Latest / The Layback Podcast / Austin Marchesani, Pitching Consultant (Ep. 45)

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Austin Marchesani, Pitching Consultant (Ep. 45) · The Layback Podcast

• 0:00
  Hey everyone, welcome back to the Lay Back podcast.
• 0:02
  Joining us today is Austin Marches Ani.
• 0:05
  Probably his most important title is recently engaged.
• 0:09
  So sorry everyone he is off the market.
• 0:11
  He is a lucky fiance waiting for him, but he is an unbelievably
• 0:17
  smart guy in the pitching world. He spent time with the Angels at
• 0:21
  Iowa and is recent to Twitter fame with his workload thread
• 0:26
  that we're going to spend a lot of time on today.
• 0:28
  That was perfect timing, gave us some fuel to speak on.
• 0:32
  But with all this, I'm going to pass it over to Austin.
• 0:35
  Let him talk a little bit more about his bio.
• 0:37
  Austin, thanks a ton for joining us today.
• 0:39
  Yeah, yeah, no problem. Thanks for having me on.
• 0:41
  I'm actually currently in Iowa. I am from Iowa.
• 0:44
  I've been here my whole life. But just quick about kind of my
• 0:47
  my journey. I played baseball growing up
• 0:49
  wasn't great. I played is what I'll say in
• 0:52
  college for year, I actually blew out on pretty much the
• 0:54
  first day of practice. And so I got a chance to
• 0:57
  experience a lot of lot of the behind the scenes stuff when I
• 0:59
  was hurt in terms of like charting or some of that intro
• 1:02
  stuff. And from there just kind of
• 1:03
  blossomed into some more curiosity on the coaching side,
• 1:07
  got into formal coaching, coaching the local high school
• 1:10
  team after I transferred from my junior college.
• 1:13
  And from there I did some like private pitching lessons.
• 1:15
  And as I kept doing it, just kind of my knowledge and
• 1:19
  curiosity kept growing, met some of the right people, which led
• 1:22
  me to the University of Iowa being a student manager and
• 1:25
  their analytics department for a year and a half, which really
• 1:29
  pretty much set me up for the career trajectory that I, that I
• 1:33
  currently on. And then from Iowa, was able to
• 1:35
  be with the Angels for two years as a pitching development
• 1:39
  analyst. And now I'm just doing a lot of
• 1:40
  consulting work, helping both high school, college and some
• 1:44
  professional guys with some throwing programs, some workload
• 1:46
  stuff like you mentioned, and some pitch design arsenal
• 1:49
  things. And you know, it's kind of a
• 1:50
  Jack of all trades right now, doing whatever I can to help
• 1:53
  pitchers develop. But yeah, I'm open book today.
• 1:55
  I love sharing my story to help inspire anyone because I wasn't
• 1:59
  a great baseball player, but like, I obviously made it to a
• 2:02
  pretty high level of coaching or job.
• 2:04
  So I want to help any way I can. Well, you might have the most
• 2:08
  humble 88 to 90 story of everyone that I've heard You,
• 2:12
  you said you'll you'll play, you said in air quotes, which is
• 2:17
  kind of crazy to me. I think most people that have
• 2:19
  seen 90 on a radar gun at least feel pretty good about
• 2:22
  themselves. So I guess that's that.
• 2:24
  Good old humble Midwest attitudes.
• 2:26
  Yeah, Yeah. Well, part of it too is credit
• 2:28
  to the the junior college I was at, Kirkwood Community College.
• 2:31
  We were, we were a machine. We made it to the JUCO World
• 2:33
  Series the year I was there. We had a guy get drafted,
• 2:37
  multiple D1 guys, and so even if I was throwing D 8 to 90, I
• 2:39
  probably wouldn't have sniffed the the mound very much.
• 2:42
  So as a powerhouse program it still is.
• 2:44
  And Coach Ryan is going to be one of my favorite coaches the
• 2:47
  rest of my life. He really took the shot on me
• 2:49
  and I'm always going to be grateful for that.
• 2:50
  But they got a, they got a pretty good program going on in
• 2:54
  Cedar Rapids. So I guess they humbled you.
• 2:56
  Maybe. Maybe you should have stayed
• 2:58
  smaller time so you could have been big fish, little pond.
• 3:00
  Yeah. Well, this never would.
• 3:01
  Have been where you are now. Yeah, I was gonna say I'm happy
• 3:04
  with what I what I did in my journey because who knows where
• 3:07
  I would have been if that all didn't happen.
• 3:09
  For sure. I guess kind of the funny,
• 3:13
  serendipitous way things work out.
• 3:16
  I heard on another podcast you did that you were at Northern
• 3:21
  Iowa and that's actually where you got connected with Robin
• 3:24
  Lund. Yeah, yeah.
• 3:25
  After I blew out, I transferred to University of Northern Iowa,
• 3:29
  which is in Cedar Falls, IA. That's my hometown.
• 3:31
  That's where I'm at right now, actually.
• 3:33
  And I never really thought about coaching once I got to you and
• 3:37
  I, so I ended up taking a coding class at you and I, I just
• 3:41
  learned to do like modeling and things like that.
• 3:43
  And so I had to do a final project getting into like make a
• 3:46
  model basically. And so I found this website
• 3:48
  called baseball savants that obviously I know very well now.
• 3:51
  And I got a bunch of baseball data and I was like, this is
• 3:53
  kind of fun. Maybe I can, I can do something
• 3:55
  like this with baseball. And so I actually searched the
• 3:58
  entire college, the whole like statistical department.
• 4:00
  I was a stats major, so talked to all the professors and didn't
• 4:04
  really know how to get into sports analytics.
• 4:06
  And then was lucky enough to find Robin Lund's name, who is
• 4:09
  just a professor of kinesiology at you and I for 17 years.
• 4:14
  He actually has a daughter that was in my grade in high school,
• 4:17
  so I knew roughly of him, but I got connected with him and he
• 4:20
  gave me this huge like I think it was like 3 or 4 pages of just
• 4:24
  like if you want to work in baseball, here's the things you
• 4:26
  need to know. Here's all these metrics, here's
• 4:28
  these conferences you can go to. I was like, wow, this guy is
• 4:31
  he's on top of it. And I did all of that and I
• 4:34
  still have that piece of paper. It sits on my desk as I as I
• 4:37
  move, as I go to places just to remind me of where I started.
• 4:40
  But as soon as I got to know Robin, I was like, this is going
• 4:43
  to be a guy in my corner. And then I get a call from him
• 4:46
  about a month later and he was like, hey, just letting you
• 4:47
  know, I just got a job in University of Iowa.
• 4:50
  He's a hitting coach actually is what he got hired for.
• 4:52
  And I was like, wow, I didn't know that was coming.
• 4:54
  You know, professor to D1 baseball coach doesn't happen
• 4:57
  too often, but him being in my corner as I was at Iowa with him
• 5:01
  and then as he moved to the Tigers, he's he's been an
• 5:04
  awesome resource for me and helping me grow in my career.
• 5:07
  For sure. So then when you went to Iowa,
• 5:10
  it was as a grad student, correct?
• 5:12
  Yep, Yep, Grad student I, I did a master's program there in in
• 5:15
  analytics, but again, kind of the big focus for me was working
• 5:18
  in their student manager program.
• 5:19
  They send a bunch of guys to pro ball jobs.
• 5:23
  And again, kind of just like anyone that's listening to this,
• 5:25
  if you want to get a job in pro ball, I was the place to go.
• 5:28
  They have tools, resources. It's a front office, it is a MLB
• 5:32
  front office run at a college level single handedly help help
• 5:35
  get that job. But it's any student that's
• 5:37
  there and it is the best experience that I had my whole
• 5:40
  college career. And so I can't recommend that
• 5:42
  enough. And the last thing with that is
• 5:44
  like the coaches completely buy into what these managers are
• 5:47
  doing. Analysts, even the on field,
• 5:49
  there's video and scouting, like there's departments and Coach
• 5:51
  Rick Heller, like he trusts the analysts, all the assistant
• 5:54
  coaches trust the analysts. They have just as much power as
• 5:58
  the coaches do in terms of giving their opinions.
• 6:00
  And that really got my foot in the door and gave me a lot of
• 6:02
  confidence, especially going into the job market with MLB
• 6:05
  teams, to really feel feel good about what I knew and my
• 6:09
  knowledge could translate to the highest level.
• 6:12
  So shout out Iowa baseball managers big time.
• 6:15
  I do want to kind of stick on that theme for a little bit.
• 6:18
  What was your first major project that you took on so
• 6:23
  beyond this one that you did for the coding class, when you got
• 6:27
  to Iowa and you were trying to make a difference for the first
• 6:30
  time, what did you look into? Were you assigned something or
• 6:33
  did you have a passion project right off the job?
• 6:36
  And I'll say before I go into that, is that's the nice thing
• 6:38
  about what they do at Iowa's. If you have some you're
• 6:40
  passionate about, they let you do it.
• 6:42
  If not, I mean, when I was there, obviously Robin had
• 6:45
  hundreds of ideas every day that you would just spill out and you
• 6:48
  could choose one. But really the, the biggest
• 6:50
  thing that got me on the map you could say is I, I researched
• 6:53
  dead zone fastballs. So dead zone being equal
• 6:57
  vertical and horizontal break. We had a picture that his name
• 6:59
  was Duncan David. He's in the Rays organization
• 7:01
  now. He had a dead zone fastball by
• 7:03
  the movement profile, but he performed really well.
• 7:06
  And so Robin had kind of wondered why is this happening?
• 7:09
  And so I did a lot of research on can you work with a dead zone
• 7:12
  fastball? And found a lot of things on
• 7:14
  obviously above average velocity of plays or a unique release.
• 7:18
  Got into some vertical approach angle stuff and some things that
• 7:21
  are common knowledge now. But the the stigma when I was
• 7:24
  going through it four or five years ago is just if you have a
• 7:26
  dead zone fastball, you're you're kind of screwed, which we
• 7:29
  know now it's like that's not the case at all, depending on
• 7:31
  your at least characteristics or even velocity.
• 7:34
  So that's really the big one that that got me started.
• 7:37
  And then the other one that I'm kind of known for brought up a
• 7:40
  lot as I helped build the stuff Plus model at Iowa, which is
• 7:43
  used very widely. It's still used to this day,
• 7:45
  which again, myself and Connor Curtis, who's going to work for
• 7:48
  the Brewers after he graduates, like he is a whiz.
• 7:51
  But that was that was a big project.
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  That was the biggest project probably I've ever done,
• 7:54
  including my time with the Angels.
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  And so that that was really helpful with just statistical
• 7:58
  knowledge and that was applicable right away.
• 8:00
  I can't tell you how many different uses we had for that
• 8:03
  and pitch design and scouting, and there's countless different
• 8:06
  uses for it, but those are really the two big ones that
• 8:09
  kind of stuck out for me. I feel like you laid out a fork
• 8:12
  in the road and I want to talk both about dead zone fastballs
• 8:16
  as well as stuff plus models. Sadly, the way my brain works is
• 8:19
  I'm probably going to go down one path and completely forget
• 8:22
  about the other one. That's all good.
• 8:24
  Three hours after we finish recording and then I'm going to
• 8:26
  be like, oh shoot, I need to call him.
• 8:28
  But the the one you brought up first was Dead Zone Fastballs.
• 8:31
  Sounds like some of that was influenced by what Robin was
• 8:34
  interested in. But if we can spend some more
• 8:38
  time on that theme, what are you now seen that differentiates
• 8:45
  what you might have originally thought was a dead zone fastball
• 8:48
  versus what actually is? I know you highlighted really
• 8:51
  quickly VAA different release characteristics or things like
• 8:55
  that. So what or how can someone just
• 8:59
  identify a dead zone fastball that won't necessarily play?
• 9:03
  That's a really good question and I actually wrote a follow
• 9:06
  up. It was the last blog I did at
• 9:07
  Iowa to like a Part 2 of the dead zone and something that is
• 9:11
  still my answer for this question, which is arm slot data
• 9:14
  is now available on on baseball Savant.
• 9:16
  So we didn't have arm slot data when I was in Iowa.
• 9:18
  We had Trackman data that just release height, release side,
• 9:21
  but I kind of made a pseudo arm angle metric from that.
• 9:24
  And So what I did was I looked at the movement of the fastball
• 9:28
  compared to arm angle. And the more that deviates the,
• 9:31
  you know, better results, you could say.
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  So in other words, your dead zone fastball is going to be
• 9:36
  dependent on your arm slot. A guy that has a really high arm
• 9:39
  slot more North and South. If their fastball has more rise,
• 9:43
  it's going to be more of a dead zone because the hitter expects
• 9:45
  the ball to kind of stay in the plane.
• 9:47
  But guys, straight side armor, they're going to expect the ball
• 9:49
  to go more east West. We're seeing that a lot with
• 9:52
  public projects on Twitter that are discovering that with savant
• 9:56
  data. But that's something that four
• 9:57
  years ago I wrote that in my second Dead Zone blog.
• 10:00
  If you have a movement profile that differs from where your arm
• 10:04
  slot is, and you can even expand it to just like generally look
• 10:08
  at where your arm slot is. If the ball doesn't follow that
• 10:11
  plane your arm is on, you probably have some unique
• 10:13
  characteristics or you wouldn't be a dead zone guy.
• 10:15
  To put it at the very lowest level.
• 10:17
  If you have no tech available, that's something you can very
• 10:20
  easily identify. But again, to this day, I would
• 10:23
  say that unexpected movements, kind of what I call it, where
• 10:26
  your arm slot is, plays a huge role in what the hitter
• 10:29
  perceives as what's going to happen with your fastball.
• 10:31
  So the more that your ball moves different from what the hitter
• 10:34
  is used to or what they perceive might happen, the better the
• 10:37
  results are going to be. And if you stick in that
• 10:39
  category of it moves exactly like what hitters are used to
• 10:42
  seeing, that would be the dead zone.
• 10:43
  It has much less to do with the strictly movement vertical and
• 10:47
  horizontal numbers. I'm sure stemming off of this is
• 10:52
  part of the Arsenal design concept of why certain maybe
• 10:57
  hand position biases or from our side of things with flex pro
• 11:02
  grip finger pressure biases can result in more favorable Arsenal
• 11:10
  potentials. As in Tread released that that
• 11:14
  big thing maybe a month ago now where I think Tyler Zombro broke
• 11:19
  down the different typical pitches that go along with a
• 11:24
  certain pronation or supination bias or amount or on our side,
• 11:28
  like an index or middle finger bias from what we're seeing with
• 11:31
  Flex Pro Grip, which thankfully this is starting to tie into
• 11:35
  stuff Plus. So now I kind of see how you
• 11:37
  went down this path, I guess. Thanks for opening this door.
• 11:40
  I thought it was a fork in the road but they intersect.
• 11:42
  Again, no. That was my plan the whole time.
• 11:44
  Good. Yeah, you nailed it.
• 11:45
  Then you're the perfect guest. So when we're when we're looking
• 11:49
  at these fastball deviations where it's transitioning from a
• 11:53
  dead zone to a potentially more effective fastball or an
• 11:57
  unexpected fastball, is that initial fastball movement what
• 12:02
  you're using for additional arsenal design?
• 12:05
  Where are you going with the next step for designing an
• 12:09
  arsenal? Off of the fastball you're
• 12:10
  asking? Or is it the fastball that you
• 12:13
  even start with? Yeah, I mean in in my case, a
• 12:16
  lot of the time it was the fastball that I started with
• 12:18
  simply because and this baseball shifting away from this, which I
• 12:22
  completely agree with. But most of the time your
• 12:24
  fastball is going to be your your most thrown pitch.
• 12:26
  And so if you look at the numbers, fastballs typically
• 12:29
  perform the worst out of any pitch as well.
• 12:31
  And so if we're going to throw a pitch a lot, but it doesn't
• 12:34
  perform good, we're still going to try to maximize the value
• 12:36
  that we can get out of that. So again, getting out of that
• 12:39
  dead zone was kind of the the number one way that we found to
• 12:42
  maximize performance of those pitches.
• 12:44
  And that could be again, from a lot of different ways to to
• 12:46
  change that dead zone profile in terms of like spin axis, just
• 12:50
  getting more backspin from a lower slot can help make it
• 12:53
  flatter or some seam shifted weight characteristics to
• 12:55
  improve sync or even rise. There's a lot of different ways
• 12:58
  you can go with it, but the main driver was strictly just how can
• 13:02
  we improve the fastball performance if we're going to
• 13:04
  throw it this much? And again, now that now that
• 13:06
  orbs are throwing on fastballs more than fastballs, which
• 13:09
  again, I'm, I'm a huge fan of, if it's your best pitch, throw
• 13:12
  it more. I think that you can design A
• 13:13
  lot off of that fastball kind of deviation.
• 13:17
  But in my opinion, everything starts with the fastball because
• 13:20
  that's kind of your baseline characteristics with the biases
• 13:22
  that you talked about with supination pronation, Everything
• 13:24
  kind of works off of that. And, and the video from Tread
• 13:27
  explained it really well. There's, there's not a lot you
• 13:30
  can do differing wise based on how your, your biases are.
• 13:34
  And so that's really why I think we, we spent a lot of time with
• 13:37
  the fastball. It's just if you're going to
• 13:39
  throw it a lot, it better be a decent pitch.
• 13:42
  Otherwise you're going to get hammered and then you're going
• 13:44
  to have to rely on a lot of other stuff.
• 13:46
  And so setting up that foundation, I think it's going
• 13:48
  to help expand your arsenal and you'll get into other stuff plus
• 13:51
  pitches. But, and I'll say it again, I
• 13:54
  know I've repeated it a lot, but like you have to just set up
• 13:56
  that fastball in order to be able to perform at A at a decent
• 14:00
  level. For very few pitchers, their
• 14:02
  fastball is going to be their best pitch.
• 14:04
  But as long as it's serviceable, a lot of the other options in
• 14:07
  their arsenal playoff. And depending on your stuff plus
• 14:09
  model, the movement of your fastball can be a factor in it
• 14:12
  or it could not depending on how the models built.
• 14:14
  But there's a lot that can be taken into account with just
• 14:17
  strictly getting away from that dead zone.
• 14:19
  Before I move on to the next question and you bring up
• 14:24
  fastball and the importance of it.
• 14:26
  One thing that I try to remind people when I have these
• 14:29
  conversations and I'd be curious to hear your opinion on it.
• 14:34
  If we look at an entire lifetime of throws made by a single
• 14:38
  individual, beyond even what you're doing in game, every
• 14:42
  single throw that you have ever made in your life, and we break
• 14:45
  down the pitch type, I'm going to assume that no less than 97%
• 14:52
  of every throw that you have made in your entire life has
• 14:55
  been some form of a fastball. No doubt.
• 14:58
  Yeah. Whether it's a 4 seam grip, 2
• 14:59
  seam grip, I don't care. You have probably thrown a
• 15:03
  fastball way closer to the majority of the pitches you have
• 15:07
  ever thrown in your life. Then closer to 75%, it's
• 15:11
  probably way closer to 100 and. Then you know, this isn't a
• 15:14
  conversation for now, but that's a huge unlock for a lot of guys
• 15:16
  Like, hey, you're throwing 30 pitches on your recovery days
• 15:20
  and you're throwing all just fastballs, but you're just
• 15:22
  holding the grip normally. You have 100 recovery days
• 15:25
  throughout the year. That's 3000 pitches that you're
• 15:27
  wasting just throwing fastball. Like I'm not saying you're going
• 15:30
  to get a ton better by throwing lower intent, but you can get
• 15:32
  better feel you can get more comfortable.
• 15:34
  Like there's a lot of different things you can do, but you're
• 15:36
  absolutely right, not I mean, 97% sounds like a pretty good
• 15:39
  number. It's just not worked on a lot in
• 15:41
  terms of other pitches. And you just kind of just kind
• 15:43
  of been always accepted. I'm playing catch.
• 15:45
  Just throw fastballs when there's there's a lot of value
• 15:48
  in throwing things other than fastballs in terms of not just
• 15:51
  working on shapes, but just comfortability and some other
• 15:54
  different things. So I love that point.
• 15:57
  So maybe that's just a little development unlock there or a
• 16:00
  little take away that somebody could have even from the
• 16:02
  conversation that we're running through now, take time to throw
• 16:06
  other pitches. Yeah, it's it's that simple.
• 16:08
  You can probably spare backing down from throwing 97% fastball
• 16:14
  in your life. Yep.
• 16:17
  Because you throw 97% fastball in your life, why does it then
• 16:21
  make sense to go into a game when you're throwing 50%?
• 16:24
  Fastball and we're going to talk about my workload thread, but I
• 16:27
  forgot who was someone replied and said does throwing off speed
• 16:30
  have an impact? And my answer to the workload
• 16:33
  question strictly was not necessarily workload is more
• 16:35
  just about the total kind of foundation that you lay.
• 16:38
  But you still have to kind of on ramp those those non fastball
• 16:41
  options. If you just play catch with your
• 16:44
  fastball for the 1st 6-10 weeks of your on ramp and then you're
• 16:49
  throwing bullpens and the first time you hold your change up
• 16:51
  grip is when you're off the mound, like that's not set up
• 16:54
  very good. You're going to be really
• 16:54
  behind. And so in terms of, like I said,
• 16:57
  comfortability, there's there's a huge gap that I think baseball
• 16:59
  community has to really improve that feel.
• 17:02
  And you know, there's, there's no date I had to back this up.
• 17:04
  But I feel like the more comfortable you are, the more of
• 17:07
  them say accurate. But just like you have more
• 17:09
  confidence in it when you throw it, whether it's accurate or
• 17:12
  not, the more confidence you have in a pitch I think is
• 17:14
  better for a pitcher regardless of the situation.
• 17:17
  Generally, comfortability is going to lead to confidence.
• 17:19
  There's no question those two things are linked.
• 17:21
  It is funny you bring that up. I know we talked about this off
• 17:24
  air, but that was Lance Brozdowski who responded.
• 17:28
  Trust me, I mined through your your thread and the in the
• 17:32
  comments. Maybe someone else said it too,
• 17:34
  but it it's nice that we have a little Lance Brozdowski call
• 17:37
  back. He's getting mentioned more and
• 17:38
  more and his time's coming on the podcast at some point.
• 17:41
  I I got to catch him before spring training kicks.
• 17:43
  Lance Lance is one of the best guys in the public sphere out
• 17:46
  there. The work he does is just
• 17:48
  incredible and the time he puts in, he is doing a lot of good
• 17:51
  for the game. Big time.
• 17:53
  I do want to comment on that breaking ball concept or the
• 17:57
  change up and introducing that into your pre season workload or
• 18:02
  your acute to chronic workload ratio in the ramp up that you're
• 18:04
  going through. Maybe this was an undertone that
• 18:08
  you intended anyways. But something that I want to
• 18:10
  call out is beyond just gaining comfort from a performance
• 18:14
  aspect. If you haven't introduced more
• 18:17
  supination bias pitches in your season on ramp and the first
• 18:22
  time you go to RIP a cutter or slider is when you're at full
• 18:25
  intent on a mound, you might not think of it as dangerous or
• 18:30
  something of that nature. I don't want to label it
• 18:33
  necessarily dangerous, but that is a.
• 18:36
  Different stress, stress. Yeah, exactly.
• 18:38
  Yeah, Jinx. But it is a completely different
• 18:41
  stress. And because it is a greater
• 18:45
  stress on the supination, you're delaying the pronation of your
• 18:48
  arm and the way it works, you're changing the kinematics of your
• 18:52
  sequence. And something that we have found
• 18:54
  if you are, if you're gripping a supinated pitch, you're trying
• 18:57
  to throw a supinated pitch. That pitch then puts you in a
• 19:02
  position of greater supination at maximum lay back as well.
• 19:06
  And with that, we have found that the muscle tendon units
• 19:10
  that can support the UCL when they are in supination cannot
• 19:15
  produce as much force as if they were in a neutral or pronated
• 19:19
  position. And what is super interesting is
• 19:23
  that is not the case as much for individuals that would be
• 19:28
  classified as quote UN quote supinators because they have
• 19:31
  spent more time in supination for their entire lives.
• 19:35
  But let's say you are a more like traditional pitcher that
• 19:39
  throws a carry 4 scene fastball or like more like natural arm
• 19:43
  side movement and you struggle to get anything to go glove
• 19:46
  side. But you get introduced to this
• 19:48
  new slider grip or something. Or somebody tells you a sweeper
• 19:51
  is going to change everything you do.
• 19:54
  That pitch is going to be more stressful than what you are used
• 19:57
  to because of the supination demands that you are not
• 20:00
  accustomed to. So everything Austin said about
• 20:03
  introducing those kind of throws at lower stress levels early on
• 20:09
  is going to make it easier the deeper you get into your ramp
• 20:12
  up. Yeah.
• 20:13
  And I trust you on this with the data that I have, I haven't been
• 20:16
  able to firmly place that with the workload numbers, but I
• 20:19
  have. But if there's anyone that has
• 20:20
  done the research, I know it's going to be you guys.
• 20:22
  And, but intuitively, like you said, it makes sense that you
• 20:25
  don't want to start and introducing that stress when
• 20:27
  you're at the highest intent of throwing off the mound, when
• 20:30
  you've been throwing for six to 10 weeks and you haven't touched
• 20:33
  any sort of those other stressors that you're going to
• 20:34
  have. It's just, it makes a lot of
• 20:36
  sense intuitively and you guys have the numbers to back that.
• 20:39
  So it's it's for sure something that a lot of pitchers are kind
• 20:42
  of missing in in a lot of their development plans.
• 20:44
  And I guess this is a little bit of a shameless plug.
• 20:46
  Yeah, Austin said. The data, this is a study that
• 20:49
  we have coming out here in the next few months.
• 20:52
  We partnered on research with this with Dylan Newcomer, who's
• 20:55
  the physical therapist out at Driveline, as well as Doctor
• 20:59
  Matt Fury, who's an orthopedist down in Baton Rouge, and Doctor
• 21:03
  Gunner Brolinson and the Virginia Tech sports medicine
• 21:06
  team. So we we have a lot coming out
• 21:08
  on this. If anybody wants to hear more
• 21:10
  about it, Darrell and I did an episode together, probably
• 21:14
  shoot, I don't know, 15 to 20 episodes ago now.
• 21:18
  I don't know what number it is, so I can't call it out
• 21:20
  specifically, but Daryl and I run through the research we have
• 21:22
  coming down the line. But we're we're going to go back
• 21:25
  to focusing on Austin here. And I did want to make the
• 21:28
  transition to the stuff plus model.
• 21:30
  And we, we talked about fastballs, we talked about
• 21:33
  Arsenal design. Then we went on this really fun
• 21:35
  diatribe about introducing pitches at different times.
• 21:38
  But I'm not super educated when it comes to stuff Plus models.
• 21:42
  I think they're really cool and I think they're useful, but I
• 21:46
  don't understand fully how they are built.
• 21:49
  What I think I know, and I could be grossly wrong so feel free to
• 21:53
  tell me, is that there's generally some sort of I, I
• 21:58
  don't necessarily want to say biasing built into it, but stuff
• 22:02
  plus models can be built different ways, so they wait
• 22:05
  different pitches differently. That is absolutely true.
• 22:09
  OK, great. So now I don't know if this is a
• 22:12
  trade secret for the Iowa Stuff Plus model or maybe if you just
• 22:16
  want to talk more generally about where Stuff Plus models
• 22:20
  differ and what they might weight more strongly or more
• 22:25
  weakly in different regards. But I I would love to go down
• 22:28
  that, Yeah. I'll start with general stuff
• 22:31
  plus models, so like most MLB teams, and then the public data
• 22:34
  that's available. Are you familiar with LIKE run
• 22:36
  value? You know the kind of different
• 22:37
  run value states? I would say probably slightly
• 22:40
  more than the average individual just because I love this stuff,
• 22:44
  but nowhere close to getting an analytics job.
• 22:47
  So, so basically if you break it down on a pitch by pitch level,
• 22:51
  you have a batter up with a certain base state, certain
• 22:53
  count, and certain number of outs.
• 22:55
  You throw a pitch. If it's a ball, it changes your
• 22:58
  run expectancy because the count will change.
• 23:00
  If it's a strike, it changes your run expectancy to try less
• 23:03
  and so that change in run expectancy on the pitch level
• 23:05
  and obviously if it's put into play and it's a home run, your
• 23:08
  run expectancy is going to go way up.
• 23:09
  Like all of those changes in run value.
• 23:12
  That is what traditional stuff Plus models on the MLB side are
• 23:16
  trained on. That is public data.
• 23:17
  That's on baseball Savant. MLB teams can use that.
• 23:20
  There's a lot of different ways you can use that, but that is
• 23:22
  traditionally what you're trying to predict with a Stuff Plus
• 23:25
  model is when I throw this pitch, what is the best possible
• 23:29
  situation in terms of getting a negative run value because for
• 23:33
  pitchers you want to lower that run value.
• 23:35
  So that is what traditional Stuff Plus models are built on.
• 23:38
  What I can say for Iowa is that Trackman does not give you
• 23:42
  change in run value. So the biggest challenge we had
• 23:46
  when I was helping build it at Iowa was that we had to come up
• 23:49
  with what are we actually trying to predict?
• 23:51
  Because a lot of the college Stuff Plus models you see are
• 23:55
  actually just models that are predicting like with or
• 23:58
  something again, and those are very valuable models.
• 24:01
  But I think a stuff plus model can take into account more than
• 24:04
  just with, there's a lot of different ways to get positive
• 24:06
  results. Ground balls, we contact
• 24:08
  whatever you value. So without giving the special
• 24:11
  sauce at Iowa, because I truly believe it is the best stuff
• 24:14
  plus model in college baseball and probably beat some MLB team
• 24:17
  stuff plus model, we had to combine a lot of different
• 24:20
  aspects that either Iowa valued or we saw generalize in the
• 24:24
  college trends. Here is what leads to success,
• 24:27
  not just getting with obviously a part of it, but whatever else
• 24:31
  that we kind of cook together and combine that into one
• 24:34
  number. And then that's what we used to
• 24:36
  predict. And so that that was really
• 24:38
  challenging and why college stuff plus models are very hard
• 24:41
  to come by because the run scoring environment in college
• 24:44
  is obviously different than than pro ball.
• 24:46
  And that's getting into your actual question with some
• 24:48
  biases. Completely depends on the run
• 24:50
  environment to college, to MLB to even like high school if you
• 24:53
  want to go there is going to be completely different in terms of
• 24:56
  like what produces positive results.
• 24:59
  Where when you get to a lower level like high school, velocity
• 25:02
  is probably going to be valued a lot more because you can get
• 25:05
  away with just strictly throwing hard in high school regardless
• 25:07
  of shapes or anything. Obviously when you get to
• 25:09
  college, the hitters are better than highest level at MLB,
• 25:12
  they're going to be fastballs. Velo really doesn't matter
• 25:15
  unless you're Ben Joyce and you're throwing 105.
• 25:18
  It's like it really depends on on what's going on.
• 25:20
  So I would say the overarching theme that I see in a lot of
• 25:24
  stuff plus models is just like whether whether you realize it
• 25:27
  or not, there's some degree of overfitting.
• 25:29
  And what I mean by overfitting is it fits specifically the kind
• 25:33
  of data you use to train the model instead of generalizing
• 25:36
  what's happening in the real world.
• 25:38
  So when you build a model, you have separate data that you use
• 25:41
  to train your model, and then you have normally data that you
• 25:44
  use to kind of test it out. And the goal of building a model
• 25:47
  is not to fit your test data the best.
• 25:50
  There's certain metrics and you know, we're not going to get
• 25:51
  into that with this. That's not what the podcast is
• 25:53
  about. But there's certain metrics that
• 25:54
  you can check to see how well are you actually fitting your
• 25:57
  data. That's not the goal of a stuff
• 25:59
  plus model. And maybe this is just my
• 26:01
  opinion, but I think it's it's pretty accepted.
• 26:03
  Your goal is to explain in general what happened in the
• 26:06
  environment, in the MLB or high school or college, whatever
• 26:09
  you're building for. And so a lot of teams just try
• 26:11
  to fit what's going on in the actual data that they have
• 26:14
  instead of generally what trends do we see in a very simple
• 26:19
  example, like if you look at actually velocity numbers for
• 26:23
  like an MLB Stuff Plus model, it'll show that the people that
• 26:26
  throw really slow are actually really good.
• 26:29
  But that's just something called survivorship bias, which means
• 26:32
  if you throw slow in the MLB, you're probably going to be
• 26:35
  pretty successful. Otherwise, you're not going to
• 26:36
  be in the MLB. So yeah, a very simple example
• 26:39
  there. But just that that's one of the
• 26:40
  examples of biases of fitting your data very, very
• 26:44
  specifically instead of trying to generalize.
• 26:46
  Here's the overall trend that we see.
• 26:48
  OK, You know, it was a lot. I know that was a lot.
• 26:52
  I love this and there there's a small part of me that wanted to
• 26:55
  tell you to shut up when you said this isn't the goal of the
• 26:58
  podcast. Like we'll, we'll go full bore
• 27:00
  analytics podcast if you want to, because you've got you've
• 27:03
  got me cooking a little bit. Now.
• 27:05
  Maybe a more specific question. Let's take a slight step back
• 27:09
  and maybe lighten the air a little bit from a like in depth
• 27:14
  analytics discussion. Maybe if you can give an example
• 27:17
  of how two different models could assess the same slider or
• 27:23
  something. You have a ton of familiarity
• 27:26
  with Brody Breck who throws the living piss out of the baseball
• 27:31
  and as a result was throwing What's is the gyro slider thing?
• 27:36
  92 miles an hour or something like that.
• 27:40
  I'd assume some. Some models probably grade that
• 27:43
  out as the single best pitch in baseball, and some probably
• 27:46
  grade it out as like a slightly above average pitch.
• 27:49
  Yeah. So I'll use that exact example
• 27:51
  and explain probably the biggest difference that I see among like
• 27:54
  really sophisticated models and some of the simpler ones that
• 27:57
  again both have their places. So again, with Brody's example,
• 28:00
  he throws A4 seam that's upper 90s, reaches triple digits and
• 28:04
  then a gyro slider that's, I said really hard 92.
• 28:07
  Just side note, like watching him pitch in person is maybe the
• 28:10
  single greatest experience I've had maybe besides watching Ben
• 28:13
  Joyce throw a pen, both of those two just electric.
• 28:15
  But in terms of Brody's stuff and how that can be seen
• 28:18
  differently with the slider, it depends on the inputs of the
• 28:21
  model. So what's going into the model,
• 28:24
  starting with how it would be graded as the best pitch in
• 28:27
  baseball? If you just take in a vacuum,
• 28:29
  you're throwing a slider 92 miles an hour.
• 28:31
  That the gyro slider, that's just a nasty pitch.
• 28:34
  Just looking at someone throws a pitch that's 92 that has an inch
• 28:38
  of glove slide sweep or whatever it is, and then zero inches of
• 28:41
  induced vertical break. That's just a nasty pitch that
• 28:44
  is great. I think that one's pretty
• 28:46
  self-explanatory. You can just see that's a really
• 28:48
  good pitch. Where you get into how that
• 28:49
  could be an average to above average pitch is if you start to
• 28:52
  take in other characteristics of the arsenal.
• 28:55
  So a Brody's example, if you compare that with differentials
• 28:59
  between his fastball velocity and his fastball movement, he's
• 29:03
  throwing the slider 92, he's throwing his fastball in 98.
• 29:07
  That's a Six Mile an hour difference.
• 29:08
  That's not a ton. What you actually see with some
• 29:11
  breaking pitches and off speed pitches is the bigger that Velo
• 29:14
  differential, the more success that you find in terms of width
• 29:17
  or some of these other things. And so for a breaking ball that
• 29:21
  would be 6 miles an hour off of the fastball.
• 29:23
  That's not a great velocity difference between the two.
• 29:27
  And some stuff models don't like that as much.
• 29:29
  They want to see more of like an 8 to 10 mile an hour difference
• 29:32
  for a gyro slider. The other thing too is like
• 29:35
  fastball movement, if you have any in height.
• 29:38
  I haven't seen Brody's movement profile in a bit, but I think he
• 29:41
  doesn't have a ton of rise on his fastball.
• 29:43
  So let's say you know, it's 15 inches or whatever and his
• 29:46
  sliders at zero. That's still a decent vertical
• 29:49
  differential, but it could be more, it could have more depth
• 29:53
  to it, it could have even more sweeper, whatever it is.
• 29:55
  And you can get into the velocity sweep trade-offs.
• 29:58
  But if you compare things to the fastball, and that's how you
• 30:02
  grade other pitches with movement differentials and
• 30:04
  velocity differentials, it could be seen as well, yeah, it's a
• 30:08
  really good pitch. If you just look at the pitch,
• 30:10
  if you compare it to his fastball, it's not that much of
• 30:14
  a difference compared to if it's a little bit slower, maybe trade
• 30:17
  some movement, it will grade better because it's predicting
• 30:20
  more width or more positive results.
• 30:23
  And that's the biggest example of two pitches or one pitch
• 30:26
  being graded vastly different based on how the model is input.
• 30:30
  And that's that's what I see, like I said, a lot with
• 30:32
  sophisticated models as they compare it to fastball.
• 30:35
  And because that's again, your primary pitch for a lot of guys.
• 30:38
  And then what it kind of does off of the fastball.
• 30:41
  So you can extrapolate that to an East West pitcher using like
• 30:44
  an Angels, former Angels pitcher, I guess Jimmy Herget
• 30:48
  very much like 2 scene that goes this way.
• 30:50
  And he has a huge sweeper that grades well in some stuff models
• 30:54
  because it's like a huge East West differential versus if you
• 30:58
  just look in a vacuum. And again, a sweeper moves a
• 31:00
  ton, but it's not super hard. Maybe it's not graded as much.
• 31:04
  So I really think a lot of that can come down to just what are
• 31:06
  the inputs, especially is it comparing it to the fastball or
• 31:10
  the primary pitch that they throw?
• 31:12
  Or is it just looking at the pitch in the vacuum and there's
• 31:14
  some pretty big differences. And so especially if you're
• 31:17
  looking on Twitter and some of these other people that are
• 31:19
  doing public models, they're all great, they're all doing great
• 31:22
  work. But that's that's really why you
• 31:24
  see some of these kind of drastic differences between
• 31:26
  specific pitch types. Thank you so freaking much.
• 31:29
  I can't begin to express my debt of gratitude for you explaining
• 31:35
  stuff plus models and the differences that occurred
• 31:38
  between them now. It's hard.
• 31:40
  It's it's really hard to kind of get an understanding and
• 31:42
  obviously, like I've done it before.
• 31:43
  That's why I know you know more than most people.
• 31:46
  But for someone that's just looking at it, if they see Brody
• 31:49
  Breck sliders 102 step plus and then someone else has it as a
• 31:52
  170, it's like what's going on here?
• 31:55
  Is it just can we not trust either of these?
• 31:57
  And so a lot of it just pen depends on I said the model
• 32:00
  inputs and finding a lot of people do good work on
• 32:03
  documenting, you know, what's going on with their models and
• 32:05
  how they built it. But it's really important to
• 32:07
  just know what's going into it and what you value, because
• 32:10
  maybe I just value what is the pitch itself.
• 32:13
  Maybe you value how it plays off of the fastball and that's
• 32:15
  that's the model you use. And there's nothing wrong with
• 32:17
  with using either one of them. Just goes back to kind of the
• 32:19
  individuality of your beliefs and and what you value as an
• 32:22
  organization. I think one more surface level
• 32:25
  thing to hit on here. You said in that example scoring
• 32:29
  at A1O2 versus 174, and if I'm not mistaken the points above or
• 32:36
  below 100 is the percent above or below the replacement level
• 32:43
  or average level pitch correct or something?
• 32:46
  That also that also depends on the model in general.
• 32:49
  I think most people that that is true.
• 32:50
  I know for Iowa's we adjusted it a little bit where we controlled
• 32:54
  the standard deviation. So 1 standard deviation above
• 32:57
  the average would be 25 points. So like a 125 would be roughly
• 33:02
  70th percentile pitch and then a 150 would be 90th and then you
• 33:08
  keep going up from there, OK. But I think most public models
• 33:11
  have a little bit tighter of a window.
• 33:13
  So like, again, it's not exactly right.
• 33:15
  But in general, if you want to say it's 10% better, that's not
• 33:18
  too far off, just to put it very simply.
• 33:21
  OK, well again this this helped tremendously.
• 33:23
  Hopefully people listening feel the same because this is this
• 33:27
  has been eye opening for me also.
• 33:30
  You make me feel a lot better about one of my single favorite
• 33:35
  pitchers to watch of all time. You spoke of Brody Brac and then
• 33:39
  Ben Joyce and watching those guys throw live.
• 33:41
  There's a guy who's now with the White Sox, Jairo Iriarte.
• 33:46
  I watched him throw in the Miners when he was with the
• 33:48
  Padres and what he could do with the baseball was unbelievable.
• 33:52
  And for example, he threw this weird change up thing at like 89
• 33:59
  to 92 and mostly like 90 to 92 in his fastballs 949596.
• 34:07
  So like really poor differential Velo wise.
• 34:11
  And his change up kind of behaved as if it was a
• 34:16
  left-handed gyro slider as a righty.
• 34:20
  Yeah. So like not a ton of horizontal.
• 34:23
  It was more like dart. It was really good.
• 34:26
  He performed really well with it.
• 34:28
  And then every time I went to go look at analytics or anything,
• 34:32
  no models liked his change up. Yeah, that's I didn't understand
• 34:36
  why. And that's kind of something I
• 34:37
  haven't really touched on, but the models are built on previous
• 34:40
  data, right? So if that pitch isn't thrown,
• 34:43
  you don't have varieties throwing that type of pitch.
• 34:45
  The model doesn't really know what to base that off of
• 34:48
  historically. It's kind of like I said,
• 34:50
  extrapolating is taking your data and applying it or
• 34:53
  predicting it based on something that the model hasn't really
• 34:56
  seen or your training data hasn't seen.
• 34:58
  So just because of the number say it doesn't work.
• 35:01
  It's like Tyler Rogers, there's not that many historical
• 35:04
  pitchers that are having the movement profile that he does.
• 35:07
  So a lot of the time his stuff plus grades are either like
• 35:11
  extreme ends, they're either 250 or they're negative.
• 35:16
  And and again, it's not really good or really bad.
• 35:18
  It's just there's no historical data to go off of it.
• 35:21
  And so that's that's a really good example of again, like you
• 35:24
  can't just judge stuff. Plus for how good a pitch is in
• 35:27
  general, there's a lot more context that can be taken into
• 35:29
  account, especially if it's kind of that Unicorn pitcher outlier.
• 35:32
  And you bring up that story just brings up one more that I have
• 35:35
  to bring up with Ben Joyce because my first year with the
• 35:37
  Angels, one of the spring training games, they played Team
• 35:40
  USA when they were doing the the World Baseball Classic and Ben
• 35:43
  Joyce threw a like slider to Pete Alonso and he was throwing
• 35:47
  one O 3 that day or whatever. And I think the slider was like
• 35:51
  78. It was just like 2530 miles an
• 35:55
  hour. Like it was more of like a
• 35:56
  sweeper type shape. It was oh man, you got to look
• 35:59
  up the video. It was one of the funniest
• 36:01
  things I've seen. And it was 2 feet outside, but
• 36:03
  Alonzo still swung at it. He struck out.
• 36:05
  It was one of my favorite memories, but we all we all just
• 36:08
  kind of looked at it like that's like 30 miles an hour off of
• 36:11
  this fastball I was just throwing, which again, some
• 36:13
  models are going to be like, wow, I hate that.
• 36:14
  And some models are going to be like, wow, that's a great pitch.
• 36:17
  But it was it was fun to see for sure.
• 36:20
  This, like I said, has been eye opening.
• 36:22
  I appreciate all the personal stories and then just the
• 36:26
  general talk on Stuff plus models, but that probably feels
• 36:31
  like a pretty good spot to tie up the Super nerdy discussions
• 36:36
  of analytic stuff Plus. Now maybe we should get into the
• 36:41
  weeds on workload management, which I know you're super
• 36:45
  passionate about. Let's do it.
• 36:47
  OK, you recently posted a thread, a very timely one, about
• 36:53
  guys throwing over winter break and what days off can do to your
• 36:59
  acute to chronic workload. We've had Casey Mulholland on
• 37:02
  the podcast to talk about workload.
• 37:05
  Dylan Newcomer has talked about workload and especially using
• 37:08
  Pulse. I like to think the audience
• 37:10
  should be pretty educated on this, so feel free to get as in
• 37:14
  the weeds as you want to with the topic.
• 37:17
  Perfect. I love it.
• 37:18
  I love talking about it. Good.
• 37:19
  Yeah. Even if you just want to go
• 37:21
  verbal tweet to start and talk about the project you took on,
• 37:25
  what you looked at, and the data you presented, I think that
• 37:28
  would be great. For sure.
• 37:30
  So right now I'm working with a lot of just individual pictures
• 37:33
  on throwing programs. Some of them are high schoolers
• 37:36
  in Iowa, some of them are high schoolers not in Iowa.
• 37:38
  Some of them are college, even some professional.
• 37:40
  And so there's a lot of different timelines on like when
• 37:43
  you need to be ready, where obviously spring training for a
• 37:46
  lot of guys it's going to be earlier and then high school
• 37:49
  baseball starts in the spring. And then something unique.
• 37:51
  I don't even know if you know this high school baseball in
• 37:53
  Iowa is actually in the summer. And so like for the guys that
• 37:56
  I'm working in high school in Iowa, we still have like 5
• 37:59
  months until they're even starting practice, which is
• 38:01
  weird concept, but as I'm doing this, I just write throwing
• 38:05
  programs. I use the driveline pull
• 38:06
  sensors. And so with the workload number
• 38:09
  you get each day, obviously it's a sum of the total number of
• 38:12
  throws and the intensity of each of those throws combined into
• 38:15
  one number. I had a lot of different people
• 38:17
  that were texting me like, Hey, I'm going on vacation this week
• 38:20
  for, for Christmas or whatever. I'm whatever the case was, they
• 38:24
  were going to miss some days. And I, I am a big proponent of
• 38:27
  if you need to miss days or you're going on vacation, I'm
• 38:30
  never going to tell you no, no, you can't go on vacation.
• 38:32
  I always give everyone Christmas off.
• 38:33
  Like I'm not a monster, but a lot of not a lot.
• 38:37
  But there's some guys that are like, I'm gonna be in Costa Rica
• 38:39
  for 10 days. I was like, OK, what actually
• 38:42
  happens if you go to Costa Rica and you don't pick up a
• 38:45
  baseball? Does that have as big of an
• 38:48
  impact as in my mind? It has?
• 38:50
  And I'm like, you're gonna miss 10 days of your throwing
• 38:52
  program. And so all I did was I took my,
• 38:54
  my current throwing program and I have a base template that I
• 38:57
  use where there's like 2 light days, 2 medium days and two
• 39:01
  heavy days. And then you get a complete off
• 39:02
  day in there. And so I just took that exact
• 39:05
  program and then I just copied it out however far 5-6 months in
• 39:09
  advance. And one of those heavy days is
• 39:12
  like a bullpen day. And one of them is like a like
• 39:14
  live or really heavy day. And so with the heaviest day, I
• 39:18
  would increase the workload a little bit to simulate the on
• 39:21
  ramp that we would normally do as you're going into the season.
• 39:24
  And so the actual point of the tweet was at different chronic
• 39:27
  workloads. So chronic workload again is
• 39:29
  like your long term, what do you built up for over the last 28
• 39:32
  days once you reached a certain chronic workload?
• 39:34
  And I did this from, I believe it was eight through 12 or
• 39:38
  something like that. I would basically just then stop
• 39:42
  and put zeros for 2345 all the way through 10 days in a row and
• 39:46
  see what happens to your chronic.
• 39:47
  Does it crash? Does it stay the same?
• 39:49
  Can you leave it afloat for a little bit?
• 39:51
  And basically what I found is once you get past like 3 or 4
• 39:57
  off days in a row, it takes at least 10 days to build back up
• 40:02
  to the spot that you were previously.
• 40:05
  So in the context of most people right now, they're on ramping,
• 40:08
  they are continuing to grow. If you take days off, not only
• 40:11
  are you going to stop your on ramp, but you're going to go
• 40:13
  down in your chronic workload and you're going to have to
• 40:17
  spend 10 days just getting to that same point and then be able
• 40:20
  to continue to move up. And so really, and I didn't put
• 40:23
  this on the tweet, but it'll take three to four weeks just to
• 40:27
  get back to a suitable point in your on ramp to get feeling
• 40:31
  comfortable for, for where you're going to be heading into
• 40:33
  the season. The last thing I'll say is
• 40:35
  generalizing. The more fit you were, so the
• 40:38
  further into your on ramp you got, the higher your chronic
• 40:41
  ratio was or your chronic workload, excuse me, the more
• 40:44
  detrimental it was when you took days off, which again,
• 40:47
  intuitively makes sense. The more in shape you are, the
• 40:50
  worse it's going to be when you take days off.
• 40:52
  And a lot of people, it's hard to explain at first, but when I
• 40:55
  use the lifting example, it clicks for a lot of people.
• 40:57
  Like if you're lifting and you take 10 days off, you can't just
• 41:01
  go into the weight room and a lot of the time throw on
• 41:04
  whatever you had for squat and you're doing it.
• 41:06
  You're doing it easy, right? You have to continue to work at
• 41:08
  it. It's the same with throwing,
• 41:10
  which shocks a lot of people when I say it, and maybe it's
• 41:12
  just the younger kids I work with, but when you when you
• 41:15
  don't throw, it takes just as much time.
• 41:17
  And then when you miss just that high intensity day, like your
• 41:20
  really big push day, it basically screws you up for two
• 41:25
  months. I mean, it'll take you like
• 41:26
  three to four weeks just to get back to your level and then
• 41:29
  another three to four weeks to continue to on ramp.
• 41:31
  And so I'm kind of the two overall themes, like don't skip
• 41:34
  more than three days in a row if you want to at least maintain
• 41:36
  where you're at. And if you skip more than a
• 41:38
  week, you are at least a month and a half behind where you were
• 41:42
  previously just by skipping 7 days.
• 41:45
  So that was kind of the biggest take away because pro guys, I
• 41:48
  get it's, it's a little bit easier because that's their job,
• 41:50
  but especially high school and college kids that are on break,
• 41:53
  it's really easy to skip throwing.
• 41:55
  You're with your friends or especially if you're in college,
• 41:57
  you go back, you see your high school friends or whatever.
• 41:59
  It can be really detrimental and it's one of the scariest times
• 42:02
  as a college coach when we were at Iowa, that was always the
• 42:05
  scariest thing, sending these guys home, not knowing what's
• 42:08
  going to happen if they're going to continue to throw.
• 42:09
  Luckily we were using pulse so we could count on that.
• 42:11
  But for people that don't have pulse or they can't rely on it
• 42:14
  too much, it's a scary feeling setting these guys away for
• 42:18
  basically a month and and not knowing where they're going to
• 42:20
  be knowing when they come back. You have three weeks, maybe a
• 42:23
  month before they start playing games.
• 42:25
  And so hopefully it just opened up some eyes and had a lot of
• 42:28
  good feedback on it. And I did a follow up, which we
• 42:30
  can, you know, talk about a little bit more when you just
• 42:32
  throw lightly. But but overall like I just
• 42:35
  wanted to get the word out that throwing any amount is better
• 42:39
  than not throwing and and taking skip days.
• 42:41
  Even if you're in Costa Rica, you can still get throwing in on
• 42:44
  the beach. Like that would be awesome to do
• 42:46
  for one. But you can you can fit throwing
• 42:48
  in and it takes you 5 to 10 minutes even if you're just
• 42:51
  doing a light day. But skipping and throwing is
• 42:53
  just detrimental to a lot of guys in ways they don't realize.
• 42:56
  You said it's seemingly intuitive.
• 42:59
  I think that is worth spending a little bit of time on in the
• 43:03
  sense that it isn't that surprising to me when somebody
• 43:08
  says like, Oh well, I've been throwing so much.
• 43:11
  I've been so good about my on ramp so I can take time off
• 43:16
  because I've built up so much to get to this point.
• 43:20
  And then the example you gave was perfect when you talk about
• 43:23
  either sprinting or weightlifting, because that's,
• 43:29
  that's the equivalent stress level that we're dealing with
• 43:31
  here. Throwing is an incredibly
• 43:33
  stressful thing. Yes, it would be a little bit
• 43:35
  different if you whatever, we're just throwing BP for a living.
• 43:41
  You took time off, you could go back to throwing BP after taking
• 43:45
  10 days off. In fact, it would probably feel
• 43:48
  pretty good. But if you're if your mission is
• 43:52
  to throw baseballs as hard as you can and do it 456 innings a
• 43:58
  month from now or something two months from now, taking any days
• 44:03
  off is super detrimental. Because yes, you did not expose
• 44:07
  yourself to the stresses that you need to get accustomed to to
• 44:11
  handle the environment that you want to throw in.
• 44:15
  Yeah, yeah, that's that's exactly right.
• 44:17
  And the other thing with this whole thread is I just assumed
• 44:20
  when you started throwing again, you were just rejoining your
• 44:23
  college program and just on whatever schedule they are in
• 44:26
  reality, that's still not going to be very healthy for you.
• 44:28
  When you talk about your acute to chronic ratio, if you take
• 44:31
  those days off and you just continue to do what your program
• 44:34
  is doing, when you come back, you're still going to have these
• 44:36
  spikes and that Casey Mohan would call them.
• 44:39
  They're unhealthy still. Again, it's not like you're
• 44:41
  going to get hurt automatically, but you're still getting into
• 44:44
  these unhealthy zones. So when we talk about if you
• 44:47
  skip throwing and then you properly on ramp without these
• 44:50
  big spikes in ACR, it's going to take even more time to do that.
• 44:54
  And so not only, again, it does it take longer to actually get
• 44:58
  on to that same level as your, you know, peers or teammates,
• 45:03
  it's going to take a lot of time just to avoid those spikes.
• 45:07
  If you really want to do it in a healthy manner, which is
• 45:09
  something completely, you know, I didn't even talk about in the
• 45:12
  thread. But the avoiding those spikes
• 45:14
  when you take your acute, which is like your weekly average
• 45:18
  roughly, and then your chronic, like if you take those days off,
• 45:21
  your acute is going to be really high when you get back and your
• 45:23
  chronics not going to be as high.
• 45:25
  So you're going to get those big spikes where you're doing too
• 45:27
  much in the recent weeks versus what you've been built up for.
• 45:31
  And again, that's the same thing spelling disaster just as much
• 45:34
  as taking days off. And so I could have done a whole
• 45:36
  nother thread on the importance of that and how long it would
• 45:39
  actually take for a proper ramp up.
• 45:40
  But these people just are not throwing enough in my experience
• 45:45
  to really understand what this healthy on ramp is.
• 45:47
  But when they do it right, I've gotten so much feedback this
• 45:50
  year of like, I've thrown more than I ever have, but my arm
• 45:52
  feels the best it's that it's ever been.
• 45:54
  And it's like, it's not a coincidence.
• 45:56
  Most of the time people are concerned about overthrowing,
• 46:00
  but in reality it's the under throwing that does a lot of
• 46:02
  damage for guys, especially early on in the season.
• 46:05
  And I know that's something that Casey has talked about a lot and
• 46:07
  he's very passionate about, but it just makes sense and I have
• 46:11
  the data to back that up that it is just paramount that you get
• 46:14
  you're throwing in and establish that base, that foundation
• 46:17
  before you really start to on ramp.
• 46:20
  Yeah, I'm glad you reiterated that.
• 46:22
  It is extremely important to recognize that often our enemy
• 46:26
  is not throwing too much, it's throwing too little.
• 46:28
  So then the time you do get exposed to what gets considered
• 46:33
  extreme pitch counts, you just weren't prepared for.
• 46:36
  And people should probably have the forethought to recognize
• 46:39
  that this 14 year old was not capable of throwing 120 pitches.
• 46:45
  But in theory if that's what we trained for, they should be OK.
• 46:50
  At least that's what the models would say or they would be
• 46:52
  better prepared for that experience.
• 46:55
  Not saying it would be all hunky Dory and perfect, like I don't
• 46:58
  know if any 14 year old should throw that much.
• 47:01
  But in theory, if you are exposed to that stress,
• 47:04
  gradually over time you get more comfortable enduring it.
• 47:07
  Yeah, yeah, that's that's a huge thing and and something that I'm
• 47:10
  running into this year, which is new working with high school
• 47:12
  kids. How would I I would argue high
• 47:14
  school kids need to be even further in shape than college
• 47:17
  and pro guys, because if you think they play multi high
• 47:19
  school kitchens, there are two ways.
• 47:21
  Yeah, these these high school kids.
• 47:23
  I mean, maybe it's just Iowa, but there's not a lot of P OS
• 47:26
  that I'm working with where this guy's AD one commit pitcher.
• 47:30
  But when he's not, he's playing shortstop.
• 47:32
  So think about those eighty extra throws you're making an in
• 47:34
  and out every single day or the extra whatever doing cuts and
• 47:38
  realize like you are adding on so many more throws than you
• 47:41
  realize. And actually, I'm not going to
• 47:43
  say the name, but I had a high school kid wear a sensor at
• 47:45
  practice one day and he made 290 throws because he he did catch.
• 47:51
  He did a whole bullpen and then he like took balls at shortstop
• 47:54
  and then he went to the outfield and did practices or practice in
• 47:57
  the outfield. And I'm like, I didn't realize
• 48:00
  it was that much, but I knew they had to be more in shape.
• 48:02
  But I didn't realize the magnitude of like, what chronic,
• 48:05
  you know, workload you're gonna have to be built up for to
• 48:07
  handle not just pitching, but playing in the field and doing
• 48:10
  it every single day of practice and games.
• 48:12
  And it's a grind. I didn't really recognize that
• 48:15
  with high schoolers until I get into it now.
• 48:17
  And I had to change kind of the way I program an on ramp guys to
• 48:20
  really get prepared for that so they don't spike when the season
• 48:22
  starts. Example, and I am going to say
• 48:26
  the kids name because I'm going to give him credit for looking
• 48:28
  into this, but Toby Stevens at Ottawa Hills High School, he is
• 48:32
  taking on a project right now. There's this really cool
• 48:35
  project. It's the high school that I went
• 48:37
  to when we were juniors in high school.
• 48:40
  You do this massive project on now.
• 48:42
  It's anything you want pretty much and just trying to make a
• 48:45
  change. It's a communication project,
• 48:49
  sources, research. It's awesome.
• 48:51
  It's kind of like the equivalent of doing a college thesis, but
• 48:55
  he's doing it in high school and he wants to do it on forearm
• 48:59
  health in baseball players and how we need to make a change as
• 49:02
  a whole. So he's interviewing us about
• 49:04
  Flex, Pro Grip. Heck, he'll probably find a way
• 49:07
  to reach out to you to talk to you about workloads and stuff.
• 49:10
  But he asked me about pitch counts because Ohio has this
• 49:14
  major pitch count rule and you can only throw so much in a
• 49:17
  week. But I guess in Ohio they only do
• 49:20
  it during the state tournament and during the actual season
• 49:23
  they really don't care what you do, which is asinine and strange
• 49:27
  to me like that. That just goes way beyond the
• 49:29
  purpose of this discussion. But he asked me what I thought
• 49:33
  about pitch counts. And I was just like, they're
• 49:34
  stupid. And he was like, why are they
• 49:35
  stupid? And I, I went through the
• 49:38
  experiment you just did without pulse or real tracking.
• 49:41
  I was just like, Toby, how many throws do you think you make in
• 49:45
  average practice? He's got to know like 100 or so
• 49:48
  is like, does that sound like a lot?
• 49:50
  And he was like, yeah, it does. I was like, OK, well, let's
• 49:52
  actually go through the math here of how many throws you
• 49:55
  make. He's like, do you think it's
• 49:56
  less or more? It's like, Toby, It's like
• 49:57
  triple. He was like, what?
• 50:00
  Yeah. Like that's nobody realizes how
• 50:03
  many throws they're making, especially as a normal high
• 50:06
  school two way player, which if you have any shot of being a
• 50:10
  college baseball player, I'm going to, again, throw some
• 50:14
  astronomical percentage out there.
• 50:16
  But if you're playing college baseball, I'd assume 97% of
• 50:19
  college baseball players were two way players in high school.
• 50:22
  Yeah, yeah. Pretty close. 97 is just our go
• 50:25
  to for yeah. That's fine.
• 50:27
  I do think though, with with like high school kids, to your
• 50:30
  point, like I'm not a huge fan of pitch counts either, but I do
• 50:32
  think it's better than nothing in terms of you can't just you
• 50:35
  can't just look at pitch counts on the days you pitch.
• 50:37
  Like in Iowa, you actually have to report the pitch numbers.
• 50:40
  Like coaches have to sign the whole season, not just the state
• 50:43
  tournament. But if you can even keep track
• 50:45
  of the number of throws that you make playing catch, you know
• 50:48
  roughly how many thread like that is better than nothing, but
• 50:51
  strictly pitch count on the days you pitch.
• 50:53
  I agree that that is very little value.
• 50:55
  But again, if you can't afford pulse and you know it's a
• 50:57
  substantial investment to do it for a whole team individual,
• 51:00
  it's a little bit easier. But keeping track or even if
• 51:03
  it's like a time, hey, I threw for this many minutes today in
• 51:06
  catch play and then another 20 minutes of ins and out.
• 51:09
  Whatever it may be, some data is better than nothing.
• 51:12
  And just guessing and saying well you know, I threw 100
• 51:14
  pitches today in my start. I'm good.
• 51:16
  I need 5 days off because that's what the state says and then I'm
• 51:18
  good to go. Like that's just a recipe for a
• 51:21
  lot of potential injuries I should say.
• 51:23
  And just not putting the kids best interest at hand.
• 51:26
  Yeah, that's spot on. Some data is better than no
• 51:28
  data. And the more that you can
• 51:30
  gather, the better decisions you can make.
• 51:33
  But I think that's great. Thanks for thanks for continuing
• 51:35
  on that. And yeah, high school is like
• 51:38
  the Wild West day. These kids make so many throws
• 51:40
  and nobody really knows what's going on.
• 51:42
  But I, I'm going to put you on the spot a little bit here.
• 51:46
  So I apologize that and prep you for this ahead of time.
• 51:49
  This is one of the things that we are actually spending a lot
• 51:52
  of time on now with Flex Pro Grip.
• 51:54
  And it is the idea that if we can measure the important for
• 52:00
  our musculature and it is in a good place, the acute to chronic
• 52:06
  workload ratio might not matter quite as much.
• 52:10
  What I mean with that, I'll give you some time to kind of process
• 52:13
  everything. So I'll just keep kind of
• 52:14
  rambling here, but it's not that a good on ramp doesn't matter.
• 52:19
  We 100% believe that. What we would contest is that
• 52:24
  you can get away with a little bit more.
• 52:26
  So rather than sticking to Gabbits research of the like .7
• 52:32
  to 1.3 range, we might be able to get comfortable pushing into
• 52:37
  a 1.4 or a 1.5 if we can show that the forearm musculature or
• 52:45
  going even beyond the elbow if we want to talk about shoulder,
• 52:48
  if we are strong enough and have enough endurance to handle what
• 52:52
  that load would be. Yeah.
• 52:54
  And before you even said that, that's exactly what I would have
• 52:57
  said is right now, I think most throwing programs are very
• 53:00
  universal in terms of the ACR. Every, every throwing program
• 53:03
  I've worked with, people I've talked to use that .7 to 1.3.
• 53:07
  But if we can prove that there's an individualized way to either
• 53:11
  expand or even even contract that ACR depending on the the
• 53:15
  actual forearm structure is, I do think that that would be game
• 53:18
  changing because we could start on ramps earlier for guys that
• 53:22
  you can't push as much or we could not necessarily start on
• 53:25
  ramps later, but we could have more development time for these
• 53:27
  guys that can push a little bit further.
• 53:28
  And so that would be that would be game changing.
• 53:30
  As someone who does a lot of programming, because obviously
• 53:33
  for guys that can't push it as much, I need to program a lot
• 53:36
  further back. They're not going to have as
• 53:37
  much time to get development in and on their push days not be
• 53:41
  able to do as much because they're ACR would spike.
• 53:44
  And then for these guys that could handle more like that
• 53:46
  would be a dream. I could get plenty more
• 53:50
  development. I could get more like mound
• 53:53
  build up time. That would be awesome.
• 53:54
  But it really, I think there's a lot more room to individualize
• 53:57
  the throwing program approach more than that currently is.
• 54:00
  Now you think there's a lot of individuality that you can do
• 54:02
  between days and you know, your actual workloads and the type of
• 54:06
  workout you're doing. But that ACR, like they said, I
• 54:09
  was going to say it if you didn't, if that can be expanded
• 54:12
  based on how an athlete is built or certain tests or you know,
• 54:16
  shoulder form, whatever it may be, I think that would be game
• 54:19
  changing for a lot of teams, individuals, people that
• 54:22
  program, because it opens up a lot of possibilities for further
• 54:26
  development. And that the more you can make
• 54:27
  that development window, obviously the better that's
• 54:29
  going to be for for the athletes long term future.
• 54:32
  You handled being put on the spot with that pretty well, I
• 54:35
  like to think. I mean, we think it's an idea
• 54:37
  that just can potentially make the industry better.
• 54:39
  So we're going to continue to try to dig on it.
• 54:42
  But yes, to date we we at least can figure out arm speeds with
• 54:47
  something like pulse or we can do MPH and we can keep guys in
• 54:52
  ranges. But if both you and I went out
• 54:55
  and went on a throwing program, now I'm, I want to say like if
• 54:59
  we both took our 90 mph, but maybe, maybe we'll be a little
• 55:03
  more realistic. And we went out there and said
• 55:06
  we both took our 76 mph, our each of our 76.
• 55:11
  Just because we throw the same speed and maybe we even have the
• 55:14
  same top velocity that we could potentially reach, it doesn't
• 55:19
  mean that we're enduring the same stresses in that give and
• 55:23
  throw. You are significantly taller
• 55:25
  than I am. Your levers are longer.
• 55:27
  Those things can impact the stresses that we experience.
• 55:31
  Yeah, yeah. And that's something that is
• 55:33
  pretty scary when you first start working with Pulse.
• 55:35
  You can see the the torque number that they give you.
• 55:37
  And a lot of guys think I have a higher torque.
• 55:39
  That's a bad thing. It's it's not a bad thing
• 55:41
  necessarily of itself. You know it just is.
• 55:43
  It's just, yeah, you're you've always thrown with a higher
• 55:46
  torque most likely. And so yeah, it's used to that.
• 55:49
  It's not just a new stress, but it doesn't discount the fact
• 55:52
  that yes, you're not going to be, you know, treated
• 55:54
  necessarily the same way as someone that's smaller, has
• 55:57
  shorter leverages, who probably has a lower torque level and
• 56:01
  they could have a higher workload per throw, if you want
• 56:03
  to call it that. If you want to get really into
• 56:04
  the weeds of the actual workload calculation that takes your
• 56:08
  height and your weight and the actual torque value, you can
• 56:11
  have a guy that has a 60 torque and a guy that has an 80 torque.
• 56:14
  And the guy that has a 60 torque could actually have a higher
• 56:16
  workload per throw because they're just a shorter, less
• 56:19
  built guy. But but again, I've had to
• 56:21
  reiterate that a lot, especially younger guys, like just because
• 56:23
  you're a higher torque guy doesn't mean you're going to get
• 56:25
  hurt. Doesn't mean anything's going to
• 56:27
  happen like that, but it's the way you're built and the way
• 56:29
  that you actually going back to kind of the foundation and on
• 56:32
  ramp. You just have to be ready to
• 56:33
  handle any sort of stresses. And even going back to the very
• 56:36
  beginning of this, this podcast with the throwing off speed or
• 56:39
  anything like that, any of the stresses that you are going to
• 56:42
  come into contact with in the season, you need to start
• 56:45
  developing those and getting used to those as soon as
• 56:47
  possible. Which again, we've talked about
• 56:49
  that plenty, but that's that's part of the individuality and
• 56:51
  part that I love about coaching. You talk about lower torque guy
• 56:55
  versus a higher torque guy. Are you ever making any
• 57:00
  interventions in your own coaching to try to lower a
• 57:04
  torque number, or do you just accept that that's a part of who
• 57:08
  an individual is and use that as you're mapping out a complete
• 57:13
  throwing schedule? I can't say I put too much stock
• 57:16
  into actually looking at the specific, you know, torques and
• 57:19
  trying to change it. The one thing I will say is if
• 57:22
  there is a substantial change in the torque, and I know that a
• 57:26
  guy is normally on a game throws like A-65 torque and then all of
• 57:30
  a sudden he drops to maybe A50 or he spikes up to an 80 for
• 57:34
  some reason. Like I'll check to make sure the
• 57:36
  sensor is still in worn the right way.
• 57:38
  But if it's consistent like that, then we can start to look
• 57:41
  at some things. Has anything changed
• 57:42
  substantially? And hopefully if it's that
• 57:44
  drastic, it's noticeable by the naked eye that you don't
• 57:46
  necessarily need a pulse to see it.
• 57:48
  But in terms of like, I would never try to change a guy's
• 57:51
  torque just because it's a certain value if it hasn't
• 57:54
  changed. I'm glad you answered that way
• 57:57
  because I didn't want to get in this disagreement zone where
• 58:00
  we're then fighting back and forth.
• 58:03
  I, I know I said it a little bit earlier.
• 58:05
  To me, it's one of those things that just is, and you understand
• 58:09
  that that's more or less a characteristic of the
• 58:11
  individual. I don't want to make mechanical
• 58:13
  changes or movement changes because that's likely either a
• 58:18
  movement that helps the guy be successful.
• 58:20
  Why would we want to take him out of it?
• 58:21
  Or, as we get one into a little bit, anthropometrics that just
• 58:26
  can't be changed anyways. Yeah, Yep.
• 58:29
  I agree with everything that that goes into and I said it
• 58:32
  freaks out some people when you first start, but the main part
• 58:35
  is that the person that is programming has to understand
• 58:38
  it. For a lot of people, if they
• 58:40
  don't know what they're doing and they just buy a pulse, they
• 58:42
  might think high torque, Yikes. I got to, I got to lower that
• 58:45
  and that's going to lead to a lot of changes in the delivery
• 58:47
  that might not be very good. And so just having that
• 58:50
  understanding, having that basic knowledge, which you guys have
• 58:52
  done a great job covering on the podcast, but just making sure
• 58:55
  you understand that whoever's programming for you, it's going
• 58:57
  to be a huge help. Well, I think baseball wise that
• 59:02
  kind of concludes my line of questioning.
• 59:05
  I do, if you don't mind, want to get into the human interest side
• 59:09
  of things and just hear real quick about the engagement.
• 59:13
  I wouldn't. I would love to get into that.
• 59:14
  Yes, all right, so shout out your fiance.
• 59:17
  Awesome. You don't need to name drop her
• 59:19
  unless you really want to. I'm happy to hear who she is.
• 59:22
  I don't know if she's cool with all your new found fame with you
• 59:24
  being. No, no, she's cool with that.
• 59:26
  Shout out. Carrie Starbeck.
• 59:27
  Carrie Starbeck. Soon to be Carrie Marciazani, I
• 59:29
  should say. Doctor.
• 59:30
  Doctor, that's. Right, yeah.
• 59:34
  If you if you want to tell a quick story, I'd love to hear
• 59:36
  it. Yeah, so we have We were dating
• 59:40
  for 8 plus years. We started dating junior year of
• 59:44
  high school. We we went to Cedar Falls High
• 59:45
  School together. I asked her to be my junior prom
• 59:48
  date and we started dating shortly after.
• 59:51
  She is the first girlfriend I ever had and is the only
• 59:54
  girlfriend you know I we're going to have.
• 59:56
  But she is in Baltimore right now.
• 59:58
  She's doing a residency in. Pharmacy at the Johns Hopkins
• 1:00:02
  Hospital. So we are kind of doing a
• 1:00:04
  distance thing which we've done for four plus years of our
• 1:00:07
  relationship. But in terms of like the
• 1:00:09
  engagement, there's a little trail in Cedar Falls where we
• 1:00:13
  used to walk a lot and we were in high school and even when we
• 1:00:15
  were in college and would come back, there's a little area that
• 1:00:18
  has like a gazebo type thing. And so one time when she was
• 1:00:21
  back from Baltimore, we went on this walk and I had a whole crew
• 1:00:24
  that we would pass this gazebo and it would be completely
• 1:00:27
  empty. Just in case you had any
• 1:00:28
  suspicions. Because when you're long
• 1:00:29
  distance and you see each other two or three times a year and
• 1:00:32
  you know that there's probably some sort of proposal coming,
• 1:00:34
  it's tough to hide it. But I had a great crew incur
• 1:00:37
  including her sisters, my brother, his, his wife, and then
• 1:00:40
  our photographer, But walked past the first time, there's
• 1:00:43
  nothing there. And then we kind of turned
• 1:00:44
  around and they'd set everything up and kind of had it all
• 1:00:48
  looking good. Credit her sisters for most of
• 1:00:50
  that. And then she said yes.
• 1:00:52
  And we had a whole party with her family.
• 1:00:55
  And that was also a surprise. And it was more of just like
• 1:00:57
  thanking a lot of people for keeping it a secret because like
• 1:01:00
  I said, when you're dating someone for 8 plus years, it's
• 1:01:02
  really hard to keep a secret from their family and especially
• 1:01:06
  her. So she's been awesome about it.
• 1:01:08
  And, and we've been on wedding planning mode the last few
• 1:01:11
  months with a wedding coming up in July.
• 1:01:13
  But she is, she's amazing. She is, I think light years
• 1:01:16
  better than me, smarter than me. She's saving lives.
• 1:01:19
  I always tell her I just teach people how to throw a ball
• 1:01:21
  harder and she's legitimately saving lives.
• 1:01:23
  So she's awesome and, and hopefully she ends up with a,
• 1:01:26
  with a great career working wherever, wherever that may be.
• 1:01:29
  Hopefully we find that out soon. But I just, I'm super proud of
• 1:01:32
  her. Well, thanks for sharing that
• 1:01:34
  and thank you, Doctor Kerry. Thanks for being a good sport,
• 1:01:37
  even though you didn't have much of A choice and hearing hearing
• 1:01:40
  that story on the podcast. Shell of it.
• 1:01:43
  Good. Yeah, in one little side note
• 1:01:45
  there, you talk about she's saving lives and you're just
• 1:01:48
  trying to make people throw harder.
• 1:01:50
  Back at ABCA, I was talking to one of the guys from Driveline
• 1:01:54
  and we were talking about some bio mechanics stuff.
• 1:01:56
  And he was saying how a few years ago one of the bio
• 1:01:59
  mechanics from Driveline went to a national bio mechanics
• 1:02:03
  convention and everybody was saying what they do.
• 1:02:06
  And like six straight people spoke and they're we are here to
• 1:02:10
  help people regain the ability to walk after being paralyzed or
• 1:02:15
  stroke victims and all these unbelievable life altering
• 1:02:19
  things. And then this guy was like,
• 1:02:23
  yeah, we're trying to understand spine tilt and how that impacts
• 1:02:26
  bats beaten baseball. Just like, yeah, we we always
• 1:02:30
  have to remember every once in a while that our little niche game
• 1:02:34
  is just a fun little activity on the side.
• 1:02:36
  Yeah, but but again, like, and then, and she always tells me
• 1:02:39
  this like there's, there's been plenty of people that I've
• 1:02:41
  helped revive a career, play a small part in helping them get
• 1:02:44
  to where they want to, which that's that's why I do it.
• 1:02:47
  But at the same time, I'm never going to be able to to say like,
• 1:02:50
  Oh yeah, you know, what I'm doing is equally as valuable as
• 1:02:53
  as what she's doing every day with dealing with everything
• 1:02:56
  that she does. I'm very proud.
• 1:02:58
  And I'm just not going to be able to touch kind of the impact
• 1:03:01
  that she's happening in terms of a lot of people.
• 1:03:03
  Well, once again, Austin, thank you so much for coming on.
• 1:03:06
  I really appreciate you digging into what you do, your passion
• 1:03:10
  and spelling a little bit about the private life carrying the
• 1:03:14
  engagement. Yeah, yeah, it was a ton of fun
• 1:03:17
  having you on. I'm sure I'll be bugging you
• 1:03:19
  asking some more questions here and there.
• 1:03:21
  And maybe if we need our own stuff plus model at some point,
• 1:03:25
  we'll we'll just bring you on for that.
• 1:03:27
  But of course, thanks again and to everyone out there, thanks
• 1:03:30
  for laying back with us.