Latest / The Layback Podcast / Weston Germain, Director of Pitching - Mash Baseball (Ep. 54)

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Weston Germain, Director of Pitching - Mash Baseball (Ep. 54) · The Layback Podcast

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Hey everyone, welcome back to the Lay Back Podcast.
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Joining us today is the director of pitching at MASH Baseball,
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one of the premier clubs in Minnesota, Weston, Jermaine
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Weston and I, I believe originally got connected at one
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of the Wake Forest player development seminars, formerly
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Bridge Seminar, but that seems to be where most of these
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meeting of the minds occur. And I suppose if you go back
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through the podcast guest list, we could probably trace it back
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to some sort of seminar convention something.
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And next thing you know, you are talking someone's ear off about
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something that you're passionate about.
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And it might just be workload management or how important
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finger flexors are. That's that's where we find
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ourselves today. Trust me, that is foreshadowing.
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We'll probably get into a lot of that stuff.
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Weston, thanks a ton for coming on today.
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Looking forward to hearing the story and just kind of what
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you've been working on lately. Yeah.
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Thanks a lot for having me. I really appreciate it.
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Of course, in classic fashion, I'd love if you could kick it
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off with your own bio. I hate to butcher anybody's
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story, so I'm just going to pass it right on back to you.
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Awesome. Yeah.
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So I think it's relevant to say that my baseball career, I was,
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I was a crafty righty, one of those guys that basically I I
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was able to, I had a successful high school season my senior
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year, played some junior college ball.
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And after that the money pretty much dried up from a scholarship
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side of things. And I was pursuing education,
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secondary education as my degree.
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So I knew like not really a career you want to take on a lot
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of debt to get into. So after my sophomore year
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playing at the junior college level, I began coaching pretty
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much right away. I was a head freshman baseball
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coach as a junior in college. I stayed there while I finished
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my education degree and then began my life as a public school
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teacher, which while growing up the goal was to become a high
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school teacher and a coach. Some of my best mentors growing
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up were high school teacher, coach.
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It just seemed like the life. So I, I was in a public school
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for three years as a middle school and high school social
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studies teacher and then got the opportunity to move to the
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college coaching game. So when that opportunity arose,
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I, I couldn't really say no. I, I took a job at Grand Rapids
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Community College as a recruiting coordinator and
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pitching coach there and served there just for one year.
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And in the summers or in that summer, I took a collegiate
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summer league job, the the same routine everybody else does.
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You know, they're starting out, they just want to get exposure
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to more athletes and, and more experience.
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So I went to the Grand Lake Mariners in Ohio and worked
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under Chris O'Neill, who's now an assistant coach and
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recruiting coordinator at BCU. And I think it's important to
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mention the like the summer, the two summers with the Grand Lake
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Mariners, because the first summer working with Chris was
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the first time that I realized like all I had been doing to
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that point was coaching how I had been coached.
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I didn't really know that many other outside resources.
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And he started putting me on a podcast and asking me like, what
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do you think of Tim Corbin and Gary Gilmore?
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And I, I legitimately at that point in my career didn't know
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how many of these people were. So I I started to learn and
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found out a whole bunch of stuff that I didn't know and that kind
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of helps me a lot down the road because I'm able to pursue some
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of those projects that otherwise I'd be coaching the way I
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coached in 2016. So I coached with him and then
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moved to Hamlin University in St.
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Paul, MN. That's a Division Three school.
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My wife and I moved out to Minnesota and I essentially cold
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called every college and university within 45 minutes of
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the Twin Cities. We were moving for my wife's job
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and I knew I wanted to keep coaching.
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So the Hamlin happened to have an open opening and gave me the
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opportunity to serve as AJV coach and a pitching coach.
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And I end up there for six years under Jim Wyatt, who like I
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learned a ton from and runs a good program.
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So it was a lot of fun there for six years and then in 2022, I
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moved to MASH as the pitching coordinator and now the director
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of pitching here. They pretty much tossed me the
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keys to it and let me do what I want and make it the way I
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wanted to fulfill the vision of it.
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That brings us to to today in a nutshell, in terms of just the
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career and the bio to this point.
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I want to step back a little bit and I don't think this has too
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much to do with the specific baseball story, but maybe the
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personal evolution of you wanting to work in education.
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You obviously understood the power of education, but it
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sounds like you took a small gap in your own learning when you
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started. I guess more regurgitating in a
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sense, or you felt like you were getting trapped just coaching
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the same way you were coached. So what was the initial exposure
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that kick in the butt to learn and explore and I guess bring in
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new ideas? Yeah, so I, I did, I wasn't even
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really aware that it had happened, right?
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Because I, I played under successful coaches like I, I
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played under Tim McDonald in Michigan at Bay City Western.
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He's a Hall of Fame coach who's still coaching.
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And then I coached under him for a few years as I finished my
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collegiate degree. And he does a lot of things
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really, really well. I played for junior college
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coach who had been in the game for a really long time.
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I I honestly just felt like I knew how to do the things like
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they were both successful. I followed that playbook and
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roll it out. It actually wasn't until the
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summer with Chris and interviewing at Hamlin that one
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of the pitching other pitching guys there at the time was
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asking me questions about what do you think of Kyle Bodie and
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Driveline and Brent Porcio and the top velocity stuff.
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And I like, I didn't have a Twitter account at that time.
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I didn't know who these people were really.
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I had to kind of start going down that rabbit hole.
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And just as soon as I realized that there was a bunch of stuff
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I didn't know, it was time to learn it, that I wasn't ever
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shying away from that. I just legitimately thought at
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my wise old age of 22 that I had like I had cracked it and all we
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had to do is like rinse and repeat to that point.
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So it was, it's really great. I'm grateful.
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But my eyes were opened when they were because I could have
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just as easily, you know, if I had become a high school coach
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and just roll through the program, I probably would be
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doing a lot of the same stuff that I was doing then just for
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lack of exposure to other ideas. So really grateful for Chris.
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And it was Cass Crate low at Hamlin.
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Like interviewing with him and just him asking questions, like
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open my eyes to a lot of stuff. So maybe now the advice piece on
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this. It is impossible to know what we
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don't know. Of course that's the obvious
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statement, but I I feel like it is powerful to bring up.
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You didn't know how much else was out there in the world.
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How can you push someone that direction that might feel
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comfortable or that they know enough?
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Where would you push them? Yeah, it's, I mean, it's tough
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because you, I mean, you have to just push whatever resources
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that you're aware of, right? Like I, I don't know all of the
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best resources. I know the resources that I'm
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aware of, if there, if there appears to be a gap in
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somebody's knowledge or maybe a slight interest level in
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somebody's knowledge that like, oh, hey, that can lead into XY
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and Z. You kind of push them that way.
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And I think honestly, just instilling the idea, like I kind
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of operate, I operate myself under the assumption that I
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don't know a lot of things. Like still like I, it's just,
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there's a lot of things that I don't know about.
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There's a lot of things for me to learn.
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And if you can get people to approach things that way with
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like some degree of confidence in what they're doing, because
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you have to believe in what you're doing, but also
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understanding like there are probably people out there that
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do it differently, that may be better.
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And you should keep an open mind of those things.
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So I think it's more that mindset and trying to help
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instill that mindset than anything else.
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Perfect. Thanks for going into that.
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I don't know if that was part of the original intention for
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today, but when I heard the education focus early on and
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then a little gap was like, here's something I can bite on
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and ask a few questions about. But now, now let's accelerate a
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little bit and maybe, maybe a quick tease in the process.
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Hearing what you were going through in 20/16/2017 and having
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to learn and get exposed to so much.
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Then knowing what you were a part of in 2020 with the the
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group you worked with, I think is almost astonishing to a
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certain extent. So I'm excited to talk about
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that down the line. But I do want to jump ahead now
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to your current role with MASH. So you came on as pitching
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coordinator. You're now the director of
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pitching. You said you got the keys back
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in 2022. I'd love if you could now take
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us through the timeline of what you've been a part of growth
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wise there or maybe some of the projects that you've overseen?
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I, I took the position in the fall of 2022 and we were just
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about like, as I was getting hired, we were breaking ground
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on the facility that we're in now, which is enormous, 180 by
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180 field house. Like we're playing softball
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games and Little League games indoors, huge pitching space.
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The performance center weight room in this facility is as big
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as the last building was, which is I, I like that little tidbit
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because it puts the whole scale kind of in perspective.
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But, but when I took over in 2022, it was honestly about
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creating just like standards and procedures of how every class
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was going to run. Like these are the things that
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we have to teach people. These are the way our classes
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are going to be organizationally run.
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And I was hired about 15 days before an offseason block
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started, which looking back at it now having been through three
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offseasons at MASH, is pretty crazy.
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We run from November 1st until March 8th.
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That is one training block for us.
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We're with the same kids for that 4 1/2 month block and a lot
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of planning goes into an 18 week curriculum where you're seeing
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guys two or three times a week. So I, I got hired on October
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15th and we started, I had a parent meeting on October 28th
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and started the programming on November 1st that year.
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So first year was a lot of data gathering, building systems to
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track that stuff over time. And then since then it's evolved
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into we now have a cohort that I work with our, our match custom
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pitching group that I'm with year round.
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So I have, I have communication with them throughout the entire
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year. In the offseason, we're having
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guest speakers to talk about mental game, nutrition,
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recruiting. We're trying to be as holistic
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as possible with that. That's kind of my baby that
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since I took over and we, we realized that we didn't want to
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train guys for 4 1/2 months, pat them on the back and say, go get
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them and then see what happened. Like there were guys that we
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wanted to, to be in contact with and guys who wanted more.
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So we built up that cohort. Other than that, bringing some
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of the return to throw stuff that I've been doing previously
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into MASH and, and formalizing that process through MASH,
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building some partnerships in that area and, and just trying
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to continue to build on our data collection, our data
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utilization. The March of March of 23, after
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I got hired, we got a track man unit, started doing some pitch
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design work And even even looking back at that is like the
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stuff that we were doing in March of 2023 for pitch design
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versus how we look at things now from holistic Arsenal design of
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like how does every pitch fit together as opposed to just
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chasing shapes. Like I was guilty as anybody
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else in March of 2023 of just how can we get the biggest
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sweeper? How can we get the most ride?
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How could like just chasing a shape and now understanding and,
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and getting to learn that like you have to look at how all the
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pitches play together and, and all that.
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So data collection bring tech in and and just kind of trying to
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improve the product year over year, month over month.
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I'm sure Austin Marchisani and Kamel and Zilly, if they're
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listening out there somewhere hearing you talk about full
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Arsenal design as opposed to chasing shapes or smiling or
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they a little fist pump in the air and excitement.
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Hopefully they're looking, I was going to say looking down on us,
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but that's probably poor phrasing.
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Well, hopefully listening in with Glee at that last
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statement. But you talked about this
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curriculum that you build 18 weeks, Obviously that's a long
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time frame with one set group of kids.
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Now, when you think of what traditional offseasons look
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like, of course, you mostly have high school kids in your
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demographic and some youth. Beyond that, how do you either
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college kids fit in the pro offseason?
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Are they in a separate program? Our college guys, like a lot of
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our alumni, a lot of the national alumni will come back
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over winter break and use the facility.
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Our pro group, our pro guys work out during the day, call
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themselves the noon group, but they'll come in and they throw,
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they throw during the day, they use the field house.
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They get pretty much the whole space to themselves during that
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time because our high school classes start at 3:00.
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So we run program stuff from 3:00 to 9:00 or 10:00 at night
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and the pro guys are in during the day around that.
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And then we also run a collegiate pitching program in
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the summer. So if guys are either pitching
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intermittently in a collegiate league, we've got the Northwoods
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League obviously all throughout our backyard and there's also a
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really good amateur like town ball culture in Minnesota.
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So if guys are pitching for one of those clubs where they can
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strategize their starts to also participate in our collegiate
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pitching program where they're getting lifting and more
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individualized throwing programming and things like
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that. I've heard you use words that
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are very synonymous with the school system already, whether
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it's education, classroom teaching, curriculums.
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Can we go back down that path for a minute and just talk about
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that influence and how it seeps into what you guys do at MASH?
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Yeah, it's something that I like after I left teaching.
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Three years in the classroom is not very long.
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Like, that's obviously a pretty short career.
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And my first initial reaction after that was like, all right,
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well, I went to school, I spent all this money on a degree and
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I'm not even using it. And then I start to think about
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the way that I coach and the way that I structure things.
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And it's like, I, I use that degree every day, the way that I
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think about an 18 week block. And what do we want them to have
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learned at the end of 18 weeks? And then looking back and
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saying, OK, well, when are we going to teach each of these
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things? That's lesson planning, It's
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building your, your unit and all of that stuff.
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And so I, that's just kind of how my brain works when it comes
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to organizing those things. And I think that helps me out of
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time. I don't know if anybody else
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likes it, but it helps me out of time because I can just go down
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the list of like, I need to teach them how to hold runners
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at first. We need to talk about pitch
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sequencing and our overall approach and whatever I want
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them to know, I have to plan a time to teach it and just make
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sure that we can convey as much of the relevant content as
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possible. And now you bring up holding
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runners at first, or just in general?
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That might not be the stereotype of the teachings that most
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facilities have. So now I guess this lends itself
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to the discussion of how is MASH different or why are you guys
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tying in baseball education beyond just using your word that
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you've used offline a little bit?
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And hopefully I'm not using it wrong horsepower or just
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training to throw gas. So please take it.
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Out, yeah. So I think we understand like
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they're like these kids are going to have to go and get outs
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In Minnesota, the playing season is not very long.
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We mentioned, we mentioned off camera that in Georgia, the high
14:44
school season's been going for a month.
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Like the first week of practices in Minnesota is next week.
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The game start on April first or second.
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If you're a freshman or JV baseball player in Minnesota,
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your high school season will be about 7 weeks of games.
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As a facility that gets these kids for 18 weeks, it would be
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negligent of us to only address how hard can you throw a ball.
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Now, I don't want to say that and have it like we look at
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that, we track that, we pursue that velocity is important.
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I won't say otherwise, but it's not the only thing.
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So we have to, we have to try to equip our players to, to go out
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and compete in games in the wild.
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It's we're not, we're not creating zoo animals that just
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have to perform over here. Like these guys have to go
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compete in the wild. Looking at everything through
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that lens, you just have to, you have to teach all those things
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that you would otherwise learn in a game if you were down South
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in February. Like you'd have to hold runners
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while we don't have to in our pitching program, like we have
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to talk about it. And so we, we do that in a lot
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of different ways. We try to get live at bats.
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We try to get everybody in our pitching programs three to four
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sessions of live at bats before they go off to their high school
15:50
season. They're not able to be long, but
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we've worked on your shapes, we've worked on approach.
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We've done these things like let's see how they play against
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hitters. Chasing horsepower is really
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relevant with a lot of our guys. We have guys that if you want to
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play Division One baseball or you want to play at this point,
16:05
any collegiate baseball, because the bar is getting higher every
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day, You're going to have to throw a certain velocity.
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You're going to have to be able to get good hitters out with
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good shapes and be able to throw those pitches for strikes.
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It's just a matter of balancing what is the hierarchy of what
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we're going to approach. And so with our groups, we kind
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of like, I like to break it down with guys and say like these are
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the three things that you have to be able to do it.
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Like the hierarchy is, can you attack the zone?
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And for that, we're looking at like strike percentage pitches,
16:32
bringing pitched walk rate, like very straightforward, can you
16:35
fill up the strike zone? And if you can attack the strike
16:38
zone, then we'll move on to looking at like, can you survive
16:40
in the strike zone? Are you getting weak contact low
16:43
like lower batting average against maybe mixing in some
16:46
strikeouts? You're having some level of
16:48
success at your at your level of competition.
16:50
And then if you can attack the zone, you can survive in the
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zone. Then we start to chase thriving
16:54
in the zone. And that's where we're looking
16:56
at like the strikeouts per nine. We want opponent batting
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averages even lower. We're talking about our
17:02
efficiency of pitches bringing pitch being around 15.
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That's the hierarchy. And based on where you're
17:07
statistically lining up in those areas, we can kind of say this
17:12
is what you need to be focused on most at this time.
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You did bring up the word efficiency.
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I actually wrote that down in doing my little podcast prep
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because I've seen on the MASH social medias, you guys
17:24
celebrating pitching efficiency. And I don't know if that's the
17:28
only kind of unique statistic that you guys use.
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But I'd love if you could kind of dive into what is pitching
17:36
efficiency to you or maybe other things that you guys celebrate
17:41
beyond just what's on the radar gun or the trackman.
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Efficiency is very straightforward, like pitches
17:46
per inning pitched. If you're throwing 15 pitches
17:48
per inning pitched, you're not having bad outings.
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You're like you're having at least some degree of success.
17:53
Nobody's getting their doors blown off and still getting 3
17:57
outs and 15 pitches. So that's a very straightforward
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1. And I think that the big driving
18:01
factor behind that is we had some of our best arms would come
18:06
get, they'd get done with the summer and they're their innings
18:10
pitch would be low or lower than you would expect.
18:13
And then you look back and it's because they're throwing 1819
18:16
pitches per inning. And it's not that we need them
18:20
like we want. I audit pitch counts every
18:22
Monday during the summer. So let me just stop and say
18:24
that. So we we don't go over pitch
18:25
counts in the summer. I sit down with the game changer
18:28
stats every Monday from 12 U to 17 U and I.
18:32
I look at every outing. So it's not that we need to go
18:35
higher pitch counts. If you're 17 years old, my
18:38
challenge to you is can you get 7 innings worth of outs and 105
18:41
pitches? And if you're 15 pitches per
18:43
inning pitch you can. And so it was about trying to
18:47
get our best pitchers to, instead of just chasing, you
18:50
know, velocity and strikeouts because they're scouts in the
18:52
stands. Like let's get you 7 innings
18:54
pitched on a weekend because you go out there and you're just
18:57
attacking hitters with your best stuff all the time.
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So that's the big thing that we celebrate.
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I mean, I love hunting, hunting strikeouts as much as the next
19:05
guy. Like we that's probably the next
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thing that we value is is strikeouts and swings and
19:09
misses, but all within the framework of you got five out or
19:14
five pitches to get this guy out.
19:16
So if we, if we're forcing contact on an O2 count, that's a
19:19
plus count for a pitcher. Like that's fine with me.
19:21
The likelihood that that's a hit is pretty low.
19:24
That's just kind of like leads into our approach.
19:25
And I think it's also a conscious decision as we get
19:29
closer to March for us, which March is the very beginning of
19:32
our season. Like at a certain point we have
19:34
to transition from how much horizontal brake is on my
19:36
slider, how much vert am I getting on my fastball to did I
19:40
get out sufficiently enough to help my team.
19:43
I also have all the velocity data, but just, it's just not
19:47
the time of year where that is what we're going to celebrate
19:49
because ultimately we need outs. Your coach is going to need
19:52
outs, your college coach is going to need outs.
19:54
So it's cool. We will, we will celebrate
19:56
velocity. We had a Vilo Day back in
19:58
December with the guys that were ramped up and it was appropriate
20:00
for them at the time. And yeah, we went nuts over
20:02
every PR that happened. But it just doesn't really
20:05
matter in March, April, May if you're not efficiently getting
20:08
outs. You alluded to it there by
20:11
mentioning the below day back in December.
20:13
I was going to ask if this goes back to your own lesson planning
20:18
or how you space out the units. And that's what this sounds
20:22
like. If the time of year calls for
20:25
it, you will dive into it. Right now, as you're getting
20:27
ready for season, you need these guys to be prepared for games.
20:31
The ultimate goal of the game is to win.
20:34
You can't win if you're not throwing strikes.
20:36
This really seems like simple arithmetic to me.
20:39
Is this is adding up to a nice little equation?
20:42
We, we look at the 18 week training block as I do six week
20:45
of six weeks of on ramp. So we on ramp for five weeks and
20:48
in the 6th week we'll do mound testing.
20:50
We don't do pull downs, we don't do overload underload with our
20:53
high school kids. It's just throw your fastballs
20:55
from the mound and let's see where you're at the next six
20:58
weeks. And part of that on ramping is
21:00
that we're identifying drills with mobility work, like we're
21:02
evaluating the kids during that process as they on ramp the next
21:05
six weeks. It's what do you need from a
21:07
training perspective? Are we chasing velocity shapes,
21:10
mechanical changes? Like what does what does that
21:12
player need? And then the last six weeks,
21:14
we're kind of moving away from that to an over the plate focus
21:18
of like, all right, how do I get these guys out?
21:20
And that's where we're throwing our live at bats.
21:21
We're going over pitching charts afterwards and things like that.
21:24
So it's very much it's a very intentional progression with
21:26
most of our programs in terms of we have to cover all these
21:29
things as I mentioned before. And this is the order that we
21:32
should do them in with our with our MASH custom group.
21:35
It's a little bit different because you've got guys that
21:36
are, because I'm with them year round, they might take their
21:40
deload in September on ramp like they, they're just on a
21:43
different calendar. So it's more about if they're an
21:46
uncommitted 2026 this year, they probably want to go to some
21:49
showcases. When are your showcases?
21:51
Let's circle those dates. Let's make sure we're ramped up.
21:53
We can get on track, man, before that, all all that stuff.
21:55
It gets much more individualized at that point.
21:57
But in general, we're not talking about mechanical changes
22:01
on February 24th. We're talking about how do we
22:03
get guys out. The time for that was back in
22:06
December and January. Given some of your responses
22:10
there, I think this might be my crappy version of a segue into
22:16
your clinical approach to throwing that we really haven't
22:21
taken the dive into yet. The work you did back in 2020,
22:26
learning about I guess and even writing on acute to chronic
22:30
workload ratios. You mentioned pitch counts,
22:33
you've mentioned on ramps. And maybe maybe this is me
22:37
burying the lead and I apologize to any listener out there of
22:41
like, oh, who's this guy talking about pitch counts?
22:43
Or how does he know his guys are ready in six weeks to do mound
22:47
testing? You've done a lot of work to get
22:50
to the point of understanding what these pitch counts actually
22:53
mean, how to value a throw. So with that, I do want to make
22:59
our official shift in a sense. We'll probably tie back some of
23:02
the facility stuff at some point.
23:05
But let's make the shift now to your own learning
23:09
experimentation, your work through throwing programs.
23:13
As we've said, acute to chronic workload ratio.
23:16
I don't know where the point is for you to start.
23:19
So maybe I just again pass over the keys to you, let you start
23:24
it up and. That sounds good.
23:27
So I, for me, there's a, like we can skip over some of the stuff
23:31
in the middle, but there's definitely a very definitive
23:32
starting point for me, which is the ABCA convention in 2019,
23:36
which that convention, by the way, the best line up that I've
23:40
ever seen at an ABCA, just like tons of really great present
23:43
presentations, but one of them was from Brian Conger.
23:46
He got up and talked about how he was in a panel presentation
23:49
with Travis Herger and and some others, but he had his 15
23:53
minutes to talk about the modus sensor, which is now Pulse and
23:57
how he used it to get more innings out of his best
24:00
pictures. Basically, we're monitoring
24:02
their workload. We're making sure they have the
24:04
right chronic workload. We're following AC ratios and
24:07
we're making sure that our highest scholarship guys or our
24:09
most effective pitchers, we can get the most innings possible
24:12
out of them. And he showed charts from the
24:14
year previous and like he's just was getting the most out of his
24:17
scholarship dollars basically is how he presented it.
24:20
And the obvious side piece of that was we're confident of when
24:24
we can push these guys and when we can't.
24:26
If if somebody wants to throw in short rest and, and the numbers
24:30
support it, then OK, Like what's within our framework, it's
24:34
within the things we believe to be true.
24:36
So we'll, we can do that when the time calls for it.
24:38
So I sat there and I listened to the presentation and I was
24:41
coaching at the D3 level at the time.
24:43
So also would really like to get the most out of our top arms.
24:47
And also it just became really clear listening to him that that
24:50
was a piece of technology that I was going to need to know about
24:53
whether I used it fully across the staff at Hamlin or not, I
24:57
needed to know about that tech. So I went home and I bought 1
25:01
and I just started playing around with it.
25:02
And in November, December of of 2019, we were throwing with it.
25:07
And like I say, we Jamie, Jamie Jagger, who is the athletic
25:10
trainer at Hamlin at the time, we just started messing around
25:13
with it, throwing, writing down data.
25:16
Like we had a UCL sprain return to throw that was happening at
25:19
the time. And we literally just put it on
25:20
him and had him follow the plan and wrote down all the data.
25:23
So we started diving into this and we knew that we had a UCL
25:28
repair with brace that was going to begin his return to throw in
25:30
about March. So we're like, let's just find
25:33
let's just learn about this device as much as we can for a
25:36
little while. And we built out what we thought
25:39
was going to be a pretty good return to throw program using
25:42
it. And then March, whatever COVID
25:46
happens, everything shuts down and we don't like, I basically
25:49
didn't get to run this, this young man's return to throw
25:52
because we weren't able to have contact at that point.
25:55
So we've done we've done a lot of the work, dug into it and
25:58
found that we could probably with with reasonable certainty,
26:02
we could put together a better return to throw program than the
26:04
packets that have been being given out.
26:06
And that's essentially where where I went with it.
26:09
Aside from the like, outside of the performance and how Brian
26:12
Conger talked about maximizing innings.
26:13
It was just we had we had another return to throw at the
26:16
time that was coming back and he came out to the field house
26:19
floor and he says, Jamie said, I can throw 50 throws today.
26:23
I said, OK, how hard are, how hard are you going to throw
26:25
them? What intensity?
26:26
And he's like, I'm going to go 60 feet.
26:28
And I said, OK, how hard are you going to throw them?
26:31
Like it, that doesn't really tell me anything.
26:33
And we went back and this was actually like one of my first
26:36
exposures to the return to throw packets.
26:38
Like I didn't, I wasn't really aware of this huge hole in the
26:41
rehab process at that time. So we walked back and talked to
26:44
Jamie and I was like, is there more direction?
26:47
Is there any sort of like even RPE or anything like that?
26:51
And there wasn't really. So we, we got out of radar gun
26:54
and tried to put it together ourselves on the fly.
26:56
But that eventually LED us to March, April, May of 2020, where
27:02
I'm going to the park wearing a motive sensor, testing out
27:05
return to throw protocols, charting everything.
27:08
I was, I was operating under Mill City throwing at the time.
27:11
So I'm writing blogs and just doing all this stuff weekly,
27:13
building out dashboards eventually, as you alluded to,
27:17
ending up in conversations with people I would have otherwise
27:19
never been in conversations with.
27:21
Casey Mulholland reached out as soon as you saw that I was
27:24
posting about acute to chronic workloads and modus stuff.
27:28
And Robin Lund reaches out. I'm I'm actually eventually on a
27:30
Zoom call with Tim Campos and Robin Lund and Casey Mulholland.
27:34
Like it just guys that it was tremendous for me to be
27:38
surrounded by so many smart people.
27:39
Like I just kind of, I felt like I had stumbled into that room by
27:42
going to throw at the park. We, we learned a whole bunch and
27:45
I learned a ton from those guys. And eventually they let me kind
27:48
of present this white paper that Jamie and I had written of a new
27:51
framework for return to throwing, which is
27:54
individualized based on previous maximum velocity.
27:58
And the workloads are all mapped out to stay below 1.3 acute to
28:02
chronic workload ratio and all of that.
28:04
From that point, we put it out publicly.
28:06
We made some edit edits and put it out publicly.
28:07
And I've been using an edited version of that essentially ever
28:12
since. Like obviously updates have
28:13
happened since then. We've learned more about the
28:15
sensor and more about the pros and cons of that approach, but
28:18
the general framework has been more or less the same since that
28:21
point. Let's cover a few pieces of that
28:25
before we move on because I do have questions to progress this.
28:29
But stepping it back, have you or had you been exposed to
28:34
anything acute to chronic workload ratio wise prior to
28:38
that 2019 ABCA, so no podcast any of that.
28:42
I, I mean, I'm sure that I had heard of the motor sensor
28:45
because at that point I did have Twitter, but it was a very
28:48
limited knowledge. I think probably the driveline
28:51
had released a blog about it, about what Brian Conger had done
28:53
at, at Charlton State. But I don't think I had any real
28:57
knowledge of it. I didn't have any working
28:58
knowledge of it, that's for sure.
29:00
And how long do you think it took you to have an
29:05
understanding of what a value of a throw was for you?
29:10
I mean, it, it probably from from that like 2019 probably is
29:16
then the following March or April, because we were really
29:19
just fumbling through it until like I hadn't dug into any of
29:22
the formulas like the the white papers by Ben Hanson, like that
29:27
going to all the formulas and how they chose what they chose.
29:29
And like then I'm building out an excel spreadsheet using the
29:33
like the weighting of every throw in their acute to chronic
29:35
workload. Like a lot of that with the help
29:37
of Casey Mulholland. But that was when I really
29:39
learned you can actually structure all throwing programs
29:42
using the same framework, which is how it's impacted me now with
29:45
just working with healthy athletes is like, I feel like I
29:48
have a pretty good idea of throwing workload and how to
29:50
build guys up. But yeah, I mean, from the time
29:53
I actually was able to dig into it, it was probably three or
29:55
four months. But from the time that I heard
29:58
about it to the actual understanding was a little over
30:00
a year probably. And you said in 2019 that was
30:04
also your first real exposure to the return to throw packets guys
30:09
we're getting. So I guess lucky you for not
30:11
dealing with an injured athlete for however many years that
30:14
wasn't your career. Yeah, or just apparently like
30:17
maybe just being unaware of, you know, I mean, like if they, if
30:22
they said they had their throwing from APTI was probably
30:24
just like, OK, like they out, they outrank me.
30:27
And you should do what they and I still like, you should do what
30:29
your PT tells you to do in most cases.
30:32
But I, I just don't think I gave it any thought until it hit me
30:35
in the face. And we I had athletes that were
30:37
going to follow a program that didn't really give them any
30:40
guidance. So when you first asked that
30:43
athlete, OK, well how hard are you going to go or how hard are
30:47
you going to make these throws, was that influenced by the
30:52
research you had done from the presentation at ABCA or did that
30:57
come up naturally for you? That was just a natural question
31:02
to me like this, this guy was so excited that he got to throw X
31:06
number of throws and it was like, OK, where are you in the
31:10
where does that put you? Are you at 60%?
31:12
Are you at 80%? Like are these mountain throws?
31:15
What, what does this mean? It seemed like a very, like a
31:20
very obvious question to ask because you've seen a 12 year
31:24
old throw 60 feet and you've seen a 25 year old throw 60 feet
31:27
and it doesn't look the same and it's not the same stress on
31:30
their arm. So you would just expect, I, I
31:32
just expected there to be more guidance than that.
31:35
And when there wasn't, it was a pretty clear opportunity for
31:37
Jamie and I to like at least for Hamlin's operation at the time,
31:41
which is all we were really trying to do was like make sure
31:43
the guys that came through at Hamlin, we're getting the best
31:45
throwing program possible. And then it kind of grew into
31:48
some other stuff, but just trying to make sense of that.
31:51
And another piece to call out was the small little tidbit you
31:56
threw in there that you were basing these programs off of
32:01
previous peak velocities. I have also seen programs that
32:05
utilize acute to chronic workload ratio or seem very
32:08
progressive in a sense, but treat every athlete as if they
32:13
throw the same speed. Was that a venture of your own,
32:18
or was that influence from somewhere?
32:19
To be honest, I don't, I don't really remember.
32:22
I think it was just, again, I think it just felt like common
32:25
sense, right? Like we had a kid that was
32:28
rehabbing at the time, but the one who asked the initial
32:30
question throws 85 miles an hour and the one that is going to
32:34
have their partial or their repair with brace rehab in March
32:38
throws 80. Like those programs probably
32:41
shouldn't be identical. And I mean, that's a pretty
32:43
small gap actually. But like when it became clear
32:45
that everybody in our program would have gotten the same
32:48
packet, everybody's throwing capacity is different.
32:50
And I see it now today where you have a collegiate guy that gets
32:53
the same packet as our 14 year old growth plate.
32:56
It's like, well, that guy throws 92 when he's healthy and you
32:59
throw 72 when you're healthy. Like your throws at 90 feet are
33:04
more taxing than his throws at 90 feet.
33:06
It just seems kind of logical. Yeah, I I wholly agree.
33:12
And some of this is refreshing to me as we work through some
33:16
return to throw stuff and rehab stuff on our side where I'll
33:21
read past literature, past programs, me like they are
33:25
missing so much. I'm sure to a certain extent as
33:28
you dove into it more, that's likely how you felt like, wow, I
33:33
didn't realize what I'm even doing now is groundbreaking.
33:36
I thought this just made sense. Yeah, that I, I just didn't.
33:41
I just didn't know. I think the biggest thing as
33:43
like a pitching coach at that time and again, like I didn't
33:46
know everything, but I've been at it for a little while.
33:48
You're never just linearly progressing volume and
33:50
intensity, but that's what all those programs do.
33:53
It's like do this twice and go up and do this twice and do this
33:56
twice and just keep going. And if it hurts, then stop.
33:59
And then when it doesn't hurt anymore, just pick up at that
34:02
step and keep going. But everybody knows that a
34:04
throwing program is a couple high days in a week, a couple
34:07
medium days in a week, a low day, maybe an off day.
34:09
Like it's, it's all this all the time.
34:12
Just, it just didn't make any sense the way that it was
34:16
structured. And when I actually got to
34:17
throwing it and going to the park and like reading like Phase
34:22
14, what you're doing and one day rest and they do it again
34:26
and one day rest and do it again, It was like nuts.
34:29
Like no pitching coach, no, no coach would ever prescribe that
34:32
type of throwing that volume in that window.
34:34
Not with, not with any good sense.
34:38
So your experimentation started with you trying to replicate the
34:43
full throwing prescription of what one of those packets were.
34:47
So again, right after COVID, so I have I have no athletes.
34:49
I can't go anywhere except for basically to the park.
34:52
So I decided I was going to wear the sensor.
34:56
I made three different e-mail account, like like accounts of
35:00
MODIS and I tested like the general ITP, like recommendation
35:05
from ASMI, whatever they had that I found on their website.
35:09
And also MODIS in the app would give a throwing recommendation.
35:13
It would say recommended Max workload today is X.
35:16
And then I also had the program that Jamie and I put together
35:20
and like mapped out on our Excel spreadsheet.
35:22
And so I would go to the park with a duffel bag of baseballs
35:25
and I would throw all three interval throwing programs every
35:28
day. I would just like, I would go to
35:31
the account and I would change it.
35:32
I had my pocket radar with me and I just threw all three.
35:35
Some days there'd be two another day like however it lined up on
35:38
the programs, Casey kindly reached out at one point and was
35:42
like, hey, the the modus throwing recommendation is not
35:46
going to be any good. Stop following that.
35:48
Basically it, it was just giving me a comical number of throws
35:51
every day and it never changed for a really long time.
35:54
I'm sure it's been updated now, but we just don't ever follow
35:56
that recommendation because we're programming it ourselves.
35:59
But yeah, I was throwing three different interval throwing
36:00
programs at that time. Eventually it became 2 when I
36:03
was throwing the one that Jamie and I had written and the ASMI
36:06
protocol. But after about 12 weeks, it
36:09
became pretty clear what what the ASMI 1 was going to do and
36:11
what ours was going to do. You go 12 weeks and you don't
36:14
ever spike a workload and you gradually progress intensity
36:17
like that. Seems pretty straightforward.
36:19
The ASMI one went through a period where it was very under
36:22
trained and then towards the back end like I mentioned they
36:25
they get you to a great ending chronic workload.
36:27
You just have to go through a gauntlet of like 1.7 AC ratios
36:31
to get there. If you make it through that,
36:32
you're in great shape, but it didn't seem like a reasonable
36:35
throwing load at the time. How long did it take you to
36:39
actually get to a point where you were confident in the
36:42
program that you were writing? Because it sounds like you were
36:46
experimenting with something that you and Jamie had written,
36:50
but that would have been hypothesis at that point,
36:53
correct? Yeah, Yeah.
36:55
And I mean it, it made sense to us because it's like all these
36:58
numbers are here. Like I was confident in the
37:00
calculations that we had on the spreadsheet of like if I do this
37:03
one day workload this on these days, like the AC ratio and the
37:06
chronic workload will go up how it does.
37:08
But I would say like four to five weeks into throwing, it
37:13
became clear that like that was going to work.
37:16
Like it made sense. It felt intuitive because you're
37:18
going out 55 miles an hour one day, 40 the next or two days
37:21
later. It just felt like an actual
37:24
throwing program. It felt like what you would
37:25
prescribe. And you had the guardrails of
37:28
intensity with the with the radar gun, you had the
37:30
guardrails of throwing volume with the workload.
37:32
So I would say like four or five weeks in, it was like, OK, this
37:34
is pretty much a foregone conclusion that after 18 weeks,
37:38
this is going to look the best on paper and feel the best as a
37:42
as a thrower. I feel like I got through my
37:44
clarifying questions now and to advance the discussion.
37:49
I'm curious how you iterated the program, maybe some changes that
37:53
you've made looking back, because as you stated, this was
37:58
back in 2020. You've made adjustments since
38:00
then. So maybe what are the like more
38:03
glaring changes that you have made or what you think maybe
38:07
looking back, like how could I have ever done that?
38:09
This is such an obvious misstep. Yeah, well, I think the the
38:13
first thing is, is like the challenge of putting things on
38:15
paper is they're not adaptable anymore.
38:18
One of the biggest benefits of using a return to throw with a
38:21
pulse sensor is that it's incredibly adaptable.
38:24
I missed the day because I was sick.
38:25
OK, well, we can figure out what workload you should do tomorrow
38:28
and we can just move the programming.
38:30
We don't have to really guess about any of that.
38:33
So when we put it on paper and we mapped out a day one all the
38:36
way through week, I think 24 in the the paper that I have pinned
38:40
on my Twitter. But like it's all concrete.
38:43
And we know now that you can't actually execute it that way.
38:46
You have to be able to adapt with an athlete with their
38:49
little sore if they don't hit a number, if they're sick.
38:52
And so that's one just like understanding that it has to be
38:54
fluid. The other ones are the one day
38:57
workload in week 1. Doesn't like having a one day
39:01
workload goal in week one just doesn't make sense because you
39:05
have no idea what that athletes torque is going to be at certain
39:08
velocities and it's unique height, weight, like all that
39:11
stuff. And the reliability of the
39:13
sensor is better within one athlete than across many.
39:16
So it's like you really need to just let that athlete throw with
39:20
the sensor on and get a picture of what their arm is doing.
39:24
So if I'm running a return to throw now, like straight out of
39:26
like first day throwing out of surgery, I would have them do
39:30
the regular ITP packet type of throwing, like 25 throws at 45
39:36
feet. But we're going to wear the
39:37
sensor and we're going to have a radar gun up and we're going to
39:40
see what that looks like from a workload side of things and then
39:43
program off of that the other iteration that that I really
39:46
like. And if like P TS are on board,
39:49
like a lot of this has to, it's a collaboration, right?
39:52
Because usually in their first few weeks of throwing, they're
39:54
not entirely in my care where it's a blend.
39:57
But I like using constraint drill, like lower half
39:59
constraint drills early in the throwing program.
40:01
Because if you're trying to throw 35 or 40 miles an hour and
40:06
you have to take a step with your lower half or you have to,
40:08
I mean, the ASMI packet asks you to crow hop on all the throws.
40:12
So like if you're crow hop in a 35 mile an hour throw that
40:14
doesn't look like a baseball throw, like it just it can't
40:17
possibly. So at the lower intensities,
40:20
we'll do you know, either a pivot pick or like 10 toes split
40:24
stands, something that just takes the lower half out of it,
40:26
let's the upper half work like an actual throw.
40:29
And then progressively, as we get up in intensity, we'll add
40:32
the lower half when it can actually look like a baseball
40:35
throw and the timing can be a little better and all that.
40:38
So you are programming some progressive drills in a sense
40:44
into the throwing program. And I'm assuming, again, like
40:48
you said, you don't really know where an athlete's going to be
40:52
until you see the athlete throw. So I'm guessing to a certain
40:55
extent the drill selection also changes based on what an athlete
40:59
presents. Yeah, what they present and
41:02
honestly like how they're, what they're throwing mechanics look
41:05
like. I don't think you want to make
41:06
like huge overarching changes during the rehab process.
41:10
You do also have an opportunity where you're gradually layering
41:13
intensity to a movement. So there is some opportunity
41:16
there if there's a if there's a huge arm action issue that you
41:19
can address that with constraint drills early on because they're
41:22
not using their lower half anyway.
41:24
So kind of picking the lower half constraint drill that the
41:27
athlete needs, moving through that.
41:29
And then eventually, maybe it's a roll in where we're keeping
41:32
the lower half square, just just building the throat from there
41:36
and making sure that the upper half timing always resembles an
41:39
actual baseball throw. Have you gotten to the point now
41:43
where you write any overweight or underweight baseballs into
41:48
the return to throw, or do you leave that as separate?
41:51
I will if I'm completely like, if it's left up to me and non
41:56
operative, like my guys will come back and they'll do like 7
42:00
oz 7 oz like lower half constraint throws in some cases.
42:03
A lot of that I I honestly try to stay out of the like I stay
42:07
out of the P TS way on a lot of this.
42:08
And this is the position that I'm in of.
42:10
If they're comfortable with it, we do it.
42:12
And if not, like I don't think it's a a must, but give like
42:16
left up to me. I would absolutely use some some
42:18
overweight early in the progression again to let it feel
42:21
like a throw without exposing the arm to too high of speeds.
42:25
And I think it's really just about this needs to be an actual
42:29
throw and not a dart throw and not a weird timing lower half.
42:32
Like you just have to make it as close as you can at those lower
42:36
intensities. And I think an overload ball is
42:38
a good way to do that. Part of the reason I'm going
42:40
down this path is I'm thinking of some of the returns that
42:43
Carter Hahn has written a full send performance.
42:47
And Carter talks about one of the things he's gotten
42:50
comfortable with in a sense is workload value manipulations
42:54
based on what ball he is having a player throw with.
43:00
And seeing that guys on a pulse sensor have lower torques if
43:05
they're throwing a pile ball versus a traditional leather
43:08
weighted ball or a baseball. And then being able to, I guess,
43:13
hack the throw count system in a sense where they're more focused
43:18
on the daily workload total for the day as opposed to what a
43:21
prescribed number of throws actually would be.
43:26
Yeah, Yeah. I think there's, I think there's
43:28
a lot of interesting ground to cover there in terms of like the
43:31
Playa routine and re patterning when you're forced to throw at
43:33
lower intensities anyway. I think there's a lot of low
43:36
hanging fruit left in the return to throw process by adding
43:39
things like that. So Speaking of things that can
43:43
be learned or discovered in this return to throw process, what
43:47
are things that you have either learned recently or do you think
43:52
could add a new wrinkle to this return to throw process, good or
43:56
bad? I mean, the Flex pro grip
43:58
product comes to mind pretty, pretty strongly.
44:00
Like I remember sitting at Wake Forest like that was the the
44:03
Wake Forest seminar. It must have been 23.
44:08
I think it was the first time that I was really exposed to, to
44:11
what you guys are doing and, and the idea of capacity of, you
44:14
know, the forearm musculature and how it protects the elbow.
44:18
And it seems like the next logical step of like objectively
44:22
measuring those things before you return to throw.
44:25
I don't think there's great consensus among the medical
44:28
community of like what has to occur before an athlete can
44:32
throw. Like some people are using just
44:34
time from surgery, like some people have their own strength
44:36
or mobility metrics. There's a lot of room to
44:38
standardize that and have it like an objective metric that
44:41
like they should be able to do XY and Z before they can throw
44:44
and that that product offers that up.
44:47
At this point. I feel like we've been, we, we
44:50
implemented that this fall with like some pre testing with our
44:52
athletes and then also the arm care or like any other shoulder
44:56
strength testing metric. But if you're testing shoulder
44:59
strength, forearm strength and you're managing workload, I feel
45:02
like you're doing a lot of things right.
45:05
There's no reason that that couldn't be built in to return
45:07
to throw programs. Well, I appreciate the shout out
45:10
there. That definitely means a ton.
45:12
I don't want to turn this into me talking about ourselves.
45:15
People. People hear from us just enough.
45:17
I want to make sure they're hearing from you here.
45:21
I I want to continue this discussion a little bit.
45:23
Where do you think the next possible change or iteration to
45:28
your own progression could be? That's that's a tough one.
45:32
I think in my setting, a lot of my return to throw programs get
45:36
programmed remotely. We have a platform that we can
45:38
use for that. I don't actually get to work
45:40
hands on with all of my return to throw athletes right now just
45:42
because of the other training load that I'm responsible for.
45:46
I think the best iteration of it right includes integrating
45:50
strength and conditioning programming.
45:52
It includes the the Flex Pro and the arm care testing.
45:55
It's it's just a performance program like it's it is making
45:58
sure that all of those things are included there.
46:01
I think there is something to be said about a biomechanical
46:03
component, but I think it's less than a lot of people would would
46:06
like to believe. I mean, you met you guys
46:08
mentioned it actually this past year at wake.
46:09
Like the the elbow doesn't care how you're moving essentially
46:12
like it either has the capacity to handle the load that's placed
46:15
on a door. It doesn't.
46:16
There is I think a place for mechanical efficiency.
46:18
I just think it's less than than most people would believe in
46:21
those cases. But you know, finding some low
46:23
hanging fruit, maybe biomechanical analysis, that
46:25
sort of thing, but making it just a performance program,
46:30
that's how I think that's how it has to be viewed.
46:33
I love that. That was one of your takeaways
46:34
from our presentation. I was so proud of us when we put
46:37
that on our slides. And actually there was a brief
46:40
moment where that was going to be what we entitled our entire
46:44
presentation. Then we realized from there we
46:47
would just be shouting out what the elbow doesn't care about.
46:50
And that would get really old really fast.
46:52
And it would just sound like some really crappy song that we
46:55
we stepped away. But it's, I mean, it's important
46:58
to remember, right? Like there are, there are ways
47:00
of throwing that place more stress on the elbow and
47:02
shoulder. Yes.
47:04
But if your elbow and shoulder have the, the strength capacity
47:07
to deal with that stress, then that's not real.
47:10
Like you have less bandwidth, you have less room for error in
47:12
terms of your workload management at that time.
47:14
Like sure, like all those things are true, more efficient is
47:17
better. And also, if you bulletproof
47:20
your shoulder and your forearm and like you're doing those
47:22
things, you're checking a lot of boxes in terms of protecting
47:25
yourself from injury. Yes.
47:27
So then injury gets harder to come by, which I suppose is a
47:32
pretty solid goal to reach. If we make injury the tougher
47:36
outcome than health, we're probably in a pretty good spot.
47:39
I do think this is the time where we can kind of merge the
47:43
first half of the conversation with the second-half now that we
47:47
have some contacts to the workloads, how you program?
47:50
And I'm finally going to ask my question about pitch counts.
47:55
So you're still tracking them. I'm sure not every guy in the
47:59
MASH program throws with a pulse sensor on.
48:02
So how can you manage? Or how could someone else in a
48:06
similar position manage so many athletes?
48:10
And I guess, what information does pitch counts offer you?
48:14
Well, I'll start by saying that I will fully admit that it is an
48:17
imperfect system. I, I recognize all the limits of
48:21
pitch counts. I recognize that if a guy plays
48:24
shortstop or catcher for three games and then he goes out and
48:28
he throws under his pitch count total of pitches, that that's
48:30
still probably not a great look. But it gives me from the highest
48:34
level just oversight to make sure that our coaches are not
48:37
doing wrong by our guys since I took over in 2022.
48:41
Like it is not really an issue for our program.
48:43
It has educated some of or informed some of the decisions
48:46
we've made in terms of rostering and how many pitchers we make
48:48
sure we roster because we just can't put coaches in a position
48:52
where they where they need to use kids more than they should
48:55
be. I mean, in an ideal world, your
48:58
shoulder testing where they're wearing pulse sensors, you're
49:00
doing things like that on a regular basis.
49:02
If your arm care testing and their scores haven't gone down
49:06
from the day before, like I'm more comfortable with that
49:09
leading a pitch usage decision than a pitch count.
49:12
We can't deploy that at this point with the, with the scale
49:15
that we have. So an individual team basis, I
49:18
think that's probably the best, the best route.
49:20
And when I was at Hamlin, like we had, we had a handful of guys
49:22
that chose to wear the pulse sensor and it was very easy to
49:25
plan their usage. I mean, I had, I had guys throw
49:28
more than some people thought was appropriate at times because
49:32
I knew they had the chronic workload built up to handle it.
49:35
And we approached the whole season in one particular year
49:37
with that in mind that like on this day, I need you to be able
49:40
to throw X number of pitches. So if you get knocked out of an
49:43
outing in the second inning, I need you to go to the bullpen
49:46
and I need you to throw four or five more innings because we're
49:49
going to need you in three weeks.
49:51
So I think there's a lot of room to grow there.
49:55
But I think it just at least gives me an oversight of of
49:58
pitcher usage, guys that I may need it like pitchers that I may
50:00
need to have a conversation with and things like that.
50:04
How do you scale it by age or level?
50:07
Because I think you mentioned earlier, your upper here is the
50:12
105 pitches across 7 innings for your 17 U team.
50:16
So what, what's the progression look like?
50:19
And I know you said it's an imperfect system, so it's not
50:21
like we're trying to preach this, but I, I just want to know
50:25
your own process of maybe how you came to these certain
50:29
conclusions. We honestly, we use, we use the
50:32
pitchmark guidelines with some tweaks in that like we have
50:37
pitch per inning limit. So like if one of our guys is
50:39
out there, like you can't, you can't leave one of our guys in
50:42
for more than 30 pitches. Like his outing is done.
50:44
If he has a thirty pitch inning or he's about to have a 31 pitch
50:48
inning, his outing is done. We do the back to backs a little
50:51
bit differently. Like there's little things like
50:53
that that we've tweaked, but it's essentially the pitch smart
50:55
guidelines. OK.
50:57
You obviously are working with more than just injured or
51:01
rehabbing athletes. We talked about your many levels
51:04
of travel ball that you guys are playing.
51:07
How do you take the principles of these return to throw or
51:10
return to performance programs and utilize those for your
51:14
healthy athletes? Yeah.
51:16
So it, it really informs our offseason training in just that
51:20
like that, like the six week on ramp is a good example.
51:22
We do that by velocity. Most of our athletes, let's say
51:25
90% of our athletes that enroll in those programs know what
51:27
their previous best velocity is. So we prescribe like week 1 is
51:32
your previous Max velocity -15 miles an hour, that's your speed
51:36
limit. Then we'll go down to 12 and
51:38
like we just tear that down until week 5 where you're
51:42
throwing whatever feels like essentially 10 out of 10 effort.
51:46
And then in week six we get the radar gun back out.
51:49
We, we take the radar gun away in week 5 because we don't want
51:52
guys chasing numbers. We just want them to throw and
51:54
feel like, OK, I'm at full effort.
51:56
Because if you get a guy that feels like he's at full effort
51:58
and he's one or two miles away from his PR, like he's going to
52:01
just grind out and try to try to chase that number.
52:04
So our first exposure to high intent throwing is without a
52:06
gun. And then the next, the next week
52:08
we, we do our, our mount testing.
52:11
So it's really informed that like that on ramping and like
52:14
how we manage our throwing load throughout the week for guys
52:17
that are coming two or three times a week.
52:19
And also just like the recommendations that we can make
52:21
to kids, right? Like we can tell them, OK, it's
52:23
it's January and February, you should be trying to get in.
52:26
If you're in our two time a week throwing program, like you need
52:28
to throw one or two other times a week because when you report
52:31
to your high school team in March, you're going to go up to
52:33
five or six days a week of throwing.
52:35
And no amount of throwing on two days is going to prepare you for
52:38
a throwing 5 or 6 days. So we're able to give kind of
52:41
those recommendations. And then I mean, on top of that,
52:43
this is something that this kind of goes above, you know, how
52:46
we've used it with our healthy athletes.
52:48
But my that year round group that I mentioned of like the
52:51
cohort of about 24 athletes, they all wear a pulse sensor.
52:55
And so they're getting those guys are getting their their
52:57
workloads programmed. And I know that when I wave
53:00
goodbye to them on Saturday, like most of those guys aren't
53:03
going to wear their pulse sensor again for a while.
53:05
But this is something that Robin Lund mentioned in his
53:07
presentation at Wait Forest is that those guys are going to be
53:09
way more intuitive throwers having they measured their
53:13
workload for 4 1/2 months. Like I feel very confident in
53:16
their ability to navigate A5 day throwing schedule because they
53:20
know what a high intensity day feels like, what a what a five
53:23
to seven workload day feels like.
53:25
And they can mix those in. So I think that's another just
53:28
another way that the the pulse can impact healthy athletes even
53:32
when they're not wearing it anymore.
53:33
It just helps build a little bit smarter thrower.
53:37
Definitely. I think that's a great point.
53:39
Just even the exposure to the additional data gives you a feel
53:44
in a sense or it gives you the ability to merge the art with
53:48
the science is probably the better way to say it merging
53:51
feel with real. And I do want to call back on
53:56
what you had talked about the 15 mile per hour drop off for the
54:00
initial speed limit. Now, that would probably bring
54:04
us down an entirely different rabbit hole of like starting
54:08
levels of throwing fitness, and we could probably talk for
54:11
another hour just about how to set up an athlete's initial
54:16
throwing program. But was that just something that
54:19
felt comfortable or generally from where guys get started when
54:22
you see them, there's no sense having a guy who throws 85 mph
54:27
step all the way back to throwing 45 mph.
54:31
So was it just something that 70 mph for that guy seems like an
54:35
OK spot. It's very manageable.
54:38
Yeah, it was really like, I wish there was a more scientific
54:41
answer to like what how we chose that number.
54:42
But it was basically that we knew we wanted to take, we
54:45
wanted to on ramp over the course of four weeks.
54:48
Like that's what it takes to build up a chronic workload
54:50
number. Like like a a meaningful chronic
54:52
workload number. We we just knew that was about
54:56
the amount of time that we thought was appropriate to build
54:58
up the fitness to throw their ten pitch bullpen or their ten
55:00
pitch mountain testing day. And so from there it's like, OK,
55:03
how do you work backwards? It's same as like the curriculum
55:06
building. If I know on week five, I want
55:08
them at 100% and I'm going to come bring them up in increments
55:11
each week, like what is 4 weeks earlier look like?
55:14
And and so we we've done that the last every actually every
55:18
year that I've been here, we've on ramped our guys like that.
55:20
And without fail, we have a pretty significant number of our
55:24
guys that PR on mount on mount testing day.
55:27
They come out of the on ramp and their first their first mountain
55:30
Vilo day, which is not just a Vilo day.
55:33
Like we're tracking strikes as well there in zone rate, but
55:36
like they're PR ING on that day. So it's it's been, it's worked
55:40
pretty well so far. Nitpicking a little bit, do the
55:43
PRS count if it's a ball? Depends on the day, depends on
55:48
the day. I'm not.
55:48
I wish I could tell you that it always there is there are days
55:51
where if we have it also depends on the kid and kind of their
55:54
approach. Like if a guy is attempting to
55:56
pitch like he's focused and he happens to to miss glove side on
55:59
one, like we're going to count that.
56:01
But if a guy is falling down the mound head whack, like, no,
56:06
we're not going to I'm going to make you hit the hit the target
56:08
before I give you a number on that one.
56:10
So it's it really depends. OK, that that's fair.
56:13
Like I said, just just need you to nitpick for a minute.
56:16
We, we wait differently. If it's to a batter, we do, we
56:18
do celebrate like when we go to live at bats.
56:20
If that's the, if it's the hardest pitch you throw into a
56:22
batter and it's like a competitive pitch, that that is
56:25
a different category for us that we that we'll celebrate.
56:29
Big time. Now I have one more topic.
56:32
I think we've touched on it a little bit, maybe more teased it
56:35
than anything. I wrote it down beforehand.
56:38
I know I texted you about it because I think you have a
56:40
unique approach to it, given what you guys do with MASH, but
56:45
maybe the leveling of the playing field in the sense
56:48
between the North and South. You think about some of the old
56:51
research that came out saying that those who live below the
56:55
Mason Dixon line or from Latin American countries have higher
56:59
entry rates because they've thrown more pitches and all
57:02
these things. But now you look at the baseball
57:06
landscape as a whole, in every quote UN quote, northern place
57:11
or large enough city above the Mason Dixon line has a baseball
57:16
facility where guys are throwing year round.
57:18
So I feel like from my perspective, things have leveled
57:22
out now somebody who actually lives in it.
57:25
It's why you will shared early on your background in Michigan,
57:30
what you've done in Minnesota, your ranks as a Northern
57:32
baseball coach. So now again, I'm going to pass
57:35
the baton to you. You have a very interesting
57:40
point of view on this topic that I'd love to hear from.
57:43
It's hard for me to speak entirely on it because my
57:45
exposure to Southern baseball is so minimal.
57:47
Like it's like Northern baseball is all I've really ever known.
57:50
But I think there are definitely pros and cons to the to the two
57:54
situations, right? The added mileage of being able
57:57
to go out and compete in games year round in the South does
58:00
pose some challenges if you if you don't know how to manage
58:03
your workload. The benefit though, obviously is
58:06
that they're throwing and having to think about runners and
58:09
situations and actually getting hitters out a larger portion of
58:13
the year. In the North, we have this
58:15
entire phase of the year where you do you get to continue
58:19
training, but that's really the only feedback that you get is
58:23
the training data. So you run this risk of if in
58:27
November, December and January, what is important is my velocity
58:31
and my track man shapes and things like that, that there,
58:35
there's a tendency sometimes for high school athletes to remain
58:38
fixated on that, right? And it's like, you just told me
58:41
this was really important for three months.
58:43
And it's like, well, it's pretty important.
58:45
It's it's still pretty important.
58:46
But the most important thing is can you go get out?
58:49
And so having facilities like this is obviously a great
58:52
benefit. This past weekend we had live at
58:54
Batson, our field house with umpires and hitters and the
58:57
whole deal. And inside, well, it's, you
58:59
know, they had a snow day on Wednesday.
59:00
So we're able to do those sorts of things.
59:02
But the challenge, I think, is just balancing that pursuit of
59:05
horsepower from November to the end of January with the actual
59:10
art of pitching that becomes relevant in March, April, May,
59:14
June and and so on from there. There's no like better or worse,
59:19
I don't think, because what you do get exposed to in a sense
59:22
being up north, and maybe we didn't touch on it a ton, is the
59:26
constant feedback loop of being with a coach or understanding
59:31
how your pitches move. Although you might not be a
59:34
complete game pitcher, maybe you have a better understanding of
59:38
what your stuff is or you can speak on, I guess the education
59:43
of pitching as opposed to you look at what's going on down
59:47
South or my neck of the woods here and it's kids who have
59:51
played 50 plus games a year for their entire lives.
59:57
So their their game exposure is great.
59:59
Their game knowledge is tremendous.
1:00:00
Maybe they understand how to attack a hitter.
1:00:03
But they have. Less of a knowledge of what's
1:00:06
actually going on behind the scenes or with an acute to
1:00:09
chronic workload ratio. Things that don't get talked
1:00:12
about outside of a facility. As you said, pros and cons all
1:00:16
over the place. Yeah, I think it's it's
1:00:18
interesting to hear you talk like to say that in like the
1:00:21
benefit of being up north. I think it I think we have a
1:00:24
grass is greener situation. Like I just would love if my
1:00:26
guys could have to hold runners in pressure situations like
1:00:31
pitch with context more frequently.
1:00:32
Like we're always trying to figure out how can we add more
1:00:35
context to this pitching class, to this program.
1:00:38
And I think then to that point, if you're always looking at how
1:00:41
do we do this, how do we fix this kind of takes away from the
1:00:44
fact that you, we do have the opportunity to talk about a lot
1:00:46
of things that other places aren't, aren't getting.
1:00:48
So I think it's, it's definitely an interesting conversation
1:00:51
because it's always, it's easy to, to want the opposite.
1:00:54
And if I was down South and I had to deal with guys only
1:00:57
playing games, that would also be frustrating.
1:00:59
So to your point, like I think there's, there's some,
1:01:01
definitely some benefit both ways.
1:01:04
As we have led on to, there is no right or wrong.
1:01:06
There's no one that's better than the other.
1:01:09
I would say my personal preference would be to play
1:01:11
games down South because we do this for the fun.
1:01:14
We do this for the games, right? It is.
1:01:16
It is awesome to see a new PR or execute a slider on track, man.
1:01:21
But it's completely different when you blow an O2 fastball by
1:01:25
a hitter and you get to fist pump coming off the mound like
1:01:29
that's. A bad shape on a slider that
1:01:31
gets a swing and miss is better than anything a track man can
1:01:33
tell you like big time. That's just the reality.
1:01:37
Yes, So Weston, we, we've talked for a while now.
1:01:41
I want to give the keys to you one last time to either plug
1:01:45
what you have going on at MASH, any way people can get in touch
1:01:49
with you or follow what you're doing.
1:01:51
You shared a time today. We've been gracious with your
1:01:53
time and I just want to make sure if people want to learn
1:01:56
more, they know how. Yeah, I appreciate it.
1:01:59
You can follow me on Twitter at Coach under score.
1:02:01
Jermaine, that's, that's where I'm most active.
1:02:04
I also, I operate on Instagram, that's at coach Jermaine, I'm
1:02:07
less active on there and mostly just reposting stuff from
1:02:10
Twitter. But additionally, we, we have a
1:02:12
remote training program that was launched about, you know, 66 to
1:02:16
8 months ago. Tanner Pruitt does a tremendous
1:02:18
job with that. He like talk about like adding
1:02:21
context to training. He's a really big driving force
1:02:23
behind that. So if you're interested in
1:02:25
anything that we talked about here, there's that option.
1:02:27
But also just feel free to reach out to me on Twitter or on
1:02:30
Instagram. I'm happy to answer any
1:02:31
questions or just dive into conversations with people that
1:02:34
want to. Well, thanks a ton, Weston.
1:02:36
This was great. Definitely learned a ton.
1:02:38
I loved you taking us through the process and I look forward
1:02:41
to continued conversations. Thanks a ton for having me, I
1:02:44
really appreciate it. Of course, and to all the
1:02:47
listeners out there, thanks for laying back with us.