Transcript
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But if we get a catcher who's lazy and stays on that knee as they receive, or maybe even if they're traditional and they go to a knee to throw the ball back, that's something that we'll try to take advantage of.
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You're locked in to Baseball Coaches Unplugged, presented by AthleteOne.
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On today's podcast, you'll hear from Cody Dennis, former base running coach at Eckerd College and now currently the host of the Baseball Blueprint podcast.
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Cody breaks down his secrets to stealing bases and how this led to a huge turnaround at both Capital University and Eckerd College.
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Also, the important factors to being a great defensive player and what he has learned as host of the Baseball Blueprint podcast.
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Learned as host of the.
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Baseball Blueprint podcast.
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Welcome to Baseball Coaches Unplugged with Coach Ken Carpenter.
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Presented by Athlete One.
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Baseball Coaches Unplugged is a podcast for baseball coaches, with 27 years of high school baseball coaching under his belt, here to bring you the inside scoop on all things baseball, from game-winning strategies and pitching secrets to hitting drills and defensive drills.
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We're covering it all.
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Whether you're a high school coach, college coach or just a baseball enthusiast, we'll dive into the tactics and techniques that make the difference on and off the field.
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Discover how to build a winning mentality, inspire your players and get them truly bought into your game philosophy Plus.
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Get the latest insights on recruiting, coaching, leadership and crafting a team culture that champions productivity and success.
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Your competitive edge starts here, so check out the show weekly and hear from the best coaches in the game.
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On Baseball Coaches Unplugged.
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Hello everyone, I'm your host, ken Carpenter, and I feel like I need to address the elephant in the podcast why switch from Athlete One to Baseball Coaches Unplugged?
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Switch from athlete one to baseball coaches unplugged.
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I've decided to go all in on baseball coaches and give the listeners the coaching insights from the best baseball coaches across the country, exploring what makes them successful, and to hear some great stories along the way.
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I hope you'll stay with me and continue your support.
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We have over three years and 110 episodes in our back catalog from the Athlete One podcast that you can check out.
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But, moving forward, we're Baseball Coaches Unplugged and, without further ado, let's get into our first interview with Cody Dennis.
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Hello and welcome to Baseball Coaches Unplugged.
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I'm your host, ken Carpenter, and joining me today is Cody Dennis.
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He is a college baseball coach who's worked with Capital University and most recently at Eckerd College, and is also the host of the Baseball Blueprint podcast.
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Coach.
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Thanks for taking time to be of the Baseball Blueprint Podcast Coach.
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Thanks for taking time to be on the Baseball Coaches Unplugged.
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Hey, Ken, thanks for having me.
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I'm excited.
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Well, I got just quickly.
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I got to start off.
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Is it easier asking questions as a podcast host or being on the other end?
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You know what?
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I'm fairly new to the podcast game.
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I think I'm probably six or seven episodes in at this point while we're recording this.
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So you know what.
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It does feel a little bit different to be on this side of the interview, and I think from my experience it's always easier to talk about what you're familiar with.
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So some of the questions that I ask my guests, I'm really genuinely trying to learn about their disciplines and the way they teach, so that's something that can become a little bit difficult, especially if it's a guest that I'm not super familiar with.
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I haven't had any of those.
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Most of the guests I have are pretty good friends, but I would say more towards the side of the familiarity of the topic that you're speaking about.
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Right, that really helps me.
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So in this scenario I'm pretty comfortable.
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This is something where we get to talk about some stuff that I know.
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And plus we're just talking baseball, so that's always an easy thing.
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Well, you quickly transitioned from college baseball player to college coach.
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What was the biggest challenge in that process?
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Oh, man.
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I think most GAs out there will tell you that coaching individuals near your age.
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There's a little bit of anxiety there.
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I think there's.
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I know.
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For me at least, there were some probably some confidence areas that needed touched on.
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Just just from a.
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I feel like I know this content but I'm sharing this information with guys who this is their career right, and that's how I felt when I played too.
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But sharing that information with guys who this is their career right, and that's how I felt when I played too.
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But sharing that information with guys who are in the middle of it and really want to find ways to be better and be productive for their teams, the confidence with what I was sharing from a content standpoint, I think from a communication standpoint, I was pretty comfortable.
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I don't think that was a piece where I felt lacking, but I think from a competency within the craft, like understanding what information I need to convey, that's where I kind of got a little bit more anxious and a little bit more of a sense of urgency to really learn.
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So early on I kind of found that trigger for me to say you know what, let's go, let's go really develop and and and try to master as much of this as we can, uh, and then soon thereafter you start to realize there's a lot of things that are taught different ways, uh, and so you have to kind of workshop and find what works best and, um, I think that process is continuing.
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Uh, I don't know very many coaches who say you know, I do it like this, I've done it like this for 70 years and this is something that you know I'm not budging on.
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You know, usually there's a lot of give and take and I think recently you start to really feel like okay, I have these standards and I know what I expect of my guys and I know what I expect of myself as a teacher and a coach.
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But those standards do have to come with the caveat of, like, these are not robots, all these guys are created differently, we have different movers, and so you go into the teaching and coaching atmosphere with that kind of nugget in mind and then you, you kind of work from there.
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Well, it's like you said.
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You know the old school, old school type type of coach.
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You know it can be set in their ways and, uh, it seems like today's baseball player is a lot of times.
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I mean, it's just the generation.
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Maybe they want to know why you might be doing a certain drill or what.
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How's that going to make them better?
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Would you agree with that?
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Yeah, I think, um, I'm, I'm, I'm careful to, to to speak on generational pieces being from being, from only having my experience right and working with a closer generation to my age group.
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But I would say a lot of it has to do with the person, A lot of it has to do with the background, how they were raised, how they were spoken to from their parents.
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That's one of those things too.
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Like I've coached players who would run through a wall right off the rip for me because they feel like I'm in a position that they can trust already, and I've also had players who I ended up developing incredible relationships with, who I really felt like I had to earn them, and so I think both are guys you have to be able to work with in this space.
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But I would be hesitant to say it was a generational thing.
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I think what's happening now is the access to information is so great.
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These players have so much data thing.
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I think, uh, what's happening now is the access to information is so great.
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These players have so much uh data, they have so much evidence and studies in front of them and they they can really like these guys are the smartest generation of the players that we're seeing working out just because they have access to this.
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So, um, I I think what you'll probably be seeing more is that question of asking why?
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And asking, well, how does this make me better?
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Because of the amount of information, because full disclosure we've talked about this on our podcast previously but not all the information out there is great and not everything that you put out there is going to work for you.
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So you've got to be really selective in how you approach your own development as a player from your own learning.
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And then also, I mean I've had coaches tell me you know four different ways to feel ground balls and you know they might all have a have a moment of of accuracy where I need to use that tool, but if you harden into that tool and you create a really concrete kind of guideline towards that area, it doesn't allow for much improvisation when you get to the game.
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Well, this is an area that I'd really wanted to hear about from you was one of your expertise is base running, and you made a huge impact at Capital University and at Eckerd, and talk about your philosophy and how that works exactly.
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Yeah.
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So I'd be remiss if I didn't, if I didn't mention matt talarico and mike roberts.
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Those are two guys who, um, who have really had a ton of success in the game and I I pull it like to be honest with you, I do very little.
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That's original so.
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So I try to, I try to do my best to uh kind of feel out what's working in the game at the moment and pick and choose what I need to, what I need to use to be successful, uh.
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And so, when it comes to base running and specifically base stealing, because that's where we've had more of our success and in that space, but I really my goal is to be as surgical as possible and and we're running, at least at my last couple gigs where I've really tried to create an identity of like, hey, this is a low risk operating offense, but we're going to steal a lot of bases, which is kind of counterintuitive because you think, like stealing a lot of bases, you're probably super aggressive, um, and I I said I I think to the contrary, like we take our layouts every, every time we get a layup, we're going to take it, um, and then, beyond that, understanding when to do what.
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So we've got different techniques that we can do to steal.
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We can delay steal, we can straight steal, we can work off a vault movement, we can hybrid vault movements into different sequencing.
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And now that we're seeing teams start to defend this a little bit better, you have to find better ways to mask it, which became very apparent with my first two weeks at Eckerd.
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It wasn't like we ever got caught working new school, but it was something where we started to see less efficiency because of the adjustments our opponents were making.
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We're seeing a lot of glove drop picks, pitch comp picks whether that's something where we hit a button, pitcher hears a cue that initiates a pick off I mean they're seeing the movement.
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So what that comes down to is we have to really be clean with our technique and understand our footage and then, on my end, understanding who's a threat.
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That way, when we go to the scouting report section of game day prep, they know like, okay, this starter who, um, for his last four outings has went five, we know that he's not a threat.
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On bases, we got to pick, move it at one, two, we're going to be able to run all over him.
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If you know, we have a deliverable time, which for most of our guys is something about a 1-3.
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Most of the catchers we are working against were somewhere between a 1-9-5 and a 2-1.
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And so again we would ballpark and create generalized averages for delivery times and pop time from catchers and then we'd also kind of bookmark like, hey, this catcher misses hard glove side, which is a much more difficult tag for your middle umpire.
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He's got to reach across his body.
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It takes a little bit more time to make that play.
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So that allows us as runners to have some more time to steal the mince.
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So we would kind of just bookmark things and find things that we can dive into a little bit and expose.
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And that's how we'd operate.
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So again, that was an incredible group at Eckerd and the guys at Capital were awesome.
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They were two really hungry groups that were excited to learn and I think I'm very thankful for Capital because I was able to really grow and kind of come into my own from that standpoint, because that was my first time really diving into what I would consider like a curriculum for the new school base running and operating that in game.
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And then Eckerd was where I feel like I really hit the slot.
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That was something I felt comfortable with and, uh, I'm sure, and there were times at Eckerd where, um, we were really unlucky with our pitching staff.
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We had some guys go down early, uh, and so that was a grind our back end guys stepped up big time and kept us competitive in in ball games, but there were some.
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There were some times also where we had to wear it a little bit on the defensive side, and those are games where we kind of have to pull back on the amount of risk we take offensively.
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So keep it in mind that we run a low risk system.
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There's still going to be some aspect of risk there, but generally for us it was a position where we were able to be mobile and do our best to be efficient while not being think off.
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Well, it's a lot easier to see you visually explain how to steal with your players.
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Could you kind of go through the cues or the keys that would make a base runner successful.
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Yeah, I think I was talking about this with one of my buddies, mason Sherrill, and it really comes down to the details of the, the discipline, but there's really no substitute for being fast.
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If you're a fast runner, that really helps.
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Now I've also seen some fast runners be really reckless, uh and and lose focus and be picked off more often than they should be, uh.
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So I think understanding footage is probably number one.
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Understanding where you're, where you are on the field, uh, if you have a feel for that, you have the capability of being a really good base runner.
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Regardless of the speed, you're going to have layups.
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At some point you're going to have that pitcher who rolls up and he's a 1-7.
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He doesn't care about what you're doing at first base.
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So there are times that we can, with the understanding that our footage and our steal time is going to be combating the pitcher's delivery time and the catchers pop like we can make a move there.
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But in my experience, understanding your footage, uh, being aware, like finding the gaps.
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The best base runners I've had haven't always been the fastest.
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Usually it's the guys who are looking for the next base, regardless of how they get there.
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Um catcher receives the ball and his head goes down and they see that early.
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And then maybe on that third pitch, the head goes down and they just take off.
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So there are times where you can catch guys off guard, especially now that we're seeing higher efficiency numbers with the one knee down catching.
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That is absolutely something that our guys at Eckerd were taught and our guys at Capital were taught.
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That's something that's necessary and it definitely helps the performance of our defense.
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But if we get a catcher who's lazy and stays on that knee as they receive, or maybe even if they're traditional and they go to a knee to throw the ball back, that's something that we'll try to take advantage of.
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And then you know, recognizing a lazy middle, and so I I would say, first thing, speed, second thing, understanding of footage and then, uh, the third, like, find your moments, understand the game situation and be able to choose when to make that move, do you?
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like running on certain counts.
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Yeah, so count-based face running is something where early on I didn't do it much, but recently, I think also to a degree.
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When you start to get hitters who are a little bit more reliant with IV low, who can manage that a little bit better, it makes it easier.
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For example, you get a 3-1 count.
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Generally speaking, that's a really good time to run because you're probably seeing a fastball.
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You've got a hitter where if it's in the zone, we're anticipating him handling that and it turns into a hit and run.
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Uh, but if you got a guy who's still in 96 and our header doesn't handle 96, well, maybe that's not so great of a time to run.
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So finding that right moment, um, I think it lately what I've seen the fake-but-steal stuff isn't really dramatically impacting catcher pop times enough to where you can get away with it too much at higher levels.
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That's probably why you're seeing less of it.
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I would say Calvary.
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Space running is important, with the understanding that the personnel is still a factor.
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Okay, well, on the other end of it, what's the secret to stopping or slowing down a team that uses, you know, moving before the pitch and are really good base stealers?
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Yeah.
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So that's something where I love that question because that comes up every time and it's important because there's a lot of teams doing this.
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Now we saw this from a lot of our opponents at Ecker and I think one of the things that I would tell my team, our pitching staff when we were combating the position guys and inner squads is a quick decision.
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Accurate pick move is really really hard to battle when you're working new school.
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If you catch the right timing and you're off footage even slightly, it's really difficult to get back to the base.
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Now I've seen glove drop picks work.
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That's something we've implemented that absolutely works for teams who, especially if they get out of footage or maybe they have an operator, whoever's directing the offense, it doesn't change sequencing.
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That glove drop pick works really well.
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But then being quick to the dish solves problems.
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It really what it turns out to is a math problem.
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If you've got a runner who's stealing at a 3-4 clip, that's, his time is 3.4.
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We've got the catcher who pops in a 2, and we've got a pitcher who delivers at a 1-3.
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I mean, we're probably expecting an out there if there's a play, because we got a 3.3 from the pitcher-catcher, we got a 3.4 from the runner.
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Now if that 3-4 runner turns into a vault movement now he's running a 3-2 on that vault when he hits it.
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That changes things.
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So from our end when we want to mix and match techniques, usually it's dependent on generalized averages between the pitcher-catcher, not so much like, hey, you're a vault-only guy, it's going to be okay.
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You can straight steal this bag.
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Let's not wait for you to hit the timing Within the first three pitches.
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I need you off Usually the first pitch.
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If you can steal it, steal it, don't wait.
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And so there are times where maybe the data is showing that we need to keep a hole open for a lefty, or we got a guy who's slumping a roll over lefty and we're trying to keep that gap open so that the first baseman's holding on the base.
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So we might not run there, but that's very.
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That's few and far between those moments.
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But, like I said, to stop it, I think it's more be quick to the dish, have a catcher who can pop.
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Decent, if I were to put a ballpark number on it, I'm probably.
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I find it really difficult to operate the eye level offense with average runners when the pitcher's around a one, three or below and the catcher's popping consistently at a two flat.
00:18:47.997 --> 00:18:49.663
That makes things a lot more difficult.
00:18:49.663 --> 00:18:58.634
Uh, it makes the decision making process a little bit um more powerful on our end, because we really have to be careful about what kind of situation we are in the game.
00:18:58.634 --> 00:19:00.641
We have to play the leverage game a little bit more now.
00:19:00.641 --> 00:19:06.618
For a lot of the guys, we'd probably be flipping a coin, which, again, I'm not opposed to that.
00:19:06.618 --> 00:19:19.922
You've got to be in the right position to make that move, yeah definitely Well, jumping over to the defensive side, which you know, in high school you were a four-year starter and you played at Youngstown State.
00:19:21.069 --> 00:19:23.817
And you were a four-year starter and you played at Youngstown.
00:19:24.317 --> 00:19:26.630
State and with coaching infielders in your mind, what?
00:19:26.650 --> 00:19:29.738
are some important factors to being a great infielder.
00:19:30.621 --> 00:19:31.021
Oh man.
00:19:31.021 --> 00:19:38.009
So when I'm working with my guys and I'm evaluating a player, the first thing I'm looking at is their prep step.
00:19:38.009 --> 00:19:41.201
Are they putting themselves in a good position to cover ground ground?
00:19:41.201 --> 00:19:46.361
And um, there there, there's a lot of different ways that that's taught, especially even at higher levels.
00:19:46.361 --> 00:19:49.792
You see, um, certain organizations working on a post-contact landing.
00:19:49.792 --> 00:19:53.082
Some are working, you know, just as a grounded mover you know.
00:19:53.102 --> 00:19:58.021
So, depending on on what your beliefs are there, I think that's the first area you address, uh, and, and that's the first area you address uh, and and.
00:19:58.021 --> 00:20:01.304
So from that route, you then address like, okay, what kind of animals are we working at?
00:20:01.304 --> 00:20:05.385
Um, and that's something especially with, uh, younger infielders.
00:20:05.385 --> 00:20:10.713
They want to just go straight at where they think the ball is going to go, which is intuitively not an awful idea.
00:20:10.713 --> 00:20:20.313
But as you get older and you start to understand how much time you have, as your arm gets stronger, as the transfer becomes a little bit more consistent, clean, you might want to take more forgiving routes where you stay within the path of the becomes a little bit more consistent and clean.
00:20:20.313 --> 00:20:22.663
You might want to take more forgiving routes where you stay within the path of the ball a little bit longer.
00:20:22.663 --> 00:20:30.201
Or maybe, especially if you're playing on a natural surface up here, I know, and everyone else knows, this ball is not bouncing true, right.
00:20:30.201 --> 00:20:32.719
So you play the true ball and you adjust.
00:20:32.719 --> 00:20:40.273
So I think, again, from my experience as a player up north, working from the ground up was something I really had to do, otherwise I was going to get eaten up, uh.
00:20:40.273 --> 00:21:00.173
And so then, working back towards florida, where we're working with bermuda, we've got decent, decent fields and, uh, that's a process, that understanding that working from the ground up also forces us to have really forgiving rounds, um, and it allows us to be a little bit more, uh, fluid within our transfer, because we're we're stabilized, we're anticipating maybe a little bit more of an air and hop.
00:21:00.173 --> 00:21:07.217
And so you play the true ball, you adjust to the false ball, and I think that forgiveness also comes a lot with our glove presentation.
00:21:07.217 --> 00:21:12.740
If our glove presentation isn't clean, our window for error becomes less.
00:21:12.740 --> 00:21:15.221
So we want to have as much window for error as possible.
00:21:15.221 --> 00:21:17.323
That way we can become more consistent.
00:21:17.383 --> 00:21:23.946
So, again, if you're going to evaluate an infielder and you're really trying to locate some points to say, hey, man, that guy can really pick it.
00:21:23.946 --> 00:21:29.173
I'm looking at a prep step, I'm looking at glove presentation.
00:21:29.173 --> 00:21:33.921
I also really like the concept of post-direction, post-reception direction.
00:21:33.921 --> 00:21:35.984
So, after you receive the ball, where's your body working?
00:21:35.984 --> 00:21:38.913
Are you taking a drop step towards right field?
00:21:38.913 --> 00:21:50.757
So that's not really where we're trying to go and, with that in mind, we also have some movers who maybe, uh, have tight hips or they're not, uh, they're not as fluid with their transfer and they need to open up their, their stance a bit to make sure that ball hits out.
00:21:50.757 --> 00:21:51.359
Uh.
00:21:51.461 --> 00:21:54.152
So I don't think it's something where you just start diving in and changing things.
00:21:54.152 --> 00:22:07.632
Uh, it gets to the point where you start to see, maybe, problem areas that keep popping up and then you address it from there, because everyone who's been in the game for a while knows player development stuff isn't something that happens overnight.
00:22:07.632 --> 00:22:08.454
This is a process.
00:22:08.454 --> 00:22:09.178
This takes a while.
00:22:09.178 --> 00:22:23.374
So I think witnessing is important being able to witness what happens and really soak in what's being done well, what's being done incorrectly and then creating a plan of attack from there, and so just diving in.
00:22:23.374 --> 00:22:28.615
For example, I'll call out my sister here, who's a fantastic softball player.
00:22:28.615 --> 00:22:29.417
She's in high school now.
00:22:29.417 --> 00:22:33.700
We're working on her backhand presentation with her glove.
00:22:34.309 --> 00:22:38.499
And so the process that we go through teaching, that is, we want to dive in phase by phase, kind of like part of the whole teaching in the classroom.
00:22:38.499 --> 00:22:48.497
That is, we want to dive in phase by phase, kind of like part the whole teaching in the classroom, but we want to phase by phase into this to where she understands the concepts of the movement, and then you drill until it's mastered.
00:22:48.497 --> 00:23:03.852
And so I like to think of it as, like, you introduce the skill, uh, you have a phase of skill acquisition where you're you're training different pieces of the skill to kind of put it all together, and then you have the process of mastery, where they understand the movement, they understand what it looks like.
00:23:03.852 --> 00:23:10.212
You just have to allow it to then become second nature, which I think the longest phase of that is the mastery piece.
00:23:10.212 --> 00:23:11.618
I think that's something that's ongoing.
00:23:11.618 --> 00:23:15.676
Even if you're really good at something, that mastery piece is continuous.
00:23:15.676 --> 00:23:17.277
It's not like you just leave it and then you got it.
00:23:18.170 --> 00:23:29.104
Well, I always think about infielding, and to me, the most critical position on the infield at the high school level is the first baseman.
00:23:31.172 --> 00:23:41.246
And you know I read a stat, it's been several years ago where I believe that, in the course of a seven inning game, a first baseman's involved in at least nine plays.
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