Latest / The Layback Podcast / Connor Wylde, New Mexico State University Left Handed Pitcher (Ep. 75)

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Connor Wylde, New Mexico State University Left Handed Pitcher (Ep. 75) · The Layback Podcast

0:00
What's up everybody? Welcome back to the Laid Back
0:02
podcast. Joining us today is left-handed
0:05
pitcher, super senior New Mexico State Aggie Connor Wilde.
0:10
This man thought he had used up every ounce of eligibility he
0:13
had and by the graces of God, he has found another.
0:17
It's kind of weird to say that about a guy who's only going
0:20
into his fifth year when there's like 9th year seniors playing
0:23
college baseball right now. But nonetheless, Connor and I
0:26
were going back and forth at the end of the year about laying it
0:29
all out there, this being his final bout.
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And two weeks later, I get a message saying like, I'm back,
0:35
baby, got another. With that, I'm just going to
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pass it over to Connor. Excited to have this chat today.
0:42
Of course, we're going to talk about his background with elbow
0:45
injury, a little bit about his shoulder, the things he's fought
0:48
through to become who he is today.
0:50
So, Connor, thanks again for joining us and looking forward
0:53
to it. Yeah, so, you know, all
0:55
blessings be to the Lord, but thank you, Diego Pavia, man,
0:58
because he's the one that got me.
1:01
That fifth year kind of came out of the blue, like he said, I was
1:04
not expecting it. I think I kind of figured out
1:06
that halfway through the season I was going to get my 5th super
1:10
senior year. Been super excited about that
1:12
ever since I found out. Didn't really know where I was
1:14
going to end up, but got the chance to play again for my
1:18
third year at New Mexico State University.
1:20
Love and jeer wouldn't be going back there if I didn't.
1:24
So I would say my baseball journey kind of started around
1:30
junior year of high school because that's around when I met
1:33
Peyton Lobdell. He's kind of been the guy that
1:36
started the whole passion for development for me, played a
1:39
little bit of first base before then could hit hit a home run in
1:43
my last high school at bat. That's probably going to be my
1:45
claim to fame forever. I still have the game changer
1:48
screenshot. That's the only proof I have.
1:50
But after that junior year comes around, Peyton is a coach on, I
1:57
think it's JVI, didn't really get to talk to the guy much
2:00
because at the time I was a junior on varsity.
2:03
So we didn't really spend much time together on the field.
2:07
But it was that spring that COVID hit, I believe, because it
2:12
was 2019 fall going into 2020 for me.
2:15
Yeah. And that's when I don't remember
2:17
exactly how it happened, whether he reached out to me or he
2:21
reached out to the whole team letting us know.
2:23
But he has a backyard bullpen and I need to throw.
2:27
I wanted to continue to throw. I go to Marina to try to get
2:30
into their bullpen. It's closed.
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I'm like, hey, Peyton, can I come throw a bullpen?
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I've got my catcher with me. It's like, absolutely, man.
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And then here we are five years later.
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I haven't, I haven't even looked back.
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I haven't even thought about training with anybody else.
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The guy's giving me just about every opportunity that's come my
2:48
way because I've worked with him.
2:51
I've worked with the pitching Dr. I've worked with that
2:53
performance through him. I've got Armored Heat through
2:56
him. I was introduced to Flex Pro
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Grip through him. And everything that that I've
3:02
learned has basically been thanks to Peyton for the last
3:06
five years. I mean, if it weren't for him,
3:09
I'm not exactly sure where I'd be because I went to Cyprus
3:12
because of him. He got me that connection and
3:16
then I probably wouldn't have continued to develop at Cyprus
3:20
because they didn't have the tools that I needed.
3:23
He did. Cyprus was great, we won a bunch
3:26
of games, but the guy was a little bit old school in my
3:30
opinion. We got around that, That's just
3:32
fine. Now flash forward to I think
3:35
it's my first year in New Mexico State.
3:37
I hurt my shoulder. I guess I should probably tell
3:39
them about my elbow first, huh? Yeah, yeah, we, we should
3:42
probably pick up at the elbow and you don't even need to get
3:44
into that right now just because we we can kind of pick apart the
3:48
stories. I I want to spend some time even
3:51
talking about your relationship with Peyton and development
3:54
because I think that really shows how you got to the point
3:59
of even hurting your elbow. Not, not saying like those two
4:02
are fully linked, but as you said, you never would have been
4:05
in this position where you're performing, where you, I mean,
4:08
who knows if you even still would have been playing baseball
4:11
at that point if you didn't make these massive development jumps.
4:14
Yeah. So when you started throwing
4:17
with Peyton back your junior year of high school caliber
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player were you how hard were you throwing?
4:24
You're tall as hell. Now you're you're 1 tall, drink
4:26
of water at 6 foot 7. But I mean.
4:28
What was the body comp way back? Junior of high school.
4:33
So definitely not 6-7. I was a lot smaller and a lot
4:37
pudgier back then, that's for sure.
4:39
I probably weighed somewhere around £200 at six foot, 6-2
4:45
maybe. So he had definitely a little
4:47
project in front of him. I wasn't exactly a, a walk in
4:51
the park for a project, but yeah, it started off with arm
4:55
path issues because I was moving like a like a giraffe.
5:00
He helped me with the arm path issues.
5:02
And then I think I kind of lost that when I went to Driveline
5:05
outside of high school. When I graduated high school, I
5:08
skipped going to graduation because I thought that was
5:10
stupid and then went straight to Washington and spent two months
5:13
out there. And then when I came home,
5:17
that's when I started my, my Cypress journey.
5:21
But throughout the whole thing, I was talking to Peyton because
5:25
as much as driveline is really cool and they have a ton of
5:28
super awesome tools, it's not very personalized, if that makes
5:31
any sense. So if it's, oh hey, I need help
5:34
with my lead leg block or my glove side, they'll give you 2
5:38
drills and that's for everybody. But Peyton is very much more
5:43
complex, which is what I think I needed.
5:45
He is the type to watch you throw the ball, maybe take a
5:49
video or two. And then that's when he takes
5:52
his job very seriously and he has to come up with the drills
5:55
for you. He finds something that works
5:56
for you instead of throwing a a program at you like saying this
6:02
is what worked for everybody else.
6:03
This is what we've seen with the most statistical result or
6:07
whatever. And instead he's like, this is
6:10
the way I think your body moves. I think this is what you should
6:13
do and it it'll optimize your movements or whatever, what have
6:17
you. And I think that's been where
6:20
I've seen the most growth from myself and especially having him
6:26
be around the corner from me. He even moved closer when he got
6:30
the facility, actually, he was only 10 minutes away.
6:33
Now he's 5, which is awesome. I basically have that facility
6:37
and stuff just in my back pocket and he's there all the time.
6:41
So I just need to pick up a baseball and he's watching.
6:43
It's super awesome to have that and have that environment for
6:47
growth because like you said, or like I said, I guess I wouldn't
6:52
be still playing. And then the injuries, you know,
6:56
they come and go with baseball. I've kind of learned that you're
6:59
not really playing hard if you're not.
7:02
I don't want to say you're not playing hard if you're not
7:04
getting injured. It totally happened.
7:07
Yeah. If you're if you're not like
7:10
going all out in your outings and leaving it all out there, I
7:14
mean, you're going to be sore and sometimes soreness leads to
7:17
to issues. But I think the competitiveness
7:22
I've learned from Angier, but everything else has been Peyton
7:26
pitch design. We've we've done together,
7:29
velocity development. I mean, I used to throw, I think
7:32
junior year, I was maybe 8082 by my senior year when we were
7:38
playing again after having taken, what was it, March
7:42
through, I don't even know how long that COVID summer was
7:46
taking all that time off. I was working with Peyton that
7:49
whole time because after that one bullpen with my catcher,
7:52
like I said, never looked back, Trained there the whole time.
7:55
He started small. He had the bullpen and then he
7:57
added a gym in the shed and then the gym turned into a recovery
8:00
session and the gym moved to his garage.
8:02
Like that thing went through an entire evolution out there.
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I was there for all that. I love seeing it now.
8:08
It's in the facility. It's like it's come full circle.
8:10
Like I said, training with him that whole summer.
8:13
I went from 8082 coming back my senior year to play probably
8:18
8586, maybe touch an 87, which I understood at the time wasn't
8:24
exactly D1 stuff. I understood especially that I
8:28
think I found my passion too late and I kind of had to bite
8:31
the bullet on OK. I didn't train for as long as I
8:35
had, so I knew that it was probably the junior college
8:40
route for me if I wanted to continue to play.
8:42
I think I had Sonoma State University watching me in high
8:45
school, which is AD 2 in Northern California.
8:48
RIP to them. Are they done?
8:50
They're shutting down. Man, I didn't even hear about
8:53
that. That's so unfortunate.
8:55
Wow. I actually had a buddy that was
8:57
playing on that team. I don't know.
8:58
Sorry to break that news to you on here.
9:00
Thanks. You never, you never want to
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hear about that man baseball team getting shut down, whatever
9:05
level it is. Anyway, I talked to most of the
9:07
teams in the Orange Empire Conference, which Peyton was
9:11
highly recommending. There's other Juco's around the
9:13
area that I could have gone to, but ended up going with Cyprus
9:18
because Peyton had very high regard for coach Scott Pickler,
9:23
who was his coach in 2012 and 2013 when they won the the
9:28
Triple C AA JUCO World Series. Anyway, after training with him,
9:33
getting up to 8487, not getting any D1 looks, going to Cypress,
9:39
I hurt my elbow my freshman year.
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That's when it all kind of hit me how tough this really is
9:46
'cause it was going so well. I had a really successful senior
9:49
year, saw the growth at Driveline that I wanted to see.
9:52
I understood how much dedication it took to development 'cause I
9:56
I saw, I saw growth at Driveline and I saw that it was Cape like
10:00
I was capable of doing it, but it was very little in the time
10:04
that I spent there seeing. I spent like 2 months and gained
10:07
maybe 3 ticks of velocity and started feeling some elbow pain
10:12
at the same time. Wasn't too bad.
10:14
Was able to throw throughout the fall and then that's when the
10:19
sprain happened in my elbow. So yeah, the the sprain happened
10:24
and fall was wasn't too bad. I feel like the workload was
10:28
managed well. I was surprised by the amount of
10:30
conditioning we had to do. I ended up tearing both my
10:33
propeller tendons. Needed some PRP injections for
10:36
that. I think my knee knees are fully
10:39
healed. I'm able to squat just as much
10:41
as I can now. We did some inner squads in the
10:45
fall. I was thrown in relief trying to
10:47
earn a spot just because I was young, but it was just so
10:51
happened that you actually probably know him.
10:53
Josh Landry, I was there with him.
10:55
He was still returning to throw. I think when I came my first
11:00
year, I was one of two lefties. It was me and him and his
11:05
shoulder hurt, I want to say cuz he was rehabbing from his elbow,
11:09
comes back, has shoulder problems, and then is out for
11:13
another year. So I'm the only lefty on the
11:14
staff. I think that contributed to me
11:19
ending up spraining my elbow. I'm not sure because it was so
11:24
long ago. But the problem I thought was my
11:28
mechanics because we went back and watched videos and all of
11:32
the athletic training staff and Peyton and I, we did a bunch of
11:35
work on what we thought was the the root cause of it or what my
11:39
lowest hanging fruit was. But it wasn't until then that it
11:44
kind of internalized for me like what it took, not only on the
11:48
developmental side, but the mental side too, because I was
11:51
in a very dark place. I was thinking my elbow was
11:55
toast. I got the MRI.
11:57
It was only like a grade one, maybe in between a grade 2
12:00
sprain. There are some little tears in
12:02
there or whatever. Ended up being able to rehab
12:05
back from it, but I was never really fully confident in my
12:09
elbow, just knowing that there was tears in there.
12:12
So through just fine the next year at Cypress, I think I got
12:18
30 something innings, maybe 29 that year that I hurt my elbow
12:21
that first year and I think I took eight weeks that year came
12:27
back slid into a starting role because the starter that was
12:31
starting toward his elbow. So I got to to go on to a
12:36
starting recovery role, which is nice having that week rest in
12:39
between every outing. They understood that, which was
12:42
good. Went on to throw the 30 innings.
12:44
Like I said, train with Peyton again through the summer, go
12:49
back for my second fall. I think I'm going in as a
12:52
starter. Then I think they understood
12:54
that my arm could handle the higher pitch load one day a
12:57
week. I think that that entire spring
13:01
I was healthy. There was no problems.
13:03
But my performance kind of teetered at the end.
13:07
I think that had to do with my competitiveness, like my just
13:11
overall approach on the competitive side of pitching.
13:14
I don't think it had to do with loss of velocity or loss of
13:19
whatever fatigue or gaining fatigue, whatever throughout the
13:22
season. I think I just suck whatever it
13:24
was. Anyway, I had actually signed to
13:28
New Mexico State the fall before my second year at Cyprus because
13:34
my elbow hurt my first year. I didn't want to go through my
13:38
second year again, get hurt and not have anywhere to go because
13:42
after two years of JUCO you're basically done.
13:45
You could maybe go play NAI somewhere.
13:47
I didn't have the option to go play at Hope like I probably do
13:51
now because of Peyton. Anyway, I was really nervous.
13:54
I it wasn't the first offer technically because I talked to
13:57
LMUA little bit, but I thought New Mexico State would have been
14:00
a good home for me because I had a buddy who I grew up with
14:03
playing there already. They ended up having a really
14:08
rough season that year. I think they won 16 games while
14:10
I was still at Cyprus. I was a little nervous, I can't
14:13
lie, going that summer going into New Mexico State, they
14:16
ended up switching. The coaching staff started new.
14:20
I got really lucky that the the new incoming head coach honored
14:24
my scholarship. They saw whatever they had for
14:27
me and they're like, yeah, we'll keep it for you.
14:30
Ended up having a great relationship with that coach,
14:33
Jake and Jerry. He's an awesome guy.
14:35
I have a ton of respect for him. I actually wouldn't be going
14:38
back there for my 5th year if it weren't for him.
14:41
I've had a couple other injuries in between then.
14:44
But through it all, I mean the elbow injury at Cypress, I
14:48
rehabbed with the Cypress team, the Cypress athletic training.
14:52
They actually brought in Doctor Filmy.
14:55
He has his own place in Seal Beach, CA called I think it's
14:59
global doctor of physical therapy.
15:01
Maybe they do a bunch of stuff there.
15:03
Anyway, he worked on the Tokyo Olympics.
15:05
He was one of on the athletic training staff for Tokyo at the
15:08
Olympics. So I trusted him.
15:11
He helped me get my elbow back into a place where I could throw
15:14
the ball whether my brain believed it or not.
15:16
He's the one who kind of helped me return to play.
15:18
And through all that, I was going home from rehab at the
15:22
school to the yard, straight to the yard to do my lift or
15:25
whatever it was. Do the Phoenix machine to make
15:28
sure the the muscles were recovering properly and doing
15:32
dock work trying to get my elbow back into a spot.
15:35
I think my first year at NMSU was the shoulder impingement
15:40
because I got put into a relief role.
15:43
Wasn't exactly ready for the Friday through Sunday hot list
15:46
thing because throwing on Friday, you throw a couple
15:49
innings, yeah, it's not that big a deal.
15:51
But coming back either taking a day off Saturday, which I wasn't
15:55
a huge fan of because then it felt like I was dusting the
15:57
cobwebs off on Sunday with fatigue on top of it.
16:01
So I would throw Friday, throw maybe in game, throw Saturday to
16:04
keep the the shoulder loose and then be ready to throw in the
16:08
game on Sunday again. That's when my shoulder flared
16:11
up. Took a week off from that, maybe
16:14
21 week from no throwing, another week to get back on it
16:19
and then slid back into a starting role there just because
16:24
he knew I needed the recovery. My shoulder would flare up by
16:27
the end of every outing, so he would just be like, all right,
16:29
don't pick up a ball for two days, you'll be ready by next
16:32
Saturday or whatever. And then got through that season
16:35
with 33 innings I believe. So it was 3054, my second year
16:42
at Cyprus and then 33 again my first year at MSU next year.
16:48
Flash forward to my last year, which was my senior year at
16:52
NMSU. That's when quote UN quote,
16:54
senior year, right? That's what I thought my last
16:56
year went through the fall in a starting role basically the
16:59
whole time, especially because one of our other guys who we
17:04
thought might be a starter spent the summer in the Cape.
17:07
So he was shut down from throwing through the fall.
17:10
So I spent from August to, I'm sorry, we probably do
17:15
individuals from August to maybe the end of September.
17:21
Yeah, because we're there the middle of August, go through
17:23
September individuals, and then we're doing inner squads, like
17:26
basically right as we start. We actually did this.
17:29
We played the Naran Harrows, they're from Mexico.
17:33
We played them September 1st or something, I think.
17:36
And from then on it's inner squads through the whole fall
17:40
and then come back maybe a couple weeks of throwing
17:43
bullpens with Angier and then it's back to inner squads.
17:47
And that's when my elbow started hurting again.
17:49
I was like, oh crap. Because it was the same feeling
17:51
at, at not only flexion, right? Or no extension.
17:55
And I was feeling it at flexion, which was really nerve wracking
17:59
for me because at Cypress when I sprained it, I was only feeling
18:03
it here, which was bad enough as it was felt like there was a
18:08
knife in my elbow. I felt it here as well, so I
18:11
reached out to Peyton and he's like, man, you probably should
18:15
get on the Flex program at this point.
18:17
I had dabbled with it I believe before then maybe that December
18:20
leading into my last spring this year.
18:25
Anyway, now you've got a customer for life.
18:27
But that was when I started the Flex program.
18:29
Thankfully, I had a a teammate, Hayden Lewis, who actually had
18:33
his internal brace surgery. He had the Flex Pro grip there
18:37
with him. So not only did I go back to
18:40
school from having the Flex program here in California at
18:44
Peyton's place, went back to school and had it again at
18:48
school because of this kid that's rehabbing.
18:50
So I had it. I was like, there's no way that
18:52
I can't do this. My elbow is hurting now.
18:55
I have it in front of me. There's no reason I shouldn't be
18:57
doing this. I think my below dropped back
19:01
down to probably 8385 when it was closer to 8789 at this point
19:09
touching 90. Sometimes I don't want to be
19:12
that guy but below dropped started getting barreled when
19:16
season rolled around. I was in the Saturday roll.
19:20
Lost it after I think 3 weeks. I think I pitched against I
19:25
can't remember if it was Saint Thomas, then Western Illinois
19:29
and then we played another non conference team before A and
19:32
Oakland, right, Oakland. That's you're right.
19:35
I don't know how you know that and I don't.
19:36
But yes, you're right. Those three trying to visualize.
19:41
The schedule in my head. Yeah, I can see it now to those
19:44
Golden Bears. Anyway, get to Texas A and MI am
19:47
not in a starting role anymore. I think he took the ball away
19:51
from me. It had to be that third weekend
19:53
because he knew my elbow was hurting.
19:55
He was watching me throw bullpens at 79 miles an hour
20:00
because I wasn't, I didn't want to throw it hard.
20:02
He knew I wasn't throwing it hard.
20:04
I told, I told him before the bullpen, I'm like, hey, coach,
20:06
I'm just going to take this easy.
20:08
I didn't think it was going to come out at 79, but it did.
20:13
And he's like, man, I, I have no confidence in you.
20:16
It doesn't look like you have any confidence in yourself.
20:19
I can't trust you on the mound right now.
20:21
Like it's it's not going your way.
20:23
And I was like, man, as much as that's like the worst thing to
20:27
hear as a pitcher, you're right. Like there's no denying it.
20:31
And I told him I was like, I've been doing the flex program ever
20:34
since the inner squads before the season.
20:36
I think it's finally starting to catch, like the the protocols
20:40
are finally starting to make a difference and I'm feeling it.
20:43
And I think Texas A&M, that 4th week I hit 88 again, maybe 8788.
20:49
So the confidence was back, but I got absolutely barreled.
20:56
Yeah, that one is actually the worst one of the season, one of
20:59
those ones you'll never forget your entire life.
21:01
But it kind of it kind of knocked my head on back straight
21:04
because, well, I came in, I think it was the second inning.
21:08
Our starter was struggling to. I came in to get the third out.
21:13
It was the three hole hitter struck him out.
21:15
Literally felt like I was on top of the world.
21:18
I could see my family up in the stands walking back to the
21:20
dugout. I was super excited.
21:22
Go back out for the third inning and give up eight runs.
21:25
So whether it was karma or what it came for me that got me got
21:31
lit up that Saturday and Sunday morning by Angie or while we
21:34
were stretching both mornings in a row.
21:36
He's like, wow, I need to talk to you.
21:39
And I just knew like, blah, blah, like he was going to tell
21:42
me why didn't you throw it down in the zone?
21:45
Blah, blah. This I was like, man, coach,
21:47
like it wasn't my my goal to hang a change up with bases
21:52
loaded like I promised. I didn't mean to do that.
21:55
I think the the words that really kind of woke me up were
22:00
what does it matter what I think?
22:01
Aren't you just tired of getting hit?
22:03
And I'm like, yeah, I think you're right.
22:05
And I think the next week, So I probably threw no more than 30
22:10
pitches that Friday night. So I wasn't like completely
22:13
burnt for the travel trip. I think we went Texas A&F, had
22:16
that Monday to rest and travel and then we played Lamar
22:21
University in Beaumont, TX that Tuesday.
22:23
Wednesday. I didn't start till the
22:26
Wednesday game, but I ended up throwing I think 5 innings.
22:30
Going out for my 6th was already at my pitch count.
22:34
I think I walked the first batter in the 6th inning, so I
22:36
didn't finish it, but gave up one stupid run that outing on a
22:41
ball to the warning track that dropped like a big pop fly drop
22:44
and then a a shift beating ground ball through the 5-6 hole
22:48
the side of the size of the Mount Everest.
22:50
Whatever. Anyway, that outing completely
22:52
like restored confidence in my mind, not only in my elbow
22:56
because I threw probably 70 pitches on four days rest and
23:01
had no pain in my elbow, which was like completely different
23:05
for me the previous weeks. It was maybe I had an inning of
23:10
feeling good in me and then it was just boom, blown up in my
23:13
elbow. Everything felt like crap.
23:15
Releasing the fastball felt like I was going to pull my elbow off
23:19
the socket. But coming back that week at
23:22
Lamar was completely game changing.
23:25
Just change my plan of attack kind of said F you to not F you
23:30
to Angier. But like everything that we I
23:32
had thought we were learning. I just said, screw it, go out
23:36
the window. I'm going to put the ball below
23:37
your knees, try to hit it and it wasn't F you.
23:40
I shouldn't have said that because I love Angier, but it
23:42
was more of like AI don't care what the plan is.
23:45
I'm just going to throw the ball in the zone and then miss in the
23:48
zone like miss in between the lines with my off speed.
23:51
That's all it was. And I started seeing a bunch of
23:53
success with swings and misses, weak contact, getting ahead and
23:58
leverage counts just by attacking the zone early and
24:00
then working to the thirds late. Like the whole thing changed.
24:04
And I can thank Flex Pro Grip. Probably 90% of that is just
24:12
because of the the health of my elbow came back.
24:15
I lost confidence in myself at the beginning of that season
24:19
because my elbow hurt so bad. I knew like before the pitch was
24:23
happening, I was like, Dang, here we go.
24:25
Like this is going to hurt home run.
24:27
Like it was it. It just is.
24:29
It's inevitable almost when you don't have confidence in
24:32
yourself that you're going to give up nukes.
24:35
And once the health was back, the confidence was back.
24:37
And I just have Flexpro grip to thank for that.
24:40
So appreciate that. That's about all I have, man.
24:43
That takes me to that takes me to now, I guess.
24:45
Yeah, well before. We get to right now.
24:48
Can I, can I now hop back in and ask you like 26 clarifying
24:53
questions? And absolutely.
24:55
Because what was your velocity at then in the fall of your
24:59
freshman year at Cyprus, coming off of driveline?
25:03
So you, you finish your senior year, you're 84 to 87.
25:07
So you're starting to show, show some flashes of promise.
25:10
I'm sure you, I don't know if you even finish growing at that
25:13
point, but yeah. So it's probably around 6-5
25:17
then. OK, so you're still.
25:19
Growing your freshman year of college where you have this
25:21
massive uptick in your amount of training, your amount of
25:24
running, your amount of throwing.
25:26
So probably not a great recipe for success when all these
25:30
things are changing at once. No wonder you had the patellar
25:33
tendon issues. How hard were you throwing that
25:35
fall? So I would say I was probably
25:38
sitting now my floor was closer to 88.
25:41
Anything above that was more like a an advantage count pitch.
25:45
Like my get me over was closer to upper 80s.
25:49
Like if I needed to throw a strike it was 88 to 89.
25:52
Like I was throwing pretty hard back then, but my command was
25:56
nowhere near what it is now. I attribute all of my success at
26:00
this level that I'm at now because I can mix 3 pitches for
26:04
strikes. Like I don't throw super hard.
26:06
I don't have lights out fastball stuff, never really have, but I
26:10
can throw 3 pitches for strikes in whatever count and I can land
26:15
it where I need to. But to answer your question,
26:17
yeah, I was like 8890, I would say final answer.
26:21
Massive gain from just a couple years prior when you really
26:25
started throwing hard for the first time and training hard for
26:28
the first time, right? So we're looking at like an 8 to
26:31
10 mile per hour increase on top of a massive Velo increase.
26:37
Workload also went crazy on you because you're training harder
26:40
than you've ever trained. You're throwing more than you've
26:43
ever thrown, and you're expected to pitch in a larger role.
26:48
You lose Josh Landry, who's a national champion pitcher and
26:51
Hope International. So you're expected to fill that
26:54
guy's role at Cyprus. I mean, crazy, right?
26:58
Yeah, that that's insane. With that, you're not only just
27:01
throwing more, but you're throwing more in high leverage
27:05
situations. Then you, you flash forward, you
27:09
talk about your experience then at New Mexico State when the
27:12
shoulder started barking for the first time.
27:15
It sounds like given all these variables that you were dealing
27:19
with acute to chronic workload may have been a little bit of an
27:23
issue or how to manage training. Throw.
27:27
Gains performance just all in one.
27:31
It sounds like that education process maybe was lagging a
27:34
little bit. I of course you can look at it
27:37
with 2020 hindsight, maybe what you needed to understand when
27:40
you're going from a six foot 62 athlete, 2 years later you're 6
27:45
foot seven with an additional 10 mph and significantly higher
27:50
expectations on. Top.
27:51
Yeah, yeah, for sure. So yeah, when?
27:54
We assess that like of course, again, 2020 hindsight.
27:58
Is there something maybe you wish you could have done
28:01
differently or is that even possible?
28:04
Do you think to have done anything differently with the
28:07
way you tried to manage your throwing or manage your
28:10
workouts? If I look back at my time at
28:13
Cypress, the part that kind of sucked about Cyprus, not only
28:17
was the running made your entire body sore because we ran six
28:22
days a week. So that added to the fatigue of
28:24
your entire body. But he wasn't exactly a huge fan
28:28
of arm care in general. Our pitching coach, I don't know
28:31
if he didn't believe in it or didn't know much about it.
28:34
I don't want to dig into that too much because we actually had
28:37
a pretty pretty brutal exit meeting one year where we're
28:41
we're this close to actually fighting in the parking lot just
28:45
because I was so ready to stand on, I guess stand on business
28:49
about it. Like I was, I was, I told him I
28:51
was like, if I'm going to come back here this next year, I'm
28:53
going to have to be able to take care of my arm.
28:55
Like there's just no way around it.
28:57
I was already bought into the cross symmetry bands, the
29:00
crossover symmetry because that that's we started that at
29:03
Peyton's a while back when we threw a weird play catch and
29:07
then go straight into team defense, which is OK.
29:11
We were warmed up for it, but the crappy part was once we did
29:16
team defense, it was straight to BP for an hour, hour and a half,
29:20
which was not exactly optimal if I was going to go warm up 13
29:27
defense. And then an hour and a half
29:30
later I have a bullpen because it's my slot at the end of
29:34
batting practice. And then after that practice is
29:37
over and everybody is going home cleaning up the field.
29:40
Everybody has their field jobs. There was never really a slotted
29:44
time to take care of your arm. And so if I could go back and do
29:49
something different, I think I would prioritize finding time
29:54
aren't better because I kind of let them walk all over me in
29:58
that aspect. I was, I was really bought into
30:00
being a teammate at that point because I wanted to earn my
30:03
spot. I wanted to earn my respect as a
30:04
younger guy on the team. So I wasn't going to be like,
30:07
yeah, I'm not going to do my field job.
30:09
Like that's stupid. I think I was actually on duty
30:12
that year, which means I had to clay and rake and tamp and do
30:16
all that, which honestly, I don't mind the time.
30:19
I like doing the mountain, but still no time for arm care.
30:24
And then not only that, but I would do our what I thought was
30:28
BS lift that day and then I'd go lift again after practice.
30:33
The real lift that I thought was going to benefit me as a pitcher
30:36
and an athlete with Peyton in the dock at the yard.
30:39
So not only was I lifting twice a day, but I was throwing on a
30:42
crappy schedule. So I guess, I guess it would
30:46
just be managing my my load better.
30:48
Maybe I could have done arm care at the yard.
30:51
I don't know if doing arm care that long after, it was probably
30:54
2-3 hours after that I would make it to the yard after I
30:56
throw. So looking back, it would just
30:59
be doing arm care more often because I think I skipped out on
31:02
it too much. Yeah.
31:04
So you. Put yourself in a gutter trying
31:06
to make sure you accomplished what you felt like you needed to
31:10
accomplish on top of doing everything that you were told to
31:14
do. Yeah, just created this massive
31:17
workload spike for you. And I mean, that gets really
31:21
hard when you're trying to be the best teammate possible as
31:24
well as do everything you think you need to do to be the best
31:28
player you can be. And that eventually creates a
31:33
recipe for disaster. It works in the short term.
31:35
If you work really hard, generally you are going to see
31:38
benefits from it. But the problem is sustaining
31:41
that level of work leads to breakdowns.
31:43
Which is obviously. What you experienced there is
31:46
one piece of advice I would like to throw in there.
31:50
I know this really isn't a podcast or a platform where I
31:55
try to be the guy constantly providing insights or whatever,
32:00
but this is something I feel really strongly about.
32:03
You can take it however you want to take it and anybody out there
32:06
can take it however they want to take it.
32:08
But I am a massive proponent that one of the most selfless
32:14
things that you can do as a baseball player is be selfish.
32:19
And what I mean by that, because I understand it sounds bad, but
32:23
what I mean by that is by taking care of yourself, you are
32:28
putting yourself in the best position to help our teammates.
32:31
Exactly. And that's.
32:32
Yeah, yeah, I I totally agree with you.
32:35
It doesn't mean. Be an asshole, it means.
32:39
Do everything. In your power to be as good as
32:42
you can possibly be. And if you do that, you are
32:46
going to be ready. When your name is called, you
32:48
are going to be your best. When it's time to be your best,
32:51
you are going. To be able to.
32:52
Support everybody around you because you took care of
32:56
yourself. Absolutely.
32:58
I I just think that. That gets missed all the time
33:01
because and I, yeah, I. Also sorry, sorry to cut you off
33:04
but I want to just get this in there just for the the guys out
33:07
there that are listening. If they are listening that it
33:09
gets lost in translation. Translation so much like what
33:13
he's saying is so accurate. The more you take care of
33:15
yourself, the more you try to better yourself, the more you
33:19
can help your team. But you're right, you don't want
33:22
to be an asshole while doing it. The part that gets lost in
33:25
translation is exactly that. Like people start to
33:30
individualize themselves. They start to wonder why am I
33:33
not getting innings or this that?
33:35
And it's more like, did I do enough to be the one called for
33:40
that situation? Or is it this guy's a lefty or
33:44
this guy's a big righty, so he's got a better matchup than me or
33:48
things like that where you can buy into the program while still
33:51
bettering yourself. And not only that, sometimes
33:54
I've seen it personally. People will start doing it with
33:57
you. Like you're not the only one
33:59
showing up to the field by yourself anymore because people
34:02
see you doing the water bags, people see you doing the flex
34:04
program. They're like, what's this?
34:06
Can you teach me that honor? I have a problem with this.
34:09
Do you know anything that can help me with that?
34:10
And it's just like the best feeling ever when somebody comes
34:13
to me and wants to better themselves so that they are
34:16
ready to be better for the team. It's absolute choir.
34:20
Like you're just preaching right there.
34:22
Yeah. I I.
34:23
Appreciate that man. I, I do wish that was celebrated
34:27
a little bit more. And I actually think the people
34:29
that struggle with that the most are generally the people that
34:35
are trying to be good teammates because they are the ones that
34:38
do exactly what you did, which is grind like crazy doing every
34:44
single thing Coach says. And then, because you don't want
34:46
to piss anyone off, you do the work that you think you need to
34:49
do in the background. And then that.
34:51
Way you're just digging yourself a hole, although again, it works
34:54
in the short term, you're eventually setting yourself up
34:57
for failure and then wondering why you're not getting
35:00
opportunities or why you're the one that's hurt versus if you
35:03
are upfront about this is what I need to do to be the best I can.
35:08
Be. It might create one hard
35:10
conversation or two hard conversations, right?
35:14
That's short lived. And then people are like, oh,
35:17
well, that's what he does. It's part of his routine.
35:19
This is a set schedule. He understands how it fits with
35:21
our program. Awesome.
35:24
Like, you can see the best in baseball.
35:26
Do that, right? Yeah.
35:28
It's way more common. To see the guys that just fall
35:32
in line are generally the ones that are never separating
35:35
themselves and like you said, those tough.
35:37
Conversations, you got to have them because I remember after
35:40
that bullpen like I mentioned earlier and your sat me down, I
35:42
was like, I can't give you the ball back.
35:44
I was completely devastated. You know, I could have put my
35:48
tail between my legs and wrapped up the rest of the season and
35:52
called it quits. I lost my starting spot at that
35:54
point. I could have called it quits,
35:56
ended up silently working my way back into the starting role.
35:59
Like I didn't complain about it. I was actually super excited
36:02
that one of the freshmen actually took my spot.
36:05
I was his biggest cheerleader the whole time because I knew
36:08
deep down in my heart that I wasn't prepared for that level
36:11
of competition just because of the spot my elbow is in.
36:15
So I was super happy that that Matt Yark, I'll say his name
36:18
just cuz he's going to be my roommate next year.
36:20
I love the kid. He took my spot.
36:22
It was great for him. He got a ton of experience.
36:24
He's going to need it for this year.
36:26
But I could have completely shut down and been a jerk to all my
36:30
teammates and and instead I kind of just understood, but I need
36:34
to get my elbow back to a place where I can help the team, no
36:37
matter what role it is. If it's going to be one inning
36:40
at the end of the games, because he can still trust me to throw
36:43
strikes, that's what it's going to be.
36:44
Because that's how I'm going to help my team this year.
36:46
If it if that's all I was able to do, like say I wasn't, I
36:49
didn't come back healthy like I did because of the flex pro grip
36:52
and I could only pitch in a closing role, which probably
36:56
would have 8 at me. I'm not a closer.
36:57
I like to throw 6-7 innings as many as I can.
37:01
If that's the only way I can help my team and I have to watch
37:04
the freshman start over me, I deserve it.
37:07
Like that's that's just the way I see it.
37:09
I don't see it as a Dang coach hates me and wants to give the
37:13
ball to the freshman. No, it's because I don't deserve
37:14
it and I'm not ready for it. And once I am, I'll show it to
37:18
him. Simple.
37:19
Yeah, great tangent there. Love that we went down that
37:22
road. So I'm going to go back to the
37:23
Quick Hitters now. You talked about rehabbing with
37:27
the Cypress staff as well as doing some work with Peyton that
37:30
freshman year when you ultimately have the UCL sprain,
37:34
you said you were on the shelf for about 8 weeks, 4 weeks off
37:37
and then four weeks in a return to throw.
37:40
What ultimately was the decision to go about your recovery non
37:46
operatively? Because a lot of people hear UCL
37:49
spraying and they think that's it, I'm done.
37:52
Like we talked about it offline, a sprain is a tear and that's
37:56
important for people to know. Just because you hear sprain
37:59
some people get, they're like, oh great, I'm fine A.
38:02
Sprain is still a. Tear, So it's not like you had
38:05
some like little Boo Boo, you still had serious injury that
38:08
you needed to fight through. What was the decision?
38:11
How did you guys go about that communication wise and
38:16
ultimately what did rehab look like to help you get back on the
38:19
field? OK, so.
38:21
To start got my MRI that there was no full tear which is what
38:26
they were looking for any even if it was an implication of like
38:29
a 50% tear, that's what they were looking for.
38:31
They only found the micro tears from a Grade 1 sprain.
38:35
Like you said, there was still tears in there, but nothing to
38:38
operate on. And it was still so hard to wrap
38:41
my head around that being the truth because when I threw the
38:44
ball in that last bullpen, it just felt like my elbow was
38:47
exploding every time I, it felt like something had to be so
38:52
wrong in there, but it wasn't. It was super cool.
38:55
The the Cypress athletic training staff, actually, I
38:59
think they do it every once in a while, they'll all get together
39:02
and study a topic actually. And they used my elbow case as a
39:06
topic as to why I should not get Tommy John surgery.
39:11
I was in such a dark place. I think I said that offline.
39:14
I thought that the only way I was going to be able to ever
39:17
return to throw is by getting a new elbow.
39:18
They actually had to coach me out of that mindset as well as
39:22
coach my physical strength because that's probably what
39:25
prompted them to do that entire research project that they
39:29
looked into return to play time, that they looked into longevity
39:34
post op time, all of these different factors that play into
39:38
why you shouldn't get Tommy John.
39:41
And ultimately they brought in Doctor Fumi, like I said from
39:45
Seal Beach, I just full on trust them because of his credentials.
39:50
Ended up working out in my favor.
39:52
He thought that the biggest problem was my shoulder
39:54
instability and that's what created the problems in my
39:57
elbow, which I mean, it's true. Like if you had a weak shoulder,
40:00
you're going to have a weak elbow.
40:01
It makes sense. So majority of the training that
40:04
we did together was shoulder strengthening, especially for
40:07
that first four weeks where I wasn't throwing the ball and
40:10
kind of trying to get the inflammation down in my elbow
40:13
and all that. We're doing a lot of shoulder
40:15
training. It wasn't like armored heat or
40:17
anything. It was very physical therapy
40:19
type stuff. Kumi is an athletic trainer, so
40:23
he he knew what he was doing. I'm not sure exactly how well
40:26
versed he is in the baseball pitching world exactly, but his
40:30
shoulder rehab was good in my opinion.
40:32
As far as I understood. Like all these little muscles
40:35
that I never felt before were getting turned on and getting
40:38
their work in. And I think after that I drive
40:42
line. They have this little sleeve
40:44
that you can wear called, it's called pulse throw.
40:46
Now when I return to throw, we were very heavy on the angle at
40:51
which I released the ball. We thought that I was too far
40:55
out here at extension. I was on the ball, so I was
40:57
putting too much pressure on the inside of my elbow.
40:59
We were working on getting it closer to like a 45° angle with
41:03
that thing. Ended up helping.
41:05
I'm not sure. I don't think I throw from that
41:07
slot anymore, but I think I just needed to get my elbow healthy
41:11
to throw again before I started ripping the baseball.
41:15
But I would also go to the yard and do Phoenix.
41:19
I'm not sure how many people are going to know what that thing
41:21
is. It's like a little STEM unit.
41:24
Is that the ARP wave? It's it's like it's little.
41:27
Brother, I think the ARP wave is the Phoenix on steroids somehow,
41:31
that there's a better version of it.
41:33
Anyway, back in the day, that was the best thing we had and I
41:36
thought it was amazing. It does microcurrents that you
41:39
can't even feel. It does enemies.
41:41
It does all of these protocols that I was doing and Peyton was
41:46
helping me, Doc was giving me workouts to do on them while I
41:49
was doing the Phoenix. So that thing is crazy.
41:53
Like it gets up to like 500 contractions per second or
41:56
something. So when you do one Rep that
41:58
takes 2 seconds, your muscles contracted 1000 times.
42:01
Like it's, it's nuts to think of the work that that thing can put
42:04
in for you in such a little time.
42:06
So I think that's part of the reason why I came back healthy
42:09
with no operation. Yeah, it was, it was majority
42:12
Cyprus that decided that I wasn't going to get surgery.
42:16
So. And as you said, looking back on
42:20
it, you're glad that they kind of pushed you presented.
42:23
Absolutely. Yeah, totally.
42:25
Because I don't know how. I'm sorry.
42:27
Go ahead. What I was getting at?
42:29
Adding on here was you were in such a dark place that you kind
42:34
of felt like the only way out was operation like you, you.
42:39
Didn't. Trust yourself or trust your
42:41
body or trust the people around you necessarily.
42:44
At the time, yeah, it was also. Foreign, yeah.
42:49
I mean, it was also foreign to me.
42:51
I'd never felt anything like it. So I kind of just basically hit
42:56
the panic button, like I just didn't know that people came
43:00
back from things. Like I obviously understand that
43:02
people get Tommy John rehab from it, but and that's what I
43:06
thought people did and I thought people got Tommy John and then
43:09
that's how they came back to pitching.
43:11
But the rehab staff of the athletic training staff was just
43:14
so hell bent on making sure that I stayed away from it because
43:19
one, I think it red flags you for the draft.
43:22
Like they know obviously they're going to come to a physical and
43:25
then all of the research about how much time you have after and
43:31
then the likelihood of it popping again after full
43:34
reconstruction. Well, it was all just like, I
43:37
may as well see if I can get back to throwing and then
43:42
prolong the operation. Like if I could come back,
43:46
finish this year even, and then have it, maybe.
43:49
I don't know. I was just wanting to throw
43:51
again at that point and all of these people were telling me,
43:54
hey, you don't need the operation, let's do some rehab
43:58
and you can probably pitch again.
44:00
All right, let's try it. I guess that's basically where I
44:03
was at and so that gets us. Through your freshman year, you
44:07
commented on kind of how nervous you were still with the whole
44:11
situation the fall of your sophomore year, which led to a
44:16
commitment which is obviously played out nicely with New
44:20
Mexico State. But as you said, you were just
44:23
like I, I just need to get this out of the way.
44:25
I need to get into a situation where all my ducks are in a row.
44:29
So you commit, you end up throwing a large chunk of
44:33
innings. Your sophomore year, as you
44:35
said, it might not have been the best statistically, but you got
44:38
through it. And coming off of injury,
44:41
completing a season is just a massive, like a massive feather
44:45
in the cap. Like that means more than
44:47
anything when in your first year back from an injury, it's just
44:50
like, I can do this. It doesn't even matter what the
44:53
stats are at that point, just I can do this.
44:56
Restored confidence for sure. I'm just like.
44:59
Covering the summary real quick here, you talk about the
45:02
shoulder issue. Then your first year at New
45:04
Mexico State, workloads spike again.
45:07
You went from throwing high intent one to two times a week
45:11
to then having to be ready to throw high intent literally any
45:14
day in a given week. So if you're not used to that,
45:17
it can really mess with you, you know, with the.
45:20
V. Low ups and downs.
45:22
You get through this past year, a little bit of discomfort, but
45:26
we figure it out. You're at a point where you feel
45:29
you have a system that works now.
45:32
So now let's let's talk about that.
45:35
What is the system now that you've taken more ownership of
45:39
your career, I'd love if you could just go into the details.
45:43
What does daily life or weekly life look like for you to be
45:47
ready to go every time your name is called?
45:50
OK. Definitely, I have been very
45:53
impartial to the pitching Dr. stuff over the years.
45:56
I've been a huge fan of the way that it's not very, I call it
46:01
neutral spine training. I'm not exactly the biggest fan
46:05
of it. Like it's that's like straight
46:07
squats, deadlift, like bench press, like that's all great.
46:10
And I've been actually doing some of that this summer to put
46:13
some muscle on. But I'm a huge fan of of moving
46:16
around like bending, doing all this stuff and jumping, moving
46:22
biometrically, isometrically, like all this stuff.
46:24
That's what he incorporates into his stuff.
46:26
And the biggest, the biggest part that contributes to my
46:31
readiness is the lifts that I do throughout the week beforehand.
46:35
And then my throwing is very day-to-day and preparing for
46:40
throwing is very day-to-day thing, especially during the
46:44
offseason. But would you, do you want me to
46:46
talk about the season or the offseason?
46:48
Both is. Totally fine.
46:50
Just OK, we'll start with. We'll start with in season then
46:52
I guess. So this year after start, I
46:57
would throw my innings, however many it was, and then it was
47:01
automatically the next day is football toss only football toss
47:06
maybe 30 yards, 40 throws. And then always like a a massage
47:13
flush from the fingertips all the way down to my shoulder and
47:16
then going up to the next outing is all feel like I said, the the
47:21
first day back is maybe 120 a 150 feet.
47:25
I'm a huge long toss fan, very big on getting the ball out very
47:31
far at a very low velocity, but like high arc.
47:34
I don't know if you've ever watched the Alan Yeager video
47:38
with Trevor Bauer in it from all those years ago, but I think
47:41
that kind of helped control the workload week to week on my arm
47:45
just by OK, this is how far my arm can throw it.
47:49
Today I'm not going to go any further.
47:50
I'm just going to get a nice arc on the ball.
47:52
My arm's going to get nice and loose.
47:54
And then maybe the next day when my arm's feeling a little less
47:59
sore from the outing on the way in from that catch play, I'll
48:03
pull down and get my high intent throws in, get the get the ball
48:07
moving a little quicker. As for lifting throughout the
48:10
week, when I'm with New Mexico State I do their lifts through
48:14
the week except on the day before my start.
48:19
That's when I'll do my dock lift.
48:21
I still have it in my phone from back when I was training at the
48:24
yard every day. It's literally just a pre throw
48:26
lift activation. Jumping, doing some squat, March
48:30
lunges, doing some isometrics for your chest, doing some
48:33
isometrics for your tricep, All these things that activate your
48:36
arm but not make it sore. Or maybe that's what I found is
48:41
doing things that keep my body moving but don't make me fatigue
48:46
the next day. And I guess maybe it doesn't.
48:49
It's not the dock stuff for everybody, but for me it is.
48:51
I don't know what what it is about his stuff, but it just
48:55
prepares me the best for for when I throw the ball.
48:59
But As for the summer stuff like offseason workouts to prepare
49:03
for throwing, I like doing ground throws is a big dock
49:07
thing. I've been very big on that this
49:10
year. We've been working on leading my
49:13
arm above my shoulder before I throw the ball.
49:16
I think that's going to help me not only with velocity but
49:19
health as well in my arm because I was thrown from down here a
49:23
little lower than my shoulder slot, which kind of forces my
49:26
elbow up. Got to work around the the
49:29
chromial line is what it's called instead of working over
49:32
it. And that's all stuff that Peyton
49:33
and I talk about. He's watching me throw the ball
49:36
down there every time. He's dialing it in while I'm
49:39
throwing it. I can, I can feel it.
49:42
And that's the good thing about how much time I've spent, how
49:46
much experience that I've got working with them over the years
49:48
is it's not so much of A Peyton's teaching me now.
49:53
He's more so being my eyes. Like I can't see what I look
49:57
like. I can only feel what it looks
49:59
like. So he's like, OK, your arm
50:01
didn't get high enough. OK, well, I felt where it got.
50:04
So that means it needs to get higher.
50:06
He's your caddy at this point. It's.
50:09
Basically. Like I mean he's, I mean he's
50:11
the best at it though and that's why I'm still with him.
50:15
God only knows how much more information the doc could tell
50:19
me. I've never exactly worked with
50:20
the doc in person, but he. Peyton and the Doc.
50:24
Work together and tried and those guys are unstoppable
50:28
together. Like they're so smart I want to
50:31
add a few other. Things into the fold, you, you
50:34
mentioned your use of Flexpro grip, you've mentioned your use
50:36
of Armored HEAT. When are you doing those things
50:40
in your weekly schedule? So.
50:43
The Flexpro grip has always been kind of a post throw thing for
50:47
me. I've always done nerve flossing
50:50
to warm up for my elbow. That's ever since my first
50:53
injury at Cypress. That's kind of what Doctor Fumi
50:57
introduced me to. I think actually, you know what,
51:00
I take it back. I think again, I think that's
51:02
another doc thing is nerve flossing or maybe that's
51:05
something that he introduced us to.
51:07
But I have three exercises that I do for 10.
51:11
It's like this one and then straight out and then straight
51:14
back. And then I do some ground throws
51:17
and then go through my throwing armored HEAT flexural grip if I
51:23
need to on top of the armored HEAT.
51:25
If my shoulder is ever more sore, I do some some doc stuff
51:29
again. Like it's not plyometrics or
51:31
isometrics, but more so like time under tension where we're
51:35
holding weights and letting them fall slowly.
51:38
We're also we're trying to hold them in place, but they're we're
51:41
holding them for so long that they're dropping on their own
51:44
long. Eccentric holds, yeah,
51:46
basically, yeah. That's what you could call them.
51:48
That's. Probably what it is technically
51:50
all. Isometrics are an eccentric,
51:53
which is. Which is always a funny concept
51:56
because if you think about it, nothing is at least muscularly
52:00
ever actually staying in one place.
52:04
Yes, you, you don't see a movement, but if you think of
52:06
what's happening with the muscle tendon unit, as the muscle
52:09
continues to contract, the tendon continues to lengthen.
52:13
So if you think about like a bench press, if we just held, we
52:17
just held the bench in front of us.
52:20
What is happening while we're holding it is that muscle is
52:23
continuing to contract because the load, thinking about
52:28
gravity, thinking about time. Although the load isn't
52:31
technically changing, gravity isn't increasing its force.
52:36
That muscle is continuing to contract, which then means the
52:39
tendon is lengthening. So although although the
52:43
distance being covered isn't changing.
52:46
The actual like contraction of the muscle.
52:50
Is forced to become an eccentric at that point.
52:54
That's why I said like the power of isometrics are incredible
52:57
because you can expose the body to such high levels of force
53:02
without the crazy loads of like rap after rap or there's less, I
53:07
guess, stress associated with extremely high outputs.
53:11
Totally. And maybe that's why the doc is
53:14
so impartial to them or whatever, because we do a lot.
53:18
He has a workout called the Three Minute Ninja or the 30
53:22
Minute Ninja, or Three Minutes of Hell.
53:24
There's a couple of them and we just do all of these different
53:27
exercises and see if we can hold them for three minutes.
53:30
And you'd be, you'd be surprised how freaking difficult it is.
53:34
Like going from a 3 minute wall sit to a 3 minute reverse lunge.
53:39
Like see, see how athletic you are at that point?
53:41
Like it is not, it is not fun. It's not for the the faint of
53:45
heart, that's for sure. No, And at that point,
53:48
understanding that is what gets you to be a next level athlete.
53:54
You know, in my opinion, like once you understand, hey, it, it
53:57
takes what it takes, at a certain point you got to do the
54:00
stuff that's going to make you better.
54:02
So now. Talking about this 180 kind of
54:06
with your mindset with how crappy of a place you were in
54:10
coming off of your elbow injury. Now you mentioned.
54:14
Like how hard? Your training is in some of the
54:17
things that you're exposing yourself to.
54:19
Do you think part of what enables you to be successful now
54:24
is just knowing the work that you've put in and what you've
54:28
had to endure? No.
54:30
Absolutely. So like.
54:31
Going through those things, it definitely teaches you stuff not
54:34
only about who you are, but your body as well.
54:38
You go through the injury and obviously you got to still
54:41
throw, but you did something wrong so you got to go find what
54:45
happened and fix it. So at Cypress, it was a workload
54:49
issue. Figured that out for the next
54:51
year, got that under control. I was healthy, got to New Mexico
54:54
State, up the workload again, got injured next year happens,
55:00
figured it out. I was throwing hard, but I
55:02
probably had some mechanical issues that led to my elbow
55:05
getting hurt. But it wasn't so bad that I
55:08
couldn't dig myself out of that hole, you know, and that's The
55:11
thing is once I, I know I'm going down a hole, I know I need
55:15
to get myself out versus I'll be fine.
55:19
It'll adapt like I, I would rather be proactive about it at
55:23
this point. And I think that's what I've
55:24
learned about baseball is I don't want to say that rest
55:27
isn't the answer, but I, in my opinion, I always think movement
55:31
is therapy. Like movement is what's going to
55:33
get me back to moving at a high intent or moving the way I need
55:38
to be. Like, if I can't move this way,
55:41
what makes me think I can pitch? Like that's that's the kind of
55:45
mindset that I have now. And it's the same way with my
55:47
training. Like when I do the doc stuff and
55:50
I searcher 335 lbs and the nooks of my elbows right here.
55:56
Yeah, it hurts like crazy. But if I can't expect my arms
55:59
and my shoulders to be able to hold that load and my core to be
56:03
able to stabilize my body in that squat, what am I thinking
56:06
that I'm going to be able to stabilize my body in the
56:09
pitching movement? Like it's it all kind of
56:11
coincides with each other. Like this move, this idea that
56:15
my training has to be harder than pitching, so pitching is
56:18
easy commenting. Specifically on your movement is
56:23
medicine concept that scientifically holds up you.
56:28
You're 100% correct. That isn't just a feeling.
56:31
And you're saying that rest doesn't solve the problem.
56:34
Like yeah, specifically is going to make you feel better, but
56:39
rest doesn't solve anything. Inflammation will go away.
56:43
So yeah, I guess in theory it is solving that problem, but if you
56:47
don't actually address the soft tissue that is impacted, you
56:52
will never actually solve the problem.
56:54
You will feel better, but it is going to come right back.
56:58
That is why everybody who has tendonitis will pretty much have
57:02
tendonitis for the rest of their life unless they actually figure
57:06
out how to load that basal tendon.
57:08
Unit properly. To solve the problem.
57:11
Like that's why movement matters so much.
57:14
Yes, it's going to be hard for a little bit.
57:16
Yes, you might work through a little bit of discomfort or
57:19
pain. But if you recognize what that
57:22
correct threshold is and expose yourself to it over time, you're
57:27
building your tolerance as well as improving the actual
57:31
structure, and you are going to be on the road to success.
57:35
Success might not feel as good as just.
57:37
Sitting on the couch? Totally, but it solves the
57:40
problem. No, yeah.
57:41
And that's. That's why I think Flexpro grip
57:43
worked so well for me because I not only was it like a mental
57:49
thing for me, but feeling those muscles that were the ones that
57:53
were hurting like you, like I would do it and I'd be like,
57:56
Dang, like that's where that's where my problem is coming from
57:59
right now. Doing those workouts and feeling
58:02
that muscle like being worked was so much more rewarding in my
58:06
head than rolling it out or getting a massage or doing stem,
58:11
like just slapping stem pads on it and expecting it to get
58:14
better. Like that's what they wanted me
58:15
to do. I was like, there's and the same
58:18
thing for my shoulder because it was kind of more just like an
58:21
inflammation issue. We don't exactly know if it was
58:24
bicep tendon or if it was chest or if it was pack or whatever it
58:29
is. It was.
58:30
There's a lot of stuff that goes into that.
58:31
So many, so many parts that go right in this front.
58:34
It was right here. That's where the pain was
58:36
hurting. And I was like, I don't want to
58:39
sit around and hope it gets better.
58:41
I want to force it to get better.
58:43
Like that's that's my mindset on it is movement will make it
58:47
better, not sitting around. And that's kind of been my MO
58:52
ever since my first injury at Cyprus, having the the knowledge
58:57
that I do that I've gained from working with Peyton and the doc
59:01
and now especially you learning about like even on my first Zoom
59:06
call, if you back in what was it February or whatever it was
59:10
early or late January going into season, like just hearing about
59:14
all the scientific research backed into the flex program and
59:17
all the stuff that you know about it.
59:18
It was like bingo, like that's another thing that I need under
59:22
my belt, like to have like a full repertoire to be healthy
59:25
all the time. And now I've got armored heat
59:28
for my for my shoulder and I, they do a little bit of elbow
59:31
stuff. Yeah, but now I've got Flexpro
59:33
grip, like now I'm dialed in. It's a completely different
59:36
story than crap four years ago now at Cypress when I was just
59:40
kind of winging it and hoping for the best.
59:43
Basically just trying to throw hard whenever I got the chance,
59:45
working as hard as I could whenever I could just to earn a
59:48
spot and end up not going the right way.
59:51
And now understanding workloads and understanding that your body
59:55
needs to recover, all these things, they all go into it and
59:59
it has led to where I am now. All right, so we've talked.
1:00:03
So much about the past now let's look into the future.
1:00:07
So you're going into this final fifth year of college ball.
1:00:10
You mentioned quickly that you've just been grinding your
1:00:13
butt off this summer. You had a big throwing workload
1:00:16
again, but thankfully we managed it this time around.
1:00:19
So you've been doing some more traditional strength training.
1:00:22
I know you've been gaining some weight.
1:00:24
What are your goals for this upcoming season?
1:00:27
What, in your mind is a success in this final year of college
1:00:32
ball so. Funnily enough I started losing
1:00:37
weight around around when I called you about flex program
1:00:40
the first time. I was probably 225 going into
1:00:44
season and then ended up around 2:15. 2/17 maybe.
1:00:51
So I lost a good 10 lbs during season and I don't know if that
1:00:55
contributed to my injury or not, but I want to go into next
1:00:59
season with a higher baseline. So that's kind of what's
1:01:03
contributed to my ideology for this summer is let's get as
1:01:07
strong as possible and set the the greatest foundation for
1:01:11
myself all the way through December.
1:01:13
Like this isn't just a summer thing.
1:01:15
Like I'm going to tell my coach that I want to continue this
1:01:19
through fall. Like he understands I don't want
1:01:22
to to my own horn, but I threw the most innings on the squad
1:01:24
last year. He's not expecting me to throw a
1:01:26
bunch of innings in the fall for inner squads.
1:01:28
He knows what he's getting back. Like he knows I can throw
1:01:31
strikes my main goal and he knows this gained velocity.
1:01:35
Like I genuinely I feel like that's the only thing besides
1:01:40
getting my era down the first four games of the season.
1:01:43
I think that's what gets me to the next level outside of
1:01:46
college baseball. So eating a lot is where I'm at
1:01:50
right now. I eat 2 breakfasts midday, lunch
1:01:53
after my workout so like 3:00 I'll eat and then I'll eat
1:01:56
dinner. So I eat 4 meals a day and then
1:01:58
a shake before bed. So I'm getting close to 4500
1:02:02
calories a day. I think since I've been home.
1:02:04
I went from the 217 that I said to about.
1:02:07
I woke up this morning at about 234.4 and on my little smart
1:02:12
scale app I've gained about 10 lbs of muscle and about 7 lbs of
1:02:16
fat. But if I can keep going in that
1:02:19
direction through all of fall, I think I'll have a better
1:02:22
baseline to be health healthy through the spring.
1:02:25
Just like the entire way because I was healthy by the end because
1:02:29
I found Flexpro grip. But now if I start that way, I
1:02:32
think I can just go like this to the whole season and be healthy
1:02:36
the whole time, maintain body weight will be easier.
1:02:39
Or maybe even if I go in there with a little bit of cushion,
1:02:41
you know, like expecting to lose weight, who knows, like that
1:02:44
might. That might not be the end of the
1:02:46
world, but I don't want to get fat.
1:02:48
I'm not fat right now. I will tell the listeners I'm
1:02:52
14% body fat right now. If I get over 16, I'll stop
1:02:56
eating 4500 calories. How about that?
1:02:58
Yeah. So this.
1:02:59
Podcast is here to hold you accountable, Yeah.
1:03:02
Do you have your sights set on anything performance wise or is
1:03:06
it just go out there and see what happens?
1:03:08
Well. Performance wise, I do obviously
1:03:11
want to be back in the weekend rotation.
1:03:14
Friday night would be awesome. Saturday night would be even
1:03:17
better. Sunday night would be stupid.
1:03:19
I don't want to be a Sunday starter.
1:03:20
That means I'm the worst one. So.
1:03:22
So Friday best Saturday. OK.
1:03:25
But my main goal this year is not only maintaining my health,
1:03:29
but just maintaining like the competitive edge that I found at
1:03:32
the end of the year. Like I've talked about the FU
1:03:34
mentality to all of this stuff, like all of these data, all the
1:03:39
data on first pitch strikes and O2 this, O2 that.
1:03:43
Like I just went up there and let it all hang out and threw
1:03:46
the ball in the zone and made sure it was low in the zone, not
1:03:50
up because that's when I get banged.
1:03:52
Made sure I was throwing low in the zone.
1:03:54
So if I can repeat that and just stick with the edge that
1:03:57
nobody's going to touch my stuff, then I think next year I
1:04:00
can have a way better year. Heck yeah, man.
1:04:03
Well, I think that concludes my official line of questioning.
1:04:08
We've been going at this a while.
1:04:09
I think you all offered some really good insights I'm excited
1:04:13
for and everything you have coming your way this year.
1:04:16
You've obviously learned a lot. If that's not evident from this
1:04:20
podcast, I don't know what is. I'm excited for you to piece it
1:04:24
all together. You were gifted this one final
1:04:26
year and I know you were making most of it.
1:04:28
Yeah, that's the thing, man. It it all feels kind of like a
1:04:31
blessing because I was ready to. I don't know if I was going to
1:04:35
pack it up after last year or what it was because we didn't
1:04:38
really talk about what my plan would have been had I not gotten
1:04:42
this extra year. So I might have been done, I
1:04:45
might not have been, who knows? But I'm just not going to take
1:04:47
this year for granted. That's all.
1:04:48
I know it's a great way to. Attack it, and I encourage
1:04:51
everyone else out there that is in a similar situation to do the
1:04:54
same thing because you never know when the ball is going to
1:04:57
get ripped away from you and it feels really good when the ball
1:05:00
is given back. Exactly, Yeah.
1:05:02
Just let your talent take you as far as it'll afford you, and
1:05:06
when it doesn't afford you the the ball anymore, that's when
1:05:09
you can hang it up. But I don't want to regret
1:05:11
anything later on in my life, so I'm just going to ride it out, I
1:05:15
guess. Yeah, this has been.
1:05:16
Awesome, man. I really appreciate it.
1:05:18
Connor's an open book, so anybody who wants to hit him up,
1:05:21
I'm going to voluntarily services.
1:05:23
Please do. No, yeah.
1:05:25
I love talking to. I mean, it's, it's been weird,
1:05:27
especially like the the younger guys in the facility now they'll
1:05:30
come up to me and ask me questions about like, well,
1:05:33
what'd you do to get where you are today?
1:05:35
And like, it's an honor to get that question asked to me.
1:05:38
But I just feel like Grandpa now.
1:05:40
You are an old head. Yeah, you're on it now.
1:05:42
Yeah, I'm absolutely going to be on.
1:05:44
It was weird thinking I was the oldest guy on the staff last
1:05:47
year. Uh.
1:05:49
Oh, this year having having 18 year olds on the staff when I'm
1:05:53
23, well hey, there's a lot of Staffs out there with 24 and 25
1:05:57
year olds now, so that's true. At least you're not in that
1:06:00
situation. Yeah, absolutely.
1:06:02
But hey, who cares if? You're old.
1:06:04
If you still have the ball in your hand exactly, I'll go.
1:06:07
Till I'm 45, like Rich Hill. That's right.
1:06:10
Well, Connor. Thanks a ton for this today.
1:06:13
This has been awesome chat and I look forward to following the
1:06:16
career. As always.
1:06:17
Thank you man, I appreciate. I had a fun ton of fun chopping
1:06:19
it up with you this morning, big time and to all.
1:06:22
The listeners out there, thanks for laying back with us.