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In-Season Throwing Masterclass · The Mound Visit

• 0:00
  All right, everyone, we got a great episode for you today. We're
• 0:03
  gonna talk about in season throwing. We're gonna break down a six and seven
• 0:06
  day throwing schedule as well as a reliever schedule. With that, Josh is
• 0:10
  gonna talk about what he does in between starts to prepare for each outing.
• 0:15
  We're also gonna touch on weightlifting briefly and what that can look like in between
• 0:18
  starts. So, without further ado, let's jump into the episode. So
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  I'm in season, I'm sixteen, and I'm throwing seventy eight miles an hour.
• 0:37
  I don't have time to be thinking about, Oh, I don't want
• 0:40
  to be sole for my next game. I need to be pushing myself.
• 0:44
  I need to be pushing my buddy. I need to be lifting as heavy
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  as I can and still getting into that throwing program. I see so many
• 0:51
  kids these days be like, Hey, I don't want to be sold for
• 0:54
  my game because I'm starting on the weekend. But you really have to assess
• 0:58
  your situation and be like, I really where you need to be? Are
• 1:02
  you where you want to be? And if not, then maybe it's time
• 1:04
  to consider to push yourself. Even if it's in season and it might drop
• 1:10
  your performance in the short term. How did you get to that conclusion,
• 1:17
  Like what brought you to that point do where you realize that's what you needed
• 1:19
  to do. So it's really just looking at my competition and not comparing myself
• 1:30
  with the people around me, because chances are if you're not playing in like
• 1:34
  college or professional baseball, the guys around you aren't that great. They're not
• 1:40
  going to be throwing that hard because not everyone goes to a powerhouse university or
• 1:45
  gets drafted or anything, right, so I compare myself more to the guys
• 1:51
  who were getting recruited to those powerhouses and who were those draft prospects. And
• 1:57
  I actually looked at the perfect games a lot because that those guys are studs.
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  They're throwing, you know, ninety three ninety four miles an hour,
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  and so I compare myself to them, and I was like, all right,
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  I need to be there, and right now I'm not there. So
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  I really need to be pushing my body, even if it's in season,
• 2:20
  and play the long game here to get to where I want to be.
• 2:23
  So, being in Australia, what did the season look like because you took
• 2:28
  a little bit of time off from games right just to train or what was
• 2:30
  that schedule like for you? Yeah, so in Australia we have two seasons.
• 2:38
  It's summer baseball and winter baseball, and so the summer is really like
• 2:44
  the main season that happens. But when I was sixteen and I was throwing
• 2:51
  you know, seventy year to eighty miles an hour, I looked at myself.
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  I was like, is playing really gonna get me to where I want
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  to be? And because at that time especially, it was pretty evident that
• 3:04
  I needed to gain velocity and I needed to be at least you know,
• 3:07
  eighty eight ninety to be recruited or to even have a chance to go Pro
• 3:13
  Bowl. So I said to myself, am I either going to play or
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  maybe I can go train for a year and then see where that takes me.
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  And so yeah, I took a full year off of playing. I
• 3:28
  didn't play a game for a full year. I actually went out to Seattle
• 3:30
  Driveline for three months and just trained there with all the guys in that atmosphere
• 3:38
  and did waita ball pull downs every week. We got caffeinated and you know,
• 3:44
  went crazy and just tried to throw the crap out of the ball and
• 3:47
  did plio vilos, and just doing that over and over for a year got
• 3:57
  me like really significant process, really significant results, and that's where that's how
• 4:03
  I got to where I was. Yeah, I love hearing that story,
• 4:06
  and I haven't heard it in detail like that, but I've obviously heard you
• 4:10
  talk about your journey to pro ball and how you weren't where you wanted to
• 4:13
  be and you did what was necessary, which in this case was going to
• 4:16
  Seattle, getting in a good training environment, and following a good program where
• 4:20
  you could work on your needs, which at the time was velocity. Now,
• 4:24
  as you transitioned into games and got back in competition mode, what did
• 4:29
  your You know, you don't have to go in detail, but like at
• 4:31
  that age, at seventeen, now, what did your schedule look like?
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  Did you just go from all this training to okay, no training at all
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  now I'm just playing, or like what was your lifting, what was your
• 4:40
  throwing like? Were you still following a fairly regimented program. Yeah, I
• 4:46
  was following a pretty uh scheduled program even when I was playing. I made
• 4:53
  sure that I was only pitching once a week, which made sure that I
• 4:57
  could get some velocity work in during the week as well. So basically I
• 5:01
  would be starting on Saturdays and I would throw, you know, like eighty
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  to one hundred pitches, which which is a lot, but I would take
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  some rest and then on Wednesdays I'll do my bullpens, and during those days,
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  I'd usually do like a pull down right before my bullpen or like applyio
• 5:25
  vlo right before my bullpen, And so that way I'm still getting that stimulus
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  and that work in the VLO working even during the season. Yeah, see
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  that. I love that. I feel like that is a really good transition
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  from going from no competition at all, you're purely training. So now you're
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  getting into competition, but there's still that training aspect because I'm sure a year
• 5:47
  later, yes you were better, but you still weren't where you needed to
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  be to get to where you wanted to go, which was Stanford being your
• 5:54
  dream school playing professional baseball. You hadn't reached the pinnacle yet, so it
• 5:59
  wasn't like you could abandon all of your training and now it's let's just compete.
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  There is a transition of still having a big training focus and then now
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  we're testing it once a week, we're throwing on Saturdays, but throughout the
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  week leading up to that, you're still training, you're still working on things,
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  and then you're stressed testing it, you know, once a week,
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  And I think that's a really good blend and a really good idea for guys
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  that are you know, want to play summer ball or want to play fall
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  ball, if they decide they want to do that, that's a manageable way
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  to where you can still get your training in but also test it against hitters
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  to make sure you're going in the right direction. Now, some people need
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  to completely get out of competition like you did for a year, but worst
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  case scenario, I think this is a really good option for guys versus the
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  alternative of playing a Thursday through Sunday tournament. You're pitching two times. The
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  other days you're kind of just playing catch and waiting till you go in the
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  game, and then your sore, so you're not going to throw on Monday,
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  and now all you have is Tuesday Wednesday before you got to get ready
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  for the next tournament. And for guys that really want to make substantial progress,
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  that's just not going to work. It's only going to get so good.
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  Yes, you're going to get better from some of the end game type
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  stuff, which is completely valuable. Totally agree with that. But for most
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  people, there is a skill aspect of velocity, of off speed pitches,
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  of those types of things that they are missing. In order to get to
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  where they say they want to go, which is usually Division I schools or
• 7:17
  professional baseball, you have to get to that baseline of what those numbers look
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  like, like we've talked about on previous episodes. If you're not throwing a
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  certain velocity, if you're not throwing enough strikes, if you're off speed pitches
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  aren't sharp enough, you're just not going to get those opportunities despite playing sixty
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  to eighty games in a six month time period. So that's where you have
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  to step back and be honest with yourself of what is the most important part
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  for you to get better right now. And I'm just I'm impressed with the
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  fact that you were sixteen when you made this decision. That's a really big
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  decision. You know, looking back on my own career, you know,
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  in high school I played all the time. I only played one sport.
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  It was baseball. I played spring, summer far winn I never stopped playing.
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  Yes, I would work out, but I wasn't training as that being
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  the main focus. It was purely about the games and the training was kind
• 8:07
  of secondary to that. So yes, I got better. From the pitch
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  ability standpoint, I was very accustomed to every type of situation at a game,
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  which is very valuable. But I was missing some of those early skill
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  acquisition time period where I could have improved my game a lot at a young
• 8:24
  age purely by doing the fundamentals of just getting stronger, moving well, and
• 8:28
  actually trying to throw hard. So I love the fact that you did that
• 8:31
  at such an early age, from sixteen to seventeen, and then you transitioned
• 8:35
  into testing it once a week in games. So now when you got to
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  Pro Bowl, how old were you when you signed? Were you seventeen?
• 8:43
  Eighteen? I was eighteen, you're eighteen, okay? So and how hard
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  were you throwing at that point? I threw it a pro day right before
• 8:52
  signing, and I was ninety three to ninety five. This was at the
• 8:56
  Drive Line Pro Day and you were eighteen at that, Yes, right,
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  so you're touching ninety five, you're eighteen years old. Like that. There's
• 9:05
  a lots of like different the pro side of things. So how much did
• 9:07
  your training change when you sign your first pro contract with the Phillies, going
• 9:11
  from what you were doing, you know, on your own with drive line
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  and some of the things that you were just you were doing as a part
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  of your programming. How did that shift once you got to pro ball.
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  Yeah, it shifted a lot, just because before that it was all about,
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  all right, I need to be in peak performance to showcase. And
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  I think showcasing is so different to actually competing in showcases. You just need
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  to be you need to be peak performance in velo wise and stuff wise and
• 9:43
  command like, yeah, you need to be throwing strikes, but it doesn't
• 9:48
  have to be like, all right, you're hitting your spots. When it's
• 9:52
  competition time, that starts a matter a little bit more. And so my
• 9:58
  training changed a lot lot where I didn't. It was not as much of
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  a velo focus. It was more of okay, let's do an execution.
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  Let's focus on executing pitches. And even the lifting side, we were making
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  sure that the body was fresh. Every time I go out to start.
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  There was no oh, I lifted two hearts on two sol for this game.
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  It's no like, let's make sure that you're ready for this game,
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  because you know, Pro Bowl performance is what matters, and that's what we
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  prioritized. Were you you were a starter right right when you got signed?
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  Yeah, yeah, start. So at eighteen, nineteen years old, your
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  first you know, a couple of years, what type of a rotation was
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  it? Was it like a six day rotation or a seven day What was
• 10:43
  your schedule? Like, you know, I've only ever been part of a
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  seven day rotation. And I've been a part of six day rotation briefly when
• 10:54
  I got to HIA, but my whole pro career. This is my six
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  year now, I just being part of a seven day rotation, which is
• 11:03
  pretty cool because you know you just pitch once a week. Yeah, that's
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  nice. I mean that's how college is, right, and that's a lot
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  of times one of the biggest adjustments for college guys going to pro ball is
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  now shifting to a six day and then usually once you get to double A,
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  definitely triple A, you're now on a five man rotation to prepare you
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  for the big leagues. And like, those extra days are huge from a
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  recovery standpoint. So if you're not dialed in with your weekly routine and season
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  on what you're doing in between starts. By the end of the season,
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  you're just going to be beat. You're you're not gonna have anything left because
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  you're just not gonna be recovering. You're gonna be weaker, long days at
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  the field, like, you're just not going to be performing like you were
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  at the beginning of the season. That's just why in season training is so
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  important. I think that's why we want to talk about it today because we're
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  in season for college guys. Pro ball is you know, in full swing
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  to spring training now, and being on top of your training on a weekly
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  basis, whether you're a starter or reliever, is paramount to your success as
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  a pitcher. So give me like a you know, just a brief rundown
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  and go as deep as you want. But from like a throwing standpoint,
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  let's just say you're starting on a Friday. What would your your week look
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  like from that Friday to the next Friday leading up to that next start.
• 12:16
  Yeah, this really depends on how I'm feeling. Last year, I took
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  a really lighter approach because I was dealing with some stuff, especially with my
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  elbow. So last year it would be if I pitch on Friday, I'm
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  taking Saturday completely off, and then on Sunday I'm doing plios only and I'm
• 12:39
  not touching on baseball, and then on Monday I'm playing lightcatch, and then
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  Tuesday I would throw at my side and then I'll go light catch again moderate
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  catch. So Wednesday lightcatch, Thursday moderate catch, and then Friday I'm back
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  on the mound. And that's like a super light schedule. And I made
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  it that way just because I was a little bit worried about my elbow.
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  But normally I would probably go Friday pitch, Saturday, I'm doing light plios
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  just to get some blood flow going, and then Sunday probably like a moderate,
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  maybe like a small touch and feel I'm going Monday side, Tuesday light
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  and then moderate moderate, and I'm back on the mound. So I feel
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  like I can get a lot of work done on those moderate days. So
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  if I'm feeling good, I try to do as many of those as possible,
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  especially if I can touch the mound after the throwing program, I feel
• 13:48
  like I get a lot of value out of that. So yeah, I
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  try to include as many of those as possible. Yeah, I was gonna
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  ask what does a moderate day look like for you? Is it doing some
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  plios, playing catch out to one twenty and then doing a little touch and
• 14:01
  feel on the mound, or like, what's a moderate day? Like?
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  Yeah, a moderate day is yeah, plios, like a full ply a
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  routine. It's not max effort. I'm more of like a perceived effort type
• 14:15
  guy instead of a distance. So I'm going at about seventy percent the whole
• 14:20
  day, So seventy eighty percent plios. I'm going through my whole routine and
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  then I'll probably get out to ninety maybe one twenty, but I'm going seventy
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  eighty percent the whole time, and then I'll touch the mound for ten to
• 14:35
  fifteen just feeling out my pitches and executing them. I like that. So
• 14:41
  you're touching the mound, I'm trying to do the count of my head three
• 14:45
  times in between starts. Roughly, if you feel good that week, you're
• 14:48
  touching it at least in some capacity three times in between starts. Yeah,
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  which is great, right, I mean I say this all the time.
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  The mound is where you make your money, right, Like, we don't
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  get paid to to throw on flat grounds, so getting as good as you
• 15:01
  can on the mound, assuming that you're keeping the intensity and the volume in
• 15:05
  check and that you're not overdoing it. Getting those reps on the mound is
• 15:09
  critical because it's a different feel. I can spend the ball great on flat
• 15:13
  ground, and then I can get on the mound, and because I have
• 15:16
  a little bit more time in the air before my foot lands, my timing's
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  going to be different. So if I'm just getting really really good at flat
• 15:22
  grounds and I'm not seeing the translation to the mound, that could be a
• 15:26
  simple adjustment that you can make as a pitcher is just transfer that flat ground
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  work to the mound, keep the intensity of the same, keep the volume
• 15:33
  the same, and work on your pitches there so you're getting feel for it
• 15:35
  on the slope with the different timing of being on a slope compared to flat
• 15:41
  ground. How much time do you spend on flat ground compared to mound when
• 15:43
  we're talking about spinning breaking balls and throwing changeups and all of your pitch types.
• 15:50
  I throw all my pitches on flat ground, and I kind of go
• 15:54
  back and forth with this because if I spend too much time on the mound,
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  I feel like I start to think about my mechanics a little bit too
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  much and it kind of domes me up. So I think there's a fine
• 16:06
  line there. But I do like throwing all of my pitches on the flat
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  ground, and I don't really see too much of a difference feel wise,
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  so I can get a lot of quality reps on the flat ground as well.
• 16:21
  Yeah, no, that's great, yeah, I think, And I
• 16:23
  don't want people to take the throw away. I do think that throwing your
• 16:26
  pitches on flat ground is perfectly fine, especially like if you're about to throw
• 16:30
  a bullpen. I think throwing you know, a couple of each pitches to
• 16:33
  get feel for it is a good idea before you actually get on the mount
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  and you start ripping them just to get feel for spin. Like I do
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  drills on flat ground all the time to feel spin. But what I often
• 16:42
  see is guys will throw a fifteen pitch flat ground of all their pitches every
• 16:47
  day and then they just throw one bullpen a week, and their their pitch
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  shapes are different in some cases, or their execution of the command is different.
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  So it comes back to knowing yourself, Like you know yourself, you
• 16:56
  just said, when you're on the mound too much you think about your mechanics
• 17:00
  a little bit more. You can get in your head a little bit too
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  much. So that comes to you've done this long enough to know what is
• 17:07
  valuable for you, how you're gonna get the most out of your cash play
• 17:11
  and your moundwork, so you know what your limits are. For younger players
• 17:14
  as they're discovering this, that's what you have to figure out. How much
• 17:18
  flackground do you need? How much time do you need on the mound.
• 17:19
  Are you a guy that actually can keep the volume intensity down, because some
• 17:22
  guys just purely can't. Like even in pro ball, you see guys it
• 17:26
  doesn't matter if it's a light day, a medium day, a high day.
• 17:29
  They're thrown at the same velocity. They're trying to throw the same amount
• 17:32
  of pitches like. They just cannot regulate their volume intensity. So if that's
• 17:37
  you, you have to know that. You have to know that when you
• 17:38
  say you're thrown at seventy percent, you're actually thrown at ninety percent and be
• 17:42
  able to adjust your volume accordingly so you're not overdoing it and doing too much.
• 17:48
  Do you see the same thing with some of your teammates in pro ball.
• 17:51
  Oh yeah, for sure. There there are a lot of guys who
• 17:55
  doing a light day, but they're just just ribbing it so and it might
• 18:00
  be life for them because they throw a hundred, but it doesn't look glad
• 18:03
  at all. But I wanted to ask you why do you think the pitch
• 18:07
  shapes are so different? Like you said that sometimes when you throw too much
• 18:12
  off the flat ground, it affects the pitch shapes. Why do you think
• 18:15
  that is. I just think it's purely from the timing difference. So on
• 18:22
  flat ground, I have less time to get my arm up, I have
• 18:25
  less time to rotate, so my arm might be a tad later, my
• 18:29
  hips might be a touch more closed compared to the mound. Because of that
• 18:32
  slope, I have a little bit more time for my hand to travel or
• 18:34
  for my body to rotate, which can throw things off just a little bit.
• 18:38
  And I also think it just comes down to the repetitions. You know,
• 18:41
  for me growing up, there was so much focus on flat grounds to
• 18:45
  where I threw way more grips and pitches on flat ground compared to the mound,
• 18:49
  and then when I actually got on the mound, it actually felt weird
• 18:52
  at times to be on the mouth, especially for my first few pitches,
• 18:53
  just because I wasn't used to being on the slope, and my pitch shapes
• 18:57
  would change slightly. Usually it would result in getting more depth on my breaking
• 19:02
  balls compared to on flat ground. It'd be maybe more sweepy when I'm trying
• 19:04
  to throw, like more of a sweepy type slider. And on the mound
• 19:07
  it gets a little curveball list because I have a little bit more time for
• 19:10
  my hand to travel. Just little things like that. It's not for everybody,
• 19:15
  but for me, I noticed that earlier in my career, especially when
• 19:18
  I was at high school in college, I just spent too much time on
• 19:21
  flat ground, and my stuff was nasty. On flackground, I thought it
• 19:23
  was like the best stuff ever. My catch partners would be telling me that
• 19:26
  maybe they were lying to me, I don't know. But when I would
• 19:27
  get on the mound, my stuff was okay, but I could tell it
• 19:32
  took a considerable step back from where it was on flat ground, and I
• 19:36
  should have realized, I just need to spend more time on the mound and
• 19:38
  I'm doing way too many grips on flat ground. But looking back now,
• 19:41
  hindsight it's always twenty twenty mm, yeah, for sure. And do you
• 19:47
  think there's any value in So this was actually what I was thinking about the
• 19:52
  other day with you, Davish, and how he has a completely different pitching
• 19:59
  delivery when he's playing catch versus when he's on the mound, and he said
• 20:04
  that that just absolutely just revolutionized his career and improved his command by so much.
• 20:15
  Do you think there's any value in that too for like people listening,
• 20:21
  I think there is, But I actually want you to share that story I've
• 20:23
  read. I think he posted a threat about it, but tell people a
• 20:26
  little bit more about what you're talking about with Darvisha on exactly what he does
• 20:30
  in his catch play that's different. Yeah. So I can't remember when what
• 20:38
  the year was, but it was when he was with the Cubs and he
• 20:42
  has a YouTube channel and I love you Davish. So I watched all of
• 20:47
  his videos. They're all in Japanese, unfortunately, but fortunately I can understand
• 20:52
  it. And what he posted a video saying I think my career is done,
• 21:00
  and I was like, dang, And then it was a video of
• 21:03
  him throwing a bullpen and his command was just not there. It was terrible.
• 21:08
  But then it was a couple months later he said this saved my career.
• 21:15
  It was a video along the lines of that, and he was explaining
• 21:18
  what he did, and he was saying that he built two separate pitching deliveries,
• 21:26
  one for when he plays catch and one for when is on the mound.
• 21:30
  And so his theory was that the brain constantly wants to seek stimulus.
• 21:38
  So if you're doing the same thing over and over and over again, if
• 21:41
  you're throwing with your pitching delivery over and over again, the same one over
• 21:47
  and over again, it wants to seek some kind of stimulus, something new,
• 21:52
  so it subconsciously alters it just a little bit. And then he said
• 22:00
  that that made his delivery get out of whack every time that would happen,
• 22:03
  and he would he noticed that happened, like subconsciously, the brain would try
• 22:07
  to change his delivery, and so he was like, all right, how
• 22:11
  can I fix this? And what he came up with was the two deliveries.
• 22:15
  So whenever he's playing catch, he's throwing with he said, like a
• 22:18
  super relaxed motion. He just like, you know, like super relaxes and
• 22:23
  it's throwing. And then the way he described it on the mound, was
• 22:27
  that he's really crisp and intentional with what he does. And he said that
• 22:33
  that just like really improved his command and helped him a lot, just so
• 22:38
  that the brain has a new stimulus every day. And that's yeah, that's
• 22:45
  the story of how you Darvish saved his career through the differentiating his delivery.
• 22:52
  Yeah, I mean that is variability training right there, right, seeking a
• 22:56
  different stimulus and challenging himself and really in different positions, different feelings, different
• 23:02
  cues. And by doing that, when he actually does do his regular delivery,
• 23:06
  he's able to be more consistent because he is stress tested in a way
• 23:11
  his delivery to where you know, you could even take it a step further,
• 23:14
  where guys could throw from different arm angles, different tempos. You can
• 23:17
  change every single aspect. And it sounds counterproductive, right if you think about
• 23:22
  it, It's like, Okay, so I'm doing something different than when I
• 23:23
  actually pitch, or I'm doing something different when or with every single throw.
• 23:29
  How am I going to be more consistent when I'm actually doing my regular delivery?
• 23:32
  But it's because there's always some form of variability in your throwing. Think
• 23:37
  about it. You've thrown. Now in pro ball, it's a little bit
• 23:40
  different, but it's still the same concept. Every mound is different, right,
• 23:45
  Some mounds are steeper, some are flatter. You know, if you
• 23:48
  come into the seventh inning versus starting the game, the mount is going to
• 23:49
  be in a different condition. So there's all these slightly different variables. The
• 23:52
  weather's different, the batter, all of those things. So if you can
• 23:57
  make those variables ample, if you can make them even more challenging, your
• 24:03
  body's going to be able to adapt easier when you're actually trying to do your
• 24:08
  normal delivery. So it's about challenging that bandwidth and trying to, as a
• 24:14
  result, make yourself more consistent. And there's there's a study done. I
• 24:17
  don't remember the exact study, but I'll try to explain the best I can.
• 24:21
  With basketball players, they were testing free throws and how to improve their
• 24:26
  free throw percentage. One group, all they did was shoot free throws.
• 24:30
  That's all they did, know their type of shot. They only practice free
• 24:32
  throws. The other group did everything but free throws. They did three pointers,
• 24:37
  they did jump shots, layups, just anything you can think of besides
• 24:41
  free throws. And when they retested the group that did no free throws at
• 24:45
  all actually improved the most at free throws compared to their group that only did
• 24:48
  free throws. And it comes back to the variability. They were challenging themselves.
• 24:53
  They were seeking a greater stimulus rather than just doing the same thing over
• 24:57
  and over again. As result, they were actually able to be more consistent
• 25:02
  at the free throws. Have you heard that before? Yeah, I actually
• 25:06
  have. And that's such a interesting study and actually makes me think like maybe
• 25:15
  I should get off the mound less. But yeah, no, I try
• 25:18
  to incorporate it a little bit with my catch play. So I do a
• 25:22
  lot of athletic throws. So when I'm going out, I'm trying to be
• 25:26
  a shortstop and I'm throwing off one leg, I'm running a couple of yards
• 25:33
  to the left and then jumping and throwing and it looks a little bit weird,
• 25:37
  but I really like it because it loosens me up and I feel like
• 25:41
  it does a little bit of that variability training and it has helped me a
• 25:45
  lot. I feel like, No, I love that and what it does
• 25:49
  too, it's just it's promoting athleticism, it's promoting freedom less thought. You're
• 25:53
  just doing. You're not thinking. And that's what happens with a lot of
• 25:56
  guys that struggle with commander consistency on the mound, is they start to overthink,
• 26:02
  right, And that's what you said. When you're on the mound too
• 26:03
  much, sometimes you start to think about your mechanics too much. You get
• 26:04
  in your head a little too much. Doing athletic based throws can free you
• 26:08
  up a little bit mentally and allow you just to execute, yeah, for
• 26:14
  sure. And that's what I was feeling, especially coming out of rehab.
• 26:22
  It was twenty twenty two. I had got surgery on my back, and
• 26:26
  the rehab throwing program is very very structured. It's all right, we're taking
• 26:32
  one step and we're throwing. We're doing one crow hop and we're throwing.
• 26:37
  And it just came really really robotical, robotic. Sorry, and like I
• 26:44
  started to feel a little bit like of the yips again because it was just
• 26:47
  so like, okay, this is getting robotic, like one step throw,
• 26:51
  one step throw, and then you make a bad throw and then you don't
• 26:53
  really have that athleticism to make an adjustment. And so just incorporating the athletic
• 26:59
  throw just made everything so much smooth, and it freed up my body and
• 27:03
  also my mind. Yeah, for sure, I actually have seen that a
• 27:08
  lot. Unfortunately with guys that are rehabbing is they do start to get yipped
• 27:12
  up because of like you said, how structured it is. It almost feels
• 27:17
  like you have a new arm if you had an arm surgery, or your
• 27:19
  back feels different, like there's something different. So you're already thinking about a
• 27:23
  lot of things mentally because your body wants to protect itself and you don't know
• 27:27
  for sure if it feels safe to actually throw, and you're thinking about all
• 27:32
  these things, and it can be very easy to get in your head into
• 27:36
  start pushing the ball and to start missing bad and then more thoughts snowball on
• 27:40
  it. So if you're not a rehab setting, try to eliminate some of
• 27:44
  those thoughts, is the main point, right. We want to be as
• 27:47
  free and as athletic as we can. That's why you'll see some guys and
• 27:49
  they're long tossing over two hundred feet. They can throw the ball within five
• 27:53
  feet of the chest, and then they get at sixty feet or forty five
• 27:56
  feet and they're spraying it everywhere because there's more thought than just the freedom of
• 28:02
  stretching it out and throwing, which is one thing I like about long toss
• 28:04
  or stretching it out a little, but it's just it's more free of thought
• 28:07
  and you're just moving athletically, and as Alan Jager would say, more of
• 28:11
  your authentic delivery. It's your most authentic delivery because there's freedom in the throw.
• 28:18
  Yeah, for sure. And that's something that the Texas Rangers has incorporated
• 28:22
  a lot, especially last year. We as pitches instead of pfps. We
• 28:27
  will do like short sup drills where we'll take ground bowls and then throw it
• 28:32
  across. And that was actually one day in instrucks where we will play catch
• 28:37
  and they will tell us to keep our eyes closed and throw and they're like,
• 28:42
  hey, just trust your body, and like, you know, we
• 28:45
  will do all these weird things and we're like, god, what are we
• 28:48
  doing. But now that I know the concept of variability and trying to be
• 28:53
  athletic and mixing up your throwing, it actually kind of makes it a law.
• 29:00
  And now I try to incorporate it in my throwing program. Yeah,
• 29:04
  that's great. I actually heard Greg Maddox used to throw bullpens every once in
• 29:08
  a while with his eyes closed just to make it more challenging and more fun.
• 29:12
  Dang, but I think there's a there's a story to it. Man.
• 29:17
  I wish I knew it off the top of my head, but there
• 29:18
  was something to it to where forget like the catcher didn't know that he was
• 29:22
  thrown with his eyes closed or something, and like someone made a joke like,
• 29:26
  man, that was like one of your better bullpens. He's like,
• 29:27
  really, my eyes were closed the whole time. I didn't even see it.
• 29:32
  Dang, that's that's absolutely next level. I want to I've tried.
• 29:36
  I've tried it in castplay a couple of times, but never on a bullpen.
• 29:40
  And I don't know I've had the cards to try that, especially in
• 29:44
  spring training. Yeah, when there's ten other pictures lined up, Yeah,
• 29:48
  you might hit another catcher. Yeah yeah. But okay, let's let's dive
• 29:52
  into a seven day schedule. So if you're watching here on YouTube, I
• 29:57
  have a couple slides of just what a possible schedule could look like for you
• 30:03
  from a throwing standpoint. So this is for a seven day and this goes
• 30:06
  along with basically what you said your plan was. So day one would be
• 30:10
  game day. So throwing wise, whatever's comfortable ninety feet one hundred and twenty
• 30:14
  feet. Some guys like to stretch it out further mound plios, So I'm
• 30:18
  a big, big believer in doing plios on the mound now on this day,
• 30:22
  on a game day, I leave that optional for guys. So,
• 30:25
  like, if you're a guy that likes to do reverse throws, pivot picks,
• 30:29
  you know, figure eight throws like something along those lines, do those
• 30:32
  pre throw play catch, and then optional to do your mound plios, whether
• 30:36
  it's step backs, walking, wind up, something more athletic on the mound
• 30:38
  before the pregame bullpen starts. I lead that up to the individual on what
• 30:42
  they want to do on their game day Day two. In this setting,
• 30:45
  for a seven day completely off, just like you said for your first your
• 30:49
  first option, your lighter schedule completely off day two. Day three would be
• 30:53
  more of a lighter day, seventy five to ninety feet, sixty to seventy
• 30:57
  percent RPE, no mound plios, no bullpen. Day four would be more
• 31:03
  of a moderate day. So this day you'd be going ninety to one hundred
• 31:07
  and twenty feet roughly, maybe a little bit further seventy to eighty percent RPE.
• 31:11
  This is a great day to do mound plios at that seventy to eighty
• 31:15
  percent effort, working on something mechanical or just trying to get feel for the
• 31:18
  slope, whatever it is that you're working on. This is more of like
• 31:21
  an over the rubber, internal focused type of day, and there's no actual
• 31:25
  bullpen afterwards. Day five this would be your bullpen day, So stretch it
• 31:30
  out, you know, one point fifty or you know, it just depends
• 31:32
  on the individual. For in this case, what I've written down is about
• 31:33
  one hundred and fifty feet building up to ninety two one hundred percent effort mound
• 31:38
  plios, and then do your bullpen. Could be one set of twenty to
• 31:42
  thirty You could split it up into two sets depending on what you're trying to
• 31:45
  work on in that bullpen. Day six would be a light day, seventy
• 31:49
  five to ninety feet max. Fifty to sixty percent RPE. Like this is
• 31:53
  a really like day fifteen to twenty throws, no mound plios, no bullpen,
• 31:57
  and then day seven, the day before your start a low two medium
• 32:02
  day somewhere in between. Once again, this is kind of similar to game
• 32:06
  day. I like to give guys freedom on this day to do what they
• 32:07
  think they need to do to get ready for their game. So ninety to
• 32:10
  one twenty on average for most guys, sixty to seventy percent RPE, optional
• 32:15
  mound plios, and then also optional touch and feel. Some guys like to
• 32:19
  touch the slope to day before they pitch for you know, eight to ten
• 32:22
  pitches at low effort just to feel the slope. But that is an option.
• 32:27
  So this is pretty similar to one that you said originally with one bullpen,
• 32:30
  but still touching the mound maybe a couple times for a touch and feel
• 32:32
  or even some some mound plios. Yeah, for sure. I think the
• 32:37
  only difference would be that I'm touching the mound a little bit more. Maybe
• 32:42
  I'll touch them mount on day three, tiny bit, and then day four,
• 32:45
  I'm definitely doing a full tenth to fifteen you know, light of seventy
• 32:52
  eighty percent, but I'm definitely on the mound just feeling out my pitches perfect.
• 32:58
  So that's this is like the standard option, right Like, especially for
• 33:00
  college, this would be a standard typical schedule for a college pitcher. That's
• 33:05
  if you're starting on a Friday, you're throwing your bullpen on a Tuesday.
• 33:08
  Option two this is a seven day still. This is for guys that want
• 33:13
  to touch the slope more. In the case that, like you said,
• 33:16
  day one to be game day same as before. Day two instead of being
• 33:21
  completely off, you would have a really light throwing session sixty to seventy five
• 33:23
  feet fifty to sixty percent RPE, no mound plios, no bullpen. Of
• 33:28
  course, Day three would be a medium day ninety to one twenty seventy to
• 33:32
  eighty percent RPE, mound pliows. This is your internal focus day, your
• 33:37
  mechanical focus day. And then Day four you would throw a bullpen one set
• 33:42
  fifteen to twenty pitches. Day five light once again, sixty to seventy five
• 33:46
  feet fifty to sixty percent RPE. Day six another bullpen more a little bit
• 33:52
  lower intensity and possibly lower volume than the one you threw two days prior,
• 33:55
  but still getting in that eighty to ninety percent RPE range for one set of
• 34:00
  fifteen to twenty pitches. Day seven, the day before you start super light,
• 34:05
  no moundwork, just light catch play. What's nice about this one is
• 34:09
  if a guy really needs to spend more time on the mound. You have
• 34:13
  an opportunity, you know, with these two bullpens, yes they're shorter bullpens,
• 34:16
  but what you could do, you know, one option would be that
• 34:19
  first bullpen on day four could be more of an over the rubber type of
• 34:22
  bullpen, so internal focus. Maybe they need to work on something mechanical,
• 34:25
  or you need to design a pitch, or you even want to do like
• 34:30
  a Vlo type thing where they want to do a Velo lad or something velo
• 34:32
  focused. In season, it could be a day for that, something just
• 34:37
  more internal to where you're not focused on the execution of the pitch. And
• 34:39
  then that next bullpen could be you know, you're fifteen to twenty, maybe
• 34:43
  you do four simulated batters to get locked in and back on a command focus.
• 34:46
  And then of course the alternative is you could you know, flip flop
• 34:50
  or not flip flop, but you could intermingle those to where both of them
• 34:52
  are command focused days or both of them are internal focus days. Probably want
• 34:57
  to do that in season, but there is a unique situation for everyone.
• 35:00
  But this is a good opportunity for guys that really have specific needs of what
• 35:05
  they need to work on. This just gives them an extra bullpen to actually
• 35:07
  work on those things. Yeah, I really like that. I never heard
• 35:12
  of the over the rubber days internal focus days. I actually really like that.
• 35:17
  And I've seen people do you know this schedule and have two internal focus
• 35:24
  days as their bullpens. But usually those are the guys who have just no
• 35:29
  trouble throwing strikes right in the zone every day, but they need to develop
• 35:36
  a pitch or welcome a mechanical queue to get their vil up. But I
• 35:40
  really like that internal focus one day and then the next day is execution.
• 35:45
  I might actually try that. Yeah. I got the whole concept from Derek
• 35:50
  Johnson, the pitching coach for the Reds. I heard him speak at a
• 35:52
  conference back in twenty sixteen. At the time, I want to say he
• 35:58
  was with the Ubs or the Brewers, he was a pitching coordinator, but
• 36:00
  before that he was the pitching coach at Vanderbilt, and he talked about there's
• 36:06
  two types of settings in a bullpen. There's over the rubber and there's over
• 36:09
  the plate. So over the rubbers, like I just said, more internal
• 36:13
  focus. We're not worried about the execution of the pitch. We're focusing on
• 36:15
  something mechanical pitch design, velo focus, something that's just purely over the rubber,
• 36:22
  not worrying about where it goes over the plate is just as it sounds.
• 36:25
  We're focusing on what is actually happening with the result of the pitch.
• 36:30
  So this needs to be something that can be very objective from a strike from
• 36:34
  a strike calling standpoint, simulated batters, something that is just execution focus that
• 36:38
  you can track. The issue that a lot of younger pitchers have especially is
• 36:43
  they try to intermingle both of those things in the same session, which you
• 36:46
  can do in the same session, but you can't do it in the same
• 36:49
  set. So, like, let's just say I'm throwing fifteen pitches straight,
• 36:52
  I can't be trying to, you know, trying to focus on the shape
• 36:54
  of my slider, trying to improve a new sweeper, but also expecting to
• 36:59
  have it down in a way in a perfect location. Right, you have
• 37:01
  to decide what is the focus. Is it in zone or am I trying
• 37:05
  to figure out the shape of this pitch today. If it happens to be
• 37:07
  in zone two, that's great, But you can't hold yourself to both of
• 37:10
  those standards because you're gonna get frustrated because you're likely not going to get both
• 37:15
  of those in the same setting. And what I usually recommend, especially if
• 37:17
  you're a strike thrower, like let's get that shape dialed in and then let's
• 37:21
  figure out how to throw it in zone as well. But like when you
• 37:22
  get in troubles when you try to do too many things at one time,
• 37:25
  rather than having your focus narrow on what is actually at hand, so it
• 37:30
  just simplifies things. It just allows you to, you know, to decide
• 37:32
  before the bullpen and hopefully even the day before the bullpen at least am I
• 37:37
  focusing over the rubber or am I focusing over the plate? Or am I
• 37:38
  doing a two set bullpen even to where first set is over the rubber,
• 37:42
  second set is over the plate. M Yeah, I'm definitely givel to you
• 37:45
  of that. I usually when I go in for my bullpens, I have
• 37:51
  a checklist probably like two or three things that I want to get done.
• 37:54
  And yeah, I'm definitely guilty of having some internal focus up the top.
• 38:00
  I want to feel this with my body, I want to feel this with
• 38:02
  my back leg. But then my other tool of just execution focus is like
• 38:07
  right, I don't want to get my slider dialed. I want to get
• 38:09
  my cut of dialed. So yeah, I'm definitely guilty of that. But
• 38:13
  I really like the idea of maybe breaking it up in sets. That's sure
• 38:17
  something I want to try for sure. Well, you, I mean,
• 38:21
  you can do what you just said right, Like you can focus on something
• 38:23
  mechanical and let's just say it is one set. You just have to make
• 38:27
  sure you're not holding yourself accountable to all of those things on one pitch,
• 38:31
  Like if you want to start the bullpen with it being a mechanical focus,
• 38:35
  like just to get feel for the slow, get feel for your load or
• 38:37
  whatever it is mechanically that you're working on, Like decide how many pitches it
• 38:42
  is that you're actually worrying about that before you're moving on to what's next.
• 38:45
  Just you just have to be very clear with what the intention is for every
• 38:47
  single pitch. Mm. Yeah. And I think when I had to have
• 38:52
  an internal focus and I start with that, I think at the end,
• 38:58
  like my last ten page, which is I do hold my self to that
• 39:01
  standard of I want to feel this with my body and I want to execute.
• 39:07
  And that's when I run into a little bit of trouble. So there
• 39:12
  you go. So those of you that are listening that are in high school
• 39:15
  and college, professional baseball players do the same thing. So your ability to
• 39:20
  make those adjustments is what matters most. But every player at every level are
• 39:23
  guilty of some of the same things, and it's just a matter of learning
• 39:28
  and figuring out, you know, how you can get better each day.
• 39:31
  Yeah, no doubt. So Okay, So I don't have a print out
• 39:37
  of this or a PDF version of a six day, but I think a
• 39:39
  six day could be important to talk about. Most youth levels hopefully aren't doing
• 39:44
  a six day. I would assume most are doing a seven, but I
• 39:46
  do know in high school there are some schools where they are on a six
• 39:50
  day. So I don't have a graph of this, but we can talk
• 39:52
  through it. And this is a very common one in pro ball, especially
• 39:57
  after you get out of rookie ball and you're in full season. Sounds like
• 40:00
  even an A ball you guys are still doing a seven day, but at
• 40:02
  a lot of teams will do a six day at that point. So six
• 40:07
  day would be day one, You're starting Day two very light throwing no plios.
• 40:15
  Day three would be a medium day, so maybe we're doing some mound
• 40:17
  plios in the day if you feel okay throwing a seventy to eighty percent effort.
• 40:21
  Day four would be your bullpen day, so stretching it out, mound
• 40:25
  plios, bullpen. Day five, light day, very light, sixty to
• 40:30
  seventy five feet fifty to sixty percent RPE, no plios, no bullpen,
• 40:34
  and then day six would be another medium day. You could even be on
• 40:37
  the lighter side. Once again comes back to knowing yourself and knowing what you
• 40:40
  need to do to prepare for that next day. So this could be,
• 40:45
  you know, seventy to eighty percent, maybe even closer to sixty percent if
• 40:47
  that's what you feel you need. Mound plios optional, touch and feel optional
• 40:52
  on this day, whatever you need to do to get ready for the next
• 40:54
  day. But six day is kind of simple the way it flows. Basically,
• 40:59
  Day one is game day. Day two, to simplify, you just
• 41:02
  call this a day after, which means low low effort. Day three is
• 41:07
  a day before, so it's the day before either a bullpen or the day
• 41:09
  before a game, and so anytime you see day before that just means medium
• 41:14
  intensity. Day four would be bullpen slash day of is the day of your
• 41:19
  bullpen day five, day after, day six, day before, and then
• 41:22
  we're back to the beginning of game day. Yeah. I really like that,
• 41:27
  and I actually have a question on that. So on the low days
• 41:32
  you say no plios, what do you do you think that plios stress the
• 41:39
  arm a little bit more than playing catch or what's the reason for saying no
• 41:45
  plios? Sorry, I should have clarified no mound plios, so like nou
• 41:50
  Yeah, yeah, so you could still do your reverse throws, your pivot
• 41:52
  picks, your last sodrill whatever that is if you need it. Like,
• 41:57
  that's kind of an optional one for me, but like, yeah, I
• 41:59
  wouldn't say no to that, but definitely no mound plios of where after catch
• 42:01
  play you're getting on the mount and you're doing mechanical focus drails with plios for
• 42:06
  you know, ten throws or something. Oh that makes sense, So just
• 42:08
  no mount plios. Yeah, that makes sense. No, I was just
• 42:12
  wondering because I love the plios on low days. Yeah. I love grabbing
• 42:16
  the blue bowl and just feeling it out, and I think that brings like
• 42:22
  a lot of bluffalow into my arm and it feels better than playing catch because
• 42:25
  playing catch it playing catch actually feels stressful, even if I'm going low.
• 42:30
  So I like throwing the green bowl, the the one pound bowl, and
• 42:36
  the blue bull, the heavier ones. I just love them on a low
• 42:39
  day. Yeah, and that's so this is just a very standardized plan.
• 42:45
  But like you could also replace catch play the day after if you only want
• 42:47
  to do plios, that's perfectly fine. In a lot of cases, that
• 42:51
  is better because the volumes probably going to be better. Sometimes in catch play
• 42:54
  you throw way too much, right because you're throwing with another partner and you
• 42:59
  just you know, ten minutes goes by and you've made forty throws, but
• 43:02
  it should have been fifteen to twenty. So sometimes for some guys, just
• 43:06
  doingplials is a good option too. So yeah, keep in mind this is
• 43:08
  a standard program. You have to know yourself and know what adjustments you might
• 43:13
  need to make. But if you're following the general framework of the low,
• 43:15
  medium, high model, you're probably going to be in a good place.
• 43:20
  And as long as you're respecting those light days, respecting those medium days,
• 43:22
  and respecting the high days, there's some some wiggle room in there on with
• 43:25
  exactly what that looks like for each guy. Yeah, and something that I
• 43:30
  want to touch on really quick is not forgetting your routine that made you feel
• 43:37
  good before the season. And I fell into this trap last year where I
• 43:43
  had a really good mobility routine from my back and I've had a bad back,
• 43:46
  I've had surgery on it, and I've had some injuries on it.
• 43:50
  So I have a really good routine on it, and throughout the off season
• 43:54
  I did that every single day. But then the in season comes and I'm
• 44:00
  busy, we don't have as much time to warm up, we don't have
• 44:04
  much time to go into the weight room and do mobility, and sometimes I
• 44:08
  just forgot about it and that just compounded and compounded, and then I got
• 44:14
  hurt again later in the season. So I think a really important thing is
• 44:19
  to make sure that you're doing what makes you feel good on a daily basis
• 44:25
  and making sure that you do that and not forget about it even in season.
• 44:32
  Yeah, I mean it comes down to just being disciplined, right.
• 44:36
  I mean it's I mean for you, I mean, if I ask you
• 44:38
  right now, like, what was the reason you weren't doing it? Was
• 44:40
  it just you slowly got away from it, or was there a specific cause
• 44:44
  that you stopped doing it. It was just like, hey, today we
• 44:49
  have an event that we have to go to, and then we've got to
• 44:52
  go to this fundraising thing, and then we come back and we have twenty
• 44:55
  minutes to stretch and then so I don't have any time, and then I
• 45:00
  completely forget about it and I'll go out the stretch and off the woods is
• 45:05
  the game. And then it was just like in season, things get like
• 45:10
  busy, and it wasn't really like a discipline thing. It was just like,
• 45:15
  oh, like I was just busy and I kind of forgot about it.
• 45:20
  Yeah, for sure. And I think something that helps me, and
• 45:22
  I think could maybe help you know, some high school kids, because high
• 45:24
  school kids and college kids you have school. Usually you go straight from school
• 45:30
  to practice or a game. You have homework at night, Like, it
• 45:32
  can be very easy to lose track of time and not to be able to
• 45:37
  do the things that you need to do or that you were doing during the
• 45:38
  off season because you had more time writing things down or having it printed out.
• 45:44
  Having something on your phone that alerts you something that you can actually see
• 45:49
  what your routine is, I think will help a lot of guys stay on
• 45:52
  top of their things because it's it can be easy to let things slip when
• 45:55
  it's just in my mind. If I tell myself, hey, yeah,
• 45:58
  tomorrow, I need to make sure I do this, this, and this.
• 46:00
  But if I don't write it down, or I don't have something to
• 46:01
  remind me, or I don't have a concrete plan, it can slip my
• 46:06
  mind very easily. And I'm a very routine oriented person, so it comes
• 46:09
  natural for me usually to make programs and to have things to follow. But
• 46:15
  if I don't have that, I'm just as guilty as any one of not
• 46:17
  following what I need to do. So that would be my advice to guys
• 46:22
  listening that struggle with this, like have your routine written down doesn't mean you're
• 46:25
  going to fall to a tee. Every day. Life happens, things come
• 46:29
  up, but nine out of ten times you're going to be able to follow
• 46:31
  this because you know exactly what you have today and you can plan for based
• 46:36
  on what your schedule is to make sure you're able to stay on top of
• 46:37
  it. Yeah, for sure. And I'm also a very routine oriented guy,
• 46:44
  but I think during the season, oh, during the off season,
• 46:46
  sorry, you're I was going into the gym at the same time every day,
• 46:51
  and so it was easy for me to follow it. But during the
• 46:53
  season, when the games are at different times and you need to get ready
• 46:59
  to different times than your routines kind of thrown off. It becomes a lot
• 47:04
  more difficult to follow that routine. So I think, yeah, writing it
• 47:07
  down, especially in my notes in my phone or something, and then looking
• 47:12
  at it every day, that would really help. Yeah, for sure.
• 47:15
  And one thing I want to touch on on routines, this is sort of
• 47:19
  in a different realm. It's more so on like pregame bullpens, in your
• 47:22
  pregame routine. But I don't know if you saw this. Adam Wainwright was
• 47:27
  miked up for a bullpen. Was it last year? Was he retired last
• 47:30
  year? I can't remember his last year or two years ago now, but
• 47:32
  he was miked up for a bullpen where he was basically talking through his whole
• 47:37
  pregame routine. Did you see that? No? I didn't see it.
• 47:39
  Oh, it was incredible. I'll share it with you after this. But
• 47:43
  he basically was talking through what he follows, what he likes to do,
• 47:46
  Like this is literally during a game. He's miked up talking through this as
• 47:49
  he's warming enough to go pitch, and one thing that he talked about was
• 47:53
  routines are good, Like it's good to have a routine of what you like
• 47:58
  to do each day on game day, he said, but you have to
• 48:00
  be adaptable. If something happened right now, He's like, I know I
• 48:05
  could get ready to pitch in six throws right here, and my routine might
• 48:08
  change, but I know I'll be ready to compete out there on the mount
• 48:10
  in six pitches. Some guys get so reliant on their routines, especially pregame
• 48:16
  routines, to where if there's a rain delay or something happens, they don't
• 48:22
  feel the same mentally, they can't perform in their mind, or they have
• 48:24
  an excuse if the performance goes bad because they didn't get to do their full
• 48:29
  hour long warm up, or they had to rush their pregame bullpen or something
• 48:32
  happened. Routines are important, but you have to be adaptable, and there's
• 48:37
  going to be things that come up. Life happens, So if we're not
• 48:40
  adaptable, the second adversity comes, we're not going to be able to handle
• 48:44
  it, and then we're just going to be pointing to that as an excuse.
• 48:47
  So I thought that was really cool to see Adam Wainwright talk about.
• 48:51
  I'll definitely have to share that and I'll put that in the show notes as
• 48:53
  well for the listeners. Yeah, that's super interesting. But how do you
• 49:00
  do you think you should counter that? I can't really think of any off
• 49:05
  the top of my head. Maybe, like I'm thinking, maybe you have,
• 49:12
  Well, this is actually something that I do is like, have like
• 49:15
  three mandatory things that I'm gonna do before I go out, But everything else
• 49:21
  is just like accessories. It's gonna make me feel better, I think,
• 49:24
  but it's not mandatory. But these three things for me usually it's my I
• 49:30
  need to roll out my back and then I need to do my spine hygiene
• 49:35
  routine, which is just a mobility thing, and then my bands implos And
• 49:43
  as long as I do those three things, I'm pretty warm and I'm good
• 49:46
  to go. What do you think about that? I love the way you
• 49:50
  just put that. What are your two or three things that you absolutely need
• 49:53
  to do? Everything else you can get away with. I think that's perfect
• 49:57
  And I actually was thinking the same exact things they would have not the rolling
• 50:00
  out part, but it would have been plyos and bands. I like to
• 50:02
  do those, and making sure I leave myself enough time to you know,
• 50:07
  throw a couple of each of my pitches or something like that. But I
• 50:09
  think it's a good way to think through that lens of Okay, what are
• 50:13
  the mandatory things that I do need to do to be physically and mentally prepared
• 50:16
  to pitch? Because I'm thinking of high school kids, especially they, you
• 50:21
  know, for road games. I mean sometimes you get off the bus and
• 50:23
  the game starts in thirty to forty minutes. I mean you gotta be ready
• 50:28
  to go quick. So yeah, and you can't not do anything, so
• 50:31
  you got to make sure that you know exactly what you need to do.
• 50:34
  So it comes back to like, yeah, I do kind of need to
• 50:36
  have a routine. Yes, some days it might need to be expedited a
• 50:39
  little bit. But if I have no clue what I'm doing any given day,
• 50:43
  a day like that where I have to be ready to pitch in thirty
• 50:45
  minutes and I get off the bus and I've been sitting in class for seven
• 50:46
  hours, I'm probably not going to be as mentally locked in or as physically
• 50:51
  ready as I could have been, so have that routine be adaptable and go
• 50:55
  from there. And this is actually something I got out of. It's called
• 51:00
  the ABC goal system. Have you ever heard of that? No? Tell
• 51:05
  me about it? No, that. So the ABC goal system is having
• 51:08
  three goals. So your A goal is best case scenario. So best case
• 51:15
  scenario, we're going to get all of our stuff done, We're going to
• 51:17
  be warm, we're going to be mentally and physically prepared to go pitch.
• 51:22
  And B is all right. I wasn't able to do my accessory stuff,
• 51:28
  but I was able to do my mandatory stuff, so I'm good to go.
• 51:31
  And the C is well, you know, I haven't really been able
• 51:38
  to get too ready, but I'm still ready to go. And so having
• 51:45
  that mindset allows allowed me to be like, all right, even if I
• 51:47
  don't get my A or even my B, I'll at least be able to
• 51:53
  go out and compete and not lose or like not mentally take myself out of
• 51:59
  the game. That's great. So I'd be curious, have you ever tracked
• 52:05
  how many games over the course of a season were A, B and C?
• 52:08
  Is that? Like? Is that the idea is that to track those
• 52:10
  things to see like, how many games are you actually in that A and
• 52:13
  B territory versus the C. No, I've never really tracked it, and
• 52:19
  I use the ABC goal system more for like different things, and this is
• 52:25
  only I've only just started applying it to baseball because it's I got it from
• 52:31
  outside of baseball, So it was it was actually from a marathon runner,
• 52:37
  and he said that there are ABC goals A is best case scenario of time.
• 52:43
  But if you're not on pace for that, a lot of people are
• 52:45
  going to give up and be like, oh, I'm not going to hit
• 52:46
  my time, so I'm just gonna give up. I'm just gonna quit.
• 52:50
  But no, if you have your B and C, your B is all
• 52:52
  right, at least maybe I can hit this time, and then the C
• 52:58
  is all right, at least I'll finish the race. So it's a way
• 53:00
  of just mentally staying in the game and not giving up. Now, as
• 53:06
  you were saying that, I actually have heard of this. Who was it
• 53:08
  that you saw this from. I'm not too sure, but I know I
• 53:15
  read it from a newsletter from saw Hill Bloom somewhere else. Yeah, okay,
• 53:23
  yeah, and I think I heard him talk about it on a podcast
• 53:27
  too. It might be Nick Bear. Do you know Nick Bear? Is
• 53:30
  No, I don't so Nick Bear. Is he owns a supplement company BPN
• 53:35
  or not BPN? Is it? No, it's Bear Bear Performance or something.
• 53:39
  But he had a podcast with him and saw Hill Bloom and someone else.
• 53:45
  I'm blanking maybe Sam par for my first million, but they were talking
• 53:50
  about that or saw Hill was talking about that process. And I think it
• 53:52
  could be applied to pitching, you know, necessarily from you know, it
• 53:58
  can be applied of course to your routine and everything that you're just talking about.
• 54:00
  But even from a performance standpoint, you're not gonna have your A game
• 54:06
  every week, right, I mean, I think they say, you know,
• 54:08
  if you have thirty starts in a season, ten you're gonna feel great.
• 54:13
  Ten you're gonna feel okay. Ten you're gonna be fighting the whole time
• 54:15
  to try to get get through the game. The more of those A games
• 54:19
  obviously the better. But if you can break them up into small goals,
• 54:22
  you know, let's just say, you know, you give up a three
• 54:23
  spot in the first inning, the game's out over right, There's plenty of
• 54:28
  time to get your team back in it. But if you fold if you
• 54:31
  give up after that first three run inning, the next inning is gonna be
• 54:36
  bad again, and then you're probably gonna be pulled out of the game.
• 54:37
  And now your bullpen is coming in to have to cover seven innings and you
• 54:40
  guys are fighting to win a game. Maybe you do come back and win
• 54:44
  it, but now your bullpen has been stretched thin for the next night.
• 54:46
  But if you have the mindset of okay, three runs, okay, let's
• 54:50
  make an adjustment here, one pitch out of time, one inning out of
• 54:52
  time, maybe you end up getting through five innings. Yes, you give
• 54:55
  up three maybe four runs. If you got through five innings and your team
• 54:59
  is still in the game, and now your bullpen isn't having to cover seven
• 55:01
  inning, It's like all those little things add up. They might not seem
• 55:06
  like it at the time, or you might be frustrated and mad that you
• 55:08
  gave up a three spot in the first and it didn't go the way you
• 55:10
  envisioned. But if you're not careful, it can snowball on you and it
• 55:15
  can become a terrible outing versus just an okay or slightly bad outing. M
• 55:21
  Yeah, for sure, I just love that. And now that you talk
• 55:23
  about it. I guess it can be applied to everything in baseball, but
• 55:29
  I just love it because as long as you stay in the game and you
• 55:32
  keep fighting and you don't mentally give up, you don't know why would happen.
• 55:37
  You might completely flip it and just dominate after that happens. So I
• 55:43
  think it's a really valuable tool to have in your toolbooks. Yeah, I
• 55:47
  love that. I'm gonna steal that. I'm gonna use that with different things
• 55:50
  in my life too. I think that's great. So before we end this,
• 55:54
  let's talk about relievers, because let's be honest, it's easy to have
• 55:59
  routines when you're a starter. When you're a relief pitcher, it's a different
• 56:01
  animal. Have you been a reliever before? I haven't. No, so
• 56:07
  I have a little bit of experience with it, but you know, I'll
• 56:10
  tell you firsthand. So college, high school starter, college starter, my
• 56:15
  whole career. I get to indie ball, made a start. My first
• 56:20
  game was a start, and then I got moved to the bullpen and I
• 56:22
  had no clue what to do. I was lost from a lifting standpoint,
• 56:27
  from a throwing standpoint. Like I said before, I am a very routine
• 56:30
  oriented person. So when I was starting, I knew exactly what I was
• 56:32
  gonna do every day between outings. But now I'm in the bullpen. I
• 56:37
  pitched that night, but I'm also available the next night. In Indi ball,
• 56:40
  they don't care about pitch counts and how many days off you have.
• 56:44
  So I pitched that night, I'm available again the next night most likely.
• 56:46
  So now it's like, Okay, what do I do today? Do I
• 56:49
  just do light throwing? What do I do? Okay, I didn't pitch.
• 56:52
  Next day, I'm available again. Do I do light throwing? Medium
• 56:55
  throwing? And maybe I go five days without pitching. But I I was
• 57:00
  hot every night, so I didn't want to do too much in catch play.
• 57:02
  And now I look up a week's gone by, and I've hardly done
• 57:06
  anything other than just light catch. So I think it's really really important that
• 57:10
  we have a Routina's reliever. But it's very, very adaptable. So I
• 57:15
  want to just walk through a couple ideas, and this is just a very
• 57:21
  standard program that can be adjusted. But let's just say day one is a
• 57:25
  day you pitched in a game. We'll just assume you treated it like a
• 57:29
  medium throwing day you won one hundred and twenty feet. Maybe you did a
• 57:30
  little bit of moundplios, something moderate. Day two, I would say,
• 57:37
  regardless, even if you're hot the next day, which hopefully most amateurs that
• 57:39
  are listening to this, hopefully you are not hot the next night. But
• 57:43
  if you are hot the next night, very light throwing. And in college,
• 57:47
  obviously you think about college baseball, they are throwing back to back games
• 57:52
  frequently, especially when it's a Friday to Sunday series. Your closer might throw
• 57:54
  Friday and Saturday. And I'm sure at the end of the season their situations
• 57:58
  where some guys are throwing three days in a row. So you got to
• 58:00
  make sure that we're handling our volume in our workload effectively. So regardless,
• 58:05
  I would say, if you pitched the previous night, that next day,
• 58:07
  you are going super super light throwing, moving the arm, but you are
• 58:10
  still throwing. If you are available that night. Day three, let's just
• 58:15
  assume you did not throw that day. Day three would be a moderate day,
• 58:20
  so ninety to one twenty seventy eighty percent effort, Maybe do some mound
• 58:23
  plios. Let's assume you still didn't pitch that that day. Day three,
• 58:28
  now day four, we are either throwing a bullpen or we are throwing live
• 58:32
  in the game. Now, this is a tricky one. Some people are
• 58:37
  okay with throwing a light bullpen before the game. Now in pro ball,
• 58:40
  this is very common. You might throw a touch and feel, you know,
• 58:44
  at four o'clock or whatever time it is when you guys are throwing,
• 58:47
  and then you might pitch out of the bullpen that night at nine o'clock.
• 58:50
  That's just kind of the way it goes. You just you have to you
• 58:52
  have to get your work in and you know, sometimes you're gonna throw a
• 58:55
  touch and feel and throw it again that exact same night. Hopefully that doesn't
• 58:59
  happen, but sometimes it does. Another option, especially in high school or
• 59:04
  college, if possible, what you could do is don't throw your pre game
• 59:08
  bullpen and hope that you pitch that night, and if you don't pitch that
• 59:14
  night, throw a bullpen after the game. Now, this isn't ideal for
• 59:17
  the catcher, it's not ideal for the coaches, but sometimes it's necessary and
• 59:22
  this is probably the best way to do it. So you are fully fresh
• 59:25
  for the game. But if you don't pitch, you're able to get your
• 59:28
  bullpen in So, in summary, I wouldn't go any more than two straight
• 59:32
  off days without touching the mound. If I'm touching the mound every three days,
• 59:37
  I'm gonna stay sharp. I'm gonna stay ready to go. Is the
• 59:39
  last thing you want, especially if you're a guy that is near the bottom
• 59:44
  of the total poll on your team coming out of the bullpen. You're not
• 59:46
  throwing a ton of innings. The last thing you want to do is go
• 59:51
  one to two weeks or even longer without throwing a significant amount on the mound,
• 59:55
  and then you finally get your opportunity of the game and you're just not
• 59:58
  ready. You're just not ready because you haven't been on the mound and you
• 1:00:00
  might only get that one opportunity, and you want to make sure you're as
• 1:00:04
  prepared as you possibly can. No bullpen. Bullpens are not gonna you know,
• 1:00:08
  they're not the same as a game. But man, if you're not
• 1:00:10
  touching the mound and you're expected to compete and prove your worth, you know,
• 1:00:15
  two weeks in without throwing in a game, you want to be as
• 1:00:19
  sharp as you can, as ready as you can go. So that would
• 1:00:21
  be my advice, No more in two days off. Treat those light days
• 1:00:24
  light, but also be careful not to let too many light days go in
• 1:00:28
  a row without touching the mound. Yeah, and what I see in probol
• 1:00:34
  is, honestly, they just do a moderate day and a touch and feel
• 1:00:38
  every day until they throw, and then they get in a game. They
• 1:00:44
  might do a really light day the next day, and they just repeat and
• 1:00:46
  they just go moderate touch and feel, moderate touch and feel until they get
• 1:00:51
  in a game. Yeah. No, that's that's great. And when you
• 1:00:54
  start doing that on a consistent basis, assuming you're keeping the volume in check
• 1:00:58
  and you're keeping the intensity in check, you start to get used to that,
• 1:01:01
  and you're you're going to feel more prepared. Everything's going to stay sharp.
• 1:01:05
  Just have to be careful with the volume. Like I had a pitcher
• 1:01:08
  the last couple of years that he honestly would throw harder in his touch and
• 1:01:13
  field than he did in the game. It was incredible. I had never
• 1:01:16
  seen anything like it. He would throw ninety two, ninety three, you
• 1:01:20
  would touch a four in touch field. First of all, I was like,
• 1:01:22
  dude, throw slower. You might pitch tonight, so don't blow it
• 1:01:25
  all right now. And then you go in the game and Bene ninety one,
• 1:01:29
  I'm like, dude, do you not understand that you're overdoing it and
• 1:01:32
  your touch and feel and then you're not ready to go in the game because
• 1:01:35
  you've thrown too much and too hard. So definitely want to keep that in
• 1:01:38
  check. If you can have a radar gun, use it so that you
• 1:01:43
  know where your velocity is exactly. So radar guns, yes, they're good
• 1:01:45
  to see your max velocity, but it's also really good to make sure you're
• 1:01:50
  staying at the right threshold and at a certain intensity. Yeah, I love
• 1:01:54
  that, and I might actually be able to relieve adsis. I'm definitely going
• 1:01:58
  to steal that. Steal this plan right here perfect Well, last thing,
• 1:02:04
  I mean, we'll briefly touch on it, Like I know this is more
• 1:02:07
  of a pitching podcast, but I think lifting and the conditioning, all those
• 1:02:10
  things. I think that's an important conversation because I know a lot of players
• 1:02:15
  that once the season comes along, they don't lift, they don't do anything,
• 1:02:17
  and then by the end of the season they're dragging, they're weaker,
• 1:02:21
  they're velocities down, and to me, not working out is just not an
• 1:02:25
  option. So I would love to hear you know what your lifting schedule is
• 1:02:30
  as a starter in between starts. And I know you're a little bit different
• 1:02:32
  since you've had you know, your back injuries. I know you're not lifting
• 1:02:36
  as intensely, but walk me through you know what your weekly schedule looks like
• 1:02:39
  from a lifting and conditioning standpoint. Yeah. I've actually got a lot more
• 1:02:45
  smart with this this year. And so previously it wouldn't change. Every time
• 1:02:52
  I'd go out on the mound. The next day I would go heavy and
• 1:02:58
  I'll train for strength and the loads will be up. But what I started
• 1:03:02
  to find was that I recovered better if I had a lighter lifting day after
• 1:03:08
  my game day. So now what I do is, I'll go in a
• 1:03:13
  game, I'll pitch however many innings, and then the next day the lift
• 1:03:16
  day, instead of going heavy with you know, legs, back, squat,
• 1:03:22
  bench like going heavy and the stuff that's really going to break down the
• 1:03:25
  muscle, I really try to keep it like a blood flow day. So
• 1:03:30
  I'm keeping my weights a little bit lighter, my rep's a little bit higher.
• 1:03:36
  And this is a feel thing. You're going to have to feel it
• 1:03:37
  out for yourself and what actually feels good for you, but for me that
• 1:03:40
  really works and getting the blood flow going. Now, when I throw a
• 1:03:45
  bullpen, we lift on the same day, so those are the days where
• 1:03:49
  I'm trying to make a little bit of progress and maintenance on my strength and
• 1:03:52
  power. So I'm going heavier on my compound lifts and I'm getting my powerwork
• 1:03:59
  in on the those days. Perfect. So two lifts a week then in
• 1:04:04
  between starts, yes, yeah, we we do two to list nice.
• 1:04:10
  What about conditioning, Is there any like sprint work or anything? Oh,
• 1:04:14
  conditioning, Yeah, every day, that's every day, favorite, every day.
• 1:04:18
  Yeah, what type of stuff, Especially in spring training they're trying to
• 1:04:24
  get out like like they're trying to get out cardiovascula going, so they're actually
• 1:04:30
  really tough. The conditioning pre throwing pre throw even worse. The other day
• 1:04:38
  we had tempo runs and so it was sixty odd sprints at seven seconds and
• 1:04:45
  we're like, what, oh, sorry, sixty odd sprints at eight seconds.
• 1:04:50
  So it's pretty much just a sprint and we would do that ten times.
• 1:04:55
  Yeah, I mean, you're we're talking about pictures here, so I
• 1:04:58
  mean, yeah, I mean some of those guys probably can't even run it
• 1:05:00
  in eight seconds. Yeah, most of us didn't make it, Like I've
• 1:05:02
  probably made like eight out of ten of them, but a lot of people
• 1:05:05
  didn't make even half of them. Wow. Okay, So and that's that's
• 1:05:10
  every day. What about once game start? Is it like one one to
• 1:05:14
  two days a week of conditioning once game stot? No, we said to
• 1:05:18
  it every day. It's just a lot lighter even in season once you go
• 1:05:23
  to your affiliate hmm yeah, wow, okay, Yeah, that's that's more
• 1:05:27
  than I've heard from other teams. M hmm. Interesting. Yeah, I
• 1:05:30
  think. Yeah, the load is a little bit lower, and maybe if
• 1:05:33
  I remember correctly, we do have like an agility day in there so that
• 1:05:40
  it's not all just conditioning. But yeah, we definitely run every single day.
• 1:05:45
  Okay, I got it. So my plan is a little bit different
• 1:05:48
  from from what I usually recommend with guys, Like I usually don't recommend any
• 1:05:51
  more than two running days a week in season. It's just, in my
• 1:05:56
  opinion, just not fully necessary. Like in a lot of times, the
• 1:06:00
  conditioning is what's breaking down guys the most. Now, if you're built up
• 1:06:03
  to it and you know you like it, you feel good, that's one
• 1:06:05
  thing. But a lot of times guys just get beat up from running too
• 1:06:09
  much in season, and at the amateur levels, a lot of times it's
• 1:06:13
  kind of a filler thing because they don't know what else to have their pitchers
• 1:06:15
  do, so they'll have them run or do something along those lines. From
• 1:06:20
  a starter standpoint, you know, a seven day schedule definitely two lifts a
• 1:06:25
  week. There is a possibility of three lifts a week in some cases depending
• 1:06:29
  on how important the weight room is for that individual. So let's just say
• 1:06:33
  you want to get three lifts in, I would do the day after you
• 1:06:38
  pitch a lower body lift. Day three, so two days after you pitch
• 1:06:42
  would be an upper body lift. So those are gonna be like your two
• 1:06:45
  bigger lift days, just because you're gonna have the most time to recover before
• 1:06:48
  your next outing. And then day four would be a cardio day, so
• 1:06:56
  you could do some sprint based work that day, or you could even tie
• 1:06:58
  it into honestly the day two day with the lifting and conditioning or with the
• 1:07:01
  lifting the lower body, and that way, Day four can be an off
• 1:07:04
  day, and then day five is your bullpen day slash full body workout.
• 1:07:10
  So this one's going to be more of a modern intensity lift, but doing
• 1:07:13
  compound lifts full body exercises for the most part, or sorry, not full
• 1:07:16
  body exercises, but lifting full bodies, so doing lower and upper and then
• 1:07:20
  day six potentially could be a short sprint day, low volume. Day seven
• 1:07:27
  would be no conditioning, no lifting, and then obviously pitch the next day.
• 1:07:31
  The other option would be just two full body lifts in there as well
• 1:07:33
  as one to two conditioning days. It could be the day after you pitch
• 1:07:38
  is your full body lift, and then also your bullpen day would be your
• 1:07:41
  full body lift, and then days for a six day rotation, definitely just
• 1:07:45
  two lifts a week, day after and then the day of a bullpen would
• 1:07:48
  be two full body lifts. So it's you know, it doesn't take much.
• 1:07:54
  You don't have to, you know, lift the house. You don't
• 1:07:56
  have to be in there for an hour and a half. If you're lifting,
• 1:08:00
  doing some big lifts, getting a couple accessory lifts in and you're doing
• 1:08:03
  it consistently in season, I promise you you're going to feel better by the
• 1:08:08
  end of the season than if you were to do nothing, because I've done
• 1:08:11
  that. I did that when I was when I became a reliever. Going
• 1:08:13
  back to that, my first year of indie ball, I didn't know when
• 1:08:15
  to lift because I didn't want to be sore. I didn't want to be
• 1:08:17
  fatigued, like you were saying earlier. And as a result, I ended
• 1:08:20
  up hardly ever lifting, and I lost so much strength. I lost weight,
• 1:08:24
  My velo was down. I was not good by the end of the
• 1:08:27
  year, and then I made the adjustment. The following year gone a good
• 1:08:30
  lifting schedule. I know, like, there's a Taylor Rodgers with the Twins,
• 1:08:33
  or sorry, he's not the Twins anymore. I don't know who he's
• 1:08:35
  with now. Actually, do you know who's with you with the Giants,
• 1:08:39
  Lefty, I'm not sure he's got the twin brother Tyler Rodgers, the submarine
• 1:08:44
  guy for the Giants, but he was with the twins, and our strength
• 1:08:48
  coach with the twins, he said with Taylor he was the closer. He's
• 1:08:53
  like, no matter what he lifted, I want to say, it was
• 1:08:56
  like Tuesday and Friday full body lift. It didn't matter if he pitched,
• 1:08:58
  didn't pitch. He just was gonna lift every Tuesday and every Friday, rain
• 1:09:02
  or shine, those are gonna be as lift days and I like that because
• 1:09:06
  as a reliever, it's so unpredictable. You don't know when you're gonna pitch,
• 1:09:10
  and if you're not careful, you're gonna go weeks without lifting, and
• 1:09:13
  then when you do finally lift, that is when you get sore. But
• 1:09:15
  when you're consistently working out like you're not gonna get that fatigue or that's sore.
• 1:09:19
  It's when you haven't done it for a while, and then you shock
• 1:09:21
  the body with it. So do it from the beginning, stay consistent,
• 1:09:25
  monitor the volume, intensity, and you'll be fine. M hmm. Yeah,
• 1:09:30
  that's how they do it in Pro Bowl as well. It's just they
• 1:09:32
  have two days where they lift and it doesn't matter what you did. Relieve
• 1:09:38
  is just lifting in the morning. I think I might have actually being Tuesday
• 1:09:42
  Fridays as well, and they're not going to straight from that. I love
• 1:09:46
  it as always do. This was a great show. Hopefully the listeners got
• 1:09:51
  some value out of it, but I know I enjoyed it. Yeah,
• 1:09:56
  me too. This was a good one.