What's up guys? John Madden, YouGoProBaseball.com and I'm here with
Fernando Cortez and we're here in his spot oh man I love it
Temecula California and we're gonna talk a little bit about hitting today if
you could talk about like what you would think when you would get into the batter's box
like so we were talking about you were facing Chapman all these you played in
the major leagues great hitter talk about your approach and kind of some of
the things you were thinking about as you're facing some of these guys for me
most of the time you know just kind of walking into the box my biggest thing
was trying to be relaxed I already know that hitting a baseball probably one of
the hardest things to do in any sport so for me it was how can I
slow this game down how can I be more relaxed I'll be honest with you there
were some times I walked with a plate and I was just trying to figure out what
song this thing in my head you know what I mean just because I knew there was
just so much riding on this at-bat but for the most part I was always prepared
so for you know different pitchers I knew what they threw I knew their
velocity I knew you know if they were a slide step type of guy or if you know
what the delivery was like and I studied how they pitched other hitters that were
very similar to me so me being a left-handed guy I would watch you know
what did they do to the previous guys or the last time I played them what do they
do so my biggest thing was trying to be prepared always prepared walking up to
the plate and then just trying to slow it all down and relax and you were
telling me before I used to keep a book get these guys right so what would you
write down in your book so book I would actually write down so I put their name
and then I would put if they're left-handed or right-handed
and then I would put what type of pitches they had what was their arsenal
so did they have a four seam fastball did they have a two seam fastball if
they had a breaking ball was it a curveball or did they have a slider did
they throw a changeup or a splitter or any things that I've ever seen I would
just basically write it down and then I would put percentages how many times
have I seen it if it's a guy who threw a knuckleball but he only threw every once
in a blue moon I would put a percentage that I've only probably seen it like one
to five percent right so I could heavily I could look heavily on what was being
pitched and I could basically see okay this guy is more of a fastball changeup
guy he does have a curveball or slider but in reality like the presented the
percentages are showing fastball change or fastball curveball and I was able to
kind of like eliminate certain pitches even though it was part of his
repertoire and then I would also put miles per hour so as far as how fast
were they throwing it gave me a good gauge if I knew he was you know 90 to 95
or he was 88 to 92 or you know 97 to 100 I knew that's what as fast balls and I
could just prepare myself as far as my timing nice so that's obviously taking
preparation to the extreme level now what about like as you get into the game
now you're we're going from in the hole to on deck 2 now you're getting to the
batter's box what was your routine so very similar preparation I also was
visualizing so I was visualizing in the dugout
I would visualize on when I was in the hole I would visualize when I was on
deck and then when I got into the box I was still visualizing everything that I
just did in the previous four steps right I'm slowing it all down I'm
envisioning whatever he's throwing and what I'm gonna do to that pitch there's
literally times where I've envisioned myself hitting a double to left-center
field I get a pitch that I saw when I was visualizing hitting a double
standing on second base taking my shin guard off going man that was weird that
was really weird but I think you know if you're prepared and you're preparing all
the way through by the time you get into the box and you actually have that at
bat your natural talent mechanics and ability just takes over and that was my
goal was always to just let my athleticism take over let you know the
fact that I've worked hard in preparing just naturally take over so so when you
get into the box would you you'd say you had a quiet mind or a song like you said
you were singing so basically just see the ball and hit the ball when you get
to that point when I'm going good yeah when I'm when I'm going good that was
that was the goal it was it was it was pretty much happening I was I was very
relaxed I came to the point where I was just seeing the ball and hitting that
was more reaction than anything when I was going bad there was a lot of stuff
going on in my head so I found the most successes when I was the most quiet not
that I just shut my brain off and I was on autopilot
you know reaction but I still want to know like you know what's happening the
patterns of the pitcher and still be able to process it and then just shut it
off for a second and just get into hitting mode
but the most successes mostly when I was when I was really just not inside my
head I was letting my physical abilities take over and when I wasn't doing well
it was it was back flips in there so how do you get out of that like if there's a
young player who's struggling right now they're in a slump like what was your
routine of like trying to get out of that for me it was it was knowing that I
was actually a good hitter having the ability to go back and reference you
know the confidence that I've had or even taking other at-bats like you may
have struck me out the last two times but I can go back to the previous
at-bats to know that I got two hits off of you so I'm putting things into
perspective and really looking at it from a different perspective and that
perception of you know I'm not gonna beat myself up because I've had a couple
at-bats bats that are bad right they say you know if you're a 300 hitter you know
there's guys in the Hall of Fame it means you're failing 70% of the time so
once I actually embraced the fact that I'm gonna fail 70% of the time and
that's considered great then that gave me the ability to know that it's okay to
get out you know and move on to the next one it's the old saying like turn the
page right if I read the first four or five chapters I don't want to go back to
that other chapter whether it was good bad or ugly it doesn't matter I still
need to keep going forward in order to finish the book right so my biggest
thing was I got really good it took a while don't get me wrong I got really
really good at just going forward moving forward not getting too high on my
successes not getting real you know low on my failures but trying to stay even
kill as much as I possibly could because if I could stay even kill mentally then
my physical ability would be able to just play out the way it's supposed to
and you talked about confidence a little bit right there talked about being a
young big leaguer cuz you made it there at a young age but having that swag
because you were known for having that swag in big leagues talk about that and
how it was perceived and how you use that to your benefit well for me I mean
you know I played multiple sports so it was football baseball basketball rent
you know I ran track it was it was always the way you walked onto the field
or on to the court you know or at the meet it was the way you know you
presented yourself with your body language right a lot of people who will
you know you can tell who the best player is
gonna be literally by the way they walk on the field you'll look at what he's
walking how is he walking his postures up he's he's got confidence in his walk
if he's got confidence in his walk he's got to have confidence and everything
else right and you can basically see the people who were shrugged over and who
lacked that confidence now for me the way I played my confidence was I even
when I wasn't feeling well if my swing was off or you know I didn't feel the
best of my ability that day I didn't want the other team to know and I
definitely didn't want the pitcher to know so that old saying you faked it to
make it a lot of times I was faking it so physically on the outside it looked
like I was I was the man and I was you know I was very confident but maybe
inside I was insecure about something at that moment so my whole thing was I
could fake myself into actually being confident a lot of times I could I could
just train myself to always feel positive and feel good no matter I might
be 3 for 30 but if I walk up to the plate like I'm 3 for 30
it's gonna translate and that 3 for 30 in turn 2 3 4 50 right my whole thing
was how fast can I get rid of this lump I don't want those 3 for 30 if I if I'm
3/4 you know 15 let me let me flip this
around real quick and then you know I can I cannot prolong having these bad
streaks and on the flip side if I'm very confident I can extend my hitting
streaks I can turn my 5 games into 10 games by tens in the 15s into 20 games
because mentally I'm consistently being confident having that swagger I'm going
up to the plate and I know that that guy ain't gonna get me out even though he
throws 100 miles per hour but I'm not gonna let him know that his hundred
scares me you know what I'm saying so it's it's it's a mental challenge that I
think a lot of young hitters probably battle but I think once they can
actually master that mindset of knowing that you're good enough I mean you're
obviously in the batter's box for a reason you made it you're there whether
you're in on the high school team in Bar City College professional you're there
for a reason so pretty much act like it that's a great point you we talked
earlier about competitiveness and the fighter flight yep talk about a
were you a competitive player at all and if so how did that fuel your success and
did you do anything to work on it where's that just natural to you um I
think it was natural I think was natural the way I you know where I was brought
up you know I lived at the rec center with all the kids so I was always
playing football baseball basketball like I said I ran track so you know
having that mindset of being successful and beating the other guy was something
that always helped me as I got older I realized that the biggest competitor I
had was myself and that was fun it was fun to compete against myself because I
couldn't get away from myself so I always had somebody to compete with you
know it's either like I said before you're they're gonna fight it or you're
gonna fly it you're gonna run away and I just I was never the person to really
run away from stuff even though if I was scared if I was scared about a certain
situation or a certain pitcher I remember my first big league at-bat
right I Lou Pinella tells me he was Cortes you're hitting I know I was
pinch-hitting right and it's in Chicago in front of it was July 5th so the whole
series there's 55,000 people there because of the fourth of July right and
this is 2005 when the White Sox won the World 2 so they got a you know great
team and I remember this was the first time I ever noticed that I had one ear
flap in the big leagues in the minor leagues you have two ear flaps on your
helmets right so I get up on deck and I didn't realize I had one ear flap until
I noticed I could hear everyone and I noticed how loud the crowd was and I
remember just chewing on like 17 pieces of gum because I was so nervous right
but if you watch film on me walking up to the plate it looks nothing like how I
actually felt it's completely different I walked up to the plate with this utter
confidence but in the inside I was dying you know I was excited I was nervous I
was dying but it was one of those things where I was like okay I can either run
from the situation or I can fight it and this was everything I dreamed of so well
I'm supposed to be here right now let's do this
so that's awesome that's awesome there's a lot of good information right there
guys Fernando's got a great Instagram page Fernando dot Cortes baseball on
Instagram and all the other platforms as well as
YouTube so yeah so I'll leave all his information down below at the links
check him out and of course hop down in the comments
below and we'd be happy to answer any questions that you have and we'll talk
to you guys in the next video homie I appreciate it problem thanks Rob
yeah absolutely place thank you appreciate it