Latest / The Layback Podcast / The Layback Podcast - Max Bain, 3PD Director of Pitching (Ep. 79)

Transcript

The Layback Podcast - Max Bain, 3PD Director of Pitching (Ep. 79) · The Layback Podcast

• 0:00
  Hey, everyone, welcome back to the Lay Back podcast.
• 0:02
  Joining us today is Max Payne. Max Payne is the director of
• 0:06
  pitching. I believe that's the title at PD
• 0:10
  performance up in Michigan. So this is our second guy from
• 0:13
  three PD. If you guys remember, we had SJ
• 0:16
  Musso not too long ago on the pod and Max, who was talked
• 0:21
  about briefly and teased maybe as having some pretty solid
• 0:25
  stories is now joining us. So hopefully we don't string
• 0:30
  anyone along. I do like to think ahead of
• 0:34
  time. These stories should be pretty
• 0:35
  good. If if they aren't, I think we
• 0:38
  can all just blame SJ. He'll, he'll take all of that
• 0:41
  for us. Has nothing to do with me and
• 0:43
  nothing to do with Max. So I guess SJ, thanks in advance
• 0:46
  for taking the blame for anything that doesn't go right
• 0:48
  today. Regardless, Max, thanks for
• 0:51
  joining us and looking forward to this chat.
• 0:53
  Thank you for having me, I will do my best to not disappoint
• 0:57
  with any of the stories today. For sure.
• 0:58
  I don't know how much of this gets buried in your current
• 1:03
  day-to-day. You're obviously wearing the
• 1:04
  Tennessee Smokies hat. I say obviously it's camo.
• 1:07
  And just with the TS, I don't know how many people really
• 1:10
  recognize TS and think, Oh yeah, of course, Cubs minor league
• 1:14
  affiliate. I know that one right off the
• 1:16
  jump. But yes, you are a former Cubs
• 1:20
  minor leaguer. I don't know if that gets talked
• 1:23
  about too much in your day-to-day now that your life is
• 1:26
  pretty much just trying to help high school, college and the
• 1:30
  occasional pro guy be as good as he can possibly be.
• 1:33
  So I guess the initial part of this is going to be getting to
• 1:36
  pro ball before you got to pro ball.
• 1:39
  I know you were AD 2, dude. Like me.
• 1:41
  I spent time down at Eckerd College.
• 1:43
  I know you're a Northwoods guy. So tell me about life in the
• 1:46
  GLIAC. Yeah.
• 1:47
  So I played there from, I played at Northwood from 2015 to 2019
• 1:52
  and I went in as a guy that was 8082, probably wouldn't get a
• 1:57
  Division Two opportunity today. But I left there as a guy who
• 2:01
  was 88 to 91 and I was starting. So it was probably 86 to 91.
• 2:05
  It had a little bit of pre draft interest as I was leaving
• 2:07
  college from a couple organizations and nothing ended
• 2:11
  up working out. And I think the reason behind
• 2:13
  that is 1, the velocity. But two, the other part of the
• 2:16
  story that I've talked about a little bit in the past, but I
• 2:19
  was 305 lbs. I was a big dude.
• 2:22
  So, you know, I say 86 to 91 just because I fatigued pretty
• 2:25
  easily being that weight, but I wasn't ready for professional
• 2:28
  baseball. And, and looking back, I'm
• 2:29
  thankful I didn't get drafted then.
• 2:31
  And I had a phenomenal time in Northwood.
• 2:33
  Couple conference championships, hosted a regional, was in the
• 2:36
  regional for three years, 3 consecutive years.
• 2:38
  Got to be in that rotation at the end of my career like it
• 2:41
  was, it was a very, very cool experience.
• 2:43
  Probably the most fun I ever had playing the game was at
• 2:45
  Northwood. So left Northwood draft comes
• 2:48
  and goes, don't get my name called and I end up signing a
• 2:51
  contract to play in the US GBL in Utica, MI for the Utica
• 2:55
  Unicorns. So through 20 innings or so
• 2:59
  there struggle with command a little bit.
• 3:01
  I was overhauling the delivery at that league.
• 3:03
  They have a they have a ideology that they apply delivery value
• 3:07
  system. And I was kind of overhauling
• 3:10
  what I was doing with the idea that if I did what they were
• 3:12
  asking me to do that that would help me not only progress, but
• 3:15
  it would also put me at the top of the list to be marketed to
• 3:17
  pro organizations throughout that summer.
• 3:20
  Still struggle. Like I said, command still kind
• 3:22
  of an issue, was still 88 to 92, but I was also a one to two
• 3:27
  inning guy. So you're seeing a lot more
• 3:28
  nineties, 90 ones than you are 80 sevens for that matter.
• 3:32
  I went into that offseason with the idea that I was going to
• 3:35
  give baseball everything I had coming into that summer.
• 3:38
  I had the idea in my mind that I've played enough independent
• 3:41
  baseball, I'm good. Like I don't need to do this any
• 3:43
  or I don't want to do this anymore.
• 3:44
  I want to go play affiliate baseball, so I put everything
• 3:48
  into that offseason that I possibly could, and that's when
• 3:51
  I met the guys here at the building I currently work at.
• 3:53
  So I was doing my throwing through here and I was also
• 3:57
  doing my lifting through Eric Cressy.
• 3:59
  And that's where I really started to get educated on
• 4:03
  everything that was available, which I think I was in the right
• 4:05
  spot at the right time with where access to information was
• 4:08
  and just the exponential increase that we had as
• 4:10
  athletes. Training myself in the morning,
• 4:13
  I'm training guys at night. It is long hours in the gym by
• 4:17
  myself with clients at night. And I end up going from a guy
• 4:20
  that shows you 92 in the fall to showing you 97 in in the spring.
• 4:24
  Part of that had to do with very thankful for my parents.
• 4:27
  They let me live at home. They cooked everything.
• 4:29
  It was all all good food. So the body's changing a little
• 4:32
  bit. I end up signing that winner.
• 4:35
  So this would be 2021 end up signing then or sorry, 2020
• 4:39
  about six weeks before the pandemic hit.
• 4:41
  I'm weighing like 265 at this point.
• 4:43
  I go in for my first mini camp and I look around.
• 4:45
  I'm like, man, I'm still not a good athlete.
• 4:47
  Like these guys are still leaps and bounds ahead of me.
• 4:50
  And if everything that happened of COVID, I think I was thankful
• 4:52
  for the another year to really prepare to play minded League
• 4:55
  Baseball. So we get sent home after Rudy
• 4:57
  Gobert touched the mic and we I spend all summer in this
• 5:01
  building and I think I believe I threw 90 innings in here just
• 5:04
  grinding right, trying to go through that workload that I'm
• 5:07
  probably going to have a high volume the following year.
• 5:09
  I want to train that as best as I can and simulate a season.
• 5:13
  I think going that entire summer without throwing would have been
• 5:15
  a massive mistake as it would have as it pertained to my
• 5:18
  health in the subsequent years, end up getting down to like 235.
• 5:22
  So now I'm, I'm finally feeling like this really, really good
• 5:25
  athlete. And my best friend and I, this
• 5:27
  is right around Thanksgiving of 20 of 2020.
• 5:30
  My best friend and I, hey, you know what, I'm looking for a
• 5:33
  change of scenery. Like I want to go do something
• 5:35
  different. I want to be around the best of
• 5:36
  the best. We end up buying an Airbnb out
• 5:39
  in driveline or in Seattle and train a driveline for five
• 5:42
  weeks. Go there.
• 5:44
  One of my favorite stories from there is I had my first high
• 5:46
  intent day. I threw my first plyo that day
• 5:48
  and I took a driveline record. So I was like, you know what,
• 5:51
  we're just going to turn this into a plyo V load day.
• 5:54
  And I've taken seven of them that day.
• 5:56
  Holy shit. Yeah, yeah.
• 5:58
  So it, that was, that was like my moment at Driveline.
• 6:01
  I had a from the stretch. I threw a blue ball 78, which
• 6:04
  was awesome. That was very, very cool.
• 6:07
  So we're getting close to Christmas and Washington handled
• 6:10
  COVID a little bit differently than other states.
• 6:12
  We believe that Driveline is going to shut down again.
• 6:15
  I'm two months out from my first camp.
• 6:17
  I buy a flight from Washington to Phoenix and I just moved down
• 6:22
  there with the idea that I'm going to go.
• 6:23
  I already had a job lined up at X2.
• 6:25
  I'm just going to start training there and I'm going to meet one
• 6:28
  of the guys. He's going to have an extra
• 6:29
  bedroom and I'll figure it out from there, which is exactly
• 6:31
  what happened. Shout out to Rio Gomez for
• 6:33
  letting me use your spare bedroom.
• 6:34
  So that's kind of when I get involved with Dean Jackson, Eric
• 6:38
  SIM Bauer, all these guys that are training down there at that
• 6:41
  time. So I'm splitting time at X2, I'm
• 6:43
  training at Bauer's Building and throwing live ABS over there,
• 6:45
  and I'm just meeting this whole circle of professional baseball
• 6:49
  players that I had never been exposed to before.
• 6:51
  And I think that really accelerated my development from
• 6:53
  the competitive atmosphere. So I go into my first camp,
• 6:56
  which is 21 and I'm sitting 97 to 99, and it was so empowering
• 7:01
  on the mountain, like the confidence I had to just go in
• 7:04
  and throw and the true belief that nobody was going to touch
• 7:07
  me. That was something I don't know
• 7:09
  that I had ever felt before, and it's one of the best feelings
• 7:12
  I'll I'll ever have. End up getting the opportunity
• 7:14
  to start. I think I was trained to go in
• 7:16
  as a reliever, but when the Chicago Cubs asked you to start
• 7:18
  games, you don't say no. So end up starting games in
• 7:21
  South Bend in 2021 and pitched pretty well.
• 7:24
  I think I had a 4/2 or 4/3 that year, but I don't think that
• 7:27
  tells the whole story because the back half of the year I
• 7:29
  think I had closer to like a 2/5.
• 7:31
  Also, modern baseball ERA doesn't matter, right?
• 7:34
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So should.
• 7:36
  I go pull up your fib. Maybe, maybe that'll be.
• 7:39
  Motel, Go for it. So got the chance to start
• 7:43
  games, logged 100 innings or so then and end up moving back to
• 7:46
  Michigan that following offseason with the idea that I
• 7:49
  was going to do everything I was doing in Arizona and I'm going
• 7:51
  to put myself in a position to go take a AA spot in 22 22 camp
• 7:57
  goes well, end up going to AA or end up going back to high A for
• 8:01
  about 6 weeks where I held, you know, ER as a pointless stat,
• 8:04
  held A2 there for for six weeks, 6-8 weeks.
• 8:08
  And I go to AA. My first start in AA and I got a
• 8:12
  couple teammates that'll vouch for me here, but my first start,
• 8:14
  I come off the mount of my first inning.
• 8:15
  I go, hey guys, like does anybody's ankle feel weird like
• 8:18
  throwing up there? Like is this mound like
• 8:19
  something I need to know about? I sprained my right ankle
• 8:22
  throwing and I don't know if I was just trying too hard, like
• 8:25
  sitting too deep. I, I don't know what I was
• 8:26
  doing, but I sprained my right ankle and I attempted to
• 8:30
  continue to throw on it because in, in affiliate baseball, you
• 8:33
  go on the IL, you don't know if your spot's going to be there
• 8:35
  when you get back. So I threw on it for six weeks.
• 8:39
  I, I'm doing a lot of things differently just because I'm
• 8:41
  compensating from the ground up. I'm walking the house, I'm just
• 8:45
  not throwing. Well, six weeks later we're in
• 8:47
  Biloxi and they're landing spots dugout.
• 8:50
  I sprained my left ankle like I'm Carson Wentz out there.
• 8:54
  I got 2 sprained ankles out there.
• 8:55
  And that's finally when I hit the IL for the first time.
• 8:58
  Once I rehab that they send, they end up sending me back to
• 9:01
  Arizona to go on the devil list. And throughout this entire time,
• 9:04
  I think one of the things that I take with me here is what I went
• 9:07
  through mentally. And the reason I say that is
• 9:10
  because I I was so hard on myself throughout that entire
• 9:14
  kind of overhaul of my body and how I move.
• 9:17
  Just my development as an athlete that during that time, I
• 9:20
  was really just compensating all over the place.
• 9:22
  I never let myself have that. I never cut myself the slack of
• 9:27
  being injured. I always just said, hey, I got
• 9:29
  to figure this out. What am I doing that I'm or what
• 9:31
  am I doing wrong? What's the fix to this?
• 9:33
  And it was like every time I took the mound, I was trying to
• 9:36
  make up for the last five outings.
• 9:38
  And I think I just put myself in a spot where I dug deeper and
• 9:41
  deeper and deeper. Ultimately, I just was, I was
• 9:44
  depressed. Like I wasn't confident when I
• 9:45
  was on the mound. I wasn't having fun outside of
• 9:47
  it. And I think a lot of my
• 9:48
  teammates would probably share the same story from the outside
• 9:51
  looking in. So I went, I went through a lot
• 9:53
  there. And, and I think at the same
• 9:54
  time, really being the first time that I struggled in minor
• 9:57
  League Baseball, I was worried about my job too.
• 10:01
  So I'm out there, I'm not confident.
• 10:02
  I don't believe in my stuff. I'm worried about losing my job.
• 10:05
  I'm worried about all the wrong things, right?
• 10:06
  I'm, I'm worried about the things that I cannot control.
• 10:08
  So so I get sent in the offseason 22 with the idea that
• 10:11
  hey, we need to work on commanding the ball a little bit
• 10:13
  better, obviously, right. I think I walked, I think I
• 10:16
  walked like 32 and 27 innings. Not great kids at home don't do
• 10:20
  that. So come back in 23 and things
• 10:23
  are going pretty well. I have a little shoulder flare
• 10:25
  up right as we're leaving camp. I'm I'm going to go back to
• 10:28
  double AI backed up a couple big league games, which is probably
• 10:31
  the coolest thing I did. And the day we're supposed to or
• 10:34
  the day before we're supposed to leave my shoulders just acting
• 10:36
  up like not good. Now I can hardly play catch like
• 10:39
  no bueno. So I end up getting I end up
• 10:41
  getting held back a little bit and go through that entire rehab
• 10:44
  all like everything's going well, have my flight out to go
• 10:48
  do my rehab assignment in South Bend.
• 10:49
  I wake up that morning. I can't get out of my I can't
• 10:51
  get out of bed because of my back.
• 10:53
  So I'm just battling one thing after the next, right?
• 10:56
  And at this point, they're also telling me like, Hey, you're
• 10:58
  going to need to compete for your job at some point.
• 11:00
  Like this is this is going to have to happen.
• 11:02
  So go through the entire back rehab and my shoulders killing
• 11:05
  me the entire time I'm in rookie ball games.
• 11:07
  And instead of being, you know, even 9496, which is where I kind
• 11:11
  of regressed to as I started games, I'm in rookie ball games
• 11:14
  and I'm sitting like 90 to 93. Like it's not pretty.
• 11:16
  I'm doing everything I can the the Voltaren, the atomic bomb,
• 11:21
  like whatever I need to, to just go out on the mound and throw
• 11:25
  because I'm going to need to compete, compete for my spot.
• 11:28
  And ultimately it was good enough to get sent back to South
• 11:31
  Bend. And I think at that point, maybe
• 11:33
  4 weeks into my stint in South Bend, I kind of realized that
• 11:37
  the end of the road was coming in terms of my job status with
• 11:40
  the team. And that's when I stopped.
• 11:42
  That's kind of when I got out of my head was I finally accepted,
• 11:45
  like, hey, this is going to end, right?
• 11:47
  I'm not who I was or I'm not who they signed.
• 11:50
  And that's OK. I was content with it at that
• 11:53
  point. I'm just going to go have fun
• 11:54
  with this. Like every outing I throw might
• 11:56
  be the last time I throw. You never know if they're going
• 11:57
  to bring somebody up and they just need you to fill the
• 11:59
  innings that night. So I'm just going to go have fun
• 12:01
  with this. Magically started throwing
• 12:03
  better. So I'm still 1993, but I'm
• 12:05
  getting results. I'm in zone.
• 12:07
  I'm not walking guys like I'm I'm heading counts like I'm
• 12:09
  doing all the right things that are correlated with outs.
• 12:11
  So I go to the offseason with the idea that I'm going to throw
• 12:15
  three times a week and get all the inflammation out of my
• 12:17
  shoulder. Do that feeling OK, still taking
• 12:20
  a little bit of Voltaren at the time and I start ramping back
• 12:24
  up, have some bullpens throughout December and I get to
• 12:27
  the point where I can't, I can't throw anymore.
• 12:30
  I come back in after a bullpen and I'm like, I'm struggling to
• 12:32
  throw the ball 50 miles an hour. That was kind of the tipping
• 12:35
  point for me in terms of like, hey, I need to get this looked
• 12:38
  at. It's this whole process of going
• 12:41
  to the team dock and doing the PT and and doing everything that
• 12:44
  you can to stay off the table. I end up getting surgery on my
• 12:47
  shoulder April 8th of 2024 and I was let go shortly before that
• 12:53
  once we'd scheduled the surgery date.
• 12:55
  That kind of that kind of did it.
• 12:57
  And from that point on, I wasn't in a position to say that or I
• 13:00
  wasn't in a position to be an effective professional baseball
• 13:02
  player. So that kind of brought the end
• 13:04
  of my career out. Week after I got the surgery, I
• 13:08
  kind of settled on the idea of not playing anymore.
• 13:11
  I had about a week where, you know, I'm going to get back, I'm
• 13:13
  going to throw 100, I'm going to do all that stuff.
• 13:16
  And then I kind of looked around.
• 13:17
  I go, you know what, I'm turning 27.
• 13:19
  I kind of like being at home with my wife, like being at home
• 13:21
  with a dog. I'm not missing stuff anymore.
• 13:24
  I really enjoyed life at home. So I took the job here as the
• 13:28
  director of pitching with Three PD.
• 13:29
  And from there it's been implementing everything that
• 13:32
  I've learned along the way. And I think one of the things
• 13:35
  that happens a lot of times with, with guys who have played
• 13:38
  pro ball is they implement a lot of things that work for them.
• 13:42
  And I think what's different about me is I looked around like
• 13:44
  I observed all the time while I was playing and I, and I went
• 13:48
  through a lot of the development strategies as well.
• 13:50
  But there are things that I teach that didn't work for me.
• 13:52
  And I value that so much because I saw it work for other guys.
• 13:55
  And I, I attest that to, you know, maybe I wasn't as
• 13:59
  confident as I needed to be to implement it correctly, or maybe
• 14:02
  I was just hurt at the time or whatever it may be, but I saw it
• 14:05
  work for so many other guys. Why would I not give these guys
• 14:08
  the opportunity? Why would I not give them the
• 14:10
  resources to help them progress their own careers, even if it
• 14:13
  didn't work for me? And that gets us to the point of
• 14:16
  now picking apart the story. So thank you for getting us to
• 14:20
  where we are now. I love the timeline.
• 14:22
  And of course, there's going to be a ton of questions flying
• 14:25
  your way. First and foremost, we are
• 14:28
  loosely, loosely, loosely connected on when the world shut
• 14:32
  down from Rudy Gobert touching the mic.
• 14:34
  I actually was coaching against Northwood in a college baseball
• 14:40
  game the night that college baseball got shut down.
• 14:43
  So we might not have been in the same location, but I was
• 14:48
  coaching against Northwood, so roughly the same thing.
• 14:50
  We were hosting Northwood while they were on their spring break
• 14:54
  down in Saint Pete, Florida. I was coaching D2 ball at Eckerd
• 14:57
  College and I believe it was Thursday, March 13th.
• 15:00
  We were playing a Thursday game. Just the way things worked out
• 15:03
  when you're when you're hosting spring break games and the world
• 15:08
  came crashing down on us. We're meeting with the coaches
• 15:11
  across the field and like guys like if we don't start right
• 15:14
  now, we might not be able to play and we don't even know if
• 15:17
  we're going to play another game for the rest of the year.
• 15:19
  So it turned into impromptu senior night right there against
• 15:24
  Northwood. It was really cool.
• 15:25
  It was an awesome experience to share with those dudes.
• 15:28
  But of course, like nobody really knew what to do.
• 15:30
  So we didn't even shake hands after the game.
• 15:32
  It was just like a wave to the opposite dugout and saying thank
• 15:36
  you. So yeah, that's that's my quick
• 15:39
  Northwest. That's crazy.
• 15:41
  Yes. Yeah.
• 15:42
  And then while you were going through that, I was also trying
• 15:45
  to do a quick dive to see if we ever overlap playing against
• 15:48
  each other, knowing where you're from.
• 15:50
  I know I'm a little bit older than you.
• 15:51
  I'm 32 now. I was my freshman year of
• 15:55
  college. Freshman fall was 2012.
• 15:58
  It's funny, like the little things you dig up.
• 16:00
  I saw you, you grew up playing for the South Oakland A's When I
• 16:04
  was when I was a kid playing travel ball.
• 16:06
  I swear all our toughest games were against the South Oakland
• 16:09
  A's. Granted, age groups a little bit
• 16:11
  different. Who knows the kids that they're
• 16:13
  playing when they're 12 years old or whatever.
• 16:16
  But I, I wish, I wish you had a list where you could read off
• 16:20
  where all these kids went that I used to compete against.
• 16:22
  Not going to make you do that on.
• 16:23
  Air right now. That was like the Brett Sundae,
• 16:27
  Greg Fetus, that era South Oakland A's.
• 16:30
  Like those guys were Ballers and that's who I grew up like.
• 16:33
  We go to the building, we see those guys get their work in.
• 16:35
  That's the guy you stop and watch.
• 16:36
  Well, that makes me happy to hear that those kids were
• 16:40
  actually good in your eyes, because I remember playing
• 16:42
  against them in every single weekend.
• 16:44
  It was a battle. We had to look at our pool play
• 16:46
  and be like, oh, we're playing them again.
• 16:47
  Who would have thought? But.
• 16:48
  Funny enough, they both went on to play for the Oakland A's.
• 16:52
  That's actually comical. I need to go back and look at
• 16:55
  these guys now. I'm keep, we're going to put a
• 16:57
  tab in this and I'm going to come back for some offline
• 17:00
  questions because I now need to do some digging and talk to some
• 17:04
  of my old buddies from junior high and stuff.
• 17:07
  But yeah, All right, so in your, in your process, you, you went
• 17:12
  to the USPBL. This probably isn't where you
• 17:16
  expected to have a lot of questions coming at you.
• 17:18
  But I also was offered a USPBL contract at one point.
• 17:22
  That's where I was kind of at my weird purgatory spot in my
• 17:26
  baseball career of whether I was going to continue or not, and I
• 17:30
  thought the USPBL provided a really solid ground to do that.
• 17:35
  I just never got to a point where I was healthy enough where
• 17:38
  I thought I could go beyond the USPBL.
• 17:41
  So ultimately I called it quits instead of going forward and
• 17:45
  just being like a replacement level dude.
• 17:46
  That wasn't my goal coming back from shoulder injury.
• 17:49
  But you're there. You got to experience it as a
• 17:52
  pitcher. You got to experience DVS and
• 17:55
  probably the height of Justin Oren Duff and the whole system.
• 17:59
  How did you feel about trying to take on I'm, I'm probably going
• 18:04
  to bastardize this, but the old school style of pitching, How
• 18:08
  did that, how was that implemented in your career?
• 18:11
  Because I know that's that's kind of the goal.
• 18:13
  Take these guys like the Sandy Koufax's, the Nolan Ryan's, the
• 18:17
  big leg kicks, generate as much momentum as possible and get
• 18:21
  down the mound super efficiently.
• 18:23
  Now of course, efficiently means something different to
• 18:26
  everybody, but they have their own particular score.
• 18:29
  How did you take that on? Did you feel good about it?
• 18:32
  Did it fit with your style and who you were at the time?
• 18:35
  You know, I, I don't know that I knew any better at the time.
• 18:38
  So I took it on believing that, hey, these people have great
• 18:42
  intent with what they're trying to do.
• 18:43
  And I've always appreciated that about DVSI think when you put
• 18:46
  guys in a position to be healthy long term, I, I, I appreciate
• 18:51
  the intent of which they're going about it.
• 18:53
  Now, looking back, there are some things biomechanically that
• 18:55
  I probably disagree on in terms of what what they teach versus
• 18:59
  what I teach. And that's going to happen
• 19:01
  anywhere in the baseball industry.
• 19:02
  That's not saying that they're wrong or I'm right or, you know,
• 19:04
  whatever. But I, I really embraced it
• 19:06
  because there was quantitative feedback and they, they were
• 19:09
  able to dial this down to 1 number in terms of valuing your
• 19:12
  DVS score. Now, they posted it every week.
• 19:15
  So I think a lot of guys use that as a way to kind of measure
• 19:17
  their progress and how they were moving.
• 19:19
  Now do I? Do I personally like the idea of
• 19:24
  the boiling it down to 1 number for every guy?
• 19:26
  No. Yeah, I think I appreciate it
• 19:29
  because I didn't know any better at the time.
• 19:30
  Knowing what I know now, I think there's different anatomical
• 19:34
  pros and cons of every guy and they're all going to move a
• 19:37
  little bit differently. Putting everybody in this one
• 19:40
  scale or boxing them into this one approach.
• 19:43
  I don't know that that we can unequivocally say that that
• 19:46
  leads to long term health for more guys.
• 19:48
  Now that may be correlated with it, but it all depends on who
• 19:50
  your subset of athletes are going to be as well.
• 19:53
  So I think that league, if you had the freedom to explore your
• 19:56
  own ideologies there and kind of implement your own process
• 20:00
  there, I think that league is phenomenal.
• 20:03
  It's a phenomenal spot for mixing the training environment
• 20:06
  with. Having the game atmosphere as
• 20:08
  well, you're not traveling, you're playing three to four
• 20:11
  games a week, so you're going to throw once or twice tops.
• 20:14
  And it's kind of a way to mitigate the workload that comes
• 20:16
  in pro ball. So that I'm sure there could be
• 20:18
  arguments for whether that prepares you for pro ball or
• 20:20
  not. But in terms of what they're
• 20:22
  trying to accomplish with a development league, I think it's
• 20:25
  perfect for what they're trying to do.
• 20:26
  You mentioned your observatory qualities and how much just
• 20:31
  sitting and watching impacted who you are now.
• 20:34
  What were things then from the US PBL that you feel like you
• 20:39
  have implemented? Was it just trying to give guys
• 20:43
  objective feedback? Was that maybe even the first
• 20:47
  time that objectivity became a key part of assessments for you?
• 20:51
  Yeah, I think that's one of the big things that I like about my
• 20:54
  job now. And one of the things I like
• 20:56
  giving to guys is just objective feedback.
• 20:58
  Now, I believe what we do goes far beyond objectivity.
• 21:02
  I think there's a lot more subjectivity into this process
• 21:05
  and developing guys then and maybe others realize.
• 21:07
  But I do think athletes, especially now, really
• 21:10
  appreciate objectivity. One of the things I heard from
• 21:14
  Cal Bodi was talking out on a podcast about that.
• 21:16
  I think it was a driveline or it was Beth Lips and Nerd.
• 21:19
  I can't remember exactly which one it was, but he talked about
• 21:22
  how gamifying this process is so big for kids.
• 21:26
  It can be so big for kids because their whole life has
• 21:28
  been surrounded by data, right? Whether it's video games and
• 21:31
  it's Call of Duty, it's the kill death ratio or everything that
• 21:34
  they do is gamified. So why wouldn't we take the same
• 21:38
  approach with kind of teaching them the numbers that matter
• 21:41
  along the way, right? Or showing them angles or or VB
• 21:45
  or whatever it may be, spin efficiency.
• 21:47
  So I think having that objective feedback is massive for the next
• 21:51
  wave of athletes. I like that you mentioned the
• 21:53
  subjectivity side along with objectivity.
• 21:58
  Objectivity is great because it provides the information.
• 22:01
  It provides the data in probably the nitty gritty details, but
• 22:05
  what are details if you don't have the filler that comes with
• 22:09
  it, the bridge from detail to detail.
• 22:12
  And that's where the subjective comes into play.
• 22:15
  And that's why I, I know this is starting to change the nature of
• 22:19
  the discussion a little bit, but sometimes that's probably a
• 22:22
  struggle of remote training for a lot of guys because you don't
• 22:26
  get to talk about this objective or talk about the field quite as
• 22:29
  much. I don't know if you experienced
• 22:31
  that much, whether it was in your career development as a
• 22:34
  player or even what you're doing now.
• 22:36
  But sometimes I feel when you're working remotely with a guy, it
• 22:40
  becomes so easy to just rely on the hard information.
• 22:44
  What you're seeing on video, what you're seeing on a recorded
• 22:47
  track, man plot or what have you.
• 22:50
  Versus being in the trenches with someone and talking about
• 22:53
  what you're feeling and trying to relate it to something in
• 22:57
  going through motions as you're just trying to progress.
• 23:00
  If you want to talk about that specific concept in your
• 23:04
  coaching career, or maybe if you dealt with that at times while
• 23:07
  you were playing, because you obviously went everywhere across
• 23:11
  the States to try to be as good as you could be.
• 23:14
  And I'm sure at times that meant trying to piece together
• 23:17
  information from different places when not everyone is
• 23:20
  seeing you at all times or has the full complete story.
• 23:24
  Right. Yeah, absolutely.
• 23:25
  And I think you're absorbing different opinions, but it's
• 23:28
  almost like you're trying to build more knowledge in certain
• 23:31
  areas or certain subjects of the of the development.
• 23:33
  So you're trying to form your own opinion on it based on what
• 23:36
  you know. And I think tying this back in
• 23:38
  the remote training as well, the way I go about things is very
• 23:41
  much quality over quantity. I would rather obviously the
• 23:44
  business under this, but I'd rather charge more and have less
• 23:46
  athletes than charge less and have more athletes.
• 23:48
  But when guys commit to work with me, I take pride in that.
• 23:51
  I guess furthermore, because I believe that I do my best work
• 23:54
  with the guys that are high level high school guys or high
• 23:57
  level college arms you're pro guys.
• 23:59
  I think that's where I do my best work personally.
• 24:01
  So when it comes to remote training, I agree.
• 24:03
  I think it's really hard to learn the individual, learn
• 24:06
  their habits or their kind of their personality, if you will.
• 24:09
  And, and how to coach them when they're not there.
• 24:11
  I don't think it's impossible though.
• 24:13
  And I guess bringing this all together, it's I don't have 60
• 24:17
  remote athletes. That's not how I do things.
• 24:19
  I don't have 100 remote athletes.
• 24:21
  Every guy that I work with is going to spend on, if they're
• 24:24
  going to spend time on site, they're going to spend a little
• 24:26
  bit of time remote. And I got to fill the gaps,
• 24:29
  right. So when my college guys go back
• 24:30
  to school here, I'm going to be in contact with those guys 234
• 24:34
  times a week to make sure that they're one, they're staying on
• 24:37
  top of their stuff. 2, they're communicating anything new that
• 24:39
  they're learning. 3, clarifying some of the ideas that they're
• 24:42
  hearing, whatever, whatever it may be, I want to make sure that
• 24:45
  I'm there for those guys. I tell them all like, Hey, man,
• 24:47
  you like, you have a, you have a fun Saturday night and you don't
• 24:49
  have a ride home, like call me like I, I will be there for you.
• 24:52
  But that's, that's the type of guy I want to be for, for, for
• 24:55
  these athletes because I care about them, you know, and I
• 24:58
  don't think I can say that and then also take 150 guys.
• 25:02
  I I I think the the the quality over quantity approach is very
• 25:05
  much where I like to stick, just because I know how thorough the
• 25:08
  process needs to be to reach just one individual.
• 25:11
  I do want to go back and talk about your time, I guess not
• 25:15
  just at Driveline, but the time you also spent with Bauer and
• 25:21
  Dean Jackson and X2. I'm assuming Luke Haggerty was
• 25:25
  in there if you're talking X2, so some complete Mavericks of
• 25:29
  the industry. Because when you were doing
• 25:31
  driveline, you talk about 2019-2020.
• 25:36
  At that point, weighted balls were the scariest thing on the
• 25:39
  planet to half the population. And then you're joining up with
• 25:44
  the leaders of that posse in Arizona with Dean Jackson and
• 25:48
  Trevor Bauer and obviously Eric SIM.
• 25:51
  But this crew of I guess vigilantes for as far as
• 25:56
  baseball is concerned, guys just bucking the system and obviously
• 26:00
  Luke Haggerty just kind of like rewriting the way things are
• 26:03
  done making a baseball career as a 40 year old throwing 98 plus.
• 26:08
  I mean, you were you were with some intense different dudes.
• 26:13
  So I I'd love now for you to talk about things that you
• 26:16
  picked from those guys along the way.
• 26:18
  You know, it's funny because Luke was at that mini camp that
• 26:22
  I was at in 20 or 2020 when I signed and you know, you have
• 26:26
  all these mindedly guys walking around, then you got Luke
• 26:28
  walking around and I'm sure you've been around Luke.
• 26:30
  He's 68250 or 260 probably of just big frame, wide shoulders,
• 26:37
  like he looks like the director of strength walking around
• 26:40
  there. So I, I knew who he was, but I
• 26:42
  didn't know who he was at that time.
• 26:44
  So when late 2020 happened and I, and I bought and I get this
• 26:48
  flight out there, I just messaged with Luke.
• 26:50
  I'm like, hey, man, like, do you need another throwing trainer?
• 26:52
  And sure enough, and thank goodness because I, I loved
• 26:54
  every minute I had around Luke. And the guy's full of stories
• 26:57
  and in his career arc is, is special as well.
• 27:01
  So getting around these guys, I think the one thing I learned
• 27:05
  the most was it's hard to boil it down to one thing, the
• 27:08
  borderline. No, that's not the right word.
• 27:12
  The I coin it blind confidence. The blind confidence that these
• 27:16
  dudes had was incredible. The the idea that Eric might tag
• 27:20
  you for, for a base hit, right? But he's not going to do it
• 27:23
  again, right? I've been doing this too long
• 27:26
  and I've had too much success to believe that one hits going to
• 27:28
  define that or two hits even. There's no chance that guy's
• 27:31
  going to get me again. And just the way these guys went
• 27:34
  about their business, you know, it didn't matter if it took
• 27:36
  three or six hours for a training day.
• 27:39
  They were going to do it as intently as they could.
• 27:41
  Every Rep meant everything. There was never a box to check.
• 27:44
  It was how can I do this to the best of my ability?
• 27:47
  And I think that's one thing that really helped me find out
• 27:51
  how good I could be because at the end of the day, one of the,
• 27:53
  you know, gosh, what what's his name?
• 27:56
  I'm blanking on his name right now.
• 27:57
  He's with the Casey Weathers. The the how the how good of my
• 28:01
  video. That was one thing that
• 28:03
  resonated with me as I'm going through that first season like
• 28:06
  that, that became my favorite video ever.
• 28:09
  And because at the end of the day, it's all about honesty.
• 28:11
  I think when you ask adults when they look back at their career,
• 28:14
  whether they played Lowe or they played in the big leagues for 10
• 28:17
  years, they're not going to say, oh, you know what, I reached my
• 28:20
  goal of being a big leaguer. It's no, I figured out what I
• 28:22
  was capable of, right? It probably didn't matter what
• 28:24
  jersey you're, what jersey you're wearing might if you're
• 28:27
  making 7 or 10 figures. But it's it's about the honesty
• 28:32
  of how good you can be and wherever that lands you is
• 28:34
  wherever it lands you. And I think that's something I
• 28:36
  wish I would have probably stuck to a little bit long, you know,
• 28:41
  a little bit better, especially throughout 22 and 23.
• 28:44
  But I was all about that idea while I was down there in 2021.
• 28:47
  And maybe success played a role in that.
• 28:49
  But I really just cared about being as good as I could
• 28:52
  possibly be. And I think that came from being
• 28:54
  around those guys. It's just this never ending
• 28:57
  pursuit of could I do this better?
• 29:00
  Could I do more weight? Could I throw this harder?
• 29:02
  Is there a different cue I could try?
• 29:04
  It was this never ending pursuit of getting better.
• 29:08
  And I thought that was the coolest thing.
• 29:10
  I'm going to take your initial phrasing and maybe progress it a
• 29:14
  step further too. So from the outside, I totally
• 29:18
  agree with you that it looks like blind confidence because
• 29:21
  from the outside we don't see the work that goes in.
• 29:25
  So you look at these individuals like he's arrogant, like why?
• 29:29
  Why does he think he's so good? And then if you get the weeds
• 29:33
  in, look at the six hour training days and look at the
• 29:37
  effort that goes into cooking, eating, recovery, mobility,
• 29:43
  throwing intentionality in every single aspect of the game.
• 29:49
  Not just being on the mound and trying to kick a guy or not just
• 29:52
  trying to, I don't know, pull down 100 mph plus and whatever,
• 29:57
  lift heavy weights. Like there's so much more to it
• 29:59
  than that. Those guys checked every single
• 30:02
  box. And it sounds like you were
• 30:03
  adopted into that fraternity in a sense that the confidence
• 30:08
  shifts from blind to 100% earned, whether people see it or
• 30:13
  not. That's you.
• 30:14
  Yeah. That's fair.
• 30:16
  Yeah, if you know that you did every single thing you could,
• 30:19
  like you said the Casey Weathers video, you have earned every bit
• 30:24
  of belief that you have in yourself at that point, whether
• 30:27
  it results in outs or not. I mean, you know, you put in the
• 30:30
  work and nobody can take that away from you.
• 30:32
  It's funny now that you say that I'm, I'm tracing this back in my
• 30:35
  head and I got asked on a podcast in 2021 before my first
• 30:39
  camp if I had any superstitions or anything like that.
• 30:43
  And I responded with no. And then I hated superstitions
• 30:46
  because they're a substitute for the work, right?
• 30:49
  If you if you need something that if you need to put your
• 30:51
  left cleat on 1st to go believe in yourself, then brother,
• 30:53
  you've been skipping dots and like you've been skipping things
• 30:55
  in the process, right? You do every if you do every
• 31:00
  single Rep everything with your best intention, whether it's a
• 31:03
  bullpen Rep, a touch and feel Rep or a hip 9090, right?
• 31:07
  If you do everything with your best intent, then there's no
• 31:09
  reason you shouldn't feel confident while you're out
• 31:11
  there, right? I think you earn yeah, I coin it
• 31:14
  blind confidence, but you earn that, right?
• 31:16
  You, you earn the opportunity. You earn the right to have that
• 31:19
  via the training, via the training days, right?
• 31:22
  And the consistency that you show within them.
• 31:25
  Now continuing the theme that we've kind of unintentionally
• 31:28
  got on of tell the story, come back to it and then apply it to
• 31:33
  daily life. Now, how are you taking that and
• 31:37
  preaching that to your guys? Because it's one thing to just
• 31:40
  tell a 17 year old or a 22 year old, you need to check every
• 31:45
  single box if you really want to be as good as you can be.
• 31:49
  But then it's a completely different thing for that kid to
• 31:52
  see it or grasp it or apply it to their actual career.
• 31:57
  So are there certain things that you've been able to do to better
• 32:02
  communicate that? It's, it's tough think I think
• 32:07
  of the private sector, you're going to have those guys no
• 32:09
  matter where you're at, right? That, that pay for the results
• 32:12
  instead of the paying for the process.
• 32:13
  But what I do is I, I give my guys so much, I give them a ton.
• 32:18
  And not that doesn't mean that they're in here for six hours a
• 32:20
  day, but I, I expose them to a lot of the resources.
• 32:23
  I expose them to pre throw movement prep, throwing prep,
• 32:26
  plyos, throwing the lifts, the post throw, the flex pro, like
• 32:30
  I, I give them everything that I can and they're all under the
• 32:34
  impression we have this talk before they start.
• 32:36
  Like this is a 8020 equation, right?
• 32:38
  This is 20% me and I'm going to do my best with that and I'm and
• 32:41
  I'm going to kill it. And that's because that's what
• 32:43
  all of my time goes into is making sure that your program is
• 32:46
  dialed right and, and everything in that is, is driven by what's
• 32:51
  going to make you better. 80% of this is going to be you, right?
• 32:55
  You, the athlete, and you got to do everything with your best
• 32:58
  intention. And you have to stack those
• 33:00
  days, whether it's a red day, Green Day or whatever it may be.
• 33:04
  And a lot every guy just, yeah, for sure.
• 33:06
  And you're going to have have your guys who do it and you're
• 33:09
  going to have you guys who don't.
• 33:11
  The hard thing I've learned about communicating this is that
• 33:14
  I think some of the most valuable life lessons, this
• 33:17
  being one of them, are learned via experience.
• 33:20
  And it's not something that I can tell them.
• 33:22
  I have a subset of athletes that I have to let fail, right?
• 33:26
  I have to give them the opportunity to fail And, and
• 33:29
  what that looks like probably what you're thinking, right?
• 33:31
  The, the number on the below board doesn't show up the way
• 33:33
  they want it to, right? So I have to give them that
• 33:36
  block. I have to burn that time letting
• 33:38
  them fail before I can really kind of get through to them
• 33:41
  like, hey, this is what it's going to take, right?
• 33:44
  And, and during that time, you're kind of keeping a loose
• 33:47
  log of like, OK, well, this guy's bang 3 lifts in the last
• 33:50
  two weeks. And the ones he did do, maybe
• 33:52
  you did two of the Super sets, any bang C&D blocks, but you
• 33:56
  kind of reference that when it when it's time to communicate
• 33:58
  it, that's what you reference, right?
• 34:00
  Hey, we're not taking pre throw seriously.
• 34:02
  We're not doing the lifts and we're just expecting all these,
• 34:05
  all these tweaks or fixes to come from mechanical side,
• 34:09
  right? And that's not going to be the
• 34:11
  case. I think far more often than not,
• 34:13
  especially when you talk about your, you know, your group of
• 34:16
  high performers, a mechanical tweak is not going to bring the,
• 34:20
  the dividends that the, the weight room and three meals a
• 34:25
  day will, right? The, the, the largest return is
• 34:28
  going to be on dominating the weight room and dominating your
• 34:30
  nutrition and dominating your sleep, right?
• 34:33
  We can get your arm on time. I'm not worried about that, but
• 34:36
  that's also not going to take you from 93 to 98.
• 34:38
  You being 62225 instead of 62180 is going to do it.
• 34:42
  I think that's a really good point when you when you just
• 34:44
  think about low hanging fruit because everybody wants to pay,
• 34:48
  as you said, for the fix. They want to pay for the result,
• 34:52
  not pay for the process. And I forget who told me this
• 34:57
  and I, I struggle with the word mentor because everybody kind of
• 35:02
  tosses that around. I feel like that's the fun kind
• 35:04
  of bad word to say right now is like identify your mentors and
• 35:10
  follow them. But so much of the training
• 35:13
  space I think has these mentor ask people and those are the
• 35:17
  ones that are able to get the best out of their clientele.
• 35:21
  Whether it's being able to communicate the best, whether
• 35:25
  it's being able to actually demonstrate the lifestyle in the
• 35:30
  bring it every single day. Because ultimately, I mean, most
• 35:34
  of these kids who are playing ball spend more time with their
• 35:39
  coaches than they do anybody else in their life for for like
• 35:44
  at least that dedicated amount of time.
• 35:46
  Is there anybody else that they are spending three hours of
• 35:50
  their time with just 100% dedicated to that individual in
• 35:54
  a certain day? No, because they have a
• 35:56
  different teacher for every single class.
• 35:58
  The the chances that you're talking with your parent for
• 36:01
  three hours straight any given day is, yeah.
• 36:05
  I mean, that's slim to none, really.
• 36:07
  The coaches and the people that you surround yourself with for
• 36:10
  the things you care about most are ultimately going to have the
• 36:13
  most influence. So I'm sure that's a tough
• 36:15
  burden to juggle as a coach or as a mentor, but it does require
• 36:21
  you to bring it every single day.
• 36:23
  Yeah, and I think to the what I value in this job is not only
• 36:28
  making good pitchers, right? It's not about making good
• 36:30
  pitchers. That's a nice benefit of what we
• 36:33
  do in the framework that we've built.
• 36:35
  But I value the idea of creating good human beings as well,
• 36:38
  right? I value the relationships I
• 36:40
  create with my clients. I had a client text me, I tell
• 36:42
  the story all the time and he's going to hate me for telling me
• 36:45
  this because he's going to know exactly who he is.
• 36:47
  I had a client text me early February on a Saturday night at
• 36:50
  11:00. And this kids a power forearm
• 36:53
  like he is. He's very, very good.
• 36:56
  He goes just out of the blue he goes, my girlfriend just dumped
• 36:59
  me and I'm like, this is so weird that he's texting me this
• 37:03
  it's Saturday night at 11:00. And then I sat on it for 5
• 37:06
  minutes and I go you know what, like this kid thought to bring
• 37:09
  that to me. And I think that was a really
• 37:11
  like, I was a good representation, although I
• 37:13
  didn't want him to get dumped. I thought that was a good
• 37:15
  representation of the things that he trusted to bring to me.
• 37:18
  Right? That's the, that's a good
• 37:20
  representation of the relationship that I've built
• 37:22
  with that athlete. So I use that story with guys
• 37:24
  all the time. Like, dude, tell me everything
• 37:26
  that's going on in life, everything that you're
• 37:27
  comfortable telling me, tell me because I think that helps one,
• 37:31
  just build the relationship here.
• 37:32
  And, and two, we could talk about the programming side of
• 37:34
  things and whatnot, but I, I think it's all about the amount
• 37:37
  of trust that these guys have in you, right?
• 37:39
  So the more comfortable they get telling you stuff and, and the
• 37:41
  more you're willing to talk with them about it and kind of be a
• 37:43
  life coach to some degree, the more you're building trust
• 37:46
  within athletes. And I think you can do that.
• 37:48
  It's a very thorough way of building the buy into the
• 37:51
  process. I'm never really shitty Segway
• 37:53
  here, but it involves trust. So that's that's where this
• 37:57
  Segway ultimately is going to go.
• 37:59
  You experienced a weird litany of injuries in your career for
• 38:05
  the most part. How were you able to maintain
• 38:07
  trust with an organization? Like it's different in your
• 38:11
  setting now when individuals are paying you, right?
• 38:15
  I mean, let's let's not forget that, which is hard.
• 38:17
  Like, yes, you have these awesome relationships with these
• 38:19
  guys and I'm not taking a single bit of that away.
• 38:22
  They're obviously paying you and it's part of the service for you
• 38:25
  to be the absolute best you can be every single day, every
• 38:28
  single waking hour for these individuals.
• 38:31
  Then you have an industry or you have a company paying you to be
• 38:35
  at your best, and you're just not.
• 38:38
  Whether it's your ankle, whether it's your shoulder, whether it's
• 38:40
  your back. How were you able to maintain
• 38:43
  trust then in your organization that they would do right by you,
• 38:49
  knowing that at any given moment someone could take your spot?
• 38:52
  That is a phenomenal question and I think I attribute that to
• 38:56
  knowing who was on the staff. And I'm going to reference a few
• 38:58
  people here, although that does not encompass everybody, but
• 39:01
  Casey Jacobson was our was our coordinator at the time.
• 39:04
  And he had spent some time at Driveline and he had been in my
• 39:06
  corner from the start. And that's a guy who spent a lot
• 39:09
  of time with me in 21, spent a lot of time with me in 22 and a
• 39:12
  little bit less than 23, naturally.
• 39:14
  But he's a guy I still talk to to this day.
• 39:16
  You know, when the Cubs were in town in Detroit in early June,
• 39:19
  he's the guy who left me tickets to go watch the guys play.
• 39:21
  So I still talk. I still talk to Casey all the
• 39:23
  time. Having that relationship prior
• 39:25
  to everything kind of going South allowed me to still trust,
• 39:27
  you know, trust him, you know, and we also had a Clayton
• 39:30
  Mortensen who had been the big leagues and he's been, you know,
• 39:32
  if you get the chance to talk to Clayton, please do.
• 39:34
  He is a phenomenal human being. And he's the guy who helped me
• 39:37
  kind of find I love for baseball again.
• 39:39
  And he's proud owner of one of our fantasy football teams in
• 39:42
  our league. I, I got to be around Clayton
• 39:45
  all that time in 2023 when he was the pitching coach in South
• 39:48
  Bend and, and just kind of getting to talk his ear off and,
• 39:51
  and build that relationship with him.
• 39:52
  I knew that at minimum, he was doing his his best to have my
• 39:57
  back. I think beyond that, we had guys
• 39:59
  in the weight room that were so good at their jobs, man, like
• 40:02
  Steph Simmons, Connor Rooney, Alan Cooper.
• 40:06
  Mark Weissman, like these guys were, these guys were the best
• 40:10
  and I knew where they came from. A lot of them had driveline
• 40:12
  backgrounds. Mark in particular, he was a
• 40:14
  fullback at Iowa football and he's just the best human being.
• 40:17
  Knowing these guys, having the relationships with them outside
• 40:20
  of baseball kind of helped me like have the relationship
• 40:23
  inside of baseball as well. And, and to be honest with you,
• 40:26
  part of that also comes from like I had done it my way for
• 40:29
  the entirety of my time there. I, I remember as an undrafted
• 40:32
  free agent, I walked into my first mini camp and I told Craig
• 40:35
  Breslow, like, I've been doing cressy stuff and it's kind of
• 40:38
  got me here. Like I'm, I'm probably going to
• 40:39
  keep doing that. Like I, I like to keep doing
• 40:41
  that. And they let me which looking
• 40:43
  back like he's AGM of the Red Sox, That's kind of crazy.
• 40:45
  So I had done everything my way to that point.
• 40:47
  So part of me felt like, OK, I have these guys here.
• 40:51
  I know I trust them. I'm going to do it their way and
• 40:53
  I'm going to let them have the objectivity in the process of
• 40:55
  not being too close to it to kind of help me help guide me
• 40:58
  through this because I'm not sure that I, I'm not confident
• 41:01
  enough to say that I can do this right now.
• 41:03
  You bringing up Cressy sparked a question in my mind here that I
• 41:07
  think is very pertinent for a lot of the listeners on the
• 41:10
  podcast. How did you choose who you
• 41:15
  wanted to work with? You obviously knew you needed to
• 41:18
  make significant gains who had trained in Michigan.
• 41:22
  You made significant jumps to go from an 80 to 8218 year old to a
• 41:29
  91 ish whatever 22 year old. But then you sought out
• 41:34
  driveline, you sought out Cressy, you sought out people
• 41:36
  across the country. And those were probably the
• 41:39
  biggest names at the time, at least on the hot list.
• 41:42
  But now looking at it, where a kid can go literally anywhere to
• 41:47
  train, whether it's in their backyard, they can get on the
• 41:49
  phone, they can call someone, they can do anything remote.
• 41:52
  How did you? And now, if you were an athlete
• 41:55
  in today's age, how would you decide where you're going to go
• 41:59
  train? I would say that in my, when I
• 42:01
  made that decision, First off, I will say Cressy was very much
• 42:05
  driven by my dad. He was, he was on Cressy for a
• 42:08
  long time and I don't know how he got in touch with her like
• 42:10
  how he got informed of them or whatever it may be.
• 42:13
  But I had that idea for probably two months that I was going to
• 42:16
  go there. And I'd also like the time to
• 42:17
  take it like to shout out Frank Minamino who worked down there
• 42:20
  at the time. He is outstanding at what he
• 42:22
  does and he was an intern at the time, but he walked me through
• 42:24
  my 3 or 4 day assessment and I built that relationship with him
• 42:28
  while I was down there and he would text me every other day,
• 42:30
  hey, how's things going? Got to the point where I was
• 42:33
  just paying him to write my lifts outside of whatever he was
• 42:35
  doing, whether it be with Cressy or drive liner, you know,
• 42:38
  whatever he was doing, I would just send him a Venmo and he
• 42:40
  just build me a program. Like I think drive lines a
• 42:42
  little bit more of an obvious selection just because I think
• 42:45
  at that time, my career, I accepted I didn't know what I
• 42:47
  was doing right. Obviously what I had done to
• 42:49
  that point did not put me in the position where I wanted to be.
• 42:52
  So I think for athletes now it's really tough because the market
• 42:56
  is saturated with facilities, but I do think it takes it's
• 43:00
  not, it's not at the point right now where you could just go to
• 43:03
  tread and sign up or you know, go to driveline.
• 43:05
  I'm not singling them out by any means.
• 43:06
  You can go to any facility and just sign up and, and believe
• 43:09
  that you're going to get the get the processor, get the results
• 43:12
  that you're looking for, whatever.
• 43:13
  Maybe I think now you're in a spot where you kind of have to
• 43:17
  do their your own research and get to know these people at the
• 43:19
  facilities. Every guy that I take on
• 43:21
  personally, I have a one-on-one phone call with them.
• 43:24
  I bring them in for a meeting. I spend probably 3 or 4 days
• 43:27
  with them before I get started, before I do anything right.
• 43:30
  And typically the first four days are, you know, five days
• 43:33
  beyond that. So 9 days in total, that's all
• 43:35
  me. Just kind of like learning them
• 43:37
  and watching them and seeing what they like to do, right, how
• 43:39
  they move, what do they do best, what are they, what are they not
• 43:41
  do? Well before I even build the
• 43:43
  program. So I think the athletes are in a
• 43:46
  significantly more disadvantaged position because of the rise of
• 43:50
  social media coaches, the guys that have the one quick fix to,
• 43:54
  you know, help you gain 8 miles an hour or whatever it may be.
• 43:56
  I think it's on the athletes now to reach out and kind of carve
• 43:59
  their own path and figure out what they want to be bought
• 44:01
  into. And that takes phone calls, that
• 44:03
  takes emails, that takes text messages or Facebook these
• 44:05
  times, whatever. Maybe these guys have to go and
• 44:08
  seek that out. But you're going to have your
• 44:10
  guys that sign up just because they see the results.
• 44:12
  But I think the guys who are really looking to get better and
• 44:15
  have an idea of what they're looking for, those guys have to
• 44:18
  reach out to those people and figure out who they're going to
• 44:21
  be working with. Because I think now more than
• 44:23
  ever, the person you work with is as important as it can be.
• 44:26
  So I, I think it was a little easier for me to pick a facility
• 44:30
  back then just because of where the market was at.
• 44:32
  But I think now with the amount of facilities, I think it's
• 44:34
  really on the individual to get to know the staff that they're
• 44:36
  going to be working with. This is probably a decent time
• 44:40
  now for you to talk a little bit about what sets 3 PD apart.
• 44:44
  I know you've talked a lot about the people and the relationships
• 44:48
  that you build, but ultimately you also need to get guys better
• 44:52
  beyond just having really good relationships.
• 44:54
  So please take the reins here and tell me a little bit about
• 44:59
  why you think 3 PD is really blowing up in the industry and
• 45:04
  doing so well with all the guys. I think what sets us apart is
• 45:10
  the the length that we go to build the program and and it's
• 45:14
  really simple foundation. I was talking to Lucas still and
• 45:17
  one of the things that he mentioned to me shout out Lucas
• 45:19
  down the tread. But one of the things he said to
• 45:21
  me was every time he writes a program, he starts with what
• 45:23
  does the athlete need in order to get better?
• 45:26
  And he talked about all these facilities that are tied to a
• 45:28
  product, right? And, and we, we know who they
• 45:31
  are. But I think that kind of
• 45:33
  reshaped how I thought about this as well.
• 45:35
  So I think what makes us different is the individual
• 45:39
  holding so much weight in the process.
• 45:41
  Now, obviously the relationships are important.
• 45:44
  Getting guys better is important, but it's what that
• 45:47
  individual needs is going to be different case to case.
• 45:49
  I have a lot of guys. I had a lot of guys this past
• 45:52
  winter who came in at 8891, 92, and they're graduating the
• 45:57
  spring and they all have their own little quirks as pitchers.
• 46:00
  But the big thing for me was, OK, obviously what you're doing
• 46:04
  right now works. You're 17, you're throwing 92.
• 46:07
  I don't need you to be a big leaguer tomorrow, right?
• 46:09
  I need you to grow and I need you to have success with who you
• 46:12
  are along the way so that you remain confident, you remain
• 46:15
  bought into what you're doing. And we have this slow and steady
• 46:18
  growth rather than just trying to reinvent the wheel tonight.
• 46:22
  So I think I put a lot more weight into the game.
• 46:25
  I think one of the most common connotation with the private
• 46:29
  sector is all we care about is Velo.
• 46:32
  And I think that's important, no doubt, because it's one of the
• 46:34
  most correlated things with having success on the mound.
• 46:37
  But at the end of the day, I think these guys, especially
• 46:40
  your high level guys, whether they be high school or college
• 46:42
  or pro, need to understand how to navigate counts, how to
• 46:47
  leverage their stuff. Where does my stuff play best?
• 46:50
  What is my goal in A11 count? What am I trying to do with this
• 46:52
  pitch? Where am I going to start it?
• 46:54
  How have I sequenced this at bat?
• 46:55
  Am I going to throw my sinker down the way to left?
• 46:57
  He's probably not because that plays into the natural bat path
• 47:00
  or maybe I just won't use it as often.
• 47:01
  I'm going to lean on the four seam cut carry up and on the
• 47:04
  hands because that's going to be a cheat code for weak contact.
• 47:06
  What is my goal within the situation that I'm trying that
• 47:09
  that I am currently in? And I think we do a really good
• 47:11
  job of that. And I think that extends, I
• 47:14
  think we put a lot of weight on the game, but it also extends
• 47:16
  outside of the game as well. I think whenever, you know, I'll
• 47:19
  draw like a little example here, but whenever I run a bullpen, I
• 47:23
  asked the guy at the beginning, like, what do you want to get
• 47:26
  out of this? What is it you're looking to
• 47:28
  achieve today? And whatever that question is or
• 47:30
  whatever that answer is, I hold them to that.
• 47:32
  So if it's, hey, you know what, we've been working on this
• 47:35
  hinge, I want to feel myself stay in it, not jump out of it
• 47:37
  as much. And I want it.
• 47:38
  I want to feel good about where I'm at up here.
• 47:40
  And then five pitches in, they're like, oh, I'm just
• 47:42
  yanking this heater. Like, I don't care about that
• 47:45
  today. You're going to learn that over
• 47:46
  time. Sure, there are cues that I can
• 47:47
  get you back over the plate, but I care that you feel good up
• 47:50
  here. So I think that we do a really
• 47:52
  good job with the individual and not making it about being a big
• 47:56
  leaguer. Tomorrow or even 6 months from
• 47:58
  now, the large majority of our demographic is going to be high
• 48:02
  school and college guys. So at best, you know, your
• 48:05
  college guy is going to be 3 years away from the show and
• 48:08
  your high school guy is going to be probably six to seven at
• 48:11
  best, unless they're an anomaly and they're going to debut at
• 48:14
  21. I think we treat the process as
• 48:16
  such. It's not about overloading this
• 48:19
  guy. You know, the guy comes in, he
• 48:20
  goes, you know what? My slider and, and sinker and
• 48:22
  change up have been really good. That's awesome.
• 48:24
  Let's throw a four seam cutter and curveball.
• 48:26
  It's not about overhauling them to make them as good as they can
• 48:29
  possibly be in the in the scope of their career.
• 48:31
  It's about building the steps to allow them to be good for the
• 48:35
  next 10 to 15 years. And I and I think having success
• 48:38
  along the way aids that process. I want them to remain buy into a
• 48:43
  remain bought into what they're doing, excuse me.
• 48:46
  And I want them to feel the growth as they go.
• 48:48
  I want them to start to simulate some of those thoughts in their
• 48:51
  head. I want those thoughts to be
• 48:52
  organic because going through my career, a lot of it was mental.
• 48:56
  Like I talked about earlier, there's a couple mechanical
• 48:58
  tweaks that we're going to have with our high performing guys,
• 49:01
  but none of those are going to bring the return that the weight
• 49:03
  room does or going through the mental thought of what does my
• 49:08
  arsenal look like, how am I deploying it?
• 49:09
  What's my goal, what's my goal with this pitch, What's my goal
• 49:12
  in this situation? What is the game telling me to
• 49:14
  do right now? So I think we bring the game
• 49:18
  into the game, into the picture a lot more than other facilities
• 49:22
  and I think that's helped guys a lot.
• 49:23
  And the reason I say that is, and I'm going to single out an
• 49:26
  athlete here, I'm Chris Worley was probably, I love Luke
• 49:29
  Lacourse and he was drafting the sixth round and they're both
• 49:32
  phenomenal high school pitchers. I think Chris Worley was the
• 49:35
  best arm in the state of Michigan this year.
• 49:37
  And he's a guy that came to me and I've known him a little bit
• 49:40
  just through working part time and off seasons and whatnot.
• 49:43
  But he came to me this past summer.
• 49:44
  So it's summer 20248891 and he was kind of spraying it wasn't
• 49:50
  super confident in who he was. He's going to go play college
• 49:53
  baseball after this. We didn't focus on Vilo at all.
• 49:56
  And I think a lot of a lot of facilities who have a guy who's
• 49:59
  8891 look and say, OK, well, if we get him the one to four, like
• 50:02
  maybe we're talking draft, all I wanted to do is see him have
• 50:05
  success, right? And that's all I wanted for.
• 50:08
  I didn't care if he was 87 to 90 or if he was going to be what he
• 50:11
  ultimately became was 9295. We didn't focus on Vilo at all.
• 50:15
  I ran him through a mock fall to give him 1010 innings to
• 50:18
  simulate the workload that he's going to have this fall at
• 50:20
  Virginia. We took a little bit of AD load.
• 50:22
  We were back on the mountain in December getting ready for our
• 50:25
  pro day and spent the months of January, February and the
• 50:29
  beginning of March all on the slope with a couple D loads
• 50:31
  mixed in. And all I wanted to do was teach
• 50:34
  him how to pitch, let him go through that growth himself.
• 50:37
  And he he got to a point where he was commanding the ball
• 50:39
  better than a lot of my teammates in pro ball dead.
• 50:43
  He's out there calling, hey, fastball glove side for a strike
• 50:46
  matter, glove side for a chase. And I've watched that kid go
• 50:48
  18/19/20 in a row without missing.
• 50:51
  So to have that ownership of the Arsenal, to spend that time
• 50:54
  there and then to get the results back, it's kind of it's
• 50:57
  a forgotten part of it just because of the on field success
• 51:00
  and and and the change that it had this year.
• 51:03
  But to go from 8891 to 9295, that's no joke.
• 51:07
  And I think a lot of that is attributed to the confidence
• 51:09
  that he gained in himself on the mound, the weight room, and just
• 51:12
  the overall growth as a human. And I couldn't be more proud of
• 51:16
  that kid. But I think that's what makes us
• 51:17
  different is that we look at things.
• 51:19
  That's the big picture. It's not what can I do in these
• 51:21
  six months to make this kid as good as possible.
• 51:23
  It's what does the kid need to do right now to keep him on the
• 51:26
  path to becoming a big leaguer at some point?
• 51:28
  And then how do you make the connection back to the game?
• 51:31
  Because there's so many old heads now, whether you want to
• 51:34
  call them old heads or not, as a 32 year old, I, I feel like
• 51:37
  that's a word I can use and not get too much push back.
• 51:42
  But there's so much hate that facilities and technology gets
• 51:47
  of taking the focus off of the resultant on the training
• 51:52
  result. So off of the game result, I
• 51:54
  know earlier we talked about the process versus the result.
• 51:57
  That's obviously from a training perspective when we were having
• 51:59
  that discussion. Now I want to talk about the
• 52:03
  training goal versus the actual goal of the game, which is
• 52:06
  ultimately to win. So how are you able to kind of
• 52:11
  bridge that gap? I know at the end of the day in
• 52:13
  a game it's pretty simple. Did you win or did you lose?
• 52:16
  You mentioned the long term development of these athletes.
• 52:19
  You mentioned bringing the game into the facility.
• 52:22
  So are there ways now that you bring that facility or preach
• 52:26
  that mindset and bring it back to the game?
• 52:29
  Yeah, yeah. And I think it's, I wrestle with
• 52:32
  this because yes, it all boils down to winning, but the only
• 52:35
  way that that happens is if we control what we can to the best
• 52:37
  of our ability. So I think that's the way that
• 52:39
  we teach it. You know, I think one of the one
• 52:41
  of the partnerships that we've established this year that I've
• 52:43
  been really happy with it is with Paradigm player development
• 52:47
  solutions. And what they do is they
• 52:48
  generate track and reports based off of the data that we give
• 52:50
  them, the raw data. And through that, they're able
• 52:52
  to develop the stuff plus grades and they're able to show us what
• 52:55
  the highest grade of pitch of each category was.
• 52:57
  And they're also able to develop heat maps for us, showing us
• 53:00
  where their stuff is going to play best.
• 53:02
  And we talked about the objective, the objectivity of
• 53:04
  this and how it's just numbers and it doesn't provide you need,
• 53:07
  you need the coaching side of that as well to go with it.
• 53:10
  So it then becomes, OK, well, we know that your slider is going
• 53:16
  to play down a way to righties. We know that your fastball is
• 53:18
  going to play up and into lefties.
• 53:19
  Let's train that. Let's get really good at that
• 53:22
  because that's what's going to make you successful on the
• 53:24
  field. Furthermore, it's gosh, it's
• 53:26
  simulating the idea of, OK, these are the things that are
• 53:30
  important. We we want to get ahead and
• 53:31
  counts. We want to get to advantage
• 53:32
  counts. And if we don't do those two
• 53:34
  things, we should be limiting free passes.
• 53:37
  This is not about chasing strikeouts.
• 53:39
  And that's probably a quote card that, but it is the context
• 53:42
  behind that is we have to earn the right to chase those right.
• 53:46
  We have to put ourselves in positions to go get those.
• 53:49
  And that can look, that can look different for many guys as to
• 53:52
  their approach to getting there. But it is very much still about
• 53:56
  getting ahead, getting to advantage counts from there.
• 54:00
  That's when you can start to throw your stuff and create
• 54:01
  chase. I think there's other things
• 54:03
  that we do competitive bullpens, live ABS, so we can talk about
• 54:07
  that. But I think the the idea, one of
• 54:09
  the things that we did with the Cubs, I don't know if I'm
• 54:11
  supposed to share this or not, but I'm going to do it anyway.
• 54:14
  We talked about categorizing counts and that was one of our
• 54:17
  big strategies. And it's one thing that never
• 54:19
  worked for me, but I saw it work for so many other guys.
• 54:22
  So you have your strike counts, your competitive counts and your
• 54:24
  chase counts. So when we go through these, you
• 54:27
  know, bull pens, it's hey, we're going to go left-handed hitter.
• 54:30
  This is what we know plays. You're going to be in a strike
• 54:32
  count. What are you going to throw
• 54:35
  right? And we can kind of walk through
• 54:36
  counts that way. So you're essentially
• 54:38
  simplifying the countdown to where a kids going to be on the
• 54:41
  mound. He's going to go, OK, full
• 54:42
  count. You know, I got second and
• 54:44
  third. We're up one or we're up, you
• 54:46
  know, 2 and I got 2 outs. I can probably throw a chase
• 54:50
  pitch here, right, as opposed to a competitive pitch, and that's
• 54:53
  really what I want to get to. So we're simulating all of these
• 54:56
  scenarios for them by simplifying the counts, you're
• 54:59
  standardizing things for the athlete.
• 55:01
  That way they go through the mental process of, OK, change up
• 55:04
  strike count. I'm going to throw this right
• 55:05
  through the Evil Shield logo on the catcher's chest protector.
• 55:07
  I'm going to let it fall to that lower arm side quadrant.
• 55:10
  I'm going to trust this. I'm going to throw it exactly
• 55:11
  like a heater. It's going to do exactly what I
• 55:13
  want it to do. But the execution becomes so
• 55:15
  paramount to where, when we're doing those bullpens, I'm not
• 55:17
  worried about what your back legs doing.
• 55:19
  There's a different way to handle that, right?
• 55:22
  Right now it is all about going and competing because at the end
• 55:24
  of the day, that's what matters. When you are on the mound in
• 55:27
  that game, all that matters is the confidence that you have in
• 55:30
  your stuff. I call it nuts over stuff, but
• 55:33
  it is it is absolutely that right?
• 55:35
  I don't care in a game if your fastball is going to be 15 and
• 55:37
  12, I don't care at that point, right?
• 55:40
  You have to go get outs with 15 and 12.
• 55:42
  Even if it's not 18 and 8:00, I'm going to need to get outs
• 55:45
  with 15 and 12 because that's what's going to work today.
• 55:47
  But I think that there is a there's a time and place to work
• 55:50
  on mechanical stuff or pitch pitch shapes or whatever it may
• 55:54
  be. But the end of the day when
• 55:56
  these guys are going through these pens where the the goal is
• 55:58
  executing and working through that mental process of
• 56:02
  competitive count, right-handed hitter.
• 56:04
  I know this play is this where I'm going to throw it?
• 56:06
  That's what I'm trying to do with it.
• 56:07
  I think that's incredibly valuable and we need to allow
• 56:10
  the athlete to retain that focus and not have it be divided up
• 56:13
  amongst other things as well. If I can digest this and
• 56:19
  regurgitate it back to you, the way that I'm perceiving it is a
• 56:23
  lot of a lot of your transference is coming from very
• 56:28
  good player education on things that they can handle in the
• 56:33
  facility that is ultimately going to help them out in the
• 56:37
  real world. Yes, yeah, that's, I think
• 56:39
  that's a perfect way to put it. I just spent like 10 minutes
• 56:41
  putting it that way, but that's perfect.
• 56:43
  Well, I couldn't have gotten there if you didn't give me the
• 56:45
  10 minutes. It's A tag team.
• 56:47
  But no, I think that's a great way to put it because at the end
• 56:50
  of the day, kind of what I talked about earlier, I think
• 56:52
  when we talked about failure and you have to let guys go through
• 56:54
  that. I think the way I coach is very
• 56:56
  much tied to letting the thought be organic.
• 57:00
  So it is not about me telling you, OK, this is a 11 count,
• 57:04
  what kind of count is this competitive?
• 57:06
  What are we trying to do with this?
• 57:07
  Throw it low and glove side. It's me asking, OK, 11 count.
• 57:10
  What kind of count is that? What?
• 57:12
  What are we going to throw? Where do we know that place?
• 57:14
  What are we going to try to do with this?
• 57:15
  Where are we going to start it? We want that thought process to
• 57:18
  be organic because that's what they're going to retain.
• 57:20
  That is that's an extension of these lessons that these kids
• 57:24
  learn are not told they're they're observed almost or
• 57:28
  they're organic. And I want that thought process
• 57:30
  to be the same for them because I feel like, and I can't prove
• 57:33
  it because I can't put it. I guess I could with their
• 57:35
  statistics, but you can't quantify what's going on in
• 57:38
  their head. I feel like that's what
• 57:39
  transfers the field the best. I love this route that we've
• 57:43
  gone down. And now because you did mention
• 57:46
  Paradigm, I feel a little bad doing this, but I know the other
• 57:50
  partnership that you guys took on this this year besides
• 57:53
  Paradigm was Flexpro. So if you don't mind, I would
• 57:58
  love if you could just chat a little bit about your
• 58:00
  implementation of Flexpro, ultimately why you wanted to
• 58:03
  bring on Flexpro Grip and then really what you've seen so far.
• 58:08
  Yeah. So, you know, I've been
• 58:10
  incredibly thrilled with our partnership to this point.
• 58:12
  So thank you. I think they're another.
• 58:14
  I think it's an additive to our process that helps make us
• 58:17
  unique. And I think the simple way to
• 58:19
  put this is that, you know, you have these facilities that chase
• 58:23
  really high performance, a really high output.
• 58:26
  If you look at a unique individual, I want to do my best
• 58:30
  to put these athletes in a position to where they know that
• 58:33
  they're going to be healthy along the way.
• 58:35
  I think there's a, there's probably a crossroads between
• 58:38
  chasing high output and what the body is supposed to handle.
• 58:41
  And we're seeing that more and more nowadays.
• 58:43
  But I think there are things that we can do along the way to
• 58:45
  help us put us at least in a better positions to delay that
• 58:48
  Our guys have really taken to it.
• 58:49
  Every guy looks at the device the same way the first time.
• 58:52
  When they see it, they all get a little bit weirded out by it,
• 58:56
  but you know, they do it. And then for two weeks it's
• 58:58
  like, OK, well, if my arms a little sore, but then those two
• 59:00
  weeks come and go and they're like, and I feel better every
• 59:03
  day. Like I, I just feel, I feel
• 59:05
  fresher. My arm feels better every day.
• 59:08
  And we're starting to look at, you know, that we had three
• 59:10
  months closer to 1516 weeks with these guys.
• 59:13
  We're starting to look at some of the the differences just in
• 59:15
  terms of their, their spin rate, their efficiency, whatever it
• 59:18
  may be that we can bring back to the flexible that we can
• 59:22
  directly tie to the flex Pro. So the more athletes that we
• 59:25
  have, the more studies that we can run in house and and
• 59:27
  obviously quantifies some of that development process.
• 59:30
  But I think I think that the underlying foundation of this is
• 59:33
  being able to trust that, OK, you have this objective feedback
• 59:37
  on your first assessment and you're going to be able to show
• 59:40
  growth throughout three or six months or nine months, however
• 59:42
  long you're working with us. I think that only aids the
• 59:45
  confidence that you're going to have when you're on that field.
• 59:47
  It's going to aid your confidence to bounce back from a
• 59:49
  Green Day. Or, you know, you're going to
• 59:51
  have too high in 10 pens in a week and you might be a little
• 59:53
  bit tight going to that one on Friday.
• 59:55
  Or, you know, your second one of the week, you're going to have a
• 59:57
  little bit more confidence to let it eat that day, knowing all
• 1:00:00
  the work that you've put into strengthening the muscles and
• 1:00:02
  stabilizing the joints that protect that ligament.
• 1:00:05
  Thank you for running through that.
• 1:00:06
  I hate kind of asking for it, but we are at a point where I do
• 1:00:11
  think the education of implementation helps a ton in
• 1:00:15
  what people are getting out of it.
• 1:00:17
  And obviously you've been through it in your career.
• 1:00:21
  I mean, not TJ, but you've you've been through just about
• 1:00:23
  anything baseball life can throw at you.
• 1:00:27
  So it's awesome to hear just what you've seen in it, why you
• 1:00:31
  wanted to bring it on. But now, shifting gears one last
• 1:00:34
  time, this is normally how I end episodes with former pro ball
• 1:00:39
  guys or guys who are currently in pro ball.
• 1:00:42
  Regardless, you have played damn near everywhere in the country.
• 1:00:46
  You've played or trained everywhere in the country.
• 1:00:49
  Yeah. What are a couple of the most
• 1:00:52
  unique or most memorable places that you have ever played?
• 1:00:58
  So it doesn't have to be the coolest, it doesn't have to be
• 1:01:00
  the best, but the one that really stands out in your mind.
• 1:01:04
  So I think this is a good question.
• 1:01:07
  This is not just the best ones, obviously say the best.
• 1:01:10
  I would say, I would say Rocket City because they were doing
• 1:01:12
  8000 on Wednesday nights and that atmosphere was electric.
• 1:01:15
  That's Huntsville, right? Rocket City Trash Pandas.
• 1:01:19
  Yeah, that place is awesome. I think the most unique places.
• 1:01:23
  I think when when I was down there at Bauers facility, he had
• 1:01:27
  just opened it. He had just purchased that spot
• 1:01:29
  in in Scottsdale and just how pieced together it was at that
• 1:01:34
  time, right. It was a kind of a ragtag group,
• 1:01:36
  like we're just getting after. It's gritty, the hole in the
• 1:01:39
  wall type stuff. I thought that was awesome.
• 1:01:41
  I was. I was about that.
• 1:01:42
  Part of me wishes I went to the old driveline because I
• 1:01:45
  respected everything that I transpired there beforehand.
• 1:01:48
  The facility was almost too nice that I went to.
• 1:01:51
  So you should see it now. I think the the most unique
• 1:01:56
  field. I play that boy.
• 1:01:59
  This is good. I'm going to say Biloxi, even
• 1:02:03
  though I sprained my left ankle there and may or may not have
• 1:02:05
  flipped off a fan there. So you pull into Biloxi and me
• 1:02:10
  and my best, he's my one of my best men at my wedding.
• 1:02:13
  Dalton standby him and I would walk every morning to go get
• 1:02:15
  coffee in downtown. And we're staying right on that
• 1:02:18
  right on that road right off the Gulf of Mexico.
• 1:02:20
  We are we're walking downtown and you're walking through these
• 1:02:23
  neighborhoods and everything. There's just so much history
• 1:02:26
  there with everything that happened with Katrina and not
• 1:02:29
  being built back up. And you're just like, you're
• 1:02:32
  also playing at the stadium and it's 95 and it's 100% humidity,
• 1:02:36
  but you're staring at the Beau Rivage Casino, right?
• 1:02:39
  And you, you kind of know where you're at on the map.
• 1:02:41
  It's just, it's such a unique place and there's unique people
• 1:02:44
  down there. It's it's awesome.
• 1:02:46
  Just in terms of the entirety of the environment, the amount of
• 1:02:50
  stories that we had come from there, obviously properties
• 1:02:52
  being washed away, not awesome, but you can see all the history
• 1:02:55
  that's happened there just because it hasn't quite been
• 1:02:57
  rebuilt yet. And I thought that was one of
• 1:03:00
  the cooler trips we took, just being able to go see that, shoot
• 1:03:03
  Midwest League, I would say. You're getting a lot of good
• 1:03:06
  stadiums in the Midwest League, The Midwest League, yeah.
• 1:03:10
  Yeah, I would say Quad Cities probably stands out to me the
• 1:03:14
  most, and that's partly because that was my first start was Quad
• 1:03:17
  Cities and that was the best minor league team of all time.
• 1:03:20
  And that was Vinny Pascontino, Michael Massey, Nick Lofton,
• 1:03:24
  Mike L Garcia, ASA Lacey was on that team.
• 1:03:27
  Anthony Veneziano was on that team, John Brittany and Eric
• 1:03:31
  Cole. They had all these dudes like
• 1:03:33
  Logan Porter was on that team. Big leaguer.
• 1:03:35
  Like this team just rolled through the Midwest League.
• 1:03:37
  You know, you have the Ferris wheel and and laughed and you
• 1:03:39
  have the Mississippi River and right, it's just unique town
• 1:03:42
  with a bunch of local coffee shops and just that was cool
• 1:03:45
  spot to play as well. Great answers there.
• 1:03:48
  Of course, there's no right or wrong.
• 1:03:49
  These are just your experiences and I love hearing them.
• 1:03:52
  So I I appreciate you handling that with grace.
• 1:03:56
  Isn't it always kind of funny? Like the toughest question you
• 1:03:58
  have to answer is the one that like really should be the
• 1:04:02
  easiest. Like, hey, where'd you have fun
• 1:04:03
  playing baseball? And you have fun.
• 1:04:06
  My God, incredible question is kicking your butt.
• 1:04:09
  Just trying to say like, hey, where?
• 1:04:11
  Where'd you enjoy playing? As far as I'm concerned, that
• 1:04:14
  does it for me. I appreciate you stepping in and
• 1:04:18
  handling the heat today. Do you feel there's anything
• 1:04:20
  that we missed or anything else you want to get off your chest?
• 1:04:23
  I don't think so, man. I I just want to take the time
• 1:04:25
  to say thank you for having me on.
• 1:04:27
  I I've enjoyed our conversation. This has been this has been a
• 1:04:30
  ton of fun. This is my first interview in a
• 1:04:32
  while, but hopefully I landed the plane all right on some
• 1:04:34
  questions. I know I was a little bit long
• 1:04:35
  winded, but I just want to thank you for having me on and
• 1:04:38
  obviously I'm thankful for everything you guys do for us up
• 1:04:40
  here with with our partnership with Flex Bro.
• 1:04:43
  Of course man this was great and I guess one last ask for you is
• 1:04:48
  just share the socials or way people can get in touch with you
• 1:04:51
  or three PD. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:53
  So my Twitter personally is and Bane under score 38, my
• 1:04:58
  Instagram is Max Bane pitching. And then if we're looking at 3
• 1:05:02
  PD PD tags, I believe both of them are PPD performance with an
• 1:05:06
  under score between 3PD and performance.
• 1:05:09
  I think that's the case. I I should know that?
• 1:05:12
  I know that's the Instagram three PD under score performance
• 1:05:15
  because I tagged it today. Let's see, yeah, Three PD under
• 1:05:18
  score performance is the Twitter as well.
• 1:05:20
  Great. Awesome.
• 1:05:22
  Well, Max, I appreciate the time.
• 1:05:24
  This was awesome. In classic 3 PD fashion, you
• 1:05:27
  took the interview from the car, so we appreciate that.
• 1:05:30
  Of course. Yeah, just got to keep tradition
• 1:05:32
  strong until next time. I I hope you enjoyed it.
• 1:05:36
  And to all the listeners out there, thanks for laying back
• 1:05:39
  with us.