Latest / The Layback Podcast / Ezra Bye, Wake Forest Pitching Lab Coordinator (Ep. 91)

Transcript

Ezra Bye, Wake Forest Pitching Lab Coordinator (Ep. 91) · The Layback Podcast

• 0:00
  Hey everyone, welcome back to the Layback podcast.
• 0:02
  Joining us today is Ezra by Ezra by.
• 0:06
  I'm going to hope I get the Wake Forest title correctly because
• 0:10
  it's super long and he probably deals with this all the time,
• 0:13
  but I'm pretty sure it's director of player development
• 0:16
  and pitching lab coordinator. And I hope I even said those in
• 0:20
  the right order. I don't know if the order
• 0:22
  matters between pitching lab and director of player development,
• 0:26
  but yes, Ezra is a new member of the Wake Forest staff.
• 0:31
  He's been there for, it's unbelievable to say, a semester
• 0:36
  already at this point. But he came in with coach Eric
• 0:40
  Neeson as the pitching coach at Wake as Muscara and Fish moved
• 0:45
  on to Duke. But these guys have done great
• 0:48
  stuff in the fall. It's been awesome to work with
• 0:50
  them yet again. Even with the new staff, we feel
• 0:52
  like we're still a part of the family, which which has been
• 0:55
  excellent. And of course, on the horizon,
• 0:59
  we have the Wake Forest Player Development Seminar.
• 1:02
  We'll talk about that a little bit down the line as we're super
• 1:05
  excited to be a part of it again with Flex Pro.
• 1:08
  But in the meantime, we are going to dive into Ezra's bio
• 1:13
  and really what has gotten him to this position because he has
• 1:17
  a history. I know I said I wasn't going to
• 1:19
  do this, Ezra, but I apologize. He has a history in pro ball
• 1:22
  with a few different orgs. I'll save the orgs and let you
• 1:25
  handle those, but a few different orgs and he was AD two
• 1:29
  player himself. And as everyone knows who is an
• 1:32
  avid listener of the Lay Back podcast, we believe that the
• 1:36
  best minds in baseball come from D2.
• 1:39
  So with that, Ezra, I'm going to dish it off to you.
• 1:42
  Thanks for joining us today and looking forward to this chat.
• 1:46
  Well, I, I appreciate it Adam, and and thank you for having me
• 1:48
  on this is this is awesome. You did get the title correct.
• 1:51
  I actually, I don't know the order of it.
• 1:54
  You might have done correct. To be honest, the director part
• 1:57
  was a bit of a surprise for me coming in, but it's, it's been
• 2:00
  awesome being back with Eric Neeson and, and Coach Walter
• 2:03
  here and the staff is, is pretty amazing.
• 2:05
  But yeah, I, I, I did play D2 Chestnut Hill College, if you've
• 2:09
  heard of that, you're probably one of the few people in the
• 2:11
  world who have, I actually quit my last semester, so I didn't
• 2:16
  play my last year of spring ball.
• 2:19
  I had a really kind of unique situation in terms of credits
• 2:23
  where I only needed one more semester to graduate but wanted
• 2:26
  to play in the spring. So I actually took that fall and
• 2:29
  went and trained at Driveline out in Seattle, made the trip
• 2:31
  out myself. I was, I was terrible.
• 2:34
  I was hurt. I wasn't like a good D2 athlete
• 2:37
  at the story I like to tell people.
• 2:38
  Like I knew my career was, was pretty much over when you know,
• 2:42
  the, the radar boards right up up top on the plow walls there
• 2:46
  Driveline. This was their, their previous
• 2:48
  facility, not their new one that they're in now by the way, too.
• 2:51
  And one of the employees, Stephen Hart was actually
• 2:54
  vacuuming as I was throwing plyos and the vacuum was
• 2:58
  registering on the radar as higher velocities than my plyo
• 3:02
  throws. And I just kind of sat there.
• 3:05
  I was hurt. I was like, OK, this vacuum is
• 3:08
  throwing balls harder than me right now, but maybe the playing
• 3:11
  career is, is not going to ultimately work out.
• 3:13
  So I actually went back definite Hill College that spring, ended
• 3:18
  up leaving the team, but where we trained in the winter was
• 3:21
  actually a training facility called baseball PDS player
• 3:24
  development systems. Shaz Angeloni, Dan Williams,
• 3:26
  great people. So I, I just kind of cold
• 3:29
  emailed them like, Hey, I'm like interested in the the training
• 3:33
  side of things. Are you guys looking for an
• 3:35
  intern? And they emailed back saying
• 3:37
  like, yeah, actually we, we are we're looking for a performance
• 3:40
  intern. So kind of got my foot in the
• 3:42
  door with them. It was it was great.
• 3:43
  I was kind of like performance intern, so more in the weight
• 3:47
  room, but then would watch some of the the pitching stuff, help
• 3:50
  them a little bit with that and then watch what they did with
• 3:52
  the hitters. I did that the rest of my
• 3:54
  college career, kind of finished with a degree in psychology from
• 3:57
  Chestnut Hill. Needed to move back home.
• 4:00
  I was driving back and forth from New Jersey every day in the
• 4:02
  summer to to go work at baseball PDS.
• 4:05
  So it's just a bit of a a bit of a long daze.
• 4:08
  Ended up emailing Eugene Bleeker was looking for a couple
• 4:11
  pitching coaches at the time or he was looking for one pitching
• 4:14
  coach at the time. Emailed him, didn't think
• 4:16
  anything of it. Like 2 weeks later, me and
• 4:18
  George Zirkel are driving cross country, both being hired by
• 4:22
  Bleak to get out there. So spent spent about six months
• 4:25
  out there. I mean, one O 8 performance.
• 4:28
  The amount of like stuff that you just learned there was
• 4:31
  insane. You work your butt off.
• 4:32
  It was like my introduction into really like diving into the bio
• 4:36
  mechanics of pitching and and all that good stuff with bleak
• 4:40
  ended up coming back home to another facility outside the
• 4:43
  Philly area called the Maple Zone Sports Institute.
• 4:45
  It's now a cent right. I got the pitching coordinator
• 4:48
  job. I was actually living in a tiny
• 4:51
  home in someone's backyard while doing that.
• 4:54
  It was a heck of an experience so that the bed was like in the
• 4:56
  top of the little house. You couldn't like sit up in bed
• 5:00
  otherwise you would hit your head on the roof of the little
• 5:03
  thing. It was great, great, great time
• 5:05
  in my life. Definitely some gritty, some
• 5:08
  gritty days, but it was like my first experience.
• 5:11
  Really like running a program there and we had a good handful
• 5:16
  of pro guys and so it was a great experience.
• 5:19
  And then that that was like winter of 2018 going into 2019.
• 5:23
  I ended up applying and and getting a job with the Houston
• 5:27
  Astros. So my first year in pro ball was
• 5:29
  in Florida as the pitching apprentice.
• 5:30
  Basically the GCL at the time still called the the Gulf
• 5:35
  Complex League or the Gulf Coast League I think it was.
• 5:38
  But I was like bullpen coach there, helped with rehab, all
• 5:42
  different kind of things. And that was my first like
• 5:44
  introduction into the rehab world of baseball.
• 5:46
  And it was pretty interesting to me.
• 5:48
  The rehab guy at the time, Todd Naskada, was with the Reds.
• 5:50
  Now he was also my roommate in addition to like my mentor at
• 5:53
  the complex. And it it it seemed like
• 5:56
  interesting what he was doing. So 2020 happens, you know, the
• 6:00
  COVID year 2021, I actually go down to the DSL for the Astros,
• 6:04
  spend the entire year lived at the complex because I did not
• 6:08
  want to drive back and forth on I've been down to the Dr. in in
• 6:12
  pro ball. You, you know what I'm talking
• 6:14
  about. Those roads are a little hectic
• 6:17
  at times, so I tried to stay off them as much as possible because
• 6:22
  I literally lived in one of the dorm rooms at the complex.
• 6:25
  It was actually, it was fantastic.
• 6:28
  Great experience just getting to be down there for a full season.
• 6:32
  And then 2022, the Astros rehab job opened up and I was super
• 6:37
  interested in it. Nowadays we're getting to the
• 6:40
  point where most people, most coaches have like a pretty good
• 6:43
  idea of being able to kind of cross different boundaries into
• 6:46
  different silos or different departments, I should say.
• 6:49
  But back then it was a little bit more siloed.
• 6:52
  So it's like all-encompassing and super interesting for me,
• 6:55
  especially coming from the performance side of things like
• 6:58
  I have my CSCS, that stuff is still very interesting to me.
• 7:01
  And that that's where I really worked a lot more with Chris
• 7:05
  Martin, the the LSU strength conditioning coach, of course
• 7:07
  now. And it was a lot of like, hey,
• 7:10
  we, we should be able to do this better.
• 7:12
  Why, you know, why are the programs kind of based on this
• 7:16
  slightly archaic programming? There's not much like sense
• 7:21
  necessarily when you look at some of the detail, when you
• 7:24
  look at these distances, the only one that has like true
• 7:27
  meaning behind it is 60 feet. And so Chris and I are kind of
• 7:31
  having these discussions throughout the year of like, OK,
• 7:33
  how, how can we do this better? How can we objectify the rehab
• 7:37
  process more, right? Not necessarily like speed
• 7:40
  things up or down necessarily, right?
• 7:43
  I, I know that's a huge concern in the rehab world of like
• 7:45
  trying to move too fast, but how, how can we hit these
• 7:49
  markers in a slightly different way that are a bit more
• 7:51
  meaningful rather than just using these distance markers?
• 7:54
  And so we started a little bit of that that year with Houston.
• 7:57
  I ended up leaving the Astros that year, took the rehab
• 8:01
  pitching coordinator job with the Los Angeles Dodgers, where
• 8:04
  it was very much the people asking the same questions that
• 8:07
  me and Chris had at that time the year before.
• 8:10
  And OK, how, how can we do things better?
• 8:12
  And I give a lot of credit to to Rob Hill and Brandon McDaniel,
• 8:16
  who's up there on the big league staff sort of sitting in between
• 8:19
  medical performance and and the pitching side of things too.
• 8:22
  But it was a lot of openness and willingness to like hear these
• 8:25
  things, hear these thoughts. And so it was really cool.
• 8:28
  For two years we ran our rehab throwing completely velocity
• 8:32
  based, right? There's no, no distances
• 8:35
  prescribed. There's all weighted balls.
• 8:38
  We were literally hand recording velocity.
• 8:41
  So as me, the PTS, the 80s are pitching in turn the medical
• 8:45
  intern. I mean, I have AI have a file of
• 8:48
  60,000 throws that we collected over those two years of
• 8:51
  literally just the guy makes a throw, the VLO pops up on the
• 8:55
  radar and we sit there, write it, transfer it to a CSV and
• 8:58
  Excel file. And then I code a little bit and
• 9:01
  would send out like this kind of weekly report on the guys.
• 9:04
  But it was a really cool like experience to, to see one.
• 9:07
  We, we kind of just came up with this new program, right?
• 9:10
  Like it's something that we felt hadn't been done before
• 9:14
  explicitly being done by velocity and, and removing all
• 9:18
  limitations of distance and whatnot.
• 9:20
  And getting to see those guys who went through it the first
• 9:24
  year in their 24 seasons was, was awesome.
• 9:27
  We had guys who had like career best fit and X fit and ERA and K
• 9:32
  percentage and walk percentage. We had seven career best
• 9:35
  velocity PRS. Five guys had like their average
• 9:39
  velocity was the highest of their lives in 24.
• 9:43
  And so it's really cool to see, hey, this, this works a little
• 9:47
  bit, right? It's not the be all end all, but
• 9:49
  there might be something to this after those two years.
• 9:52
  It was a really awesome experience.
• 9:54
  I love a lot of the people with Lai think it was just time for
• 9:58
  me to kind of remove myself from the rehab setting a little bit
• 10:01
  specifically or solely the rehab setting because it just wears on
• 10:04
  you. It's a hard place to be in.
• 10:07
  I had two shoulder surgeries myself.
• 10:08
  So that that was a big piece of like wanting to be in that
• 10:11
  space. But if you've spent time there,
• 10:13
  you know, it can just be a tough environment.
• 10:16
  And so ended up leaving the Dodgers, got a job with the
• 10:19
  Cleveland Guardians, a little bit more front office based
• 10:21
  where I was basically like helping the pitching group, help
• 10:26
  the pitching leadership a little bit.
• 10:27
  But my focus was mostly the high A and the AA pitchers kind of
• 10:31
  communicating with those pitching coaches, player plans,
• 10:34
  tracking them in season, all that good stuff.
• 10:37
  And then I was, I was watching closely the the saga of, you
• 10:41
  know, college coaches moving around over the summer and in
• 10:45
  the office one day, actually, funny enough, one of the interns
• 10:49
  on my floor with Cleveland was a Wake Forest student analyst on
• 10:53
  the team here. And so we were talking one
• 10:55
  Monday morning and he comes up to me, His name's Zach.
• 10:58
  He says, hey, I think like the the whispers through the trees
• 11:01
  is that Eric Neeson is going to be the next pitching coach.
• 11:05
  And I, I look down at my phone and I see a text from Eric.
• 11:08
  Hey, call me when you can. And I'm like, OK, all right, we
• 11:12
  might be doing this. It took like a week of, of
• 11:15
  talking with Eric and trying to figure it out.
• 11:17
  It was a hard decision. I won't lie.
• 11:20
  The people in Cleveland are, are amazing, amazing people, but it,
• 11:26
  for me, it just felt like getting back towards being on
• 11:29
  the field was a was a big piece for me.
• 11:31
  And of course, having worked with Eric in 21 and 22 with the
• 11:34
  Astros made it just a, a pretty seamless, seamless transition to
• 11:38
  get back here. So it was a sorry, that was a
• 11:40
  that was a long winded way of getting here.
• 11:42
  But yeah, it's, it's been a blast so far.
• 11:44
  And it's crazy to to hear you say that a semester is done
• 11:47
  already got here in July and it was a really cool experience.
• 11:51
  Like the probably my first real like high level D1 college
• 11:56
  experience. So it was a it was a fun time
• 11:59
  kind of learning the insurance and outs of the college game
• 12:01
  again. I feel like we're now at a
• 12:04
  choose your own adventure point. We were going so far into that
• 12:08
  story and I loved every second of it.
• 12:11
  But I realized I think when you got to the point where you
• 12:15
  mentioned doing rehab programs with Chris Martin, where I
• 12:19
  thought to myself, I should probably write some of this down
• 12:22
  on the side so I don't just neglect everything that you
• 12:25
  shared and hang to one point. Now I I hate doing this to just
• 12:31
  address the single most recent thing you said, and I truly mean
• 12:34
  the most recent thing you said. How?
• 12:37
  Cool, Is it to feel like AD one athlete?
• 12:40
  It's great. I mean, I again, like we talked
• 12:43
  about us being D2 boys, so there's a certain level of pride
• 12:47
  and there's JUCO pride when you've gone through that route
• 12:50
  there. There's a level of like, oh man,
• 12:52
  this is what AD one locker room looks like.
• 12:54
  This is what ADD one like player lounge looks like.
• 12:57
  This is what like a pitching lab actually looks like.
• 13:01
  Yeah, it's definitely, definitely took me a couple
• 13:04
  weeks of like geeking out and being like, oh, shoot, this is
• 13:07
  this is the life. This is really cool I got right.
• 13:10
  I wish I could have done this when I was a player.
• 13:12
  Yeah, look, look at what you're wearing right now.
• 13:14
  Give a quick look around the room.
• 13:16
  I mean, you're at the stadium. Oh, yeah, I'm, I'm literally
• 13:19
  overlooking our field right now. There's I'm in a diamond suite
• 13:23
  for our alumni and, and yeah, it, it's an awesome atmosphere.
• 13:27
  It's an amazing environment. Everything they've built here so
• 13:30
  far is is. I mean, it's great to be a part
• 13:32
  of. I know this isn't the nuts and
• 13:35
  bolts of the podcast, but that's how I felt when I did my grad
• 13:38
  year at University of Dayton. I went from Eckerd up to
• 13:42
  University of Dayton. It's not like Dayton is the
• 13:44
  bee's knees when it comes to anything.
• 13:46
  But like I showed up and literally on day one they gave
• 13:50
  me 3 dry fits and two pairs of shorts and I was like I get to
• 13:54
  keep these. Are you serious?
• 13:56
  Like you're telling me I get gear in the fall, I don't have
• 14:00
  to earn my gear in the spring. I get it in the fall.
• 14:03
  This is amazing. I I 100% fully understand.
• 14:08
  And then to find out like there was someone that did my team
• 14:11
  laundry, like I went and dropped it off at the equipment room was
• 14:14
  this is this is amazing. I I don't these guys are all
• 14:17
  taking this for granted. But no, that's that's why the
• 14:20
  best minds come from D2 and come from JUCO and come from those
• 14:24
  places, because you have to figure it out on your own.
• 14:26
  Well, it's, it's funny you say that because my first spring
• 14:28
  training with the Astros, I got there a couple weeks before,
• 14:31
  like everyone got down there to try and settle in a little bit.
• 14:35
  And Todd Nasgodov again with the Reds, like one of the first
• 14:38
  things he did was like take me around and he was like, Hey, do
• 14:41
  you know how to use a laundry loop?
• 14:43
  And I was like, I have no, that's not a thing for D2 for my
• 14:46
  school. Like, I have no idea.
• 14:47
  I did my own laundry. I don't know what you're talking
• 14:49
  about. So he, he literally had to like
• 14:51
  run me through here's where he put the socks.
• 14:53
  Here's that was great. That was that was probably the
• 14:56
  most valuable thing I learned at Dayton.
• 14:58
  And then I felt really cool when I when I was at the complex with
• 15:02
  the Padres for a while and I got my loop there again, was like,
• 15:06
  Oh yeah, I'm a big deal. I feel like a really big deal
• 15:10
  because I have a laundry loop. It's like a Borat when he gets
• 15:14
  his chair. King the castle baby.
• 15:17
  But it's something that has your name on it.
• 15:19
  It's great for real, and it's amazing how much pride I took in
• 15:23
  that laundry loop. But now, now we can get into the
• 15:26
  important stuff. Like I said, I, I feel bad
• 15:28
  spending so much time on that, but I, I always find those
• 15:31
  discussions hilarious and illuminating.
• 15:33
  For that matter, you, you mentioned getting the CSCS.
• 15:37
  When did you get that in the process?
• 15:39
  Was that right when you decided to quit college?
• 15:42
  Basically, and I know that's phrased poorly because you
• 15:45
  graduated, quit the team, pursue training.
• 15:48
  Is that when you got the CSCS or where did that mix into the
• 15:51
  process? Yeah, so I when I quit the team.
• 15:57
  I like my praising. More personally, and I, I
• 15:59
  started in the baseball PDS in that facility, actually, I
• 16:04
  purchased the NSCA textbook and just like started diving in
• 16:09
  because I, they're just like hours of my day where it's like,
• 16:12
  hey, I have nothing to do what, you know, what can I try and
• 16:15
  figure out? And so I started it that spring
• 16:20
  when I don't know if it still works this way, but the way you
• 16:24
  had to take the test was you had to sign up and then you had a 60
• 16:28
  day window to choose your date to, to get it done.
• 16:32
  And so I was kind of struggling like after leaving baseball PDS,
• 16:36
  going back home, kind of struggling of what I was going
• 16:39
  to do next. This was before I, I kind of got
• 16:41
  with Eugene Bleecker and all that good stuff.
• 16:43
  And I was kind of like, all right, I just need to, I just
• 16:45
  need to do this thing. I, I just need to like sign up,
• 16:49
  force myself to, to do the 60 day window and take it.
• 16:53
  So I ended up taking it finally in the summer of 2018 is is when
• 16:59
  I finally like pulled the trigger and, and passed and I
• 17:02
  passed by like 4 questions on each section.
• 17:06
  It, it was, it was pretty close, but I was, I was so thankful.
• 17:09
  I don't need to ever take that test again.
• 17:11
  Is it? It's very like when you, when
• 17:14
  you get that textbook and then taking that test, it's very much
• 17:17
  like they want direct answers from that textbook.
• 17:21
  There are plenty of questions where especially if you've had a
• 17:24
  couple years of experience, you'd be like, I don't think I
• 17:27
  would answer that question like that, but they're very
• 17:29
  particular and how they look for things.
• 17:31
  So just thankful that that part is done.
• 17:33
  But yeah, that was pretty early on in the process.
• 17:36
  I can corroborate everything you're saying because I think I
• 17:39
  took mine. It might have been the first
• 17:41
  week of February of 2018. I don't remember the exact date,
• 17:45
  but I was super close to yours and there were a couple sections
• 17:50
  because I have the old book and then they had just come out with
• 17:53
  like a new edition 2017 I think or maybe it's 2016, but I had
• 17:57
  the book from like 2014. I was like, I'm there's 0%
• 18:01
  chance I'm getting a new one and they added like a tactical
• 18:03
  training piece to it and or whatever CrossFit was called
• 18:09
  before CrossFit became big or there was like a cross training
• 18:12
  section and you had to learn about like rope programming was
• 18:16
  like what, why like I'm this is so unimportant Then how far to
• 18:20
  put your squat racks from the wall and how high electrical
• 18:24
  sockets need to be And how is this going to help me help a guy
• 18:29
  throw 96 and then do it on repeat.
• 18:32
  Like this is. This is so far from what we're
• 18:35
  actually chasing down. So no, I I totally get what
• 18:38
  you're saying. But now taking that CSCSI know
• 18:42
  you said you're originally kind of on the strength side when you
• 18:46
  were at PDS and then when you moved on to one O 8, that's
• 18:52
  obviously bucking the system a good bit from what we would see
• 18:56
  in an NSCA textbook. What's being done under the
• 19:01
  walls and roof of Bleeker? Very different, might I add.
• 19:04
  Not, not just slightly different, very different.
• 19:07
  So what was it like? Where was the CSCS?
• 19:10
  Literally just checking a box. So you had the initials after
• 19:12
  your name and people saw you as something a little bit more.
• 19:16
  And then maybe how did you apply or I guess not apply anything
• 19:21
  when you made the move to Bleeker's place?
• 19:24
  Yeah, I, I think he was a little bit of checking the box.
• 19:27
  I was probably at a point in my life where I was a little bit
• 19:31
  unsure of do I want to go back the skill side of things and,
• 19:35
  and be, you know, a pitching coach or do I want to kind of
• 19:38
  continue down in the, the strength and conditioning world?
• 19:41
  I, I, I really enjoy being in a weight room.
• 19:45
  I enjoy kind of like seeing processes unfold in there.
• 19:48
  But I, I at the end of the day, I hate like programming, like
• 19:51
  sitting down. I've done that at one point in
• 19:53
  my life. Like again, early on and just
• 19:55
  sitting down every Sunday and like cranking out strength
• 19:58
  conditioning programs was not it for me.
• 19:59
  And so when I was actually talking with Bleeker about the
• 20:03
  position. I was probably leaning a little
• 20:06
  bit more in my head of the S&C world still.
• 20:09
  And he was like, well, look, we have 2 S&C guys.
• 20:12
  They're both like former Cressy interns.
• 20:15
  I'm not hiring an S&C turn. I'm, I'm, I'm hiring a pitching
• 20:18
  guy. Like do you want, if you have a
• 20:20
  pitching background, it sounds like, do you want to continue
• 20:23
  down that road? And so that I was kind of when
• 20:26
  the decision was made for me of like, OK, like I kind of keep
• 20:29
  this in my back pocket. I still think it's really
• 20:31
  important, but I'm going to kind of head down this pitching
• 20:33
  route. I think what it what it does,
• 20:36
  like you said, it checks a box, but also you put those letters
• 20:40
  behind your name and it just makes people understand that you
• 20:43
  went through the process. Like, again, having those
• 20:45
  letters next to my name doesn't mean I, I can program for our
• 20:49
  guys or I will program for our guys or that I am the smartest
• 20:52
  S&C guy, right? It's about like, OK, making sure
• 20:58
  that the S&C people I do work with have an understanding that
• 21:01
  I can at least communicate and live in their world a little
• 21:04
  bit. I think that's the biggest point
• 21:05
  is just making sure they understand like, hey, your, your
• 21:09
  piece is valuable. That's why I went down this
• 21:11
  road. It's to try and learn some of
• 21:13
  your terminology so that when I have this these conversations
• 21:15
  about our players with you, I'm not a complete idiot or
• 21:18
  hopefully not sounding like an idiot for the most part, yeah.
• 21:22
  It was more of like once I made that decision.
• 21:25
  So OK, I don't really want to kind of continue down super deep
• 21:30
  of like the programming world of SNC, but I think a lot of
• 21:35
  obviously just the concepts of basic human movement are super
• 21:39
  important and applicable to to pitching.
• 21:41
  And so it was just really good for me to be able to live in
• 21:43
  that world and have those in depth conversations with those
• 21:47
  those S&C people at the time. And then ultimately people like
• 21:50
  like Chris Martin or like Mark Seaver here with with Wake
• 21:53
  Forest. It's just it just makes things a
• 21:55
  lot more seamless to be able to be on the same level with some
• 21:58
  of those communications. Right.
• 22:00
  You flash forward then to what you were doing with the Astros,
• 22:03
  for example, and your title is pitching Apprentice or you go
• 22:06
  down the DSL in your second year, I guess technically third,
• 22:10
  but second year actually physically somewhere with the
• 22:13
  team being able to wear multiple hats at the lower levels of pro
• 22:18
  ball is almost like having Superman's Cape.
• 22:21
  I feel like because people are so, so in the weeds on there,
• 22:26
  one specific topic that you get caught in the silos.
• 22:30
  I know you mentioned it earlier in your kind of like bio
• 22:33
  introduction piece, but especially in 2018-2019,
• 22:39
  2020-2021, to think that we would actually have people in a
• 22:44
  pro organization that can flutter between strength and
• 22:50
  pitching performance. In rehab, those things didn't
• 22:54
  crossover at all. It was literally 3 different
• 22:58
  sectors that all operated independently.
• 23:00
  So you, I'm sure you felt like you had this sort of like edge
• 23:05
  or ace in the hole in a sense that you could speak the
• 23:09
  strength and conditioning language.
• 23:10
  And then your background of going through a couple rehabs
• 23:13
  yourself or training at Driveline or working at these
• 23:17
  different facilities, you probably saw like, wait, there's
• 23:21
  also this massive disconnect as we're trying to get guys back
• 23:24
  from rehab into performance again, which led to ultimately
• 23:28
  what you did with Chris Martin, I'm sure.
• 23:31
  Yeah, I think that's also why I really enjoyed being at the
• 23:34
  complex in pro ball in Florida. I should say the the Dr. games
• 23:38
  great. But the complex in Florida is
• 23:40
  like the genesis of everything, right?
• 23:42
  It's where depending on the org, it's where a lot of coordinators
• 23:45
  and directors will live. It's certainly where most of
• 23:48
  them pass through several times over the year after spring
• 23:52
  training. Of course.
• 23:55
  It, it, it's just like, I don't know if it gave me an edge as
• 23:59
  much as it just, it was the right environment then for me to
• 24:02
  like pick and choose and really try and take advantage of all
• 24:07
  the people I had around me. I think that was the the biggest
• 24:09
  thing for me. It was just like really trying
• 24:12
  to understand all these different pieces are important.
• 24:16
  We can get a guy throwing harder by changing his mechanics, but
• 24:20
  at the end of the day, if he's not eating right with the
• 24:23
  nutrition or the dietitians, if he's he's not like lifting or or
• 24:28
  the mobility is not dialed in or the 4th plate jumps, whatever
• 24:32
  metric is important to you in those areas.
• 24:34
  Or he's not recovering or doing the arm care again, same or he's
• 24:39
  not doing his flex pro with the medical theft.
• 24:42
  It's so easy to see in pro ball in that environment at the
• 24:46
  complex, how important all these different things are to getting
• 24:50
  these guys better. I've been around some pretty
• 24:53
  elite athletes and I think as an industry we talk about a lot of
• 24:57
  these elite athletes can probably outplay some of these
• 25:01
  areas. And it's true.
• 25:02
  I, I like, I fully believe that. But to me it's like, OK, how
• 25:05
  much better could you be then if we did actually dial in some of
• 25:08
  these areas? Is there something missing?
• 25:10
  To me, it's just like, what are we missing to help the player in
• 25:15
  in front of us? That's at the end of the day,
• 25:17
  that's really all that matters. If it's not my pitching
• 25:21
  programming that's going to get a guy to throw harder, if it has
• 25:23
  to be the S&C because that's what the guy needs, then like,
• 25:26
  OK, let's let's dive in and and really truly try to like
• 25:29
  understand that side of things. So I think it really just comes
• 25:33
  back to like, what was the player in front of us need?
• 25:36
  And then because of how many different areas just go into
• 25:39
  that, it just makes sense to try and be as commutative as
• 25:42
  possible. I'm never going to be like a PT
• 25:45
  who's going to run the first couple weeks post TJ.
• 25:47
  I'm never going to have that kind of knowledge base and Nord,
• 25:50
  nor do I need or want to. But being able to be in that
• 25:53
  room while they're doing some of that early, early stage rehab
• 25:57
  and just like soaking it up and talking with the trainer on the
• 25:59
  table is is invaluable to me. Now let's flash forward to your
• 26:04
  current situation. You bring up how valuable it is
• 26:08
  to have everybody in one place. Fortunately, in the college
• 26:12
  setting, literally everyone is under one roof or worst case
• 26:16
  scenario, they're within a mile of one another as opposed to in
• 26:19
  pro ball people are all over the country, if not the world.
• 26:23
  So what are I guess things that you are no longer taking for
• 26:30
  granted that you finally have everybody all in one place?
• 26:35
  I'm sure it feels a bit like the complex again where you doing
• 26:37
  morning meetings and you're going over like this is what we
• 26:41
  saw in the rehab side. This is what we saw in the
• 26:44
  weight room yesterday or this is what this guy's cleared to do.
• 26:47
  But now that you have Seaver, you have strong, you have your,
• 26:51
  you have Cilento on the offensive side.
• 26:53
  You have so many people that are at your disposal to check in
• 26:59
  with. What has come to light for you
• 27:01
  from that? Like is are there things that,
• 27:04
  as I mentioned earlier, maybe you took for granted in the past
• 27:07
  or you didn't fully appreciate because you just didn't have
• 27:11
  everyone together? Yeah, I think, you know, going
• 27:15
  from the pro orb side of things where like you mentioned, not
• 27:19
  only are you dealing with a lot more people, but you're dealing
• 27:22
  with people all over the country or the world that you're trying
• 27:26
  to like get a hold of and, and get a plan together with.
• 27:29
  I think just just having everyone in one place, it just
• 27:31
  makes a world of difference. I don't need to call someone
• 27:34
  who's in California with our high A-Team, right?
• 27:36
  Like this is it this, this is our team, right?
• 27:39
  And so it just makes that process a lot easier once you're
• 27:42
  comfortable with the people around you, which is super easy.
• 27:45
  Like, again, people like straw me and Steve and and Billy and
• 27:50
  you know, the, the staff that's here are, are just really easy
• 27:53
  to get along with. And we're all, we're all here
• 27:55
  even over Thanksgiving break for most days we were in here just
• 27:59
  like doing stuff, whether it's some of the pro guys, some of
• 28:02
  the wake alumni who are in here. So it, it's just it makes it a
• 28:05
  lot more seamless to to have those things and have these
• 28:09
  conversations. It's easy enough if a guy comes
• 28:11
  a little Nick or Knack and Strong can just shoot us a text
• 28:15
  and boom, it's it's taken care of or the the plan is now in
• 28:18
  place. There's no waiting for the
• 28:20
  coordinator or director to get back to us or anything like
• 28:22
  that. It's just again, it just makes
• 28:24
  everything more seamless and we have all these people who are on
• 28:27
  the same page with what we want, what's best for our players.
• 28:29
  So the process is just super easy here.
• 28:32
  I wanted to address that quickly.
• 28:34
  It's not that we're going to stick in the present entirely
• 28:36
  right now, because I'm also curious.
• 28:39
  You mentioned coding at one point in one of the prior
• 28:43
  answers. When did the whole coding thing
• 28:46
  come about you? So that was that was actually
• 28:49
  during the COVID year, Bill Murphy, the new Pittsburgh
• 28:52
  Pirates pitching coach, was our our pitching coordinator with
• 28:55
  the Astros. And it was kind of like, OK,
• 28:58
  we're all sitting on our butts at home.
• 29:00
  We're not going to do that like we're we're going to do
• 29:02
  something. And Murph at the time had
• 29:05
  personally started diving into to Sequel because that was kind
• 29:08
  of the system that that's really the system in, in most pro orgs
• 29:11
  that it seems is their database management is in Sequel.
• 29:15
  And then depending on their R&D department or what departments
• 29:18
  they have, they'll either code in like R, Python or the two
• 29:21
  like main languages for, for the baseball world, it seems.
• 29:25
  So Murph was getting into it a little bit and like, OK, hey,
• 29:29
  all the pitching coaches we're going to, we're going to learn.
• 29:31
  So we did a weekly thing where Murph would kind of teach us
• 29:35
  using the Astros information. And we'd kind of just go
• 29:38
  through, it would be like an hour or two hours once a week,
• 29:42
  every week for several months. And I hated it.
• 29:46
  I despised it. I was just sitting.
• 29:48
  It was because to me it was kind of like when you get a book
• 29:52
  given to you in school and you you hate it and then you read
• 29:55
  that book later in life as an adult and you're like, wow, this
• 29:57
  book is awesome. This is great.
• 29:59
  It, it was like the assignment piece for me was like, gosh.
• 30:03
  This. Sucks, I hate doing this.
• 30:06
  And so we we go through the rest of the COVID year and it's like
• 30:10
  January 2021, I had all these conversations about where I
• 30:13
  wanted to go, what role I was going to be in.
• 30:15
  We ultimately decided I was going to go down to the DSL.
• 30:19
  The part of those conversations with Murph was like, hey man,
• 30:21
  like what do you want to do in your career?
• 30:24
  And that's kind of when, but the lab was getting a bit more
• 30:27
  popular. The Wake Forest lab was becoming
• 30:30
  a little bit more renowned. Pro orders were starting to pop
• 30:33
  up a little bit with them. So I, I thought I was like,
• 30:35
  well, I'll probably be a lab coordinator.
• 30:37
  That sounds like a really cool title to me.
• 30:40
  And he was like, well, then you might want to learn how to code
• 30:42
  Jackass. It was like, Oh yeah, you're
• 30:45
  you're that's probably right. OK, that makes sense to me.
• 30:49
  It was like the same thing. The reason I learned the OR dive
• 30:53
  into the CSCS and the performance side of things to be
• 30:55
  able to talk to the performance teams, it's kind of the same
• 30:58
  thing. Like you shouldn't have to be
• 31:01
  running your models for the R&D team, but it's useful if you can
• 31:05
  kind of speak their language a little bit.
• 31:07
  So I was like, OK, so when I was down in the DSL, probably like
• 31:11
  after practice or after a game, every single day, I'd sit on my
• 31:16
  laptop 234 hours and just like do practice, like practice
• 31:21
  exercises. I went through the the Max
• 31:25
  Marchy Mark Marky Marchy book, like how to analyze the baseball
• 31:29
  data with R, just like spend hours on Google.
• 31:32
  Just like I didn't really purchase any courses or
• 31:34
  anything. It was just like using free
• 31:36
  resources. It's really one of those skills
• 31:40
  where when people ask me about it, I'm like, anyone can learn.
• 31:43
  I truly believe anyone can learn.
• 31:45
  It's the fact that you probably have to sit there for two to
• 31:47
  three hours every single day to really get into it and lock into
• 31:53
  it a bit more that like, you know, people, some people just
• 31:55
  don't have the time to do that. But for me, it was like I was
• 31:58
  trying to recreate some of the Astros like system and stuff.
• 32:02
  Obviously my coding skills wasn't up to par at that point,
• 32:05
  but that's when I started diving into like shiny apps and all
• 32:08
  that stuff. And really a piece of it for me
• 32:11
  was I, I knew I, we wanted the rehab role.
• 32:15
  I knew with Chris that we wanted to change some things, but I
• 32:18
  didn't have like the data management skills really.
• 32:22
  Or then the data visualization skills to go, OK, hey, hey, like
• 32:27
  not only are we seeing this on the on the field, how can I
• 32:29
  actually like manage the data and then visualize it and show
• 32:32
  people? Because at the end of the day,
• 32:35
  I, I can talk all day long, but if I can just show you a visual
• 32:39
  clicks so much quicker for the athlete or the coach or whoever
• 32:42
  I'm trying to talk to. So I think that was a big piece
• 32:45
  for me is like, OK, learning. Not only this, it's a good skill
• 32:48
  to be able to again, talk with R&D or talk to some of these
• 32:51
  higher level front office folk in, in pro orgs.
• 32:54
  But how can I actually then like if I need a quick simple graphic
• 32:58
  of something I'm dealing with now, I can just do that myself
• 33:00
  instead of having to like reach out to to someone else or rely
• 33:04
  on the R&D department for, for some of those like smaller
• 33:07
  things? So you feel one of the biggest
• 33:10
  benefits of going down that route for you was the
• 33:15
  communication side of it or the ability to present.
• 33:18
  It wasn't just that you could mine through data and find
• 33:22
  answers, but it was literally you could take information that
• 33:26
  you discovered or uncovered or that you're working on and
• 33:30
  present it back to the players that actually need it.
• 33:33
  It's both because I think the process of like learning how to
• 33:37
  code just it's a, it's a different problem to solve,
• 33:42
  right? And so when you're like working
• 33:44
  on cleaning data, there's always choices you have to make when
• 33:49
  you're coding of like how you want to approach it, how you
• 33:52
  want to clean this certain data set, what gets cleaned?
• 33:55
  Why does it get cleaned? How are you then going to
• 33:58
  visualize it, right? You need to be mindful of your
• 34:01
  axes, axes. You need to be mindful of the
• 34:03
  coloring that you're using. So it's like all these like kind
• 34:07
  of little minutia that you're dealing with to like make sure
• 34:10
  that you're trying to present it in like a coherent way.
• 34:13
  Just that process of like learning that was, I think
• 34:16
  really just a really interesting different way of looking at
• 34:20
  problem solving in general. And then yes, it has the added
• 34:23
  benefit of like being able to to speak again like not super high
• 34:29
  level on some of those things, but have a general understanding
• 34:31
  when talking to like someone from an R&D department.
• 34:34
  You explaining that answer made me think it's even a little
• 34:38
  allegorical to player development.
• 34:40
  Every little thing needs to be given mine because to think that
• 34:45
  this single thing exists in a vacuum is just like, that's so
• 34:50
  short sighted. That's not how these things
• 34:52
  work. If you make an adjustment to the
• 34:56
  way someone is going to land at foot plant, maybe nothing
• 35:00
  happens that given day. But that could lead to, I don't
• 35:05
  know, some hip anatomical thing that they've never dealt with
• 35:09
  before and now that needs to be addressed in the weight room and
• 35:12
  maybe they're sore. So then you need to talk to
• 35:14
  medical and figure out a maintenance plan.
• 35:17
  It's kind of funny to to think about is I I guess I never
• 35:21
  thought about coding or data cleaning in that way that
• 35:25
  literally every single thing you do does have a trickle down
• 35:29
  effect somewhere else. Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 35:32
  And then, yeah, I mean it when, when you get into coding and
• 35:34
  then you, you, you're scratching your head because there's an
• 35:38
  error on line 27 of 700 lines of code.
• 35:41
  And it's, it's because there's a parentheses out of place.
• 35:45
  It's one of the most like frustrating things ever.
• 35:48
  But it's almost like like a little like reward seeking at
• 35:53
  times too, because especially early on in coding, if you're
• 35:56
  struggling with something for a couple hours and you get it, Oh
• 35:59
  man. Like the, the dopamine hit you
• 36:00
  get from like solving that coding problem is probably
• 36:04
  comparable to some of like your best moments in life.
• 36:09
  But another piece too of that was I was then able to like work
• 36:14
  with some of the like force plate information that we would
• 36:17
  get from from our performance team.
• 36:19
  So it was also like being able to dive in and not just be able
• 36:22
  to look at that. Some of that stuff that Chris
• 36:24
  Martin was a big helper and like really helping me understand
• 36:28
  those metrics and really what they meant and how they're like
• 36:31
  applicable to their KPI's and the weight room side of things.
• 36:34
  But also then, OK, what, what do these look like when you
• 36:37
  actually try and compare them to throwing velocity?
• 36:39
  Are, you know, are there correlations, you know, are, are
• 36:42
  we seeing trends that are similar where if a guy is more
• 36:45
  fatigued based on certain metrics from the, from the force
• 36:48
  plate jumps, do we see a, a velocity trend down be able to
• 36:51
  dive into some of the, the shoulder strength scores that we
• 36:54
  would get from ball 2? So it was a really cool way of
• 36:57
  like not just having access to the data and, and having some
• 37:01
  cool visuals, but really trying to like understand the data on a
• 37:05
  on a deeper level and then bring it right into the connection of
• 37:09
  here's what we're seeing from their force plate numbers.
• 37:12
  How is that affecting them, if at all, to like actual pitching
• 37:15
  velocity and what they're doing on the field?
• 37:17
  Kind of related here, kind of a shift.
• 37:19
  So we'll see how it see how it fits in actual conversation.
• 37:22
  But a lot of our conversation today has been about your
• 37:26
  journey on the rehab side of things.
• 37:30
  And now of course your title does include player development.
• 37:33
  You have worked on the player development side as well.
• 37:36
  It's not like you're only a rehab guy.
• 37:38
  So when did you start to see the connection or the bridge that
• 37:43
  needed to be made between rehab and player development?
• 37:47
  I think that's a very interesting topic now, and I'm
• 37:50
  thankful that the industry is starting to see rehab and player
• 37:54
  development more as a continuum as opposed to two separate
• 37:58
  roads. But when did you kind of have
• 38:00
  that awakening or that moment where you saw the connection
• 38:04
  between the two, where you felt like you can make a difference
• 38:07
  or get involved? It was probably those early
• 38:09
  years with Chris. I don't remember where I first
• 38:12
  heard of this, but it was early on where someone in the SNC
• 38:15
  world I was reading up on, they said rehab is graded
• 38:18
  performance. And that really struck with me
• 38:20
  of like, OK, that makes perfect sense.
• 38:22
  We're just starting at a different point.
• 38:25
  And then the timeline is just going to be slightly different
• 38:28
  based on, you know, what they're dealing with and how it's
• 38:30
  responding to some of the training.
• 38:32
  But at the end of the day, that's it.
• 38:34
  And like, not just not to oversimplify rehab training, but
• 38:38
  that that kind of is all it is at the end of the day, right?
• 38:42
  Those, those early stages. It's different when, when a
• 38:45
  guy's two weeks post TJ, no, we don't need to be trying to do
• 38:48
  water backing stuff. We don't need to get our head of
• 38:51
  ourselves and, and really like get out of some of those
• 38:54
  traditional timelines. But once a player is about to
• 38:58
  pick up a ball and move it forward like that, it's it's
• 39:03
  player development, right? It's just, again, he's starting
• 39:06
  from a very slow early place and we have a lot of time depending
• 39:12
  on where he's at in his career, where we're at in the season, we
• 39:15
  might have a year and a half to, to kind of do this and get this
• 39:19
  guy better, get this guy stronger and really make sure
• 39:21
  that the performance side of things is dialed in.
• 39:25
  But it it's performance and development from day one.
• 39:28
  Now, I think some of that comes from the rehab pitching coach or
• 39:34
  coordinator role. Seemingly historically in pro
• 39:38
  ball has been it's pitching coach who wants to get into pro
• 39:41
  ball. It's a role that's going to set
• 39:44
  out cones, have a clicker with them to make sure they're
• 39:47
  they're having the appropriate pitch count.
• 39:49
  And it's going to be very driven by by medical right.
• 39:52
  That's where these programs have have historically come from.
• 39:56
  That's who kind of set the stage early on with TJ Rehab, right?
• 39:59
  Back then, there wasn't a pitching coach in the 60s or 70s
• 40:02
  who's going to be like, yeah, I think we should do it this way.
• 40:05
  And right, it was all new to them.
• 40:07
  Where that's coming from historically, there's just so
• 40:10
  much more room to then improve and and really connect those
• 40:15
  silos. I'm never going to be someone
• 40:18
  like a Doctor Meister who does a surgery.
• 40:20
  I'm never going to be someone like our PTS who are fantastic
• 40:24
  at that early stage rehab. But I want to understand those
• 40:27
  worlds so that once they get to me, once they're able to throw a
• 40:30
  baseball or throw any implement, which is something we worked
• 40:34
  very hard on to have their first day of throwing not be a
• 40:36
  baseball for several reasons. But like once they're there,
• 40:40
  it's, it's development. We're working on what they're
• 40:42
  throw, what their delivery, what their mechanics are going to
• 40:45
  look like. Once you're able to then
• 40:47
  potentially get them into that headspace and makes it just
• 40:51
  easier to kind of progress in my in my mind, because it's not
• 40:55
  yes, it's you're, you're doing a rehab program, but again, you're
• 40:59
  just starting slower. That's all We're going to get
• 41:01
  you back to who you were or or even better really is what
• 41:04
  should be. It shouldn't be just trying to
• 41:06
  to be the same player we have all this time.
• 41:09
  Why aren't we getting better like you should?
• 41:12
  If you have a year to get better in every single department,
• 41:16
  there's no reason you shouldn't come back a better player.
• 41:19
  Now things happen. Surgeries aren't 100% there.
• 41:22
  There's all these different things, but at the end of the
• 41:24
  day, like it's just understanding that workload.
• 41:28
  I'm not going to start ATJ guy Week 1 on pull downs, right?
• 41:32
  But at the same time, if that's something that your program does
• 41:36
  or something that this player wants to get back to, then Week
• 41:39
  1 should be prepping him for pull downs down the line.
• 41:43
  It's not going to look like a pull down of course, but it
• 41:46
  it's, it's just, it's congruent. It's not, it's not a different
• 41:50
  set of things you're prepping the guy to, to get back to
• 41:54
  really high level performance. It should start from day one
• 41:56
  one. Particular piece you mentioned
• 41:58
  there that I want to spend a little bit more time on.
• 42:01
  I'm not sure it's going to be anything super new to this
• 42:05
  audience, but I still want to hear your take on it.
• 42:08
  You mentioned we we have worked really hard to make those first
• 42:12
  throwing days happen without a baseball in hand, introducing
• 42:18
  throwing with another object or implement.
• 42:21
  So why is that? So a couple of reasons we looked
• 42:25
  at when they're doing two hand and one hand plyos with the
• 42:27
  medical and performance staff believe it's slightly different
• 42:31
  depending on the org or the program.
• 42:33
  But the last like plyo ball that they use for one hand plyos is 2
• 42:37
  or 4 lbs, again depending on the program, the practitioner.
• 42:40
  And so our our programming starts with a 1 LB ball.
• 42:44
  The idea behind that is we're naturally increasing arm speed,
• 42:47
  right? We're not just having these
• 42:48
  heavy balls in your two handed one hand plyos and then
• 42:51
  immediately giving you a baseball beyond that.
• 42:54
  And probably even slightly more important than the weight is
• 42:58
  giving them a constraint drill, right?
• 43:00
  So we'll do some kind of pivot pick off with an arm, arm
• 43:05
  positioning constrained somewhere up top, right.
• 43:08
  And the reason being for that is we're giving them the heavier
• 43:11
  ball so their brain doesn't have to associate with baseball,
• 43:16
  right? The weight is going to
• 43:18
  potentially produce less stress on their arm, right?
• 43:21
  In our lab, when our guys do our mound plyos, even our healthy
• 43:23
  guys, it's generally 6070% of elbow and shoulder forces
• 43:28
  compared to when they're throwing a baseball, right?
• 43:31
  So we're seeing most likely similar effects with the
• 43:34
  slightly heavier balls for the rehab guys.
• 43:37
  And then that constrained position, they're not worrying
• 43:39
  about where their elbow is in space because that's one of the
• 43:42
  biggest things after any kind of injury, any kind of surgery,
• 43:46
  you're more likely for your brain to be very concerned about
• 43:49
  that area, right? How is it moving?
• 43:51
  How is it responding to different kinds of loads?
• 43:54
  So the more that we can then take that kind of process and
• 43:58
  try and have your brain outside of it.
• 44:00
  So, OK, here's a heavy ball, here's a constrained drill,
• 44:03
  here's a velocity reading that you're going to see every single
• 44:06
  throw, right? How much can we take you away
• 44:09
  from? Here's my elbow, here's
• 44:11
  baseball. This is what I'm going to try
• 44:13
  and do with it, right? We've all seen those, those
• 44:15
  first days of throwing with the baseball.
• 44:17
  And some, some look fine, some, some are great, right?
• 44:20
  But you know, we've seen the ones that I'm mentioning here
• 44:23
  and they they look a little tough and it's apprehensive.
• 44:26
  The best compliment I got on this program was the first week
• 44:30
  of the first group with the Dodgers who did it.
• 44:32
  It was like week 6, I believe. We got to a baseball with them
• 44:35
  after a bunch of weighted balls and slowly increasing arm speed,
• 44:39
  slowly increasing velocity with some of these weighted
• 44:42
  baseballs. And they were throwing out on
• 44:45
  one of the backfields one day had the radars.
• 44:48
  It was first day with a baseball coordinator director came up and
• 44:52
  it was like, wow, it just looks like they're just having catch
• 44:55
  like they're just it looks like a normal day of recovery catch
• 45:00
  play. It's like perfect, beautiful.
• 45:02
  All of that like build up was for that moment to make sure
• 45:06
  that they're not trying to really be apprehensive or really
• 45:12
  control where their elbow is in space.
• 45:14
  So that was a big piece for introducing with the weighted
• 45:17
  balls, making sure that they have the velocity on every
• 45:20
  single throw that they can start to dial that in of understanding
• 45:24
  their output, their objective output based on their subjective
• 45:27
  kind of feelings. And then going from there and
• 45:30
  building that up as opposed to just giving them a baseball day
• 45:33
  one and kind of using a bit more of an arbitrary velocity range.
• 45:36
  Given that you're introducing some of these throwing programs
• 45:40
  with a heavier implement, has that led you to starting the
• 45:45
  throwing program any earlier knowing that you're potentially
• 45:49
  dealing with lower shoulder and elbow torques?
• 45:52
  No, not usually. I would say there was one.
• 45:55
  There was one trainer with the Dodgers who did like to do so.
• 46:01
  Very typical was like 4 weeks of two hand plyos and and two to
• 46:05
  four weeks of one hand plyos. And then they would start
• 46:06
  throwing and one of the trainers with the Dodgers would let us
• 46:11
  start throwing on like the second to last week of the one
• 46:15
  hand plyos. So like a week or two earlier.
• 46:17
  It's not like a not like a feature of it.
• 46:20
  It was more just like in conversations with the trainer
• 46:22
  that like, hey, it, it makes sense what you're doing that it
• 46:25
  also makes sense that we could potentially start it a week
• 46:27
  earlier, but it wasn't like the the, the, the reason for, for
• 46:32
  adding that in there. Right.
• 46:33
  Yeah. It's not like you've taken a
• 46:35
  standard, TJ and I hate using standard, but I guess for what
• 46:41
  we've seen forever of saying like, Oh well, as opposed to
• 46:45
  starting throwing at 24 weeks because of this, you can now
• 46:48
  start at 17 or it's nothing like that, correct?
• 46:52
  Yeah, no, nothing like that at all.
• 46:54
  And I, I actually lean towards, I like waiting the extra time.
• 46:57
  Like Ella Trash's programming with the Dodgers for the early
• 47:02
  stages was waiting for week 22 of of post TJ to start throwing
• 47:07
  with the Astros with, with their docs.
• 47:11
  It was like week 16, I believe was it?
• 47:14
  I don't have any like numbers or anything to really support this,
• 47:17
  but it just looked better when it when we waited those six
• 47:20
  extra weeks. Yeah, I don't have like a direct
• 47:22
  comparison of the same players doing both, of course, but they
• 47:25
  they just seem stronger, you know, the six extra weeks of of
• 47:29
  weight training of just being like comfortable with where
• 47:32
  their arm is in space, just in a general concept.
• 47:35
  So no, it wasn't about like trying to to rush to get to
• 47:39
  throwing and then like extending that out to the to the back end
• 47:43
  of the rehab. Like it's it's also not about
• 47:46
  rushing to get back to the field, right?
• 47:48
  Like if you're doing a Major League rehab and you know the
• 47:52
  timeline is getting close for the playoffs, OK, that's a
• 47:55
  different conversation, right? But it it was just to give us
• 47:59
  objective lenses and markers throughout the program.
• 48:02
  It wasn't to say, hey, he's hit 90, we should go into a game a
• 48:04
  month early. It's like, hey, he's he's hit
• 48:07
  all these markers looking good. It just gives you an extra layer
• 48:10
  of objective data to make that decision.
• 48:13
  None of it was like, OK, this is to push it forward or to make it
• 48:17
  quicker or anything like that. The buzzword there that you
• 48:20
  mentioned was objective data. And I, I really think that for
• 48:25
  starting programs, that's one of the things that we are super
• 48:28
  passionate about on our side with Flexpro Grip is give people
• 48:32
  that objective data so they actually know when it is OK to
• 48:36
  start a rehab process. Granted, when you were doing a
• 48:39
  lot of this, you're you're going off of standard hand grip
• 48:42
  dynamometry, which really doesn't correlate to anything
• 48:45
  from an elbow or foreharm health perspective.
• 48:48
  You can use it for some other stuff, but from a true
• 48:50
  musculature perspective or readiness, it's really not
• 48:54
  showing us a lot. You are getting some shoulder
• 48:56
  dynamometry, some force plate stuff, but there is still
• 48:59
  probably a lot of questions early on, which is why waiting
• 49:03
  that extra six weeks, 8 weeks when you looked at the two
• 49:07
  programs comparatively where you probably saw a lot more success
• 49:11
  because players were able to get to a place mentally where they
• 49:15
  felt a lot better. But I'm sure if you can give
• 49:18
  players that objective feedback early on, kind of like what we
• 49:23
  have with wearables or or different things in the space
• 49:26
  now, it's like no, look like you are good.
• 49:30
  You are meeting every single piece now.
• 49:33
  Like what else can we do to make you feel confident your body is
• 49:36
  ready? Now it's just a question of Are
• 49:39
  you ready mentally? Yeah, no, absolutely.
• 49:43
  And I I think that's where we probably still could do a bit
• 49:45
  better as an industry there on the on the front end of of
• 49:48
  having those. But I think that's a that's a
• 49:50
  big reason for the velocity during it too, right.
• 49:53
  There's such a difference where if you're going through ATJ
• 49:57
  program, Adam and I'd sit here and go, hey man, Congrats.
• 49:59
  You're through to 90 feet today, right?
• 50:01
  Like cool that that's a marker. It's great.
• 50:04
  It's a step in the journey. But compare that to going hey
• 50:07
  Adam, awesome job. You hit 90 miles an hour for the
• 50:09
  first time, right? Those are remarkably different
• 50:13
  conversations, right? And just being able to have that
• 50:16
  mental, that additional mental feedback of like, hey, like not
• 50:20
  only is are these numbers great, you're doing it, you're feeling
• 50:24
  good. We have everything else helping
• 50:25
  you with this feedback to just really try and dial in that like
• 50:28
  you're in a, you're in a good spot.
• 50:30
  It's not just like, hey, you know, you did the distance
• 50:33
  throwing, you check the boxes like good job.
• 50:36
  It really gives you valuable feedback.
• 50:38
  It's the same thing with we get on the mound very early in the
• 50:42
  program. They're they're doing mound
• 50:43
  plyos week 9 of throwing in my programming and then two weeks
• 50:46
  later they're getting on the mound of the baseball, right.
• 50:49
  And one of the best things by doing those plyos off the mound
• 50:55
  is you're desensitizing them to it, right?
• 50:57
  We we had guys who after several weeks of those kind of lower
• 51:02
  levels, lower volume throwing on the mound even early on, we get
• 51:06
  to the bullpen stage of the programming, right where
• 51:10
  remember asking one of the Dodgers kids like, hey, you
• 51:12
  ready? It's the first one with Trackman
• 51:13
  back there. And he goes, Ezra, we've been on
• 51:15
  the mound for six weeks already. Like, yeah, who cares?
• 51:18
  The Trackman's back there. Awesome.
• 51:19
  Like, great. I'm excited for the data.
• 51:21
  But like, yeah, we're good. It's another it's another day on
• 51:24
  the mound. And that's huge, huge because
• 51:26
  most kids got hurt on the mound, right?
• 51:29
  That is the place where they are trying to get back to trying to
• 51:32
  kind of shed off some of that crap.
• 51:34
  You know, here we go again. And the last time I was here
• 51:37
  wasn't a great outcome. So the the more that you can
• 51:40
  just give them that relief through that feedback loop,
• 51:43
  through that objective feedback loop, just the, the, the
• 51:46
  smoother the rehab can go in my mind.
• 51:50
  That desensitization process is huge and I feel like over this
• 51:55
  last 10:00-ish minutes of discussion you you really go
• 52:00
  into different ways that it can be done.
• 52:02
  Constraint drills, different implements, whether it is a
• 52:06
  baseball pile ball, javelin football, off ball, any,
• 52:11
  anything that literally can be thrown as a different implement,
• 52:16
  introducing different surfaces, different throwing styles or
• 52:20
  techniques, all those things will eventually make the final
• 52:24
  task easier for the athlete when it's time.
• 52:27
  Yeah, we we can do all these different things.
• 52:29
  But ultimately they need to get back up on the mound.
• 52:32
  They need to wear their jersey, their belt, their cleats and get
• 52:36
  a hitter out. And as you mentioned, that's
• 52:39
  likely when the injury occurred. At least if we're going to look
• 52:42
  at percentages, that's probably when it happened.
• 52:45
  So if we can check the box everywhere else and ensure that
• 52:49
  that athlete is good in 99% of the scenarios that we've thrown
• 52:54
  their way so far. And we just have that last 1% of
• 52:58
  hey, the lights are on, it's the 6th inning and you actually need
• 53:01
  to go get the two hitter for this team out.
• 53:04
  We can take those chances knowing that we have done
• 53:07
  everything else that's within our control.
• 53:10
  Right and thinking about we've come a long way and there's
• 53:13
  still room to grow you and I can both agree on that.
• 53:16
  But thinking back to like when the the clearance was just like,
• 53:20
  hey, it's been it's been a year and you're not hurt anymore.
• 53:23
  Go and go out there. You're good for that 6th inning
• 53:26
  against their two hitter with second and third.
• 53:28
  And it's like, no, I can't imagine a world where like we're
• 53:32
  OK with that being like the final clearance.
• 53:36
  And thankfully I I think we're getting a lot better.
• 53:39
  Yeah, it's just checking all these other boxes just makes it
• 53:43
  that much better for the for the athlete, right?
• 53:46
  It's so much unknown. The the more familiar, objective
• 53:51
  reasoning that we can give this kid as he's going through this
• 53:53
  process, just the easier it is for him.
• 53:55
  Well, we did exactly what I told you would likely happen before
• 53:59
  we press record. We we found a topic and we spent
• 54:02
  way too long on it. So we do have another couple
• 54:05
  things that do you want to get through.
• 54:07
  Granted, we, we've kind of sprinkled this in a along the
• 54:10
  way, but I, I of course want to talk about what you're doing now
• 54:14
  with Wake Forest. You mentioned throwing programs.
• 54:17
  Of course you take all those throwing programs that you've
• 54:20
  worked on forever and have applied them with the guys.
• 54:22
  You mentioned a little bit of what you're doing in the lab
• 54:25
  with guys in the mound looking at arm torques during PIO
• 54:29
  drills, different throwing drills.
• 54:31
  I know your your role goes well beyond just giving guys throwing
• 54:35
  programs and looking at arm torques in a lab.
• 54:37
  So what? Else does your daily look like,
• 54:41
  Yeah, so there's a couple different hats I'd say I wear.
• 54:44
  The majority is like being the assistant pitching coach
• 54:48
  essentially with with Eric Neeson.
• 54:50
  It involves the week to week throwing programs that I kind of
• 54:54
  put together. It involves like the individual
• 54:57
  changes that have to be made inevitably on a day-to-day or
• 55:00
  week to week basis without, you know, 18 pitchers that it's not
• 55:03
  super clean to just send out a throwing program and be good.
• 55:07
  And I'll see you guys next Sunday.
• 55:09
  So you know, kind of work on some of the minutiae there.
• 55:12
  Work pretty heavily on like the player plan side of things with
• 55:15
  our pitchers too. With Eric, we go through a
• 55:17
  pretty comprehensive process in the fall with each one of our
• 55:19
  guys having their own meeting and all that good stuff.
• 55:22
  Another hat I wear is the Lab is a paid product.
• 55:26
  So actually people will sign up as young as 12 years old up to
• 55:30
  professional athletes and they'll they'll come in, they'll
• 55:33
  get an assessment from C, from Strami, from Doctor Nicholson.
• 55:36
  And so part of my job is if I'm able to make it there, I usually
• 55:40
  will go there, but I'll hop on a Zoom call with them like 2 weeks
• 55:43
  later and kind of go over all the information with them.
• 55:45
  So that that's been an interesting hat to wear getting
• 55:48
  to kind of meet all these different people and see kind of
• 55:50
  not only their intentions for what they wanted to get out of
• 55:53
  the lab, but kind of where they're coming from in terms of
• 55:55
  their background. What do they know about the lab?
• 55:58
  I mean, there, there have been folks who know absolutely zero.
• 56:02
  And it's me explaining what the graph that they're looking at it
• 56:04
  is even saying. And then there have been some
• 56:06
  people and there was like a 15 year old kid that I did a, an
• 56:09
  assessment with the other day who was like talking about
• 56:13
  biomechanical terms. And it was like, Oh my God, like
• 56:15
  you should be a stop playing already.
• 56:17
  I want you to be a coach to come into it.
• 56:19
  It was, it was genuinely impressive.
• 56:21
  So it's been a really interesting kind of like meeting
• 56:24
  all the the different people and how their like their interests
• 56:28
  in the lab line up with getting that assessment done.
• 56:30
  And then another piece is kind of like helping Chris Lewis, our
• 56:33
  director of analytics kind of with with his team.
• 56:36
  And we have AI think it's 26 student analysts, me and Eric,
• 56:39
  when we first got on board, we gave them a a ton of different
• 56:42
  projects to to work on. We have teams who kind of help
• 56:46
  with the data processing side, super like R&D side of things
• 56:49
  that I have no idea about all the way up to people who will be
• 56:54
  in the lab with us helping us do the, the data capture for, for
• 56:57
  bullpens or, or live BPS or what not.
• 57:00
  So that's been a, a, a pretty interesting experience being
• 57:03
  able to have that team. That's been pretty impressive
• 57:05
  the work that that group does pretty awesome to, to have them
• 57:08
  around as well. And then just any general like
• 57:11
  staff requirements, like any, any, you know, weekly staff
• 57:15
  meetings that we have. We do also like the lab is, is
• 57:19
  kind of an open facility to, to our wake alumni, of course, and
• 57:23
  then any other local pro guys. We have a couple in right now.
• 57:26
  So it's a, it's a, it's a pretty packed day.
• 57:29
  Usually starts with, with some of those pro guys in the
• 57:31
  morning. I'll have a, a zoom with one of
• 57:33
  the lab clients. Then our guys will get in.
• 57:36
  It's more meetings, more plans. And then one of the other pieces
• 57:40
  that's been fun this at the end of this fall is something called
• 57:42
  arm farm with our position players.
• 57:44
  So it's a group of about, I think, 8 position players who
• 57:48
  just, you know, needed a little bit extra attention with some of
• 57:51
  their throwing. And so we've just taken them
• 57:53
  through some of the programming, some honestly some of the
• 57:56
  similar programming that some of our pitchers have done this
• 57:58
  fall. So it's been interesting to see
• 57:59
  kind of the position guys progress and deal with some of
• 58:02
  those train training activities that our pitchers go through.
• 58:05
  But it's it's been a lot of different hats.
• 58:07
  They're they're things that like pop up that like some of the
• 58:10
  recruiting stuff when we have kids on campus, go to meals with
• 58:13
  them, do player dev plans for them a single day for me can can
• 58:16
  take on definitely a few different forms.
• 58:20
  This arm farm, is it really just introducing kind of the player
• 58:25
  development principles that we've seen in pitching for so
• 58:28
  long to position guys that have literally just been given
• 58:31
  baseballs and told to go long toss?
• 58:34
  I think it's a good like succinct way of of saying it.
• 58:38
  Billy Cilento and and Matt Morales are are other assistant
• 58:42
  coach, You know, they have their hands full in the fall, you
• 58:44
  know, with fielding, hitting and throwing.
• 58:46
  And so it's just a little bit of like after the fall.
• 58:49
  Hey, as are these guys could use a little bit like extra
• 58:52
  attention on that side of things.
• 58:54
  So go go do your thing and can you make their arms a little bit
• 58:58
  better in the process? Be a nice little bonus.
• 59:00
  So yeah, it's just been kind of explaining some of the things,
• 59:04
  some of the whys of what we do on the on the pitching side.
• 59:07
  And then yeah, just just running them through.
• 59:09
  I mean, we had them like doing 250 foot long toss from their
• 59:12
  knees the other day. It's, it's cool when guys will
• 59:16
  just kind of like buy into to some of the things and just
• 59:18
  having fun with it really. Awesome.
• 59:21
  And then probably one more question on this side.
• 59:25
  We'll see where things go. I say one more.
• 59:26
  It's never one more. It's always one more after the
• 59:29
  one more and one more after that.
• 59:30
  But what, if any, major differences are you seen in the
• 59:36
  college population that you're working with now compared to the
• 59:40
  pro guys that you had for so long?
• 59:42
  Yeah, it's a it's a good question.
• 59:44
  I mean, here at Wake these guys are supremely talented.
• 59:47
  So that that's pretty similar I'd say.
• 59:50
  My experience in pro ball was for the most part on some of the
• 59:55
  younger side of things, right? Some of the lower level guys,
• 59:58
  some of the newly drafted guys. And so I'd say it's fairly
• 1:00:02
  similar in some sense. I'd say the the older, more
• 1:00:06
  experienced pro guys, they, I mean, they pick things up like
• 1:00:09
  that. It's, it's unbelievable.
• 1:00:11
  You give them like one cue or one little thing and it's it's
• 1:00:14
  done. That curveball, cute, cool.
• 1:00:17
  He's throwing that curveball in the live BP.
• 1:00:19
  Whereas here for, you know, especially some of our freshmen
• 1:00:22
  who are brand new to really any of this stuff, sometimes, you
• 1:00:25
  know, for some of them it's like it might take a little bit,
• 1:00:28
  right? Here's that curveball.
• 1:00:29
  That wasn't even close. Oh, OK.
• 1:00:31
  Then you know, the next bullpen There it is.
• 1:00:33
  He gets into a live BP. It wasn't there yet.
• 1:00:35
  It just takes a little bit more time for for some of these
• 1:00:38
  concepts to to hit with some of these guys.
• 1:00:41
  I'd say it's like the the major thing, but talent wise, I mean,
• 1:00:44
  these these guys are, are pretty up there.
• 1:00:46
  They they still have some of that where they can pick things
• 1:00:48
  up. But it's probably that learning
• 1:00:50
  curve is is the biggest difference between like the
• 1:00:54
  older population of pro ball and what what we see here at Wake?
• 1:00:57
  I assume talent level wasn't going to be the answer given
• 1:01:00
  what you guys have at Wake and what it takes to play in the ACC
• 1:01:04
  these days. I mean let's face it, if you can
• 1:01:06
  compete as a weekend starter or a back end guy in the ACC,
• 1:01:12
  you're probably competing at a low A level or close to it at
• 1:01:17
  this point. Yeah.
• 1:01:19
  I mean, wasn't there like an old adage that the SEC was like AA
• 1:01:22
  ball? I don't know what like AA is a
• 1:01:25
  pretty good is really good. However, yeah, if you're if
• 1:01:30
  you're the Friday night guy here at wake or an SEC school like
• 1:01:34
  making that jump to AA isn't as big of a jump as it used to be.
• 1:01:38
  And I think you know, it's what we preach here to our guys, our
• 1:01:41
  our pitchers. The reason why you want to come
• 1:01:43
  here to wake for us and develop for these three years is you can
• 1:01:46
  skip the mind leagues then right.
• 1:01:47
  Our goal is to have guys after they spend three years here and
• 1:01:50
  get drafted, hopefully in the first round, right, Is, you
• 1:01:54
  know, they're, they're not spending four years at the
• 1:01:56
  complex level as an 18 year old, but they can just kind of
• 1:01:59
  accelerate that process and get the AA, get the AAA and the big
• 1:02:02
  leagues as as quick as possible. You don't want to spend time in
• 1:02:05
  the minor leagues there. There's some fun times, right?
• 1:02:08
  And you know it. It's, it's a job and you get to
• 1:02:11
  experience that life. But at the end of the day, you
• 1:02:14
  want to get to the big leagues as fast as possible.
• 1:02:16
  We have the talent of guys who can do that and so we can just
• 1:02:19
  kind of fine tune them over there.
• 1:02:21
  Three years here at Wake, that's kind of the goal is to just kind
• 1:02:23
  of speed line that that process. And I think this will be our
• 1:02:28
  final shift. I intended this to take a little
• 1:02:32
  bit more time, but now seeing how long we've already been in
• 1:02:35
  conversation, we'll just see how it goes.
• 1:02:37
  The other thing that we're gearing up for, this will serve
• 1:02:40
  as a little bit of marketing hopefully, but we have the Wake
• 1:02:44
  Forest Player Development seminar just a few days away at
• 1:02:48
  this point, really, it's crazy to say that'll be December 12th,
• 1:02:52
  13th, and 14th. I don't know if tickets are
• 1:02:55
  still available, but I'll let you handle all that stuff.
• 1:02:58
  I'd love now for you to kind of just go into what we can expect
• 1:03:02
  this year, how things might be different, how things might be
• 1:03:05
  the same, and maybe certain things you're looking forward
• 1:03:08
  to. I know it's probably hard to
• 1:03:10
  pick one, seeing how you helped put this together.
• 1:03:13
  But with that, I'm just going to push it your way and hope you
• 1:03:16
  can take the reins. Yeah, So tickets are still
• 1:03:19
  available. I should say that we can maybe
• 1:03:22
  post a link or when we when we post on social media for sure.
• 1:03:26
  Yeah, they are still available. Look, it's it's really exciting.
• 1:03:31
  I went to the first one of these back in 2021 when I was with the
• 1:03:34
  Astros. And you can never quite be sure
• 1:03:37
  what you're going to get out of an offseason seminar just
• 1:03:39
  because in our industry, right, they're, you know, coming from
• 1:03:42
  the pro side especially, you can be a little bit of like, OK,
• 1:03:45
  what, what is this person really going to be able to speak about?
• 1:03:48
  I think we've put together a pretty good list of speakers and
• 1:03:51
  some people who might be able to buck that a little bit, whether
• 1:03:54
  their orbs might like that or not.
• 1:03:56
  But I think we do have some like dynamite speakers.
• 1:04:00
  We have some farm directors from the Cubs, former Ashes farm
• 1:04:03
  director with Jacob Buffa now with the the Cardinals.
• 1:04:06
  We got some some different sports involved this year with
• 1:04:10
  the New York Knicks. I remember coming here in 2021
• 1:04:13
  and TJ Bar of the the Bucks spoke and that was a super
• 1:04:18
  interesting like connecting that world.
• 1:04:21
  So really, really excited to kind of have that lens and
• 1:04:24
  things because that was someone who actually worked in pro
• 1:04:26
  baseball and basketball. So being able to kind of connect
• 1:04:29
  those two worlds would be really interesting.
• 1:04:31
  But I, I think that the speaker list is, is really fun.
• 1:04:34
  We're really excited for the panels.
• 1:04:36
  Those are those are pretty big hits every single year.
• 1:04:38
  We've got the college panel, We're excited for those guys,
• 1:04:41
  the big league panel, of course, and then introducing this year
• 1:04:44
  the SNC panel, which is something like we've talked
• 1:04:47
  about here on this call. I'm really passionate about.
• 1:04:49
  I think it's really important to make sure those worlds are
• 1:04:53
  connected. So we're really pumped to have
• 1:04:54
  some of those people on a sieve will be on that.
• 1:04:57
  Brandon Golden, who consults for us here at Wake, was a former
• 1:05:00
  Dodgers guy to Nick Shed, who's the director of SNC performance
• 1:05:04
  for the Red Sox. And then Chris Martin, of
• 1:05:06
  course, the LSCU strength conditioning coach for baseball.
• 1:05:09
  They're really great group of guys.
• 1:05:11
  Super pumped to that. Lance Brosdowski of of Marquee
• 1:05:14
  Sports Network is going to be emceeing the event.
• 1:05:16
  Very thankful for that because I don't think anyone wants to see
• 1:05:20
  me try and run a full weekend seminar up on that stage for all
• 1:05:24
  three days. So really pumped to have Lance.
• 1:05:27
  He's he's bringing them the energy.
• 1:05:28
  It's, it's, it's going to be really great having him kind of
• 1:05:31
  run that stage for the weekend. But yeah, I, I mean, I think we,
• 1:05:34
  we have some interesting people. The IHT performance group are
• 1:05:38
  going to bring some some topics that people are going to be
• 1:05:41
  pretty intrigued about there. You know, there's definitely
• 1:05:45
  some some concepts or some training tools that are are a
• 1:05:48
  little bit out there. So hopefully we've kind of
• 1:05:50
  transversed the full spectrum of like the baseball world, while
• 1:05:55
  also hopefully giving like a good amount of like, you know,
• 1:05:58
  concepts that people can take home with.
• 1:05:59
  And then having you guys with the breakfast on Saturday
• 1:06:02
  morning with the player panel, I think is going to be super
• 1:06:04
  impactful. We were, we were talking about
• 1:06:06
  having a player panel as kind of its own thing early, early on.
• 1:06:10
  So it's really cool to now have it like integrated with the
• 1:06:13
  presentation that you guys are able to bring.
• 1:06:16
  I'm so excited for to have that kind of like new piece this this
• 1:06:19
  year with that breakfast. Hopefully that could turn into
• 1:06:22
  something really cool down the line in the future too.
• 1:06:25
  So, yeah, I, I, I think it's really awesome kind of the, the
• 1:06:28
  different perspectives we'll be able to hear from while also
• 1:06:30
  like having information that people can take home.
• 1:06:33
  And then the, the happy hours. I didn't mention those.
• 1:06:37
  So Friday night will Friday and Saturday night we'll go to a
• 1:06:40
  couple bars in downtown Winston, shoot the shit.
• 1:06:43
  Those are always some of the, the best moments when you can
• 1:06:46
  just kind of be a little bit more casual conversation with
• 1:06:49
  some people. And again, the, the people that
• 1:06:51
  we have attending, I think it's 20 plus orgs already have signed
• 1:06:55
  up. It's going to be a great time
• 1:06:58
  and I'm really excited for people get to get down here.
• 1:07:00
  Winston. It's also like Christmassy time
• 1:07:02
  in downtown. So it's a yeah, the weather is a
• 1:07:05
  little cold. Make sure you have your jacket.
• 1:07:06
  But it it'll be great. I think it's a really like good
• 1:07:10
  weekend to have like baseball centered in Winston Salem.
• 1:07:14
  It it'll be a lot of fun. This is I think our fourth year
• 1:07:19
  being involved. So me and Gavin, who's a member
• 1:07:23
  of our team attended in 2022. I guess it was just as attendees
• 1:07:28
  and like you said, the after hours stuff.
• 1:07:31
  I mean, that's the sole reason we're, or I guess I don't want
• 1:07:34
  to say the sole reason we're at Wake now, but that was our
• 1:07:36
  introduction to Wake Forest. We went to Moose's house at and
• 1:07:41
  I think it was Brandon Golden. Yes, I know it was Brandon
• 1:07:44
  Golden, but Brandon Golden had us set up to do a presentation
• 1:07:48
  in Moose's kitchen at midnight on the Saturday after
• 1:07:52
  presentations and happy hours and all that.
• 1:07:55
  And that that led to a relationship with Wake.
• 1:07:58
  So I mean that that's the kind of stuff that happens at the
• 1:08:01
  seminar, but especially at the like networking side of these
• 1:08:05
  things, you, you end up making relationships with people that
• 1:08:09
  will last. It's not just like a one time
• 1:08:11
  weekend thing. You start to see these people
• 1:08:14
  routinely, you connect with them and the conversations just
• 1:08:17
  continue. Something that I'm super excited
• 1:08:20
  about this year. You mentioned it, so I feel like
• 1:08:23
  I'm just reiterating it now is all of the panels.
• 1:08:26
  I've really liked the development of the panels last
• 1:08:31
  year. They started to become a little
• 1:08:32
  more prevalent with the seminar, but this year to see the
• 1:08:39
  strength coaches, college coaches, pro coaches, and then
• 1:08:43
  it's part of the reason why we wanted to get involved with the
• 1:08:46
  player panel is yes, it's awesome to go so deep on one
• 1:08:52
  person's passion project and have them speak in front of
• 1:08:56
  everyone. But to me, when we get dichotomy
• 1:09:00
  of answers and takes on one specific subject, that's where
• 1:09:04
  people, I feel like really need to put their feet in the ground
• 1:09:08
  and stand strong and what they believe in or be articulate and
• 1:09:11
  quick with what they share to get a message out to the
• 1:09:14
  audience, knowing that it's going to be countered or
• 1:09:17
  supported by someone else that's sitting next to them.
• 1:09:20
  And that is just very representative of how I think
• 1:09:24
  development exists and conversations exist in our
• 1:09:28
  organization as whole. It's seldom that you see someone
• 1:09:31
  given a 45 minute, one hour podium talk where everyone has
• 1:09:37
  to shut up and listen and not refute a thing.
• 1:09:41
  Don't get me wrong, I love every second of that because I I love
• 1:09:44
  hearing what these people are passionate about.
• 1:09:46
  But when you set people up to have a back and forth
• 1:09:50
  conversation and they really might not have a pre-existing
• 1:09:54
  relationship, but with the common goal of making baseball
• 1:09:57
  better or making our industry as a whole better, I get so much
• 1:10:01
  value from those as I'm I'm very excited for those particular
• 1:10:06
  topics. Yeah, to me it's almost a
• 1:10:09
  blending of the happy hours with the the seminar concepts itself,
• 1:10:14
  Ryan. So it just gives you that
• 1:10:15
  environment of a little bit more like comfort and you have the
• 1:10:19
  audience questions, you have the the panelists kind of playing
• 1:10:22
  off of each other. Like you said, it's yeah, it's a
• 1:10:24
  it just kind of creates that environment for potentially who
• 1:10:27
  knows what direction. And Lance has done a good job.
• 1:10:31
  They have some prep stuff with with the panels too, of course.
• 1:10:34
  But I think that's what's kind of exciting is that they can
• 1:10:37
  then take that conversation and playoff of each other and go and
• 1:10:40
  whatever direction that they could.
• 1:10:42
  I I would be remiss too if I didn't mention Chris Lewis would
• 1:10:45
  would hate me for this. But we do have speakers from
• 1:10:48
  from Japan this year as well. The next base company.
• 1:10:51
  Really excited about that. That was kind of Chris's little
• 1:10:54
  passion project this fall to try and go international.
• 1:10:57
  So really excited to have to have a couple of those the
• 1:11:00
  speakers as well. Their their topic should be
• 1:11:02
  pretty interesting. I don't know if I can spell it
• 1:11:05
  out quite yet, unfortunately, but for the pitching people in
• 1:11:08
  the world, it it's it's going to be something you're going to
• 1:11:11
  want to tune into for sure. I was literally about to say
• 1:11:14
  that, so I guess I'm just going to repeat it now.
• 1:11:16
  But yeah, I think it's great that you guys are going to
• 1:11:18
  international this year. It's going to be exciting to see
• 1:11:21
  what's going on in development across the world.
• 1:11:24
  We are fortunate to work with a few groups overseas in Japan and
• 1:11:30
  just understanding the way that development is treated there
• 1:11:34
  versus in the States. Of course, everybody is trying
• 1:11:37
  to be the best player they can, but just the, the different ways
• 1:11:41
  that baseball in baseball training is approached has been
• 1:11:47
  eye opening to me. So yes, I, I guess all that's
• 1:11:50
  left to say now is I'm excited for December 12th to get here.
• 1:11:54
  I'm really excited to converge on Winston Salem with the
• 1:11:59
  greater contingent of the baseball world.
• 1:12:01
  And I think it's going to be even funnier for all the people
• 1:12:04
  that are all together in Orlando just a few days before that for
• 1:12:07
  winter meetings to then make the trek up to North Carolina
• 1:12:11
  together for another incredible weekend of sharing.
• 1:12:15
  But Ezra, I want to thank you so much for the time today.
• 1:12:19
  I know this was a little funky to work it into the schedule,
• 1:12:21
  but I'm glad we were able to with that I guess.
• 1:12:24
  Is there any way people can get in touch with you?
• 1:12:27
  Follow along seminar stuff? I know we talked about getting a
• 1:12:30
  link up but I don't know if there's social medias to plug or
• 1:12:33
  anything like that before I let you go.
• 1:12:35
  Gosh, I am on Twitter and and Instagram.
• 1:12:38
  I actually I probably, I think my Instagram is like Ezra under
• 1:12:42
  score buy and the Twitter is like easy buy 59 or something.
• 1:12:47
  Yeah, I'm on social media. If you search my name, you'll
• 1:12:49
  find my accounts. I don't really post too much,
• 1:12:52
  but yeah, the seminar Wake Forest player development is the
• 1:12:55
  the name of the Twitter account. I'm selfishly like I see all the
• 1:12:58
  names of people who sign up. So I'm selfishly like very
• 1:13:02
  excited to be able to meet a lot of these people who and I hope
• 1:13:05
  Daryl's coming too. But but finally, like meet you
• 1:13:08
  guys in person and like you said, have the baseball world
• 1:13:11
  converge on on Winston is is really exciting.
• 1:13:13
  Yeah, we're we're looking forward to seeing everyone.
• 1:13:15
  I know it's going to be a really awesome weekend and really
• 1:13:19
  appreciate you having me on here.
• 1:13:20
  Adam, this is this is great. It's been awesome working with
• 1:13:22
  you guys and I'm looking forward to to your guys's player panel
• 1:13:26
  on Saturday, December 3rd. Well, thank you very much.
• 1:13:29
  Yes, this was a wonderful conversation.
• 1:13:32
  Looking forward to more and of course, to everyone out there.
• 1:13:35
  We'll see you in Winston Salem. And thanks for laying back with
• 1:13:38
  us.