Total Reading Time: 6 minutes

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Today we’re taking a little deeper dive into the Rule of 68, as well as exploring a Bill Belichick interview that gives us insight into how to impact a player’s work ethic.

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Why You Should Implement the Rule of 68

Last week we looked at the “Rule of 68” - which applies to Major League Baseball and says that 68% of the time a fair ball is an out!!!

Not a double against the wall and not a homerun - almost 70% of balls hit are OUTS!!

This stat stood out to me since so many of our pitchers are deathly afraid of the batter hitting the ball. Sure, today’s offenses are incredible, but still, based on the rule of 68, only about 30% of the time a fair ball results in a hit.

So a challenge to our pitchers, and to us, is can we teach our pitchers to believe and trust this, and then, can we teach them to control how the ball is hit?

Instead of trying to keep the batters from hitting the ball, can we make them hit it more in the air, or on the ground vs in the air, or pull it instead of going oppo?

If we can help our pitchers realize that all balls contacted are not deadly, and, that pitchers can learn to actually control how hitters hit the ball - then we can start having more confident and ultimately more successful pitchers.

If You’re Struggling with Your Pitcher’s Work Ethic…

In a recent edition of The Knowledge Project podcast with Shane Parrish he interviewed 8x Super Bowl champion Bill Belichick. Whether you like him or not, this poscast is packed with great insights.

Here are some of the key take-aways I think will help all of us:

• Winning Is Result of Everybody in the BuildingDoing Their Job - from the coaches to the players to the staff to the groundskeepers, every job matters and how well you do it also matters. Value every job in your organization and value the people who value their job.

• Stacking Levels out Talent - Belichick says, “when you come to work, go to work.” In the long run, work ethic thic is more than talent. When a player works hard, every day and stacks those days together over time it levels out talent. Talented players that don’t work hard only suceed against average talent, or occasionally against good talent - but never consistently. Find players who work hard over time.

• The BEST Out Compete Their Talent - Find the players that just love to compete. They’ll compete in the weightroom, in the classroom, at hacky-sack, they’ll compete until the very last out. That kind of competitor out-competes their talent and raises up all the other competitors and leaves the hidders in the dust.

• You Can’t Win Until You Keep From Losing - This to me was his best point. You keep from losing by controling anything that is not your opponent. Things like mental mistakes, not hydrating enough so you cramp up, not doing your rehab, not being academically eligible, losing your cool and blowing a play, taking a mistake into the next play…on ad on. Focus on getting your team to dominate all the things that they directly control and influence and you’ll make winning a lot easier.

• Put It In the Drawer - the season isn’t that long, and when you get down to crunch time, you don’t have time for distrations, so Belichick told his guys to put distractions “in the drawer” - where you can get it later. You don’t need to get it now, you need all of your focus now on the upcoming game. The stuff in your “drawer” will still be there when your season ends.

  

• Control the Game Not the Score - this one might sound crazy, but Belichick highlights the Atlanta Super Bowl where the Patriots were down 28 - 3 at halftime. He said the score was bad, but they felt like they had control of the game. Atlanta had scored on a couple turonovers but not on anything their offense generated. So they were patient and ended up winning the game, because they had always been in control of the game, just not the score (until the end).

This podcast is packed with so much great information and stories from Belichick’s 30+ years in pro football. Whether you like him or not, put that aside and do yourself a favor and listen to the podcast, The Knowledge Podcast - Episode #230.

Or read a copy of the transcript from this interview:

Thanks for reading this week’s Curveball Chronicles. I hope it helped give you some insight to help your pitchers, and to give yourself some grace.

Have a Great week!