Howard Dobson was watching the Texas Rangers’ championship run in 2023 when Corey Seager launched his third home run of that World Series. Seager was on fire, and he’s continued to stay hot, pursuing a perfect swing.
In the media coverage and conversation of Seager’s elite hitting, then-Rangers bench coach and offensive coordinator Donnie Ecker explained in an interview how Seager utilizes “angles”. Dobson was intrigued.
"I think Corey’s whole thing is he wants to limit the amount that he's guessing," Ecker said. "He's going to try to put himself in optimal body positions every single night. At the end of the day, he's trying to line up angles. He wants his body angles, his swing angle, to match the pitch angle that night. He's the best in the business that I've seen at doing that."
ATHLETES UNLIMITED SOFTBALL LEAGUE
It’s a shift from the long-time and popular offensive strategy of sitting on a pitch, batters anticipating a specific type of pitch to drive. Instead, Seager and many Talons players are hunting windows, honing in on pitches coming into particular parts of the strike zone.
“Going into the game with an idea of, ‘How does this pitcher want to get me out? How are people mostly successful off of her?’ That, with the information, I think, has helped us be more successful,” Talons infielder Hannah Flippen said.
For Seager and the Talons, it works.
Windowing utilizes a three-dimensional thinking about the strike zone, taking into account not only location (inside, outside, high, low) but also depth into the zone and speed of pitch types.
This season is the first time veteran first baseman Tori Vidales has learned about and used the approach of windowing. She described being a “see ball, hit ball” type of hitter for most of her career, but now she feels her knack for body awareness and the uptick in information supplied from the Talons coaching staff are converging.
“Even this year, I don’t feel like I’ve peaked yet. So I’m waiting for the feel and the plan to kind of mesh together,” Vidales said. “And once that starts happening, then I’m like, ‘Good luck.'”
In many ways, windowing is the opposite of a pitcher leaning into effective velocity. The Talons are striving to be more in control of their at-bats, feeling empowered so that when a pitch passes through a window, they’ll attack.
“This is not by accident what they’re doing,” Dobson said. “Success leaves clues, and they’re actually doing the time put in to be successful. It is definitely because of the work.”
Talons talk
In the film room, at practice and postgame press conferences, Howard-isms abound.
Like: Rollercoasters are fun until you jump off of them -- the same with plans.
Or having a BHAG -- big, hairy, audacious goal.
The Talons coach has no shortage of metaphors, acronyms and idioms to apply to softball. Flippen has noticed how they all have a common intention.
“I feel like what he continues to go back to is keeping the game simple. Here are all the little phrases that you heard when you were 10 years old. I’m going to shoot it right back to you because at the end of the day, it’s still softball,” Flippen explained. “He knows that we have it in us to do it right, and so just empowering us to trust ourselves.”
Meanwhile, the language between the players is one of their own. During film sessions and particularly in-game, they work to detail a pitcher’s stuff. Much of it comes down to feel.
“That ball was heavy” or “it’s moving low to low” might not make sense to any ear in the dugout, but they’re descriptions the hitters use to analyze and share what they’re seeing in the box.
Dobson said that communication between the team is what brings the entire lineup along. He explained that it starts from the top down with veterans like Flippen, Vidales and Victoria Hayward. Dobson called them the definition of professional.
“There’s nothing you can’t throw at ’em, and they’re bringing the younger guys along. So you get that together in a good mix and a good culture, they feel like they’re invincible,” Dobson said. “They find themselves having better at-bats and better at-bats as we go.”
Through this, they’ve built trust. They know in crucial moments -- runners in scoring position, game on the line in extra innings -- someone is going to come through.
“When we get a runner on second base, it’s like, ‘Oh, we’re going to score,'” Flippen said.
She’s right. When this article was originally published on Sunday, the team’s overall batting average was .318, but in pressure situations, they hit their best. With runners on base, the team was hitting .355. Runners in scoring position and two outs, they were at .329. Bases loaded? A whopping .348.
“One through nine, one through 16 on our team, you’ve seen everybody do it,” Flippen said. “And so I think that’s why the pressure comes off.”
The Talons clinched the first spot in the Athletes Unlimited Softball League Championship in Tuscaloosa, Ala., following the Volts’ loss to the Blaze on Saturday evening. They will have the chance to compete for the first AUSL title in a best-of-three series that begins on July 26. While the offense soars, the team shows no signs of descending.
A version of this story first appeared on theausl.com.