Latest / The Layback Podcast / Erik Supplee, University of San Francisco Assistant Coach (Ep. 37)

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Erik Supplee, University of San Francisco Assistant Coach (Ep. 37) · The Layback Podcast

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  Hey everyone, welcome back to the Lay Back podcast.
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  Joining us today is assistant baseball coach at the University
• 0:06
  of San Francisco, Eric Supley. This is quite the full circle
• 0:12
  moment with soup wearing a USF jacket.
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  USF was a very quick stop, if I can even call it that, in my own
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  career. In between that whole shoulder
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  surgery thing that we've highlighted a couple times on
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  this show. But maybe even before I kick it
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  to Soup, I am going to share. I don't know if this is an
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  embarrassing e-mail, it's funny none the less.
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  But before I ended up committing to USFI, was on a search across
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  the country to find a new school.
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  My first interaction with Soup ever was this e-mail.
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  Adam, thanks for the e-mail. Based off of your video, you
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  would be a great fit at Georgetown.
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  Unfortunately, due to our admission policies and calendar,
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  our transfer deadline has passed and the school will not accept
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  other students. I wish I had better news.
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  I'm sure you will be able to find a quality baseball program
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  to continue your career. Please let me know if I'm able
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  to help in any way. So I'll take that as the softest
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  know of all time. Thank you for sending it to me
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  lightly, but hopefully that speaks to the type of person
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  that soup is. He tried to help out the best he
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  could when he knew I was in a tough situation.
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  So soup, take it as a compliment.
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  No matter how you may have thought of it when I brought it
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  up, I definitely think it's a compliment.
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  Thanks for joining us today and I'm going to pun over to you.
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  Oh, I, I appreciate that. Thanks for having me on.
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  I I really appreciate you thinking of me to be one of your
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  guests. You've had a, a bunch of good
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  ones on here. So I'll, I'll take that as a
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  compliment. But so I guess real quick, like
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  my, my background, I, I played at Marist College in
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  Poughkeepsie, NY. I'm from Southeast Virginia and
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  I kind of went the wrong direction to play college
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  baseball. Had an awesome career there,
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  really good time, got in, got into coaching immediately
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  afterwards. I, I didn't really know what to
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  do with my life and I, I still don't know what to do with my
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  life. So I'm still trying to hold on
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  to being a kid as long as I can. But I, I went to Millersville
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  University and basically Amish country Pennsylvania, like my
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  dad's family's from there. So it worked out really well
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  with living and you know, we don't make any money when we're
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  2223 in this, in this industry. So kind of help turn a program
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  around there with John Sheehan. I've I've been super lucky with
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  the people I've worked for, but John's phenomenal.
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  So I was there for a year. I made a poor decision and moved
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  back to Virginia, was part of a baseball program in transition
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  to Division 1. And I, I just didn't have a good
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  experience and I, I didn't handle the situation very well.
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  I got out of coaching for a year, was looking to go back to
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  grad school to maybe be a teacher.
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  I, I don't know, ended up going back to Williamsburg where I,
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  where I grew up. And then I was hired by a friend
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  of mine's dad, Percy Abel at Lynchburg College.
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  Fell back in love with baseball. He's like super great leader,
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  treated me very well and just kind of ran from it from there,
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  went back to Millersville after that.
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  I skipped a lot of the growing pains for John in in his
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  development of that program. And they were, you know, kind of
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  they had just been to the World Series a couple times and I
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  walked into like the most loaded pitching staff I've ever been a
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  part of. A bunch of draft picks on it.
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  One of our pitchers that year pitched for the Blue Jays and
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  Yankees this last year and it was just awesome.
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  And then made the switch to Wake Forest after that.
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  I was a a volunteer there for a couple years and then really got
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  really got deep into the academic army and went to
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  Georgetown for a year, worked for Pete Wilk.
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  He passed away last year, but one of the one of the best
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  people I've ever met in my life and then spent one year there,
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  had a really great year, walked into an unbelievable situation,
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  which is I think kind of like a theme for my my coaching.
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  Spent one year there and a bunch of draft picks, guys that were
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  already on the roster. It was, it was awesome.
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  Couldn't couldn't have asked for a better year there and then
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  went on to Columbia to work for Rep ready for seven years, went
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  to a few regionals. And I mean, he's like, there's I
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  don't think there's a better leader that I've I've ever been
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  around than than than him kind of being in the Ivy League.
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  A lot of restrictions with who you can recruit, how you can
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  coach, how much you can coach. I kind of wanted to see what I
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  could do away from there. And my wife has a way cooler job
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  than me, so we're a little bit limited.
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  And so when the opportunity at University of San Francisco kind
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  of presented itself and this is a place that we could live,
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  jumped all over it and wanted to see, you know, what we could do
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  here. And now we're year 3 rebuilding,
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  still a little bit on the mound. Last year we had an unbelievable
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  year. I think we turned that around a
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  little bit quicker than anybody would have thought, but yeah,
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  kind of where we're at now. Awesome.
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  You're making San Francisco your own.
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  I, I heard you say earlier off recording, you got the bike,
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  you're you're all in on San Francisco life.
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  So yeah, So what what's it been like?
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  I guess going from an established program more or less
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  with Columbia, granted it's different coasts, different
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  levels a little bit with Ivy League to going to the West
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  Coast Conference. But Columbia's been kind of a
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  traditional power of the Ivy League for a while.
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  And then you are in a situation at San Francisco where you had a
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  ton of roster turnover and you kind of had to build from the
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  ground up. You kind of had to start over
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  with what you guys were doing there.
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  So what? What was it like taking on that
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  challenge? It's funny because so, you know,
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  Columbia has been really good under under their current head
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  coach. And before that they had they
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  had not been very good. So you you kind of learn from a
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  lot from the people that you've been with before on rebuilding
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  situations. That's what Wake Forest was at
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  the time. Columbia, I jumped in to that
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  program at a point where they were like really rolling.
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  But you hear a lot about Coach Bretti talk about where they
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  were even with the like Georgetown, they were kind of
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  starting to put a little bit more money into the program and
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  it wasn't really established, certainly not what it is now.
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  But being at Millersville coming off at 9 and 37 season, I was a
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  I was 22, our other assistant was 24 and our head coach was
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  25. Like doesn't get any more of a
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  dumpster fire than that. So I'd had like a little bit of
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  experience doing this, but this was definitely like the biggest
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  magnitude in the the highest level, I guess.
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  And I, I wouldn't say highest level, obviously not the ACC,
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  but where I had the most, I don't know the right word like
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  the the most responsibility to help get things going back in in
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  the right direction. So, but I don't know, like it
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  seemed exciting to me and to very polarizing place, obviously
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  with both sides of the political spectrum saying a lot of really
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  negative things, which is wild because I mean, this is, I mean,
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  I'm looking out at our field right now and it's sunny again
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  and it's the most beautiful place I've ever lived.
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  And I think once, once people come here, like all my friends
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  that come visit you, they're like, oh God, like, are you
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  doing OK? And then they spend a weekend
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  here and they're like, oh. Get it?
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  You're doing fine. Yeah, so, but no, it's, it's
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  been a cool challenge and I'm I'm really proud of what we
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  accomplished last year on on the pitching side of things.
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  I think we have a really specific way of how we do
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  things, how we develop our guys using a lot of kind of our niche
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  a little bit is without like a lot of the Super high technology
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  stuff is we we lean heavy into data analytics, usage numbers,
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  things like that. I think more than a lot of
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  people out here, especially there's a lot of really good
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  baseball, especially on the pitching side.
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  Like it seems like everybody out here for the most part can
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  pitch. But our Ave. of being successful
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  is, is different than a lot of people's out here in my opinion.
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  And and that's kind of I think where, where our guys have
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  flourished a little bit, some taking some transfers, some from
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  some other programs, guys that were underutilized, guys that
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  weren't given chances or you know, for one reason or another
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  they were hurt or whatever it is.
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  But we've done really well with, I think, maximizing what our
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  guys can do. Awesome.
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  And I love that you already highlighted kind of your secret
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  sauce in a way, or how you look at the numbers or what you're
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  trying to expose in the best way possible analytically take
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  advantage of things that guys do well.
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  So without unveiling too much, can you kind of highlight some
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  of the things that you guys look at, or maybe how you found a guy
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  in the portal or a guy out of high school or JUCO that you've
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  been able to transform him into a secret weapon of sorts?
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  Right, I think the biggest thing and it's how we start with all
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  of our guys is like what is your skill?
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  What do you do? Well, and maybe it's not
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  something that you can do at an all American level, but we're
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  just going to do that and like as many times as we possibly
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  can, like our our entire pitching philosophies get to two
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  strikes in the first 3 pitches. It's just what we try to do and
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  that's it. That's it.
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  That's our whole philosophy from like an attack approach
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  standpoint. But then each guy is individual
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  in how do you get there? Like what is your method to
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  that, to that like destination? And that's kind of how we start
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  with everybody and trying to manipulate what guys do well and
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  then developing things off of what they do well, whether it's
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  adding pitches or trying to change shapes, change movement,
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  pattern, whatever it is. But it it all just starts with
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  what can you do and how? How good can we make it?
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  So was that a theme that kind of influences practice design for
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  you as well? Whether it's bullpen design or
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  even catch play that guys are constantly thinking about,
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  whether it's command or pitch execution, different things like
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  that to throw execution just during catch play, is it, is it
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  really that prominent that hey, we have 3 pitches to get to do
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  strikes. That's our mantra.
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  That's what we do. Right.
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  So I'll give you a really good example and you're you're
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  absolutely like spot on it. And the guy I was talking about
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  before at Millersville, that pitch pitches in, in the big
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  leagues, I remember having a conversation with him.
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  He, he was the borderline All Star reliever last year with the
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  Blue Jays. And like, how many pitches do
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  you actually throw? And he's going into his sixth
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  year. It's a hard, like maybe one of
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  the hardest things to do in baseball is be a successful
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  reliever. And really he throws like 5
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  different things. And, and I don't mean five
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  different pitches. He throws 2 pitches to like 5
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  different locations, fastball, middle, like sinker middle,
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  slider middle, slider, glove side, sinker, arm side.
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  And when you really break it down, it's like he, he doesn't
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  do anything like he. So if he were one of our
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  pitchers and we have some guys that are like this, it's like,
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  why are we practicing all these different things that you see
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  these elaborate bullpen scripts and stuff sometimes and it's
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  like, well, yeah, like we want to see if guys can do different
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  things and maybe there's something hidden or whatever it
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  is. But really, when you get down to
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  it, a lot of our guys just do 3 or 4 things over and over and
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  over again and, and that's what they're good at.
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  So we need to be really, really, really good at those 3 or 4
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  different things. So in our catch play, making
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  sure that they understand the areas that they need to play
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  catch at. We talked about like the
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  triangle of your shoulders and and forehead as a as a forcing
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  carry guy maybe or whatever, whatever you are, and then, you
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  know, throwing your breaking ball off of that spot.
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  But just making sure that guys understand what what it is they
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  do. And the other thing with that is
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  there there's power, there's power in that for the player,
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  understanding yourself. And we, we try to do a lot with
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  like personal development and we, we talked a lot, a lot about
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  being free pitching with freedom, but just being free
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  like in your everyday life with concepts and, and how to go
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  about things. But you know that that's being
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  freeze having having that power and understanding what you do
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  really well and pitching without external factors and and it's
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  just you and your sequence and your skill set just going to
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  work every day. And I think it makes guys a lot
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  better when you uncomplicated stuff.
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  The way I'm internalizing this, and please correct me if I'm
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  wrong because I very well could be, but the way that I am
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  capturing what you're saying here is take this super broad
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  skill of pitching, narrow it down to come to a head to figure
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  out what's most important or how we can get the best out of me as
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  a pitcher. And then once we figure that
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  out, that's where we can start to expand again of understanding
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  what freedoms we can gather or gain from those few skills that
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  I possess that might make me an outlier or different from any
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  other pitcher. Yeah, you're, you're pretty much
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  100% on there. And you, you said the word
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  button, word, whatever outlier that everyone is always looking.
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  For that was that was the buzzword, the outlier.
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  Yeah, yeah. Like what makes you different?
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  And honestly, it could be like a personality thing, like what
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  makes you different? There's all these things that
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  make people outliers in life. But for us, finding, finding
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  what that outlier is and just really embracing it.
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  And then you're absolutely correct.
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  It's almost like funneling back into it.
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  It's like, oh, this is it. Like this is your skill.
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  This is this is where you make your money at, man.
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  And then once we once we can really dial in that and get you
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  really good at that, then we can start opening that back up and
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  finding some things that build off of that or like some
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  sequences that build off of that, or maybe we can tweak it
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  and just give that picture a little bit of variance.
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  So you're absolutely spot on there.
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  Cool well that that makes me feel good.
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  At least I was able. That means you're you're
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  recruiting pitcher. I guess you're pre fall meeting
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  you. You've got the word set if if I
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  was able to digest it. I assume your players can digest
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  it so. Right, right.
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  That feels good. And you bring up something
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  that's interesting with with recruiting too, is that again,
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  that's our niche. That's that's what we do.
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  So a lot of the guys that we've got, especially transfers going
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  from places that might be a little bit more old school or
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  they're out of junior college or one of our more talented guys
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  right now. He was at, he was at Bard last
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  year for the, for the last four years, which is a, a very
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  academic liberal arts school in upstate New York.
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  Like we have things that those places don't have access to.
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  And so like Aiden, he learned how to compete there.
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  He learned a lot about himself, what his body needs, what his
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  arm needs from week to week. He played shortstop a little bit
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  there too. So he's got these other
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  competitive aspects to him. But before he got here, he'd
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  never seen what a Trackman report on him look like or been
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  in a really high structured lifting program that actually
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  takes into account like you're throwing schedule and like using
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  different exertion levels and stuff like that.
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  So we've done really, really well with those guys that
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  already know how to compete, guys that have been on their own
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  a little bit. And then we can kind of put like
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  the, the whipped cream on top of the Sunday and be like this,
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  this is it. Like we can, we can kind of
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  finish off what you've already created.
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  So, and that's something that we look for a lot, especially with,
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  with, with transfer guys. And, and I will say this too,
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  it's kind of, I don't know where a little bit, but like using
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  data and technology and stuff. It's our niche, but it's a tool
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  like it. It's just like lifting or a
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  throwing program. It's just a tool to help you
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  compete better. And I think a lot of people miss
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  that a lot, especially some of the older school pitching
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  coaches or guys that don't believe in ball tracking stuff.
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  You still have to compete on the mound.
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  I'm I'm just trying to help you compete better.
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  That's all it is. We're not recreating you as an
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  individual or or anything like that.
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  Like you still have to go out there on your own and attack the
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  strike zone and attack the hitter.
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  And it's just you, man, like you're the most important person
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  in the program while you're the guy on the mound.
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  And, and that machine that's on top of our stadium, like it's
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  just helping you do that, hopefully at a more at a higher
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  rate, a more efficient rate. So you still need that level of
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  competition and that, that level of like self, you know, self
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  determination and, and hopefully it can improve that because it
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  gives you more confidence. 1 concept we talked about a lot is
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  it gives you power. It gives you power to become a
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  better pitcher, become a stronger competitor.
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  So and, and, and that's the goal of it really.
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  Yeah, shout out every elementary school classroom that said
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  knowledge is power. Because that's what that's what
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  track man. Or ball tracking gives you as a
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  pitcher, correct? No, looking at the report might
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  not change your ability to key a guy or improve your stuff just
• 17:58
  because you saw your report. But it gives you a better idea
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  maybe of what your identity is through your pitch arsenal or
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  where you can be effective or maybe why you're forcing.
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  Fastball is constantly getting hit, so you should make an
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  adjustment. It just gives you much more
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  rapid feedback. So why should we be scared of
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  something that is telling us or giving us a look into, hey, you
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  can be successful here and maybe This is why you struggle in this
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  area. Right, it's absolutely correct.
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  We can tell you exactly where you're throwing the ball.
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  It's not your buddy charting behind a home plate being like,
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  yeah, that looked like a good, he's been working hard on that
• 18:44
  pitch. It looked like a good one.
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  I'll circle it like Nah, man, the balls like that was that was
• 18:50
  2 balls off the plate. It needs to be better than that.
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  So like it, it's just another tool to help you compete and
• 18:57
  make you a better pitcher. But it's also like you got to
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  still be able to compete, man, for sure.
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  So I, I do want to pull something back when we were
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  talking about kind of the narrowing focus to then
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  expansion once you've kind of figured out your niche or your
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  own superpower. Right.
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  One area of training or development that has gotten a
• 19:20
  lot of love lately is more variable training or kind of
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  external queuing. You're more goal oriented, like
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  try to hit this target on the move.
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  Right, right. Yeah.
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  However we want to phrase it, I value, I put a lot of value on
• 19:38
  that stuff, but I also recognize the value of if we can eliminate
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  the possibilities of mistakes or narrow the focus, we're likely
• 19:47
  going to be able to have more success on that side too.
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  So how do you juggle kind of constantly jumping from an
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  internal focus to an external focus?
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  Or maybe how do you structure that in practice or your
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  communication? Or just wait, what's that
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  balance look like? That's a really good question.
• 20:09
  Sorry to put you on the spot. No, no, no, no, no.
• 20:11
  It's no, I I think it's a really good question and I think it's
• 20:17
  something else that we do a really good job with is this is
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  going to be like a little bit of a cop out answer, but you can't
• 20:24
  treat each individual guy the same.
• 20:27
  He's this one kid as an example, He's he's really talented.
• 20:31
  He's like a a cutter guy. He really struggles with a
• 20:33
  fastball, but man, he's got great feel for his cutter.
• 20:36
  He can spin a slider pretty good, his sinker things getting
• 20:40
  better and stuff. But like he, he really struggled
• 20:44
  his first two years here just playing catch.
• 20:47
  It was kind of like a super pushy arm action.
• 20:49
  I won't say the protocols that he was using before, but it was
• 20:54
  a very prominent pitching guy, you know, done a lot of good
• 20:57
  stuff, but whatever. And so he's actually like
• 21:00
  trained himself out of that a lot.
• 21:03
  And he's done that mostly with a lot of athletic throwing, like a
• 21:09
  lot of, you know, just like double play fees.
• 21:11
  He'll actually, it's kind of, it's kind of funny, whatever
• 21:14
  guys make fun when he does it, but he'll actually like get down
• 21:17
  in his catch play like a catcher and like he's throwing down.
• 21:20
  And that's probably like man, like 75% of his throws now are
• 21:26
  are all just athletic moving until he comes back in and like
• 21:32
  starts to dial, dial stuff in. But like that, that's what he
• 21:36
  needs. Like he needs that just like
• 21:38
  freedom to throw, freedom to move, not really necessarily
• 21:43
  worrying about exactly where where the ball goes.
• 21:45
  And, and it's funny because he's actually like our highest strike
• 21:48
  percentage guy. And so, yeah, I don't have an
• 21:52
  explanation for it or anything, but it's, it's what he needs and
• 21:55
  it's what he does and it what it's what makes him successful.
• 21:59
  And I think it's actually made a lot of our other guys successful
• 22:01
  too, because I'm, I'm probably more, I get a little, I'm more
• 22:07
  assy with catch play than I should be with just like the
• 22:10
  quality of it. I think at times.
• 22:13
  But like he has the freedom to just kind of be 90 feet away and
• 22:18
  like flop around and I don't care when he spikes the ball
• 22:22
  like, and maybe some of our other guys should be doing that
• 22:25
  more and more of our guys will start doing that this year.
• 22:27
  I think it's kind of a new, it's not new, but I think a lot of
• 22:33
  people are starting to gravitate towards that athletic throwing
• 22:36
  stuff. But I think it's benefit of
• 22:38
  seeing him do it has benefited a lot of our other guys to not be
• 22:43
  as rigid and not be as stiff. Like, OK, here we are, we're
• 22:46
  set. We're going to take two shuffle
• 22:48
  throws and our partner directly in the chest.
• 22:50
  But yeah, as long as like we dial it in at the at the end, I
• 22:54
  guess kind of creating those free movements and stuff.
• 22:57
  Sorry, I've gone off on like a weird engine about this, but I
• 23:01
  just think it's it. It's all dependent on what that
• 23:05
  individual needs and what fits, you know, how they throw the
• 23:10
  baseball, how they deliver the baseball.
• 23:12
  Think of it much like the track man discussion that we had
• 23:15
  earlier it it's kind of another tool.
• 23:17
  And if you understand the purpose of it and how it can
• 23:20
  serve you as an individual, it becomes extremely valuable
• 23:24
  because you you can kind of look at.
• 23:27
  I know it's hard to say there's just two frames of mine here,
• 23:30
  But if we go the more the traditional, which is you have
• 23:34
  one like set perfect mechanics and you're always trying to
• 23:38
  chase it. So you might as well try to
• 23:41
  replicate it on every single throw you make, right?
• 23:45
  Or there's. Not attainable.
• 23:48
  Right. Then there's the other side of
• 23:49
  like, well, there is no perfect, so we might as well put
• 23:54
  ourselves in a situation where we can solve as many problems as
• 23:57
  possible. So if we understand how to throw
• 24:00
  on the move or throw off of 1 foot or throw from a different
• 24:04
  slot, it might be easier to figure out what's going on
• 24:08
  during a game in high stress or there's a hole in the dirt,
• 24:13
  whatever. So I I can understand arguments
• 24:17
  from both, but I definitely lean my own bias a little bit more
• 24:22
  towards the let's almost do the free for all.
• 24:25
  So then it it when it is time to do the one task you've
• 24:29
  experienced every possible way it could have ever gone wrong.
• 24:33
  Right now you it's I, I, I joke with our guys a lot that I'm,
• 24:38
  I'm, I'm the best thrower on our team and like really gets under
• 24:42
  their skin a lot. And what I mean by that is like
• 24:45
  I can, I can put the ball exactly where I want it.
• 24:47
  And a huge part of that is because I mess around with my
• 24:51
  catch play all the time. When when I play catch, I throw
• 24:54
  from a bunch of different slots and there's to me, there's
• 24:57
  nothing there's nothing more fun than than the the run through
• 25:01
  play from third base doing that like like come on in, like y'all
• 25:06
  dream of doing that as pictures like, you know, just like just
• 25:11
  slinging it from like your kneecap height and whatever.
• 25:15
  But I probably realized like a couple years ago that part of
• 25:19
  the reason that I think I have really good feel for what I do
• 25:22
  is because I the road from a bunch of different angles and I
• 25:25
  mess around a lot. And it's like, oh, like this,
• 25:29
  like releasing the ball from here and here and oh, man, I
• 25:32
  should probably let our guys do this stuff too.
• 25:36
  So, yeah, nothing's perfect. Like the idea of perfect and
• 25:40
  things being comfortable. It's just not how baseball works
• 25:44
  or how life for the world works. So why are we teaching things to
• 25:50
  be perfect? It's not reality.
• 25:53
  It's not realistic at all, but I I do want to carry on with one
• 25:59
  specific point you made where you said you like to joke that
• 26:02
  you're the best thrower. In addition to you experimenting
• 26:06
  with your throwing, there's probably also a large piece of
• 26:12
  this that we can credit to. You have likely made more throws
• 26:19
  than your entire team combined. Just life to date and like
• 26:25
  throwing is a skill that you can get better at by doing more of
• 26:30
  and I think that gets lost on a lot of people.
• 26:34
  That. Yes, we look at my desk now and
• 26:37
  I have a plyo sitting next to me and I have a baseball sitting
• 26:40
  next to me. Like, yes, I'm I'm throwing
• 26:43
  whether I'm using either implement, but eventually we
• 26:47
  have to get to a point where we can throw this 5 oz baseball
• 26:50
  with the little red seams really effectively.
• 26:53
  And throwing this plyo ball is still a skill in a lot of it
• 26:57
  will transfer, but eventually we have to get these reps to
• 27:00
  transfer to the baseball reps. And you have spent a lifetime,
• 27:06
  whether as a player and now a coach throwing baseballs or
• 27:13
  other implements along the way. But you have trained the
• 27:16
  specific skill of throwing, not just pitching, but the skill of
• 27:19
  throwing for a lifetime, yes. Oh man, I don't want to get in
• 27:24
  that bag, but. Don't worry, we can cut it.
• 27:29
  No, no, no, no, no. Well, me and one of my friends
• 27:32
  are having this big argument. Not argument, just discussion of
• 27:35
  like, well, throwing is pitching, pitching is throwing
• 27:38
  like that like, but I don't want to get into.
• 27:42
  To me, to me, that's the that's the square rectangle debate.
• 27:46
  I don't know how much of this will keep in, but yes, a square
• 27:50
  is a rectangle, but a rectangle is not necessarily a square.
• 27:53
  Yeah, of course, Exactly. So there is something about the
• 27:57
  Plio thing that I think is really interesting.
• 28:00
  And I think this is where a lot of coaches get this kind of
• 28:03
  started a little bit, this start a little bit for me.
• 28:07
  My first year here. We had a a kid that he's
• 28:10
  actually coaching now to Division Three school.
• 28:12
  Really, really, really smart, smarter than me, like just into
• 28:16
  everything, like probably a little too into everything, like
• 28:22
  very broad, just always has ideas and stuff.
• 28:25
  But he, we were talking about build up, build up programs and
• 28:29
  stuff. And he was like, well, what if
• 28:31
  like what if for the first like 4 weeks or something, like you
• 28:34
  just never threw a baseball. You only threw this pliable like
• 28:38
  into a net or like into a wall. And like everything was just
• 28:42
  about honing in how you throw the ball.
• 28:44
  You were never focused on the destination of the baseball.
• 28:49
  And like, we just kind of got into this, like, can you train
• 28:54
  yourself to have just these insanely good movements and
• 29:00
  stuff? But you go like never want to do
• 29:02
  it like for four weeks. But like at the beginning of
• 29:05
  your build up, let's say you took two weeks or you're just
• 29:08
  throwing like pile of balls off the mound.
• 29:10
  Like what's that going to look like the third week when you
• 29:12
  take a baseball and like start playing catch?
• 29:16
  Like do you have any idea where the ball's going?
• 29:18
  Like will you be throwing way harder because all of a sudden,
• 29:21
  like you move exactly the way you want to move because all
• 29:25
  you've been focusing on is your movement of, of how your body
• 29:29
  moves. And you know, like you teach
• 29:30
  guys how to throw plyos and stuff, whatever.
• 29:32
  But it, I, I don't know why that was kind of like a, a clicking
• 29:35
  point for me of just really like honing in on what you're doing
• 29:41
  for your plyos. Like there's so much more than
• 29:43
  just throwing this heavier object.
• 29:46
  Like you're, this is how you throw a baseball.
• 29:48
  Like you're trying to change your actual movement patterns.
• 29:51
  But I, I don't think, I don't think players realize that like,
• 29:55
  OK, we're doing pivot picks. Like what are you trying to
• 29:59
  accomplish it? And like, you can give them
• 30:00
  certain specific things throughout the drill like that
• 30:03
  they're really, you know, maybe they're disconnecting with their
• 30:05
  front side or whatever, But it's like, do they know why?
• 30:08
  Like, and I guess this kind of goes to like our jobs as
• 30:12
  coaches, it's like just not just telling them what's going on and
• 30:16
  stuff, but telling them why something is happening to clean
• 30:20
  up like movement stuff. And like giving guys a reason
• 30:24
  why, why, why, why, why, why. Yeah, man, I, I think people
• 30:27
  just like, really miss the vote on like throwing a plyo every,
• 30:31
  every single day. And like, there's it, it can
• 30:34
  actually help you be a better thrower.
• 30:37
  We, we have some guys don't be like entering a VLO program
• 30:41
  right now. And, and for the last week, I've
• 30:43
  actually thrown thrown plyos every day.
• 30:46
  And I'm just, yes, this is how I like certain things that I need
• 30:50
  to be doing to like execute a really good throw.
• 30:53
  And it's like, I haven't been doing this or it hasn't been in
• 30:57
  my mind all all semester. And like, I should be better at
• 31:02
  this. So but it's, but it's that like
• 31:05
  teaching Y component and making sure that again, giving them
• 31:09
  power, giving them the ability to do things on their own and
• 31:13
  and explain to them why they're good and, and what can make them
• 31:16
  even better. So yeah, again, sorry for that.
• 31:20
  No. That's going out on a different
• 31:22
  direction again. That's great.
• 31:23
  And there there's a few pieces here that I think we can break
• 31:26
  down and maybe picking it up with that last piece you shared
• 31:31
  is that there are so many things that can be focused on that you
• 31:36
  tend to forget something if it's not in your immediate frame of
• 31:40
  reference. Like you said, you picked up
• 31:42
  pile balls for probably the first time all semester you've
• 31:46
  been throwing them, and that's not been a focus of yours as a
• 31:51
  coach lately. But now you're working with the
• 31:53
  Velo program guys, you're trying to ingrain a new pattern or
• 31:57
  unlock a movement, whatever phrasing we want to put on it.
• 32:00
  And that just hasn't been the important thing for you because
• 32:05
  earlier on you needed to see who could throw strikes or who could
• 32:09
  get outs, who could execute situations.
• 32:11
  But now you're in this development phase, so the focus
• 32:14
  changes going back to the idea that your guy who's now coaching
• 32:19
  had about what if we only threw into a net for the first four
• 32:23
  weeks. I think that's extremely
• 32:25
  valuable if you know the specific goal that you are
• 32:29
  trying to get from it right now. If the goal is to throw with
• 32:36
  pinpoint accuracy, never miss a spot, lead the nation in strike
• 32:40
  percentage, that's probably not going to help you a ton.
• 32:43
  But if you are rehabbing from something or you are dealing
• 32:48
  with, I don't know, you're like you said, trying to unlock a
• 32:52
  certain movement or feel something in your mechanics,
• 32:55
  that's probably a great thing to do.
• 32:57
  I don't know about four full weeks of it.
• 32:59
  I mean, yeah, a wall has been my throwing partner for that long.
• 33:03
  I don't necessarily recommend it to others, but what that enabled
• 33:07
  me to do was focus on the way I was moving, not hitting the
• 33:11
  glove of my partner and then getting pissed at myself if I
• 33:16
  short hopped a dude threw it over his head, yanked one,
• 33:19
  anything like that. Who's more focused on how'd that
• 33:22
  feel coming out of my hand? Or like going to check the video
• 33:25
  of my throw and say like oh sweet I did it.
• 33:29
  Like now just ingrain it over and over and over again without
• 33:33
  worrying about the outcome after it leaves my hand.
• 33:37
  Right, and that is and so it all it all kind of for us, when we
• 33:44
  were first discussing that, a lot of it was just like we're
• 33:47
  outcome is everything in baseball, Twitter society, like
• 33:54
  the only thing that people care about is the outcome.
• 33:57
  Like like you need instant feedback and more instant than
• 34:00
  ever before with the way social media works, say our guys, they
• 34:04
  just see the guy that's throwing 95 miles an hour and don't
• 34:07
  realize that it's been like a a 14 month journey potentially for
• 34:11
  that person. So taking away outcome, I think
• 34:15
  for a lot of players today is great.
• 34:20
  It's great because they can actually just focus on like
• 34:24
  wait, in this case, he's gotten way barriers.
• 34:26
  It's like you play catch and he's like throwing a temper
• 34:29
  tantrum every single throw. And I'm like, well, what?
• 34:31
  Like what's what's going on over here?
• 34:33
  And he's like bad throw. All right, So what do you mean
• 34:41
  like what are you going to throw 100% strikes in a game?
• 34:43
  Like what do you like? But he's just, you know, he's
• 34:47
  caught up in the outcome every single throw.
• 34:49
  He's caught up in the outcome on a 75 foot throw out in right
• 34:54
  field September 2nd, say like doesn't matter, but like I can
• 35:00
  really make it not matter by just taking away that entire
• 35:04
  situation potentially. And that's where like our whole
• 35:08
  idea of like, hey, let's just like throw for 3-4 weeks into a
• 35:11
  into a net or a wall and like see what happens.
• 35:15
  And also the other thing you don't know about this, but like
• 35:19
  it might just totally change your perspective on throwing.
• 35:22
  I don't know. I think it all comes down to
• 35:25
  what the focus is. As you said, we can just that's
• 35:29
  probably the reigning theme of this episode so far at least, is
• 35:34
  what's your focus? Yeah, Define what matters for
• 35:37
  that focus and then just execute the plan accordingly.
• 35:41
  Yeah, hopefully, yeah. I mean, at least it's hard to.
• 35:45
  It's hard to get. It's hard to get there though.
• 35:46
  It's hard to get there. But yeah, definitely, yeah.
• 35:49
  And it's. Even harder to get there when
• 35:51
  you're not just doing that for yourself, but you're doing it
• 35:54
  for a staff of 20 guys at a time, right?
• 35:57
  Right. And I think, I don't know
• 35:59
  something else. We've had a lot of success.
• 36:01
  You say 20, you know, 20 guys at a time, whatever.
• 36:04
  Like I think it's so. And I don't know, I think
• 36:08
  something I'm super proud of here is that I, I think our, I
• 36:12
  think our pitchers all care about each other.
• 36:14
  And I think they care about, you know, we're, we're pitchers,
• 36:17
  we're inherently selfish in a way.
• 36:20
  You have to be, I think, to be successful.
• 36:23
  But when you have, you know, we have 18 guys on our pitching
• 36:27
  staff and we're in a super cool situation.
• 36:29
  We only have 3 new guys. We have one freshman, 1 grad
• 36:32
  transfer, one JUCO guy. And we have this really strong
• 36:36
  continent continuity. And when you actually get 18
• 36:41
  guys that are moving in the right direction that care about
• 36:44
  each other. And I don't mean they all like
• 36:45
  each other, all right, because I know there's some guys that
• 36:48
  don't like each other on our pitching staff.
• 36:49
  And that's fine. Like they're human beings.
• 36:51
  We can't all like each other. But when you get them all moving
• 36:54
  in the right direction and they believe in each other and they
• 36:57
  want each other to succeed, like then I think you can really,
• 37:03
  really start making like you can really change people's
• 37:06
  perspective. You can really start making huge
• 37:08
  gains, guys holding each other accountable, like the
• 37:11
  expectation just raises. And I think that is probably,
• 37:17
  you know, like I, I called a bunch of my friends at the end
• 37:20
  at the end of the season last year because I want to know like
• 37:23
  a bunch of mid major programs like what they valued and why
• 37:27
  they thought they were good and seeing guys out on the road and
• 37:30
  especially a lot of East Coast guys that I didn't get to see
• 37:32
  their teams playing, stuff like that.
• 37:35
  It's like almost every single one was the same.
• 37:37
  So like I had something to do with with early strikes.
• 37:41
  Most of them had something to do with change UPS, which was
• 37:43
  awesome. But then the third one was like
• 37:47
  the mentality of the staff. We all wanted each other to
• 37:49
  succeed. And like when guys started doing
• 37:52
  that, they started competing harder for each other.
• 37:55
  They start working harder day-to-day.
• 37:57
  Their their practice sessions were better and and something
• 38:01
  that that we always talked about it at Columbia, it was kind of a
• 38:05
  theme of ours at at Millersville was at Millersville.
• 38:08
  We talked about making make it better, make it better every
• 38:10
  day. And that's like really broad,
• 38:13
  but make the players experience better, like give them more
• 38:16
  things, get them to buy and more.
• 38:19
  And you combine that with our, our thing at Columbia was we
• 38:22
  have these, these baseball players that just get their
• 38:25
  asses kicked every single day in school, in class.
• 38:30
  And if like if you're an Ivy League kid and your team's
• 38:34
  really good, like we're really good in 22 and like you're
• 38:40
  fighting for something, you're fighting to get to a regional
• 38:42
  and stuff. And you just get your ass kicked
• 38:43
  every single day in class. And then you show up to the
• 38:45
  field and I'm kicking your ass more.
• 38:48
  Like you're not going to want to be there.
• 38:51
  Like, how can we make it to the point where you want to show up
• 38:54
  every single day and work and compete as far as you can?
• 38:58
  And like that's what we did. And that's like a huge, huge,
• 39:03
  huge point of emphasis for us as a pitching staff.
• 39:06
  Here is how how can I get you guys that want to be here
• 39:11
  everyday and not that we're playing tag or it's like recess
• 39:15
  or anything like that, but how can I make this experience for
• 39:19
  you the best it can possibly be so that, you know, we have a
• 39:23
  full time lawsuit. He was our best pitcher last
• 39:25
  year. This guy's like one of one and
• 39:28
  he like, I mean, he, I think, I think most of our guys would
• 39:32
  would like like just run, try to run through a brick wall for
• 39:36
  this guy. But it's like, could you imagine
• 39:38
  if he like was in law school all day and it was like one of the
• 39:41
  three or four practices that he actually gets to go to or a list
• 39:44
  session that he actually gets to go to a week and he's just
• 39:47
  miserable. He wouldn't be nearly as good as
• 39:50
  he is. He has nothing to do with his
• 39:51
  talent level. Like I think he actually wants
• 39:55
  to be here every single day. And when you when you can create
• 39:59
  that environment and create that situation and you have 18 guys
• 40:03
  that all feel the same about it development, it all like happens
• 40:08
  exponentially. Third rant there.
• 40:11
  No, it's all good, All good. So my response to that would be,
• 40:17
  are there ways that you can measure that?
• 40:22
  Because I know there there's a feeling, I guess that you can
• 40:25
  get or you can get feedback from players.
• 40:28
  But the the things that you stated early on from those
• 40:32
  coaches that you talked to in the East Coast or the other mid
• 40:35
  majors strike percentage or first strike, you can, you can
• 40:39
  look at that, that's super easy to measure.
• 40:42
  You can look at change up execution, that's super easy to
• 40:45
  measure, but then you get into a care factor or the respect they
• 40:50
  have for each other in a program and wanting everyone to have
• 40:54
  success. That's a lot harder to measure.
• 40:57
  Not that it matters any less. It.
• 41:00
  Could very well matter more. But.
• 41:03
  How? How can you judge that on the
• 41:06
  daily? So, and I think this is like a
• 41:10
  huge something that's like really important with where
• 41:12
  college baseball is today with pitching is that I don't think
• 41:16
  there is a way to like really firmly measure it.
• 41:20
  But like all the people that I talked to that are like my
• 41:22
  closer friends, they're not, they're actually not all my age
• 41:26
  for the most part, Some some a little bit older.
• 41:28
  But like, and I think it's, it's something I've talked to a lot
• 41:32
  of other people about this is there are all these younger
• 41:35
  coaches out there right now that are way smarter than me.
• 41:39
  My skill as a college coach is not my intelligence level or
• 41:43
  anything like that. Like they're, there are younger
• 41:46
  guys that are so much smarter than me.
• 41:48
  And I think a lot of their downfall and why a lot of like
• 41:52
  what walk numbers are higher? Why, like there's a lot more
• 41:55
  people in the transfer portal and stuff is you get these guys
• 41:58
  that actually haven't coached as much.
• 42:01
  And so like that care factor, that team cohesiveness.
• 42:06
  Not that not that these newer guys or younger guys can't build
• 42:10
  it or anything, but if it's not measurable for a lot of people
• 42:14
  now, it's not important. And again, all these guys that,
• 42:19
  that I, I referenced earlier, they're all guys have had a lot
• 42:21
  of success at at varying levels, some at some at the highest
• 42:25
  levels. And I'm 39.
• 42:28
  I've been coaching since 2007. When it's right, you can just
• 42:33
  feel it. And it's not like a, it's just
• 42:36
  the more you're around this game, the more you're around
• 42:38
  programs that have success and it don't have success.
• 42:42
  You just feel it and it's not something that you can quantify
• 42:48
  on track man or on the force plate or through Kenna tracks or
• 42:52
  something like that. And it's but it's still, it's
• 42:54
  still pretty important. And I, I think a lot of these
• 42:58
  people that actually haven't coached a lot that are super
• 43:01
  intelligent and a lot of big league organizations it seems
• 43:04
  like are, are struggling with this right now.
• 43:06
  It's been a huge talking point here with with the Giants and
• 43:10
  they're kind of organizational turnover is numbers, data, all
• 43:14
  that stuff is super important. But again, at the end of the
• 43:17
  day, like what's you know, how good of a team, how good of a
• 43:21
  pitching staff are you? And you can only quantify that
• 43:24
  with like, say like your ERA at the end of the year or whatever.
• 43:28
  But sometimes to get to that point, there's some things that
• 43:32
  aren't quantifiable that you can just as a coach, the more you're
• 43:35
  around that group, you can just feel that it's right and you
• 43:39
  have the right group of people and you have, you know, there's
• 43:41
  certain key moments and stuff where you're like, we might have
• 43:45
  it this year, you know, So I don't know, it's I think it's an
• 43:50
  overlooked part of coaching these days not and and and
• 43:56
  especially mid to lower levels at the moment of say like
• 44:01
  Division One baseball, in my opinion.
• 44:04
  I suppose that makes sense because often times when mid
• 44:09
  tier schools are looking for their edge, they think it's
• 44:12
  going to come from a new technological advancement or.
• 44:17
  Right. Or something you said earlier.
• 44:19
  On the other hand of this conversation is what you guys do
• 44:23
  really well is maybe find out where a guy can better be used
• 44:28
  or was underutilized at a previous school or in a previous
• 44:32
  role. And it's not to say those
• 44:34
  analytical things don't matter at all.
• 44:36
  It's just pairing the signs with the art.
• 44:38
  How do you do both? And ultimately you can find that
• 44:41
  synergy, you are going to have a much better recipe for success.
• 44:45
  And I, I think a lot of, I, I mean, I probably, well, I mean,
• 44:50
  I, I, I don't know how good of a pitching coach I was when I was
• 44:54
  younger, especially like from a technical standpoint, but I
• 44:58
  don't know, I, I pride myself on that something I've always been
• 45:01
  able to do well as a coach. And I think it's the reason why
• 45:04
  I'm still coaching, why, why I've gotten jobs and stuff and
• 45:08
  had success. But I, you know, is that that
• 45:11
  team building, that creating culture aspect?
• 45:15
  But I, I think a lot of these younger guys now, they're just
• 45:19
  so gung ho on we need to throw the ball harder.
• 45:22
  We got to develop better breaking balls, do what I like
• 45:25
  our movement qualities got to be really good.
• 45:27
  And they're they're right. But there's also just this whole
• 45:31
  other side of it. I think that the more you do it,
• 45:34
  the more you realize that there's got to be equilibrium
• 45:37
  between those two things. Yeah, there's, there's always
• 45:40
  going to be a balance. But yeah, now, now I'm going to
• 45:43
  feel like a Dick because I'm about to shift everything that
• 45:45
  we've talked about about this part and how how you need to
• 45:50
  find this balance. And I always wanted to at some
• 45:54
  point during this conversation, navigate into advancements in
• 45:58
  player development, changes in your own technology, what you
• 46:01
  utilize, how you structure things, what you've learned,
• 46:05
  what you've forgotten. So of course I I let you go down
• 46:09
  this unbelievable rabbit hole diet tribe of.
• 46:14
  The. Art in like this grit factor in
• 46:18
  the the things we can't measure to now back to the things of
• 46:23
  like, Oh no, this is what's changed in my own philosophies
• 46:26
  from an actual scientific approach or different things
• 46:30
  like that or for for instance, the utilization of flex pro grip
• 46:34
  or other technologies such as trackman.
• 46:37
  So yes, I know that was super wordy of a transition, but bear
• 46:42
  with me as we do it. So I guess what has changed for
• 46:45
  you over the years, whether it's player development stuff,
• 46:48
  pitching philosophies, things you've picked up, things you've
• 46:52
  thrown out open door run with it.
• 46:55
  Feel free to take on your 5th rant of the day.
• 47:00
  So. I think a lot of things that
• 47:03
  opened my eyes was when I left wake, I just bought hacking the
• 47:07
  kinetic chain and that just kind of really opened my eyes to
• 47:13
  there's more than yelling and screaming and long tossing and
• 47:17
  be tougher, like be tougher. And at that time when, when,
• 47:23
  when I left wake to they, they hired Matt Hobbs.
• 47:27
  And the first time I talked to him, I, I just realized how
• 47:31
  terrible of a coach I actually was just from, from an overall
• 47:34
  intelligence standpoint. And it's kind of how I feel
• 47:37
  every time I talk to him since then too.
• 47:39
  But it just, and not, not just with him, but you just talk to
• 47:44
  smart people and you just, and regardless of what I think I
• 47:49
  know now and I don't know everything, I think I have a
• 47:53
  good grasp of a lot of things that I teach.
• 47:56
  But you just talk to smart people and you're like, and
• 47:58
  there's so much more. Like there's always more.
• 48:02
  Like you can always get better. You can always learn more.
• 48:04
  You can always implement new things.
• 48:06
  I talked a little bit about like the individualization of it is,
• 48:09
  is as you learn more, you talk to these guys that are way
• 48:13
  smarter than you and stuff and have had way more success.
• 48:16
  And it's like every conversation you're learning something and
• 48:20
  it's like, that's one of that's like our #9 on like, like this
• 48:25
  is all pertaining directly to him.
• 48:27
  And he just can't wait to get like, he can't wait to get back
• 48:31
  field tomorrow and be like, hey, man, like I apologize for
• 48:35
  everything that I've been telling you for the last like 8
• 48:37
  months. This is what we're going to do
• 48:39
  now and it's going to change your life.
• 48:43
  I think it's having a base like, hey, this is, this is, you know,
• 48:47
  kind of go back to what we discussed earlier, be like, all
• 48:51
  right, we're, we're using Trackman a lot.
• 48:52
  And, and you know, based off your first two bullpens in your
• 48:55
  live outing here in the fall, this is what I think you're
• 48:58
  really good at and having that firm concrete base to begin with
• 49:03
  and something that they believe in.
• 49:06
  And then from there, you talked about funneling off of that, but
• 49:09
  but being able to add different things, for example, like we're
• 49:13
  we're using Flex Pro this this fall for the first time and, and
• 49:16
  we use armor sheet as well. And we start with that base.
• 49:20
  We're super fortunate our athletic trainers.
• 49:23
  He's freaking awesome. He does such a good job with our
• 49:25
  pitchers, especially in like communication wise and just
• 49:28
  being there for them. I think that's like the most
• 49:31
  overlooked part of an athletic trainer, But he's really smart
• 49:34
  too. And him being able to take that
• 49:36
  base of like, all right, like Monday, Wednesday, Friday, this
• 49:39
  group you're doing flex pro, you have armored heat these three
• 49:42
  days. This is your pre throwing.
• 49:44
  Oh, like you're having bicep issues.
• 49:47
  Like Jacob adds this, this and this takes away this.
• 49:51
  Yeah, I think it's the same thing with developing
• 49:54
  technologies and new information and stuff.
• 49:57
  Is it? It only really works and you can
• 49:59
  only really get by and from guys if you have that firm base that
• 50:03
  they believe in as well. So yes, there's these like over
• 50:07
  complicating ideas and and what not.
• 50:09
  But yeah, man, like again, I think it's going back to
• 50:13
  pitching coaches with a lot of experience understanding that
• 50:16
  there's this simple, super simple foundation.
• 50:20
  It might be complex ideas, but the foundation itself is simple.
• 50:24
  And that the, they're 1822 year olds, like you can't
• 50:28
  overcomplicate their lives too much.
• 50:30
  They have so much stuff going on.
• 50:32
  So if they, if they know that there's this base to work off of
• 50:36
  and something that they can always go back to, to, to rely
• 50:38
  on, and then we're just adding, subtracting, tweaking, changing
• 50:42
  off of that firm concrete base. That's how you can have success
• 50:47
  with new technologies, new concepts.
• 50:49
  When you, when you learn, you know, maybe a new pitch gripper
• 50:52
  or something like that. Or you know, the first time I, I
• 50:55
  learned about vertical approach angles and I was just like, Oh,
• 50:58
  it doesn't matter that your fastball looks dead.
• 51:00
  Going back and explaining to a player that I remember that when
• 51:04
  we got when we got a rap. So at Columbia with this kid Ben
• 51:07
  Roreski's, he's been pitching in the Royals organization and his
• 51:10
  freshman year he really struggled and he was a freshman.
• 51:13
  He pitched a lot because we were young that year and we were
• 51:16
  trying to get him. He's a lefty trying to get him
• 51:17
  to throw these two scenes because it looked cool.
• 51:20
  And then we gave Rap Zone his his song.
• 51:22
  He rolls out there and it's like, we're just looking at it,
• 51:27
  man. I'm like, hey, man, like I, I'm
• 51:30
  so sorry. And you know, after that he's
• 51:34
  like, I over strike out an inning guy.
• 51:36
  There's always and again, but I think 4th is my 4th or 5th ramp.
• 51:41
  But a huge part of being able to utilize technology and stuff
• 51:46
  like that change tweak is as a coach, like you got to, you got
• 51:52
  to be able to accept responsibility that you're going
• 51:54
  to be wrong sometimes. And you got to you got to like
• 51:58
  there's nothing wrong with it. There's nothing wrong with being
• 52:01
  wrong sometimes. Like you're not trying to be
• 52:03
  wrong. And I think our players know
• 52:04
  that about me, but I've built up enough credit with them.
• 52:09
  And, you know, we have a great relationship where I can walk up
• 52:12
  to one of them, be like, dude, like I just learned something
• 52:17
  and it's awesome. Here's what it is.
• 52:19
  And it goes against what we've been doing for the last six
• 52:22
  months. I think a lot of people are
• 52:24
  scared of that. And like when they're afraid to
• 52:27
  learn new things, new new concepts, new ideas, they're
• 52:31
  afraid to be wrong. And that's kind of what a lot of
• 52:34
  this stuff tells us is, oh, we've been doing things wrong
• 52:38
  and, and people are scared of that.
• 52:41
  What's so? Hard is yes, being wrong sucks.
• 52:46
  It's hard to admit you're wrong. But like you said, hopefully you
• 52:49
  have the relationship built where you admitting you're wrong
• 52:54
  is actually a massive step forward.
• 52:57
  Because then everybody's like OK cool.
• 53:00
  We're all human, we understand, we all have each other's best
• 53:03
  interests in US. Admitting that we're wrong just
• 53:07
  means we're one step closer to what is right.
• 53:11
  Yes, yeah. At least it's a it's kind of
• 53:14
  like the mind games you can play with yourself to spin everything
• 53:17
  into a positive. Right.
• 53:19
  A lot of our concepts as a group deal with like we, we read
• 53:23
  stoicism every day and better than of self constantly moving
• 53:28
  forward, valuing time, valuing the time that you have, things
• 53:31
  like that. And yeah, we also have a, we
• 53:34
  have a no apology rule. You're never allowed to
• 53:36
  apologize to anybody on the pitching staff because
• 53:38
  everything we want to do, we want to move forward.
• 53:39
  We're all going to make mistakes.
• 53:41
  Like we're going to make mistakes.
• 53:43
  If we do bunt defenses today, someone's going to make a
• 53:45
  mistake and it might be our best picture.
• 53:47
  But like, you know what man? Like learn from it and let's
• 53:51
  move on. Like you're going to make a bad
• 53:53
  throw and catch play today. So what?
• 53:55
  Move on, Make a make a better one the next time it's all
• 53:57
  right. Like you're going to, you're
• 54:00
  going to try to expand a slider at some point in time this year
• 54:02
  and you're going to hang it in the zone and it's probably going
• 54:05
  to get lashed in the gap for a double.
• 54:07
  So what, man? Like, yeah, we're all going to
• 54:10
  make mistakes, but it's, it's if we can't all get to the point
• 54:14
  where as a group we're just worried about pushing forward,
• 54:17
  getting better, moving on, making adjustments, worrying
• 54:21
  about the next pitch, worrying about our next day of training,
• 54:24
  whatever it is, like we, we just won't be as good as we should
• 54:27
  be. You said something really cool
• 54:30
  there in my mind regarding the value of time or how we
• 54:34
  appreciate time, our relationship with it.
• 54:37
  And given so much of the work that we do is on the rehab side.
• 54:42
  I'm curious to hear your kind of approach to how Stoicism or how
• 54:48
  that mindset of the readings that you guys go through can
• 54:52
  apply to someone that is dealing with this long runway where it
• 54:57
  feels like they're not a part of the team or it feels like
• 54:59
  they're on an island. But they also do have somewhat
• 55:04
  of a gift of time if you look at it with the silver lining that
• 55:08
  they can rebuild themselves to something new.
• 55:10
  So if I can just throw that on you, you have to wear the burden
• 55:14
  and just kind of explain in your world how those two interact or
• 55:19
  their. Relationship.
• 55:20
  I'd love it if you could. So I guess I'll, I'll start with
• 55:24
  some of the, some of the best pitchers that I've ever coached
• 55:28
  were guys that had gone through like long periods of time of,
• 55:33
  you know, rehabbing from surgery.
• 55:35
  Current example, Joe Soberon. He's he's our law student.
• 55:39
  He's one of the most unbelievable human beings I've
• 55:43
  ever met in my life. His freshman year he had he
• 55:46
  misses whole freshman year with TJ and I've only seen the
• 55:50
  finished product of him as a person.
• 55:53
  But like, you know, if you talk to him, it's like huge disaster.
• 55:59
  Just super impatient. He's he's a little bit of
• 56:02
  psychopath. Like he's crazy on the mount.
• 56:04
  He's he's a like he is out there competing as hard as he possibly
• 56:07
  can. It's amazing.
• 56:08
  But like he through that rehab process, like his just
• 56:14
  understanding of every single day and learning from your
• 56:18
  surroundings. And I think that's one of the
• 56:20
  big things with guys that go through rehab.
• 56:23
  You know, you can call them sagas for some guys, yeah,
• 56:25
  'cause they, they rarely ever go as planned.
• 56:28
  But those, it's those guys that have to sit there and watch a
• 56:32
  baseball game every single day. And all you have is like a chart
• 56:36
  or just be in there with your team mates every day.
• 56:39
  It's hard. Like it is hard, especially on
• 56:43
  like, I mean, if you're going through a rehab program, if
• 56:45
  you're coming back from Tommy John, like you're phone three
• 56:47
  days a week to start, you got four days.
• 56:50
  Nothing, nothing, nothing. Like you're working, you're
• 56:53
  working hard and stuff. And I think the reason I've seen
• 56:57
  a lot of our, you know, at Columbia, there's a guy on the
• 57:01
  40 man for the, for the Marlins, Josh Simpson, He, he had TJ, but
• 57:05
  it's like he came out of that like a different animal.
• 57:09
  Joe Sobrone, same thing. Our, our #2 this last year, the
• 57:12
  year before we got here, he had three anchors foot in his
• 57:16
  shoulder. And so our, our entire first
• 57:18
  year, he was a, a non, a non factor for us on the field and
• 57:22
  stuff. And he just, he had to rehab
• 57:25
  every single day and he had to work as far as he could.
• 57:28
  And he still has to, it's hard to pitch with three anchors in
• 57:30
  his shoulder. And every week for him is a
• 57:33
  process just to get back to neutral, to be able to make that
• 57:38
  next start on Saturday. And you see those guys that
• 57:42
  transform themselves as human beings during that process.
• 57:46
  It's nothing to do with them as pitchers, nothing to do with
• 57:48
  them as athletes, but you see those guys and their mindsets on
• 57:52
  life, how they go about practicing everyday, how they go
• 57:56
  about competing, Just everything about them changes because they
• 58:00
  learn to value time, day-to-day situations, learning from things
• 58:06
  that they are a part of. And when I say that is like
• 58:10
  you're actually watching the game, You're actually watching
• 58:12
  guys make mistakes because a little bit of is you have a chip
• 58:16
  on your shoulder and you're like and like this guy keeps falling
• 58:19
  behind one O and like he's putting themselves in shitty
• 58:22
  situations to to compete. And like you start realizing
• 58:26
  these little things that happen in life that you can't be a part
• 58:30
  of because of what's happened to you.
• 58:32
  And so your value of time changes.
• 58:34
  Your value of self changes a lot because all of a sudden, like
• 58:40
  I'm fortunate. I, I, I guess in a way I'm, I'm
• 58:43
  still my, myself worth is still kind of tied to the game that I
• 58:46
  love and the game that I've been a part of my entire life.
• 58:49
  But like that's going away for some of these guys.
• 58:52
  And for someone that's going through rehab and stuff that
• 58:56
  gets taken away from you for maybe say like a nine month
• 58:58
  period and all of a sudden this thing that you've been your
• 59:01
  entire life, it's no longer who you are.
• 59:04
  It is a little bit. You're still on the team, you're
• 59:06
  still getting scholarship money, say whatever you're like, you're
• 59:08
  still out there every day, but you can't compete.
• 59:11
  And that's what it, that's what that's what they really want.
• 59:13
  They want to be out there everyday.
• 59:15
  They want to be with the guys, they want to be on the mound,
• 59:17
  they want to be in the bullpen. And all of a sudden it's taken
• 59:21
  away from you. What you value the most in life
• 59:25
  as a 19 year old college baseball player, I would say 90%
• 59:28
  of them are is a game of baseball.
• 59:30
  And so it's taken away and all of a sudden your perspective
• 59:33
  changes. And that's I, I, I just think
• 59:36
  that a lot of the more successful guys I've ever
• 59:38
  coached have gone through long rehab processes.
• 59:43
  And it's not necessarily because they're better.
• 59:46
  They're, they're usually better because they had, they had it
• 59:48
  taken away. And all of a sudden they do
• 59:50
  value it. Like the whole thing with like,
• 59:52
  oh, well, like if you get TJ, you throw harder.
• 59:55
  No, like the reason it got a lot of guys throw harder, say is
• 59:59
  because they're in better shape. They play better catch
• 1:00:02
  throughout the week. Like they take rehab days
• 1:00:05
  seriously because they know that there's a tomorrow.
• 1:00:08
  Like they probably throw higher quality strikes and they're both
• 1:00:11
  in because they're more focused. And it's all these little
• 1:00:13
  things. They, they, they work hard in
• 1:00:14
  the weight room easily because they've just gone through this
• 1:00:16
  nine month period where everything, their entire value
• 1:00:20
  as a human being was taken away. So they're going to do all of
• 1:00:24
  these things on a day-to-day basis that are going to make
• 1:00:26
  them better baseball players. So, yeah, like, you know, we, we
• 1:00:31
  going back to your original question of like valuing time,
• 1:00:35
  valuing who you are as a person having these surgeries changes
• 1:00:39
  that. And I, I, I want part of the
• 1:00:42
  reason that I, I, I do this with our guys every day.
• 1:00:44
  And first thing they get every morning is they get it.
• 1:00:46
  They get the Daily stoic sent to them in the in the group chat is
• 1:00:50
  like, I hope that we can get guys to change this mindset
• 1:00:56
  before or if they never have, they never have to go through a
• 1:01:00
  major surgery. Like, can I get you to change
• 1:01:04
  how you value yourself and your training day-to-day before we
• 1:01:10
  even come to that point? To me, that's kind of the
• 1:01:14
  perfect full circle finish. Really.
• 1:01:17
  I, I was thinking of what question am I going to ask next?
• 1:01:20
  Where, where are we going to go with this?
• 1:01:23
  But I feel like your response there almost brought everything
• 1:01:26
  full circle with everything we started with was how do we take
• 1:01:31
  this wide range of focus, bring it to the narrow to figure out
• 1:01:36
  what we do best to then give ourselves the freedoms to
• 1:01:41
  execute from there. Rehab is a forced narrow focus.
• 1:01:45
  If guys can get through it, they can deal with all the mental
• 1:01:50
  struggles or the identity issues.
• 1:01:53
  Baseball itself is a super narrow focus during the rehab
• 1:01:56
  process. It's getting the arm back
• 1:01:59
  healthy again to throw the first day of the throwing program, to
• 1:02:05
  get on the mound for the first time, to throw long toss that
• 1:02:08
  day, to throw to a hitter for the first time.
• 1:02:11
  It's just such a long, arduous process.
• 1:02:15
  But it's such a specific focus that it's kind of easier to
• 1:02:20
  block out the noise if you don't have to fight the mental side of
• 1:02:24
  things or the loss of identity or anything like that, like we
• 1:02:27
  mentioned, because that stuff is very real.
• 1:02:31
  But the focus has been narrowed for you in terms of the game, so
• 1:02:35
  then when it eventually opens up again you you have a complete
• 1:02:38
  grasp of who you are and what you can do.
• 1:02:42
  Agreed. We had this kid, he, he had like
• 1:02:45
  this wild forearm bone thing. And so he, it happened to him
• 1:02:50
  last fall and he, he made his first outing like 3 weeks ago
• 1:02:55
  and like, I was like kind of watching it from the side and
• 1:02:59
  it's like, oh, he looks good. And he's like 89 to 92.
• 1:03:04
  He's never thrown a ball over 90 in his life.
• 1:03:07
  And like this is his second outing.
• 1:03:09
  And, and I'm like, hey, man, I'm like, what are like I'm looking,
• 1:03:13
  I'm looking at the CSV afterwards just to see what his
• 1:03:15
  feelings were. I'm like, like, congratulations,
• 1:03:19
  man. And he's like, like, what, what
• 1:03:21
  do you think is different? He's like, man, that's the most
• 1:03:24
  fun I've ever had playing baseball.
• 1:03:26
  And he's facing 3 batters on our game mound, like no fielders or
• 1:03:32
  anything. And and he's just like, it's the
• 1:03:34
  first time, like it's ever just been like fun, like just to be
• 1:03:38
  up there like throwing the baseball.
• 1:03:41
  We got you, man. Like you're right where you need
• 1:03:44
  to be. This is awesome.
• 1:03:46
  That's so perfect. Yeah.
• 1:03:48
  Like I just little, little things like that, like, and, and
• 1:03:53
  it's wild because he went from somebody that I, I didn't, I
• 1:03:56
  don't know if he was ever going to pitch for us this year or
• 1:03:58
  whatever to all of a sudden he's like, OK, like there's some cool
• 1:04:02
  things going on here, like whatever.
• 1:04:04
  But it's, it's all because of it.
• 1:04:06
  Is he? I mean, and he's worked his ass.
• 1:04:08
  Like he has put the work in, but man, he's like a totally
• 1:04:12
  different person, infinitely different person.
• 1:04:14
  It's amazing what that process can do.
• 1:04:17
  Yeah, I think we talk about it a lot on here.
• 1:04:20
  It's kind of a reoccurring theme.
• 1:04:22
  Yes, rehab sucks, but yeah, what you can get out of it really
• 1:04:27
  matters what you put into it. And I think, sorry, I don't want
• 1:04:32
  to cut you off, no. I think do it.
• 1:04:33
  I think cut me. Off I think it's your time.
• 1:04:35
  No, no, no, no, no, man, this is this is your fuck I'm I'm I'm
• 1:04:41
  just a I'm just a a grunt here. I think it says a lot about you
• 1:04:47
  as a human being, how you come out of it at the end of the day
• 1:04:51
  says a lot about like what your determination is, like what you
• 1:04:55
  value, who you are, man, that that process will just beat the
• 1:04:59
  crap out of you like nothing else because you're dealing with
• 1:05:04
  the physical pain. Like you're going to have
• 1:05:05
  setbacks and stuff. But the mental side of it is, is
• 1:05:09
  again, taking away yourself worth taking away who you are.
• 1:05:13
  Like that is hard. As in the 22 year old, like,
• 1:05:17
  come on, man. Like I had a hard enough problem
• 1:05:19
  in college. Just like showing up everyday.
• 1:05:21
  Like I, I don't know, I don't know what I would have done like
• 1:05:24
  if I'd had to go through that. And like you see guys do it now
• 1:05:27
  and they come out, it's like it's just they're, they're just
• 1:05:32
  better people, like better equipped to handle life all of a
• 1:05:34
  sudden and stuff. And it's like you hate for them
• 1:05:37
  to go through it, but it's like, man, like dude, you're going to
• 1:05:40
  like, you're going to crush life now because of this like shitty
• 1:05:44
  nine month experience you just went to.
• 1:05:46
  Like this will be one of the hardest thing to go through
• 1:05:48
  because again, like taking away self worth.
• 1:05:51
  I, I don't know many things harder to overcome in life other
• 1:05:55
  than say like loss of life. Like it?
• 1:05:58
  It's tough and they're better off for it usually, if you can
• 1:06:02
  approach it the right way. Yeah, I I think you stated that
• 1:06:05
  perfectly and I'm glad you took over honestly, because that that
• 1:06:11
  was stated eloquently, the fact that you can have.
• 1:06:14
  This eloquent? Yeah, you did.
• 1:06:17
  It, I, I thought it was eloquent at at least when, when you talk
• 1:06:23
  about going through an existential identity crisis as a
• 1:06:26
  college age student, that's, that's life altering.
• 1:06:30
  And if you can get back from it. And when I say back, yes,
• 1:06:34
  getting back on the field is awesome, But if you can prove to
• 1:06:38
  yourself that you've put in the work every day in, given
• 1:06:41
  everything you can to discover who you are and prove to
• 1:06:46
  yourself that you are not defined by an injury or not
• 1:06:51
  defined by a ball in your hand, you're setting yourself up for a
• 1:06:56
  long term. Success.
• 1:06:57
  Yes, totally agree. Totally agree SO.
• 1:07:02
  Yeah, so now, now that we went from the really fun stuff into
• 1:07:05
  the Super serious I, I don't know where to go from here other
• 1:07:09
  than to thank you so much for your candor, the conversation
• 1:07:13
  and everything you brought to the episode today.
• 1:07:16
  This was awesome. So I, I, I appreciate you having
• 1:07:19
  me on. This has been cool.
• 1:07:20
  So any, anytime I can like RIP off like four or five rants in a
• 1:07:25
  day and my wife doesn't have to experience any of them.
• 1:07:29
  I think, I think that's a that's a win.
• 1:07:31
  So, but I, I, I will say 1. I, I do want to mention one
• 1:07:37
  thing though, that that allows us on, on the pitching side of
• 1:07:39
  the baseball. Why, why we had a lot of success
• 1:07:41
  last year. Why I think we're doing good
• 1:07:43
  things this year is and I know you guys are kind of like the
• 1:07:48
  arm care rehab business a little bit, but a huge part of it for
• 1:07:52
  me is our athletic trainer is amazing.
• 1:07:57
  Like he does such a good job. And I think the, the maybe the
• 1:08:00
  biggest thing with him is he cares.
• 1:08:03
  And with on top of him we have a graduate assistant coach named
• 1:08:07
  Eric Mai. He's a young guy.
• 1:08:08
  I mean, he's there for our guys every single day, plays catch
• 1:08:11
  with them. We have some weird class
• 1:08:12
  schedules and stuff. Our student manager Colin, he
• 1:08:16
  like he actually catches bullpens for our guys and he,
• 1:08:18
  he's good. Like he can catch and he's there
• 1:08:22
  for our guys every single day. And we have another guy our, our
• 1:08:25
  director of player development, Steve Hammond, He's, he
• 1:08:28
  communicates great with our guys and he's there for them every
• 1:08:31
  day. He, he's not here at practice
• 1:08:33
  every day, but he communicates with them all the time.
• 1:08:35
  And if they need something, he's easily accessible and he'll talk
• 1:08:38
  to them every day, even if he's not here.
• 1:08:40
  And he's, and he's doing his own thing.
• 1:08:42
  But like having, if you have a lot of really good people around
• 1:08:47
  that can do a lot of different things.
• 1:08:48
  And all those guys are actually way smarter than I am, which is
• 1:08:51
  kind of why I like all of them so much.
• 1:08:55
  When you have all these people that can do different things and
• 1:08:59
  you have 18 pitchers, it's hard. I I couldn't do this by myself.
• 1:09:04
  And when you can compliment the things that I think I do really
• 1:09:08
  well with all these other different personalities that do
• 1:09:11
  other things really well and they're really smart.
• 1:09:13
  And then on top of that, like we our whole stat and page stuff
• 1:09:17
  and how we break our usage down, it's run by these two guys that
• 1:09:21
  I'm pretty good friends with that are in college baseball
• 1:09:24
  also. And like, I don't know how to I
• 1:09:27
  don't know how to compute this stuff or how to write these
• 1:09:29
  programs and whatnot. And it's like that might be like
• 1:09:31
  one of the most important things that that we have going on for
• 1:09:35
  us. So like it's so important to
• 1:09:37
  have all you guys, you know, having Ryan with armored heat,
• 1:09:41
  like we have all these things that allow me to do what I'm
• 1:09:46
  actually good at and I don't have to try to fake things or,
• 1:09:50
  and it and it gets more buy in from our players when I can stay
• 1:09:53
  in my lane because we have all we have this whole community of
• 1:09:56
  people that are so good at so many different things and that
• 1:10:00
  all and all these little things build up to a successful unit
• 1:10:03
  and a successful organization. And I think that it's so crucial
• 1:10:08
  in developing guys and and having success and what
• 1:10:11
  whatever, whatever it is that you want to do.
• 1:10:12
  But I did want to highlight that.
• 1:10:14
  But we have awesome people here and we're connected with awesome
• 1:10:17
  people within. They're they're awesome people
• 1:10:20
  connected to our pitching staff that that really drive our
• 1:10:22
  success. Well, I appreciate that greatly.
• 1:10:26
  It's an awesome group of names to get mentioned in.
• 1:10:28
  It's been really fun to be a part of the family this fall.
• 1:10:32
  Awesome. Yeah, we got to get you back out
• 1:10:33
  here, man. Oh my gosh, you are talking to
• 1:10:36
  my heartstrings. I I got to get back to the
• 1:10:38
  hilltop. Yeah, we'll get you here in
• 1:10:40
  like, you know, July when get you out of the humidity a
• 1:10:44
  little. Bit that's right, that's right.
• 1:10:46
  That'll be the perfect trip. Although I'll probably want to
• 1:10:48
  see you guys play some games. So I don't know if July is the
• 1:10:52
  best time for that regardless, so let's do.
• 1:10:55
  September then, huh? Let's see you next September.
• 1:10:58
  Yeah, we'll, we'll bank on that. I'll mark it on the schedule
• 1:11:00
  now. But awesome.
• 1:11:02
  Hey, Soup, once again, thank you so much for joining us today.
• 1:11:05
  I really appreciate what you offered.
• 1:11:07
  Is there a way people can follow you or the program?
• 1:11:12
  I guess for for me, probably best way.
• 1:11:15
  Oh man, I don't tweet a whole lot, but at at Soup du jour.
• 1:11:20
  All right, Really proud of that Twitter handle, as you should
• 1:11:23
  be. That's probably the best way to
• 1:11:26
  like follow me or get in contact with me.
• 1:11:28
  And then at Don's Baseball, I believe is our our, our Twitter
• 1:11:33
  handle on that. They do a pretty good job
• 1:11:35
  keeping keeping things rolling on on that account.
• 1:11:38
  But yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm hoping that we can continue building
• 1:11:41
  here. And I, I think we've, we're
• 1:11:44
  definitely on the right track on the, on the pitching side.
• 1:11:46
  And I think we're definitely moving on the right track
• 1:11:48
  positionally as well. Earner squads will be more, way
• 1:11:51
  more competitive this fall. It's awesome to see.
• 1:11:54
  So I think we've we're kind of getting a little bit more of our
• 1:11:57
  identity on on that side of the ball.
• 1:11:59
  So hopefully we can we can really do some good things and
• 1:12:04
  kind of slap your name on it. Rattle off a few wins this
• 1:12:07
  spring. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:12:10
  But I, I appreciate you having me on and I appreciate what you
• 1:12:13
  what you do for our pitchers as well.
• 1:12:15
  I know they've they've enjoyed using, using your guys stuff so
• 1:12:18
  far and continuing on with that as well.
• 1:12:20
  So thank you. For sure, I really appreciate
• 1:12:24
  those words and go Dons and all the listeners out there.
• 1:12:28
  Thanks for laying back with us.