Latest / The Mound Visit / How to Improve Your Command

Transcript

How to Improve Your Command · The Mound Visit

0:00
Another thing that I started doing only a couple of weeks ago, and I
0:04
feel that it really helped, was that doing like ten sprints before your pen.
0:08
And so I'll do like ten max efforts sprints and then as soon as
0:13
I'm done, I'm getting on the pen, getting on the mound and throwing
0:16
my bullpen. And what that does is it elevates your heart rate. There's
0:23
like a story from Tiger Woods and he said the way he trains is that
0:27
he'll do the same thing. He'll do sprints and then he would go straight
0:31
to the straight to like practicing his ghlft swing. And the reason for that
0:37
is it emulates the heart rate of when you have the adrenaline pumping and you
0:41
have all the people in the stands watching you, and you can't really get
0:45
that unless you know you really do something to elevate your heart rate. All
1:00
right, we are live, Josh. You have officially pitched in a game
1:04
this year. How did your first outing of the year ago? Yeah,
1:08
So it was our first home series and so we played the Jersey Shoe Jersey
1:15
Show, Blue Cloths, the Phillies affiliate, and I got two outings in.
1:19
I got one outing on Wednesday, and another on Saturday. So my
1:26
first outing was, I mean, like stats wise, it was fine,
1:29
but I'm really struggling with my velocity right now. For some reason, I
1:34
sat about I was like eighty seven to ninety one, I think, which
1:38
is like one of the slowest of thrown in my whole career. So that's
1:42
something that I'm really trying to address, trying to get that back up.
1:47
The funny thing is I was still swing and missing on my fostball, so
1:51
I think it's because I have a really low release and I get some carry
1:53
on it, so they're still swinging through it. My second outing, I
1:57
did some mechanical adjustments trying to get my arm up a little bit quicker so
2:02
that when I land, my arm is up in like this position instead of
2:07
I was getting stuck in a like my arm was horizontal instead of getting up
2:14
and ready to fire. And that really helped us at ninety that outing,
2:19
And so yeah, my focus going forward is just going to be especially out
2:23
of the pan. I'm just gonna throw it as hot as I can,
2:24
and since I have like a ride fospel now, I'm just gonna try to
2:30
throw it as hot as I can up in the zone and get some swinging
2:34
misses. Yeah. I remember we talked a couple of days ago and I
2:38
was looking at the box score sow you pitched, and then looked at you
2:40
know, your numbers and all that. I was like, this can't be
2:44
Josh, because I know he throws harder than eighty seven to ninety one.
2:47
But like you said, work working through a few things. A couple of
2:52
mechanical things are slightly off, but that's that's good and encouraging to hear that.
2:54
It felt better your second outing, and yeah, I mean you're still
2:59
effective right even through at Laura Velosi. You still got some funk to you
3:01
and have that carry from a low slot. So that's gonna lie you to
3:05
play up in the zone, which is which is great. So now when
3:07
you build on that and you start getting back to your you know, your
3:09
normal ninety three to ninety six, now it's going to play up even more.
3:13
So I'm excited to follow your journey. Yeah, for sure, it
3:16
was weird. I've been struggling a little bit with my back and two days
3:21
into screen training, I go to BACKSPAZM and you know, when your back
3:24
isn't good, like you can't rotate all load properly. So I think that
3:28
was part of the reason. But another thing that we talked about was that
3:31
when I'm so focused on command, my tempo slows down a little bit.
3:37
And that's something that you brought up to me. And so that's another thing
3:40
that I'm going to start addressing, is after my I'm action, I'm going
3:45
to start addressing Okay, let's get the tempo up a little bit and not
3:49
be so fine and like trying to place the ball. Let's just especially out
3:53
of the bullpen. As I said, I'm just gonna try to blow it
3:55
by guys, now, Yeah, exactly. The tempo, it's it can
4:00
be really easy to let your tempo kind of slow down or speed up in
4:03
some cases. But it was interesting you sent me that video of you during
4:06
the off season throwing ninety five, Like there's a pretty clear difference in tempo
4:11
and then as well as you were thrown across your body a lot more this
4:15
last week compared to during the off season, which when you start drifting towards
4:17
third base and thrown across your body, then you're gonna have to start opening
4:20
up the front side a little bit earlier to get back in line towards home.
4:25
So there's just there's all these things that kind of build on each other
4:27
and can snowball that can yield you know, lower v low and less command.
4:30
So yeah, you're really, you know, one or two adjustments away
4:33
from getting you velocity back. And then on top of it, like you
4:36
said, you had the back issue during the screen a little bit, and
4:41
that's a big deal. My last year of Indie Ball, I had a
4:44
back issue pretty much the entire season and unless I like really really try to
4:48
amp it up for one or two pitches and just say screw it, I'm
4:51
gonna throw through the back paint on this pitch. Like, my velocity was
4:56
limited because of that. So, like I know personally too from experience,
4:59
like the back is a really big deal. If that's not feeling on,
5:02
your velocity is definitely going to suffer as a result of that. So all
5:05
those things add up to making sense where your velo might be a little bit
5:08
lower to start the year. Yeah for sure. Yeah, the back is
5:15
just so so important, and a couple of things that I'm trying to do
5:18
to alleviate that pain is just stretching. And there's a thing called a venom.
5:25
Have you ever tried the venom? Yes, I've used it once or
5:30
twice, but tell me about it more. Yeah, it's just like a
5:33
there's a venom for the back, and it's kind of like a belt and
5:36
so you turn it on and it like vibrates and it heats it up,
5:41
and that really loosens my back and it feels good. I've also been doing
5:45
a lot of ad work and just how it exercises, like spinal hygiene exercises
5:50
to get it going, and so that's really helped a lot. But yeah,
5:56
when the back's not feeling good, the velo is down and the cats
6:00
off is a lot as well, no doubt, no doubt. Well,
6:02
there's one guy in the big leagues right now who is definitely not struggling with
6:06
his velocity, Mason Miller for the Oakland A's. I don't know if you've
6:10
watched any of his outings this year, but the dude is just ridiculous up
6:14
to one oh four this last week. I made a post about it,
6:17
and I can't even tell you how many comments I got that said, this
6:20
guy's gonna have Tommy John afterwards or in the next week or so, or
6:25
jokes along those lines, which is just sad and ridiculous, and I don't
6:28
have the energy to respond to every comment like that from a troll account,
6:31
so I choose not to. But one hundred and four miles an hour.
6:35
I think he's twenty five years old and he's starting to establish himself as one
6:39
of their late inning guys in the bullpen. But he's pretty special. Have
6:43
you been able to watch him at all? Yeah? I was some of
6:46
of his clips when it was pitching, and it was it was really amazing.
6:51
The one thing that I saw was that it looked like he slowed down
6:56
in the middle of his delivery, just a little bit to sync up his
7:00
whole delivery. And I thought that was super interesting because you know, when
7:03
you think of someone who's throwing one of four, I thought it would be
7:05
like full speed, just like all right, I'm just right leg lift and
7:10
I'm just going I'm just gonna throw the shit out of it. But this
7:13
one was like all right on leglift, and there was a little bit of
7:15
a like a slow down in the middle to get his arm up, and
7:20
then he would go did you notice, yeah, did you well? When
7:25
did you notice it? Is it like after peak leglift, like right before
7:28
he starts to really sink into his load or where did you notice him slowing
7:30
down? Yeah, it was like leg lift, and then when it was
7:35
coming down, it wasn't as quick as I thought it'd be. It wasn't
7:40
just a leg lift and then boom, I'm going it's more of like a
7:44
leg lift. I'm gathering, I'm getting my arm up, and then it's
7:46
just everything goes. Yeah. No, I noticed that too, And yeah,
7:50
he has some some interesting qualities about his delivery, Like the back leg
7:56
is definitely more internally rotated, so like he doesn't get that super vertical that
8:00
a lot of guys talk about you want to achieve or you know, are
8:03
trying to strive after. Like his knee caves in pretty hard as he goes
8:07
into that load. But I think it's just because he's probably more of an
8:09
ir dominant guy, so he's able to create more tension and power in that
8:13
position and drive from that position, and then his lead leg is I would
8:18
love to see the data on how fast his lead leg extends from foot plants
8:22
a ball release, because it is incredible, Like you can just see the
8:26
power from foot plants of ball release and how quick everything happens, and like
8:28
that's where a lot of the velocity is coming from. So pretty special delivery
8:33
and special arm. So Jackson Holiday, did you get to see him?
8:37
Another guy made his big league debut this week. Got to a rough start,
8:41
but I got his first hit yesterday. But the dude's only twenty years
8:43
old. Pretty impressive to be in the big leagues already. Yeah, for
8:48
sure, It's actually really amazing. His twenty years old is number one prospect
8:52
and it will be in his already in the major leagues. I mean,
8:56
you know, he isn't doing the best right now, but you know,
9:01
I think it'll be totally fine. I saw an interview with him when he
9:05
was just like, you know, these things happen, you know, like
9:09
dry slumps and times where you don't hit is going to happen, but you
9:16
just got to leave it all up to the gold and just trust and you
9:20
know, his family, his dad, like he's going to be telling him
9:22
all about it as well. So I think he's going to be totally fine.
9:26
And you know, I faced him once in uh Lowe I think two
9:31
years ago, and he was just an absolute stud. So I think it
9:35
would be totally fine, and he's just gonna start hitting up from here.
9:39
No, I totally agree, well, especially now that he got his first
9:43
hip. I mean, you start off over eleven with seven strikeouts, and
9:46
maybe he even started off over thirteen or fourteen something like that. You're pressing
9:50
right like he wants his first big league hit. Finally gets it yesterday,
9:54
Like I could see him just going off for this next month of just getting
9:56
more comfortable and not pressings. He's got the hit out the way and now
10:00
he can just play and be himself. So he's gonna be pretty special to
10:03
watch. One other guy I wanted to touch on before we jump into our
10:07
topic today is Nester Cortez and his special throw that he made yesterday with the
10:13
fake throw and then back into his delivery. First of all, what do
10:16
you think about it? And number two, do you think that you could
10:18
pull that off and throw a strike? I thought it was also. Honestly,
10:26
I saw him do the stuff like last year where it would just like
10:31
wiggle his lead leg and try to disrupt timing. But when he was like
10:35
when he did the fake throw, I just stided cracking on because that's crazy.
10:39
I was actually impressed they hit it didn't like he still hit the ball.
10:43
You know, it was a foul ball, but I was still impressed
10:46
that he didn't get deeped out or anything. And honestly, I don't think
10:50
I have the cars to do that in game, like you know, like
10:56
there's not much upside to do it. I feel like for me, I
11:01
don't know if I can do all of that and even think about it and
11:05
then go out and throw a shrike. Did he ever do that during your
11:09
career? No? No, but it is pretty impressive. I feel like
11:13
he does it just because he can. He knows that he can control his
11:16
body, he knows that he can still throw a strike with it, and
11:18
I think he just kind of likes to have fun with it. One thing
11:20
that I would do is I would change my arm slot sometimes, so like
11:24
one throw, I would drop my arm down side arm, the other one
11:26
I'd go over the top normal and I would kind of mess with guys that
11:30
way. I can't remember where I got the idea from. It had to
11:33
have been a college pitcher that I watched. I think you know who did
11:37
it a lot actually was Michael Roth for South Carolina. University of South Carolina.
11:41
He was on their World Series team back to back years in twenty ten
11:46
and twenty eleven. Left handed pitcher. He threw mid to high eighties,
11:48
but he just dominated the SEC and won the World Series back to back years
11:54
just because he knew how to pitch. He would change armslots. It was
11:56
just funky, and I think that's where I got it from just watching him
11:58
on TV. He ended up making to the big leagues, so it worked
12:01
for him. Yeah, awesome. I don't think I've even tried messing with
12:07
omslets. I'm kind of more of a guy who's just like, all right,
12:11
I need to just simplify everything, and if I start incorporating all these
12:15
different things just gonna make me worse. So no, I don't know I
12:18
can. I can throw aside on him, So I might try it.
12:20
If, like, you know, I'm going on a pretty good stretch and
12:24
I'm getting a lot of outs, then maybe I'll be like, all right,
12:26
I'll just incorporate this. But I just want to get on a roll,
12:30
and for that, I think I just need to simplify everything and just
12:33
be in the zone. Yeah, probably wouldn't recommend it. For about ninety
12:37
nine point nine percent of guys just get really good at what you do and
12:41
if you can't do it, sure, but it's I am gonna be curious
12:46
to hear about stories on Twitter of kids trying to do what Estra Quartez did
12:50
yesterday this week in their games. Yeah, for sure. I mean I
12:58
mean I actually be even be good because like it increases, like you know,
13:01
the variability training, which is something that we will talk about because we're
13:05
going to be talking about command today. But what do you think about like
13:09
incorporating those maybe not in games, but definitely during my bullpens just thrown from
13:15
different opsets. I think it could be super valuable. I am all about
13:20
variability training, challenging yourself, putting yourself in unique positions and still being able
13:26
to accomplish the task of throwing a strike or throwing the ball where you want
13:28
to. So I think the more that you can do that type of stuff
13:31
in your training, I think it is going to help you because you're increasing
13:33
your body awareness, you're increasing your athleticism, and on top of it,
13:37
it's fun, right, Like kids enjoy doing that, not even just kids,
13:41
I mean I imagine pro guys do too, just because it's fun to
13:43
be athletic and kind of challenge yourself to be able to throw from different positions
13:46
or different timings. Yeah, for sure. And I think that leads really
13:52
nicely into our topic today, which is command and how to increase command,
13:58
how to train command, and like the mental side of command. So what
14:03
do you think about command? An interesting topic? I think the probably the
14:09
first thing to do is like is define what command is? And I like
14:13
to put command into two different buckets. There's true command, which is actually
14:18
being able to throw the ball precisely where you want it to go within a
14:20
general area. So if I'm trying to throw a pitch down and away,
14:24
it is within a few inches of that down and away location. Being able
14:28
to have good control, the way I look at that, is just being
14:31
able to throw the ball in the general area of where you're trying to go
14:33
with it. So if I'm trying to throw this ball in the strike zone,
14:37
I'm able to put it somewhere in the strike zone, maybe not to
14:39
an exact spot, but I'm able to throw it in the zone. I
14:41
think they're both valuable. Obviously, if you can throw the ball exactly where
14:45
you want it to go, that's most ideal. But having some control and
14:48
being able to throw it in the zone is a very good first step.
14:52
And if you can do that, you're probably gonna be able to limit your
14:54
walks, and if you have really good stuff, that might be enough for
14:56
you to really dominate, depending on what level you're at. So that's kind
15:00
of like how I like to look at it is. You know, command
15:03
is kind of a general term that gets used for strike throwing ability, but
15:05
true command to me is being able to throw the ball exactly where you want
15:09
it to go, and control is being able to throw it generally in the
15:11
strike zone. What are your thoughts? Do you have any definitions for those
15:15
two? Yeah, the way I think about it is the same, Like
15:20
control is okay, just being able to throw inside of the zone, and
15:24
command is like being more specific being able to hit like down and out,
15:31
you know, like be able to throw up when you need to go down
15:35
on your breaking walls if you need to. But honestly, there was a
15:39
stat that I came across now the the other day and the Texas ranges it's,
15:45
uh, they hop on us hop on it a lot. Is focusing
15:50
more on control than command Because even the MLB pitches, the average miss is
15:58
about eight inches, So wherever they're trying to go, it's like they're going
16:03
to be missing by eight inches. And so what the Texas Rangers told us
16:07
was that, all right, we want all the catchers that setting out middle
16:11
middle, and we want all the pitchers trying to throw middle middle, because
16:15
the chances I you're not going to throw middle middle, Like, we're not
16:19
that good to be able to just dot a fossible down the middle when we're
16:25
trying to go down the middle, because even the best in the world and
16:27
missing by you know, six to eight inches every time. And so when
16:32
you miss six to eight inches when you're throwing down the middle, it's going
16:36
to go to a good spot. It's going to be on the edges.
16:38
And so that's something that's how I kind of think about it, is like
16:44
you want to optimize more for control than command, just because you know,
16:49
even the best in the world don't have the ability to pain point it every
16:52
time. Yeah, that's a pretty common trend right now. I know the
16:56
Twins we're doing it setting up down the middle. We started doing that in
17:00
like twenty two, maybe even twenty one. Actually, I think it might
17:03
have been twenty one we started doing that. I know Tampa Bay is really
17:06
big for doing that as well, and it makes sense, right like you're
17:08
giving yourself a bigger margin for air, you're most likely not going to actually
17:12
throw it right down the middle. One thing I would be curious about this
17:15
is kind of just like a counter to why maybe that's not good for some
17:19
guys, is like I know, for myself, whenever I was trying to
17:22
throw it right down the middle, or like if I had a target down
17:25
the middle, it was almost like my targeting was just a generalized area versus,
17:30
Okay, the catcher's setting up inside with the glove right underneath the hands,
17:36
I know, like this is where I'm trying to be aggressive and throw
17:37
the ball through that target. It would give me like more of a just
17:41
more of a better visual and a precise location of where I'm trying to throw
17:45
this pitch, because if the catchers set them down the middle, even though
17:48
I know the ball probably isn't going to go down the middle, I personally
17:52
still like to have a target of exactly where I'm trying to throw it.
17:55
And if that target's supposed to be right down the middle, it's almost like
17:57
a weird psychology thing of telling myself that I need to throw this down the
18:02
middle, even though I know in the back of my mind that if I
18:03
do that, it's probably going to get hit if I actually throw it right
18:07
in that location. So I'm curious if you or any of your teammates have
18:10
struggled with the idea of having a middle middle location knowing that that isn't where
18:15
I want the ball to actually go, and if that kind of hurt their
18:18
focus on like where to actually try to throw the pitch. Hmm, yeah,
18:26
that's actually interesting. So I have heard of some teammates be like,
18:32
when it's middle middle, it just feels like I'm just you know, like
18:36
as you said, it's just kind of like a broad area that I'm throwing
18:38
to instead of I can't really pinpoint where I'm going to throw it to,
18:41
and my focus isn't as fine, and so the command suffer is a little
18:48
bit. So I think it just comes back to like knowing yourself and talking
18:53
to the catches and just being like, if that's what it is, If
18:56
that's you, then and you throw more strikes when you or like aiming down
19:02
in a way or in or whatever like a specific point, then obviously do
19:07
that but I feel like if you can get good at throwing just like down
19:12
the middle, that would be really massive for your career. There's one stat
19:18
with again with the Texas Rangers. It's a location value added step, and
19:25
so it measures how good a pitch is in what location in each count.
19:33
And so when it's oh, oh, the you can throw a pitch right
19:37
down the middle, you can throw it anywhere in the zone, and it's
19:41
an extremely valuable pitch. You know, it comes down to the importance of
19:45
first week of strikes, but if you can throw it anywhere within the zone,
19:49
then it's an extremely valuable pitch, oh, you know. And then
19:52
as you go on in like oh, one, oh two, it starts
19:56
to get narrow and narrower and you need to expand a little bit. But
20:02
I think just being able to look at the middle and just trying to throw
20:07
it right down the middle will be a really important skill to have it,
20:11
especially like you know, justh and it could really improve your walk rates and
20:17
your flats for strike percentages. What do you think of that? No,
20:21
that I like that, and I do think it's a very good first step,
20:23
especially for high school guys or pro guys who maybe are walking too many
20:29
guys, Like I think it's a really good first step to get in zone
20:32
to start throwing more strikes and limit those free passes, because that's that's one
20:34
of the main stats I look at right is walk percentage and then K percentage,
20:38
Like those two are really important stats. And walk percentage if you want
20:42
to lower that, you don't have to have perfect command. You just have
20:45
to be able to throw the ball in the strike zone and get them to
20:47
swing the bat. So just to give guys a perspective, major league average
20:51
for walk crate is around eight and a half percent, and it's basically been
20:53
around there for the last ten to fifteen years. It's ranged from roughly like
20:59
seven point nine percent to nine percent. I think it was like nine to
21:03
nine point one percent during twenty twenty, but that was a much shortened season,
21:07
of course, but typically it's around the eight and a half percent mark.
21:10
The minor leagues, the walk crade has gone up quite a bit so
21:14
in twenty eighteen. Basically twenty eighteen. In prior, the walk grate in
21:18
the miners was very similar to the major league walk grade, and then in
21:22
twenty nineteen it went slightly up to like nine percent, nine point two percent,
21:26
and then COVID obviously was twenty twenty so there was no minor league season
21:29
twenty twenty one, it jumped up to around eleven percent and it's basically been
21:33
to a between eleven and twelve percent since twenty twenty one. Now with that,
21:37
strikeouts have also gone up because people are understanding the value of increasing swin
21:41
and miss improving their stuff. But the walk rate has gone up with it
21:45
and college so Division one I have numbers for them, not lower levels,
21:48
but for Division one walk grade has been around eleven percent as well the last
21:52
couple of years, So there's a decent difference between college minor leagues and the
21:57
major leagues from a walk rate stamp. And for me, like that is
22:00
one of the main things that guys can work on and try to improve,
22:04
And for them it might be having the catcher set up middle middle, because
22:08
like we talked about, you have a bigger margin for air. You haven't
22:11
proven to have the skill to be able to go perfectly in perfectly out.
22:15
I do think that there's value in training that still you know in your bullpens
22:18
and make them challenging. We'll dive into that on some ideas for bullpens,
22:22
but in general, like you just have to be able to throw more strikes.
22:25
So before we go any further, I think it's important to, you
22:27
know, just tell listeners why we like to use walk percentage over walks per
22:32
nine. And it's just because it gives us some more accurate representation of how
22:34
many guys you're actually walking, because it's dividing it by batters faced rather than
22:38
just innings pitched. And as we know, you can face a various amount
22:42
of batters in an inning. You could face three guys or you could face
22:45
six guys. It just depends on how many batters it takes to get those
22:48
final outs, and that impacts the amount of walks and what that walk percentage
22:52
will be versus the walks per nine. Yeah, that's interesting, and I
22:57
don't want to go too far off top, but there's a tweet that you
23:00
had the other day about stuff plus and how that affects wOBA and swing a
23:07
miss, And I thought that was super interesting because in the tweet it said
23:11
that location was the biggest factor for swing a miss and the stuff plus number
23:18
was the biggest uh number for wOBA? Is that right? Uh? Ye?
23:26
I might have been Babbit Batti, Agon Bows and Play. Maybe I
23:30
can't remember it. It was one of those, but yeah, it was
23:33
from the podcast The Craft with Nick Pollock and Ino Serrus. It's a really
23:37
good podcast. I would recommend people listening to that. But yeah, So
23:41
basically what he was saying is location is going to impact the sween of miss,
23:47
like you said, more than the stuff. So if I'm throwing a
23:48
slider down and away, if I execute that perfectly down and away, my
23:52
chances of getting a sween of miss are going to go up, regardless of
23:56
how good of a pitch it is from a movement or velocity standpoint. But
24:00
let's just say I'm in zone and you know I'm throwing a pitch middle middle.
24:06
The pitch that has better stuff is going to outperform the weaker moving or
24:10
velocity based pitch. It makes common sense, right, But a lot of
24:12
times people think that the stuff has to be extraordinary to get sween and missed,
24:17
which it obviously helps because coming back to if I throw it middle middle
24:19
or if I leave it up in zone, I still have a decent chance
24:22
at getting the good result. But there isn't necessarily a direct correlation with that.
24:26
So it is interesting, like if I can get the pitch located well,
24:30
regardless how good my stuff is, I can still get really good sween
24:32
and miss results regardless of the stuff plus numbers. Yeah, I think that
24:38
explains why I didn't get too many swing and misses on my previous outing,
24:41
because you know, I was two strikes on a lot of my hit is
24:45
and I was throwing a one point thirty stuff plus sweep off, which is
24:51
for the listeners who don't know, one hundred is MLB average, and so
24:56
if you have a pitch that's over one hundred, then it means that it's
24:59
an above big league average pitch, and so it's a pretty good pitch.
25:03
But what was happening was that I was just leaving them in and so they'll
25:07
popping them out, popping them up instead of swinging missing, and so I
25:12
think I definitely need to get better at executing that more away where the sweepers
25:18
play the best. But anyway, I want to get into actionable things for
25:23
the listeners on how to increase command. Do you want to sign us off
25:29
Jovi? Yeah, I mean I like to break it down really into like
25:33
three categories. So the main one is not the main one, but one
25:37
of the first ones is catch play. We play catch and throw the ball
25:41
and catch play more than any other setting in most cases. So if we're
25:45
gonna play catch a lot, we might as well make the most out of
25:48
that and try to work on things, whether it's you know, working on
25:51
mechanics, working on a pitch shape, or command. I think there's a
25:55
lot of opportunity to work on command in catch play. The other part is
25:57
in bulpens, of course, and then the other part is the mental side.
26:00
So the mental side can take place on a mound, away from a
26:03
mound, it could be in your room, it can be anywhere depending on
26:06
what you're exactly doing on the mental game. But let's start with catchplay for
26:10
a little bit. I think one of the best things guys can do is
26:14
to be athletic when they're throwing. Do athletic drills. You can throw from
26:17
different arm slots, you can pretend to be an infield, or do jump
26:19
throws, do all these various motions that are getting you away from just being
26:23
kind of robotic and doing your regular leglift all the time. And I think
26:27
it kind of comes back to what you've said in the past about you darbish
26:30
about how he changes his mechanics and what he's doing when he's playing catch.
26:33
It's a similar idea. We want to free ourselves up, we want to
26:37
be athletic, we want to challenge ourselves in different positions while not just throwing
26:41
it aimlessly right, Like I'm not going to be an infielder and not think
26:44
about where I'm throwing it and just sail it, like I want to try
26:47
to throw it to the exact same spot on my partner every time and try
26:51
to challenge myself through those different movements, different armslots and whatnot. Another thing
26:55
that you can do in catchplay, and this is like a game as old
26:56
as time, is play a points game with your partner two points for the
27:00
head, one point for the chest, or whatever you want to do for
27:03
targeting. But like challenge yourselves and get a little friendly competition with your partner
27:07
every day with a little location game like that's a very simple and easy way
27:11
to work on it. And another thing you can do in catch play is
27:15
to use differential balls or you could even use a softball, anything that's different
27:19
from a baseball to really just challenge that release, get a little bit of
27:22
variability training, and really it's the same principles. Changing the arm slot or
27:26
changing the type of throw you're making is we're trying to challenge you to be
27:32
as consistent as can be with your release, to try to have the same
27:37
target while challenging the type of ball you're using or the armstle you're using.
27:40
Is only going to make you more adaptable. When you are in a game
27:42
situation, you have to make those minor adjustments pitch to pitch, So we're
27:45
just amplifying that process. Have you done any of these things in catch play
27:49
or like, what are some things that you've done to increase command while playing
27:52
catch? Yeah? So I wrote about this a little bit with you,
27:57
Davish, and for those who don't know the story, I'll just briefly give
28:03
the summary. So in twenty nineteen, Davis was with the Cubs and his
28:11
command was at an all time low. He was walking guys, he just
28:15
didn't have good feel for the baseball. And he put up a YouTube video
28:18
of a bullpen of him just having terrible command, and the title was,
28:25
I think my baseball career is done. But a couple months, oh,
28:30
like a year later in twenty twenty, he had like a cy Young he
28:36
was like second in voting in sy Young's or whatever, and he had the
28:38
best command that he's ever had. And he explained what actually happened, and
28:44
he said that it was all about variability training, and he said that when
28:48
he plays catch, he would have a completely separate delivery to when he actually
28:52
throws on the mount And he didn't specifically say it was variability training, but
28:57
that's kind of what I got out out from it. And so I don't
29:03
do that like in the way of Okay, I'm having like separate deliveries and
29:07
I'm doing it, but I definitely do incorporate those athletic throws. My first
29:12
you know, ten to twenty are going to be trying to be like a
29:15
shortstop and doing you know, the Geeta throws. I'm running to the side,
29:19
jumping in and throwing, and then you know the opposite as well,
29:23
I'm running to my glove side and then trying to do like a quarterback throw.
29:29
And I think it really has helped me with my you know, just
29:36
just with my delivery, just being smooth and not being as robotic, and
29:41
I think, you know, for me, it's kind of weird. When
29:45
I'm feeling really good, it only lasts for like two months, and then
29:49
my delivery starts to get out of whack. And I think part of the
29:56
reason is because my brain just wants like a new stimulus. It wants like
30:00
to feel something new. So when I'm feeling something fresh, then it feels
30:03
good and then my command is good. But then after a couple of months,
30:07
it starts to fall a pot And so incorporating those athletic throws and like
30:11
giving the brain something different on a daily basis has really helped, I feel
30:19
like, but I definitely need to start doing more of that, because as
30:25
soon as I get away from it is when my delivery starts to feel out
30:27
of wack as well. That's really interesting, Like yeah, like you said,
30:32
it's almost like your your body is seeking in a different stimulus, and
30:36
it's in a way it's like your body's getting bored with what you're doing,
30:38
and that's when things start to get off track. I'm curious how you keep
30:41
things fresh and calay or not cash play during the season. Is it mainly
30:45
through what you're talking about and cash play just stay in athletic because I know
30:48
like once you get in the dog days of summer and you're playing every day
30:52
and you're one hundred games into the season, like, it's tough to want
30:55
to change things to do, you know, do something new. So how
30:57
do you keep things rash and make sure that doesn't happen for you to where
31:02
you know your body is seeking a new stimulus. How do you avoid that
31:04
issue in season? Yeah, for sure, it's definitely an issue that I'm
31:11
still thinking about right now. I definitely haven't got to figure it out.
31:14
But one of the things that I've been thinking through was like just something simple
31:21
as all right, when if I'm going out of my wind up for a
31:25
couple of months and then my delivery starts to feel out of whack, I'm
31:29
just going to go out of the set, or like right now I'm starting
31:34
to feel like a little bit better, which is where I was working on
31:37
something tiny with my mechanics and it you know, even if it's something small,
31:42
it creates a like a fresh stimulus and something that your brain can think
31:48
about, and that's really helped. But you know, there's a fine line
31:53
between making a mechanical adjustment and overthinking mechanics, and you know, going through
32:00
that whole cycle. I'm curious as to what you think about, like mechanical
32:04
adjustments in season when you're just in a little bit of a funk. Yeah,
32:09
it's such a fine line because you don't want to go off the deep
32:13
end to where you're just spiraling and you have no clue where the ball's going.
32:16
But at the same time, sometimes a change is necessary, and I
32:21
think like using plyoballs is a very simple way to do it, right,
32:23
Like, that's the purpose of a lot of the plow work that you'll do,
32:27
especially in season, is you're working on improving some of those patterns.
32:30
So I would start doing, you know, whatever the area is that you
32:34
think you need to improve, whether it is just being more athletic, or
32:37
if it's something specific in your load or your upper body something. I would
32:40
try to design a drill package that is going to accomplish that without you having
32:45
to think, because a good plou routine or good drills typically don't involve a
32:50
lot of thinking. Like the move should be setting up the environment for you
32:54
to accomplish whatever you're trying to improve. So let's just say, you know,
32:59
I'm doing a step back and I'm trying to really feel attention to my
33:00
back leg. I shouldn't have to think too much other than maybe like one
33:04
checkpoint in that drill of where I'm trying to feel that. But ideally we're
33:07
setting up drills and things that are going to create the change we want to
33:12
have happen without actually having to think about it. So that's where my mind
33:16
initially goes, is just to try to create drills in the environment of what
33:20
you're trying to improve and do those on the mound or even in catch play,
33:23
to try to do it without thinking, Yeah, that makes sense.
33:29
And so if you got a guy who's really struggling with command, where would
33:35
you start with. Would you start with, you know, variability training,
33:39
would you start with, you know, the weight of bowls? Would you
33:43
start with the mechanics? Where would you start with someone who's really struggling with
33:46
command? Yeah I would. I would like to peel back the onion a
33:52
little bit more on what is the actual issue, Like is it an issue
33:55
where he just can't throw strikes in a game but he's great in the bowl,
34:00
or is it he's horrible everywhere, it's just spraying it everywhere. Is
34:04
it a specific pitch type, Is he just spraying the fastball or is it
34:07
off speed pitches that he's struggling with. Is it just lefties versus right's that
34:12
he's facing, because sometimes guys have platoon splits to where when a left he's
34:15
in there, they really struggle, or when the right he's in there,
34:16
they really struggle. So I think like, the more questions you can answer
34:21
and figure out that can allow you to get back to the root of what
34:24
the main cause is. So and I always try to be careful when I
34:29
talk about command with some guys, especially when you know your players and you
34:31
know like how their mind works. Sometimes when you talk about walks too much,
34:37
it can make them walk more guys because now they're thinking about it and
34:39
they're they're just becoming more aware of the issue. And it's almost like just
34:45
this situation where all you are filling your mind with is just negativity. Or
34:49
if you fall behind two zero or three to zero on a guy, you're
34:51
thinking, oh, here we go again, I'm going to walk another guy.
34:53
Like I've dealt with this a few times with a few players in the
34:55
past, and at that point it starts to become mental thing. Primarily like
35:00
we have to overcome the mental side before we can even improve the skill side,
35:04
because that's going to be the main driver. So once you peel back
35:07
all those layers, though, hopefully you're able to come down and do some
35:10
simple conclusions. And one of the main ones for me, especially for a
35:15
starting pitcher is fastball command and to be more specific, just being able to
35:20
throw your fastball in zone. That is one of the number one predictors for
35:22
starting pitchers walk rates in the major leagues. If you can throw your fastball
35:27
in zone at a high rate, you're more likely going to get chase and
35:30
swains on your off speed pitches even when they're outside of the zone. So
35:34
major league average for en zone rate on the fastball is fifty five percent.
35:37
That's just overall for all Big leaguers. For starters, it gets closer to
35:40
sixty percents, like fifty seven fifty eight percent, and your real elite guys
35:44
are sixty plus percent with their fastball. Now relievers, there isn't necessarily a
35:49
direct correlation between the fastball command and walks because a lot of relievers just throw
35:53
heavy off speed pitches or they just throw very few fastballs, so it's less
35:58
predictive but as a starting pitch, it's nearly impossible to make it as a
36:00
starter without either a sinker or a four seam or a cutter, one of
36:05
those primary fastballs. So I really like to start with that, Like,
36:07
let's make sure that the fastball is actually in zone at a high rate.
36:12
And if you're at a level where you don't have in zone numbers, just
36:15
go off of strike percentage. So if you're below sixty percent strikes with your
36:19
fastball, that's a cost for concern. You want to get that closer to
36:22
sixty five percent and sixty percent being the absolute bare minimum for your fastball.
36:27
So that's like the starting point for me. I also like to look at
36:32
more process orient stats to help drive better results. So first pit strikes,
36:37
of course, and then early in ahead, like we've talked about, I
36:38
like to talk about swing percentage, so like just challenging guys to get as
36:43
many swings as they can in an outing. So average is around forty five
36:47
percent. If they can get forty five percent or higher or closer to fifty
36:50
percent swings, then their chances of inducing early contact or getting the head are
36:54
going to go up dramatically. So I really like to shift the focus away
36:59
from what don't want to happen and focus on what we actually do want to
37:01
happen, which is creating swings, tacking the zone, all of those things.
37:07
From a training environment, like, one of the easiest things to do
37:10
is just to make better bullpens. Most players that I see their bullpens are
37:15
too easy. It's more of a blocked focus where I'm going to throw four
37:17
fastballs here, three curve balls, fastball, three changeups fastball, three sliders
37:22
fastball, and then maybe finished with a couple of random pitches to end it.
37:28
The best thing you can do is to make those bullpens more game like.
37:30
That is like the number one easiest thing that you can do at every
37:34
level. Have a batter, stand in the box, throw your bullpen on
37:37
the game mound when possible, because, as you know, Josh, especially
37:40
when you're in a professional stadium, being in an enclosed bullpen feels a lot
37:45
different than when you're on a game mount and you have so much more open
37:49
space on the field. It just visually feels different. So I really like,
37:52
like high school guys in college guys, when it is possible. I
37:55
know it isn't always, but when you can if you can throw a bullpen
37:58
on a game mount, it just gives you a different feel and more of
38:00
a game like feel to it. So do that batter standing in trackballs and
38:06
strikes and then have some sort of consequence on the line. Doesn't have to
38:08
be anything big, but like something that's going to get the competitive juices flown
38:12
a little bit to get you in that game environment a little bit more.
38:15
This type of setting is especially valuable for the guys that throw strikes in a
38:19
regular bullpen setting but struggle in game, and the reason is likely because you're
38:23
not used to the game environment of a batter of balls and strikes, consequences
38:28
being on a field, heart rate being elevated, all those types of things.
38:31
So we can dive into some different ideas of exactly how some bullpen scripts
38:36
could look. But I'll stop right there and give you a chance to chime
38:38
in on some of your thoughts on this. No, yeah, that's really
38:43
good. I think My biggest issue is I'm that guy who throws a lot
38:50
of strikes in bullpens in practice settings, but when it comes to games,
38:54
something changes, and especially with the foss wall, I struggle with it.
39:00
I'm a big offspeed guy. So you know, pitches that break to my
39:04
left, my cut of the slider, I don't usually don't have too much
39:07
of a trouble landing those. But when my fastbard's weird, like in bullpens,
39:10
I can land it, you know, eighty ninety percent at a time,
39:14
and then I think I only have like a forty percent zon percentage in
39:17
game. And so that's something that I really tried to address this offseason.
39:23
And the two things that I did was getting a live hitter in standing in
39:31
in the pens. I think that's just massive because I think, especially for
39:37
me, what happens was that if of a right handed hitter steps in and
39:39
I'm a big cross body guy, I'm I'm literally stepping into the right right
39:45
handed hitters box and I'm crossfiring from there, and so I think what happens
39:51
is consciously I'm seeing the hitter there and then I'm like, oh shit,
39:54
I gotta I gotta really rip this across my body to get it into the
39:59
strike zone and not drill the guy. And so that leads to the yanks
40:06
of my fastball. But when you can really have a stand in here,
40:08
you can practice that and get your mental right and be like no, all
40:13
I need to do is like focus on it, focus on the catcher and
40:15
rip through the catcher. Another thing that I started doing only a couple of
40:20
weeks ago, and I feel that it really helped, was that doing like
40:23
ten sprints before your pen, and so I'll do like ten max efforts sprints
40:29
and then as soon as I'm done, I'm getting on the pen, getting
40:32
on the mound and throwing my bullpen. And what that does is it elevates
40:37
your heart rate. There's like a story from Tiger Woods and he said the
40:43
way he trains is that he will do the same thing he would do sprints
40:46
and then he would go straight to the straight to like practicing his golf swing.
40:53
And the reason for that is it emulates the heart rate of when you
40:57
have the adrenaline pumping and you have all the people in the stands watching you,
41:00
and you can't really get that unless you know, you really do something
41:07
to elevate your hot rate. And so getting that hot rate up and then
41:12
finding a way to calm yourself down and execute with that elevated hot rate,
41:17
it has been really beneficial for me. And so yeah, those are the
41:23
two things that I've incorporated this season and I feel like it's having a big
41:27
impact. But obviously we'll see how well how well I command my possible this
41:34
season. Yeah, no, I love both of those. Like you said,
41:37
the having a batter stand in is huge. It's so simple, even
41:39
if you don't have a batter, put a dummy in there something. It
41:42
is a really really valuable tool. And not to mention, most guys,
41:45
like when they're throwing breaking balls or certain pitches, they usually have a visual
41:49
on the batter of where they're trying to start their pitch. So if you
41:52
don't have anything there, you're kind of just looking into nothing really and you're
41:57
not really practicing that visual that you have in game or that you need to
42:00
have in a game. And then the sprints to get the heart rate up.
42:02
I absolutely love that because that's probably the biggest missing link in difference between
42:07
a game and a bullpen, is that heart rate. The adrenaline, just
42:10
that rush of sometimes butterflies or whatever it is when you're on the maun Like,
42:15
it's really really hard to replicate that. Again, the heart rate up
42:17
doesn't perfectly simulate it, but it at least gets you into a state to
42:22
where you're forced to calm yourself down and the breath becomes so important because if
42:28
you let it get out of control, you're not gonna be able to focus
42:30
on what you're trying to do and you're not gonna be able to execute.
42:31
And I've done a similar type of bullpen with guys to where it adds a
42:36
little bit of a consequence during their bullpen. So we would do simulated batters,
42:42
usually three or four pitches max per batter and really focusing on getting ahead,
42:45
trying to get to two strikes as quickly as possible. And what we
42:49
would do on top of that is every time you threw two straight balls,
42:52
you would have to sprint to home plate and sprint back and then go right
42:55
into your pen again. So it's providing a little bit of a consequence for
43:00
throwing balls in the game, which or sorry in the bullpen setting. And
43:02
then also when that happens is the heart rate gets elevated and now you have
43:07
to focus on slowing yourself down and execute the pitch. Now after you throw,
43:10
you say you throw two straight balls, you do a sprint and then
43:13
come back. It's not like if I throw another ball, I have to
43:15
do another sprint, it resets after that, and it's after every two balls
43:19
again. So I actually had a lot of success with this in twenty two
43:22
with one of our pitchers with the twins, and it helps a lot,
43:25
and like he really liked it. He responded well to it, and he
43:29
said it just gave him. It gave him a little bit more pressure and
43:32
a little more competitiveness in that bullpen setting, knowing that there was a little
43:37
bit more weight on every pitch, because a lot of times in a bullpen
43:39
setting, there isn't a consequence if I throw a ball, I don't actually
43:44
walk anybody, I don't give a home run, I don't give up a
43:46
hit. So it's hard to get into that game setting of having to deal
43:51
with pressure and having to channel that into focus on executing what you have to
43:54
focus on. And so it's just a really simple way to do it,
43:58
adds a little bit of competition and adds an another layer of pressure to guys
44:00
as well. Yeah, for sure, I love it. And so another
44:07
method is the weighted bulls, right, the appropriate reception balls. I know
44:12
when I came to train with you and I was like, hey, Jarard,
44:15
like I want to improve my command, What do you go for me?
44:17
And you gave me different balls and a different sizes and weights. What's
44:22
kind of like the theory behind throwing those? Yeah, so those are the
44:30
differential balls. And really, like a differential ball is just anything different from
44:34
a baseball. It could be a weighted baseball and underload. It could be
44:37
bigger, it could be smaller. Typically, when I'm doing this type of
44:39
setting, I'm using the same weight as a baseball, but I'm using balls
44:43
that are slightly bigger and slightly smaller. So what they're doing is coming back
44:46
to what I mentioned briefly in catch play, is it's just another way to
44:51
do variability training. So by using a bigger ball that ball, I'm going
44:54
to have to make a bigger adjustment to make sure I get this ball down
44:58
in this tric zone because the bigger ball is typically going to make me want
45:00
to miss up an armside. Smaller ball is typically going to make me want
45:04
to miss down in glove side. So I'm amplifying these adjustments that I have
45:08
to make in a game, even with a regular baseball, because as we
45:10
know, in a game, there's so many variables and things that change,
45:14
whether it's the weather, the mound getting chewed up. Even baseballs are slightly
45:17
different, Like I'm sure you've held Josh ten different balls in a game and
45:21
they all feel slightly different. That's why guys get a ball and they throw
45:23
it back because they don't like the way it feels. They want something slightly
45:27
different. So there's all these different variables. The differential ball is what they're
45:30
doing is that they're just amplifying it. They're making it even more challenging and
45:34
forcing you to make bigger adjustments so that when you're in those game situations and
45:37
you have to make minor adjustments, they feel even smaller and easier to actually
45:40
accomplish. Now, when you're using these balls in your bullpens, you're using
45:45
them in catch play, you want to make sure that you're not challenging yourself
45:47
too much, right Like I don't want my failure rate to be one hundred
45:51
percent, Like I need to still be able to have some success. So
45:53
typically when I'm introducing these is we'll use just one ball, usually the bigger
45:58
ball to start, sometimes smaller one, but typically the bigger one, and
46:01
we'll do it in more of a blocked format and only using the fastball so
46:05
I might go too fast balls with the regular baseball, two fastballs with a
46:08
bigger ball, two baseball, two bigger then maybe go one for one.
46:13
Once you have shown that you can do this at a high rate, then
46:15
we can move on to make it more challenging. We can add in an
46:19
underload ball. So now we're using three different balls. We're using a baseball,
46:22
we're using a bigger ball, we're using a smaller ball. Once you've
46:25
proven that you can do that, well, maybe we start adding off speed
46:28
pitches to it. We're always adding these layers to it to make it a
46:31
little bit more difficult after you've proven that you are able to accomplish it at
46:36
a decently high rate. So for me, the success rate needs to be
46:38
around forty to fifty percent. If it's below forty percent, that's probably failing
46:43
too much. Once we start getting closer to sixty percent and higher, that's
46:46
definitely too easy. So like being in that forty to fifty to fifty five
46:50
percent range is usually the sweet spot in my experience. And I'll be honest
46:54
with you, like it's challenging, Like it's it looks easy, but it's
47:00
much much more difficult than it appears, And I usually like to have guys
47:02
even just start with this in catchplay, because the first time you throw it
47:07
on the mound, they can feel a lot different because they're not the best
47:09
baseball. They're not the leather isn't going to feel perfect. It's not going
47:12
to feel like a normal baseball. So I usually like to have guys experiment
47:15
and catch play with it. So maybe you do that points game with your
47:19
partner at the end of catch play, and maybe you just use different balls.
47:22
You use a bigger ball, smaller ball in a baseball and use it
47:23
there to get acclimated to using them a little bit more and just to get
47:28
used to them, because a lot of times too, like there is resistance
47:31
with some players with using them, especially in a bullpen setting, just because
47:35
it's different and it feels weird and they don't fully understand right away like how
47:38
it's going to help them until they actually see the results or they see their
47:42
teammates getting results with it, which was the case when I was with the
47:45
Twins. So you want to make sure that you're selling them on the benefit
47:50
of them, but also you know, easing them into it and making sure
47:52
that the failure isn't so high that they're discouraged and they don't want to use
47:55
it and they don't see the value in it. Awesome, Yeah, I
48:00
love that. So we covered the physical aspects. So we talked about variability
48:06
training, We talked about bullpen settings. We also talked about the differential goles
48:14
and what else did we call? That sounds like a lot. I don't
48:19
know. I think we still got some mental stuff we can talk about.
48:22
I mean, I'd love to hear some of your thoughts. But man,
48:24
mental the mental game is just so interesting because I don't know, I've seen
48:30
some people when they when they think about the mental side, where they try
48:32
to do all these practices on the mental side, it actually makes them worse.
48:36
I don't know if you've seen that at times. But like I shoot,
48:38
last year, man, I saw firsthand with a player like it was.
48:43
It was intense, like he was doing all the things you would say
48:46
are right from the mental side, to prep and all that, and it
48:49
made it worse. It made him think even more about that he couldn't throw
48:54
strikes. So there is such a fine line in how you go about the
48:59
mental because obviously we both value the mental game, we both know the importance
49:02
that we talked about this before we had a Mental Game podcast episode. But
49:07
it's one of those things. It can be used for good, but it
49:10
also can take you down the wrong path if you're not implementing the right things
49:15
or you're not going about it the right way. So, like, from
49:16
your perspective, like, what are what are some keys to the mental game
49:20
that the guys can do to help their command. Yeah, so I wish
49:25
it was as simple as all right, do all these physical training and then
49:30
you're just gonna get better command over time. But it definitely isn't the case
49:35
for some guys, and that was the biggest issue for me. You know,
49:39
I've had the experience with the yifs, which is pretty much all mental,
49:45
and you know, when you have the yips, you have zero command,
49:47
you have absolutely no idea where it's going. And so from the mental
49:52
side, I think there's a couple factors that can really influence your command.
49:57
I think it's like feaz are the fears of For me, how I got
50:02
the yips was that I drilled a guy in the head of ninety five and
50:06
then he had to be carried to the hospital and there was like a big
50:09
thing about it, and he was fine at the end of the day,
50:14
but that was like a little bit of trauma in my brain, and so
50:17
I started to get scared of hitting right handed hitters. And so what what
50:22
happened was when a right handed hitter would step in I would just try to
50:27
yank it, like throw away from him, like I would try to yank
50:30
it, and that would cause, you know, big misses to my glove
50:35
side. I know that some people are afraid of, you know, getting
50:39
hit hard, so they don't like to attack the middle because if they throw
50:45
a middle then they think that it's just going to get crushed and they're scared
50:47
of that. So I think a big factor is if the mental side,
50:52
you know, is an issue for you, the first thing is you got
50:55
to figure out what your fears are. So if you know, if you
51:00
scared of something, you've got to start to address that. And how you
51:02
address that is you know, it might it's a long topic that we can
51:07
discuss another day, but briefly, you just want to look at the fear
51:12
and really start to break it down. So, for example, in my
51:16
case, hitting a right handed hitter, in my brain, I thought it
51:20
was this massive thing where it's say, oh, if I hit him,
51:22
then he's going to have to go to the hospital, and you know,
51:25
like it's going to be this massive thing. But in reality, and especially
51:30
now that I'm not even throwing ninety five, like if I hit a guy,
51:35
then he's just going to take first space and that's it. Like,
51:37
it's really not a big deal. And I think fears become such a big
51:43
thing in your head that we overestimate the consequences of what happens when that happens,
51:52
when our fears like manifest in real life. And so the first step
51:57
is really just putting it into a perspective and being like, Okay, even
52:01
if this happens, it's not a big deal. You know, like it's
52:05
totally gonna be fine. And I think it's just repetition. From that point,
52:09
you're just gonna keep telling yourself that, you know, before you go
52:13
out to pitch, you gotta tell yourself. Even now, I tell myself
52:15
that, like I have a mental preparation where I'm reminding myself, Hey,
52:21
like you know, I'm still gonna feel this fear, but it's really not
52:25
a big deal, and you know, I just got to go out there
52:28
and just throw the shit out of it and do that. So I think
52:34
that's one of the things mentally that I think of and was the biggest thing
52:39
for me. What else can you think of, Jared? I love that
52:45
right there, because man, fear is such a big driver for a lot
52:50
of us. I think at some point in baseball or other areas like that
52:52
is something that is holding us back, and you got to find out what
52:55
it is. What is it that you're actually fearing for me? Like there's
52:59
a brief moment where I struggle with command, which was in indie ball,
53:01
and the fear for me was getting released if I walk this guy, if
53:06
I don't perform well, I'm going to get released. And that caused me
53:08
to pitch tentative. It caused me to not trust my stuff Versus in college,
53:14
I felt more comfortable. I knew that if I walked to guy,
53:16
it wasn't the end of the world. And it's just the mindset was different.
53:20
So figure out what that root causes and then find a way to change
53:22
that mindset and practice those newer thoughts and newer habits that it needs to allow
53:29
you to succeed. So now I think that's great, you know, a
53:31
couple of things we talked about many times. Pre pitch routines, like that's
53:35
just like a fundamental thing that most people don't have. They take for granted,
53:38
they don't actually develop a strong one. It doesn't have to be complex.
53:42
It doesn't have to be complex at all. It can be simply feeding
53:46
yourself aggressive pre pitch thoughts of telling yourself what you want to do and visualizing
53:52
where you want the pitch to go. It doesn't need to be more complicated
53:53
than that. But find what works for you, stick with it, be
53:57
consistent with it. Shadow Work it's a subjective thing. It's tough to quantify
54:02
this, but I think there can be value and shadow work of being on
54:06
the mound, maybe the day before a game and doing some dry reps of
54:09
visualizing what you want to see happen, also visualizing what you don't want to
54:14
see happen, and then also seeing yourself overcome those things. Like we've talked
54:16
about in the past, it's important to understand that things aren't always gonna be
54:21
sunshine and rainbows. You're not always going to have perfect outings. Your ability
54:24
to overcome those things and to work through walking guys working through a big inning.
54:29
That is going to be the separator for you is being able to overcome
54:31
adversity, and you want to make sure that you're actually practicing doing those things
54:36
or visualizing that success of overcoming those obstacles. So those are some of the
54:39
things that jump out to me, you know, initially. But you know,
54:44
there's a lot of different ways to go about this. I know there's
54:45
some good resources. Like I know you've got a couple of books that you've
54:47
read. You know, I think you've mentioned like the Inner Game of Tennis
54:51
before, Like you want to talk about that a little bit, how that's
54:52
helped you. Yeah, for sure, I read the in a game of
54:59
Tennis when I I was going through the yips, and you know, that
55:04
was super interesting. I think that's more beneficial for hitters. But then I
55:07
found another one by the same author, which is called The Inner Game of
55:12
Golf. And so what he basically said was you really don't want to be
55:17
thinking about the mechanics of your swing. You instead want to think about like
55:24
the feeling of what your body's going through. And so I'll give you an
55:29
example. So in golf, he said that you want to feel like your
55:36
hand's going back instead of feeling like where your hand is in space, so
55:42
you want to be like back and then hit instead of like feeling like,
55:47
Okay, my hand needs to be near my shoulder, you know, like
55:51
I need to be here, my legs need to be here, whatever.
55:54
And I took that into baseball where there was a period in twenty twenty.
56:00
Yeah, twenty twenty when I had like really good command and all I was
56:02
thinking about was when I lifted my leg I was thinking in my brain load
56:07
and I'll just feel my body just load and get all that power on my
56:13
backside, and then I'll think yas. And so I never really thought about
56:17
where my body is in space, where like I didn't think about mechanics or
56:23
anything like that. It was just kind of like a feeling thing and that
56:27
really helped. I know I didn't explain it as well. But does that
56:30
make sense? No, it does. It's you're not getting super specific with
56:36
like, yeah, the details of the delivery what you need to do,
56:38
because that can be too much. But they're like simple little cues almost in
56:43
a way, that allow you to hit certain checkpoints that you're trying to feel.
56:45
That allows you just to trust your stuff because that is an issue I
56:49
do see with a lot of guys is in game they start thinking about their
56:52
mechanics a lot, and they're thinking like that is the main culprit of not
56:55
throwing strikes. And truthfully, if you look at video, I love doing
57:00
this all. Pull the video of a guy that is where he throws a
57:06
strike, hits a spot in one where it misses completely armside, and if
57:09
you break it down, you can hardly see any difference, like it is
57:13
so marginal of a difference. So if we're trying to make these marginal changes,
57:17
but it feels like a big change during a game, our mental thoughts
57:22
aren't on what they need to be, which is executing. I personally believe
57:25
that regardless of your mechanics, I think that you can find a way to
57:29
execute as long as you're repeatable within whatever that delivery is. But if I'm
57:34
constantly searching in game trying to feel something different, I'm gonna have no appropriate
57:37
sesson. I'm gonna have no feel for where my body is and being able
57:42
to execute consistently. So that's like something I would advise most guys to do
57:46
is if you are gonna have a mechanical cue, make it very simple,
57:49
something like you just said right there where it's almost like checkpoints, but less
57:52
about getting into the details of Man, you know, I'm flying this shoulder
57:57
open really early, I need to, you know, make sure I stay
57:59
close until my front foot lands a little bit longer, or something more specific
58:02
like that versus you know, maybe it's just let's just speed up the arm,
58:07
speed up your arm a little bit, I'm gonna throw right through the
58:08
glove, or just focusing on adjusting my starting point because that that is the
58:14
easiest adjustment you can make in game, is adjusting your starting point on pitches.
58:19
So I give you an example. If I'm trying to throw my curveball
58:22
at the bottom of the zone right over the plate, but I keep missing
58:25
down and I'm spiking it, then I just need to adjust my starting point.
58:30
So if my starting point is normally at the mask, but right now
58:32
I'm throwing at the mask and it's ending in the ground, maybe I need
58:36
to start, you know, above the mask, somewhere right around here,
58:37
knowing that it's gonna end up at the bottom of the zone. And how
58:40
you can help determine what your starting points are is you have to understand the
58:45
shape of your pitches. So if I have, you know, more of
58:46
a slurf. So let's just say my pitch moves like this. If I
58:51
want it to end here, I have to start it here in this location.
58:54
I can't think about necessarily throwing it to that locations. It might just
58:58
go way off to the glove side. Understand the way your ball moves and
59:00
that will help you with your starting points on where to throw it. Now
59:04
in any given day, like we've talked about, there's all these minor details
59:07
and adjustments we have to make. One day, my starting point might be
59:12
here and the ball ends up where I wanted to go. Another day,
59:15
I might have to start it higher, or I might have to start it
59:16
lower. Use your bullpen pregame bullpen as an opportunity to find out what your
59:21
starting points are. But you should always have like a set starting point,
59:24
just like a general area of where you normally start your pitches, and then
59:28
be able to make an adjustment based on what you're doing that day on where
59:30
it needs to go from there. Have you done that in the past at
59:34
all with adjusting starting points in game? Yeah? Yeah, I still do
59:40
that, do that right now, But I think the biggest thing for me
59:43
was just just simplifying everything and just having one big queue that you're following.
59:50
I know that Tyler Matzik does a thing where he thinks about his tempo of
59:55
his delivery. So all he does is leg lift. He goes one.
1:00:00
When he's on his back, he tells himself two, and when he's releasing,
1:00:05
he goes three. So that's all his thinking about, and so he
1:00:07
simplifies to that. He's not thinking about anything else like mechanics wise or anything
1:00:12
like that. When I'm at my best and I'm throwing lots of strikes,
1:00:15
I know all I have is one queue for each pitch. So for example,
1:00:21
fastball, I'm just thinking, I'm just fingers to the target as hot
1:00:24
as I can. Now cut it. I'm just all right, I'm cutting
1:00:28
it. I'm cutting my the catcher's head as hot as I can. And
1:00:32
slider, I'm just going right at the right handed hitter and I'm just pulling
1:00:37
down. And so I think just being able to simplify it is massive,
1:00:43
just because you know the throw that throwing is such a complex motion that you
1:00:49
really can't be thinking too much or it's just gonna do more harm than good.
1:00:52
It's more of a subconscious action than it is a conscious action. So
1:00:55
the more you can simplify it, the better it is. And that's what
1:01:00
I found when I'm at my best. Yeah, I like that. Keeps
1:01:04
it simple, you know what works for you, And usually when you're in
1:01:06
the flow of a game, like there's not a lot of thought going on,
1:01:08
it's something super simple, like you're saying, like fingers through the glove
1:01:12
through the target on the fastball, something simple like that. I think that's
1:01:15
good. I think we gave the listeners some pretty good takeaways, Like we
1:01:17
touched on what command actually is, We touched on what the walk rates are,
1:01:23
some bullpen strategies, cashplay strategies, some mental strategies. So hopefully there's
1:01:28
some good takeaways for some guys. But I think that was good