teammate, but swinging to hit the top, half the ball to hit the ball, hard hit line drives, hit the ball on the ground where we know you just don’t do as much damage to a pitcher.

If you’re hitting the ball on the ground as much, you know, ground balls up the middle of the, unless they’re down the lines, they become singles. Whereas if you hit the ball hard and put some air under it, a lot of, lot of bad things can happen. So. You know, launch angle again is just an expression of the angle that the ball leaves the bat.

Now, if you choose to associate that with certain swings or certain coaches or certain whatever else, that’s up to you, but that’s not really what the term stands for. So should you be stressing the certain angles of launch when you hit? Um, I mean, the answer is kind of, yes, but again, you’ve got to take everything with.

A grain of salt and be reasonable about it and just don’t be a psycho about it. That’s I think the biggest thing is when you see hitters that just look weird. Even pairing parents that haven’t played ball, they can see stuff that’s weird. Like they bring their kids into me and they’re like, Yeah, there’s something going on.

My son’s the way he throws, it just looks weird. Like it just looks weird. And I think all of us have a pretty good eye for that actually. And when I say I’ve seen swings that don’t exist in real life. That’s exactly the way I’m saying it. Like there’s guys, that that is a weird swing. That does not work in pro baseball that does not work in college baseball, but that’s not how people actually swing in a game.

That’s just the way this guy’s doing it in the cage to try to hit the ball farther on the hit tracks machine, uh, or to, you know, achieve whatever certain metrics in the cage. So you need to keep your eye on the prize and remember, and this is the last thing I want to park. So I don’t want to get too deep illnesses that launch angle, it does serve a purpose.

So here’s the thing. If. Chris Bryant, someone who has crazy power, you know, he’s got insane pop. Um, if Chris Brian’s hitting missile line drives back up the middle and they’re going for singles and he’s hitting them at a hundred, five miles per hour, you’re like, Hey Chris Bryant, you know, if you lift that ball and put some air under it, that becomes a dinger that hits off the scoreboard and Rick in Wrigley field.

And so for someone like him, that makes sense to lift the ball, to increase, to try to practice and hone his swing. And it’s honestly changing the mechanics of the swing, but just changing his approach to try to increase the launch angle. Of which the ball is leaving is bad because he’s not paid. And he’s got plenty of power where let’s turn those low line drives that are out around a hundred miles per hour.

Let’s turn those into home runs. And that makes a lot of sense. Young players, they don’t have that power. So for the vast, vast, vast majority of players, they want to be hitting. With a launch angle, that’s going to spray the wall over the infield, you know, hit the ball over the nets over the screens that you would put on the infield to protect your, you know, your pitcher and your second basement and your first basement.

So launching will has a benefit. Like if you’re trying to say, Hey, I want wanna, I want to hone my swing to hit line drives at a certain angle so that they more often than not leave my bat at this specific. Range of angles. The range, the angles is something in the low teens where it’s at hard line, dry.

That’s going to go over the infield. And occasionally if you get a little bit more air under it and hit it pretty hard, it goes into the gaps or maybe goes over the outfitter’s head, but hitters get in trouble when they, they go for this like 30 degree launching on everything, which is like the optimum home run angle.

And these players just don’t have enough pop to hit home runs consistently. Like they have to absolutely just. Hit it perfectly to have a shot of getting it out. And they’re not going to do that most of the time. And I’ve talked about that in other episodes where I’ve had teammates who were too small to consistently hit home runs.

And of course everyone’s like, Oh, well, Mookie Betts. Well, it’s like, well, you’re not Mookie Betts. And can you hit the ball on your barrel as often as you need? Probably not. So even if you have enough juice to get one out, are you going to get it on the absolute center of percussion on the bat? Probably not.

And so then if you don’t guess what it becomes a fly out and you got nothing for it. Whereas if you hit that, you know, that 12 degree launch angle line drive over the infield, you have something to show for that hard to ground or that hard hit ball, which is a single and occasionally a double. So launch angle, don’t get it mixed up.

It’s just an expression of how the ball leaves the bat. And it can be important, but it’s not something that you probably right now need to spend tons and tons of time on if you’re still an amateur hitter.

All right. Lastly, let’s talk about longterm goals are longterm goals important? And the answer is, uh, I kind of go back and forth on this. I think yes. Longterm goals are important. But I think the only thing that really matters, I think law, I think goals are what sort of gets you out of bed. Uh, I think really all that matters is what you end up doing today.

I think there’s an obsession today with measuring too much. And players are like, Oh, I want to hit 80. By this point I want hit 82 by the fall. And I want to do this by this point. I want to do this and that’s great, but I think there’s. Overstressing of measurement, because if you actually look at the way you develop as an athlete, as a weightlifter, as a sprinter at anything it’s never linear.

And so if you have too many goals, Basically what ends up happening is you find yourself in a pit of despair because you just can’t possibly achieve all of them because there’s such an undulation. There’s this waves of up and down, up and down in your training, where if you measure yourself on Monday, you might be down an inch in your vertical jump.

And then if you measure two weeks later, you might be up an inch. It there’s lots of things, different factors involved there’s accumulated fatigue. Like your velocity fluctuates, your jump, your jump. Uh, you know, we worked a lot with a lot of volleyball players. That’s why I referenced a vertical jump.

Everyone wanted to increase their vertical chump, very measurable thing, but also. It’s gotta be like the right conditions, you know, it’s gotta be, are you fresh? Did you have three games this weekend? If so your jump is certainly not going to be, um, you’re going to be tired. Um, yeah, it’s the same thing with pitching the same thing with hitting and same thing with running a 60 time.

Like all your conditions have to be right. You really need a peak and be ready to be as fresh as you can. And then you’re going to tell, asked and see if that at 60 time has improved. So. Goals, I think are important to keep you sort of centered. Like, what are you playing for? What’s in the, in the future for you, what’s on the horizon.

What are you still chasing? What gets you out of the bed in the morning? But I also think goals are just a little bit overrated because the thing that’s the most accurately rated and the thing that’s the most important is just putting your feet to pavement today and just putting in the work and it doesn’t.

Matter. If you added five pounds to your weights today, it doesn’t matter if you got like, it just matters. If you put in the effort to get a little bit better today and when you do that, it probably won’t be measurable. It probably won’t be something that is going to be overly linear where, you know, next week I’m definitely clearly measurably better than I was today.

And so again, like a lot of times goals become somewhat irrelevant. Like I know there’s some coaches that say, Oh, if you can’t measure it, don’t do it. Well, There’s a lot of stuff. That’s not measurable. There’s a lot of stuff that, uh, is, is even when you do measure it, it’s gonna go up in such small increments that if you’re measuring by, you know, one pound or five pounds in the gym, it’s going to take you a month to go up in one pound.

So you’re, it’s not really going to be measurable in the increments that you’re using to measure it. No, wait plates are in certain graduations. So goals, I think there’s an obsession with them sometimes. I think they matter, but we also can’t control when life happens, you know, for a kid that’s waiting for a gross Burt who wants to hit 80 miles per hour.

He can’t really control whether that’s going to happen. Right. There’s lots of things that we can’t control. There’s so much out of our control, especially in baseball. There’s so much luck involved. Like you can say that you want to be drafted, but then really all you can do is prepare to have the best training conditioning and have the skills to be drafted.

But ultimately, if you’re like most players who were drafted, you’re in a big pool of players who were very similar to you and you getting drafted in the 10th round is. No different than being drafted in the 22nd round, you being drafted and drafted. The 22nd round is really not much different than being drafted in the 37th round, because it’s just whether some scout thinks you’re the guy, rather than some other guy, you know, I have a bunch of scout friends and they, they say like, you’d be surprised.

A little difference. There is between guys after the 10th round. Like basically, it’s just like, uh, a lot of Scouts in a room saying, Hey, who’s got a catcher that we should, you know, who’s got a catcher. Oh yeah, I got this guy. He’s gray LA, no, I got this other guy and it’s almost like a raffle. And the premium talent goes off the board very consistently.

Like everyone knows who the absolute best players are in the draft. And then after that, there’s a big pool of players who were pretty good, who are probably worthy of being drafted. But. You know, is there a difference between a 20th rounder and a 23rd rounder? No, like there just isn’t it just happens to be that this team said, yeah, let’s take that guy now.

And they do. So there’s a lot of factors that are just their subject and there’s out of, out of our control and there isn’t some other humans control and subject to their whims and their schedule and their timing. And, uh, and that can be really tough. So I think there’s. There’s just a balance. And when considering different types of goals, you should be considering whether they’re actually within your control or not.

So like batting average, not very much in your control era, not much in your control, win loss record. My best season. I was one in five with a 1.8 ZR era. So you look at my era, you’re like, Dang. They never even scored off you, but you know, I had five losses cause I pitched as a setup man on a bad team where we only always had either a one run leader, which was a tie game.

So if I give around, I gave up, I got a loss. So again, there’s lots of different stuff like that. If I had said, all right, my goal this year is they have, you know, 20 saves. Well, my team doesn’t have when enough games to give me a save. Right? So like if my goal is to be, you know, go five and Oh, My team doesn’t win enough games to get me to five.

All I can control is every pitch that I throw. I can’t control my era. I can’t control this. I can’t control that for hitters. You can control your attitude and your preparation, the pitch selection, and the pitches that you choose to swing at, stuff like that. But you really can’t control whether you get hits, right?

You control it. Whether you get a, you put a good swing on the bat. Or a swing on the ball. So with all that said, just consider the goals that you’re setting and whether they’re actually within your control. And whether they’re actually rather whether they’re actually linear, whether they’re actually obtainable and how long from now they’re obtainable and whether they’re actually valuable.

Like, do you need to have a goal like that to still put in the work that you need? And the answer might be yes. And sometimes the answer might be no. Well, that’s it for today’s episode of dear baseball gods. If you enjoy the show and would like to support me while I’m proving your baseball IQ. By one of my books were enrolled today in an online pitching course, sign up for any of my courses through the links in the show notes and save 20% with code baseball gods, just for being a listener.

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