Peter Alonso

I am a strong believer in teaching people how to think so they can teach themselves how to hit.

That was the case in my coaching relationship with New York Mets’ slugger Peter Alonso. He and I worked together during his junior and senior year of high school. He was and still is very knowledgeable about hitting.

My job was to help him to be knowledgeable about what to do next when he was not having success. My Focus Box falls under the tactical part of development.

Tactical skills deal with the mental side of things and the technical skills are the physical things.

Did you know that we are conscious of only about 5% of our cognitive activity, so most of our decisions, actions, emotions and behavior depends on the 95% of brain activity that goes beyond our conscious awareness?

This is important because based on my experience:

25% of what you do is based on what you know.
20% of what you do is based on what you don’t know.
55% of what you do is based on what you don’t know that you don’t know.

Hitters find a coach for the 20%. My hitters come to me for 55%.

Baseball players spend countless hours developing the technical parts of hitting only to never reach their full potential because their tactical cup is extremely low at best and completely empty at worst.

Here are the seven technical things that I teach my hitters:

Stance/Load
Timing
Tempo
Tracking
Approach
Contact
Extension/Finish

Here are the five tactical things my hitters must learn in order to go from having talent to skills that pay the bills:

Attitude
Awareness
Adjustments
Aptitude
Athleticism

Having good timing is a technical skill that hitters need. Having the ability to be on time with the bases loaded with two outs and your team down by three runs requires either luck or tactical skills.

The alchemy of an athlete is as important as the transformation of a tree becoming a bat. And a lot of contact with the bat can allow an athlete to have a lot of impact.

Deion Sanders building a nationally ranked football team at the University of Colorado with 86 new players is more tactical than technical.
CoCo Gauff winning the US Open at age 19 is more tactical than technical.
Steph Curry shooting jumping shots from the NBA logo and turning his back to head to set up to play defense before the ball swishes the net is more tactical than technical.
Shohei Ohtani dominating in the MLB as a starting pitcher and a top of the order hitter is more tactical than technical.

Don’t get it twisted: Tactical training can and should start early in age. It requires commitment and discipline.

Whether it is on the playing field or off of it, you will either buy a ticket or be the ticket. You decide.

He who owns the definition owns the movement.

Adjustments – the ability to do something different that will lead to success
Alchemy – transformation
Aptitude – the ability to learn and apply
Attitude – how you act
Athleticism – being able to achieve success when you don’t know how to technically do it
Awareness – how you interpret
Commitment – a promise made starting with yourself and for yourself.
Discipline – doing things that need to be done especially when you do not want to do it
Habits – things that you do well repeatedly without thought
Impact – to have a strong effect or influence on a situation or person
Knowledge – information plus experience
Skills – things that you do well repeatedly without thought while under stress.
Talent – what you do well.

What should be taught first to develop elite baseball players, technical or tactical skills?
What should be taught first to successful people in non-athletic careers, technical or tactical skills?
What are examples of tactical skills that elite players should possess?
What tactical skills did you lack as an athlete that if you had it, you would have become elite?

For more information, visit L.E.A.D. Center for Youth today. Also, check out our Digital Magazine.

C.J. Stewart has built a reputation as one of the leading professional hitting instructors in the country. He is a former professional baseball player in the Chicago Cubs organization and has also served as an associate scout for the Cincinnati Reds. As founder and CEO of Diamond Directors Player Development, C.J. has more than 22 years of player development experience and has built an impressive list of clients, including some of the top young prospects in baseball today. If your desire is to change your game for the better, C.J. Stewart has a proven system of development and a track record of success that can work for you.

Noted author Alfie Kohn once said, “Assessments should compare the performance of students to a set of expectations, never to the performance of other students.”

I just love this quote. It is so timely since so many hitters are having tryouts now to make teams for the 2024 summer Travel Baseball season.

Excellence is one of the core values I live by. For me, excellence simply means to meet expectations. Since meeting expectations is so important to me, I have to ask questions of people who are expecting things from me so that I don’t get caught up doing things I am not supposed to do with people I am not supposed to do with.

Before hitters can train with me, they must start with a thorough two-hour assessment, which begins with me asking the questions that must be asked—or should ask questions (SAQs).

The questions include:

What is your purpose for being here today?
What is your short-term (one to five years) baseball goal?
What is your short-term (one to five years) life goal?
How does your family define success?
What’s one thing your family needs to stop doing to help you be successful, according to your family definition of success?
How will you handle an assessment from me that you do not agree with?

After I get their answers, we move to a visual assessment followed by a physical swing assessment.

When the auditory, visual and physical assessment is complete, I determine my mental and emotional capacity to coach them.

My time is more important than money and being excellent is a vital part of my legacy.

During my 26 years of being a professional baseball hitting coach, I have had several hitters—some as young as 5—expect me to help them become collegiate hitters. And we have accomplished it. I have had hitters as young as 10 expect me to help them become Major Leaguers—and we have done that, too.

Carol Ann Tomlinson once said that “assessment is today’s means of modifying tomorrow’s instruction. Assessments should compare the performance of students to a set of expectations, never to the performance of other students.”

Social media is full of how-to baseball drills. I view and love lots of them. Often, I see viral hitting drills I started doing in the early 2000s.

For me, recognizing the root cause of the problem is important. It is the reason we do a drill. When to do it supersedes how to do it.

It is like taking medicine. You shouldn’t use eye drops to help you with a headache just because your eyes are in your head.

This is important because so many hitters and their parents fall in love with drills because it worked for someone else. What works for Ronald Acuña and Peter Alonso may not work for you because of different learning styles, aptitude, mental, emotional and physical strength.

Before starting hitting drills, answer these questions for yourself:

Why am I playing baseball?
What problem am I having as a hitter?
Is it mental, physical or both?
What drill do I need to do to fix my swing?
Why am I doing this drill?
When do I need to start doing the drill?
When do I need to stop doing it?
How do I do it?

Make a commitment to yourself this fall to try new things to see what works and what doesn’t. You owe it to yourself. And don’t get caught up in comparing yourself to others because there is no comparison between the sun and the moon. They shine when it is their time.

For more information, visit L.E.A.D. Center for Youth today. Also, check out our Digital Magazine.

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