Latest / Foul Territory / Brent Strom on Injury Territory

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Brent Strom on Injury Territory · Foul Territory

0:05
Speaker 1: Now, Brent, you pitched in this game, and now you've
0:07
Speaker 1: coached for nearly four decades, and you were telling me,
0:11
Speaker 1: now you have the hardest job retirement. When you watch
0:15
Speaker 1: a game, what does a pitcher do?
0:17
Speaker 2: Now?
0:18
Speaker 1: That would have completely surprised the younger version of Brent
0:21
Speaker 1: Strom coming up.
0:24
Speaker 3: Well, I wish I could tell you that I've watched
0:26
Speaker 3: some baseball games. I've kind of divorced myself from watching games.
0:29
Speaker 3: I'll check on people that I'm interested in, that I
0:32
Speaker 3: care for, I'll check on their stats and see how
0:35
Speaker 3: they did the night before, things like that. But I
0:38
Speaker 3: think what I think with the analytics that are going
0:41
Speaker 3: on today's game, I think they were there when I
0:43
Speaker 3: played and when I coached early in my career, but
0:47
Speaker 3: it just wasn't as objectified. I think the I think
0:50
Speaker 3: there was an innate, subjective feeling. I remember remember talking
0:54
Speaker 3: to Tom seaver In when I was a rookie with
0:56
Speaker 3: the Mets, first got called up, and he would he
0:59
Speaker 3: would look at actually look at box scores from the
1:01
Speaker 3: night before or a couple of days before to see
1:04
Speaker 3: if Pete Rose was hot or if Tony Perez was hot.
1:08
Speaker 3: I remember, I quite vividly remember my first game in
1:11
Speaker 3: the Major League. Sever was warming up in the bullpen
1:14
Speaker 3: and and he was throwing the throwing the ball really hard,
1:17
Speaker 3: and you could the corrugated metal at Shay Stadium. You
1:20
Speaker 3: could hear the sound of the ball hit in the
1:21
Speaker 3: grody's glove and it sounded like a bomb was going off.
1:24
Speaker 3: And I remember saying to this stuck with me. I
1:26
Speaker 3: remind you. I said, man, you look like you have
1:28
Speaker 3: a good fastball. And we were playing the Pirates that year,
1:31
Speaker 3: and that was in seventy two, and the Pirates had
1:34
Speaker 3: a really good team. And he said, I'll let Clemente
1:36
Speaker 3: and Stargul tell me if I have a good fastball.
1:38
Speaker 3: And that stuck with me that he was going to
1:41
Speaker 3: let the hitters tell him, and then he was going
1:43
Speaker 3: to just rather than just having a game plan and
1:46
Speaker 3: sticking to it, he was going to he was going
1:48
Speaker 3: to read the read the game early. He was going
1:50
Speaker 3: to read the first inning early, and then determined whether
1:53
Speaker 3: he had a good fastball and he could run with
1:55
Speaker 3: it for a while or if he had to jump
1:57
Speaker 3: ship and go small speed and then come back to it.
1:59
Speaker 3: So that kind of stuck with me. I thought that
2:01
Speaker 3: was that was pretty sharp for back in nineteen seventy two.
2:04
Speaker 1: Absolutely, now you came pitchers like Siever were expected to
2:08
Speaker 1: throw complete games and figure things out themselves. Today every
2:12
Speaker 1: pitch measured and analyzed, and nobody goes a complete game.
2:17
Speaker 1: Has pitching gotten harder or has it gotten actually easier
2:22
Speaker 1: because you're not asked to do everything at once?
2:27
Speaker 3: Well, I think I think the you know, there was something,
2:29
Speaker 3: there's something to be said. I remember Sandy Kofax telling
2:32
Speaker 3: me the greatest feeling that he ever has had as
2:35
Speaker 3: a pitcher was walking off a field after a complete
2:38
Speaker 3: game in a visitors ballpark where he heard deadly silence.
2:43
Speaker 3: And a lot of these pictures today have never experienced
2:45
Speaker 3: shaking hands coming off the mound in their entire career,
2:50
Speaker 3: even in the minor leagues, even with seven inning games
2:52
Speaker 3: and double hitters. And so I think I think the fact,
2:56
Speaker 3: I do think that we have overdone the workload metric.
3:01
Speaker 3: I think pittures are fully capable of doing more than
3:04
Speaker 3: what they're doing now. But but the nature of the
3:06
Speaker 3: game is now, with the investing so much in the
3:08
Speaker 3: relievers and and the third time around, the order has
3:12
Speaker 3: become such a big thing that teams just are are
3:15
Speaker 3: buying into the data to such an extent that the
3:18
Speaker 3: human element has been taken out. I did a study
3:21
Speaker 3: one time. I went back and looked at I looked
3:23
Speaker 3: at the Palmer and Kofax and Spawn and a couple
3:27
Speaker 3: of people, and I found out that the ops buying
3:31
Speaker 3: large the third time around for those guys was better
3:35
Speaker 3: than anybody that was in the bullpen at the time
3:37
Speaker 3: on that given team. And so, uh, you know, yeah,
3:44
Speaker 3: you know, I mean you look at you look at
3:46
Speaker 3: the Dodgers one or the I think it was the
3:48
Speaker 3: Dodgers went with four starters an entire year. I think
3:51
Speaker 3: Oakland had eleven pitchers who went the whole season. It
3:55
Speaker 3: is crazy, and yeah, and no, I asked one time,
3:59
Speaker 3: I asked Nolan, and I said, Nolan, who's the greatest
4:01
Speaker 3: reliever you ever played with on your team? He said myself,
4:05
Speaker 3: He said, you know, two hundred and sixty four complete
4:07
Speaker 3: games or something like that. It's crazy, you know, but
4:12
Speaker 3: today it's five six innings and everybody's excited about that.
4:16
Speaker 3: Then they go to the they go to their plthorrow
4:19
Speaker 3: of heart thrown guys that come in and basically just
4:22
Speaker 3: fill up the zone with ninety six plus, ninety seven
4:25
Speaker 3: plus and stuff has become the game, and it's just
4:30
Speaker 3: the way the game has materialized to this day. Now.
4:33
Speaker 1: You mentioned Tom Seaver doing his warm ups and how
4:36
Speaker 1: impressive that was. I've gotten to see Paul Skeins, who
4:39
Speaker 1: you coached last year, and it's the only time I've
4:42
Speaker 1: ever seen teammates come and stand around and watch a
4:45
Speaker 1: guy warm up. Do you compare those two guys in
4:49
Speaker 1: any way. I mean, they're obviously fifty years apart, but
4:53
Speaker 1: both at the top of their game.
4:56
Speaker 3: Well, you see, teams have done that in the past.
4:58
Speaker 3: A lot of times the starters will them out and
5:01
Speaker 3: the other four starters will come out and watch the
5:02
Speaker 3: guy warm up. It's kind of a team building type thing.
5:06
Speaker 1: But team there were some opponents that watch it.
5:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, may be right. During the season, I never saw
5:15
Speaker 3: the entire team come out because they had to get
5:17
Speaker 3: themselves ready for the game. But I know in spring
5:19
Speaker 3: training watching the Cardinals were one of the first teams
5:22
Speaker 3: to do it. Their entire team would come out and
5:25
Speaker 3: watch Waynwright warm up or himI Garcia or whoever it
5:29
Speaker 3: might be. But Paul has a very unique warm up routine.
5:34
Speaker 3: I think a lot of it has to do with
5:35
Speaker 3: his time at the Air Force Academy. He's very routine oriented.
5:39
Speaker 3: The numbers he does, he does X number of reverse throws,
5:42
Speaker 3: the x number of med ball throws, X number of
5:46
Speaker 3: weighted ball throws, X number of football throws, the whole bit.
5:51
Speaker 3: So it's very routine oriented, and that keeps him grounded.
5:54
Speaker 3: And I think that's a product of his a little
5:57
Speaker 3: bit of a product of his Air Force days. We're where,
6:00
Speaker 3: you know, the bed had to be made, and he's very,
6:03
Speaker 3: very sharp, very impressive young man, tremendous athlete, tremendous, tremendous
6:08
Speaker 3: young man pitcher, teammate. I can't say enough about you.
6:12
Speaker 1: It's amazing. Now, you were one of the earliest Tommy
6:16
Speaker 1: John guys second baseball player, third overall, but you had
6:21
Speaker 1: a few years after. People think it was like the
6:23
Speaker 1: next week, but it was actually I think three years
6:25
Speaker 1: after Tommy had had it. But it got you back
6:30
Speaker 1: looking back, how much of that experience shaped the way
6:32
Speaker 1: that you think about development and patience with pictures.
6:37
Speaker 3: Well, I think one of the big things. I make
6:38
Speaker 3: a joke out of it. You know, if had I
6:41
Speaker 3: been the first, it would be known as BS surgery okay,
6:44
Speaker 3: which may have turned a few people off. I do
6:47
Speaker 3: remember having surgery driving from San Diego is a little
6:51
Speaker 3: bit different back then driving from San Diego on my
6:54
Speaker 3: own up to doctor Curland doctor job in Los Angeles,
6:57
Speaker 3: having the surgery, get in my car and drive it home,
7:00
Speaker 3: so with no protocol or anything, it was just different.
7:03
Speaker 3: Back got back to the minor leagues, never got back
7:05
Speaker 3: to the big leagues. Back when I played, when you
7:08
Speaker 3: were thirty thirty one, there were no Triple A players.
7:11
Speaker 3: Now thirty five year olds are playing Triple A ball,
7:14
Speaker 3: so it's a little bit different. But I think what
7:16
Speaker 3: it did for me was I had been battling arm injuries.
7:19
Speaker 3: Even on the day that I signed with the Meths
7:21
Speaker 3: out of college. I had a huge workload as a
7:25
Speaker 3: young pitcher. Obviously the mechanical movements I made were detrimental
7:29
Speaker 3: to my elbow, and I became on a quest to
7:32
Speaker 3: try and figure out why this happened. And so a
7:34
Speaker 3: lot of the things I did in the interim since
7:37
Speaker 3: that surgery, and especially as a coach, was to see
7:39
Speaker 3: how we could mitigate that a little bit. And it's
7:42
Speaker 3: still an ongoing process trying to figure out why so
7:46
Speaker 3: many elbow injuries, particularly with youth, you know, as you
7:49
Speaker 3: say in and I think with the travel ball, the
7:53
Speaker 3: advent of velocity enhancement, all the different things that go on,
7:57
Speaker 3: I think it's contributed a lot to it. And unfortunately
8:01
Speaker 3: we're in some respects we're ruining the best athletes that
8:05
Speaker 3: we have, usually your shortstop picture catcher type of people.
8:11
Speaker 4: Crouch.
8:11
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8:13
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8:17
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8:20
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8:22
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8:28
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8:30
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9:07
Speaker 1: So you can use it later. Thank you, Seakeek. Exactly exactly,
9:12
Speaker 1: we're talking to Brent Strom. Brent, you did this for
9:15
Speaker 1: for decades. If I followed a pitching coach around for
9:19
Speaker 1: a week, what would surprise me and the listeners most
9:23
Speaker 1: about where the time actually goes?
9:27
Speaker 5: Uh?
9:28
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, a lot of it is done prior to
9:30
Speaker 3: you get out on the field. There's a lot of
9:32
Speaker 3: work done in the in the video room, there are
9:34
Speaker 3: a lot of uh, you know, egos to be massage
9:38
Speaker 3: talked to, conjoled you. I made it a point, I
9:41
Speaker 3: made it. I made a point early to if I
9:44
Speaker 3: pitch you at a bad out in the night before,
9:46
Speaker 3: I would wait till the next day to talk to them.
9:49
Speaker 3: Try and accentuate the positives. This A lot of times
9:52
Speaker 3: this game could be a negative game talked by negative people,
9:55
Speaker 3: and you need to understand that I was kid pee. Well,
10:00
Speaker 3: I said, you know, in Las Vegas, they don't put
10:02
Speaker 3: those odds up by who's playing right field. It's the
10:05
Speaker 3: main guy. They make the odds based on who's on
10:08
Speaker 3: the mound, now, who's on the bump that day. And
10:10
Speaker 3: so he is the most important person. He's the quarterback,
10:13
Speaker 3: he's the point guard. The whole bit in the game
10:16
Speaker 3: really revolves around around him, in that battle between pitcher
10:20
Speaker 3: and the pitcher and the hitter. So a lot of
10:23
Speaker 3: the work goes into simplifying, scattering reports, making them understand
10:28
Speaker 3: what their strengths are, trying to gate the weaknesses. Try
10:33
Speaker 3: not to talk too well about the hitters. I mean,
10:37
Speaker 3: Bob Skinner once taught me when I was talking to
10:39
Speaker 3: a group in Tucson when I was a triple A
10:41
Speaker 3: pitching coach for the Toros and we were playing the
10:44
Speaker 3: Colorado Springs Skysocks, that of Jim Tomey, Manny Ramires that
10:50
Speaker 3: group right there, and I was in Colorado and I
10:54
Speaker 3: was trying to explain to these guys, we can't do this.
10:59
Speaker 3: To Ramirez, you can't do this. To tell me, I
11:01
Speaker 3: got to tap on the shoulder and the lake Bob
11:02
Speaker 3: Skinner former pirate, was a manager. He came up tapping
11:06
Speaker 3: me on the shoulder and he says, you know, I
11:07
Speaker 3: talk to you a second, and he said, I like
11:09
Speaker 3: to tell you something that should stay with you the
11:12
Speaker 3: rest of your coaching career. Do not talk about the
11:15
Speaker 3: opposing hitters in such a way that it just makes
11:18
Speaker 3: them better than they really are. We know Tony Gwynn
11:21
Speaker 3: hit three point fifty. Why can't we be the team
11:23
Speaker 3: that gets him out that other six hundred percent of
11:27
Speaker 3: the time and let the other teams give up the
11:29
Speaker 3: three fifty? So that stuck with me and I think
11:32
Speaker 3: I think that's the biggest thing. Is to accentuate the positives.
11:36
Speaker 3: Try and make the pitcher realize his strengths and to
11:39
Speaker 3: go with his strengths and as much confidence and have
11:42
Speaker 3: to basically have confidence in your ninety mile hour fastball,
11:45
Speaker 3: regardless of if it's good or bad.
11:48
Speaker 1: Makes sense. Now you've become known as one of the
11:50
Speaker 1: great pitch architects. When you inherit a pitcher, what's the
11:55
Speaker 1: first thing you're looking at is mechanics, the pitch movement command.
11:59
Speaker 1: How much do you know we've been looking at you know,
12:02
Speaker 1: teams and even just pictures that have changed their pitch
12:05
Speaker 1: mix year over year. What do you as a pitching
12:08
Speaker 1: coach to look at when you're making those alterations.
12:13
Speaker 3: Well, the first thing you want to do is do
12:15
Speaker 3: no harm. A lot of times you need to not
12:18
Speaker 3: have a one size fits all. I think we all
12:21
Speaker 3: have in our mind what we think the ideal delivery is.
12:25
Speaker 3: I think what we need to realize is that when
12:27
Speaker 3: these young, young pitchers are born, they move a certain way,
12:31
Speaker 3: they throw from a certain arm, angle their torso in
12:34
Speaker 3: their postures in certain position. And when we start tinkering
12:38
Speaker 3: with that because we feel that maybe injury might come
12:42
Speaker 3: up WUD or their lack of lack of horizontal break,
12:45
Speaker 3: vertical break, whatever the case may be, we need to
12:47
Speaker 3: be very reticent about understanding that there are multiple ways
12:52
Speaker 3: to get hitters out, that it's not a one size
12:54
Speaker 3: fits all. Justin very Lander has twenty percent vertical break,
12:59
Speaker 3: Paul Skeins has twelve percent vertical break. That doesn't mean
13:02
Speaker 3: Paul Sciens is any less a pitcher than Justin Verlander.
13:06
Speaker 3: Verar Lander doesn't have schemes, is off speed change up.
13:10
Speaker 3: Let's say so, I think we need to be careful
13:13
Speaker 3: about making too many changes. I think the biggest thing
13:16
Speaker 3: is to communicate with the pitcher, have him tell you
13:19
Speaker 3: how he feels, what he thinks is going on, and
13:22
Speaker 3: don't be demanding and on your way of thinking it's
13:26
Speaker 3: one way or the highway. Kind of meet him halfway
13:28
Speaker 3: and try and figure out concisely what he needs to improve,
13:33
Speaker 3: whether it be first pitch strikes, whether it be utilizing
13:36
Speaker 3: effective velocity. Maybe maybe it's a tweak and grip, a
13:40
Speaker 3: grip movement, you know, pitching ahead and account more often,
13:46
Speaker 3: being able to use off speed behind in the count,
13:48
Speaker 3: throwing off speed in fastball counts, pitching inside, any of
13:53
Speaker 3: these different things. It's kind of like a toolbox, and
13:56
Speaker 3: you pick from your toolboxes to those those few things,
13:59
Speaker 3: not a lot, very few things that you think might
14:02
Speaker 3: help him, and then send him on his way.
14:05
Speaker 1: Makes sense, makes sense obviously if we look at the
14:07
Speaker 1: last twenty years, we got track Man and Hawkeye and
14:10
Speaker 1: biomechanics labs and fourth plates and motion capture and all
14:14
Speaker 1: this data and workload data and more. Which of those
14:17
Speaker 1: tools genuinely changed what you do and which ones are
14:21
Speaker 1: just kind.
14:23
Speaker 4: Of marketing.
14:26
Speaker 3: Well. I think track Man, I think eg Editronic cameras
14:30
Speaker 3: really really enhanced a lot of what we're looking at.
14:33
Speaker 3: Is it happened so fast you and we can't really see,
14:37
Speaker 3: so you can make slight changes. Let's say where you
14:40
Speaker 3: really saw it. The first time I ever saw it
14:42
Speaker 3: is when I saw Red Oberholtzer, a left handed pitcher
14:46
Speaker 3: for me back in the day with Houston, was throwing
14:49
Speaker 3: a curveball, and to my eye it looked pretty good.
14:52
Speaker 3: When I put it on electronic camera, I saw that
14:56
Speaker 3: just at release, rather than maintaining the supernation of the hand,
15:00
Speaker 3: he pronated like a millisecond prior to release, which then
15:05
Speaker 3: impacted the spin rate on the curve ball and made
15:08
Speaker 3: it lazy instead of biting. I would never have seen that.
15:11
Speaker 3: I would have where he was and what we were doing.
15:14
Speaker 3: It looked better, so I thought I was a really
15:16
Speaker 3: good coach and I was patting myself on the back
15:19
Speaker 3: when really it was still a below average breaking ball.
15:22
Speaker 3: But the camera made me realize that that pronation took
15:26
Speaker 3: place a hair early at the critical juncture, right when
15:30
Speaker 3: ball is released off the middle finger, and so the
15:34
Speaker 3: eddratronic was big track Man obviously gave us a whole
15:36
Speaker 3: lot of information, but the big thing I want to
15:39
Speaker 3: be able to make everybody aware of is that I
15:41
Speaker 3: think data is very important, but I think when we
15:45
Speaker 3: chase it too much, I think we can do some
15:47
Speaker 3: harm when we chase data. When we have a guy
15:50
Speaker 3: that has a natural let's say, tailing fastball, and he
15:54
Speaker 3: doesn't have much VB vertical break, and so then we'll
15:58
Speaker 3: alter the arm angle to try and get vertical break,
16:01
Speaker 3: then we're sometimes asking for trouble injury wise, and maybe
16:05
Speaker 3: not hurt them right away, but down the road we
16:08
Speaker 3: may have some issues. So we need to be very
16:10
Speaker 3: aware that that while data is important, it's not the
16:14
Speaker 3: it's not the end all and be all. That we're
16:16
Speaker 3: still dealing with a human being.
16:22
Speaker 4: My dog Bella would do anything for a treat, and
16:25
Speaker 4: I want to give her a treat and that will
16:27
Speaker 4: take care of her long term.
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17:19
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
17:19
Speaker 1: Now you've worked with Hall of famers, cy young Winners, rookies,
17:23
Speaker 1: reclamation projects, after all these years in the game, knowing
17:28
Speaker 1: all those names, you know and yourself, what's the one
17:31
Speaker 1: thing they all have in common? The really great ones?
17:36
Speaker 3: Two things come to mind, And I've always said this
17:39
Speaker 3: clinics I've done. I think the two most important things
17:42
Speaker 3: that the great ones have is an open mindset to
17:46
Speaker 3: continue to learn. And secondly, extreme extreme competitiveness, the wanting
17:53
Speaker 3: to win, compete regardless if you get knocked down, they
17:56
Speaker 3: get back up. But I think those are the two
17:58
Speaker 3: most important things that any athlete could have as an
18:01
Speaker 3: open mindset, not stuck in their own ways. And then
18:04
Speaker 3: extreme competitiveness. We are going to I'm gonna, I'm gonna
18:08
Speaker 3: get after it. I'm going to compete. If I give
18:10
Speaker 3: up a double, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get
18:12
Speaker 3: back on the mound and get back at it again.
18:15
Speaker 3: I give up four runs, that's all, I'm giving up.
18:17
Speaker 3: That kind of thing. I think that's the key to
18:19
Speaker 3: any of the great ones like Brady or or Cofax
18:23
Speaker 3: or or or any of these, any of the players
18:26
Speaker 3: that that compete at the highest level.
18:29
Speaker 1: Amazing. Let's say you and I go to a game
18:31
Speaker 1: in twenty years, what do you think will be different.
18:36
Speaker 3: Well, I don't think I don't. I don't think they'll
18:38
Speaker 3: be umpires. I think they'll be gone. I think it'll
18:40
Speaker 3: be completely automated. I think that. Uh, let's see in
18:45
Speaker 3: twenty years that boy, uh, that's that's a very good question.
18:49
Speaker 3: I hadn't thought about. I think what we'll see is
18:53
Speaker 3: if if there are trends that are taking place, like
18:56
Speaker 3: not enough runs being scored or uh, kind of thing
19:00
Speaker 3: you may see the mound move back slightly. Uh you
19:03
Speaker 3: may see the strike zone shrink a little bit because
19:05
Speaker 3: I think I think the fans want to see runs.
19:08
Speaker 3: It's much like I mean, you watch you watch an
19:11
Speaker 3: NFL football game today, and it's completely the defenses are
19:14
Speaker 3: completely neutralized compared to what they were when I was
19:17
Speaker 3: watching Johnny Unitis throw for the Colts and and Dick
19:21
Speaker 3: Budkis playing linebacker for the Bears. It's completely different game.
19:25
Speaker 3: Or the defensive backs doing the bumping runs and and
19:29
Speaker 3: and just the physicality of it. So I think I
19:31
Speaker 3: think the physicality of the game has changed. You're not
19:34
Speaker 3: going to see Hal McCrae sliding into second base anymore
19:37
Speaker 3: like he did, or or Pete Rose taking out Bud
19:40
Speaker 3: Harrelson in in Shay Stadium. I think you're going to
19:43
Speaker 3: see a much kinder type game that is uh is
19:49
Speaker 3: based on and trying to placate the fans for as
19:53
Speaker 3: much as possible. I think that's where they're because this
19:55
Speaker 3: is basically when you think about it's entertainment, and uh
19:57
Speaker 3: so they're going to do what they can. I don't
19:59
Speaker 3: know how many p people get excited about nothing nothing
20:01
Speaker 3: game anymore. You know what I mean, I'm not sure.
20:05
Speaker 1: If you and me, you.
20:07
Speaker 3: Will there, I agree with I agree with you. That's
20:10
Speaker 3: I enjoy them exactly.
20:13
Speaker 1: Thinking about moving the mound back, I always thought, hey,
20:16
Speaker 1: the pitchers would adjust to it and they just try
20:19
Speaker 1: to throw harder. But the other is, if there's more
20:21
Speaker 1: move more room, it's just going to move more.
20:24
Speaker 3: That sweeper is going to have Yeah, another foot, Yeah
20:27
Speaker 3: it's sweep. Yeah, you're you're exactly right. But it also
20:32
Speaker 3: gives a hitter a little bit more time to make
20:33
Speaker 3: a decision. So there's a lot of things. It's it's like,
20:36
Speaker 3: it's like the question, what is it? What do you
20:38
Speaker 3: think it would be more difficult for a hitter to
20:41
Speaker 3: hit a one hundred mile hour fastball from sixty feet
20:43
Speaker 3: inch six inches or a two hundred mile an hour
20:46
Speaker 3: fastball from one hundred and twenty feet one hundred and
20:48
Speaker 3: twenty one feet. You see what I'm saying to you,
20:50
Speaker 3: You double the distance, double the velocity. Which one's more difficult?
20:54
Speaker 3: If it may if the velocity is maintained, two hundred
20:57
Speaker 3: mile an hour pitch getting to home play, that's going
21:00
Speaker 3: to be pretty difficult. But obviously we know the ball
21:02
Speaker 3: slows down as it gets closer to home plate. I
21:06
Speaker 3: think what I think what troubles me the most is
21:09
Speaker 3: that we don't recognize how truly great the Hank Aarons
21:13
Speaker 3: and the Willie Mayses, Frank Robinson's of their day were.
21:17
Speaker 3: I think the players. You know, we talked about home
21:20
Speaker 3: run hitters that were one hundred and eighty five, one
21:22
Speaker 3: hundred and seventy five, one hundred and ninety pounds max.
21:25
Speaker 3: And now you know, they're bigger, bigger, faster, stronger all
21:28
Speaker 3: the athletes are. But I think the I think the pitching.
21:32
Speaker 3: When I look back at the numbers of the Wilberwoods
21:36
Speaker 3: and the and the innings pitched, it's surprising. When I
21:39
Speaker 3: was at the Pirates last year, they were very cognizant
21:42
Speaker 3: of Paul Skeene's number of innings he's going to pitch.
21:47
Speaker 3: He was twenty two years old, and they wanted to
21:50
Speaker 3: keep it around one hundred and sixty innings. You know
21:52
Speaker 3: what sever threw when he was twenty two, two hundred
21:55
Speaker 3: and seventy to seventy to seventy one something like that, okay,
22:01
Speaker 3: And and he threw over two hundred the lowest you
22:04
Speaker 3: threw for the next ten year period was like forty five.
22:10
Speaker 3: You know, and basically I firmly believe that you train
22:15
Speaker 3: for that, you do it. The reason the reason you
22:18
Speaker 3: you you can do it is because you do it. Okay,
22:22
Speaker 3: the body will accommodate the goals required. If your goal
22:25
Speaker 3: is to is to is to throw two hundred innings,
22:29
Speaker 3: then you become more efficient. Your ability to throw one
22:34
Speaker 3: hundred and twenty pitches plus in a game becomes Just
22:36
Speaker 3: last night, the Giants lost a ballgame because they didn't
22:40
Speaker 3: let Logan Web go out in the ninth inning after
22:43
Speaker 3: ninety five pitches, and they put in a reliever who
22:46
Speaker 3: was going on his third day in a row coming
22:48
Speaker 3: in from Chicago, got into San Francisco at four am
22:51
Speaker 3: in the morning, Brandon Webb. I mean Webb had had
22:56
Speaker 3: a nice night sleep in his own bed the night
22:58
Speaker 3: before in sam Cisco and was fully able to go
23:02
Speaker 3: back out, in my opinion, in a three one game
23:04
Speaker 3: and the Giants end up losing four to three. I mean,
23:07
Speaker 3: that's it becomes a It becomes a thing where you
23:11
Speaker 3: know that this one hundred mile, this one hundred pitch
23:15
Speaker 3: number has become a like at like a brick wall
23:19
Speaker 3: you know, and it's it's just it's just bizarre for me.
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24:23
Speaker 3: Yeah? Really is?
24:24
Speaker 1: I mean you saw firsthand Dusty Baker used to we
24:28
Speaker 1: said he was an armshredding machine when he was with
24:30
Speaker 1: the Cubs and by the time he was with Cincinnati
24:32
Speaker 1: and then again with Houston. Man, I don't think he
24:34
Speaker 1: threw anybody past one hundred and five in the entire
24:36
Speaker 1: time he was there.
24:37
Speaker 3: Oh No, there's a time and a place where you
24:41
Speaker 3: could pick your spots. I think we're Dusty kind of miscalculated.
24:46
Speaker 3: Is with a Mark Pryor who was supposedly supposed to
24:49
Speaker 3: have the perfect mechanics, which now in retrospect we know
24:53
Speaker 3: he did not when he had When he has an
24:58
Speaker 3: eight to one lead, there's no reason for him to
25:00
Speaker 3: have to pitch the ninth. But if it's a three
25:02
Speaker 3: to one lead and you're in the pendent race, you
25:06
Speaker 3: go with your horse. I mean, you go with the
25:08
Speaker 3: horse that got you there. Okay, unless you have a
25:10
Speaker 3: Rivera or somebody like that. I always felt that the
25:16
Speaker 3: number one guy who's on the mound has a better
25:18
Speaker 3: feel for that game than the reliever that comes in
25:21
Speaker 3: and has to find his way through that navigate that
25:24
Speaker 3: first hitter. You know, he's already he's already lathered up,
25:26
Speaker 3: he's already in the heat of the battle. He knows
25:29
Speaker 3: what to expect, and I think the body will accommodate
25:31
Speaker 3: the goal if they have that competitive nature about him.
25:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, I completely agree. I mean years ago I wrote
25:37
Speaker 1: a piece about progressive pitching that just like weightlifting or
25:40
Speaker 1: marathon running, you don't just go out there and run
25:43
Speaker 1: twenty six miles at least most people don't. You build
25:46
Speaker 1: up to it. So if you can throw ninety pitches,
25:48
Speaker 1: can you throw ninety five? Can you throw one hundred
25:50
Speaker 1: and five?
25:52
Speaker 3: Well, the marathon, from what I understand, marathon runners trained
25:55
Speaker 3: by running eighteen miles and then they're twenty six is gravy.
25:59
Speaker 3: I mean, uh, the last couple, you know, the last
26:03
Speaker 3: couple of innings for a starting pitcher are bi maybe
26:06
Speaker 3: maybe the easiest because of the fact that they know
26:09
Speaker 3: they know the manager's not going to leave me out
26:11
Speaker 3: here to die. He's going to come and get me
26:13
Speaker 3: if I get in trouble. But but I have I
26:15
Speaker 3: see the finish line. I see the finish line and nothing,
26:18
Speaker 3: nothing is more satisfying than than walking off the mound
26:22
Speaker 3: in a hostile environment throwing a CG when it's like
26:27
Speaker 3: I said, the Kofax story is embellished by the fact
26:30
Speaker 3: he's in Saint Louis. It's one hundred and ten degrees
26:33
Speaker 3: humidities through the roof. You know, nobody everybody's sweating, but
26:36
Speaker 3: and he's he stays in there and beats the cardinals
26:40
Speaker 3: with the with the waves of the heat showing on
26:43
Speaker 3: the grass. You know, it's it's, it's it's tremendous, you know, tremendous.
26:47
Speaker 1: Probably pitching again, Gibson. Back then you mentioned, yeah, let
26:50
Speaker 1: me finish with this. You've mentioned a ton of great pictures.
26:53
Speaker 1: You've had such a great career. Is there a picture
26:56
Speaker 1: that we probably don't remember that really he was one
27:00
Speaker 1: of those ones that you thought he was either great
27:03
Speaker 1: and we don't remember him, or you thought he was
27:05
Speaker 1: going to be great and something happened.
27:09
Speaker 3: Well, obviously having had pictures like Cole and Kitchele and
27:15
Speaker 3: Verlander and Greenky, Charlie Wharton, that group, Uh, there was
27:21
Speaker 3: one picture that uh that that we came we got
27:24
Speaker 3: him from Colorado and the Mets and completely changed his
27:27
Speaker 3: pitch arsenal and he ended up having a nice little career.
27:30
Speaker 3: It was Colin McHugh who did a nice job for us,
27:34
Speaker 3: you know, by by taking away a sinker and his slider,
27:36
Speaker 3: and we gave him He was a vertical moving type pitcher,
27:39
Speaker 3: and so he threw the fourcing fastball and the curveball.
27:42
Speaker 3: So we basically took home plate and just flipped it
27:44
Speaker 3: on its on its side. Instead of working east and west,
27:47
Speaker 3: we worked north in north and south, and and he
27:49
Speaker 3: ended up winning nineteen games one year, and was was
27:52
Speaker 3: a very very good pitcher. Boy that's had so many
27:57
Speaker 3: good ones, uh that I you should question someone who
28:02
Speaker 3: maybe I thought was going to be good that didn't
28:04
Speaker 3: pan out. I thought Fulton Evitch, who I had, was
28:10
Speaker 3: one hundred mile an hour thrower. I thought might be
28:13
Speaker 3: a little bit better. But then we started to realize
28:15
Speaker 3: the characteristics of his fastball were not what we thought
28:18
Speaker 3: they were. Back then it was straight velocity. He throws hard,
28:22
Speaker 3: so therefore he must be good. And then I've had
28:24
Speaker 3: other pitchers that were throwing ninety one to ninety two
28:27
Speaker 3: miles hour and throwing the ball right by people. So
28:30
Speaker 3: you know, I think the one thing that's very difficult
28:33
Speaker 3: for analysts to decipher is deception, and because they can
28:38
Speaker 3: never and that's why the one pitch that that track
28:42
Speaker 3: man doesn't grade out as well as I think other
28:45
Speaker 3: pitches is the change up because of the fact that
28:48
Speaker 3: it really relies on deception. It's a It's not the
28:52
Speaker 3: movement of the pitch that gets people out, it's the
28:54
Speaker 3: arm speed and then what comes out because I think
28:57
Speaker 3: that's the thing that plays with hitters mind is the
29:00
Speaker 3: most Is that so? And I think I guess I.
29:06
Speaker 1: Think that's the one thing none of us measure. I
29:08
Speaker 1: don't even think hitters have a good handle on it.
29:11
Speaker 1: I was reading an article about Mason Miller and that
29:13
Speaker 1: people said it just seemed even as fast as it is,
29:15
Speaker 1: it seems to jump out of his hand even more.
29:19
Speaker 1: But there have been other pictures that the ball comes
29:22
Speaker 1: from quirky angles. You don't see the ball in turn.
29:25
Speaker 1: Late deceptions the one thing I don't think we have
29:28
Speaker 1: any sort of metric for.
29:30
Speaker 3: No I agree with you, I mean, and I think
29:34
Speaker 3: I firmly believe that if I had a young son,
29:39
Speaker 3: obviously I would try and teach him a change up
29:41
Speaker 3: at a very young age, based on the fact that
29:44
Speaker 3: you don't have to have plus plus fastball to make
29:48
Speaker 3: the change up be it playable, okay, And and hitters
29:53
Speaker 3: are geared for velocity, they will. I remember watching the
29:56
Speaker 3: game when I was at USC I went to a
29:59
Speaker 3: Dodger game, and I went to a Dodger game and
30:03
Speaker 3: Dale Murphy was hitting against Kenny Howe, and Kenny Howe
30:07
Speaker 3: threw a pitch ninety nine miles an hour and threw
30:09
Speaker 3: it by Dale Murphy, and he came back with one
30:11
Speaker 3: hundred and one and Dale Murphy hit a home run
30:14
Speaker 3: down the left field line. So all he did was
30:16
Speaker 3: get his foot down a hare sooner, And so the
30:19
Speaker 3: timing was that morn Spawn had it right. Trying to
30:22
Speaker 3: upset timing is the number one thing that we need
30:24
Speaker 3: to do, and there's been some really great pitchers could
30:29
Speaker 3: really upset some timing.