Latest / The Mound Visit / How to Overcome the Yips

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How to Overcome the Yips · The Mound Visit

0:00
Getting really clear on what you're fearful of. So, for example, for
0:04
me, I was super scared of just humiliating myself. I hated the feeling
0:08
of spiking the throw of thirty feet and then all my teammates and coaches looking
0:13
at me like Jesus, what the hell happened? And then like doing it
0:17
again, and then they're like, oh my god, this is crazy,
0:21
like he has the gips bad. And then it just feels like everyone's watching
0:25
you, and you know, it just stouts a spiral. All right,
0:39
we are alive with another episode of The Man Visit Josh. How was your
0:43
week? My week was not too bad. I pitched on Wednesday. It
0:50
was the Kid's day over in Greensboro, so super loud, lots of energy,
0:56
and the I think bad thing was it was early in the day,
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so it wasn't too bad. I threw one point one innings and you know,
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the first inning I walked one, and then the next one it was
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a clean one to three innings, so it wasn't too bad. I'm still
1:11
struggling a little bit with my velo, but I'm getting outs and full right
1:17
now. That's that's kind of what matters, and I'm just gonna keep trying
1:21
to woke on my velo and trying to get that back up. Yeah,
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I mean when when you're not feeling your best, right, Like, I
1:27
know you've talked about still trying to work through things with the back, making
1:32
sure that's feeling good, and like that's the center of everything. When you're
1:34
throwing at the back's not feeling good, it's gonna be tough for the feal
1:37
to be where it needs to be. But right you're getting outs. I
1:41
think I've I've been following your games, like I don't want to jinx it,
1:44
but you haven't get up a hit I don't think yet at this point.
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So like you're throwing well, You're find a way to use your slider.
1:49
You're really good off speed pitches, and then that fastball. I think
1:52
you're still getting a lot of whifts on it. I don't know what your
1:53
mysterrate is, but I feel like it's still playing up really well. So
1:57
that's encouraging, right, Like, and this is a good message for pictures
2:00
that are listening, is you're not always going to feel your best. You
2:04
might go through phases where your stuff isn't as sharp. You don't feel as
2:07
good physically, but yourself have to compete in yourself to find a way to
2:09
get out with what you have, and you're doing a great job of that.
2:15
Yeah. And I think it's a little bit easier because I'm a reliever
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now, so then I only have to go out there for like an inning
2:22
or two max. So it's a little bit easier to you know, work
2:25
on stuff and you don't have to be like perfect. I feel like when
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I was a start, I was I felt like a little bit of pressure
2:31
of okay, like this day, I need to be perfect. I can't
2:35
be thinking about my mechanics or anything. I need to make sure I'm going
2:38
four to five innings six innings so that I don't kill the bullpen. But
2:43
now as a reliever, it's the pressure is a little bit off, and
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so I can still work on things and I still work on my mechanics and
2:52
my pitches and not have it be such a big impact on my performance.
3:00
Yeah, that's a good point because there is like you do feel a little
3:02
added pressure as a starter in a way, because like you said, if
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you only go two innings or three innings, now the bullpen's got to cover
3:08
the rest of the game, So there is a little bit of you know,
3:12
added pressure to that versus the bullpen. You come in, you let
3:15
it rip for as many ounce as they let you get, and you kind
3:17
of go from there. And on top of it, like if something is
3:21
bothering you or isn't feeling great, like you can kind of fight through it
3:23
for you know, an inning or whatever it is. But on the flip
3:27
side, you do have to respond faster. I mean, I know minor
3:30
league baseball is a little bit different, like you're not going back to back
3:31
days and you know in high A I don't think at least so, but
3:36
you're still maybe going every other day potentially, or you're hot at least two
3:38
days later. So there is a little bit of that to where the volume
3:40
is lower day to day, but the chronic workload could potentially be higher,
3:46
which you know, might not give enough time to recover. So it's like
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all those little details play into it and matter. Yeah, for sure,
3:53
that was a big adjustment. But I love our pitching coach. I love
3:59
it. He just said, all right, relievers like or you need to
4:02
focus on you're just throwing as hot as you can when you come out of
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the pen. I don't care if you throwing bulls or strikes. I just
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want you to throw it as hot as you can. Because a lot about
4:12
relievers right now, converted starters, and so as you go up the minor
4:16
league levels, I think you kind of get separate into all right, this
4:20
is kind of what you're going to be in the future. And so Stott
4:25
has become relievers. And we only have six starters right now, so every
4:30
one of our status has their own day, and so everyone else becomes relievers.
4:34
So a lot of us are converted stats, and so we're trying to
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adjust. And so he was like, you know what, Like you're not
4:42
a starter anymore. I just want you to go out there and just throw
4:45
the crap out of the ball every time you go out. That's a pretty
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frame, mindset or message to hear from your pitching coach, right because I
4:51
know we've talked about this before, you know, on the air or off
4:55
the I can't remember which. So where stutnames coaches can can put a little
5:00
added pressure on players with it, whether it's intentional or not, to where
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it can lock players up by the words they use and what they say to
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you. So having a pitching coach. That gives you the freedom of like,
5:10
hey, if you throw balls, you throw balls, but I want
5:12
you to give it everything you have, leave it out there, let it
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rip. Like that's an encouraging and freeing mindset that's going to allow you to
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hopefully play play better because you're going to be more loose. And going from
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a starter to relieve it, it is an important lesson to learn that the
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mindset is completely different, right, Like, you're not pacing yourself for five,
5:30
six, seven innings. It's you give it everything you have for as
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many outs as you can. You don't have to worry about saving any pitches.
5:34
If you want to come out there and you want to rip six straight
5:38
sliders to start the day, there's there's no issue. You probably don't have
5:41
to worry about facing them a second time. You can just let everything hang
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out and give it everything you got for you know, five six outs or
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whatever it's going to be. Yeah, for sure, it's just a very
5:53
freeing thingful relieve is just so that we can focus on throwing hot and throwing
5:59
out stuff instead of worrying about throwing strikes. So yeah, I think that's
6:04
a great mentality and I think it ties really well into our topic today,
6:09
which is the yips and how you know, trying to focus so much on
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throwing accurately and throwing strikes can really hurt you. And so that's kind of
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the topic I want to talk about today. Do you have any experience with
6:27
the yips? Jenny, Real quick, everyone, I wanted to tell you
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6:51
right, back to the show. I personally don't like at least not in
6:56
a game setting. But I will say this, I am not good at
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throwing batting practice. And there's a number of coaches that will tell you that
7:02
they do get yipped up a little bit throwing VP. There was something about
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it, like I just don't have a lot of experience with it. I
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was never really asked to do it much, but a few times I did
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for whatever reason. I really struggled with throwing strikes and batting practice. And
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you know, I heard you talk about this on the Patrick Jones podcast,
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which you know, Patrick's a good friend of mine, and really enjoyed that
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episode that you guys just did, and you talked about how fear plays into
7:30
the yips and how that is like the center of it. And when I
7:31
was listening to you saying that on his podcast, I was thinking about my
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experiences of where I felt like I couldn't throw strikes in a VP setting,
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and You're exactly right. It originated from fear. I was worried about,
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you know, what are the other coaches and players going to think because I'm
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not throwing strikes and they're trying to get their work in. It was just
7:47
centered around me worrying about what other people are thinking about me, and just
7:53
fearing the result of that, even though it really wasn't a big deal at
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the end of the day. But that's where it's done from. So I'm
8:00
really interested in hearing your perspective of how fear ties into the yips and what
8:05
your experiences were with that, Yeah, for sure. So I'll just run
8:11
through kind of my experience with the yips. So it really happened in twenty
8:18
nineteen. I was insummable with the West Coast League and so I was an
8:24
incoming freshman and I was playing in the West Coast League and we were doing
8:28
some pfps and pfps you know, like they're kind of tough for a pitcher.
8:35
You're going from throwing max effort to you're catching a ball and you're trying
8:39
to you're throwing at like, you know, like a lower intensity through the
8:41
bases. If you're a pitcher, you know what I mean. It's kind
8:45
of weird. And so when I was doing that, I couldn't do them
8:50
very well. I was throwing the ball like spraying it a little bit.
8:52
I was sailing the guys. I was spiking it, and so that kind
8:56
of got in my head. But at that time, I could still play
8:58
catch, I could still throw bullpens, I could still play in games.
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It got worse when I signed professionally a couple months later, and so now
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I have this pressure of Okay, I'm a professional baseball player, like I
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need to be able to do like the simple things well, pfps, play
9:18
catch and everything like that, and there was just a lot of built up
9:22
fear and anxiety. And so the first couple of days when I reported to
9:28
Clearwater, Florida with the Phillies, I was feeling myself just be really nervous
9:33
about doing pfps and like a lot of anxiety about it. And sure enough,
9:39
we would do them and they were just terrible. You know. I
9:43
would throw them like spike it like thirty three in front of me, or
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like sail it way past the fielders, and that really got in my head.
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I was like, damn, like that's not good. And so I
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would try to fix it in my catch play and when I would do catch
10:01
player, I'd be thinking about it, thinking about it, and I started
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to come into my catch play as well to where I was getting really nervous
10:09
about playing catch and like getting a lot of anxiety. And it got to
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the point where I couldn't even play catch. I wouldn't be able to hit
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my thrown partner, like I wouldn't throw it anywhere closer. It was like
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it would either just sail away past him or it would just spike. And
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it got to the point where I was like to the Patriot Groads, I
10:28
was like, I can't play catch anymore, and so instead of doing a
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throwing program, I would just throw into the net. And the weird thing
10:39
was, though, when I was throwing max effort, I could throw accurately,
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and so I could throw bullpens and I could still playing games in twenty
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nineteen. You can you know, you can check my stats. It wasn't
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like terrible. I could still play and compete, which was weird, but
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I couldn't play catch or do any kind of lower effort throwing. It was
11:03
complete spike or sale over my thrown partner. And so that kind of continued
11:09
twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, and in twenty twenty one. So during those
11:16
years, I was kind of just like masking it. You know, I
11:18
could still play, so I was like, you know, like catch play.
11:20
I would just kind of like flick it or like do what I could
11:24
to just get through it. But I still had like the yips, and
11:28
I still couldn't really play catch properly. What I was doing then was I'd
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just flick it until I was about you know, ninety feet. I'll literally
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just do like elbow tosses. Like this just until I was at like ninety
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feet, and then when I was at ninety feet, i'ld just start ripping
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it like max effort, and so I was kind of able to get through
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it a little bit. But during a live BP session in twenty twenty one,
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early twenty twenty one, it might have been late twenty twenty actually,
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I just come off two weeks off of quarantine in Sydney, Australia because of
12:05
COVID, and so they required everyone who was in the country to stay at
12:09
a hotel for two weeks, and so I wasn't able to throw that whole
12:11
time. I come out and I throw for you know, like a week,
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and then I get into a game, and because of that two weeks
12:20
quarantine, I wasn't feeling too great, but I was like, yeah,
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it's sorry, like I'm still gonna go through. At that time, I
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was throwing really hot. I was like, you know, ninety five plus
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consistently, and so I get into this game and then I'm throwing really hard,
12:37
but I'm kind of spraying it a little bit and it's fine, but
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then a right handed hitter steps in the box and I throw it as hard
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as I can and I look up and he's just like on the ground,
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just squirming in pain. And what had happened was I drilled him in the
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head at ninety five and that cas a big thing, you know, like
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the ambulance had to and you know, he was fine in the end,
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but it left a like in my mind, it was like a big,
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like kind of trauma thing where I was like, damn, Like I was
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like super scared. I felt awful, you know, like I was like,
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damn, I really don't want to do that again. And so every
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other right handed hitter that steps in the box, I would try to throw
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it away from him so that I wouldn't drive him. And because that was
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my mentality of oh, I'm going to throw it away from him instead of
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I'm going to throw strikes, I started to spike it like way into the
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left handed hit his box because you know, I was just terrified of hitting
13:45
the right handed hit her. And so that kind of spiraled, and then
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even in bullpens, I wasn't able to throw strikes. It was just spikes
13:56
into the left handed hit his box because you know, consciously at that trauma
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of I don't want to throw it into the right handed hit his box,
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so I'm going to try to throw it away, and so yeah, it
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came into my my bullpens and my games, and now I can't even throw
14:15
accurately when I'm throwing max effort. So in twenty twenty one, I could
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do pfps, i couldn't play catch, and I also couldn't throw off the
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mountain. And so that's kind of where my journey really started of all right,
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I'm gonna do something about this or you know, like my career is
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going to be done because I literally can't even play. And so should I
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get into everything that I did to overcome it or do you have any questions
14:46
on that? Joy? Yeah, no, I'll just make a couple of
14:48
comments. But that is that's a lot, right Like that is that is
14:54
a severe progression of starting off with something small of pfps transitions to catch play
15:01
and then eventually to the game. Did you I mean, so this is
15:05
a golf thing, but like the shanks? You ever heard of the shanks
15:09
and golf? Yeah? Briefly. Yeah, So basically where you hit the
15:13
ball like on the the hozzle of the golf club and the ball just shoots
15:18
straight left if you're left hand or straight right if you're right handed. It's
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basically the yips version of golf. And oftentimes when guys do that in golf,
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they do that for the first time, it starts to get in their
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head. And I actually did this for a little bit. It's not a
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very fun feeling, very fun feeling. But what I noticed was, ever
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since that happened once, it would subconsciously like be in my mind that I
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might do it again, and if I didn't, it was it felt like
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a sigh of relief, like a miracle that it was a normal shot and
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that I didn't actually shank it. When this started for you and catch play
15:50
with or sorry not cashplay, when I start with PFPS and then cashplaying in
15:54
the game, did you have fear of it happening in a game before it
15:58
actually did happen in a game because of cash playing PFPS or did it only
16:02
affect you mentally in those specific settings you know at the time it was so
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bad to where it almost became obviously Yeah, I had the negative mindset of
16:18
like, oh, I don't want to do this in a game, and
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like I would just be thinking about it all day, like Jesus, I
16:23
don't want to humiliate myself and embarrass myself by just like spiking at thirty feet
16:30
because it's a terrible feeling, like you just like your muscles are tans,
16:33
and you try to throw it and then it just spike st your left like
16:37
thirty feet and like everyone's just like what the hell just happened? You know?
16:41
Yeah, But honestly, it kind of became like a muscle memory thing
16:47
where like that's kind of what my body started to do, was just it
16:51
would just spike the ball. It got to that point where it's like even
16:56
I still remember this. I would lie down and I would flick the ball
17:00
up like this, and usually yet you know, you can like just say
17:04
flick it up and down, up and down, but at that time I
17:07
couldn't even do that. It would just like come out of my hand and
17:11
just go like straight wow, you know. So I'll be trying to throw
17:14
it up and they would just like go completely opposite direction. And so it
17:18
was like newly muscle memory in my forum of like all right, we don't
17:23
want to sail it. We don't want to like sail it, because that
17:26
was like what the trauma was, because if I sailed it, then I
17:30
might hit the right handed hitter, so we're just gonna spike it, and
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it kind of like it almost felt like it was just that's how I threw
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now, and so that's kind of where it really got to it, And
17:44
it was like that was at my lowest sloan for sure. Yeah. I
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coached a kid a couple of years ago that had the yips and it was
17:52
really really severe and it was unfortunate. He was a very good picture.
17:55
He had a lot of prior success and truthfully, I don't know how it
17:57
originally started. I think it started where I actually started working with them,
18:02
But it is it's a tough place to be as a coach to know what
18:06
to do for that person, because you know, I can say everything I
18:10
want to say, I can try to instill confidence in you, but if
18:11
the player doesn't tackle that fear themselves and doesn't get to the root cause doesn't
18:17
really matter what a coach says or does. What was your experience with your
18:22
coaches you know around you or the sports psychologists group, like what were they
18:26
having you do? What were they saying to you during this process? Yeah,
18:32
I was really lucky in that aspect because I was in professional baseball,
18:37
and this was my first year. So they honestly just told me, hey,
18:41
like, you know, you've got time. You're eighteen years old.
18:45
We invested in you, and like there's no rush to try to overcome it.
18:49
There's no rush to be able to have to compete at affiliable in a
18:53
couple of months or anything. It's like, you have time, let's just
18:56
figure it out. And so they actually put me in rehab, which was
19:03
massive, I think, because I was in rehab and so I basically was
19:10
in there with like a mental injury. And so that's kind of like how
19:15
I like to look at it, as in you know, it's tough to
19:18
classify the gibs as an injury because your body doesn't hurt most of the time,
19:22
Like your body doesn't hurt, and like you're able to throw normally if
19:26
you're just throwing into a net, but when there are people around you,
19:32
then things change and like you start spiking it and sailing it, and so
19:37
it's really hard to classify it as an injury. But I really like it
19:42
to where if you can classify it as an injury, then you can come
19:45
up with a plan and a progression to be able to get over it.
19:52
Yeah, so let's let's dive into it thing because obviously we're a few years
19:56
out from this and you have made tremendous progress and knock on what, I
20:00
don't think it's an issue at this point. So what were was what was
20:04
your progression like from day one when you went on the injured list to today?
20:08
Even what are some of the things that you've done? Yeah, for
20:14
sure. So one of my big breakthroughs was when I I actually started working
20:22
with Rachel Balkovic. She is the right now, she's pretty big time.
20:26
She's like the FUM director for the Marlins right now. But at the time,
20:32
she was a hitting coach with the Yankees and she had come down to
20:36
coach the professional team for Sydney, and at that time, I was during
20:42
that offseason. I was a part of that team and that was where my
20:45
yips were the worst. And so we connected there and I started working with
20:51
her, and she introduced me to the concept of okay, like the yips
21:00
are an injury. She had had experience with the yips during college. She
21:03
was a catcher, and I think I'm pretty sure it ended her career because
21:07
she couldn't throw back to the pitcher, and the college coaches was like,
21:11
all right, like we can't deal with this, and so you're just gonna
21:15
be benched, and it kind of derailed her career. But ultimately now she
21:19
can throw BP, which is, you know, like one of the harder
21:22
things to do if if you're yipped up, and so she kind of overcame
21:29
it, and so she was mentoring me throughout that process, and her big
21:33
thing was, Okay, we need to have a a throwing progression and also
21:38
a mental progression, and so I'll cover the mental stuff first. For the
21:45
mental stuff, it was basically as we talked about the yips. In my
21:52
opinion, it's rooted in fear and anxiety. So you're so fearful of throwing,
21:57
the making a bad throw, or embarrassing yourself, humiliating yourself, and
22:03
you have so much anxiety around it that your muscle just start to tense,
22:08
and the muscles around your forum and your hand they start to tense because of
22:11
all that anxiety, and you're not able to throw freely. And so the
22:18
first step was you know, recognizing that fact of Okay, I'm really scared
22:22
of throwing. And then the next step was how can we attack that fear.
22:30
And this is a kind of a long process, but if I were
22:36
to summarize it, it's getting really clear on what you're fearful of. So,
22:41
for example, for me, I was super scared of just humiliating myself.
22:45
I hated the feeling of spiking the throw of thirty feet and then all
22:51
my teammates and coaches looking at me like Jesus, what the hell happened?
22:55
And then like doing it again and then they're like, oh my god,
22:59
this is crazy, like he has the yips bad, and then it just
23:03
feels like everyone's watching you, and you know, it just thought's a spiral.
23:07
I was terrified of that. I was also terrified of disappointing the people
23:11
who had invested in me and believed in me, so like you know,
23:17
like the Philadelphia Phillies had invested in me, they had put a little bit
23:19
of money behind me, and so I was scared of disappointing those scouts and
23:26
the front office people that had made that decision. And so those were kind
23:32
of like the two things that I was super scared of, and so I
23:37
had to really dig into why I was scared of those things. I was
23:41
like, Okay, I'm scared of humiliating myself why and then it goes down
23:49
a big rabbit hole of you know, like I don't want to get into
23:52
like the evolutionary psychology of like you know, like back in the day,
23:56
we were all in a tribe and so if people were rejecting you, then
24:00
they'll like, you know, they'll go and kill you and stuff like that.
24:03
But there's a lot of stuff behind it, but it was basically it
24:07
came down to I just cared way too much about what other people thought of
24:10
me, and that was like what was causing my fear and anxiety, and
24:15
so that was what the root cause was, and that was what I had
24:21
to stop attacking. Where do you think that stemmed from? Because I mean,
24:26
I think most people deal with that, like I would say, you
24:29
know, I do personally is worrying about what other people think. And I
24:33
know we've talked to us on a previous podcast about the spotlight effect, But
24:36
do you think that there is some validity to it, because you know,
24:41
when when we do, you know, if someone has the yips or someone
24:44
does something crazier out there, like people are noticing it, right, Like
24:48
It's not like people are just you know, blinded by and they don't see
24:51
it. So there's a reason why you're feeling what you're feeling, But what
24:55
do you think, what do you think is the root cause of that?
24:59
For most people, people like why why do we feel? It's just because
25:02
we want to be accepted and we obviously don't want to be an outsider made
25:06
fun of all those types of things, or like is there something else that
25:08
I'm not thinking of? Yeah, no, I think that's that's mostly it's
25:14
just like a very natural thing for humans to be like to try to want
25:22
like acceptance and validation from others, and you know, it's a terrible feeling
25:27
to be humiliated and like embarrassed and stuff like that, and so it's a
25:34
very natural thing. But with the yips, it's it gets to the point
25:38
where you're wanting validation and you're worried about that more than you want to make
25:45
a good throw. And so like sometimes thinking back, I would be like,
25:52
oh damn, Like I'm thinking about like all my other teammates before I'm
25:56
trying to make a throw and how they're going to make fun of me before
25:59
I'm actually trying to make a throw. And so that's where you kind of
26:04
have to rewire your brain to be like, you know, like you kind
26:11
of have to go on the extreme opposite side of all right, I don't
26:15
care what anyone thinks of me. I'm just gonna make this throw. And
26:18
so that's kind of what I had to do to rewire my brain. Okay,
26:26
so dive into that. You got to the root, cause you figured
26:29
out where the fear is stemming from. That's a great first step. Right
26:33
now, Now what did you do with it? How did you take the
26:34
next step to basically get that out of your head and for that to not
26:40
be if you're anymore? What was the next step? Yeah, so this
26:45
is the biggest step for getting over the yips. I do want to touch
26:48
on one thing, which is people with the yips they look for like short
26:53
shortcuts and like quick fixes, and so they're thinking like all right, like
27:00
they're thinking more like mechanical, like oh, if I get my arm here,
27:03
then I'll be able to make a good throw, or like oh if
27:06
I stay closed for a little bit longer, then I'll make a good throw.
27:10
And that's more very very temporary fixes. Once your body gets used to
27:15
it and it's not distracted by the mechanical cue. Then it's going to come
27:21
back to the gifts are going to come back, and so you really have
27:26
to dive into like the mental stuff. And this was the biggest thing for
27:29
me in getting over it was to not care what other people think? And
27:36
so what did I do for this? The big thing that I did was
27:41
really, I think two or three things, biggest things. So the first
27:48
thing was I would read a lot of books on how to not care.
27:52
And so the biggest one was David Goggins, Can't Hurt Me. Another one
27:59
was The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. And there are a couple
28:03
ones, but those were two big ones. Also Mindset by Carol Dwek.
28:07
It's all about growth mindset, and so reading those books really started to open
28:17
my perspective on Okay, like you gotta stop caring so much about what other
28:21
people think. For example, with the David Goggins book he talks about he
28:27
kind of talks all about that, it was like, oh, you know,
28:30
like stop caring about what other people think. You just gotta do you
28:34
type thing. And the Subtle Art is more philosophy, philosophical where it's like,
28:41
you know, everyone's gonna die and so like, you can't be thinking
28:45
about what other people think because you know, like in a hundred years everyone
28:51
you're thinking about is going to be dead, and so stop placing so much
28:56
importance on what other people think of you. And like the growth mindset stuff,
29:02
it was. The growth mindset stuff was more about, like, you
29:10
can improve, Like failing is a good thing, and trying to improve is
29:15
more important than being outcome driven. And so, for example, we're throwing,
29:22
so instead of like thinking about, oh, if I make a bad
29:26
throw, this is going to be bad, it's more like, all right,
29:29
I'm gonna make a bad throw, but I can improve day by day.
29:32
And that was kind of like the mentality that it preached, and that
29:36
really helped as well. So a lot of reading on like psychology and like
29:41
how to not care as much that really helped because it just gives you,
29:45
like so many more ideas and perspectives and it just opens your mind to like,
29:51
oh damn, I never thought about this before. Another thing that's more
29:56
of a practical one was making bad throws on purpose. And so I got
30:03
this from a Japanese book, but it's basically you make bath throws on purpose,
30:11
and then you kind of analyze the situation. So you make a bathrow,
30:15
you just sail it, or you spike it on purpose, and you're
30:17
like and you just analyze it, and you're like, was that that bad?
30:21
Was it that scary to do that? And most of the time it
30:25
really isn't that big of a deal. Like you make a bath throw and
30:30
you know, like no one really cares, And so doing that on purpose
30:34
opens up your mind to be like, damn, that really wasn't too bad,
30:37
Like, I don't know why I'm so scared of that. It's not
30:40
like the biggest deal in the in the world to make a bad throw.
30:45
And so those were kind of the two things that I did, and you
30:49
need to do them consistently though. You can't just do them, you know,
30:52
like once or twice. This is kind of like you have to rewire
30:56
your brain to start to think like that. And this takes time. It
31:00
probably takes you know, a couple months to be able to do that.
31:03
But those two things were the biggest two things for sure. Yeah, do
31:11
you have anything on that, No, Yeah, A couple of things that
31:14
stood out to me. The first one is the mechanical set of things I've
31:18
experienced this too. With guys that have had the YIPS that I've worked with,
31:21
they tend to think that it is mechanical based, and to a degree,
31:26
they are right. But the reason why that's probably not the area you
31:29
should focus on is because your mindset and your mentality and all that are helping
31:33
to dictate what your delivery is looking like. So I'll give you an example.
31:37
A guy that I worked without was struggling with this. When he was
31:41
really at his worst with the yips, his delivery was super, super pushy.
31:45
Like everything he was underneath the ball, he would collapse his back leg
31:48
like there was no power or drive from the front leg like he has when
31:52
he normally throws. So if we look at the delivery, we'd be like,
31:55
Okay, yeah, there's a clear mechanical issue here. But the reason
31:57
that he was doing that was because he had such a timid and fearful mindset
32:02
that that actually changed his mechanics and made him get pushy, not be aggressive,
32:07
get on top of the ball, all those things. So until we
32:10
actually attacked the mental side, the delivery was going to revert back to that
32:15
pushiness because that was reflecting what his mentality was. So I really like how
32:19
you talked about that. The second thing, which is funny because you did
32:22
talk about it on Patrick's podcast too, about the intentionally throwing the ball poorly,
32:28
which I thought was funny, especially if you were thrown with someone you
32:30
didn't tell him that you were going to do. It's just kind of a
32:32
funny thing to think about. But what I think is cool about that too,
32:37
And maybe I'm wrong with this, but just thinking about it as you're
32:38
saying it, by the fact that you're telling yourself to make a bad throw
32:43
on purpose and that you actually do make a bath throw, you're essentially starting
32:46
to program yourself to tell yourself that I actually do have control and command over
32:52
what I'm doing with this baseball. I am intentionally wanting to make a bath
32:54
throw, and I am making a bad throw. I know that sounds kind
32:58
of weird, but it is a similar mindset of like when I'm trying to
33:00
throw the ball where I want to throw it. If I'm trying to throw
33:02
this down in a way and I can do it, it builds confidence in
33:06
me that I actually do have control over what the baseball is doing and be
33:09
and you know, regardless that it's you know, in a direction that isn't
33:12
what we want in a game. The fact that you're still throwing it where
33:15
you are intending to throw it, I think is a really good way to
33:19
start to build the confidence in your mind. Have you thought about it from
33:22
that side of things as well, about the making the bath rooms? Yeah?
33:30
Have you ever thought of it in the lens of like it's a way
33:32
of building confidence because you are actually doing what you're wanting to do with the
33:37
baseball in a way. Oh yeah, yeah, for sure. That's that
33:42
was a big thing for me as well. It was like when you're especially
33:45
when you're sailing it, your arm moves freely because you know, like if
33:52
you're like, all right, I'm just gonna sail it like way over my
33:55
throwing patna, and you actually do it, like it feels really good if
33:59
you have the yips, because when you're trying to throw to like a target
34:02
to your throwing partner, your muscle just feel really tense and you're just like
34:07
and it just seems like impossible to hit that target. But when you're like,
34:10
I'm just gonna throw it into open air like above him, then you'll
34:15
like you can kind of feel your arm just free up and like it can
34:19
move freely, and so yeah, that was a big one for me as
34:23
well. It's just like all right, like my arm actually does move fine
34:28
when I'm not trying to throw like at a pinpoint target for sure. Okay,
34:35
so you started doing that, you start making bad throws on purpose.
34:37
What's the next step? What did you do next? All right, So
34:45
we kind of skipped a couple of steps there actually, So I'll quickly talk
34:51
about like the throwing program that I did. This was my the YIPS rehab
34:55
throwing program, and this is what I did with Rachel. And so there's
35:02
a couple of steps of this. The first step, when you have the
35:07
yips really bad and you can't even play catch and you know you're just spiking
35:10
and sailing sailing it, you want to get into an enclosed environment, so
35:16
like a batting cage or like an indoor environment where you literally can't make you
35:22
can't throw, like you're not aiming anywhere type thing. So like you just
35:28
have a net and you're just going to be throwing into it. And so
35:31
the first step is to set up a like a little bit a target on
35:37
the net and then without anyone watching, you don't want anyone there, maybe
35:42
someone that you like trust or like a coach or whatever can be there.
35:45
But you want the least amount of pressure as possible, and you want to
35:52
start to throw and throw out that target. And the big thing here is
35:58
that you need to come up with a solid Q that lets you hit that
36:02
target about you know, seven to eight times out of ten. And that
36:07
que has to be from from what I found. It has to be something
36:14
with your release. And so for me, it was I'm gonna throw it,
36:20
but I'm gonna slightly cut the ball a little bit. So as soon
36:23
as I'm throwing, I'm feeling the ball kind of come off my index finger
36:28
and it's cutting a little bit. And what that does is, you know,
36:31
q's before the release are good, but I feel like with the yips,
36:36
it's it's a big, like hand and forearm thing. So I like
36:40
cues closer to release than for example, I'm gonna stay closed and then I'm
36:46
gonna throw, because ultimately, the yips are caused when you release, and
36:51
it happens when like all your muscles in your forearms and hands tense, and
36:55
so I like queues that are more like release based. All right, I
37:00
want to feel this off my fingertips. I want to feel this when I
37:04
release the ball. And so, yeah, the first step is coming up
37:08
with a release base queue that allows you to hit the target like seven to
37:15
eight times out of ten. And this might take you, you know,
37:19
like a couple of days, it might take you a month, but you
37:22
really want to find a solid queue that you're repeating every time you throw.
37:27
For me, it was I'm trying to cut it a little bit. So
37:29
every time I'm throwing, making it making a throw to the target, I'm
37:32
going, all right, I'm feeling this come off my index finger and I'm
37:37
cutting it a little bit, so I make my throat boom, I hit
37:39
the target all right, next one, I'm feeling it, cut the ball,
37:44
boom again. And so you want to do that, and you want
37:46
to stack, you know, three to five sessions of really good throwing sessions
37:52
where you're hitting it seven to eight times out a ten. And when you're
37:58
able to do that, then you can move on to the next step.
38:01
What do you think about that? I like it. And it actually makes
38:06
sense when you started talking about being in a closed area like a batting cage,
38:08
because for me, I actually can throw VP really well in a batting
38:12
cage, but when I'm on a field with the open space, that's when
38:15
my command issues start to get bad with batting practice, Yeah for sure.
38:22
Yeah. The big thing is first step, it has to be enclosed.
38:27
It has to be a net where you literally can't miss because you don't want
38:30
any type of pressure. This is step one. This is rehab exercise number
38:36
one, and so you want the least amount of pressure possible and you're just
38:40
throwing into a net with a target. All right. So next step,
38:47
when you're able to do that, you want to move on to a person
38:55
standing in front of the net, and so you're doing the same thing in
39:00
closed area. You can't like no open fields. That was absolutely terrifying for
39:06
me when I had it. It has to be an enclosed area, batting
39:08
cage, whatever. But now all you have is a person standing in front,
39:15
and so you do the same thing. So you've got your queue now,
39:21
So now all you're focusing on is the release based que and you're throwing
39:27
it to a person. So all right, I'm gonna try to cut the
39:30
wall tiny bit and then you throw it and then if you make a really
39:34
bad throat, then you take the person away and you just do it to
39:37
the net, and then you throw back, you throw it into the net,
39:42
and then when that starts getting good, you can bring back the person
39:45
and then you throw it to the person and you start you kind of just
39:47
alternate, alternate until you're able to make you know, like the seven to
39:52
eight good throws out of ten with a person standing in front of a net
40:00
perfect. I like it, keep going. I'm just gonna keep feeding you.
40:02
I'm just I'm following along and taking mental notes right now. So what's
40:07
next? All right? For sure? The next step, this one's probably
40:12
the hardest one, is you got to stop playing catch. And so the
40:17
big thing is the cue. And why I play so much of an importance
40:23
with the queue is that you know, like the people with the yips,
40:28
they can throw freely. Most of the time, you can throw freely into
40:32
a net. You're just like, oh, I can throw freely, And
40:35
then you're like, but I don't know what happens when I go play cats,
40:37
Like something happens, and so we kind of want to bridge that.
40:42
And so if you're throwing into a net with a solid queue, you're like,
40:45
all right, if I follow this queue, then I know then it's
40:50
going to go somewhere near that area, and you kind of build that belief
40:53
to where, all right, this queue, if I rely on it,
40:57
then I'll be fine. And so you really need that, so because when
41:01
you go play catch, most of the time you know the yips are gonna
41:06
come back a little bit. But the biggest thing is relying on that queue.
41:10
And so even if you're like feeling nervous, you're feeling anxiety, you're
41:14
feeling fit, You're like, all right, as long as I follow this
41:17
cue, I know that I can throw it remotely accurately, and so all
41:22
I'm going to focus on is my cue. And so you're playing catch,
41:29
And for me it was just sometimes I would just even close my eyes and
41:34
be like all right, like I'm just gonna focus on my cue and just
41:37
like throw it. And it's like I'm just gonna cut it a little bit
41:40
and I'll be throwing it. And so yeah, the biggest step here is
41:46
like you're playing catch, you focus on your queue and you're focusing on not
41:52
caring what your catch partner thinks of you. Those are the big two things.
41:59
Queue and not caring what the other person thinks of you. And this
42:02
is a gradual process. You know, with the reading, try to get
42:07
like a lot of ideas and perspectives into your mind about you know, you
42:10
can't care about other people. Think read up on the spotlight effect. You
42:15
know, I love that. And so this one's going to take the most
42:20
time playing catch. But if you can get this one down, then the
42:24
rest of it's going to be a breeze. Who is your partner for this?
42:29
Is it a coach or is it a player at this point, someone
42:35
who you can you know, someone who doesn't really care you make a ton
42:40
of bath throws, probably going to be like a friend. One thing that
42:45
I forgot to add was that make sure it's outside of a team environment.
42:51
You want it to be someone you want to play catch alone, and so
42:55
it's you and you throw a potter and that's it. You don't want to
42:58
be in a team, envine, because you don't want to have that pressure
43:00
of all people watching me and I don't want to make a bad throw over
43:05
because it's going to be embarrassing. For this step, it has to be
43:07
you're playing catch alone. So maybe go to practice a little bit earlier and
43:13
then be like, hey, like, can I just play catch a little
43:15
bit early or stay behind a little bit later and be like, hey,
43:19
I just want to play catch by myself. And that's huge because all you
43:24
want to be focusing on is your queue and trying to not care as much
43:30
about what other what you're throwing partner things, and you don't want like the
43:36
external pressures of all people looking at me for this step. Okay, makes
43:40
sense. So once you start accomplishing that, and that's good, what would
43:45
be the next step? Is it then, now playing catch in a team
43:47
setting or what comes after after that? Yeah, so it would be,
43:54
yeah, playing catch in a team setting. This one is a little bit
43:59
tight, but it's the same kind of concept as just playing catch. You
44:04
want to really focus on your queue and just continue to work on your ability
44:07
to not care as much about making a bath throw and what other people think
44:12
of you. You know. The hardest thing for me was like I was
44:15
in spring training and you know, there's a ton of people there and so
44:19
we're lined up and we're playing catch and everyone's so close together, and so
44:27
that was really tough for me. But the biggest thing for me right there
44:30
was like, instead of thinking about all right, like I can't make a
44:36
bath throw. It's just I have to think about I have to focus on
44:38
my cue and just believing that as as long as I follow that queue,
44:45
it's gonna be somewhere near my thrown potu where he can catch the ball.
44:52
Right, that makes sense? Okay, So after that, is it now
44:55
bullpen time or what is next after playing catching the team setting? Yeah?
45:02
I think if you can play catching the team setting, it's pretty much getting
45:06
a pen and then just continuing to get better of those skills of just being
45:13
able to focus on your queues and more and not caring as much about what
45:17
other people think and developing that muscle. And honestly, like at that point
45:25
you're probably if you're able to play catching the team environment, then you're probably
45:32
pretty good to go through pens and maybe into games. But yeah, at
45:38
that point, you're pretty much like done with the process. I would say,
45:45
Okay, so how long did this take for you, like from start
45:49
to finish up going into the rehab process to being pitching in game, not
45:53
just pitching in game, but actually feeling like your normal self to where you
45:57
have confidence at the ball is going to go generally where you want to go.
46:01
Yeah, I think it took me probably like a full year that process.
46:12
But I think it took so long because I was searching for shortcuts at
46:17
the start. I was thinking about, you know, the mechanics, like
46:21
oh, I just need to do this and it'll be fine, and they'll
46:23
be fine for one day and then it'll just come right back the next day.
46:27
And so if I had really focused on I need to get my mentality
46:31
right from the start, then I think it would have been much much quicker.
46:36
But the one thing I will say is that the yips never really like
46:40
cure. They never really just say go away. They're always gonna like it's
46:45
always going to linger in your mind. It's you just get better at suppressing
46:51
it and throwing through it. Like even now, you know, like I
46:54
don't really get nervous playing catch or anything like that, but if I make
46:59
a bad throw and I do get a little bit of like that, you
47:02
know, that anxiety feit type thing, and I have to really remind myself
47:07
of like, okay, you know, like it's not a big deal,
47:09
you know, so it's never going to go away, but you just get
47:14
better at being able to suppress it. Yeah, No, that makes sense.
47:20
One thought I just had was you were traded from the Phillies to the
47:23
Rangers. Were you traded in the middle of this process or was were you
47:28
traded after this was all good? At that time, I pretty much finished
47:36
my I'd come. I was pretty good at that time. I was able
47:42
to play catch, I was able to play in games. But I was
47:44
definitely feeling super nervous. And when I got traded, I did feel very
47:49
nervous about, you know, being with a new team, and I didn't
47:52
want to, you know, like for it to come back up because it's
47:57
a it's a fresh team and like new people, and you know, all
48:00
of them were watching me because, oh, this guy just got traded and
48:04
they're coming to He's coming to our team. But honestly, I think it
48:09
helped because it was a fresh start. And at that time I was pretty
48:14
good at playing catch and I could throw bullpens and playing games, and so
48:19
no one had that thought of, oh, this guy had the yips or
48:24
has the yips. It was more just like, oh, this is just
48:27
a new guy, and he looks fine because he can't play catch and throw
48:31
bullpens and playing games and stuff like that. Yeah, that's what I was
48:35
thinking. It's yeah, it's kind of like you could see it from both
48:38
sides of the coin. It's a good thing because it's a fresh start.
48:40
No one really knows anything about you at this point. But on the flip
48:45
side, is you want to make a good impression right of when you don't
48:46
want to, you know, have something come back up like the yips,
48:50
and now they're like, wait, we just traded for this guy and he's
48:52
got the yips, Like what do we do now? So that that makes
48:55
a lot of sense, I wanted to dive into maybe some of your inspirations.
49:00
I don't know if you have anybody that you looked up to that has
49:02
overcome this process. I know Daniel Bard stands out. He's a guy that
49:07
had the yips, was out of baseball for a while, ended up making
49:10
it back to the big leagues and I think it was comeback Player of the
49:13
Year with Colorado a couple of years ago and has been a really good relief
49:16
pitcher. There's also been guys like Rick Ankiel who he didn't overcome it,
49:21
and we talked about that. He never overcame it on the mound, but
49:23
he made a comeback as a position player and playing the big leagues as an
49:27
outfielder for a couple of years. But who were some guys that you have
49:30
either talked to or are just familiar with their story that's been a help to
49:35
you during this process. Yeah, for sure. I think the two big
49:38
one was Daniel Bob for sure because he was like the big profile guy,
49:45
but also Tyler Matzick as well. Both of them have great stories. Like
49:52
Tyler Matzik really inspired me because I would watch his interviews and he kind of
49:58
described what I had, which was I couldn't even play catch. I would
50:01
just keep spiking it. But then I see him go on in the in
50:07
the postseason and come out in big leg leverage situations and pump you know,
50:12
ninety five plus in you know, throwing strikes and striking the side out and
50:16
stuff like that. So he was a huge inspiration. And also Daniel Bard
50:24
him just seeing him come back and seeing that it's actually possible, because when
50:30
you have the yips, it just feels like I just don't know if I'd
50:35
ever be able to throw properly ever again, and you kind of lose hope.
50:38
And so those two guys did give me give me hope and the belief
50:45
that, Okay, this is possible, and it is possible to come back
50:47
and pitch at a very high level and we can't kill you know, Like
50:54
he was awesome because he came back as a hitter, but I could take
51:00
too much away from him because he didn't come back to pitch, you know,
51:06
like he wasn't able to regain his pitching abilities, and so I didn't
51:12
take too much from him. But you know, the the two guys,
51:15
they da had the ips as a pitch and they made a comeback as a
51:19
pitcher. And so those two guys really inspired me for sure. Yeah,
51:24
that's great. And I also have a friend Luke Caggerty. I don't know
51:28
if you know Luke. You know Luke? Was he still at X two
51:30
when you were there? Yeah, but I never really worked with him or
51:37
anything. Okay, Yeah, So I worked with Luke a good bit at
51:40
the end of my playing career and then helped out at his facility a little
51:45
bit at X two. So he was a first rounder out of ball State
51:50
back and I want to say two thousand and three by the Cubs, and
51:52
he ended up having Temmy John like his first year of pro ball came back
51:58
and just couldn't throw the ball anywhere near where he wanted to. He got
52:01
the yips, eventually got released, He went to indie ball, still had
52:06
the yips, got released, and then stopped playing baseball. I don't know
52:09
how many years it was. It was definitely a long time, like I
52:13
want to say six to eight years something like that, of not throwing a
52:15
baseball and just kind of being bitter with the game. And then he started
52:20
getting back into it as a as a coach in training players, and then
52:23
he opened up a facility in Arizona called X two Performance and then and so
52:29
you might know him or other people might know him from seeing videos, like
52:31
back in twenty fifteen or sixteen, he would post videos of him throwing indoors,
52:36
just ripping ninety five to ninety eight from the left side. He's a
52:38
big guy too, He's like six five or sixty six lanky, just rips
52:43
it from the left side. And he was like in his mid thirties at
52:46
this point, throwing you know, mid to high nineties, still in a
52:50
bullpen. Ended up getting re signed by the Cubs in what year was it,
52:57
I want to say twenty nineteen or twenty twenty maybe it was maybe twenty
53:00
twenty one at thirty seven, thirty eight years old, didn't make it back
53:04
to you know, I think end up getting hurt again and ended up,
53:07
you know, calling it quits. But he overcame the yips, worked through
53:10
a really long process for him, but really cool story. And he's a
53:15
great guy, and honestly, he's one of the best pitching coaches that I
53:17
know. I've learned a lot of from him over the years, so i'd
53:21
be I'd love to connect to you guys. I think it'd be really good
53:22
for you guys to talk about his experiences and your experiences to go through that.
53:27
But yeah, he was just somebody that came to mind. A couple
53:30
of things I want to add just before we wrap up. I know you
53:34
mentioned with catch play early on, you really struggle from short distances, and
53:38
I've noticed this with a lot of guys, even if they don't, you
53:40
know, officially have the yips and it's not ever a big deal for them,
53:45
I do notice a lot of guys really struggle playing catch from anything shorter
53:49
than sixty feet. And something I think is really simple is just simply don't
53:52
throw from sixty feet because there's really no need for especially if you're doing a
53:57
good warm up and you're throwing plyoballs before and you're actually having your arm,
54:00
you know, prepped before catch play, there's no reason you can't start,
54:05
you know, at least sixty feet sixty seventy feet away. So that would
54:07
be my advice for guys that tend to get very pushy or erratic from short
54:12
distances. Just start your throwing session from a further distance and start throwing at
54:16
a little bit higher intensity, assuming that you've already prepped yourself with some plyoballs,
54:21
because with plios, what's nice is because you're thrown into a wall,
54:23
you don't have to worry necessarily about where the ball is going, so it
54:27
frees you up to throw, to get loose and all those things. And
54:30
that way, when you go to the baseball you can start at a further
54:31
distance. I know you said that you sort of did that you would start
54:36
ripping them closer to ninety feet. You know, do you have anything to
54:38
add to that on on little tricks or little things. I know there's no
54:42
shortcuts, but are there little things that guys can start adding to their routines
54:45
that can help with this process. Yeah, even now, I just like
54:51
I kind of just woo flick it until I'm I'm at about you know,
54:54
like fifty forty five fifty feet, and then I saw for real. I
55:01
think one of the big things is like you want to if it's something that
55:06
you really want to welcome, then you want to start with where you're comfortable,
55:09
and then every day you want to inch a little bit closer to your
55:13
throwing partner. And so that's kind of what I did. I wasn't comfortable
55:17
throwing inside of ninety feet, but you know, that's kind of like unrealistic,
55:22
you know, when you're playing catch. It was kind of unhealthy for
55:24
my aunt to be going from elbow flicks to I'm ripping in one hundred percent
55:30
and ninety feet. And so what I did was, you know, just
55:34
every day I just kind of inched closer and then closer and closer, And
55:37
as I exposed myself to it, then I my body started to get used
55:43
to it, and my mind would get used to it as well. And
55:45
so yeah, that's what I would say, Okay, perfect, anything else
55:52
to add or any other closing thoughts on the yips. I think you know
56:04
when you have the yips, it's going to be like your tough the toughest
56:07
time of your basebook career and maybe even your life. You know, when
56:12
I was when I was eighteen and I had the yips, I know,
56:15
it was probably one of the hardest times of my life just because of what
56:19
it was doing to me mentally. And I think one of the biggest things
56:22
I would want to say is that the journey of trying to overcome the yips
56:29
is worth it. It It's not just all right, I'm going to go
56:32
and overcome the yips and I'm going to be able to throw again. It's
56:36
more like you're self improving yourself and you're improving your mentality honestly, like in
56:44
life, you know, just like all that stuff that I did about you
56:46
know, reading books and getting over my fears and managing my anxiety and stuff
56:53
like that, it's gonna it's gonna help me throughout my whole life. And
56:58
so I think the biggest thing is just knowing that there's a lot at the
57:04
end of the tunnel, and you know, not giving up and like yeah,
57:12
not losing hope and just really giving it a solo go on trying to
57:16
overcome the yips. Yeah. I like the way you put that, Like
57:20
it's at this point, it's more than just baseball, right, Like,
57:22
you're preparing yourself for the rest of your life, and these are tools that
57:28
you're gonna need. You're gonna have to learn how to overcome things in your
57:30
life and adversity and have a growth mindset to work through them. And you
57:35
know, do you want to go through these things? Of course not.
57:37
But the positive of it is you are showing yourself that you are a person
57:42
that works through hard things and are able to overcome them. So, coming
57:45
back to what we've talked about in the past about David Goggins the cookie jar,
57:47
you're essentially building up your cookie jar of being able to show proof to
57:52
yourself that you are someone that can overcome things and regardless of failing as something,
57:58
you're able to overcome it and push through it regardless of your circumstances.
58:02
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Perfect Well, another another great episode of
58:09
the Now Visit. We'll see you guys next week.