Red Sox Hitting Coach John Soteropulos dropping knowledge! 🔥🧠 COACHES HAVE TO KNOW THEIR GUYS‼️ You can’t coach someone you don’t know or can’t connect with…. Coaches try to do it all the time. Just their way! It won’t work. 👇 Different players require different coaching. 🔑 Different drills. Different environments. Different ways to communicate. What works for one hitter might not work for the next. You can’t cookie cut hitting or the personality! Sometimes a player needs more information. Sometimes they need less. Sometimes they need you to slow things down. Sometimes they need you to bring them out of their hole. 🔥 A huge part of coaching is knowing what to say, how to say it, and when to say it. Coach the player, not just the swing.💯

This is very Interesting to me… Watch the ball flight in this video. The 22 year old is Tied leading the American League with 41 Homeruns. Yet only 1 of his hardest 20 hit balls that lead the Rays is a homerun. 15 are hits. There is a lot of great things to take out of this and what Junior Caminero is doing at 22 years old in the big leagues 👀🧠🔑

1. Their base! each hitter is in a good position to hit with the lower half. 2. Staying back while moving forward. Great separation allowing space for good entry into the zone working behind and through the baseball. 3. In a spot they can fire from quickly and efficiently. Emptying the slack! You have to be in a position you can launch from when the foot is down. No wasted movements.

4 Really Good Hitters at launch 👀 What is sticking out to you? I’ll save my thoughts… 🧠

Dylan Seward was a lot of fun to watch and be around this summer ‼️ One of the things that stands out watching Dylan is how simple everything looks. There’s no wasted movement. Small move to get coiled in the back hip, short tight turn, it’s twitchy and explosive, the ball absolutely jumps off his bat. He stays long through the middle of the field with good direction and keeps the barrel on plane for a long time. Short to. Long through it. You don’t need a bunch of movement to create an explosive swing. Takes notes!! 🔑👀💯

12 year old movement prep and machine work‼️🔥 Working on stretch to create space and good base. Bat path and controlling the barrel on plane through the baseball 🔑

I have a player headed to a powerhouse P4 program struggling at the plate against elite arms. He is really talented. I asked him: “What’s your approach? Where are you looking on the plate?” His answer: “I’m just looking for a strike.” That opened up a great conversation. Against elite pitching, trying to cover the entire strike zone is HARD. Talent is hidden with a bad approach at the plate. So what do YOU hit well? Where can you do damage? What pitch/location are you hunting? Break the plate up. Have a plan. Hunt YOUR pitch. You don’t have to hit every strike. Know who you are as a hitter and look for something you can do damage with. 🔑⚾️

Kid just gets better and better. Love watching him compete! 🔥 Keep crushing it Drake!

Know your players and build a relationship ‼️🔑 Read below 👇👇 One of the most important parts of coaching is knowing WHEN a player needs you and how to approach them. When a player is going through a bad stretch, sometimes you need to step in, have a conversation, make an adjustment, or help rebuild their confidence. Other times? You need to be a resource waiting by and supporting them. Letting them figure out some things. That’s where knowing your players matters. You have to understand their personality. How they handle failure. How they respond to change. When they need reassurance and when they need to be challenged or reset. Some players want to talk after every bad game. Sometimes it’s too much and you need to tell them it’s one bad game and go shower it off. Others need a little space before they’re ready to hear anything. If you’ve built a real relationship with them, you start to recognize those moments. Coaching isn’t just knowing WHAT to say. It’s knowing WHO you’re saying it to, WHEN to say it, and sometimes knowing when to say nothing at all. Know the player first. Then coach the player. ⚾️💯

Confidence is Truth!! 🔑💯

Prep work and routine working on lower half and extension ‼️🔥 Key points we are focusing on 👇👇 1. Med ball and banded loads trying to activate the lower half. Staying back while moving forward (For this hitter we are trying to stop the lunge on the front side and use backside through turn correctly) 2. We isolate the lower half working on extension with one hand work. Get the hands loaded into a good spot. Not scooping (controlling the barrel)/having good entry point to contact and working on plane through the ball. 3. Implement this into open 45 off the machine. Creating good direction with the body towards middle of the field. Finishing with regular swings. “To get better, sometimes you’ve got to set the bat down” 🔑

I saw 2 championship programs this past week. Everybody wants to play at championship programs like these. But wanting it and living the standard required to get there are two different things. It’s showing up every single day. 100% effort. 100% intent. Focus. Energy when you feel great. Energy when you don’t. Playing the game hard. Playing the game the right way. Being a selfless teammate. Doing your job. Being consistent when nobody is watching. For a lot of players, playing at that level is an idea. If your daily actions don’t match the standard of where you say you want to go, eventually that expectation becomes unrealistic. You don’t rise to that standard when you get there. You start living it long before you ever get the opportunity. 🔑

Some drill work for bat path, direction and barrel control👇👇 1. Low away flat bat with foam balls. 2. Split Grip off the machine low and away For this specific player he is trying to clean up the path and entry into the zone. Kid works hard and is obsessed with his craft‼️

Have you earned the right to “get on” a player you don’t even know yet? 👀 I had a great conversation 2 weeks ago with a former NL Manager of the Year‼️ He told me people used to criticize him for not getting on players enough early on. His response stuck with me: “What do I have to fall back on?” You have to know the player first. What can he handle? What can’t he handle? How does he respond? What does he need from you? You can’t coach every player the same way. Great coaching starts with knowing WHO you’re coaching and building a relationship you can fall back on. 🎯 That’s how you get the most out of your guys! It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon 💡

How do you prepare before you step onto the field? Is it mindless or intentional? Do you know what you’re doing and why? P4 commit working on direction, posture, and path before game. 👇👇 1. Top hand 2. Choked up letting baseball travel 3. Controlling posture/in a good spot to hit Simple and Locked in ready to go compete! 🔥

A former All-Star and 10-year big leaguer I coached with told me something this summer that has stuck with me. 👇👇 He said: “It didn’t matter if I was hitting .400 to start the year, I knew I was going to hit .295. And it didn’t matter if I started the year hitting .100, I knew I was going to hit .295 when it was all said and done.” 👀 Think about the confidence behind that. He wasn’t going to completely change who he was because he went 2-for-20. And he wasn’t going to think he had the game figured out because he went 15-for-30. He knew who he was. He knew what made him successful. He trusted his routine. He trusted his preparation. And most importantly, he understood that baseball has a way of evening itself out over time. I think young hitters need to understand this. You’re going to have stretches where everything you hit finds grass. You’re also going to have stretches where you smoke three balls and somehow go 0-for-4. Neither stretch defines who you are as a hitter. That’s why constantly searching for a new swing, new drill, new stance or new answer every time the results change can be dangerous. Make adjustments when adjustments are needed. But don’t confuse a bad week with needing to become a completely different hitter. The goal is to build something you can trust when the results aren’t there. Know who you are. Know what you do well. Know what you’re hunting. Build a routine. Then trust it. 🔑‼️

This is spot on. 🔑 Elite hitters aren’t searching but they adjust and adapt when needed! They know themselves better than anyone else! They know what works for them, they understand their routine, the WHY and they’re intentional with their work. There’s a huge difference between making an adjustment because you need one and making a change just because yesterdays results weren’t good. If you’re constantly changing in the cage with new drills, your results are going to constantly change, and so will your mind 🧠 stay boring! ⚾️📈

Not every player responds to the same thing!! One of the most important parts of coaching is understanding what makes each player GO. 🔑⚾️ Some need energy. 🔥 Some need confidence. Some need to be challenged. Some need things slowed down and explained. Some need you to stop talking and let them compete. Your job is to learn the player in front of you. What motivates them? What shuts them down? What brings out their confidence? What gets the BEST version of them? You can’t coach every player the exact same way and expect to get the same results. Learn your players. Build relationships. Figure out what makes them tick. Then create an environment where they want to show up, work, compete, have fun and get better every day. 📈

I spent the last month around some of the best HS baseball players in the country. ‼️⚾️ Want to know what separates them? 1. Confidence They step on the field believing they are the best and expecting to succeed. 2. Consistency Their preparation, effort, and approach. Consistently hitting balls hard, consistently making the routine plays etc. 3. Routine They know what they need to do to prepare and they stick to it. They aren’t searching for something new every day. 4. Physicality They’ve put the work in to become stronger, faster, and more explosive. Their bodies reflect that! At that level, everybody has talent. The players who separate themselves aren’t just talented or tool’d up. They’re confident, consistent, prepared, and physical. 🔑📈

I talked to a former big league manager last weekend ‼️ This is what he said, “I never tried to make it to the big leagues” 😂 Doesn’t everyone want to? That’s why few do. A lot of people in this game are so worried about themselves. It’s not about you! 👇 That was his point! 💡👀 He said, “I was just trying to do my job to the best of my ability, and be a really good person, and serve my players” That’s what got him to the big leagues‼️🔥