Latest / The Layback Podcast / Matt Kress, Pitching Coordinator at Driveline Baseball (Ep. 61)

Transcript

Matt Kress, Pitching Coordinator at Driveline Baseball (Ep. 61) · The Layback Podcast

• 0:00
  Hey everyone, welcome back to the Lay Back Podcast.
• 0:02
  Joining us today is pitching coordinator for Driveline
• 0:06
  Baseball, Matt Cress. Matt and I got connected semi
• 0:11
  recently and then just fed ongoing conversations probably
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  since the turn of the year going into 2025.
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  Heard his name come through a couple emails from players and
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  parents just say like, oh, you guys need to talk to this guy.
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  And it was kind of funny that on the backside or on the other
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  side of those emails I was receiving, we were starting our
• 0:32
  relationship, Matt, just through what we do with Dylan Newcomer
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  initially and then what we're getting into going forward with
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  you guys as a whole with Driveline.
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  So I'm really looking forward to this conversation today.
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  And I know I didn't really talk much about you other than your
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  title. So I'd love if you could pick up
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  the pieces here and share a little bit more about yourself.
• 0:51
  Yeah, no worries. First off, like appreciate you
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  taking the time and allowing me to come and talk because, you
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  know, our first conversation took like 2 hours of my day out
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  and it was, it was really, really good.
• 1:01
  We touched on a lot of topics even outside of the flex pro and
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  how we wanted to use it. So that that was fantastic.
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  But yeah, so I'm originally from the Philadelphia area, played
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  Division One college baseball, was effectively told that I
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  wasn't good enough as I walked on, which was true.
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  I was not good enough and then transferred to a Division 2
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  College in the Philadelphia area and got to there for for four
• 1:24
  years, five years. And so as I was kind of
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  finishing up my career as, as it's just a low 80s, mid 80s
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  division two pitcher. I think the thing that kind of
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  bit me was the passion for just kind of knowing why.
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  I was always told by my parents and specifically my mother that
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  I was the kid that would always be asking why, why, why, why are
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  we doing this? Where are we going?
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  And that curious mind kind of turned into me wanting to know
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  more about coaching. And so after my career, I was, I
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  was pretty sure I was done. Like I'm, I'm not interested in
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  playing, I'm not good enough, but I am very interesting in
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  helping others to try to push their career forward and such.
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  So I have been working at a facility at the time it was
• 2:02
  known as Maple Zone Sports Institute.
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  And since it has moved, but was working there and, and got
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  connected with Bloomsburg University and the head coach
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  there, Mike Collins, who's been there for a long time and
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  learned about like just getting like Aga, right, a graduate
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  assistantship. So went there for two years and,
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  and got my masters in education and leadership, which was
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  fantastic. I, I really enjoy, enjoyed the
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  learning that I got to do there, but also got to get my teeth
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  kicked in as a pitching coach and, and I'm a bright eyed and
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  bushy tail 20 something year old thinking that he knows
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  everything. And, and thankfully Mike gave me
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  the opportunity to trip up, make some mistakes, learn from those
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  mistakes and, and continue my baseball career and that's
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  fantastic. So the 2020 year, my first year,
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  of course, got eaten up by COVID, which was unfortunate.
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  I felt that we really had things going well.
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  And then thankfully in 2021, we got the opportunity to to go out
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  there and play, which was great. And as I talked about, like the
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  first couple weeks months, honestly, just like continually
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  getting my teeth kicked in was, was fun.
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  I was losing inches on my hairline every week as we went
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  out there. And I think what it really
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  forced me to do was just continually be like a growth
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  mindset, continue learner and try to figure out a way to break
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  the ship. All credit to the guys there at
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  Bloomsburg, but they were they were able to write the ship and
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  we made really like magical and historical run and and ended up
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  winning the conference. Getting the plain regional at
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  the end of that was really exciting.
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  I thought, hey, look like I'm proven winner.
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  We won. The guys did all that.
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  I can't wait to see what the market has for me.
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  And I figured out that college baseball is a lot tougher than
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  that. And so I was looking for a job
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  trying to figure that out and I had seen something open up for
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  driveline and I've been really passionate about what they were
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  doing, throwing piles, you know, etcetera, etcetera.
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  When I was was an athlete and even coaching.
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  So thankfully I had some like data-driven examples of like me
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  trying to implement some higher level thinking into like my
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  coaching at Bloomsburg on a budget and it really worked out
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  and it got me an internship out in Seattle, WA.
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  So I was there until this past October when we opened up our
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  Tampa facility down here. And then me and my wife made the
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  move over to over to Tampa and we've been here for 6-7 months
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  since. And I think that like the thing
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  that has always brought me to driveline and the thing that
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  I've learned really quickly is this is a room where you will
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  not be the smartest person in the room.
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  And I freaking love that. I've thought about the amount of
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  times where I was dipping and ducking math classes in college
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  and now I'm sitting here and I actually just had a conversation
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  with one of our guys in Rd. about AI and instituting AI into
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  like an idea that I had. And I was like, wow, you know,
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  this is crazy how how quickly like this space can really like
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  change your, the way you think about the world, the game, and
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  just some of the things that start to ignite some passion.
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  So I would say that that's a little bit about my my short
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  career in baseball thus far. I think that is a beautiful
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  journey and we're going to start with possibly something hard
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  hitting. How come all the best minds in
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  baseball all are from D twos? Well, it's, it's gritty, right?
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  I mean, I talk about this. Oh man, I I've written about
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  this too, but like getting to cut my teeth at that level was
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  so much fun. Like when you look at the peace
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  act, there is such great baseball coming out of there.
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  I mean, there's there's fantastic universities who put
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  together perennial winners and getting to go up against those
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  big boys and at times get to take them down was a lot of fun
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  and kind of made me feel a little bit like the Tampa Bay
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  Rays or something like like Moneyball.
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  It gave me a moneyball idea of like, hey, we don't have the
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  resources they do, but guess what?
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  We're still going to kick him in the teeth.
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  That really fired me up and it it allowed me to even grow the
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  staff I had. I had, I had two students who
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  ended up like really jumping behind that moneyball principal
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  and like instituting a lot of really cool different ideas of
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  like pitch tracking, how we could do pitch tracking without
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  like track man or so in game effectively.
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  And it taught me a lot of good lessons on that.
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  So I think that's my answer. It's like, why are so many good
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  D2 minds, and I'd even argue that the P sack baseball minds,
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  why are there so many good P sack pitching coaches that kind
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  of come out of it and roll through like Josh Epstein, who's
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  been on the podcast, so on, so forth.
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  It's like you go in there, the ball is going to fly, you're
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  going to get your teeth kicked in, you're going to figure out
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  real quick how to problem solve. And that's that is kind of what
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  it is. I do feel really similarly and
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  of course it does go beyond just D2.
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  Just being a fellow D2 guy myself and seeing fellow
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  teammates from Eckerd College move on and now having big data
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  jobs in baseball, front office jobs, coaching, doing different
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  things. And I look back on our
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  experience and if we got a Subway sandwich going to an away
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  game, it was a major win. Like that was, that was big tech
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  for us. Like Subway being there wasn't,
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  I mean, shoot, I, I don't even know if we had an operating
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  radar gun for two of the four years I was playing baseball.
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  And then when I was coaching there, like the fact that we
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  actually had a radar gun, like, wow, big deal.
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  The people that have come out of these smaller situations, I feel
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  like you've either figured out ways to be creative and get
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  things done and winning with that at your disposal as opposed
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  to winning with what some SEC schools or ACC schools have.
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  It's a completely different experience and I'm sure even
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  when you look at your workmates at Driveline, I would guess the
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  majority of the guys there have kind of gone similar paths,
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  either smaller schools or taking the off the beaten path approach
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  to get to where they are now. Yeah, I mean, we're always in
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  the hiring process and that's been a passion for me.
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  I always say that and I probably would be in HR if I wasn't in in
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  pitching, which I'm glad that I'm in pitching.
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  But then it ends up giving me some opportunity to hire.
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  And like when it comes to like hiring people, it's, it's really
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  interesting what like will pop up like just to go get it
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  attitude that I'm going to figure out no matter what.
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  And that's something that always just kind of like pops up is I'm
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  interviewing somebody and it's just like, they have this, I'm
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  going to go get it attitude and I'm just going to get the job
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  done at by any means possible. And that really does kind of
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  come forward. And you kind of see that at
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  Driveline, like a lot of people, not just the pitching or the
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  hitting coaches, but the people in R&D, Heck, even our founder,
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  just like, I'm going to figure this out, like how Bowie, I see
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  it all the time in in our Slack channels.
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  I'm going to figure it out. I'm going to find any way to
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  figure it out. I'm going to put as many hours
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  as possible to get the job done. And that's kind of an infectious
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  piece of energy that then bites everyone.
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  And then we're all in the same boat, kind of just trying to
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  find way to get the job done. And it's, I've thought about
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  this a lot, especially in the past like 6 months to a year
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  where I've been really blessed to have the opportunity to like
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  just be in, in those circles and be able to work at driveline
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  around those people. Because that wasn't the type of
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  worker that I was previously. Like I, I worked very hard.
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  But then when you see people in R&D working all nighters or just
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  trying to pull it together to make it happen, to make sure our
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  athletes are getting like the best product that they can.
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  It's an infectious energy that as an intern, you quickly are
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  like, OK, well, I got to figure it out really quick.
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  And so, yeah, to bring it all back together, that internship
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  at Driveline, like it really shows you how much you're going
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  to love baseball, but it also like develops you as a worker,
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  as a problem solver to actually see if you have like a growth
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  mindset. Those sort of things like really
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  go forward and probably make you a really good candidate here.
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  Well, adding now the players that you train into the mix, is
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  that same mindset evident in them?
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  Like if, if a player's training at Driveline, do you think that
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  is one of the like differentiators of why they seek
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  you guys out? Or do you think that is now just
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  common culture across higher levels of baseball where players
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  want to commit to figuring things out?
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  And part of part of what has even inspired me to go down this
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  path of conversation is I saw something that Kyle Bodie said
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  even just the other day, just before this recording.
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  People say they want to learn, they don't want to learn, they
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  just want to know. And I do agree with that.
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  I do think that's really powerful.
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  I mean, they, I think about our experiences with Flexpro Grip.
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  There's a reason we're however many years into this now,
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  because we actually wanted to learn and make a difference.
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  Like it would have been great if somebody could have told us the
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  answer, but we wouldn't have Flexpro Grip if we didn't want
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  to learn. So yeah, I'm curious if what
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  your opinion is seeing it, whether it's from the guys you
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  train or just in higher levels of baseball in general?
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  Yeah. I mean, there's definitely a
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  subset, right? And I think that people that are
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  end up training in driveline, I think there's times when they
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  they know they have an issue, right?
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  They know that that there's something that's holding them
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  back, but they're really just like unable to pinpoint what it
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  is. Or alternatively they have an
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  idea of what they think it is. And then once they go through
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  like an assessment process with us to figure out that it's
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  something else. And so they're, they're not able
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  to get that sort of data at other places.
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  And so I would say there is a lot of people who have really
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  curious minds and, and want to know the intricacies of, of our
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  assessments process, how we think about the game.
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  And I think that also adds to like a really fun culture where
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  you're just with a bunch of people who are trying to figure
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  it out, right? That's not everyone, but the the
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  best of the best. You really get the best bang for
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  their buck coming here training, just trying to suck as much
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  information as they can to to make themselves better.
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  Those are the ones who end up like really seeing the gains and
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  the fruits of their labor. I think that's well stated.
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  Learning doesn't guarantee that you are going to be the best
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  ever. Do it even like looking
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  internally, some of y'all's greatest success stories are
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  probably not the Travis Bazanas or whatever some big league guy
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  that comes in. The greatest success stories are
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  probably a JUCO pitcher that is able to extend his career by a
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  year or a high school kid that's then able to play college
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  baseball with no pro projection whatsoever.
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  But those are probably like the most amazing cases or where you
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  see an athlete really internalize their process and
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  make a complete change on the trajectory of their career.
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  Yeah, I mean, like, look, are we super excited about a major
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  leaguers that we work with and their success?
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  Of course, everyone would be right.
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  It's very easy to get in that boat.
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  But I think that some of the most fun is seeing like a JUCO
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  kid come here and find a new level and then he gets an offer
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  that he never thought he could or things of that nature where
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  somebody like really puts the time, the effort.
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  And I think that there there's really good quote and I might
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  butcher it here, so I apologize, but from KC Weathers, which is
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  hard work doesn't guarantee you anything, right?
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  It just guarantees you honesty. And that's very much what we
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  believe in, which is like, you can come here, you can put in
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  the work, you can show up every day, but we're not guaranteeing
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  you that you're going to add 6 mph anything like that.
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  I don't live in a world of guarantees, right?
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  It happens a lot in the athlete meeting.
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  They're like, OK, if I fix what you say XY and Z, how hard do
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  you think I'm going to throw? I'm like, I'm not in the
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  business of telling you how hard you're going to throw.
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  I'm in the business of telling you that I I know that these
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  things correlate really well to ball velocity and you need to
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  throw harder if you want to actually see your dreams come
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  true. And it's not going to be easy.
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  It's not going to come tomorrow. And I think I've talked about
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  this with one of my my Co workers here in Tampa, which is
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  just like everyone's looking for the magic Velo beans or the
• 13:30
  magic Velo stuff like they just want the one thing that they can
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  change. Heck, it happens with me all the
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  time in my golf game. I freaking stink.
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  I am slicing everything. I've got no idea.
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  But honestly, if I actually really like take this and, and
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  what I'm talking about here, I look at my golf game, I've been
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  playing for maybe a couple of months.
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  I really don't know what I'm doing in the grand scheme of
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  things. And I just wanted some
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  gratification so I can understand how people similarly
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  might be in that situation as well.
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  And so I think that that's something that shocks people is
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  we give you a very clear path of, hey, this is how people who
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  throw hard do that, right? But now, right, the answer is,
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  is that you're not going to fix this tomorrow, right?
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  You're not even going to fix this in a couple weeks.
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  Like you got to stack a lot of good days, good weeks, good
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  months, good year. And then you then you might get
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  the honest reality that, hey, you're not actually going to
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  throw any harder or hey, yeah, you did or you didn't gain as
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  much. Like there are those are all
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  probabilities and outcomes that come out every single day on the
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  floor here at Driveline. But I think that when people
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  come into it and understand that we look at that that world and
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  like probabilistic ways and and that's kind of just how we
• 14:36
  breakdown player development, then they very much understand,
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  OK, nothing given here. But we do have a clear plan of
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  how I need to go forward and try to chase my dreams down, which
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  I'm I'm totally down and I'm always down to talk to athletes
• 14:48
  about that. So diving into that a little
• 14:51
  bit, we have so many things at our disposal as an industry and
• 14:54
  then especially you guys in house, whether it's biomech
• 14:57
  assessments, whether Trackman Edger, so many different data
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  points that you can look into. I'd love if you could explain an
• 15:06
  individual athletes process in how you utilize those
• 15:09
  technologies around it because I I also assume it's not the exact
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  same for every single guy. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
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  So I, I would say that we always have an assessment process and
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  we've always been based in the test retest model, which is, you
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  know, a pretty simple, hey, we're going to test you and
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  we're going to test you on the KP is that we think matter like
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  your strength, your power, your body weight, how hard do you
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  throw? And so when an athlete comes
• 15:31
  into driveline, what they they do is they're going to go
• 15:33
  through an assessment, right. We're going to get you warmed
• 15:35
  up, we're going to put you in a good scenario, and then we're
• 15:36
  going to put you through a litany of test that let us know
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  what's going on. And so one of those is of
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  course, throwing a bullpen, right?
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  We're able to get a certain 8 to 10 amount of fastballs and turn
• 15:48
  around a biomechanical assessment and try to just pick
• 15:51
  you apart and see what that looks like on that side.
• 15:54
  Then we're able to put you through some different things.
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  I mean, that's been some of my my biggest passions of adding
• 15:59
  the Flex Pro is like, can I actually like open up your
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  elbow, for lack of a better term, and see what's going on in
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  there and have a better idea of if this is actually like a rate
• 16:09
  limiter. And then we're doing some other
• 16:12
  tests from range of motion and then we're able to really get
• 16:14
  you off the force plates and see your ability as an athlete in
• 16:18
  the weight room. I don't do this justice.
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  Our HP team does a fantastic job.
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  But the way I always think about it is we think about power, you
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  think about strength. And then in some regard, we also
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  are thinking about like athleticism.
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  And So what we can do on that side is we're able to go through
• 16:33
  those tests off the force plates and figure out how many
• 16:36
  cylinders are there in the engine, right?
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  You got to have a pretty big engine to throw hard, especially
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  when you look at our data set of people who throw really hard.
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  Like there's some pretty goddamn big engines over there.
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  Like those are some big people who who can do it.
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  I think sometimes people always hit me with a, well, you know,
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  here's the one outlier in the major leagues who throws hard
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  and it doesn't fit what you're telling me.
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  It's like, yes, right. But like you got to look at the
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  distribution here, right? You're talking about the 100th
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  percentile of the one guy who's like 185 lbs who throws really
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  hard. But that is one guy.
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  There isn't a lot of guys who do that.
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  A majority of them are a lot more strong and have a lot more
• 17:11
  body weight than that one athlete that you're talking
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  about is. And then the other half is,
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  right, we want to see power. How fast can we go?
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  Like zero to 60. You got to be able to move fast
• 17:19
  if you want to throw hard. And so then we're able to take
• 17:22
  all of that information and sit down in a meeting and give you
• 17:26
  an idea of, Hey, I could just RIP open your chest and tell you
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  everything as you as a baseball player and where the low hanging
• 17:32
  fruits are and what are the things that you do really,
• 17:34
  really well. And I even think about my career
• 17:36
  in some regard and, and how I never came to driveline.
• 17:39
  I thought I was doing driveline. I think a lot of people think
• 17:42
  they're doing driveline, right? And that's fine.
• 17:44
  That's the beauty of the social media age that we're in is that
• 17:47
  you can kind of copy some of the things that we're doing.
• 17:49
  But that athlete meeting, Oh my God, that's what you're really
• 17:52
  trying to get. You get the bang for your buck.
• 17:54
  There are just so many times where it's like, oh, I, I never
• 17:56
  knew that I had an issue of like creating power, right?
• 17:59
  And so, yeah, no, I, I wouldn't have either.
• 18:01
  When I was a player, I didn't have that sort of technology.
• 18:03
  I didn't know how hard I was throwing.
• 18:04
  It was just like, hey, I should be in the box and I should just
• 18:08
  try to get people out. That's, that's about it.
• 18:10
  Those are really only the KP is that I have.
• 18:12
  But here we're able to do that. And then the last thing I'll say
• 18:15
  is I really proud of myself and I really pride my trainers in
• 18:18
  the ability to make it digestible.
• 18:20
  If you want somebody to be able to give you the 100 percentile
• 18:23
  of like, let's talk about your shoulder abduction and you're,
• 18:26
  you know, we can get all in the weeds on that side, right?
• 18:29
  But in some regard, we got to meet the athlete where we are.
• 18:31
  And that's something I learned during my time in my master's
• 18:34
  program, which is meet the athlete or in their case, meet
• 18:37
  the student where they are. If you don't want to hear about
• 18:40
  that sort of thing, that's fine. I can get what you need.
• 18:42
  And I always call it like the three big take away strategy of,
• 18:45
  hey, here are the three things that we need to work on between
• 18:47
  now and six weeks from now when you retest and that we need to
• 18:50
  improve. And if we do my best bang for my
• 18:53
  buck is you're going to be better and you're going to be
• 18:55
  throwing harder and we're going to be in a better spot.
• 18:56
  And so I really pride my trainers and, and the interns
• 18:59
  that that, you know, I, I get the chance to coach out and
• 19:02
  being able to understand like the high level conversation and
• 19:05
  have like a really high conversation about something
• 19:07
  like scene shifted weight, for example, or command.
• 19:10
  But then alternatively, are able to turn around with a high
• 19:12
  school athlete and be like, hey, XY and Z, we need to do these
• 19:15
  three things or else we're really not moving in the correct
• 19:19
  direction and everything else. For now, it doesn't matter.
• 19:22
  Let's focus in on these three things and chase them down.
• 19:24
  And then in six weeks, we'll we'll reassess where we're at.
• 19:27
  I think most of the industry as a whole generally operates with
• 19:31
  a more is better approach. Now, given all the data that you
• 19:35
  guys collect, how do you use it interpersonally versus
• 19:40
  intrapersonally? And maybe some of the points
• 19:43
  that you collect, do you care more about it comparing an
• 19:47
  individual to the masses? And then in other situations,
• 19:51
  are you more comparing the individual to himself?
• 19:55
  Yeah, Yeah, I'd say both happen right.
• 19:57
  And I think that a really profound idea that that that
• 20:01
  kind of encapsulates kind of what you're talking about is,
• 20:04
  and this is something that me and my team have worked a lot
• 20:06
  on, is the hierarchy of needs, right?
• 20:08
  We talk about hierarchy of needs to throwing hard that we
• 20:11
  generally see, right? And so at the bottom of the
• 20:13
  period pyramid where I always call like the base of your house
• 20:16
  or things like your strength ability, your HP numbers that,
• 20:19
  that test that you're doing in the weight room is, is a really
• 20:21
  important piece of the puzzle. And then 2 is recovery, which if
• 20:25
  you're not sleeping and you're not eating correctly, it's
• 20:27
  really hard to to throw hard. And then the third one, which
• 20:30
  is, is kind of where I, I, I get into learning more about Flexpro
• 20:34
  and, and even like some of the more intricate pieces of being
• 20:38
  like a coach at Tribe line is just like workload management.
• 20:40
  Are you able to withstand all of the high effort throws that
• 20:45
  you're going to have to make in a season?
• 20:46
  And are you able to manage those that those workloads to
• 20:49
  hopefully like move yourself forward and and throw hard when
• 20:52
  your name's called? So those three things end up
• 20:55
  being like the base of the triangle.
• 20:57
  And I think sometimes that's like, honestly, like a really
• 21:00
  hot take because if I was to like, walk out, I feel like a
• 21:03
  lot of people would be like, oh, man, like the base of the
• 21:05
  triangles. Do you move efficiently?
• 21:07
  And what I would say is like, yeah, no, absolutely.
• 21:09
  Like that. That is an important piece to
• 21:11
  puzzle. If you're 130 lbs, you blow out
• 21:14
  every single day you throw and you're not eating enough
• 21:16
  calories staying up until 2:00 AM playing Fortnite.
• 21:19
  We just got issues right. We got we got major issues where
• 21:22
  I really need to even like talk about your hip shoulder
• 21:24
  separation, really like block. But using that that hierarchy of
• 21:28
  needs strategy allows you to cross or check off a lot of
• 21:31
  those lower ends of the hierarchy of needs and then
• 21:34
  understand, OK, now I'm in a position where I know that these
• 21:37
  things are really dialed and I can actually like really dive in
• 21:41
  with the understanding, knowing that like nothing else behind me
• 21:44
  is a rate limiter. And instead it's probably
• 21:46
  something over here like on the bio mechanics side.
• 21:49
  And so that was something that we spent a lot of time and
• 21:51
  effort on and, and look like that doesn't get clicks.
• 21:54
  I understand, right? People don't want to talk about
• 21:56
  general, general philosophies and how you're breaking down
• 21:58
  player development. But like without those three
• 22:01
  pieces of the puzzle, man, it's an uphill battle.
• 22:03
  It's a really steep uphill battles to throwing forward.
• 22:07
  One piece I, I want to spend some more time on there is that,
• 22:11
  I guess rebuttal you often get about movement efficiency.
• 22:15
  And I, I do believe efficiency is kind of a hot topic because
• 22:19
  sticking with the interpersonal and interpersonal theme, there's
• 22:23
  efficient for an individual and there's efficient based on what
• 22:27
  we see for the masses and what we expect to see.
• 22:29
  Whether it's hip shoulder separation or the lead blade
• 22:32
  block or horizontal abduction and adduction extension, all
• 22:37
  these different things that are, it's weird to call them
• 22:40
  buzzwords in the industry, but until they're better understood,
• 22:43
  they're probably more buzzwords than they are actual
• 22:47
  measurements and positions that athletes need to get into.
• 22:52
  So how do you, when you have the database, you know what
• 22:58
  generally produces high velocities or greater outputs, I
• 23:03
  guess for lack of a better term, maintain the individuality of a
• 23:08
  pitcher or something that makes him successful.
• 23:12
  A classic example might be a Chris Sale shoot perfect
• 23:16
  driveline guy, Sean Manaya, right?
• 23:21
  So Manaya, who steps incredibly across his line or mid line of
• 23:26
  his body releases from a low height.
• 23:29
  There is no youth coach, high school coach, probably even
• 23:33
  college coach in America that would ever teach that.
• 23:38
  But it it now makes him an outlier and has brought him a
• 23:41
  new level of success in Major League Baseball.
• 23:45
  So how do you guys find that as a possible lane while still
• 23:50
  looking at the database that you guys have of what normally
• 23:55
  produces quote UN quote success? Yeah, I think on one end, you
• 24:00
  just have to be under the reality that that you don't have
• 24:03
  it all figured out, right. And that's something that like I
• 24:06
  really pride myself and hopefully a lot of my trainers.
• 24:09
  Like if we don't know, we don't know, it's fine, we can chase
• 24:12
  down an answer. And that's what ends up these,
• 24:14
  these big rabbit holes where you spend 3 or 4 days, you know,
• 24:17
  just trying to chase down some answers and figuring out some of
• 24:19
  the deeper intricacies of, of the game.
• 24:22
  But even somebody here like, you know, shotguns, like a really
• 24:25
  low slot, like Chris Hale, like those sort of things.
• 24:28
  There's, there's two things I think about 1 is if you are able
• 24:31
  to like make models that are able to pick up on some of those
• 24:36
  things, it's easy to understand that like outliers, like make
• 24:40
  them the way that they are them successful.
• 24:42
  I think I'm, I'm going to flip this to a little bit of like a
• 24:44
  pitch design sense. If you have a stuff plus model,
• 24:47
  I know that's kind of been a hot topic least in our doors in the
• 24:50
  past couple days. Like you should be able to see
• 24:54
  the outliers and grade them for what they are, right.
• 24:56
  If you have a super low release height and you know, you're
• 25:00
  super crossbody and there's some sort of deception going on
• 25:02
  there. If you have a really dialed in
• 25:04
  model, it should be able to like see that and pick up on it and
• 25:08
  then and then be able to grade it correctly for what it's
• 25:10
  worth. And then alternatively, I think
• 25:12
  that there is a level of individuality.
• 25:15
  And I think that the way I think about the game even comes back
• 25:18
  to like the hierarchy of needs, which is like if you've checked
• 25:20
  a lot of those boxes on the on the bottom levels, most of them
• 25:23
  are strong. Most of them should have
• 25:26
  recovery figured out. And then workload is generally
• 25:28
  something that I actually spent a lot of time talking to
• 25:30
  professionals about, but they, they've gotten there and they're
• 25:33
  a reason that they're there. So I think about in those
• 25:36
  situations that I'm trying to work around the margins.
• 25:39
  So I'm not trying to do wholesale changes, trying to fix
• 25:41
  somebody that's not the business I'm in.
• 25:43
  I'm, I'm here to add, I'm here to be an additive piece of their
• 25:46
  career and hopefully allow them to, to move forward.
• 25:49
  So I think that going into those situations and, and having the
• 25:53
  understanding that I don't have it all figured out, I can ask
• 25:55
  you questions. I have a hell of a research and
• 25:57
  development team that's willing and able to help me try to
• 26:00
  figure some of those things, allows me to up my game and then
• 26:03
  understand that like fixing somebody that's crossfiring
• 26:06
  isn't going to be worth my time. It's something that makes them
• 26:08
  really interesting in an outlier in some other areas and I need
• 26:12
  to be aware of that and move forward in their training.
• 26:15
  I guess that's kind of the beauty of models and projections
• 26:19
  in the sense that you could check on something that you've
• 26:23
  seen before. Or of course there there might
• 26:27
  not be a similar or the same case, but you can at least go
• 26:31
  through the database that you have and figure out is the juice
• 26:35
  worth the squeeze and then ultimately determine what is the
• 26:39
  most effective course of action. And because of those models, you
• 26:43
  can determine where success might come from.
• 26:46
  I suppose you could say if we got Manaya to go more towards
• 26:50
  home plate, maybe he'll throw a mile per hour harder or
• 26:55
  something like that. I don't know what projections or
• 26:58
  models would say on any of that, but just picking a velocity,
• 27:01
  maybe it's two mph harder but great.
• 27:04
  Then he throws the same thing as every other guy and he loses on
• 27:09
  the stuff side, although Velo might have increased all the
• 27:13
  deception goes away in different other characteristics that can
• 27:18
  help define somebody's success. So I, I guess in a sense this
• 27:22
  does kind of round out the interpersonal versus
• 27:25
  interpersonal that I wanted to get into you.
• 27:27
  You still want to celebrate the individuality a guy has because
• 27:30
  ultimately being different is going to be a decent predictor
• 27:35
  of success. If, if no hitter has seen what
• 27:38
  you do before, at a minimum it's going to be uncomfortable.
• 27:42
  And I assume then from a coaching side, if you find
• 27:47
  something that is different, you want to celebrate that or you
• 27:52
  want to continue to support that however you can.
• 27:57
  Yeah, I mean, former tests on on the podcast here, like Josh
• 28:01
  Hedge has a great example of that, right?
• 28:02
  The slot's so low that like there's a different set of rules
• 28:05
  that apply to the way that like he moves.
• 28:08
  I remember, I think it might have actually been when Josh
• 28:11
  like first showed up at it might it might have been at least when
• 28:13
  I was there, I remember him throwing.
• 28:15
  I was about this is fascinating, right?
• 28:16
  He throws from a really low slot.
• 28:18
  I was an intern at the time. You know, it's very apparent
• 28:20
  that Josh is like wicked smart and then has a lot of really
• 28:23
  good feel. I mean, heck, that's why he he
• 28:25
  currently works with us as well. And then looking through his
• 28:29
  report, I was not his trainer, but looking through his report,
• 28:31
  I was like, holy moly, like his lead leg block stinks.
• 28:35
  It is absolutely terrible. And then what's really funny is,
• 28:39
  and I hope I'm not out and Josh on that.
• 28:40
  I think Josh knows that. But what you learned from that,
• 28:43
  when you look at other guys in our data set that have that low
• 28:45
  of a slot is that low slot pitchers generally have a harder
• 28:50
  time getting their hips open and more open hips at foot.
• 28:54
  Foot strike generally allow you to block or lead leg block a
• 28:59
  little bit better. And so for Josh to create those
• 29:01
  angles that he is really low sliding even at times, maybe
• 29:05
  crossfire just a hair, he's he has to get those and he gives up
• 29:09
  some of those things that lead down the chain too.
• 29:11
  Well to lead like block, it isn't as good by our models as
• 29:15
  others. So you got to understand that
• 29:17
  piece and understand. Oh, OK.
• 29:18
  Well, that's what makes Josh, Josh, I'm not going to fix this
• 29:21
  Lead leg block tomorrow. And maybe there's some other
• 29:24
  areas that you should really focus more on and and get some
• 29:28
  more bangs for your buck. Since you brought up the lead
• 29:32
  leg block in I guess back in your intern days being like holy
• 29:38
  crap this sucks. Imagine how much better you
• 29:40
  could be if you did lead leg block, but then you go through
• 29:44
  other sidearm pictures or other low release sites and see that
• 29:48
  no, that's a commonality. I'd love to stick to that theme
• 29:51
  of research and discovery. Maybe.
• 29:54
  What are things that you have learned in the process or you
• 29:57
  had preconceived notions of that you've just been completely
• 30:00
  proven wrong on? Oh my God, I think about this
• 30:03
  all the time. If I were to think back to Matt
• 30:05
  Crest when I was coaching at Bloomsburg, all the things I
• 30:08
  would have done or would have changed or or would have, you
• 30:10
  know, just in general done, There's so many.
• 30:13
  I think that like when I came to Driveline, I really enjoyed
• 30:16
  pitch design. I think like one of the things
• 30:18
  in my resume or in my cover letter was like, I want to, I
• 30:20
  want to watch people throw on track me like I've never
• 30:23
  interacted with it. I want it.
• 30:25
  I wanted the edge of chronic. I want to do all of that.
• 30:28
  Like the The funny thing is, is got the got the ability to do
• 30:31
  that. But some of my best knowledge,
• 30:34
  like on the pitch design side was like self projects, which
• 30:37
  were just me turning around and deciding that I was going to
• 30:39
  write like Twitter threads. I had no following and not a
• 30:42
  great understanding and just write like, hey, why?
• 30:45
  Like who has the best stuff on fastballs and change UPS?
• 30:48
  Like I would just write threads on them and then figure out
• 30:51
  like, hey, on average, it seems like this model really likes
• 30:54
  like vertical separation for change UPS.
• 30:56
  Like that seems to be a big one because I, I remember talking to
• 30:59
  one of my friends and being like, it seems like our model
• 31:01
  really doesn't love horizontal brake.
• 31:02
  It it doesn't seem like change ups and horizontal brake matter
• 31:05
  as much as like vertical or velocity separation.
• 31:08
  And it was a friend outside of driveline.
• 31:09
  You know, what are you talking about?
• 31:11
  I just remember so many times, even in my career, like before
• 31:13
  it, they're trying to get people to have like all this horizontal
• 31:16
  brake and not really caring about the, you know, the
• 31:18
  vertical brake. But like that in its own right
• 31:20
  of just like a self starter project to me, just trying to
• 31:22
  figure out how how our model works and how a lot smarter
• 31:26
  people had thought about the game before.
• 31:28
  For me at Driveline and try to pick that apart, allow me A to
• 31:31
  write a thread and and show that like I was I was continuing to
• 31:35
  learn. I think that happens every day,
• 31:36
  even topics like workload management, elbow health, That's
• 31:40
  what kind of brought me to so, you know, texting you and
• 31:43
  talking for two hours, which is just like, I know I'm not great
• 31:45
  at, at writing, throwing programs or understanding how
• 31:48
  the elbow works or workload management as a whole.
• 31:51
  So what are some resources that can go down and, and talk to
• 31:54
  and, and it basically led me on to Dylan Newcomer's door right
• 31:58
  in Washington because he he's our our PT up there and does an
• 32:01
  absolutely fantastic job. And sorry, I know I'm kind of
• 32:05
  like spiraling here, but it just like it opens up so many things
• 32:08
  even like on the rehab side where you're just like, I see
• 32:11
  how Dylan runs. Like in my opinion, an 80 grade
• 32:14
  rehab program for somebody coming off TJ, like aren't there
• 32:17
  lessons that can be applied to generally like somebody who is
• 32:21
  healthy and throwing from that? And I personally think the
• 32:24
  answer is absolutely freaking yes.
• 32:26
  And then it's just a matter of like, OK, well, how do I do that
• 32:29
  with my own athletes? How do I dosage some of those
• 32:31
  things? And then just like be in those
• 32:33
  rooms with people like Josh Dylan and a lot of other really
• 32:35
  good people are traveling over a time and again, just like be in
• 32:39
  a in a room where you're not the smartest person in the room and
• 32:42
  you can just be a sponge and kind of suck up that information
• 32:44
  that they have and, and continue to have those conversations and
• 32:47
  apply it to your own data that. Celebrating what you said about
• 32:52
  rehab and using some of those principles even in performance,
• 32:57
  some of the conversations that I've had lately and then
• 33:00
  athletes that I've dealt with who are either returning to play
• 33:04
  or as you mentioned earlier, the social media age of baseball
• 33:07
  where you get online and you see a new pitch grip that you've
• 33:11
  never seen before. Or on pitching Ninja, someone
• 33:14
  throws some 21 inch H brake sweeper and everybody's like,
• 33:18
  oh, I want to do that. So with that, do you think a
• 33:23
  ramp up needs to be utilized in a sense when a new pitch is
• 33:27
  added to an arsenal, even if an athlete already has been built
• 33:32
  up for their season? Yeah, I mean, this is something
• 33:36
  Dylan Newcomer has talked about a ton at Driveline.
• 33:38
  We'll get really excited because the answer on pitch design is
• 33:43
  generally like right in front of you.
• 33:44
  I've talked about this a lot, even with my team where, you
• 33:47
  know, there's a process in which you should be thinking about
• 33:49
  pitch design. It's not just like, hey, I see a
• 33:51
  -20 page break slide and I just want to copy, paste, copy,
• 33:54
  paste, copy, paste, right? And I call that like the stuff
• 33:57
  age. We're still kind of on the back
• 33:59
  end of like the stuff age of like social media and and
• 34:02
  baseball analytics, and that's that's fantastic.
• 34:04
  I love that. I think that that's fantastic.
• 34:06
  You see so many stuff models on the Internet like this is really
• 34:09
  good for baseball overall, but then what you quickly learn is
• 34:13
  that there's a lot more that goes into it, right?
• 34:16
  I always talk about slot. Hey, your slot matters, where
• 34:19
  you're throwing from matters and you should be able to look at,
• 34:22
  and I do this all the time, which is look at everyone in
• 34:26
  let's just say like Major League Baseball or the group that
• 34:29
  you're trying to look at, look at a similar slot.
• 34:32
  And then something that I've talked to you a lot about, which
• 34:33
  is just look at their bias and then see what your answers
• 34:38
  possibly could be. And then that's basically the
• 34:41
  way that you're, you're you're thinking about pitch design is,
• 34:44
  Oh, it seems like people with this slot and this bias tend to
• 34:47
  gravitate towards this pitch. They they throw the sweeper.
• 34:50
  So I think that this is something that that could be
• 34:53
  worth our time. And then on top of XI know that
• 34:55
  wasn't really quite what the question was.
• 34:57
  You figure out that this is a possibility and I trust me, I've
• 35:01
  been absolutely guilty of this as well as like you go get so
• 35:05
  excited that you have the answer and you thought it through time
• 35:08
  and time again that you just want to throw it until the cows
• 35:10
  pump. Hey, I want to throw it
• 35:11
  tomorrow. I want to throw it like 50% of
• 35:14
  time. Like this is so cool.
• 35:16
  This is so exciting and I'm down.
• 35:17
  I'm I'm there with you. Like I understand that, but
• 35:19
  something Dylan has always said to me was just like, what about
• 35:22
  like the ramp up of of adding like that pitch to your arsenal.
• 35:25
  It is a fascinating topic where it's like you can't just go into
• 35:28
  live ABS or to your next pitch design and think I'm going to
• 35:31
  throw like 50 straight sweepers. Like the amount of stress that
• 35:35
  that's going to put on your arm in places that possibly you've
• 35:39
  never even quite engaged is a probably like a less talked
• 35:43
  about topic when it comes to like even like the pitch design
• 35:46
  community. I'd even further say that like
• 35:49
  the idea of understanding what the biases and what the slots
• 35:53
  are is a higher level thinking of developing an arsenal that
• 35:57
  also includes like, hey, what about commands?
• 35:59
  Like it's great. Yeah, I I talk about this with
• 36:02
  my guys sometimes too, where it's like, it's great that you
• 36:04
  can throw a sweeper, but should you throw a sweeper?
• 36:07
  Do you know on average the ability on stuff or on command?
• 36:11
  I always talk about this continuum as well where it's
• 36:13
  like, is this pitch generally a stuff pitch on average or is it
• 36:16
  generally a command pitch? And if you add this and I add a
• 36:20
  stuff pitch to a guy who has really bad command and you add a
• 36:23
  bad commanded pitch, you got issues.
• 36:26
  This is this makes the issue even worse.
• 36:29
  So we need to think about this more critically.
• 36:31
  So all together we did talk about some general pitches and
• 36:33
  philosophies that, as you can see, I'm very passionate about.
• 36:36
  But a big part of it is also slowly dosaging it.
• 36:39
  I had an athlete that that we were doing with that this season
• 36:42
  and he was in game and I was like, Hey, I think that like a
• 36:44
  short breaking ball is kind of the answer.
• 36:46
  And slowly dripping that into your arsenal and not just
• 36:49
  thinking that you're going to walk into your next start
• 36:51
  tomorrow throwing like 50 stray cutters and that that's going to
• 36:55
  be your no, it's going to take time.
• 36:57
  And think about this as a gradual progression of you
• 36:59
  adding this pitch to your arsenal.
• 37:02
  Hot topic in there is command. Oh yeah, let's go.
• 37:06
  Yeah, yeah. You study.
• 37:07
  I'm sure you study a ton. You probably are looking at it
• 37:11
  constantly. Some people think it's natural.
• 37:14
  Some people think you can train it.
• 37:16
  I'd love to know your thoughts so far.
• 37:19
  Maybe things that do work, things that don't work?
• 37:22
  How much of it is mechanical? Or is it just a complete
• 37:26
  spectrum? Yeah, oh, man, We could do a
• 37:29
  whole podcast and it's just on command in general.
• 37:32
  So there's a lot there. So let me first talk about like
• 37:35
  where Driveline's at. One of our big pushes in the
• 37:37
  past, honestly, since I've been here, but we've been
• 37:39
  continually, continually iterating on it, has been
• 37:42
  intended zones, which for those who do not know what intended
• 37:45
  zones are, a company called the Inside Edge does this for Major
• 37:49
  League Baseball in which they're able to figure out where the
• 37:52
  target is or the predicted target.
• 37:54
  So that's generally where the catcher's flashing his glove and
• 37:57
  then where the ball passes the plate and look at the difference
• 38:01
  in between those two. And we call that miss distance,
• 38:03
  right? That makes sense.
• 38:04
  And so I think what ends up happening is like the first step
• 38:08
  of command is that people don't know how to quantify it
• 38:12
  correctly. Like sure, walk rates, like I,
• 38:14
  I, I'll still look at walk rates at time and then walking people
• 38:17
  is not good, right? We don't want that.
• 38:18
  But a piece of the puzzle is understanding, like, are you
• 38:21
  able to hit your target, your intended target?
• 38:24
  And so that's what the intended zones is, is really about.
• 38:27
  And then furthermore, as we've kind of built it out, it's been
• 38:30
  how do we make this like an interactive piece of your
• 38:32
  bullpen? And if you come to any of our
• 38:34
  three facilities, Arizona, Washington or Florida, you'll
• 38:36
  see we have a big mad at home plate and it's constantly
• 38:40
  talking to the track man and showing you where your intended
• 38:44
  target is. You can set your intended target
• 38:45
  and then where the ball passes by.
• 38:47
  And then we have like effectively some different ways
• 38:50
  to be able to show you where you're missing.
• 38:52
  So all of that to the start of understanding command or even
• 38:55
  getting involved or dipping your toe in command is how do we
• 38:58
  quantify command? And so that has been one of the
• 39:01
  like the really cool pieces of of being a part of driveline.
• 39:04
  Now, secondarily, you run into, well, that's great.
• 39:08
  You know the stable size that you need for command stabilize,
• 39:11
  which is generally like 50 pitches for a pitch type.
• 39:14
  You know how you're going to track it, you know how to do it
• 39:16
  pretty easily. And that's been with our
• 39:18
  projector and now we've kind of built out an app that's able to
• 39:21
  do that. And that's, that's a big kudos
• 39:23
  to the R&D team and and the BB OPS and all the back end that
• 39:26
  drive one has that's able to pull that off and make a really
• 39:29
  cool product. But now we move into the phase
• 39:32
  of how do you actually train it? OK.
• 39:35
  And I do think that there is like an innate ability to
• 39:37
  command it. I do think that like there's a
• 39:39
  spectrum. If we're going back to the 2080
• 39:41
  scale, 20 is somebody who's like completely yipped up.
• 39:44
  And that's probably like a mental skills and mental
• 39:45
  performance command fix in some regard.
• 39:48
  Or that's probably like the first start spot that I would
• 39:51
  start. But then of course, as we see
• 39:53
  like there, there's there's levels to this.
• 39:55
  OK, now there's people that have below average command, average
• 39:58
  command and above average command.
• 40:00
  And So what I'd say is now we're in in the world of.
• 40:04
  OK, let's think about how we can actually like train commands.
• 40:07
  Feel like I've been name dropping this entire podcast,
• 40:09
  but this is how much I enjoy but being here.
• 40:12
  But we actually had in this past Sabre conference, Jack Lambert
• 40:16
  and Connor Pelletier, who did a really cool study on mechanics
• 40:21
  and command. And I'm not going to quite
• 40:23
  butcher it for them because it's a very complex idea that we went
• 40:27
  into. But let's just say that a lot of
• 40:29
  the feedback to the TLDR and very like, hey, I'm just going
• 40:32
  to bring it down to like me and a baseball player talking is
• 40:35
  like the consistency of your release point really does
• 40:37
  matter, right? And that's really interesting
• 40:40
  because I feel like a lot of times when we talk about
• 40:42
  commands and mechanics, it's like we need to be in these
• 40:45
  positions so that you can then command the ball or hey, we need
• 40:48
  to be able to repeat XY and Z and then we'll be there.
• 40:51
  And there's some validity to that.
• 40:53
  But hey, that's one piece of the puzzle.
• 40:56
  I do alternatively think that when you go really deep down the
• 41:00
  rabbit hole, and I was down this rabbit hole as we moved here to
• 41:04
  Florida, which is the constraints LED approach, which
• 41:07
  is a big piece of the puzzle here at Driveline Baseball.
• 41:09
  You know, the the idea of like putting you into drills that
• 41:12
  allow you to find either the mechanical feel or in positions
• 41:16
  you need to be in and how that could apply to the command side.
• 41:19
  So the one that I really enjoy is actually somebody in the in
• 41:22
  the basketball side is Alex Serama, who is a player
• 41:26
  development coach for the Cleveland Cavaliers and has I
• 41:29
  believe it's called thinking basketball is his podcast in his
• 41:32
  brain. And when you look into his
• 41:34
  stuff, it's very fascinating. He's talking about just
• 41:37
  rethinking at how you actually just like coaching basketball.
• 41:40
  And I got the opportunity to talk to him.
• 41:42
  We all did that driveline. He's good friend of of Kyle and
• 41:45
  and picking apart his brain on the similarities between like
• 41:49
  shooting in command. I think it's like a really
• 41:52
  interesting piece of the puzzle for me that in your ability to
• 41:55
  shoot something that I know Daryl specifically is really
• 41:58
  good at seems to be similar to the idea of commanding a
• 42:01
  baseball. And so how would you improve
• 42:03
  somebody's shooting percentage? And I think that there's a lot
• 42:06
  of interesting stuff on like differential learning that that
• 42:08
  kind of kicks into that where it's the idea of different
• 42:12
  balls, different weights, different sizes, whether that's
• 42:14
  like for shooting or even for throwing.
• 42:16
  And, and we do have products in that realm, but then it's about
• 42:19
  like creating different environments that you're able to
• 42:22
  even train command. So anecdotally, a lot of what
• 42:24
  I've done and, and what I think about with my athletes is, OK,
• 42:28
  well, how can I make command a game, an everyday game?
• 42:32
  And so if you were to walk into our Tampa facility, you would
• 42:35
  see a lot of targets on our net wall that we throw our plyos
• 42:39
  into, a lot of targets in our long toss wall that we that we
• 42:42
  throw into. We've even talked about how
• 42:44
  could we like gamify the intended zones on the day-to-day
• 42:47
  to effectively have guys on, on recovery, a hybrid be like some
• 42:51
  lower effort days, continually work on right, throwing to a
• 42:55
  target and then hopefully getting feedback off it at some
• 42:59
  point. It's it's just impossible.
• 43:00
  But throwing to targets in its own right and then changing the
• 43:03
  implement or changing the people call it athletic throwing.
• 43:07
  A changing the way that you're actually executing the throat to
• 43:09
  the target is something that I tend to do a lot with my
• 43:12
  athletes. And I think if anything, of
• 43:15
  course, it's fun. A love that, but B, it uses some
• 43:18
  of those principles that like Alex Rama's talking about to
• 43:21
  hopefully get the athlete to understand where your intended
• 43:24
  zone is and then really lock in into it.
• 43:26
  And then honestly just compete. Hey, let's compete.
• 43:29
  Let's hit this target. Let's stay within our ranges for
• 43:32
  Vilo and for effort. But like, let's compete today
• 43:34
  and actually improve on this a little bit.
• 43:37
  Adding what Daryl's feedback would be here.
• 43:39
  So for those of you who don't know, Daryl Morrow, Co founder,
• 43:42
  FLEXPRO Grip was quite the basketball player in his day.
• 43:45
  And that's probably putting it mildly.
• 43:48
  But Daryl's response here would be just extreme simplification.
• 43:53
  That's what he goes to anytime he talks to anybody about
• 43:56
  shooting. And I guess if we're going back
• 43:58
  to more the mechanical side, it is kind of funny.
• 44:01
  Back when Daryl and I were running a facility and working
• 44:04
  with pitchers, he didn't understand why people had poor
• 44:10
  command because for him as a shooter, it was just a matter of
• 44:16
  doing it, eliminating unnecessary movements and then
• 44:20
  just getting comfortable with the task.
• 44:23
  So I, I know there is a rap component to it, but it is, it
• 44:27
  is kind of funny. I've been engaging with this one
• 44:29
  high school player that we work with who has unbelievable
• 44:32
  talent. He's a sophomore in high school
• 44:34
  that's topping 92 miles an hour right now.
• 44:38
  And, and there aren't many sophomores in high school that
• 44:41
  throw 90 to 92 every time they pick up a baseball.
• 44:44
  He'll K9 guys in four innings, but he'll also walk 6.
• 44:50
  So he does. He never gives up a hit, but he
• 44:52
  doesn't really know where the ball is going.
• 44:54
  And it is kind of interesting talking to him and trying to
• 44:59
  figure out what he's struggling with.
• 45:00
  And some of it is even understanding where he's trying
• 45:03
  to throw a ball. Like I'm asking him, like, where
• 45:06
  are your targets? Where are you having your
• 45:08
  catcher set up? What's the thought process then
• 45:11
  from your side? Or how often, I guess is the
• 45:13
  better way to phrase it. How often are you encountering
• 45:17
  pitchers with no real concept of what is controllable on their
• 45:22
  side? Yeah, no, I think that that's
• 45:25
  that's a lot because I mean, you even think about the idea of
• 45:27
  Lieutenant zones and I feel like it's starting to trickle in and,
• 45:30
  and I hope that that we're one of the ones that are, are
• 45:33
  starting to institute that here at Driveline Baseball.
• 45:35
  But the idea of like even targeting or like the middle,
• 45:37
  middle strategy, which is just something like really simple, it
• 45:40
  actually, honestly, it grinds my gears.
• 45:43
  It absolutely grinds my goddamn gears when I watch somebody in
• 45:49
  like live at bats or actually throw it and I watch the catcher
• 45:52
  and he's like way off the plate and I'm like, what are we doing?
• 45:56
  What are we doing? Like you understand that like a
• 46:00
  that they should set up, they should give you a target, right?
• 46:02
  And that's the target that you're going after.
• 46:04
  And then on top of it, if somebody doesn't have good
• 46:07
  command that like we just got to sit middle, middle.
• 46:10
  That was like the Tampa Bay Rays strategy for for a long time and
• 46:13
  still is in some regard, where if there's minus command
• 46:15
  involved here, we don't have to get too cute with the the
• 46:18
  ability to to move the catcher around or you like get on the
• 46:21
  corners of the plate. But then you watch your your
• 46:23
  everyday game and like they're giving signs and then they're
• 46:25
  setting up on on the black and you're like, man, this guy can't
• 46:28
  hit the middle of the plate, let alone the black.
• 46:30
  Like, what are we doing? Like, why, why are we doing
• 46:32
  that? And then even to take it like to
• 46:34
  another level, right. And this is something that I
• 46:37
  actually have. I had an athlete recently kind
• 46:39
  of struggling with command and we were going back and forth
• 46:42
  while he's in season in college. And I, I knew it was a piece of
• 46:46
  the puzzle that we needed to work on.
• 46:47
  And so I have like a lot of back end data.
• 46:49
  And here you go. You know, the beauty of like AI
• 46:52
  is I was able to take all of the CSVS from his pen and create his
• 46:56
  miss map. And So what I asked him was
• 46:58
  like, Hey, where, where are we aiming?
• 47:00
  Like where's the location that we're going after?
• 47:02
  And then I said, what's your general miss?
• 47:04
  And he had a good idea of like what the miss was, but I was
• 47:06
  like, OK, have you ever played the miss?
• 47:09
  I'm sorry, what are you, what are you talking about?
• 47:11
  I was like, have you ever played the miss?
• 47:13
  Right. Because part of this is like,
• 47:14
  you're at your ability to shrink the miss distance and hopefully
• 47:17
  be able to hit your target. But another part of it is just
• 47:20
  like the idea of like, OK, I generally know where this is
• 47:23
  going to miss. So I'm going to change my sights
• 47:26
  so that I'm going to hit more of the meat of the plate.
• 47:29
  And he was just like, no, I've never thought about this.
• 47:31
  I mean, I understand, but I probably would have never as
• 47:34
  well. But like, why don't we just
• 47:35
  focus on like the targets? And so for him specifically, it
• 47:38
  was not just it was in arm side, but it was a vertical miss, so
• 47:41
  missing up from his intended zone.
• 47:43
  And so I said, if anything, like you just got to be shooting
• 47:46
  knees, right? Because like that's all we need.
• 47:49
  We need that miss to play into the meat of the plate.
• 47:51
  And at that point, don't give credit to the hitters, right?
• 47:53
  Even if you actually do throw it middle, middle, if they're good,
• 47:56
  they're only going to get it like 3 out of 10 times or
• 47:58
  something like that. So just play your miss and play
• 48:00
  your game. And so I think even like that
• 48:02
  feedback, maybe it didn't end up like fixing the issue by
• 48:06
  instruction match or fixing like overall like making him the
• 48:10
  ability to command better. But even that game that you're
• 48:13
  playing internally of knowing what your misses and having like
• 48:16
  a lot of longitudinal data on what's going on is a fascinating
• 48:20
  game that I don't think many people are playing yet.
• 48:24
  And I hope that player development community starts to
• 48:26
  move in that that direction. I'm relatively convinced that
• 48:29
  we're talking about the same player because that that's
• 48:32
  basically the same exact scenario that I've been working
• 48:35
  through with this guy, just significantly less data on our
• 48:38
  side, just more verbal feedback. But what you brought up there in
• 48:43
  saying that it doesn't necessarily fix command.
• 48:48
  It just allows the athlete to take advantage of what his
• 48:52
  current situation is. I, I would even push back on
• 48:56
  that and say it might not fix control, but it likely improves
• 49:01
  commander. However you want to use those
• 49:02
  words that some people use them interchangeably.
• 49:05
  I tend to think they're different in the sense that
• 49:08
  command, I generally say is your ability to, I guess, know what
• 49:12
  your stuff is going to do versus control might be your ability to
• 49:16
  pinpoint or throw it exactly where the catcher is set up,
• 49:19
  giving the athlete the tools to understand what their miss is
• 49:23
  going to be. It gives them a better ability
• 49:26
  to handle an AT bat or handle an outing because they know how to
• 49:31
  set up or have a catcher set up to improve strike percentage and
• 49:35
  eventually get a better result or they know what the chase is
• 49:38
  going to be. They know why.
• 49:41
  Why am I going to have the catcher set up for my slider to
• 49:44
  always be a strike if I know I don't want my slider to get hit
• 49:48
  anyways, so maybe we can move them over so we know that my
• 49:52
  natural miss is pulled across the plate.
• 49:54
  Whatever I I want that to be a chase pitch anyway, so we'll
• 49:57
  let's just lean into that. I I do think this is probably
• 50:02
  moving the goal posts on the discussion a little bit, but
• 50:05
  even from what I'm seeing, I think strike percentage might be
• 50:11
  an over sensationalized concept when it comes to the idea of
• 50:15
  command and I'd love to hear your feedback on that.
• 50:19
  Yeah. I mean, absolutely.
• 50:20
  I think on one end we were talking about this at a higher
• 50:24
  level. We, we have like a world where
• 50:26
  we're doing advance reports for major leaguers.
• 50:28
  And so we're talking about what are some KPIs that we want to
• 50:31
  see so that like we can keep up on it.
• 50:33
  And so like count leverage is a thing.
• 50:35
  So winning your 11 counts, your two out of threes, your first
• 50:38
  pitch strikes, like your high school coach was probably
• 50:42
  talking about that. Mine was too.
• 50:44
  And like that's fine, right? That that is a piece of the
• 50:46
  puzzle count leverage. And the difference between an O
• 50:48
  one and a one O count is insanity.
• 50:51
  But yes, I do think that like people actually forget that,
• 50:54
  like you can get a strike on a pitch that's not in the box that
• 50:58
  that is a possibility. We want to be able to shave all
• 51:00
  of that down, right? Take take all of like a foul
• 51:03
  ball. You take all of that, shave it
• 51:05
  off. And I just want to see your
• 51:07
  ability to hit the target. And that's something that
• 51:09
  intended the zones does does allow you to do it.
• 51:12
  So I like that piece. And I think even what you said
• 51:14
  there was was really good about like there, there's two pieces
• 51:17
  of the puzzle here for us. There's your ability to to get a
• 51:21
  good miss distance, your ability to actually hit your target, But
• 51:23
  there's also the ability to like play your miss or make sure that
• 51:27
  the pitch is in the correct area, that you're not going to
• 51:29
  get absolutely creamed. And so those are the two
• 51:32
  different pieces of command that we've really been focusing on
• 51:35
  recently where in some regard, playing your miss is the latter
• 51:39
  of those two. Playing your miss and making
• 51:41
  sure that you're not going to get killed is like part of of
• 51:44
  the strategy of general command. I think that like the idea of
• 51:47
  missed this since it's just like nobody talks about it.
• 51:50
  Nobody talks about. I remember being at ABCA.
• 51:52
  I've been at ABCA. We're going to drive on booth
• 51:54
  for like past two or three times.
• 51:55
  And I think two years ago we were starting to like do this
• 51:58
  projector idea of like projecting strike zone up on a
• 52:01
  mat. And I'm like, what do you got in
• 52:03
  commands? And everyone just, like, I don't
• 52:06
  know, strike percentage, like, is walk great?
• 52:09
  And it's just like, yeah, but like, what?
• 52:11
  You need actually, like, games to get that data as well, right?
• 52:14
  Like, you need to go out and play games to see what their
• 52:17
  walk rate is. What if there's a world where
• 52:19
  you can just show up? Tomorrow?
• 52:22
  I drive on Tampa. You can see my beautiful face.
• 52:24
  Hopefully I have enough coffee and I'm caffeinated and you
• 52:27
  could throw a pen. And at that fifty pitch sample
• 52:29
  size, I can actually tell you like, yeah, your missed distance
• 52:32
  isn't as as good as as some others.
• 52:33
  Like it's AA12 and the average Major League missed distance on
• 52:37
  a fastball is is 12. It's pretty good.
• 52:39
  Or it's above that. Hey, this is really like a rate
• 52:41
  limiter for you. So, yeah, I I think that like
• 52:44
  people give strike percentage a little bit too much.
• 52:46
  Credit. So going back to what ultimately
• 52:49
  LED us down this command rabbit hole, we were talking about
• 52:55
  things you've either learned. So now going back to the hedge
• 52:58
  code discussion of lead leg blocking, rabbit holes you've
• 53:02
  gone down in research, different things like that.
• 53:06
  What are some other theories that you've been able to test
• 53:09
  out or even that you want to test out going forward, if
• 53:13
  you're willing to share them? Yeah, Yeah, I mean, I can.
• 53:17
  How about I take it a different route?
• 53:18
  I'll tell you what I've been thinking about.
• 53:20
  What are my deep, deepest, darkest thoughts about about
• 53:22
  like the game right now. So one of them comes in in a
• 53:26
  pitch design sense, right, Which is I wrote a thread a while ago
• 53:30
  about like understanding how command plays into pitch design
• 53:34
  and not having that feedback. And we talked a little bit about
• 53:36
  this, like there are general pitch types and they have
• 53:39
  general ways that they play at the Major League level just
• 53:43
  because we have data on that. And so I think that the world
• 53:47
  has gotten really into stuff. I already said that, but there
• 53:50
  is actually, and I got to write a thread on this, I really do.
• 53:53
  But there is a art to the called strike, right?
• 53:56
  And think about that. You might be like what, you
• 53:58
  know, a called strike. What do you mean by that?
• 54:00
  And there are certain pitches, right, that have certain action
• 54:04
  on them that get you called strikes.
• 54:05
  And that's an important piece of the puzzle.
• 54:07
  And the stuff model really like kicks up all this idea is stuff
• 54:11
  models are generally, and I'm just going to paint with a very
• 54:13
  broad brush. I'm not telling you that ours
• 54:15
  does this or yours or whatever. Stuff models are generally like
• 54:18
  chasing, swinging this. And they've gotten really,
• 54:21
  really hot and people will chase the stuff.
• 54:23
  But then there's the issue of like, well, you got to be an O2
• 54:27
  count. O2 counts will give you a great
• 54:29
  ability to get a swing and miss. But like, what about no O count?
• 54:33
  What about a one O count? What about batters with
• 54:35
  different aggressive tendencies? And so you see this a lot on
• 54:38
  like the scouting side where it's like our scouting reports,
• 54:40
  which we've done like a really good job.
• 54:42
  Credit to our team, our BB OPS team, they'll literally tell you
• 54:46
  like, hey, this hitter has first pitch aggressiveness and is very
• 54:49
  aggressive. And so that should give you an
• 54:51
  idea of like, well, I, I just can't prove a fastball.
• 54:54
  He's going to go after it. But alternatively, the one thing
• 54:57
  I thought about is you're in A2 strike count and you're trying
• 55:01
  to be filthy and, and chase right and swing a miss when the
• 55:06
  athlete and the hitter is like low 2K chase right?
• 55:10
  And so there's an art and the freeze and the college strike is
• 55:13
  what we call it. And so some of the guys who do
• 55:15
  it really well that I I'll sit there and mindlessly start
• 55:18
  staring at my wife will be like, are you listening to me?
• 55:20
  No, I'm watching Charlie Morton throw backdoor sweepers and
• 55:23
  getting freeze haze. That's that's so beautiful.
• 55:27
  Or throwing glove side for rights like Aaron Null does this
• 55:29
  all the time, glove side sinkers and running it off the hip of a
• 55:32
  lefty or even glove side to a righty and getting the art of
• 55:35
  the culture. Those are extremely valuable
• 55:37
  pieces of your arsenal that might not be seen in a stuff
• 55:42
  model, right? You might not get credited for
• 55:43
  that when alternatively there are very important pieces of the
• 55:46
  puzzle that especially if you're a starting pitcher, you need to
• 55:49
  have so that when you figure out, hey, yeah, it's 2K, you
• 55:53
  know, chase tendency is like really, really low.
• 55:55
  Then that's a freeze, right? We're chasing freezes unless
• 55:58
  they're right. Like I want to be able to plant
• 55:59
  one ball to strike glove side on the sinker and freeze him for
• 56:03
  for a strikeout. So I'd say that that is
• 56:05
  something that I've been thinking about a lot when it
• 56:07
  comes to scouting and how scouting kind of revolves around
• 56:10
  like the hitter's aggressive in this tendency.
• 56:12
  And that usually tells you a lot about like their ability and
• 56:15
  what you should or should not be thinking about throwing.
• 56:19
  So I've thought about a lot about that.
• 56:20
  And then, hey, I'll give you your plug.
• 56:22
  I know I write a big thread on like spin right, right.
• 56:26
  In baseball. And so something that I've
• 56:28
  continually thought about, there was an era in baseball and that
• 56:31
  ended in 2021 when they banned this, the sticky stuff where
• 56:35
  people would just effectively add pine tar or sticky or, you
• 56:38
  know, spider tech or whatever and be able to like see
• 56:41
  different levels of their pitch like this.
• 56:43
  Or you can just like throw a 21 VB heater just by your ability
• 56:46
  to like have sticky stuff on your hands.
• 56:48
  And I think that people are probably still using it.
• 56:51
  I can't tell you yes or no. I'm not in the majors, right?
• 56:53
  But what I will tell you is, and, and this was like the hook
• 56:56
  of that tweet thread was what happens if there was a, a way to
• 57:00
  cheat, but it's not cheating. You can actually improve your
• 57:04
  spin rate, but it's not cheating.
• 57:06
  And so that's just something that I've been really interested
• 57:09
  in. I've talked to you guys about,
• 57:10
  is there ability for us to increase spin rate with
• 57:12
  something like improving the flexors?
• 57:14
  So that would probably be the second one and then the last
• 57:16
  one, right? I'll give you 3 world comes in
• 57:18
  threes, right is I would take workload management to like the
• 57:21
  next level. I know that a lot of people have
• 57:23
  heard about our pulse from the beautiful world of, of workload
• 57:26
  management, making your highs high and your lows low in
• 57:29
  intensity. But a lot of times, especially
• 57:31
  having the opportunity to be on the floor, it's like you
• 57:35
  shouldn't need to have an 80 grade understanding of pulse to
• 57:38
  get benefit out of this. And at times, unfortunately,
• 57:41
  like I feel like that's how it's been.
• 57:43
  Now, what I will tell you is that we've spent a lot of time
• 57:45
  and effort on making it more granular and making it better
• 57:48
  for the athlete. But I think that there's even
• 57:50
  more room to go right? And so the way I think about
• 57:52
  that is if you're coming to drive on and, and you're
• 57:55
  throwing it, it's a recovery day.
• 57:57
  We have a really good system that turns around and tells you
• 58:00
  the next day that you were going too hard, your your arms fee was
• 58:03
  going too fast, your workload was too high.
• 58:05
  These KPIs were out of what we want.
• 58:08
  And so we're your projected RPE for what you did is X when Y was
• 58:13
  supposed to be it. But furthermore, you see teams
• 58:16
  like the Yankees, the Mets, and some really good pitching minds
• 58:19
  running out there and just like stopping a radar gun out and
• 58:22
  just being like, hey, there's a radar gun in catch play.
• 58:25
  And the athlete knows that these are your Velo targets that you
• 58:30
  have to stay within. So how can I create?
• 58:32
  I actually did this. I have a funny video of it, of
• 58:35
  being able to create something that allows me to pipe the radar
• 58:39
  gun into my computer. And then if somebody goes
• 58:41
  outside of their Velo range, siren goes off and she's like,
• 58:44
  hey, you gotta slow down. You gotta slow down, son.
• 58:47
  And so that actually makes it super actionable for the
• 58:50
  athletes to turn around and understand, OK, well, there's
• 58:53
  these ranges. If I go outside of them, there
• 58:55
  will be a set of accountability in there.
• 58:57
  And then I'm thinking about a world of like, can I institute
• 58:59
  pulse with that? How do we do that?
• 59:01
  Where it actually just makes workload management a lot more
• 59:05
  tangible day-to-day for the athlete, where at times I feel
• 59:08
  like if you don't have a good enough understanding of pulse,
• 59:11
  you can lose sight of that. So yeah, I gave you a lot there.
• 59:15
  But those, those are the three things that have been kind of
• 59:17
  bouncing in my mind when I'm trying to fall asleep and like,
• 59:19
  well, maybe I should talk to Claude for a little while and
• 59:22
  see if we can suss this idea out a little bit more.
• 59:25
  I'll do my best to respond to all three of them, and hopefully
• 59:27
  I can do it succinctly enough to keep us moving.
• 59:29
  One my favorite version of the freeze pitch is a poop loop
• 59:34
  curveball. I think those are completely
• 59:37
  underutilized and undervalued in most models.
• 59:40
  The ability to just drop something in there, especially
• 59:43
  early in counts, is incredibly valuable and likely the most
• 59:46
  iconic one ever. I don't remember the pitcher, so
• 59:50
  I feel terrible about that, but the Texas Rangers won the World
• 59:54
  Series on a high curveball take in the zone and everybody would
• 1:00:00
  say that's a terrible pitch. The see it high, let it fly or.
• 1:00:05
  You hang it, we bang it. High curve balls don't get swung
• 1:00:08
  at, they just don't. It's a great pitch I think, and
• 1:00:10
  completely undervalued. So I'm all in on finding the
• 1:00:15
  value of the freeze or understanding where that fits.
• 1:00:18
  And it's a valuable piece to Arsenal design.
• 1:00:21
  It isn't all about stuff, it's how individual pitches can make
• 1:00:25
  your Arsenal as a whole better, and it doesn't have to be this
• 1:00:31
  outlier splinker or whatever fancy pish gets thrown around
• 1:00:37
  these days. Second, thanks for the flowers
• 1:00:39
  on flex pro grip. Yes, we think, and there's
• 1:00:42
  evidence to show that improving the rate of force development of
• 1:00:45
  your finger flexors can result in greater spin and ultimately
• 1:00:49
  greater spin can result in greater movement.
• 1:00:52
  So we we love that we're going to continue to work on it and
• 1:00:54
  we're really excited to have the research arm now and you guys
• 1:00:58
  being able to do that with some of the best athletes in the
• 1:01:00
  world. Then rounding out to #3 in
• 1:01:04
  talking about workload. So I'll respond to this one with
• 1:01:08
  a little bit of a hot take myself.
• 1:01:09
  I don't even know if the take is that hot, but where it is in how
• 1:01:14
  workload gets discussed. I think medium days are stupid
• 1:01:19
  for the most part. And I know I'm saying this on a
• 1:01:22
  podcast that people can take however they want to take.
• 1:01:25
  It's not just a private conversation.
• 1:01:27
  I think I just got animated with how excited we've been
• 1:01:30
  throughout this conversation. And when I say I think medium
• 1:01:33
  days are stupid, taking the headline of that and bringing it
• 1:01:36
  back down to earth, I think people and pitchers, throwers,
• 1:01:41
  whatever, in general spend too much time in a range that is
• 1:01:46
  fatiguing but offers no benefit from a tissue tolerance
• 1:01:51
  perspective. So we look at this from the
• 1:01:53
  strength and conditioning side of things.
• 1:01:55
  We get tissue adaptations from a stiffness perspective or a
• 1:02:00
  Young's modulus perspective when we train at or above 70% of our
• 1:02:05
  maximum voluntary contraction. When we are below about 30% of
• 1:02:10
  maximum voluntary contraction, we can improve tissue quality.
• 1:02:14
  Now throwing isn't lifting. It is a plyometric action.
• 1:02:19
  It's not like we're we're going through long bouts of exposure
• 1:02:23
  to a stress. It's very rapid.
• 1:02:27
  That being said, if we're getting above that 30% level,
• 1:02:33
  whatever maximum voluntary contraction would be when we
• 1:02:36
  relate it to the baseball throw, I believe all we're doing is
• 1:02:41
  fatiguing. But we're also not at a high
• 1:02:44
  enough level where we are getting our system, our
• 1:02:48
  musculature, our connective tissue comfortable with throwing
• 1:02:52
  hard or really doing the task that actually matters.
• 1:02:57
  And I would argue that 70% isn't high enough.
• 1:03:00
  I'm just using what we know from the strength and conditioning
• 1:03:02
  world. I would probably argue that
• 1:03:04
  number in the throwing world, or if you think about it with
• 1:03:07
  sprinting, which is probably more similar to throwing than
• 1:03:10
  actual lifting, is you need to eclipse likely 90% to have any
• 1:03:15
  positive impact on what you're doing.
• 1:03:18
  From an output perspective. I don't think your cardio
• 1:03:21
  matters for your ability to throw A I'm happy to argue that
• 1:03:26
  with anyone. So I I just think too much time
• 1:03:28
  is spent in this weird range of what is normally called mid tier
• 1:03:32
  throwing. You have way more experience
• 1:03:35
  with this than I do. I just see it from from the grip
• 1:03:39
  side of things and looking and reading throwing programs where
• 1:03:43
  I'm just left scratching my head where I think guys are just
• 1:03:46
  walking away fatigued with no actual benefit for what they
• 1:03:49
  actually need to do on the weekend.
• 1:03:52
  No, I think the, you have a really good point.
• 1:03:55
  I do, I have thought a lot about this high, low, just like what
• 1:03:58
  happens if all your throwing days were just high or just low
• 1:04:02
  and there are times in a throwing program or throwing
• 1:04:05
  your yearly training plan that, that, that is definitely
• 1:04:07
  possible. But the, the thing that really
• 1:04:09
  popped into my mind when you're talking was I talked a lot about
• 1:04:12
  us kind of doing this idea of smart reports and making pulse
• 1:04:15
  like digestible for the athlete, which is what we're trying to
• 1:04:18
  do. Then being able to take all of
• 1:04:20
  the data for the first couple of months, looking at it and
• 1:04:23
  analyzing it. And I remember putting it
• 1:04:25
  through an AI agent and just being like, just give me some
• 1:04:27
  general trends and like what's going on here, blah, blah, blah.
• 1:04:30
  And it's just like everyone blows out their recovery and
• 1:04:33
  their bee, which we kind of knew because we would always
• 1:04:36
  sarcastically call a hybrid be a hybrid blow it out day, which is
• 1:04:40
  not that do not go home and think that hybrid be the hybrid,
• 1:04:43
  blow it out. It's not, it's not, it's a bee,
• 1:04:46
  OK. But like some of our lower
• 1:04:48
  intent days that we actually like give an athlete, they tend
• 1:04:51
  to blow out. And so if that's the case, and
• 1:04:54
  then like, how do you create guardrails to actually get
• 1:04:57
  athletes to buy it and do it? And so that's kind of even the
• 1:05:00
  idea of like the radar board that I was talking about there
• 1:05:02
  that that shoots off a siren, which is just like, am I able to
• 1:05:05
  do this? Am I able to get guys to be a
• 1:05:07
  little bit more compliant on the throwing?
• 1:05:09
  Because we do generally, I think that we need to do a little bit
• 1:05:12
  more study. But the idea is true that like,
• 1:05:15
  if we're actually able to make a recovery day, recovery day, we
• 1:05:18
  should be ready for like the high intense stressor days that
• 1:05:21
  are coming down the line and be better prepared for those.
• 1:05:24
  There's a lot of people that like, know workload management,
• 1:05:27
  know it's a good idea, those sort of things, but they really
• 1:05:30
  haven't like opened up its chest and like looked at all the parts
• 1:05:33
  and, and then see what's going on and, and how you're doing
• 1:05:36
  that. And I'm very blessed to have the
• 1:05:38
  opportunity to talk to like a lot of smart people in here that
• 1:05:40
  that know a lot more than I. And, you know, we're chasing,
• 1:05:43
  chasing that down and, and it's very exciting.
• 1:05:46
  I agree fully. There's so much that I think is
• 1:05:49
  accepted now, which is awesome, but there's so many things that
• 1:05:53
  I think we aren't asking enough questions about, like where are
• 1:05:56
  we arriving at these workload values?
• 1:05:59
  Who's to say what the load of a 50% throw is?
• 1:06:04
  Where is that coming from? And some of this is a tease
• 1:06:07
  because it's stuff that we're working on and hopefully coming
• 1:06:10
  out with very soon that I, I hope open some very unique
• 1:06:14
  discussions and connections and things like that.
• 1:06:17
  But shifting back to you, I want to round out with one more topic
• 1:06:21
  here because I know we've covered a lot, but you have
• 1:06:24
  mentioned AI integrations a few times to the things that you do
• 1:06:28
  or different technologies. Don't know if you were prepared
• 1:06:31
  for this coming in. I certainly wasn't.
• 1:06:33
  So you just spurred this within me and now I'm excited to talk
• 1:06:36
  about it. You are a part of big data in
• 1:06:39
  baseball with dry wine baseball. There's no question about that.
• 1:06:43
  I know Kyle talks about it all the time.
• 1:06:45
  If anybody follows him on Twitter or Instagram or anywhere
• 1:06:49
  else, I, I'd love to love to get your perspective on how AI can
• 1:06:53
  be implemented beyond just what you're doing, maybe, maybe how
• 1:06:57
  it can be actionable for other coaches.
• 1:07:00
  Is it easier? Is this difficult?
• 1:07:02
  Is, is there something that somebody like me can easily
• 1:07:05
  implement if I'm coaching a team, or is this still at the
• 1:07:08
  level where it's really advanced and you're with the smartest
• 1:07:11
  people in the industry so you're able to do it?
• 1:07:14
  Yeah, no, so I'm definitely a very, very small part of the the
• 1:07:18
  overall dragline like AI revolution.
• 1:07:21
  But I think that the thing, and this is where I'll start with
• 1:07:23
  it. It's like when you see how much
• 1:07:25
  it can do and you see the very smart people in our door that
• 1:07:29
  are able to create some really impressive things with it, it
• 1:07:32
  it's just like deniable that it can help.
• 1:07:34
  So for example, like we talked a little bit about like that radar
• 1:07:37
  forward that put together that was done through AI, right?
• 1:07:40
  Like I don't, I generally know what's going on with Python, but
• 1:07:42
  I'm continuing to improve. But that is through, hey, here's
• 1:07:46
  my idea. Is this possible?
• 1:07:48
  Oh, it is OK, let's write out some code and see what we can
• 1:07:51
  do. And just like come up with AV
• 1:07:53
  one and then I can create a project and continually
• 1:07:55
  reiterate on it. So all of that to say, that is
• 1:07:58
  really not that hard to use. And it's, it's kind of beautiful
• 1:08:01
  in some regard that I can just sit there late at night and talk
• 1:08:05
  to an AI agent about what's going on, my thoughts about like
• 1:08:08
  a specific project. I've been known to do that.
• 1:08:10
  And alternatively, you can create some different projects
• 1:08:13
  that with specific knowledge that really like kicks up some
• 1:08:16
  good ones. So I like, I know that I had
• 1:08:18
  talked a little bit to you about like some people are able to see
• 1:08:21
  it, some are not. But like the amount of AI that's
• 1:08:23
  involved in like writing and Twitter threads and such.
• 1:08:26
  And so there's some, there's some AI slop out there and, and
• 1:08:29
  it happens. But I think a lot of times when
• 1:08:32
  you know, like AI came out of it was like, well, kids in school
• 1:08:34
  are just gonna cheat and they're gonna write their papers with AI
• 1:08:36
  and like, sure, this probably really happening.
• 1:08:38
  But alternatively, like you can use it to your own benefit as an
• 1:08:41
  aid, right? To help you come up with ideas
• 1:08:43
  better succinctly put your thoughts together.
• 1:08:46
  You know, I know at times like I'll do that where I'll be very
• 1:08:48
  passionate or very angry about a topic and I'll be like, here are
• 1:08:51
  my thoughts. Like, let's actually like put
• 1:08:53
  them together in a coherent way. And so a lot of times people who
• 1:08:57
  like, hey, I was going to take over jobs and take over the
• 1:08:59
  world. Hell, who am I to say that it
• 1:09:01
  won't? The really cool thing that AI
• 1:09:04
  allows me to do at my job is allows to see some really crazy
• 1:09:07
  ideas that I have to the finish line.
• 1:09:10
  And that's a really cool piece of puzzle that I wasn't able to
• 1:09:13
  do when I, when I started at Driveline.
• 1:09:15
  But I wouldn't have been able to like even create something like
• 1:09:18
  funny, like a siren on a radar gun in previous years before AI
• 1:09:22
  really came out. And now I can just kind of chat
• 1:09:24
  with it, talk with it, think it out, educate myself on it, those
• 1:09:29
  sorts of things. The opportunities are endless.
• 1:09:32
  And it's kind of funny because now in my notebook, I have my To
• 1:09:34
  Do List. I'm looking at it over here to
• 1:09:36
  the side that I have my To Do List and I have a project list
• 1:09:39
  and I have my content list. And so then on the project list,
• 1:09:42
  it's all about like using AI to help me move forward an idea or
• 1:09:47
  build them something better. The cool thing here at Driveline
• 1:09:50
  is I can at least get that started.
• 1:09:51
  And then as it gets some wheels, I can really get some, some good
• 1:09:54
  help from the research and development team to put it over
• 1:09:56
  it over the edge. But it's just insane the, the,
• 1:10:00
  the amount, amount of things that you do.
• 1:10:01
  Sure, it takes being a little bit creative, but alternatively,
• 1:10:04
  like AI can really like allow you to find the next level of
• 1:10:07
  that idea and do things that you didn't even know you're able to
• 1:10:10
  like code up an app or come up with like a really engaging
• 1:10:13
  thread about a topic, those sorts of things.
• 1:10:16
  So all that wrapped up with the idea of just like, it's an aid.
• 1:10:20
  It's not going to do the job for you, but it's an aid to get you
• 1:10:24
  and improve that idea just a little bit to, you know,
• 1:10:27
  hopefully get in front of more eyes or actually see an idea
• 1:10:31
  that you have in your head come to fruition.
• 1:10:33
  So yeah, I think people sleep on it.
• 1:10:35
  Especially as a sounding board, The least technologically savvy
• 1:10:40
  coach that exists or trainer could still use AI as a sounding
• 1:10:46
  board for their ideas. And it doesn't just have to be
• 1:10:48
  with coaching, it could be with fundraising, it could be with
• 1:10:50
  anything. Getting a little off topic, AI
• 1:10:54
  probably gets the most use for me right now from putting the
• 1:10:58
  ingredients that I have in my fridge into ChatGPT and asking
• 1:11:04
  it what should I cook? And it's great.
• 1:11:07
  It's awesome. It makes dinner significantly
• 1:11:09
  easier three nights a week. There's no question about that.
• 1:11:12
  But yeah, I just, I find the whole AI concept very
• 1:11:16
  interesting. I like to think of myself as
• 1:11:19
  relatively creative and I have not once thought AI takes the
• 1:11:24
  place of my creativity. I think it assists it in the
• 1:11:27
  ability to move forward. And that sounds very similar
• 1:11:30
  with you like creating Nair horn.
• 1:11:31
  How awesome would that be? I I'm sure it's loved by every
• 1:11:35
  athlete. It's not like your computer did
• 1:11:37
  that on its own. You needed to actually do the
• 1:11:39
  work and AI just helped you get there.
• 1:11:41
  So now, rounding things out once and for all, tell the audience
• 1:11:46
  something that we don't know about you, that you love, you're
• 1:11:51
  interested in anything like that.
• 1:11:53
  We know you're a coffee addict, so you can't use that one.
• 1:11:56
  And I'm going to steal another because you told me offline just
• 1:11:59
  to force you to be a little more creative here that you are a
• 1:12:02
  history major in undergrad. Screw you.
• 1:12:07
  I took both of those. Yeah, that's tough.
• 1:12:10
  How? Funny.
• 1:12:10
  Is it the toughest? The toughest question is the one
• 1:12:13
  that I actually ask you to talk about yourself.
• 1:12:16
  Yeah, yeah, it really is. Because here's here's the the
• 1:12:20
  little piece. Like I would always say, like,
• 1:12:22
  you know, when I was in school, like the fun fact about me was I
• 1:12:26
  was a baseball nerd. Can't do that.
• 1:12:27
  This is the baseball nerd, OK, you know, but so already in the
• 1:12:30
  niche, unfortunately, you kind of take my fastball away there.
• 1:12:34
  And so I'd say the one thing is I am a big basketball fan, like
• 1:12:39
  I really enjoy basketball. And I and then we were talking
• 1:12:41
  about the similarities of shooting and command.
• 1:12:44
  And I think that there there is a lot there.
• 1:12:46
  I've always thought of maybe like coaching like a kids team
• 1:12:49
  on the side that would be fun and using some of those advanced
• 1:12:51
  principles that I've been I've kind of been thinking about.
• 1:12:54
  And then the last one is, is I think that I've really grown an
• 1:12:57
  itch for in the past couple of days, honestly, the idea of
• 1:13:01
  Raspberry Pi, right? The, the small computers and,
• 1:13:03
  and how they can actually aid us in moving forward.
• 1:13:05
  So I always watch a couple YouTube videos before I go to
• 1:13:08
  sleep. That's my night time routine
• 1:13:09
  that they they very much come back down to talking about
• 1:13:12
  things like AI related, like the Yolo, the CV computer vision,
• 1:13:17
  Raspberry Pi, how I can connect all of those together.
• 1:13:20
  And again, that that's kind of just a testament to just being
• 1:13:23
  in a room that like makes you think critically about ideas.
• 1:13:26
  And then all that matters is that like it comes out and that
• 1:13:30
  you do it. That infectious energy kind of
• 1:13:32
  hits you where you're just like, I didn't know how to code.
• 1:13:35
  Now I can with AII can even do it a little bit better.
• 1:13:38
  And so, yeah, I'd say that like I'm a nerd about other things as
• 1:13:43
  well. And and thanks to guys like Kyle
• 1:13:45
  Bodie, unfortunately, I'm nerdy about things that they they keep
• 1:13:48
  talking about as well, like AI and text.
• 1:13:51
  So unfortunately, I don't know if those are super fun.
• 1:13:53
  But yeah, big Sixers fan, love basketball.
• 1:13:56
  It's been a bad year for the Sixers.
• 1:13:57
  So I want to talk about it. Hopefully we get the first pick
• 1:14:00
  and then like actually kind of a closet nerd about things that
• 1:14:03
  honestly, if you would have talked to me in college, I would
• 1:14:05
  have been like, there's no shot that Matt Crush, you know, how
• 1:14:07
  many ever years from now is interested in this that, you
• 1:14:09
  know, I've turned that that stone.
• 1:14:11
  So those are probably the two things I can think of.
• 1:14:13
  Another one you could have dropped because there is video
• 1:14:15
  evidence of it. You throwing a grey plyo 95 plus
• 1:14:19
  which is. Oh yeah yeah yeah if you want
• 1:14:21
  your I talked about below being your your below stuff you want
• 1:14:24
  you want the the quick and easy way to throw hard right You take
• 1:14:28
  my example here. That was the first time I threw
• 1:14:31
  in like 2 years. Yeah, two years.
• 1:14:33
  Just picked up a great pile and just so there it was.
• 1:14:36
  Now I was a little bit heavier, you know, that I was in college
• 1:14:39
  and all that kind of stuff. I, I feel like I moved somewhat
• 1:14:42
  efficiently. Yeah, I, I had not thrown that
• 1:14:45
  before that. We were actually doing something
• 1:14:46
  for Pulse where we were talking about don't blow out your
• 1:14:49
  recovery days. And then I was just kind of
• 1:14:51
  screwing around. I was like, I could throw this
• 1:14:53
  and then just like popped a pretty good Gray ball there.
• 1:14:55
  So that's a good video out there on the interwebs.
• 1:14:59
  Not recommended. We should say to just pick up a
• 1:15:02
  ball for the first time in two years and throw it as hard as
• 1:15:04
  you can. You just did it in the name of
• 1:15:08
  science, and that's what. Made it just for vibes.
• 1:15:11
  Good vibes, a good laugh. Don't do that at home.
• 1:15:14
  Right. Perfect.
• 1:15:15
  Well, Matt, thank you so much for your time today.
• 1:15:18
  This was awesome. We covered a ton of topics and
• 1:15:21
  now I'm going to be scratching my head of different ways I can
• 1:15:24
  implement some of the things we discussed and probably trying to
• 1:15:27
  do some additional research. Hopefully the audience feels
• 1:15:30
  similarly again. It was a pleasure.
• 1:15:33
  And to everyone out there, thanks for laying back with us.