All right, we’ll go ahead and get jumping here. Chris, appreciate you spending some time with us on a Monday morning, hopefully for you.
Thanks are great, man. Thanks for having me. Kind of a gray dreary morning here in Louisville, Kentucky, so feels like baseball season’s a mile away, but always fun to talk ball.
Yeah, absolutely. I just got back from New York City over the weekend and talk about cold and gray back being back in Florida.
I’m a happy man now. Yeah, there you go.
Well, for our audience and those that’ll be listening later on, obviously having Chris Burke, former SC Player of the Year led the Tennessee Balls of the 2001 College World Series, first round pick of the Houston Astros. Played six years in the big leagues member of the Tennessee Baseball Hall of Fame. I think one cool thing for me looking at your career is making your debut on America’s birthday on July 4th was probably a pretty cool thing for you. And as we probably all recognize the voice now, one of the major players over at ESPN as an analyst for both SEC Network and College Baseball Hole. So a lot to jump into today. I I’d like to start quickly, Chris, if you could just tell us all the way back to when it first started, how did you fall in love with the game of baseball and what did that path look like for you?
I fell in, well, thanks for that intro and yes, my debut was fun even though we got beat 18 to three, so it wasn’t that much fun. Anyway, I think pretty typical story. I had a dad who loved the game. I had a dad who coached the game and played the game when I was born. He was the head baseball coach at what’s now Bellarmine University, which is a division one school in the a sun, which has been cool to see them. They’ve actually been on Tennessee’s schedule the last couple of years growing up. I wouldn’t have never thought that, but when he was the head coach there, they were division two school called Bellamy College, and he was a very good player catcher, left-handed hitting catcher and then became the head coach there and did that as a young man. And then as I got older, he moved into selling insurance and then eventually into the financial services world.
But I had an older sister and an older brother, and as soon as my older brother and I got old enough, I mean we were playing ball in the backyard and when dad would come home from work, we would play together as somebody that’s involved in coaching. Not all the sports but two other sports in addition to baseball. One thing I’ve kind of come to realize baseball a little bit like coffee is more of an acquired taste. First time you drink Coca-Cola, everybody likes it. First time you have a cup of coffee, not so much. And baseball can be like that to a degree unless you play it for fun in the backyard. I think it’s very easy pathway to fall in love. Somebody throws you a ball, you try to whack it, right? Somebody hits you a ball, you try to catch it. Sometimes the games themselves are a little bit slower moving and I think coming off the heels, especially traditional sports schedule, you come off the heels of basketball season, a lot of great athletes sometimes have a hard time falling in love with baseball just because they don’t get to have the ball in their hand all the time and the pace is slower and especially in a lot of the parts of the country, the weather’s maybe not great in March and April.
And so I am really grateful for a dad and an older brother who introduced me to the game and we played the game a ton organically. As you know Matt, that’s the way you played most of your ball then not to sound like an old guy, but there just wasn’t a million games on the schedule the way there is now. And so that’s where I learned to play the game. I still love to watch my crew play it in the backyard because I love, you know what I really love Matt? I love to watch kids who don’t play baseball, play pickup baseball and they love pickup baseball. Everybody at the pool in our neighborhood in the summertime, there’s a big grass area next to it. Kids that have never played a day of organized baseball, love to play whiffle ball, nobody. You know what I mean? So anyway, that’s just kind of a note of, I think the game is, I like to say when you learn to play it organically, you can sit through the misery of a real game waiting for your next opportunity.
I just picture my 12-year-old who no longer plays the game. I picture him, he never fell in love with it. I picture him and and what you’re saying and picking the flowers out in right field and just not knowing what to do. Right. And it’s funny you say that because when people ask me like, Hey, how do I get my son or daughter to start being better or start playing the game, the first thing I tell ’em is go get one of those huge bats from Kmart or Walmart with the big barrels on it, the plastic ones. I say throw ’em a ball and just let ’em feel getting the ball on the barrel, right? Instead of starting them right in t-ball or going to machine pitch or whatever it is, when they’re trying to hit this thing, it’s tougher, right?
I think, excuse me, on two baseball, three on three baseball where you’re constantly up to bat, you’re constantly running the bases. You’re playing with ghost runners. We grew up, we used to ride our bikes to a church softball field. This is funny now, but you weren’t allowed to hit the ball, the right field. There’s one infielder, one pitcher, one outfielder. If you hit it the right field, you were out. Everything was a mound out, everything was ghost runners and we played three on three baseball. It’s a blast. And then you’re waiting for your little league game for that one at bat for that because you’ve been working on it all week. It just, again, I’m not trying to get into the better or worse world, it’s just different, but it is a fun way to learn the game, and that’s how I grew up playing it.
So you grew that way, grew up just playing organically. When did you realize that maybe I got a shot at being pretty good at this thing?
It’s interesting. I was always a good player. It was clear I was a good player and I started on the all-star team. As an 11-year-old, I was the shortstop. When you’re doing it, you don’t realize that’s a big deal. And then now as somebody who covers little league baseball for ESPN, there’s not a whole lot of kids at 11 that are the starting shortstops. So they’re all-star teams, but I didn’t think much of it. We won the state for the first time in 25 years and went to the regionals. Back then there were only four regionals, so there was 12. It was this poor team from Kentucky. We had to go play Texas in the southeast regional, what are we doing? Texas, Florida, Kentucky, right? Georgia, Right. It’s crazy, crazy. So we got beat three to two. And what’s funny is the guy who beat us, a guy by the name of Brian Gordon, I ended up playing against him in aa. That’s great. Crazy funny story. But he struck out 16 and drove in all three. I hit a two run homer the second at bat of the, our first guy got hit, then I hit a two run homer. Then he struck out 15 in a row.
If I do my math, that would include you, right?
Yes. So next time he threw me three straight curve balls, which I don’t think I’d seen a curve ball to that point. I saw I missed all three of ’em. And then I actually did make contact my third of bed. So I felt pretty good. I made contact in two of the three of bats. But anyway, funny how you remember those details. And I walked up behind him and I said, after I realized it was him, he was so good, Matt, I wrote, I got the baseball that I hit the home run on my dad and I decided we’re going to write that kid’s name on the ball. So it was Round Rock, Texas. Well, my first year, first full season in pro ball, I was in AA in Round Rock, Texas, and this kid comes up to bat for El Paso, named Brian Gordon, and the place starts screaming and I’m like, Brian Gordon, Brian.
Now mind you, this is 10 years later, 11 years later, 10 years later, I’m like, Brian Gordon, Brian Gordon. I called my dad that night. I said, dad, go in my bedroom and find that old ball. Look in the name on it. Who was the pitcher that day? Brian Gordon. I’m like, no way. So I walked up to him the next day before bp. I said, Hey, man, you remember some little fart that did a home run off of you in the little league regional? He turned around, he goes, no way. No way. I was like, that was me. So we had a big laugh about it. So anyway, I had moments like that as I was growing up where I’m like, I’m pretty good at this deal, but I would really say my sophomore year I earned a starting shortstop job. I was playing basketball all winter, so I was late to the season, but about a month into the season, they moved me up from JV to varsity, and I was the shortstop on our St X here in Louisville, which is a very good program.
I was playing shortstop and I had a good season. And in that summer, back then, I don’t know how you all did it, but we just had 18 U team, so it wasn’t a 16 U 17 U, so we were playing 18 u and I was the shortstop on this 18 U team that was a really good competitive team. We went around, played quite a few people, and I hit leadoff and played shortstop as a 16-year-old. And that was the first summer where I looked around and I thought, I think I’m the best player on the field. Whether I was or not, I don’t know. But that’s how I felt. And that was my dad was a college baseball coach and he was breathing that kind of same energy in a very healthy way. He still coached my tail off, but he was encouraging me that I was developing well and I was running good. So anyway, that was when I first started thinking, I think I can play this game at a pretty high level.
Yeah, absolutely. So you talk about we’re the advent of what has now become obviously much bigger in the travel baseball scene, in the travel baseball world, but you did talk about getting together with some better players from around your area, I’m guessing, right? Traveling around a little bit.
Yeah.
What benefit do you think that debt did have on your development as a player?
Yeah, I certainly don’t want to be a hater on the current model. I mean, my kids are, I got my Vipers t-shirt on. I’m associated with a travel organization and I know that’s your world and there’s a lot of great benefits to travel baseball. It’s not all the negative narrative that people painted out to be. And really, I was a part of a group called Louisville Thunder that was kind of on the front end, and this really to that point, the only travel baseball was Legion Ball. And a guy by the name of Jim Powell, along with my dad and a few other dads, put together a team called Louisville Thunder. And we played a bunch of games against Lexington was kind of out in front of us in this, and Lexington had an organization called the Dixie Stars. Austin Kerns was a part of that group.
They had a lot of really talented players coming out of Lexington at that period of time. So we used to do battle, but a lot of the best players from Louisville were leaving Louisville to go play in this kind of travel model. Well, this guy started, we kept a bunch of kids home, and so we had a good team. And as the University of Louisville’s proven, Louisville’s got a nice group of players as they’ve won with some of their homegrown kids. And I think the biggest thing for me was you get out of your zip code and you play against the team and somebody goes, that kid’s going to Mississippi State. Somebody goes, that kid’s going North Carolina. I remember the first time I faced a kid that I was told was going to a division one, I remember facing a left hand was going to North Carolina.
And I just remember thinking North Carolina like, wow, that doesn’t even feel real. And he was 88 to 90 with a breaking ball, and he carved me up my first at bat, and I came back in the dugout and dad was like, you better get used to it. You keep telling me at that time I wanted to go to Alabama or LSU, like you keep telling me you want to play at Alabama or LSU, you better get used to it. That’s what it looks like. And so playing against high level competition, being on the field with kids that were going to major division one schools, it’s a very good feeling out process. How do I stack up? How competitive am i? Am I able to make the adjustments necessary to have a good or bad against a kid with this kind of stuff? So that part of it was just a blast.
Different to me, the post puberty piece of travel baseball is much, or at least the mid puberty, post puberty, not to get weird to the conversation, but 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, even the opposition can’t present that many problems. The ball’s not moving that fast. The pitchers can only do so much with it. The bats are juice, the fields are small. There’s just not as many problems that can be presented. Soon as you get on a 60 90 field and you’re playing against kids that are starting to play the game like men now, a lot of times you got to stretch your wings and see what’s out there and you got to see left-hand breaking balls. You got to see pickoff moves, you got to see sliders, you got to see, you know what I’m saying? And so now the travel piece to see what’s out there I think becomes a much more important part of the journey. I’m not saying all travel 8, 9, 10, 11 is bad. I’m not saying that. I’m just saying it becomes much more important as you get into that 14 to 17-year-old phase.
They’re definitely two distinct worlds, I think. Right? And I think that they should be looked at that right pre big field post big field. That’s obviously the separator. And I think one thing that obviously from major league baseball all the way down that we’d like to try to make a dent in is making the retirement age a little bit later. The retirement age of a current baseball player is around 11 years old. And so if the retirement age of a baseball player is 11 years old, that’s hurting our future coaches, our future fans of the game, all those types of things. So I think that there are definitely two distinct worlds in this travel ball place as you described, Chris, I think that’s really, really good. So you realize I’m going to be pretty good at this thing sophomore year in high school. You end up finding your way to the University of Tennessee.
I think this will kind of get us to the next part of this conversation, which is really talking about, I think one of your big passions is player development and hitting and what that looks like in preparation for this. I was noting that you went from, I think it was two home runs your first year, four your second year to 20, your junior year, and leading Tennessee to the World Series SEC Player of the Year, first round draft pick that year. Is there anything in there? There’s got to be something unpack, right? Going from four to 20 average jumped up, I think about 50 points. Is there anything in there that happened that you can share with us?
Yeah, I look back at it, there’s a lot to that. The first thing I would say is, and this is an interesting thing, I think a lot of our audience would agree, maybe some of the younger folks that are listening maybe don’t even realize this, but when I was growing up, the biggest thing in the game of baseball from an individual record as a hitter was the batting title.
Everybody wanted to win the batting title. I had the highest batting average, and I love analytics. Give me as many numbers as you can give me. I’m going to sort through ’em and tell you the ones I like and tell you the ones I don’t like doesn’t make me right. That’s just my ideal. I try to walk in the middle of the old school, new school, and I understand, and I tell kids this all day, the batting average can very much be the devil of this game. You can become obsessed with your batting average to the point of it defines how you view your success. And we know that batting average has an insane amount of circumstance involved with it. And I’ve had to have this conversation with my boys a thousand times. That being said, I still don’t know any hitter that doesn’t like to get a hit when they go up to bat. It’s the most basic fundamental day. I go up to bat, I want to get a hit now I like to get hard hits. I like to hit line drive hits. But to be honest with you, I’ll take any hit you give. I was a hit. Go ahead. You look like you say something.
I was going to say, you ask any hitter, not any, but you ask 90% of hitters, you’re going to get this answer. Would you rather hit a ball 102 on the barrel right at the center field or on a line, or would you rather hit a bleeder over the second baseman’s head and get on base and they’re going to be like, give me that bleeder. Give
Me the, I just want hit. I just want to hit please. I just want to hit. I want to go two for three. I want to go three for four. Who doesn’t want that right now? Again, we know why the analytics exists. Reaching first base is just a means to an end. And you can do that with a walk. I get it. Obviously, the harder you hit it, the more consistently you hit it hard over a long stretch of the season, you’re probably going to be a better hitter than a guy that’s not hitting it that hard, that consistently we get all that. I’m just saying, I grew up a hit collector. I just give me hits. I want as many hits as I could possibly have. To me, that was the whole thing I want to hit. Now, I did hit home runs my whole youth career.
I was a guy that once I got to a level of strength at whatever age I was at, I barreled the ball up a lot and I had a pretty good flat, slightly upward path. So when I barreled it up, the ball usually went and I had double digit home runs through my high school career. But I got to Tennessee, that was the first year the bats changed my freshman year in Tennessee, the bats went from two and three and minus five to two and five eighths barrel and minus three. Now, in today’s world, they would still be considered, I don’t know. I don’t know what’s happening to today’s world. It’s pretty close nowadays. I say numbers have kind of gone back to my generation, not the previous generation. But anyway, the bats were still good, but they weren’t crazy. They were in the mid to late nineties, the gorilla ball, right?
So the fields obviously were bigger than in high school, and the bats were a little deader, and I was a freshman and I was hitting lead off and let me just get a million hits. I’m just trying to get hits, and I was successful. So my freshman year, I think I hit whatever, 3 75 or something in my sophomore year, I hit over 400, I hit 4 0 3, and I set the school record for hits, and I stole 50 something bases and I was going to play for team USA, and I made the All American team, and I thought things were great. And Coach Damon, I just so thankful for his ability. I tell this to coaches all the time, don’t be afraid to coach your best players. I think sometimes in baseball, we’re so scared, this guy’s really good. Let me not mess ’em up. Because what happens is kids, no disrespect because I’ve been there too, it’s easy to use a coach as an alibi.
Oh, he messed with my swing. We see this in pro ball a lot. Nobody wants to coach a first rounder because nobody wants to be the guy who messed up a first rounder. And so part of my story, and the reason I’m passionate about teaching is because I’m a product of great coaching, and my dad certainly was a huge piece of that. But in college, I set the freshman record for hits. I then on the next year, I set the school record for hits. I’m getting all these hits. I’m hitting for this crazy high average, and I was hitting a lot of doubles. But Coach Damon comes up to me and he goes, Hey man, I have to been waiting all year to tell you this. You got some juice in there that you’re not using because you don’t get loaded at all. Your hands are leaking with your stride.
I just had the bat right here. And as I would stride, I was a front foot guy, high hand eye coordination, high bat to ball skills, and I would just flick and I would figure it out on the way to the ball. I was disconnected a lot, butt out, one-handed base hits, and it never really like, what’s wrong with that? I’m getting a bunch of hits. What’s wrong with this? He was like, dude, if you could get loaded up, stay on your backside a little bit longer, give yourself some time to recognize the breaking ball. Quit swinging at so many marginal pitches outside the zone, even if you’re getting hits, that’s not a great way to make a living at the next level. So I’m not going to tell you how to do it, but I’m going to send you out. Go make that team in the games, do what you’ve always done, why you’re on this team.
They want you to be a lead off hitter and play middle infield. But I want you to spend the summer watching Mark Erra and watching Ryan Howard watching and Xavier Na. You guys are going to be in some big league ballparks. Watch those guys. Figure out a way to get your hands into a position where when your foot’s down, you’re what I would say now, coiled up and ready to roll, really ready in a position to make your best swing. So what’s funny is I spent that summer watching a bunch of people, and one day we’re in LA and we’re going to play at Dodger Stadium the next day, and we’re watching the Rockies play the Dodgers. And of course, Todd Hilton was somewhat new in his career at that point in time, but was dominating the league. I mean, it was as good as any hitter as there was in the game.
And if you remember Hilton Hands, real high leg kick. And of course he’s the Tennessee legend. And Coach Damongo was always shoving him in my face all the time. And I’m like, let me watch this dude. And I just was like, well, let me try that. My thing was I was trying to start where my hands had already had always started and then make a different move from there. I was like, I probably need to get my hands in a different spot and I’m not going to hit from here. I’m not going to leak forward from here. They got to go somewhere from there. So all of a sudden I started leg kicking and I moved my hands up here above my helmet and I’m doing in bp, and I’m like, this kind of feels good. Come back that fall. And I’m not kidding you, Matt, it was all I could do to hit a ball out in batting practice.
My first two years of Tennessee, my buddies used to give me a hard time. I mean, I hit a few on runs, but not many people would know know this, but Tennessee is like 15 or 20 feet shorter now than it was then. It used to be one of the biggest parks in the SEC. But through renovations, the home plate’s been moved out. They left the wall and they moved home plate out. We had huge left center field gap. So I had a bunch of triples, but it was a big old ballpark. It was like 405 feet out there in lip center field. So anyway, all of a sudden I’m hitting ball out of ballpark in fall practice. And I remember on scout day, I hit like 11 or 12 straight balls out and my teammates were looking at me and Coach Damon’s shaking his head.
And so I told my dad, I said, dad, I’m going with this. And I just remember he said to me, he goes, don’t forget who you are. I get it, but don’t forget who you are. Well, I went from 4 0 3 to 4 35. So my average went up and I went from four homers to 20 homers and a bunch of other numbers on top of that. That increased, not decreased. Now, I probably did strike out more just being honest, but I walked more also. And the net was I probably went from being a mid second rounder to the 10th pick of the draft. And so I always tell people, coach Delco made me a million dollars. He did just by having the balls, the challenge, right? Not C to coach me. Coach me. That’s right. And so my point is twofold. Number one, he wasn’t afraid to coach me and he coached me with the right information. What he told me was correct, and he had the video to prove it. He my nobody was using video back then, but he put the video up, he’s like, I want you to watch her. And if he didn’t show me, I wouldn’t have believed him. I’d be like, is this guy serious? I rake, what is this guy talking about? And then number two, so he wasn’t to coach me. He coached me with the right information. But then the second part of that is, and I credit my parents for this, I was coachable.
It takes two to dance. And so he wasn’t afraid to coach me and I wanted to get better. I actually believed him. I’d hit home runs in my pass. I thought I could hit the ball of the ballpark a little bit more. And I was okay with changing. I wasn’t afraid to change. I thought it would make me better. So you look back on that and say you put those two things together and my junior year was one to remember.
Yeah, I’ve got two little tidbits that I’d like to throw out there based on that conversation, that story. Number one, as a hitting coach, one thing that I’ve always done, obviously you played it a lot higher level. I’ve had the opportunity to live in Orlando, Florida and get the coach. A lot of really good players. The first thing I always did with a kid is I tell ’em, Hey, I want you to get in the cage the first time you hit with me and I want you to pretend you’re playing wiffle ball in the backyard. What would that look like to you? And I’m not saying that’s how we’re going to swing, but what does the freedom to move, how your body wants to move that I typically have worked with older kids, Chris, and I think that from what I’ve seen in my own life, it might be a small microcosm, but I see a lot of over coached and over mechanical swings at a young age and the ability to free that kid up and to let him move how he naturally moves. Obviously there’s going to be things that you’ve got to do, but I think when I heard you say, I got my hands up, a motorcycle leg kick, whatever it might have been, not big, but I let it
Was big.
You look at a guy like you who’s twitchy, who moves well, right? In my mind, that is what you want, right? That is what you want. And another thing that ringed true to me is we hear a lot of ex-players in your generation, my generation, I heard you say that you had the really good swing path right in the zone for a long time, slightly uphill, slightly is a really important word. Do you feel like growing up that you thought you had that or do you feel like growing up you thought you were more this way, trying to be on top a little bit, putting that belt on, right? What would you say? No,
I’d say my dad always. My dad was one of those guy, I always say I’m thankful for a lot of things about the way my dad raised me. But one of those was as a hitting guy, he just always said the word level. I’ve played with some of the best in the world that think down for me, level always made sense. Now we know now that the bat isn’t level. It should move up. And when I say we know now, Ted Williams said it 60 years ago, it’s really not new. The path of the bat should move slightly up. 8, 10, 12 degrees. There’s some guys that’ve been doing it at a higher attack angle in the modern game, the bat should move up. I think the feel is what matters, right? Feel and real. And what do you need to feel to produce good ball flight?
I think the genius of a coach, I think some of my best coaching jobs as a coach is where I’ve just thrown the KBP. You’re swinging awesome. And you know how I know that? Watch the ball. The ball doesn’t lie. Your feeling will. Your feelings will lie to you. Your mind’s eye will lie to you. The ball will not lie to you. Watch the ball. And I had this long conversation with kid the other day. There’s never been a hitter a hundred years ago or today that didn’t concern himself with how hard he was hitting the ball and the flight the ball was taking, never, never. Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Lou Gehrig, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Albert ols, Mike Trout, they all are trying to hit the ball hard and with the flight that they choose to use to practice at. And the greats, Freddy Freeman likes it.
One hoppers a shortstop. Who am I to tell Freddy Freeman how he should spend his batting practice? What I know is when you turn on the tape in the game, the guy’s a barrel fest and he’s in a bunch of rockets. You know what I’m saying? Whereas other hitters are a little more loose with their bp, they’re going to try to hit every ball into the seats if they’re, I remember Matt Holiday telling me he’s trying to hit the ball in the opposite field, bullpen every swing. So not an opposite field, one hopper and the opposite field bullpen. He’s trying to hit the ball out to right center. Whatever that ball flight is. I still don’t know hitters. And again, you get the occasional guy. Most hitters don’t like making outs, so they don’t like practicing outs. So I tell kids all the time, I’ve never seen a shooter miss free throws, like practice missing free throws.
We’re going to try to get line drive hits. And you go to most cages, depending on how tall your cages are, a 15 degree, the highline drive at college and pro baseball is the highest batting average there is. What’s a 15 degree highline drive is pretty much just over the infielders. Or if a pitcher’s standing on the mound, it’s over his head. Now that’s not a new thing to tell a kid that’s 15 degrees high is a new thing. But to tell him to hit a line drive over the infield is not a new thing. And I tell coaches this all the time, more than you think. It hasn’t changed as much as you think it has. If you were ever telling kids to not hit line drives through the infield, you were wrong. And if you’re telling them to not hit ’em, now you’re probably wrong with the exception of the occasional uber talented kid. But even those kids, I still think most of those kids would do well to practice line drives over the infield head and just say that a homer in a game is a line drive. My dad, as long as I can remember, used to tell me a home, a line drive you just missed. And science has proven that over, and I know the swing isn’t level, but the thought
Of being in an athletic posture and feeling the bat, stay square and notice my hands now moving up. But in my mind, man, I’m just trying to get the bat to the zone and keep it there. And if I maintain an athletic posture, that bat’s going to work up on its own.
So yeah, the bat’s moving up, but really I’m trying to hit the middle of the ball with the middle of the bat. So my dad never told me to hit ground balls and I could run. He we’re trying to hit line drives and we’re trying to be line drive machines, and we didn’t really talk about what our misses look like. That’s not a line drive. Let’s do it again. That’s not a line drive. Let’s do it again. And I just think exit velocity and launch angle are just fancier ways to measure. They’re not new that we’re just measuring and have terms around what’s your ball flight and how hard did you hit it?
Exactly.
It’s not as new as it feels like it’s, and what’s new, Matt, is that we now have these things that can give us some of that feedback and we can get slow motion video to tell somebody, this is why you’re not hitting enough line drops, or This is why your body’s not moving well enough to get to what I think your peak exit velocity could be
Correct.
But the measurement of those two things, while it sounds new, is two things hitters have always done. I hit that ball hard and I hit it on a line. That’s not a new thing.
And the crazy thing for me about hitting, we have not, you can, we have hacked the kinetic chain when it comes to pitching, right? Guys are consistently, maybe it’s not throwing harder. I think there’s arguments that the radar guns are a little bit different in the way that they work, but I would argue that there are more guys doing it than there were
Definitely, definitely
20 years ago. So on the pitching side, a hundred percent right. You look at the hitting side, I use the analogy a lot. You could have, this is probably an over exaggeration, but you could have the worst mechanical swing in the world and be on time with those mechanics and hit. So timing to me is one of the most important things when it comes to a hitter, right? Being on time, swinging at good pitches. So again, you could have the most beautiful swing in the world. Your kinetic chain matches up perfectly, your barrel speed, your acceleration are top 5% in the country, but you can’t figure out how to swing at good pitches or beyond time. It doesn’t matter, right? It doesn’t matter. So there is still this innate,
Well, now we’re into the hand-eye coordination piece, which is, it’s kind of the secret sauce that that’s the one thing as instructors, I can’t give you good eyes. I can’t do that. And that part of it is what you’re saying, which you can have an ugly saying If you got great eyes, great depth perception and the ability to make adjustments that trumps mechanics any day of the week.
Absolutely. And something that you can’t, you’re born with it. Yes. But I do think there are things out there that you can work
With. Train your eyes for sure.
Train your eyes. I think small things I love to do drills where when we’re doing front toss, if you’re a good hitter, you should be squaring every ball up on front toss, right? You shouldn’t be missing front toss. So let’s challenge ourselves. Let’s swing at two seams only, right? Let’s swing in zone six or seven only, right? Things like that that I think that for our listeners,
Change speeds. I like to change speeds, change speeds on front to like, Hey bro, I keep getting you on every changeup on front toss and you’re going to go get a real dude. I don’t know about that,
But I think training the mind for our listeners, for those coaches, for those parents, for the kids that are listening, taking the opportunity that within your training sessions that you are doing things that are obviously you’ve got to work on the way that you move and how your barrel’s moving through the zone. Super important. But don’t neglect the opportunities early in your sessions to really focus on what your eyes are seeing whether you’re making good swing decisions. I think those things are really, really important.
And I think everybody has to prioritize. Most of my clients I see once a week for 30 minutes, and I usually attack my sessions. If this is the only 30 minutes this kid gets to train, what’s the most important thing I can work on him with? Now I got some elite hitters I know are, I’ll see Daylon Lyle today. He’s hitting six days a week, maybe seven. We’re going to work on different things. I mean, we’re still very concerned about our ball flight, but we’re going to work on some different things than a kid who I know maybe this is the only, maybe he’s in basketball season and this is the only time he’s working, right? So those are two different things. But there is instructing 1 0 1 and there’s instructing 4 0 1, and it’s our job to know where is each kid at? And some kids, just like you’re saying, they need to learn how to move and you got to prioritize that. But some kids that are already moving pretty well at that point, then we got to make the ball change speeds and change levels and change trajectories and whatever. Our ability to either do that personally, whether it’s me pitching to ’em or use machines to help with that. I agree. It’s very important part of the development process.
Absolutely. Again, I’m just going to make an announcement for all of our attendees. Anybody here, if you’ve got any questions, question and answer button there at the bottom, you can click. We got probably about 15 more minutes of our conversation then try to get some of your questions. So Chris, let’s talk about you see it every day from whether it’s you coaching your boys, being part of the Vipers program up to your analyst job with ESPN, I think I’d like to start from the top and work our way down, and this can go a million different ways, but what are some of the biggest changes that you are seeing at the apex of college baseball, which is obviously the SEC that you think parents and players should know about?
Where would you like me to go with that? We want to talk transfer portal. We want to talk. Let me tell you what I don’t think has changed. What hasn’t changed is that let’s just talk position players, coaches want position players that are athletic and that have grit. I would just tell you those two things. Now, sometimes the recruiting process is harder to
Vet out the grit,
To vet out the grit, but that’s where some of the better travel programs continue to send their players to certain places because the coaching staffs at those schools trust the, if Kevin O’Sullivan calls Matt Gerber for a player, the recommendation that Matt Gerber gives holds weight. He trusts what Matt Gerber says about ex-player makeup. And also travel organizations have gotten to a place now where they know this kid, probably it’s not going to work good there. And that’s not necessarily always good or bad, it’s just can be some different strokes for different folks as it pertains to certain types of programs. But I do think across the board, coaches are seeking athleticism and they’re seeking players that can deal with the immense failure and pressure of the game at its highest level. And the sport of college baseball has always been insanely competitive at its highest level.
You asked me to talk about it at its apex, which is where I cover it. I’m blessed to do that, but it’s never been more so than now. Players are literally making six figures. Literally the best players are making hundreds of thousands of dollars to beat good baseball players. That is just the truth. And the coaches are making millions of dollars and all the games are on TV and dudes like me are talking about. So there’s never been more pressure. So because of that, the journey to making sure that as a parent and as coaches, you are developing kids that are ready for the mental stress of playing in that environment, it couldn’t be more important. And that’s not a black and white equation on how to develop that, but just know failure is your friend and you better learn to tell kids to accept it and figure out how to deal with it.
Or they got no shot to play in that kind of ring. Because when you step into that arena, I cried in the, I went one for 14 against Louisville the third weekend of my freshman year, second, third weekend of my freshman year, I won 14. I cried my eyes out in the stands after everybody had left. Me and my dad were just sitting in the stands. I made sure everybody left. I’m crying my eyes out, dad, I don’t know if I’m good enough. He’s like, well, you better figure it out. I think you are, but you better figure it out. And those are the kind of moments where you’re like, rubber meets the road, whatcha going to do tomorrow? You going to show up to the cage? You’re going to stay in your room. So I say that not with empathy, because I’ve been there, but every kid, every big leaguer has had a moment where they wonder, am I good enough?
Am I good enough? Am I actually cut out for this? And your ability to answer that question and dig it out of the dirt, as Ben Hogan would say, will be your ability to make it. And so no matter how fancy the game gets with the metrics that we use to play to judge players, that competitive grit is just a non-negotiable to make it. Now, you might get there without it. You might get there without it, but to stay there, it’s probably not going to last. And also the coaches are now, they can recruit over you in the blink of an eye. So you better be ready for the fight on your way in. Because it used to be if a coach gave you a big scholarship and there was no transfer portal, you might get two years to find your way. Now, first of all, there’s half a dozen dudes on campus that are already fighting for your job, and if the coach doesn’t think any of you are good, he’ll get a new batch the next year. And oh, by the way, that’s not his fault. That’s the rules that the way they’re set up. And if he doesn’t win, he gets fired. So he’s got to tell his kids they’re moving. So don’t blame. It’s not the coach’s fault either, right? So I would just say that being ready for the fight and being okay with the fight. So what does that mean for travel sports?
Again, this is going to sound judgmental. How many kids we’ve got that have already played with half a dozen organizations by the time they’re 15 years old, you’re leaving, you want a perfect fit? Well, you think college is going to be a perfect fit. You think when you get into pro ball, you’re going to find a perfect fit, you think? I hate to say it. You think they’re worried about your feelings. They’re not. So again, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t some situations that aren’t good and you do need to get out. I get it. But every once in a while, you got to hang in there and fight for a job every once in a while. And so I would just encourage people, I know we got some people that are all different places. Also, I would encourage people, if your kid’s playing their primary position on a place that’s good for ’em and they’re playing a pretty competitive schedule, you might not need to go chase the high end of the travel ball.
That’s a good place for your kid. Let him play his primary position. You go play for one of these halves on the travel circuit, and you might end up playing left field, half the game for half the games. And I’m not saying that’s wrong either, but there it’s complicated. And I know I’m rambling, but I would just say, you asked me what’s changed the most. I went with what hasn’t changed, which you better be, and matter of fact, maybe even more so you better be ready for the fight. Now, what has changed the most kind of coincides with what I said, which is in some regards, the mid-majors have become the minor leagues for the power fives. And so if the dream is power five, which by the way, there’s a million paths to the big leagues. So I hope kids aren’t just limiting themselves to that,
And they should definitely be looking at that, right? I think that’s a really important thing. And it’s hard because the apex of college baseball is the SEC, you cannot argue that, right? You’ve got kids from all over the country, that’s where they want to be. That’s where the money is, right? That’s right. That’s also the top 1% of high school baseball players, probably even smaller percentile than that. I think I saw something the other day. I think it was like 270 kids got recruited in the SEC last year, right? That’s kind of the number. But two things that I want to say is, one is there’s many different paths to the big leagues. In fact, many of the big leaguers I’ve had the opportunity to coach, yes, you’ve got your Dylan Cruises of the world are dominating against boom, boom, boom,
Boom, right? Boom,
Boom, boom, boom, all play up. But there’s actually more stories of the kid that was left-handed pitcher throwing 69 miles an hour as a freshman, who ends up working his tail off. And I won’t name the kid’s name. You guys can look him up, ends up at AAU there for three years as a fifth round a U has been the big leagues for eight years as a starting pitcher for the Colorado Rockies. And there’s a lot more like that for sale. A guy that played for me, same thing, right? Kind of nothing, nothing, nothing. I don’t know if
You work with Shael, but Shael was, where was he out of high school. Can’t run all that good. His position is his power elite. Next thing you know, the guy’s already in the big leagues,
First guy, the big leagues, right? Yeah, absolutely. So Trey Turner’s another great example of that, right?
Everybody missed one, right? Chris? Hard found him. Yeah,
A hundred percent, right? So again, for the players, the parents that are listening to this, yes, there should always be goals like Chris is saying, and the SEC is the ultimate goal as it should be, right? But at the same time, there are different paths to get to where you want to be. And if we’re talking as a whole, the goal of playing college baseball still puts you, whether you’re at the NAI level junior college level, whether you’re at the division one, division two level, you’re still in the top 5% of high school baseball players
And major League baseball doesn’t care. They don’t care. But I would say the similar analogy to that is college baseball coaches really don’t care who your travel team is. They’re looking for traits. You know what I’m saying? Major league baseball doesn’t care who your college program is, and college baseball doesn’t really care who your travel ball program is. They are looking for traits and it starts in your chest and in your mind, and then it obviously overflows by the way you move. And whether that’s a pitcher or a hitter, your ability to throw and command the baseball as a hitter, your ability to impact the baseball and control the barrel, and then can you play a position and can you run all these things matter a ton. But what they really don’t care is the name on the front of the jersey. They really don’t. I mean, damn, McDonald’s and neighbor of mine, he lives just right the street. We talk about it all the time. And now that doesn’t mean that playing for one of the top premier programs is evil either. If that’s your deal and you want to be in every big circuit, if that’s your family’s best thing for y’all, go for it. I’m just saying it’s not a prerequisite to making it. No,
I think, but I will challenge this part of it. I think that the relationships are really important. Whatever the name is, is the guy that’s coaching you, whether you are the major division one guy, whether you’re the division two guy, does he, have you started the conversation? Does he have the relationships with the coaches that we trust
That matters
When that phone’s picked up? Because at the end of the day, I think that there’s this conception that exposure equals recruitment exposure does not equal recruitment. First of all, being good enough. I think currently exposure equals being exposed
If you’re not ready for it, for sure.
Right? Exactly. But the real equation, if we’re writing it on a chalkboard, is how you want to quantify it. Being ready plus the right people around you equals recruitment. So I think that that combination of being ready plus being with people that can move the needle for you is really important to reaching.
And I appreciate you making that. I’m not saying that there aren’t programs and people that can really help. A hundred percent. I’m not, but I tell kids all the time, I can call this coach for you, but that’s it. Once he comes to your camp, perform
Once he to
You better perform, you better play good, right? Nobody’s giving you a scholarship offer, especially in today’s climate, because I told him that I think you’re good. That ain’t the way this deal
Goes. And for those listening, if guys aren’t giving a scholarship based on what Chris Burke is saying, if anybody out there selling you that, we’re going to get you a scholarship because you’re playing for me, they’re lying to your face.
And that’s back. Now we’re back to the traits conversation. That’s really what I meant, which is there are people that can certainly make life easier and streamline the process for you. No doubt about it. I can put you in front of a coach. There is no doubt about it. Once he watches you, he better like what he sees. And to their degree, it’s like I tell people all the time, tomato, tomato, some of these guys like certain traits, some of these guys are interested in some other traits, and that’s why recruiting can be very messy and the Nolan Sheels of the world can get missed. That’s how it
Happens. There’s no doubt about that. I remember about, it was probably about 10 years ago, I had a SEC pitching coach come up to one of our games when I was still coaching travel baseball. And we had a kid who in my mind was probably our ninth or 10th best arm, and he walks up, he’s throwing the tail end of a pool play game, and we’re up by eight runs and he’s out and he’s just ripping breaking balls. And this was before spin rates or anything, but you could just tell that thing’s falling off the table. Now he was skinny and 85, but he was just ripping, breaking balls, ripping them. And this SEC pitching coach comes up and his words were, I want that breaking ball. I want that breaking ball. And so he committed them, ended up going to, it was Mississippi State and having a really, really good career for them out of the bullpen, ripping the breaking ball. In my mind, that’s our eight best arm. If you asked me who’s going to go in. But he had that one pitch that they wanted and needed. And you look at a guy like cops a couple of years ago, I mean, that one pitch was just right. So again, what I would take out of that to those listening is also find what you do well and continue to refine that, right, and focus and do that really well. Not to neglect the other parts of your game, but the people out there that can do everything well, those are the guys that are playing shortstop or center field or second base or catching as the majority of kids do what you do well, fine with you, do well, and really continue to do that and make that the centerpiece of your game. I think it’s really important.
And I would just, again, I tell the kids I coach all the time, if you love playing the game, love it enough to go wherever you can play and just give yourself a chance to keep developing. Because people, I mean, Brandon Fought is pitching in the World Series from Louisville, Kentucky who went to Trinity High School, which is, I mentioned Len Lyle earlier. It’s a hotbed of star talent in the area, and yet he didn’t play Louisville, Kentucky. He’s at Beman, and this dude’s pitching in the World Series at 24 years old, kids get missed, people develop late. Some of the best players in the world are the ones that carry chip on their shoulder from being overlooked or being underdeveloped at an early age. Again, I played it at the highest level. I’d love for my kids to get a chance to play in the SEC if they’re good enough, but if they’re not, I’d tell ’em, go to this D three school, grind your tail off.
Be a part of a team. Take coaching. Get in the weight room. Learn how to manage your schedule. And wherever you go in life, that’s going to serve you well. And who knows, maybe you’re the late bloomer kid who somebody notices because the world’s smaller than it’s ever been. There’s not a whole lot of secrets in the scouting world anymore. So a lot of different paths to the big leagues. But I would just say if your goal is a power five, certainly an SEC Power five man, you better be ready for the fight. That’s all I can say. You probably didn’t expect me to go there, but that’s the only place I can go because it a pressure cooker. That’s just the only way you can put it.
Yeah, and I think it’s great advice because everybody talks about the portal. Everybody talks about NIL, right? At the end of the day, those things come or go, whichever, whatever side of it you’re based on your ability to handle that pressure, right? And the guys that can handle that pressure, the ones that can play the game, I think as close to a big leaguer does wherever you, some guys play down here, some guys play up here. But wherever that is, you better stay with it all the time. If you’re Drew Gilbert and you’re playing with your hair on fire, you better play with your hair on fire
Ever. That’s what makes you great. That’s right, exactly. And you got to be able to be coached like the whole coach doesn’t like me. Coach is hard on me, coach. I’m just telling you. Good luck in that league. Good luck. If you’re scared to be coached and you’re afraid to be talked to in a way that might hurt your feelings, good luck. Those dudes are coaching for their jobs. So good luck.
One last question for you, and this one could hopefully we can condense it and not keep you too much over time. I know you got a life to live, but if there was such a thing and you were the commissioner of travel baseball, youth travel baseball, what’s one thing that just kind of comes to mind that you would do as the commissioner of that space?
I would try to, well, this is,
It’s a good one. What
A loaded question. I would say,
I think the part on a very practical level that frustrates me is the Tuesday to Sunday piece. Kids are spending their whole summer in a hotel to play one game a day, and it feels like there’s a better, I’m not saying don’t travel, and I’m not saying the big events aren’t great. They are, and I’m sure if I was a tournament director, I would see it through a different lens. The point is the play good. We say the whole point’s exposure. How am I getting better sitting in the hotel playing Fortnite the whole day and then going to the field for two hours? There has to be a better way than that. And again, I don’t have the answer, so I don’t want to be a guy that’s just crushing the current model, but it feels like the best players in the world. I tell my son this all the time.
Corey Seger is going to take today, not in December, but if we’re in the middle of July, Corey Seeger today is going to go through his hitting routine, which is going to take 30 to 45 minutes and he is going to go out onto the field. He’s going to take 10 routine ground balls. He’s going to take 10 backhand, he’s going to take 10 forehand. He’s going to take 10 slow rollers, he’s going to feed 10 double plays. He’s going to turn 10 double plays. He’s probably going to catch a half a dozen popups over his head. Then he is going to hit on the field, then he is going to go back in and get something to eat. Then he’s going to probably get a few more swings. Then he is going to go play the game. He’s already the best shortstop in the world.
He’s already the best in the world, and that’s his Tuesday. Yet what did we do today? We sat in a hotel room, swam in the pool, and I know these kids aren’t pros yet, but the ones that are investing again, post puberty, 15, 16, 17 years old. I had a kid the other day that came into my cage and he’s playing on this blah blah, and I was like, what’s your goal for colleges? I’m not sure if I want to play. I went, what the heck are you doing here? You’re 16 years old and you’re on that tribal organization. You’re on my case. You’re not sure if you want to play college baseball. I might need to call mom and dad. I’m not saying there’s no experiential value in what you’re doing, but this is a lot of money, time and energy spent if the goal is not to play college baseball. And so it’s like the development piece is more important than the one game a day piece. And I know everybody says that. What does it look like? But I just think when the tournaments are set up to go Tuesday to Sunday, how do we actually do that?
Yeah, I think,
I don’t know, could the tournaments allow for more time and space for kids to get practice time, but they’re using all their fields for games. So I don’t know what the answer to that. You probably know more than me on that. But that’s the one thing, and again, I know that’s real granular, but when you get into the summertime and I’m coaching some of these kids and you’re just like, man, you’ve been on the road for four weeks. How many ground balls have you taken in that period of time other than the three you got hit last game?
I think there’s a couple ways to tackle it, Chris. And I think there are some orgs that do a really, really good job of it, which is that they do. They’re going to go out instead of just showing up at the, and we’re talking about the elite, the 17 elite kind of players. Instead of showing up an hour before the game at the cage, they’re going to find an offsite somewhere and they’re going to going to go take a college style BP where they’re taking ground balls and hitting ground balls with their guys and moving around and being a part of that. I think. So I think that there’s a way to do it. There’s obviously, and this is why the diamond allegiance exists, right? There’s also a way to reimagine it and how should it be done? And think about as we are able to bring together people like the Vipers organization that you’re a part of, and the members of that we have together is to come up with ways to do it better. So I think that I’m excited about where that’s going to be. You’ll see that from some things that we’re doing this summer, but I think it’s a really interesting piece and something that comes up a lot. And at the end of the day, kids, parents that are listening, you’re in a current construct as that construct exists, think about ways that you can get better surrounding those days when you are at the hotel for five days. And that’s part of what you’ve got to do right now. Take it upon yourself if you have to continue.
Every hotel has a weight room. Everyone has a parking lot. Like you said, there are neighborhood fields around. You can’t just sit in a hotel for five days a week. You just can’t.
Yeah, absolutely.
But the money associated with that, it’s hard for me to wrap my, especially as a parent who’s about to go through it four different times, that part just feels tough on the youth side at the lower ages, what I would say, having just gone through, that oldest boy is now 14, but I got 11, I got eight that’s just starting. I got a 5-year-old that’s right around the corner and you’re like, one of the things that I had the hardest time with going through that with my oldest boy is like, why can’t we just play good verse good on a Sunday afternoon? Why can’t we play two Saturday and one on Sunday? Again, you got to find a field, but experiences matter and it is cool to play new teams and new environments. It is fun to play for a trophy. I’m not going to discount that, but we had this one team and it was like we would go all these different places and we’d end up playing them. How about us? Why don’t we just go play?
You know what I’m saying? But we can’t get our schedules matched up and they want to go here. We want to go there. What field are we going to play at? But I think some of that at the younger levels is, and we have a league in town that I thought did a pretty good job of that this past year with my, he was 10 last year would be 11 this year where they played some Wednesday games and it was a lot of the best teams in their age group at that time, they played on a Wednesday afternoon. Nobody’s playing for a trophy. It’s just, you have a good team, we have a good team. Let’s play a baseball game. I think that part’s hard is when you drive two and a half hours to play a team that’s in your same zip code. I think.
I agree. I think you are seeing more and more of that pop up at the end of the day in any industry and travel sports as a whole, the ance, we were meeting with some of our partners at NBC sports over the weekend and travel sports as a whole, by the end of this decade will be an 80 billion industry. So it is an industry and industry’s change. And if you look at travel sports as a whole, it’s an infant of an industry. It really is 10, maybe 15 years old. So it hasn’t even had the chance for the market really to talk back and say, this is what we want and this is what we need. But I do think you’re starting to see more and more of that. So, well, Chris, I took you five minutes over time. I certainly appreciate your time. You fire me up. It’s a really, really great conversation. Thanks for taking the time out of this Monday and hopefully offline we can talk soon. Yeah, my pleasure man. Thanks for what you guys are doing for the game. Appreciate Chris. Alright, thanks. Have a great one.
