Latest / The Layback Podcast / Gavin Bruni, Washington Nationals MiLB LHP (Ep. 103)

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Gavin Bruni, Washington Nationals MiLB LHP (Ep. 103) · The Layback Podcast

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Hey everyone, welcome back to the Layback podcast.
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Joining us today is left-handed pitcher in the Washington
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Nationals organization, Gavin Bruni.
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And Gavin is gracious enough to join us from spring training.
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It is day 2 for him down in West Palm, hopped off the bullpen
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mound and decided to hop right on a podcast.
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What better way to get your recovery in than to just come on
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our show and talk about it? So.
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Before I say anything else too dumb Gavin, I'm going to hand it
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over to you. Thanks again for making time.
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I know we were joking on text it it seems like you have nothing
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more than time at this point when you just wake up and get
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handed a baseball and get told your work days go out to field
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for get your throwing in, go lift and go home.
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But I know it is the the weird crazy time of year where you
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don't know what you have each day until you get to the park
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each day. So okay, thanks for making time
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for us. Looking forward to the
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conversation and please take it away with the bio.
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Yeah, First off, thanks for having me.
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Means a lot to be on the podcast today.
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Yeah. So like you said, left-handed
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picture in the Washington Nationals organization.
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I was a 17th rounder out of Ohio State spent three years there.
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Two of them is which I was a starter my first year as a
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freshman. I I was a bullpen guy, which
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I've obviously now become a bullpen guy myself again.
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So shout out to the early roots, the early days in college.
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I. Guess so, yeah.
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And you are Ohio born and raised as well, correct?
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Yeah. Oh, yeah.
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Northeast Ohio Alliance, OH About 20 minutes from Canton
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Football Hall of Fame, So. I guess for the childhood fandom
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side of things. Did you grow up in Ohio State
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fan? Yeah, I mean, for me, it wasn't
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too hard of a decision to go to Ohio State.
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It was one of those things where it's, you know, when Ohio State
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came and knocked on the door and they wanted to pursue me, I I
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was all aboard, took the visit and next thing you know, boom,
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sign there and the rest is history.
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So. Maybe the first real crossroads
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of the baseball career as we peel back the layers of your
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story, I know you had mentioned it to me quickly in a couple of
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conversations, is the ultimate decision to pursue your
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education, go to college as opposed to going pro out of high
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school. So even if you could take us
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back to that decision, I I know that's not an easy one to make
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as an 18 year old. Were you officially drafted out
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of high school or is just taking calls?
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No, Yeah, yeah. I was not officially drafted.
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It was one of those things where out of high school, we thought
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we might have an opportunity. I sat down for many days just
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kind of thinking of what I really wanted to do, weighing my
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options. And, and to me, going to school,
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having that experience to be a Buckeye was important to me.
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So it's one of those things where once I got, you know, sat
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down with my family and and we really got the nitty gritty of
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it. It was, hey, we, we value the
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education that you can get at Ohio State and we believe that
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we can develop for those three years to then ultimately get
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yourself to where you want to be and, and on top of it, you get
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an education. So in high school, I, I took a
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decent amount of college classes, so propelled me a
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decent bit in the classroom. So to be able to, I didn't
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finish yet, but to be able to be very close to finishing after
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three years was another thing I also kind of took into account,
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so. And how close are you to getting
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that degree now? Few credit hours away so I
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haven't started it back up again.
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Plan is this summer to to get myself back going so but very
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close. This summer during the season.
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Yeah, Oh yeah, a lot of down time throughout the day, a lot
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of night games. So, you know, yeah, 12:00 PM to
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2:00 PM would be an ideal time. All online.
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All online, man. It's easy, pretty.
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Easy. Sports management, sports
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management, so that agree so exactly, stay in sports and
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learn a little bit as we go. So whenever the career is over,
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you're gonna go back to the hometown, be the.
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Ad No, I think about what I wanna do when I'm done a lot,
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and obviously I do wanna stay at baseball.
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I don't know if I wanted to be the facility guy or if I wanna
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be the hey, I want to go coach collegiately or in the
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professional ranks. But to me, I don't think high
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school is is what I would necessarily want to do.
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Private sector facility or you know, the collegiate ranks would
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probably be pretty cool for me. I think you should just go out
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to the local Little League and just run VLO program after VLO
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program. Yeah, get 12 year olds just
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pulling down 4 oz baseballs. See how hard they can throw?
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That and back bridges. That's all you need, right?
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But those are a staple, you know, you go get the spine going
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before you get anything else going, so.
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Yeah, you get the little 12 year olds and of course some Flex Pro
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grip in the mix and they'll be dialed in.
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Yeah, those those 12 year olds Ucls are going to be
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unbreakable. Knock on wood, but.
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That's the goal. My desk is wood, so I'll tap.
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That real quick, I'll tap along with it.
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But back to the serious nature of the conversation.
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So you step foot on Ohio State's campus.
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You're thrust into a relief role right away.
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Transition to starter as a sophomore.
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Stay as a starter as a junior and then back to the bullpen.
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As you got your name called in the draft and through this
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process with the Nationals, do you have a preference on one
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over the other? Yeah, I'm going to go.
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I'm going to go back to my freshman year because I think a
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lot of players don't necessarily understand this, especially once
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they get to college baseball is you don't have a role as a
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freshman, no matter how good you were coming out of high school.
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Like it you're playing with grown men, You know what I mean,
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that you're not no longer pitching against 1415 year old
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kids like some of these guys you're going to pitch against,
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they're 2425 years old. So the level changes and with
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that, your perspective kind of has to change.
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For me, I was always starter, starter, starter.
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Like that was my mentality. I had this routine that was
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obnoxious at times, like we're doing stupid things that I look
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back now and I'm like, why was I doing that?
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But as you, you know, you mature, you hit those growing
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pains, which my freshman year it was, it was a growing pain.
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Like we struggled a little bit, didn't pitch as much as I would
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have liked to. And that's been nobody's fault.
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But my own was kind of just stuck in my way of I wanted to
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start so bad and this routine was my crutch and it really
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wasn't. It didn't need to be.
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So we learned from that. Took that summer going into my
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sophomore year, trained super hard, got myself where I thought
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I wanted to be, which was also a time where there were some
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uncertainty at Ohio State with the staff coming in.
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We had a new head coach, pitching coach.
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Everybody was coming in new for my sophomore year.
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Didn't really know what it was going to be when we go in in the
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fall and we thought we were in the mix for a starting job.
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We're working our way into it and ultimately ended up winning
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a starting job as a sophomore and then never gave it up.
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That was the moral of that story.
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But for me now, like I don't really have a preference bullpen
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mentality is get the ball and go.
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I think I've kind of adapted to that, you know, as I've gotten
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older and I do kind of pay homage to that freshman year of
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college to kind of, hey, these were the mistakes that we had.
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These were the routines we had. I'm not saying I have to scrap
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everything, but we've got to have some variability here,
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right? If you've got 2 minutes to get
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hot, obviously you can't go through a whole J band routine
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and all these plyos, Med balls, all that stuff.
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So it's like the essentials once you get into that bullpen, like
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you got to know, hey, I got 2 minutes, this is what I can do.
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I can do a couple Pogo jumps, couple plyo balls, get on the
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mound, 3 throws, get in the game, right.
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So it's like I'm not saying we don't do the training and what I
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want to do from a routine standpoint offseason.
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And I'm like the low and, you know, medium type of days.
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And even on the high days, if it's just a bullpen and we've
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got a little bit more structure can do your routine.
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But from a bullpen standpoint, like you got to be able to just
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go into the game in in 2 minutes, right?
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You get a you get a mountain meeting and next thing you know
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you're in the game. So.
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How did you go about ultimately selecting what best prepares
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you? I'm sure there was a lot of
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trial and error in the process, so there was free to use that as
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an answer. But I'm guessing there there are
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certain things that are absolute staples at this point.
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You know, you were going to do a certain couple of things before
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you go. Yeah.
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And then if you have a longer runway, you might add a few
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other things to the mix. Yeah, So like, I don't know how
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many people are actually, like, aware of this, but in pro ball,
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like you throw, especially in season, right, if your game's at
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six, like you're throwing at 2:30, right?
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And then you go into the clubhouse from 3 to 315 before
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BP and then they get into there and you got maybe like an hour
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to get some lifting in if you want to.
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And then it's game time, right? So like pregame and even in like
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spring training and in my offseason routine, it's like I
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like to think of it from the ground up, right?
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So I'll start with the Cavs, I'll do like pogos for like 2
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minutes and then I go knees, I'll do like some Sissy squats
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or some Spanish squats. Hamstrings do a bunch of
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reactive stuff with those. Some hip abductions, just
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getting the whole body lower half going before we start going
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on to the upper body. And then it's I'll go some joint
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moves with the elbow, joint moves with the shoulder, get the
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spine activated. Some bridges like you mentioned
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earlier. I'm funny enough do some things
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like that. And then obviously we're going
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to do our pre throat routine, which I know it sounds tedious,
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it sounds long, right? But like when it gets down to
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it, it's maybe 10-15 minutes and then you can kind of abbreviate
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it when you get into the bullpen.
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So if you think it takes 1015 minutes, right, you take the non
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negotiables and like we said, throw it into the bullpen
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routine. If it's a 2 minute, hey, get
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hot, maybe we do a couple pogos, a couple jumps and grab our
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green plyo and throw it on the wall and then we go.
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But if it's hey, you've got the next inning, right, that could
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be 10 minutes. You've got time to hey, let's
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hit a couple joint moves. Hey, the shoulders a little bit
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stiff today. Let's get on the LAX ball.
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Like something like that, right? You got to have that variability
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like I, I kind of mentioned earlier, but it really has been
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trial and error. It was one of those things early
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this offseason. I wanted to make sure I took
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advantage of, of like, hey, this is what I want to do.
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This is my routine. Obviously the, the variance
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there can, can change, right? And maybe we try this Med ball
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drill one day or this flyer drill.
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But once you get into like January, I would say you want to
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have that pretty locked in of like, hey, this is what we're
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going to go into spring training with.
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This is what we're going to go into the season with.
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Here's the bullpen routine. Like you got 2 minutes, here it
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is. You got the half inning here it
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is. So that's kind of how I, I like
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to look at it is ground up, making sure the whole, the whole
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body's ready to go. When you are in these prep
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phases, the offseason kind of January, early February, before
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you go down to camp, are you ever stress testing yourself to
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a certain degree like giving yourself sub optimal conditions
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to go throw in or is that more what spring training is for for
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you? No, I, I would say to an extent
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I'm giving myself some of these like stress tests, like, I mean,
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throwing like different, like variants of baseball.
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Like if I'm throwing a, you know, a command pen, maybe one
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pitch I'm throwing a four ounce. The next pitch I'm throwing a 5
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or 6 Really on those. I don't like to go any heavier
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than six and no lighter than 4. But even just like you've got a
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bucket of good baseballs, right? And those are like the pro or
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college balls that you've got accumulated over the time.
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But if you go into the facility in Ohio and like it's middle of
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winter and you can't long tosss one ball, like you don't know
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what kind of ball you're going to grab out of that bucket, you
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know what I mean? So just kind of that in itself
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of throwing a bullpen with all this ball might have a slit on
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it, this one might have higher seams, lower that that's kind of
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those things that that can create that stress.
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I would say of like, you know, you got to adapt to a new ball
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every throw. But then on top of that, like I
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always like doing my like bullpens.
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And this isn't like my Velo day type of bullpen, but it's like
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that second bullpen of the week where we're cruising at maybe
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8590%, right? I like going into the nine
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pocket and I like putting a dummy hitter like on top of the
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white box of the the batter's box.
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So it's like his feet are over that line.
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It's like get comfortable being uncomfortable with a guy up on
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that plate towards like, So what you you missed in right and you
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doink the dummy. Well, really that's just a ball
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in. You moved his feet.
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You throw a slider off of that right, you make him look silly.
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And that's ultimately the goal of pitching is making the hitter
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uncomfortable, right? And so the more comfortable I
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guess I can be when the hitter is trying to make me
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uncomfortable, the better off I can be in a game.
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So that's kind of my mentality on those stress test type of
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things is throwing different weighted baseballs, throwing
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different type of baseballs, and then once you do get into the
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bullpen setting, putting that dummy right on top of the plate.
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But for you, at least in the offseason, it's not as much
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about trying to put yourself in a funky condition where you have
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to get ready to throw the pen in 2 minutes.
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You're you're giving yourself the runway to get ready.
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Yeah, I'm giving myself the full runway mainly just because it is
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still the offseason, right, Especially with like an
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especially with like an earlier report date.
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It's like we still have until what I think opening days,
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either March 30th, 31st or April first somewhere in there.
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Like so you have time like it's six weeks away of like you're
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gonna get stress tested at some point.
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Being that I did it last year being a bullpen guy, like you
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know what to expect. So it's like one of those things
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I didn't take too, too much account for.
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So, so definitely some variables, but nothing like
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we're gonna rush a routine in the offseason.
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Staying in the weeds on your bullpens here, I found the way
13:40
that you approached velocity in the offseason very much worth
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talking about. It's something I talked to other
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people about. I don't want to butcher it, but
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I'm going to do my best to ensure the topic of more or less
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having a target velocity and having a set percentage that you
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were willing to drop from. And once you dropped the pen was
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over. So the volume of the pen could
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kind of vary, but it was more accumulating high effort throws
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at a certain target if I'm not mistaken.
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But yeah, please correct me where I'm wrong.
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Yeah. So it's, you know, I, I took
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this, you know, I would say method, whatever you'd want to
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call it that I learned a couple years ago and I really put it
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back to work. It was something that really
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worked for me with a four ounce baseball and we really saw the
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velocity jump. So I, you know, I did a little
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bit of research on it and found that like if we use a real
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baseball 5 oz ball and use the same principle.
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And this was early offseason, right?
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This was like November to December, maybe even a little
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bit earlier than that, right? Once we were really built up 1,
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you get to maximize your days on the mound, right?
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Because it's like you're super high and then you're low and
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then you're maybe a little bit higher, but it's still a low day
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and then the next day you're high again.
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So it's like every two days you're back up to high.
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So it's like some weeks you got 3, some weeks you got four and
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you're able to get on the mound. And when you really look at it
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from that standpoint, it's like when you when you want to be at
15:09
a high intent so often, right? Especially as a reliever, this
15:12
is kind of this is kind of that, you know, we're a bullpen guy.
15:15
Take that into accountability. You want that stress to be as
15:19
high as it can, right? So if it's a Monday and I want
15:22
to be at 93 plus, right, and we hit that number for seven
15:26
throws, we take our rest day, another rest day and then
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Thursday rolls around and it's, hey, we want to sit 93 plus
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again, right? But it's only three throws,
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right? You know, from the throws that
15:38
you've made, obviously you're playing, catching, warming up
15:40
before that with your high effort throws.
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Now you're at 10, right? And you've only made three on
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that Thursday. So that third day of the week,
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which would be on that Sunday, you've either got an opportunity
15:50
to have a huge volume day where you're 93 plus for like 15
15:55
throws or you have an opportunity to be, hey, let's
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hit a number. We can get to A5 today, right?
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But our numbers still low, right?
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So it's like that chain of balance thing of like we want to
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have a certain amount of velocity, but we also want to
16:10
have a certain amount of time to recover.
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And it was something to wear. I wasn't worried about a
16:14
location, right? The net was 15 to 30 feet in
16:17
front of me, depending on the day.
16:18
And it was pure output, right? And that's why I was so early on
16:21
in the offseason. It's like we're trying.
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This is like, this is how fast we can move.
16:25
This is how controlled it can be.
16:27
And still getting that high stimulus without necessarily
16:30
taxing the arm in like a bullpen setting of like, you know, you
16:33
go out and try to do three days a week.
16:35
A thirty pitch is 30 pitch. Now it's 90, right?
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You're never going to make 90 pitches out of the reliever in a
16:40
week. At least you probably shouldn't.
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I think the most that I ever made in a given week was like 60
16:46
and it was a four day week. So it's like you had some pretty
16:49
good volume and the velocity was up, you know what I mean?
16:52
So it's like there's going to be some days where if we're trying
16:55
to hold 93 plus, there might be days where we're 92, right?
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And it's like that might be a volume day or it might be a,
17:02
hey, we just didn't feel right day.
17:04
You allow your body to kind of self regulate, self organize
17:07
itself of like, we feel good today, let's let it eat or hey,
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let's go for this volume and and keep that capacity high.
17:13
So yeah, I mean, even once we got off of that, I guess phase
17:18
in the in the offseason, once we went into real bullpens, it was
17:22
like every 3rd day. So it's like you got that extra
17:24
day at rest because we were every two.
17:27
Now we're every three. We can up the volume to 30
17:31
pitches each day. Now we're at 60 and we just took
17:35
an extra day at rest. So it's like we were at 60 at
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the best when we're doing the every two days.
17:41
Now we're at 60 when we're taking it the three days, right.
17:44
And we can gradually increase that, I guess volume as we go to
17:50
eventually get to that. Maybe the first day we're
17:52
throwing 30, next day we're throwing 40.
17:55
And then it's boom, boom, boom. And it keeps staggering up and
17:57
down. And then obviously the intent
18:00
can kind of creep in there and you can go 90%.
18:04
One of the days, like I kind of mentioned to you earlier is like
18:07
one day we're going to air it out for Velo.
18:09
The next day we might, hey, it's going to be a command pen at
18:11
8590%. We're going to put the dummy on
18:13
top. And that's where we can kind of
18:14
get into some pitch design. But it was one of those things
18:17
where I enjoy doing it this offseason.
18:18
I think it the body was able to self regulate itself and we were
18:22
able to put ourselves in a good spot of like this is how we're
18:25
bouncing back. And you know, you can push
18:27
yourself a little bit, right? If you're feeling it a little
18:29
bit today, we can go and still grab a 93 plus today, right?
18:33
Even though you're hanging a little bit now mentally, you
18:36
know, I can go and do that. So that was another big thing
18:39
too, right? And mentally we're hanging.
18:42
Some guys might go into a shell. It's like, well, I, I did this
18:45
this offseason, right? So you're, you're more prepared
18:47
for it than you could have been if you didn't train.
18:50
And I guess in that sense, in that way.
18:52
So I thought it was very beneficial.
18:54
I'm sure what helped you kind of work through these days where
18:57
you were hanging a little bit, quote UN quote, is knowing that
19:00
you did the work to be physiologically prepared.
19:04
So even if you, if you weren't, if you weren't in a position
19:08
where you had the CNS readiness to like go out and chase a
19:13
number PR, you at least knew that there wasn't going to be a
19:17
breakdown of your system because you put in the work.
19:21
Your your body is in a good place, forms in a good place.
19:25
Everything that goes into the prep beyond just like your pogos
19:30
and all the stuff that you mentioned, prep for the pen, but
19:33
truly prepping the body to withstand being a professional
19:37
pitcher. Yeah.
19:39
And I think a lot of testament to that would be your your
19:42
strength training. I don't necessarily like to call
19:44
it arm care, right? I think that kind of just gets
19:47
thrown out there. But like your training, right
19:50
should be hard to the point of like throwing is pretty easy in
19:53
the grand scheme of things. Your training was so hard that
19:55
they were hanging a little bit. But we created such AI guess
19:59
robust system that like you know, you can go get after it on
20:02
the mound. Right, and the next day, yeah,
20:04
we still might be hanging, but you know, you've got those two
20:07
days to recover. And it's like how you keep your
20:09
high days low or high days high and your low days low, right?
20:12
You know what I mean? So you, you hammer the mound
20:15
work, you, you hammer your velocity work on one day you're
20:17
going to go in the weight room and do the same thing, right?
20:19
You're not going to sit there and oh, we threw hard today.
20:23
Let's go lift the next day. Now we only have one recovery
20:26
day to the next high day, right? It's just like, you know, your
20:28
body, you know how to take care of it.
20:30
And like you said, I think that's a staple to, to being
20:33
able to go out there and, and do it mentally and and physically
20:36
is like the body is capable through the work that you've
20:38
done to, to go out there and do it.
20:40
So that was that was a good take away.
20:43
One of the things I think we kind of buried the lead on a
20:45
little bit in this conversation, and maybe this is a poor job on
20:48
my end for the way I asked the question, is what motivated you
20:52
to take this approach to the offseason?
20:54
Yeah, it was a couple years in a row where ARM wasn't feeling
20:59
great. Got shut down two seasons in a
21:01
row via some UCL flexor things and then a lat and then even my
21:06
junior year of college having some nagging shoulder stuff go
21:08
on. It was one of those approaches
21:10
where I wasn't healthy, I wasn't feeling good.
21:14
You kind of got to look yourself in the mirror and be like, well,
21:16
how am I training in the offseason, right?
21:18
Am I prioritizing the things that needed prioritized and am I
21:23
doing the things that are going to make me a better pitcher or
21:25
am I going to do things that I want to do And right, the main
21:29
goal is like being the best pitcher you can be.
21:31
So just because you want to go in there, right and go into the
21:35
weight room and squat 400 lbs and this that it might not have
21:39
been necessarily the best thing for me.
21:41
And I guess from further questions, standpoint is like
21:45
going into the offseason and I looked myself in the mirror and
21:47
I said, well, my main focus needs to be throwing.
21:50
Like I'm a pitcher. I get paid to throw the
21:52
baseball. We haven't been healthy the last
21:54
few years. I was a big weight room guy.
21:56
I still am like I love the weight room.
21:59
But when it came down to it, I needed to change something.
22:03
And the way I structured throwing programs in the way
22:06
that I thought was best obviously wasn't.
22:09
We were structuring throwing programs around weightlifting
22:12
rather than the other way around.
22:13
So when I I decided to go this method, it was almost like a
22:16
switch, like it was a full reversal of like we're going 1
22:19
high intent day a week because I believe the velocity is made
22:22
here, right? It's made in the weight room.
22:24
That's what I believed and I still do to a sense.
22:26
But ultimately, once you get to a certain point, right, the
22:30
gains are going to be made on the mound or in the pull down
22:33
phase or whatever it may be to find that next year.
22:36
So I guess the, the preparation came from, I guess the lack of
22:40
ability to stay healthy, if that makes sense, right?
22:43
You know, so it's like something had to change, like I said.
22:46
So I wanted to take the approach into my own hands just because
22:51
like you get one career, you get one shot at it.
22:53
And when you've got the resources around you to, you
22:58
know, the checks and balances, right?
22:59
You know, so much, hey, let's put this together and then I
23:02
send it to somebody else, right? Whether it be the strength and
23:04
conditioning guy that I've got or pitching coach, whoever it
23:07
may be, right? Hey, does this look good?
23:10
Yeah, looks perfect. Let's dominate it, right?
23:12
You take ownership in that. So it's like if I create this
23:15
warm up phase, which the pogos, all this stuff, right?
23:18
Send it over the strength guy, he says it looks great.
23:22
Now I've got something to hold on to and be like, this is what
23:24
I want to do, this is what I believe is going to work and
23:27
you've got those set of eyes on you to kind of guide you per SE.
23:30
But just taking ownership, that was the big thing for me is
23:34
looking yourself in the mirror and realizing something had to
23:37
change. We'll see if it works out, but
23:39
so far it has. So we'll see, see how the rest
23:42
of the season and offseason goes.
23:45
But it was one of those things where it need to be done.
23:48
It's kind of comical to me that you actually had to have the man
23:52
in the mirror moment with yourself of, yeah, deciding what
23:57
you want to do versus what you need to do.
23:59
Because it is kind of funny that for most professional players
24:04
really, especially United States born players, it is easy to go
24:10
to the weight room. It is easy to push yourself, go
24:14
as hard as you can possibly go, put up crazy amounts of weight,
24:18
but then it is hard to go out and expose yourself to the
24:21
stresses of throwing a baseball because of the fear around it as
24:25
well, I'm sure. Yeah.
24:27
And one especially you noted like it's so easy to go into the
24:29
weight room, especially when you get up north, right?
24:31
And it's like it's December. You were just outside for the
24:34
whole season. Maybe you get a couple days in
24:36
late November to go outside. But like it's December, right?
24:40
And you're throwing into a cage. It would be very easy to, hey,
24:43
we're going to cut like 5 or 6 throws off here and we're going
24:46
to, you know, go and throw some weight up.
24:47
But just priorities, man. It was, it was one of those
24:50
things where throwing needed to be the priority.
24:52
And it almost falls into that bucket of like, what is
24:57
training? You know what I mean?
24:58
Like training is what you're, you know, preparing for and
25:01
we're preparing to throw a baseball.
25:04
Well, what's the best training for that?
25:05
It's to go and throw the baseball, right?
25:07
So it's like all these other funky, you know, routines and
25:11
oh, let's, you know, go and do this and that.
25:14
It's like when it all boils down to it, let's go just throw the
25:17
baseball for an hour and go see what what what we can make of
25:20
it. And, you know, field some ground
25:22
balls is your pull downs and stuff like that.
25:24
But it was, I mean, it was pretty easy decision, honestly,
25:27
but it is one that I think a lot of guys do kind of compensate
25:31
for. You know, you had a sub part a
25:33
throwing, let's go sulk it away in the weight room and throw up
25:37
numbers and weight that we really probably shouldn't be.
25:40
And that's somewhere that I've kind of matured as well
25:43
throughout my years of like, sometimes less is more, you know
25:46
what I mean? The main thing needs to be the
25:47
main thing. I saw some great stuff kind of
25:50
along those lines even on social media over the past couple days,
25:55
little clips of guys that are unbelievably strong in baseball
26:00
uniforms. And the reason I bring that up
26:02
is it is less and less common now that athletes, particularly
26:09
at your level, are making gains from the weight room.
26:13
Yeah. I mean, you build the base, you
26:15
build the foundation, and then it's like as long as you touch
26:18
it once every four to six weeks, right?
26:21
Like you're not going to lose it as long as you're training
26:24
appropriately, like, right. So it's like my whole offseason
26:27
I sat down and I was like, I want to be as athletic as
26:32
possible in all aspects, right? I want to be able to dunk a
26:35
basketball. I want to be able to run as fast
26:37
as I can, jump as high as I can, all this stuff.
26:39
Move a barbell at 1m per second at X, you know, stuff like that.
26:44
You really when you're just throwing weight on it, you can't
26:47
track that stuff I can I can track if I've got the same
26:50
weight on a barbell and I want to move it X speed meter per
26:54
second, right. I know exactly what I want to
26:56
do. So it's like as soon as you miss
26:58
that, it's kind of along the lines of that throwing phase
27:00
that we were talking about, right?
27:01
You can carry this into the weight room, too.
27:03
It's like as soon as you miss that threshold of like, we want
27:06
to be 1m per second for three reps, one hour, 1m per second
27:09
for two, you know, your day's done and it's move on.
27:12
It's not necessarily a, like, set Rep scheme.
27:15
It's we're going to go and get twitchy, get athletic.
27:18
And I kind of just took that into my whole training
27:20
perspective this offseason, too. But yeah.
27:23
So I guess the important questions coming off of that,
27:25
can you dunk? I can't.
27:27
Yeah, I can. I can dunk a basketball.
27:29
It used to be way better at it back when I played.
27:31
But I, you know, I had a couple tricks and now it's just get up
27:34
and dunk the ball with one or two hands, but used to be able
27:38
to do a little bit more cool things.
27:40
And you said run as fast as you can.
27:41
What distance are we talking? I like to keep it within 30
27:45
yards. You know, I know that's people
27:47
want to see the the 40 yard number or the 60 number.
27:50
I like the 30 yards. Get get out fast or even just
27:53
compete with a buddy, right? If you don't have the lasers,
27:55
like oftentimes I don't have the lasers on me very often, but
27:58
it's like let's play a game of chase or let's chase a tennis
28:01
ball or go from like a depth drop into a Sprint for 10 yards.
28:05
The kind of like small time things you can compete with
28:09
yourself just to train those, I guess fast twitch competitive, I
28:13
I should say muscles of like we want to be as competitive as
28:15
possible. Let's go chase somebody.
28:18
And when we're talking moving a bar at a meter per second, what,
28:20
what lifts are we talking here? Yeah.
28:24
I mean bench and safety bar squat were the main 2.
28:28
Deadlift, I would say was the one lift where I continued to
28:31
kind of push weight, but at a smart I guess avenue of like we
28:35
didn't really push it to that 100% threshold of one Rep
28:38
maxing. It was like 8085% of Max for
28:42
like 3 to 5 reps, but the main two were were bench and squat.
28:46
Bench. We were trying to hit that
28:47
about, I don't know, twice a week.
28:49
So it's like it wasn't, wasn't anything crazy, but the work was
28:53
done and a lot of it actually fell into the accessories.
28:57
The accessory work that we're doing is like, OK, we just got
29:01
done with our meter per second squad or bench, whatever it may
29:03
be. Now we're going to go into some,
29:05
you know, long duration Isos or something like that to kind of
29:08
build that time under tension to maybe make up for the losses
29:12
that we're doing and not throwing a super heavyweight on
29:15
the bar. But we're still getting that I
29:18
guess stimulus, right. I don't want to talk a lot about
29:21
getting a stimulus, but I think it is important to still, you
29:25
know, fatigue yourself a little bit rather than just, oh, we're
29:27
going to go maximum output. Yeah, it's still going to
29:30
fatigue you eventually if you can only get 2 reps but could
29:32
have been a bad Rep and all these things take into account.
29:35
But it's it, the numbers normally don't lie, right?
29:37
And you can still squeeze a little bit out of it, but just
29:40
being smart there. More on the macro level now, do
29:44
you think more players would benefit from writing their own
29:48
programs or at least experimenting with it if.
29:52
You have some sort of background or knowledge in the field or
29:55
like you find it interesting. I think there is benefit to it,
29:58
especially like I mentioned, if you've got a few guys that like,
30:01
hey, I can send you this text or this picture of what I want to
30:04
do and that checks and balances, right?
30:07
It's like, this sounds like a good idea, but maybe it's the
30:10
dumbest idea ever because sometimes as players we pop into
30:13
that field of like, I just want to do this.
30:17
But yeah, I do think guys can benefit from and maybe not
30:20
programming for themselves, but just taking a little bit more of
30:22
accountability and maybe like, we want to do this, Like this is
30:26
what I want to do this offseason.
30:27
Whether you want to program it for yourself, maybe you don't,
30:31
right? But telling whoever is
30:33
programming for you like this is the goal.
30:36
How are we going to get there? When do you think we can get
30:39
there? And then just, hey, let's go do
30:42
it, You know what I mean? But I do think some guys that
30:44
you just need to take accountability in yourself and
30:46
be able to get after yourself. And if I can internalize that, I
30:50
would say it even boils down to just don't lie to yourself.
30:54
Be able to have that, as you said, accountability.
30:57
The way that I would phrase it is you should be able to perform
31:01
a legitimate needs analysis for yourself and determine what
31:04
you're good at and what you struggle with.
31:06
And maybe you aren't the person that is best fit to write out
31:10
the program to make you better at the things you're not good
31:13
at, or accent the things that you're already pretty solid
31:16
with. But you should be able to talk
31:19
to someone else and say I lack XI, perform well at Y.
31:26
Help me design the program accordingly please.
31:29
For sure. And the more data and the more
31:31
metrics that you could have to back up what you're saying of
31:34
like this is what I do. Well, the better off it is for
31:37
somebody to go ahead and say, OK, here's how we're gonna
31:40
program it. This is what we're gonna do,
31:41
let's attack it. There is some aspect of you have
31:44
to have availability to the numbers and the data.
31:47
But if you do it, you can take those as far as you want really.
31:51
And now I'm gonna ask you to backpedal to what led to this
31:55
offseason and the kind of getting shut down, weird injury
32:02
pattern phenomenon, whatever wording we want to put on it.
32:05
Yeah, but ultimately, what was that?
32:08
Maybe mid to late June, the forearm started bugging you.
32:11
Or is that into July? Yeah, it was.
32:16
I think it was like the first week of June got down to Florida
32:19
to rehab. But I want to say maybe I pitch
32:22
in game that first week of June. But yeah, just it was something
32:25
that like I could pitch through for a few weeks and then it got
32:27
to a point that like, hey, we got to say something, right?
32:30
Partial strains here and there, the the UCL and the flexor.
32:34
But it was one of those things where we had choices of whether
32:37
we get the injection or we rehab on its own.
32:40
And I took the route of let's rehab this thing as best we can
32:45
and see where it can go. And if we need to bounce back to
32:47
the injection, we can't, right? The PRP is, it's not a bad
32:50
option, but it's an option that I would rather hold off on.
32:53
And like you said, like with it being at the point of the season
32:57
where it was and being told, hey, we're, we're probably going
33:00
to be shut down regardless, let's go into this.
33:03
Let's train everything aspect of let's get the flexor going,
33:08
Let's get you know, some overweight Isos of like we're
33:12
going to hold the kettlebell at the fingertips, stuff like that
33:14
of like let's gradually increase those things.
33:17
And this is where Flexpro kind of came into.
33:19
It's like we were able to get stimulus in multiple ways,
33:24
right? We can get the muscle of like
33:26
we're going to do the the basic rehab, but then we were also
33:29
able to get the tendon stiffness and stuff like that, right?
33:32
So it's like knowing how to organize and knowing what you
33:37
want in the program and what you want in rehab is huge.
33:40
Taking it kind of by the balls of like we want this is what we
33:44
want to do with it. And just it boils down to just
33:46
then attacking it and staying consistent.
33:50
I mean, it was starting reps of forearm flexion extension with a
33:55
dumbbell at 10 lbs at like 50, right, accumulating those a few
33:59
days a week at 150 total, break it into three sets three times a
34:04
day. And then you can up those as you
34:06
go, right, As long as in correlation with some direct
34:09
feedback of like, OK, we're going to do an RFP test, we know
34:13
where we're at. We're also obviously start those
34:16
at a lower percentage of work up.
34:18
But it was just one of those things where I we knew we were
34:23
done for the year. Let's attack it the most
34:25
natural, you know, possible way and then go after it so.
34:28
And let's even spend a little more time on what led to this
34:33
moment. You say this like forearm thing
34:35
you said flexor strain and UCL sprain both relatively low
34:40
grade. They they mentioned injection is
34:43
a potential remedy. What led you even to picking up
34:48
Flex Pro? Your Blaine Wink connection
34:50
correct? Yeah, so Blaine, Wink, Chase,
34:53
Harold, those two guys, like I text them, I knew they were on
34:56
it and I'm like, hey, like, what do you guys got?
35:00
Like, what do you guys think? And I'd even seen the device in
35:03
Winks apartment. He'd done it a couple times.
35:04
So yeah, it was really a no brainer for me.
35:07
I got on the phone with Daryl and then two days later, I think
35:10
I was on the phone with you and it was next thing you know,
35:12
we've got a Flex Pro 2 days later and we're dominating like
35:14
10% long holds for the next two weeks.
35:17
And then it gradually kept increasing.
35:19
But no, it was, you know, one of those things where in the rehab
35:22
process, often times it, like I said, it is your standard like
35:27
exercises type of things, which those play a role, right?
35:30
You need to still strengthen in other aspects, but they're also
35:34
needs to be this like we have this direct feedback option,
35:37
which would be the flex Pro, right?
35:39
I want to use this so I know we're going on the right
35:42
direction. Using that as the guide of this
35:45
is how stressed we are. This is how fatigued we are.
35:48
This is where we're at rehab wise of like, oh, we're at the
35:51
six week mark, but really performance wise, if we're
35:54
tracking it, maybe we're at the eight week mark.
35:55
And it's one of those things where if you don't have
35:57
something to kind of tell you where you are, you don't know,
36:00
you know what I mean, you don't know where you're at.
36:02
So that was it was a no brainer for me once I found out what the
36:06
diagnosis was of like we're going to be shut down.
36:09
It's going to be the strain and sprain.
36:11
Obviously we avoided surgery, which is luckily we were able to
36:15
do that, but then it came down to let's attack it to the best
36:18
of the ability and that just so happened to be Flexpro.
36:21
So shout out to you guys and Blaine Wink for getting me
36:27
connected and then you guys coming through with it.
36:29
So it was awesome. Yeah, I appreciate that.
36:33
I know I kind of asked you to talk about it.
36:35
So I guess pat myself on the back for asking the question
36:37
that we asked you to talk about, right?
36:39
So. Yeah, as a.
36:40
Good job. Me for sure, for sure.
36:42
I even think the way that we went about programming your
36:45
rehab is kind of worth talking about knowing that you have the
36:49
flexor strain that we need to do, need to do address before we
36:52
looked at overall outputs. Because with you being where you
36:57
were at and the diagnosis that you explained to us, we couldn't
37:01
even get a true picture of what force capacity you really have,
37:07
like what outputs you could create until we were sure that
37:11
the flexor strain was taken care of.
37:14
Thus, we just gave you super low intensity long holds day and
37:19
night. I know we recommended up to
37:21
three times a day, but given everything else you had.
37:23
That I was going to, I was going to say I, I, I think there were
37:27
like there was like a two week span where I do I think we were
37:29
hitting it three times a day, especially early on in that
37:33
process where there were no 20 percents.
37:36
There were no a days or CI think we were hitting it three times.
37:40
And honestly, like you mentioned, we didn't have that
37:43
kind of baseline right number of where we were.
37:46
And you know, were we fatigued or was it still just weak?
37:49
Is it taken care of? Right, which I wish I had it
37:52
before, right? So we would have known where we
37:53
were. Maybe it would have speed up the
37:54
process. But ultimately, like we, we got
37:58
to where we needed to be with it, you know what I mean?
37:59
We got to the the thresholds we needed to be at.
38:02
And like you said, it was a unique process with how we had
38:05
to handle it. But with the the volume that we
38:08
created early with doing it 2-3 days a week and then upping the,
38:11
the percentage on the strength days and all the RFD stuff and
38:14
stuff like that. Like it's just all things that,
38:16
you know, eventually the data, like I said earlier, the data
38:19
doesn't lie, right? If you know where you are and
38:22
eventually you get it to the, the point you've built this
38:25
huge, I guess I don't even know what you'd call it a density of
38:29
like data. Like, yeah, density.
38:31
You've got all this data that you can kind of look at.
38:33
So it's like you know where you are and you know your ability
38:36
and where and where it's at. And then it's once you get to
38:38
that point, then you can really attack in another avenues and
38:42
then use it as the the guide like we kind of are now.
38:45
Spending a little bit more time on the date in the process.
38:48
Once we finally were able to get to a point of assessment like
38:53
you said, whether it's fatigue, whether it's straight up
38:57
weakness, it was kind of funny to know for me.
39:00
I like when the data provides direct feedback or answers.
39:05
I'm sure that you somewhat had a slap in the face moment yourself
39:09
when you did your first Max testing.
39:11
You get when you see. The data on the device, I
39:14
remember the first Max testing I want it was like 137 like first
39:19
day, right? And then, yeah, I'm like
39:21
freaking, I'm like freaking out. I'm like, I'm just weak.
39:23
I'm weak here. Like this is this is where it's
39:25
at. And we we were still fairly
39:27
early in the process. We were still super early.
39:31
It felt to the point that is like we were able to do this.
39:35
So I was OK, 137 and then I think, you know, the next week
39:38
we were like 160 and the next thing you know it, it bumped all
39:41
the way up to 195. I think best we've gotten up to
39:44
like two O 5 to 10. But it was one of those things
39:47
where we started super low and I'm like, man, it was it was a
39:50
slap in the face, right. And then you gradually see these
39:52
progressions and now I, I know I'm doing the right work.
39:55
I know I'm doing the things that I need to do that you can kind
39:59
of breathe, right? So it's you.
40:00
Do you need the data? I brought it up as a slap in the
40:04
face, but I I also really think it is kind of the see the light
40:09
moment of this makes sense of why I struggled with the injury
40:15
or why I've been in pain. No, it did make sense.
40:18
Right. You, you were able to, you've
40:20
been able to check the boxes from a physical preparation
40:23
standpoint for however many years of your career.
40:26
We, we just spent all that time talking about what you've done
40:30
from a strength perspective and athleticism perspective.
40:33
You were fully prepared, but you weren't able to specifically
40:36
target this area That ultimately is what broke down for you.
40:40
And then and you're able to find something that was able to
40:42
address it directly. And then yeah, like I like, I
40:45
was just going to say like finding the thing that was able
40:47
to address it. It was just like the low hanging
40:49
fruit. It was something that just
40:50
needed to be done. But yeah.
40:52
It's the same as your throwing program, like we said, like the
40:55
low hanging fruit. Right.
40:56
We, we talk about it being like the smack in the face, which it
40:59
really isn't cuz I'd rather it happen and realize, crap, we
41:03
really need to push this thing, you know, to get it back up to
41:06
speed and where it needs to be. But it was, it was just kind of
41:09
that like, oh wow, like it was that moment of like, I mean,
41:11
this, this is lacking. This is why it happened.
41:14
So attack it, right? And I know that's been my big
41:17
emphasis on the day. It's just attacking things.
41:19
But it really is like, if you just stick to things and trust
41:22
what you're doing that you're in the right hands and the people
41:25
that you're around are doing the right things.
41:26
Like, you can go and and do whatever, but as long as you're
41:29
staying on track, right and progressing as you should with
41:33
the same program, sticking with the same people, odds are you're
41:36
going to have success. And then you're able to kind of
41:40
get creative or cute in the process, like just as you did
41:44
with your throwing program, you did with your offseason
41:46
training. And you mentioned taking
41:49
information or ideas you have and bringing it to others who
41:53
maybe have knowledge in the field.
41:55
And that's exactly what you did with Flexpro Grip when you
41:58
presented to me what you were trying to do from a throwing
42:01
perspective when you were going through your higher intent,
42:04
higher volume, sure, like peaking throwing.
42:08
We adjusted Flexpro and going into spring training, just as
42:13
you said, I don't know. We got on a call 4 weeks ago and
42:16
you said, Adam, I have 29 days until I go to spring training.
42:21
That gives me 29 days to go as hard as humanly possible in flex
42:24
Pro grip because I know once the season starts it's all
42:27
maintenance. I.
42:28
Was going to say once the season starts, it's maintenance.
42:30
You might get like one RFD day because you just threw on the
42:33
last day of the week and it's a Sunday.
42:35
You got Monday off for sure. You know what I mean?
42:36
Like stuff like that, it's like, you know, you're going straight
42:39
into maintenance. So being able to kind of crush
42:42
and and be on top of it, that last three to four weeks, it's a
42:46
no brainer, right? You put in the time, you put in
42:48
the work. It's like those last three
42:50
weeks, it could have just been, hey, let's cruise, let's go into
42:52
maintenance mode or hey, let's crush it.
42:55
And I think the the right choice is to always dominate what
42:58
you're going to go do. So I was, I was glad we took
43:01
that route. Spinning it back to the bigger
43:03
picture here, not not just Flexpro Grip specific, but even
43:07
how you approach in season, being a reliever, being a guy
43:11
that has really gotten accustomed to being ready
43:15
whenever the name is called. How do you adapt your training
43:20
and your approach to, I guess getting better at baseball while
43:25
still being in season? I know I, I tend to put my foot
43:30
in my mouth by continuing to talk when I could just shut up.
43:33
But there the reason I, I, I want to add a little bit more to
43:36
this question. And I, I think it's something
43:39
odd to talk about to a professional baseball player,
43:42
but you're a professional baseball player who hasn't yet
43:45
made the big leagues, So there's obviously room for you to still
43:49
get better. There's a reason, like as much
43:52
as you and I might believe you are ready, you still need to
43:56
prove that to other people, which means you need to improve
43:59
in some facet of the game. So how do you juggle that while
44:04
still going out to perform? I think the big thing would be
44:09
prioritizing things that are important.
44:11
I know I talked about it a little bit earlier, right, But
44:13
like if you're only worried about performing and I know that
44:18
is priority number one. If we're only worried about our
44:21
outings and we're not necessarily getting any better,
44:24
but we're going out there and competing, there's going to be
44:27
that wall you're going to hit at some point.
44:29
We don't know when we're going to hit it or if we're going to
44:31
hit it, but 90% of people I would say are going to hit that
44:34
wall. So it's how can we train and how
44:36
can we make sure we're getting better while still in that
44:39
competitive state. And for me, that's touching the
44:42
mound as much as possible. Let's say I threw it in game on
44:46
a Tuesday. I'm probably not going to be hot
44:48
until at least Thursday, depending on how many pitches I
44:51
threw. But like on Thursday, I'm
44:53
getting back on the mound. It's not going to be a Max
44:56
effort, right? It's going to be that maybe
44:58
7580%, maybe even a short box. Getting on the mound, getting
45:03
your shapes right, getting some intent work done and like
45:06
finishing out in front, It's different than being on flat
45:09
ground, right? It's the skill.
45:12
It's what we're going into the game to do.
45:14
So then your number gets called on Thursday.
45:16
Maybe it doesn't if it doesn't right Friday, maybe we don't
45:20
touch the mount right, but you better be Dang ready to be hot
45:23
and be in that game on Friday and then same cycle worlds
45:26
around a Sunday if we're back on the mount.
45:28
So I think to keep yourself in both the competitive and I guess
45:32
getting better mindset, it's finding what you need to do to
45:36
get yourself better. And for me it's getting on the
45:38
mound, right. I know I can throw flat ground,
45:40
I can do this, I can do that, but the mechanics don't always
45:43
replicate what need to be done on the mound.
45:46
And that's why I hate spinning, breaking balls on flat ground.
45:49
Just think the release points different.
45:51
The arm slot can change. Sometimes you're not finishing
45:53
out in front as much as you might normally or maybe too far
45:57
out in front for some guys, but like.
45:59
And getting on the mound going to be different.
46:01
Shapes going to be different, right?
46:02
You know what I mean? So like getting on the mound,
46:05
even if you're spinning up a 75%.
46:08
And to me it's like I like to save 5 to 10 that I would
46:11
normally throw flat ground if it's I want to get on the mound
46:13
that day. Like I'm saving those five
46:16
throws, the compression type throws on the way in and I'm
46:19
just going to do them on the mound.
46:20
I might do like 2 shuffles and I might do mechanical work and
46:24
then spin a few at the end. Spending time, I guess where
46:26
your workplace is in which for pitchers is the mound, right?
46:30
That's how you're going to get better.
46:31
It's just spending what you need to there rather than the flat
46:34
ground work, the compression, working out there are days
46:37
worth, so that's what you need to do.
46:38
But for me, getting on the mound as much as possible is in my
46:42
opinion, how I can better myself in, in both a skill aspect but a
46:46
competitive aspect as well. You stay ready and you're also
46:49
developing skills. As we continue to kind of echo
46:53
this accountability theme, how do you toe the line between what
46:58
you feel you need to do to improve versus what the org
47:03
might want or expect from you? To me, it's gotta be pretty
47:07
cohesive, right? If you're not bought into what
47:10
you're necessarily doing as a whole, right, it might never
47:13
work. So with the new staff, right?
47:15
I haven't got much of an opportunity yet to kind of be
47:17
with them and stuff like that. But I think the plan's pretty
47:20
simple. Attack the zone, let your best
47:22
stuff go, right? So just everybody being on that
47:25
same, I guess wavelength is crucial.
47:28
Just that that aspect of it would be big.
47:31
Are there any things performance wise in going forward-looking at
47:36
the 2026 season that if you're able to see on a stat sheet or
47:42
if we're able to see from our seats as fans, besides wins and
47:47
losses, besides you making a debut, what what could we see as
47:52
the little hints or clues that Gavin Bruni is having a good
47:56
year? I think I mean it, it's not
47:58
going to show up in the the box scores or anything, but winning
48:01
the early counts, right? If you go into the stat cast and
48:04
you see that like we're getting O1 and then if we're 11, we're
48:07
getting to 1/2 right? And we're not falling back in
48:10
those negative counts there. I think you could probably hang
48:13
your hat and be like, he's having a pretty Goodyear.
48:16
It's been the big emphasis this offseason.
48:18
It's like don't throw the O2 pitch OL, you know what I mean?
48:21
Don't try to do too much OO throw the heater up, keep it in
48:24
the zone, let the stuff play right.
48:27
And like I said, you're not going to see him in a box score.
48:28
But if you see those like and really take a dive into it and
48:32
see it like, yeah, we're going to have a Goodyear.
48:34
KS are the strikeouts are going to be there, the weak contacts
48:37
going to be there, the walks will be down.
48:40
You get yourself into sticky situations in the 11 counts 21.
48:43
Now you're going to make a pitch and you're trying to be too
48:45
fine. It's 3-1 and that's how things
48:48
unravel. So just staying, you know,
48:50
competitive in the O OS and the one ones and getting ahead.
48:53
You look at those, I think we're going to have a pretty Goodyear.
48:55
So it's all the race to 2K. It really is.
48:59
You got a high vert fastball right in a in a good I guess
49:04
cutter ish slider like you let those playoff each other the
49:06
race the two strikes like you're going to have a lot of success.
49:09
So you mentioned the high vert fastball in the cutter slider
49:13
thing. What is the complete Arsenal
49:15
going into the 26th season? Yeah, right now it's it's
49:18
forcing fastball, slider, cutter, like I like to call it a
49:21
cutter. So I stay behind it, stay hard,
49:23
right. But it's a slider.
49:24
It moves like a slider. And then we're toying with a, a
49:27
splitter or kick change, whichever one kind of pans out,
49:30
right. If if that could be the third
49:32
option, get something to dive the other way, I'd be very
49:34
happy. I do love that you say
49:38
metrically it's a slider, but you like to approach it as a
49:41
cutter. How valuable is it to have that
49:44
intent, whatever it means to you, and be able to kind of
49:48
marry yourself to it? Yeah, the big, you know, it kind
49:53
of dated back to college for me my junior year, it started off
49:57
the season and my sophomore year was pretty hard the whole year.
49:59
But then my sophomore year, my junior year, sorry, it was like
50:03
week 1, it was like 83 to 86 right in the fastball and play
50:07
like 9194. So like relatively hard
50:10
comparative to the fastball for the the movement profile that it
50:13
had. And then as a starter, like when
50:16
I'd look up in the third inning and see the scoreboard, it'd be
50:18
like 78 miles an hour and it's a looper.
50:20
Like it's hanging over the middle.
50:22
So there was one day where I just said, screw it, it was a
50:25
bullpen day. And I told our manager like, I
50:27
want the track man out. Like we're getting the track man
50:30
out today. This is what I want to do.
50:32
This is what I'm trying to accomplish.
50:34
And track man was out and I threw a couple like I normally
50:38
would and they're just, they were crappy.
50:40
Like they weren't good. And then I started telling
50:43
myself like, stay behind it, let the grip do the work.
50:46
Literally it's fastball. And then I'm just dragging my
50:48
hand across the screen as much as possible, right?
50:50
And I'm thinking fastball. It wasn't a grip change.
50:52
The grip had stayed the same. It was purely an intent thing.
50:56
So the guys will get mad at me, especially the offseason, I'll
50:59
be throwing with my brother and I'll signal cutter because if I
51:02
signal slider, right, I'm thinking on the side of it,
51:06
right? But if I signal right, yeah,
51:10
right. If I think cutter, I'm behind
51:12
it, it's going to be, you know, it's going to be good.
51:15
So that's that's my big thing. I just like telling myself the
51:18
intent, right? Keep the intent up.
51:20
And it's a feel thing. I'm not saying there will never
51:23
be a time where I'm thinking a little bit bigger and we want to
51:26
see that 81 mile an hour slider slurvy type thing.
51:29
But for the most part, I want to attack with that mid to upper
51:33
80s slider. Like that's that's my big thing.
51:36
So the intent keeping that up and not allowing myself to kind
51:40
of think soft here. Let the power stuff play.
51:43
And is there a percent mix we should be on the lookout for?
51:49
No, I I think it's too early to tell right If the sliders
51:53
obviously my go to, it's been my go to, but.
51:57
Don't, don't mix it up for the podcast.
52:00
The cutter, Come on. The cutter.
52:01
If you know, if the the fastball starts taking over and we're
52:05
getting a lot of success, like swing and miss up in the zone
52:08
with that, you never know, right?
52:09
I think in years past it's been close to 5050, but one of the
52:13
two, and I, I mean, I know I mentioned the splitter kick type
52:16
of thing coming into the mix. Like it, you know, you never
52:19
know, one of those things could take off.
52:20
Next thing you know you got a 6040 split one way or another
52:23
and you compete with what you compete with and throw your best
52:26
stuff when you need to. Heck, yeah.
52:28
Well, as we make our way to kind of the tail end here, Gavin,
52:33
before I turn it over to you for for a couple things.
52:37
One of the things I like doing with the the guys in pro ball
52:40
that have played all across the earth and the weirdest stadiums
52:44
on earth. I'd love if you could recall not
52:48
not the best place you've ever played, but maybe the most
52:51
memorable environment or strangest.
52:53
We're talking pro ball only here, right?
52:56
You can. You can go back to Little League
52:57
if you need to for all I care. Don't know if it was the coolest
53:01
or I just really liked it, but Fayetteville Woodpeckers Astros
53:06
affiliate for some reason. I really like that part like I I
53:09
think it's cool park. It's good place to play the
53:11
train going down left field are things a nice touch and I really
53:15
like that part. But in college my favorite road
53:19
trip that we ever had was Nebraska Lincoln like that
53:23
stadium was cool. It was you know the fans were
53:26
that I think they sold it out all three days.
53:28
The fans were ruthless. Park was nice.
53:30
It was just it was a good environment to play.
53:33
It was the place you wanted to be like it's not Sunday morning
53:36
law fest that we're just kind of get trying to get through his
53:39
hostile environment fun place to play.
53:41
But those 2 jump out off the page.
53:43
But I'm trying to think like weirdest.
53:47
Yeah, I don't, I don't really have much for, like, weirdest,
53:49
right? I'm sure there are a couple
53:51
that, you know, pop out. It's just like, what?
53:53
What are we doing here? But those two, those two are
53:57
cool for me. I enjoy those two places.
53:59
And obviously playing at Omaha for the Big 10 tournament was
54:01
pretty cool, too. So throw that one in there.
54:04
Isn't your AA affiliate on an island?
54:08
Yeah, I believe. I believe Harrisburg's in an
54:11
island that's. What I thought.
54:13
Haven't been there but sounds pretty cool.
54:16
Hopefully this year you can add that to a list of strangers.
54:19
We'll see how the year, we'll see how the year pans out.
54:22
But yeah, pitching on an island would be interesting.
54:25
See how that wind wants to blow. Definitely.
54:28
One day, so after the other day, it's right.
54:30
As I said, I wanted to ask one or two other things before
54:33
turning it over to you. So maybe the last fun question
54:37
on my side is much less a question and more an opportunity
54:41
for us to get to know you a little bit better.
54:43
You you got engaged this offseason.
54:45
So Congrats on that. And that's thanks big.
54:48
I'm not gonna ask about your fiance, however, I am going to
54:53
ask about your dog, so please share with us a little bit about
54:57
your sheba. That was definitely the last
55:00
thing I told my wife before I hopped on the interview.
55:03
Here was I'm about to interview a pitcher from the Nationals.
55:06
The most important thing you need to know about him is he is
55:09
a sheba that tends to go everywhere.
55:11
Yeah, he's, he's an interesting dog man.
55:14
I'll never forget, like trying to get my, my parents and my
55:19
fiance's parents and everybody on board with me wanting to get
55:21
them. They're like, you're gone so
55:23
much. You're this, you're that you're,
55:24
you know, you, you guys both have your own apartments and you
55:27
have all these moving parts, right?
55:30
But you know, I walk into this pet store, but they've, it's,
55:33
they've got all these dogs out, you know, and it was a like a
55:36
Saturday or Sunday. We had just went out to dinner
55:39
and we didn't have him at the time, right.
55:41
So we go in here and they I see this little like Husky looking
55:46
dog, like it looks like a Husky. I'm like, what kind of dog?
55:48
I've never heard of a Sheba until this day.
55:52
Go in there and I you can like get him out and play with them.
55:54
I asked, we asked lady and like, can we can we play with this
55:57
dog? And we we get him out and this
56:00
dog is the cutest thing ever, right.
56:02
So I'm like I need one like I, I need one bad I need one now.
56:06
So I get on the websites and I'm looking for the Shebas and you
56:11
know I found like 4 of them that I really liked.
56:13
I'm sending them to my mom all day long and can I get this dog?
56:15
Can I get this dog and everybody no, you don't need it.
56:18
You don't need it. Well, couple weeks later this
56:21
it's like a Wednesday and I call my mom like can I go get this
56:24
dog? And she finally said yes, I was
56:26
not expecting it. Yes, but I told her I'm like,
56:29
oh, thank you, but she knows this now.
56:31
But at the time she didn't know I was going to get that dog that
56:34
day regardless whether she said so or not.
56:37
Like that dog was getting picked up and drove back to Columbus
56:40
that day. But yeah, that dog, man, He's,
56:43
he's cool. He does.
56:44
He goes everywhere with me. And for the most part, he can't
56:46
come to spring training hotel. The hotel would probably hate
56:49
that. He's, he's a mouthy guy.
56:52
Yeah. Stubborn.
56:53
I mean, he's, he's a cool dog, man.
56:55
He's interesting. Keeps you alive, keeps you
56:58
going. You know, when he wants
57:00
something, man, whether it's going outside for a walk or
57:02
food, man, you, you know what he wants, whether you're in his
57:06
window. He's got this window at my house
57:08
that he always wants to look at. It leads into the the five way
57:12
and looks onto the road. You can kind of see the whole
57:14
neighborhood from there. And if you're sitting on that
57:16
couch in front of that window, he will bark in your face until
57:19
you move so he can perch himself.
57:20
They're like cats, man. Maybe he perches up on the top
57:23
shelf of that thing and he just goes.
57:25
He'll sit up. He'll sit up there for hours.
57:27
But yeah, he's, he's good. He's doing well.
57:30
And yeah. So hopefully, you know, spring
57:32
training breaks and I get to see him soon.
57:33
So that'll be. Fine, what's his name?
57:35
Shiloh. Shiloh, yeah, awesome Shiloh.
57:39
Yeah, shout out to the dog. He's a good boy.
57:42
Hopefully he's not getting too many treats right now.
57:45
Oh, does he get big when you leave?
57:47
No, not when I leave. We took, we took him to the vet
57:50
early September when I got back and first thing the vet puts him
57:53
on the scale and he's like, he's got to lose a couple pounds.
57:55
And me, me being, you know, the athlete and I'm like, all right,
57:59
sweet, like challenge accepted. Within like 2 weeks, the dog was
58:02
well under where he needed to be.
58:06
The Cheez its in the snacks had to get cut out a bit, but he's
58:09
he's still getting active. Good.
58:12
All right. So now possibly the toughest
58:15
question for you today is do you feel we missed anything?
58:19
Is is there anything that we left out on the table that you
58:22
think we need to cover before I let you go?
58:24
No, I think, I think we hit pretty much everything.
58:27
I mean, we hit it all the way back to to high school and and
58:30
then now and even some, some training.
58:32
I think we got it off. We even got the dog in there.
58:34
So I think, I think he hit everything on the head man.
58:36
And I like I said, I appreciate you having me on.
58:39
It's been a it's been a good time.
58:41
Of course, and I'm looking forward to a great year under a
58:45
new regime with basically a new body is probably what it feels
58:49
like for you. You probably feel like a
58:51
completely new human being at this.
58:52
Time freshest I've felt in a long time, which is a good
58:55
thing. So hopefully it holds up and I,
58:57
I think it will, we put in time, put in the work.
59:00
So it'll, it'll hold up well for me.
59:03
That's right. Well, once again, Gavin, I
59:05
really appreciate you joining us today.
59:07
This has been awesome to get to chat in this more formal setting
59:11
instead of just on the phone with me strolling through the
59:13
backyard and trying to Mull over some of your ideas that you're
59:17
throwing at me. But I'm looking forward to
59:19
watching you carve on the bump this year.
59:22
And to all the listeners out there, thanks for laying back
59:25
with us. Appreciate it, Madam.