Some pitchers throw more strikes than others, but we don’t really know why. Mechanics matter, but many pitchers throw more strikes with worse mechanics. Liam Bowen, head coach at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, joins us yet again to talk about his view of command, what can be taught and what can’t, and whether or not we can improve the elusive skill. Follow his program on twitter. and on the web here. For more on how to improve command, read this pitching mechanics guide by Dan Blewett.

Watch the video version of this episode on YouTube here.

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Transcript: EP50 – Where Does Pitching Command Come From? And Can We Actually Improve it? With Liam Bowen from UMBC Baseball

Dan Blewett: All right. Welcome back. This is the morning brushed back on your coast I’m Dan Blewett, Joined here remotely by my Chicago mayor of the future. Bobby Stevens. How are you, sir?

Bobby Stevens: Add, add cohost of the year to my intro, please.

Dan Blewett: Well, Bob we’re we’re we are elapsing. We’re passing through episode 50. I don’t know when, which one is episode 50 because we’re recording some of this time and we’re not doing them all live at this important junction.

So at some point we’re missing a big celebration. It’s really disappointing, but we have a great guest today. Repeat guests, coach Liam Bowen from the university of Maryland. Baltimore County is here, Liam. How are you? I’m

Liam Bowen: good. I’m good. Uh, I really appreciate you guys having me on and having me back, I guess the first time, you know, it didn’t go so bad.

So thanks for the return invitation.

Dan Blewett: Yeah, you’re actually one of the most popular shows. Um, there’ve been a couple that pushed you down the rankings, but you’re like number one all time for a while. And then. All the madness of Jeff Frye and Richard skank kind of pushed you off, but you’re in the 1300 views, something like that, which is pretty good.

So, I

Liam Bowen: mean, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll take it, you know, where we can get it, you know, I’m just, I’m glad. Uh, people are taking them at the time to listen. And like I said, just appreciate you guys having me on and appreciate you guys hanging with me. That the reason I’m a little under dressed and I’m not even in my own house, met my inlaws place up in Pennsylvania.

So appreciate you guys squeezing me in 

Dan Blewett: show. I just finished vacation mode. Yeah. I just finished a slow pitch, softball throwing lesson out in DC. So my influence is spreading to different variations of the game. It’s very, very interesting. But guys, like he’s a good dude, hard worker. He wants to throw better.

Like whatever, you know, let’s do it.

Bobby Stevens: It’s like taking a golf lesson, right? Like,

Dan Blewett: yeah. Like, I mean, if you’re playing it, you’re serious about it. Have more fun, like, yeah. Um, so Liam, what is the state of baseball? Obviously? Division one. Baseball is you guys is schools is a school back in session yet at UVC, or where are you guys at?

Liam Bowen: So we’re not back in session. The guys are getting back in about 10 days now. And the vast majority of the classes on campus are remote. So the guys are mostly going to be going to school online. And our guys, um, they’re all, uh, due back by the 24th of August. And then they’ll go through a period of testing there.

They’re going through a period of self quarantining right now. And because of honestly, the, just the unbelievable work that our sports medicine staff has done, we’re going to have a chance to get back on the field, um, on, uh, August 28th on September 11th, we’ll be back with the whole team. That’s our first scrimmage.

So. Well, I I’m thrilled, man. Like, I can’t tell you, you know, with that being in debt, we can do it fall. Like I’m at a point where I just want to see our guys on the field so bad I’d coach in a space suit. If they wanted me to, I could, you know, at this point, you know, this is all like, this is it. It’s all, um, kind of above and beyond.

Yeah. No expectations. So we’re really grateful for it.

Dan Blewett: Yeah. Well, if you’re in a space suit, a human VCs field with those that like 30 mile per hour jet stream, the rolls over the Hills, it’s just like, are you into the forest?

Liam Bowen: I mean, I don’t know. I’m, I’m a, I’m not in playing shape, man. I might be weighing the space suit down pretty decent, but the, uh, whatever it takes is my point.

Obviously, like we’re sure, you know, a lot of people have worked their tail off to get us back on the field. You know, we feel pretty, pretty fortunate.

Dan Blewett: Sure. I mean, have you guys talked through like contingencies and. What happens if one guy gets it and another guy, I mean, have you kind of gone down that rabbit hole or is it kind of wait and see still,

Liam Bowen: there are definitely plans for it.

Um, it’s the plan itself allows for some positive tests and there are, there are measures that are taken. If somebody does test positive, obviously that’s something we want to avoid, you know, for our player’s health, for the staff’s health. Um, and it would potentially interrupt what we’re doing, but. It’s not a situation where if one person test positive the fall is done, you know, it’s, I think if we, if we have a full blown outbreak, obviously that would be a different story and we’re going to work really hard to avoid that.

But, um, one positive test it, you know, we, we would still be able to care for that person and, you know, hopefully continue in some fashion after that.

Dan Blewett: Yeah, man, it’s a. It’s gotta be a complex. And like you said, a lot of emotions, like excited to get back, but I’m sure there’s just a big underlying anxiety.

Like, man, I just hope this goes all right. Where it just doesn’t become a, like the major league season. I mean, what’s your take so far on the major league season?

Liam Bowen: Well, it’s, it’s great being able to see the best in the world play again. I mean, I think just as a fan, you know, selfishly, that’s really good.

Um, I think it’s. It’s a good lesson for our players. You know, I kind of think of it through the prism of our team. I probably stopped I’ve actually, I think we talked about this last time I was, I was on with you guys. Like I kind of stopped being a, a fan of the major leagues a long time ago. Um, although like I still love watching Washington play and obviously they’re, they’re great at it.

Um, I’m looking at kinda what’s happened with just, uh, a few guys. I’m getting some negative publicity for not complying with the COVID regulations and how it’s putting their team and really the whole league and all those guys livelihoods at risk. And I think about that as, you know, kind of a lesson for our guys that, you know, we didn’t, we didn’t ask for this.

Like none of our guys, you know, had any thing to bring the whole Cove it’s situation upon all of us, but. You know, we got, gotta play the hand that we’re dealt. So it’s going to, it’s going to take some, some positive choices to make this work. And, you know, I think that’s being reinforced as you kind of look at what’s happening in the MLB.

Bobby Stevens: Are you guys have, do you have measures and like, are the kids not allowed to go out to dinner? I mean, as what are the restrictions on the players on campus? Or are there any, I guess as far as athletics, department’s concerned.

Liam Bowen: There are, uh, there are, and it’s essentially, you know, what we should all be doing, um, is kind of the way I put it to the guys.

Like w w what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to minimize close contact, you know, kind of sharing airspace with people who are outside of our circle or outside of the program. So guys, aren’t going to be able to. You know, go and see a, a buddy of theirs at a, another school, three hours away, you know, one weekend and come back to campus.

Um, you know, that’s not going to be a possibility. You’re not going to be able to, uh, have a bunch of people from a bunch of different athletic teams over to your house. You know, the light like may have happened in previous years. You know, it’s just, it’s one of those things and it’s not. Um, easy. It’s not necessarily fair if you want to think about it that way.

But to me, you know, I hear from, from players all the time, like I do anything from my, for my teammates and I love to play baseball. And you know, this is in my mind a great chance to show that by complying with some of these things, I feel for the guys I really do, because college should have some, some of those social things as a part of it.

But, you know, like I said, that’s the hand we’re dealt, so we’re going to play it the best we can.

Dan Blewett: Yeah, man, this is crazy. It is. It’s just hard to wrap your head around how different everything is right now. And when it’ll actually be better, it’s like when it was like a bell, like a bell, we all get to ring where it’s like, you can do normal life stuff again.

Like, Hey, I don’t know. It’s so very far away, but then I guess it’ll probably just be there like one day you’d be like, Oh yeah, stuff’s normal again. Huh? When that happened. Right. I don’t know. Fortunately,

Liam Bowen: I did not come on the morning brush back to, to reveal that information. You know, I don’t have any of the answers.

I’m just you kind of a humble baseball coach. Who’s fortunate that we have some smarter people than me working on some of these like plans and contingencies and the things that keep us safe.

Dan Blewett: Well, what you did come here for is we’re going to talk a little bit about command today, cause we’ve been chatting about that, um, behind the scenes a little bit.

So Liam. Well, this is like the enigma that no one can figure out. What do you feel like where does command come from?

Liam Bowen: Yeah, that could be a long answer. So I’m going to try and, um, you know, whittle it down

Dan Blewett: a little bit.

Liam Bowen: Yeah, sure, sure. So, yeah. And I’ve thought a lot about this and I, and, and, and, and the, I don’t want to come on your show acting like, you know, Hey, I’m this Oracle that has, Oh,

Dan Blewett: no, we wouldn’t hear you.

We want to hear your opinion of committee. Cause everyone has an opinion. We want to hear yours. What

the

Bobby Stevens: hold on. If I may interject, if you want to be the number one watched show, you need to be. Like you need to speak in absolutes and everybody else’s stupid. And I, and I would appreciate if you spoke like that

Liam Bowen: right now.

Yeah.

Dan Blewett: Block blocked me on Twitter afterwards.

Liam Bowen: It guys, there’s a reason you’re not going to be able to find me on Twitter. That’s not really, um, that’s not really my lane, but you know, the reason I say that I, you know, I don’t have it all figured out is like what I was our pitching coach for eight years.

Um, and I was, became our head coach a little more than a year ago, but I still work with the pitchers. And we had a lot of years where we were, you know, tops in the conference for a few wish walks and he was, you know, wild pitches and that sort of thing. And then recently this, particularly this past year, we weren’t as good in that area.

So I kind of spent the summer really thinking hard about this and trying to get us back to where we were and then maybe improve on that. But, but where does command come from? You know, I think the first thing is there’s a requisite amount of athleticism that needs to be. You know, a part of the, the, um, kind of the situation for any pitcher, if he’s going to command the baseball.

And when I say athleticism, That doesn’t mean being explosive. That’s two different things. So something that leads a guy to have like a great vertical leap or be great in the weight room or what have you. That’s not necessarily the athleticism I’m talking about. I’m talking about the ability to connect different movements in the delivery, and then repeat those movements pitch after pitch.

I think that cause athleticism takes different forms. I think that form of athleticism is super important. And one of the reasons it’s important is because mechanically, there are certain positions that you. That are more productive in terms of throwing the ball where you want. So I guess an example, like if, if a guy doesn’t like load up and kind of maintain that load on his back leg, as he moves forward, it’s really hard to get his back leg and center of gravity aligned with the target.

And if you don’t do that, it’s not that you can ever throw a strike. It’s just going to be harder. Pitch to pitch. So the guys that can do it easier, you know, they have the athleticism to move their body in more productive ways. Um, and then I think another element just to, to, uh, you know, rip off a couple more, that I think are really important is timing.

Um, I think if you’re repeating the timing and your delivery, I think you have a much better chance of being consistent. And I think when we talk about repeating a delivery, what we’re really talking about is timing. And then the, and then the last one I would say is intention. You know, I think, I think.

You know, and I see this more and more, you know, it’s just gotta be important to you to throw strikes and be competitive in the strike zone. You know, I think we, we, we have, uh, a lot of young pitchers now that have gotten a lot of affirmation for doing things on the mound that don’t have anything to do with command that I’m not necessarily against.

Like I didn’t come on here to do the whole below versus command debate. It’s it? It doesn’t make any sense to me. Just the all time worst. You, you want boats? Like, I want our guys to throw hard. Like I’m not coaching our guys to throw us off. That would be really silly, but, um, you still have to have an intention to compete in the zone and, and to, to make the, the way I talk about is you gotta make the scoreboard, the scoreboard, like the radar gun, can’t be the scoreboard.

You know, the scoreboard has to be the scoreboard. And if you got to be really locked

Dan Blewett: in the winning and

Liam Bowen: losing,

Dan Blewett: yeah, well, let’s touch on the first thing. So with the athleticism, but what is like, Cause I wholeheartedly agree that that there’s a connection. Like for example, there are a lot of everyone has like teammates and people, they knew like people you’ve coached, whatever who you’re like that dude can just like fly or just jump or like whatever.

And there is definitely a version of athleticism, which I’m not one of those super athletic people who can like play pickup basketball and like do cool stuff. My version of athleticism is that I can control my body, my body pretty well. Like I can go to a golf range and like, I can make adjustments, even though I don’t have any, I’ve literally never been taught.

One thing about hitting a golf ball. I can like, kind of feel my way of hitting it kind of better. And I feel like that’s kind of what you mean, but then the question is what is that? Cause I agree with you that that’s like a type of athleticism, but what is it like? And if you don’t have it, how can you get it?

Is it just innate? Like how do you get to control your body better and repeat better?

Liam Bowen: It’s a really good question. I’m not fully equipped to answer it. You know, there are sports scientists out there who can give you probably a more in depth and, um, almost like medical answer than me, but, you know, it’s, it’s, uh, it’s certainly like a kinesthetic awareness appropriate perception.

Like, like it’s just understanding what, how your body’s moving in space. Uh, that’s obviously a big, big part of it. And this is, this is one thing I will say that might be a little bit controversial. I honestly do believe it’s a innate, like, I think. The ability to command the ball is the expression of a natural ability, rather than something that you can create in somebody the same way you can’t make a slow person asked.

I know this as a slow person. I know what’s never fast, never going to be fast. Um, you, you can get guys is out of their own way. If they, if they have the natural ability to. Uh, you know, connect the delivery and command the baseball, but you can’t necessarily grow it in somebody. And that’s a little bit humble as a coach, but I honestly think that’s the truth.

And that’s not to say, guys, can’t get better. Guys can absolutely get better by doing it, like tapping into that ability more. But I don’t think you can take a guy who’s. Fundamentally stiff or has a, has a hard time understanding where his body is in space and pump that into him. I honestly don’t think that’s the case.

Dan Blewett: Well then, okay. And I would tend to agree, Bobby, where do you fall on that issue? So I

Bobby Stevens: kind of, so we’re talking about like college and above level pitchers right now. Like how did they get command?

Dan Blewett: Is it more

Liam Bowen: of a philosophy? Well,

Bobby Stevens: like I have it. I think it’s different for youth because some younger kids just don’t know.

I understand like what the hell, what they’re doing, period. But I think once you get to like, hi, is it more of a philosophy? Like kids are always taught like, Oh, the corners are, or where you want to pitch the corners where you want to pitch. And then you even go, you watch like Tyler chat, right. Someone that comes to mind in the big leagues, who’s got a walk problem.

Like he walks a lot of guys. And he has trouble commanding his fast ball. Like, does he have trouble commanding his fastball? Like he doesn’t know where it’s going or is he trying to be too perfect. And it’s more like a philosophy thing where you should

Liam Bowen: let that ball

Dan Blewett: work? Well, I want to cover, I want to cover that.

That’s a very valid point, but I want to get to that in a minute because I want to stay on, I want to stay on this issue, but that’s okay. Good job. That’s a good point.

Bobby Stevens: Nothing good, not fully valid points,

Dan Blewett: but because there’s definitely a stress, a strategy thing. I mean, we know this and we we’ve all had teammates or guys we’ve coached that they’re afraid to be in the white of the zone.

Like they mentally don’t want to be there. And maybe the catcher sets up over there. The coach calls pitches too far to the corners and they’re their grouping is just too far off the plate. Like too many of their misses are just by their random sampling and misses are going to be balls. But I mean, w.

Like Liam’s, um, I guess the question is Liam house. So how far along can you bring a guy then who doesn’t have natural command? Like yeah. Greg Maddux is Greg Maddux, right? Like, he’s just got an awareness of his body that he can just do things you can’t, but at the same time, can you get a guy to the big leagues?

If he has X amount of like what’s enough where you can then train it a little bit better and, and. Optimize strategy wise and do all that stuff while working to be acceptable, I guess. Is there a line you think

Liam Bowen: w w well, it’s different. I mean, this, I hope this doesn’t sound like a cop out, but it’s super different for different guys.

Like. I would be personally, and we’ve started to do this in recruiting. And like I said, this is, this is my current, you know, belief on it. If you catch me in five years, you may be experienced, will have changed me. I’m always open to, to change in my mind. But right now for me, the guy that you want to maybe take a chance on and recruiting, who’s not a great strike thrower right now, which is maybe what you’re talking about to me is a guy who his delivery is maybe putting them out of alignment with the target, or he’s doing something delivery wise that the best command guys don’t necessarily do.

But he’s clearly a really good athlete and a really free mover. Like a guy who doesn’t have a lot of movement restrictions. Um, if you find that guy and you say, Hey, we’ll, we’ll put it in there. Some constraint and drills, we’ll get them to understand kind of how his delivery works a little bit better.

We’ll get them to move a little bit differently to emphasize some different things that guys got a chance to tick up and command more so than a guy who. The delivery sound, but maybe the body is a little bit rigid and any, you know, for whatever reason, he’s just not able to continuously repeat what he’s doing.

It’s kind of the same thing. Like you hear basketball coaches say this, I’ve actually talked to our basketball coaches about that. The scariest thing is the guy with like pretty Jumpshot form, but the ball doesn’t go in, you know? Cause it’s, you kind of feel like he just doesn’t have that

Dan Blewett: feel of the,

Liam Bowen: um, you know, small adjustments you need to make the guy who may be like.

He’s kind of got the chicken wing elbow or something going on where you feel like you can fix it. That’s the guy you feel like, Oh, well we can get them to make a 15 footer, but the guy who’s got, you know, Ray Allen’s Jumpshot, but the ball doesn’t go in the basket. That’s a problem. Huh?

Dan Blewett: That’s a good point.

Bob, what do you, what do you think about

Bobby Stevens: that? That’s an interesting, like a pure shooter to a pure strikes where we’re like, there’s plenty of guys that look great in the mountain that just cannot find it. They throw hard and there,

Liam Bowen: yeah. Excuse me.

Bobby Stevens: I played with a kid actually in the kitchen Cod league. I remember vividly cause he got drafted in like the fifth round lefty.

That was upper nineties, but we could never have a pitch cause he could not throw strikes.

Liam Bowen: Like he hit

Bobby Stevens: somebody in the head, he threw behind guys and then he’d come out and one, two, three strike somebody out and then he’d go right back to five balls. Just off the backstop. He just had

Liam Bowen: absolutely no idea where the ball was going,

Bobby Stevens: but you watch him.

It’s like he’s tall, he’s fluid. The ball just jumps out of his hand and similar to like the great guy with a great looking jump shot. Like he might go on it terror and hit five in a row. And then all of a sudden he’s hitting them off the back board. And you’re wondering what is going on. It’s like he doesn’t have, is that like a stick sense of six tool that you can’t teach?

Like it’s, it’s really, isn’t

Liam Bowen: something that

Bobby Stevens: might not be teachable. Like they just kinda kids kinda, or guys kind of have a innate. Uh, like a presence for throwing strikes or hitting her spots or

Liam Bowen: commanding a ball

Bobby Stevens: to where they want it to go. Even if they’re a little jacked up and maybe how they move.

Liam Bowen: Sure. No, I, I, I think a lot of that’s right. I think. It can definitely be taught and made better. But once again, it’s like accessing a natural ability, which when, when I started to think about it that way, it started to make more sense to me, you know, where you’re talking about trying to get guys to tap into something that they can already do rather than, um, you know, trying to create something and a guy that, that doesn’t necessarily have it.

And to me, one of the things I look for is guys who have big misses, kind of like you’re talking about like the guys who, you know, one pitch is a dot and the next one is like over the Empire’s head. That’s a guy who’s, who’s probably, you know, that, that feel and like proprioception for where his hand is at his release point is probably not great.

Right. You know, because I think if a guy’s got a chance to really command the ball, even if he’s in a bad place from a delivery standpoint or a bad place from a strategy standpoint, not, and is kind of in his zone on way, in some, in some areas, he still, he can still sort of keep it competitive around the Mitt.

Um, once the basketball analogy, like a good shooter, doesn’t, doesn’t zip it off the back board. Like, it’s just not a thing that you, you generally let’s see.

Bobby Stevens: Yeah.

Liam Bowen: Like every, usually,

Bobby Stevens: like, if you’re a good shooter, you’re not missing even on your worst day, you’re not clanking them off the top of the backward

Dan Blewett: shooting air balls.

Yeah.

Bobby Stevens: Well even like even good starters and they’ll be like, there’s plenty of good starts to have bad games, but it’s not necessarily that they’re, they just walk eight guys in the first thing and they gotta get hold. Like, they might just believe a little bit over the middle of the plate. Like they’re not sore Radek that it’s ugly.

Liam Bowen: Yeah. And actually one thing guys, like I said, I’ve kind of been on a deep dive with this because I was frustrated with, you know, our, our inability to command it, you know, the way we had in previous years this year. And, and, you know, it’s my job to take ownership of that. I believe the team I lead the pitchers.

We weren’t good enough. So. I like, again, I’ve been thinking long and hard about this stuff. I actually, I had a little extra time on my hands. I think we all have, obviously. So, um, I actually went back and I looked up, um, I forget the number off the top of my head, but the best 50 or so pitchers in 2019 in the big leagues that went to college.

Um, not guys who were high school drafts or international signings, but college guys. And I did it. I just ranked them by I think war. And it was pretty easy to come up with a list of guys, you know, are credible big league, uh, starting pitchers. And I, um, I went back and I looked up their college walk rate their last year in college to see what it was.

And what I would tell you is it’s a lot lower than you think. Like, there’s, there’s really not a lot of stories of guys who are like four walks per nine. I mean, illegally starters after their college career. Um, I think the median was like 2.3. If I have that. Right. And out of over 50 guys, like there was only.

Uh, like there, there was, you could count on one hand, the guys who were over four per nine unit, you know, in terms of a walk right there last year in college. And it, that’s where I kind of started to get thinking like, wait a second, this is something that, you know, some inside these guys, it’s a little bit different, you know, that that guy is getting talked about in the first round, who is seven walks per nine, but he’s alone electric.

That kind of basically almost never turns in to a productive, big legal arm. Um, you know, that’s what the history is, is as far as I could tell on him, you know,

Dan Blewett: that’s it, there’s kind of mental side projects. Good research. Yeah, for sure. Well, yeah, you wonder how many of these guys who are throwing a pitch rubber necking to look at the velocity and you wonder how much that stunts their development of that skill.

Like. If you’re walking five per nine in college, like you said, maybe it never gets better by that point. And then the question is, well, when does it have to be better? Does it have to be better in high school? Like the guys who go on to play D one baseball, do they have terrible walk rates in high school?

And then it doesn’t really get that much better in college either. Like where does it, it’s always going to get a little better, but then as it gets better, the funnel gets narrower. Right. And the strikes don’t get smaller. So,

Bobby Stevens: well, it’s kind of like gambling too, right? Like you, if he’s got a bad walk rate, How electric is the stuff, how good is what he’s throwing to hope that maybe he figures it out, even though the percentages say just from your amateur research, essentially, maybe it doesn’t, but yeah.

Is he worth taken up a flyer on, because if he does figure it out, then it’s going to be. So much better than everybody else. I mean, it’s, it’s tough. I would, I, it’s gotta be similar to sort of scouting high school guys for your, do you take a gamble on a guy with a huge upside,

Liam Bowen: even though he’s probably

Bobby Stevens: not showing a lot of command in high school baseball.

Liam Bowen: Yeah. He would have to kind of fit the parameters I’ve talked about when it comes to athleticism and maybe, you know, being able to put them in a better position to command the ball better. Um, I will stay. One thing that I’ve come to believe coaching pitchers for the last 15 years is we recruit and draft pitchers, like command is easy to improve, but stuff is impossible to improve.

And I actually think they’re both about the same. Like, particularly at this point in 2020 with the ability we have to make that stuff better. You know, I think there’ve been a ton of advancements in that area since I started coaching. Um, I could have used them myself back when I was playing Lord knows, but, uh, you know, in modern times, you know, we really have about an equal number of assets when it comes to improving guys in those areas.

But I think our, our thinking about. You know, who should get opportunities at the next level is, is still stuck in the idea that, well, you know, we’ll teach them how to pitch, but you know, that stuff is something you can’t teach. And I just fundamentally don’t think that’s true. I think both are, are teachable and both are limited in some ways.

Bobby Stevens: Yeah. It’s almost easier to teach stuff now. No, in a, in some aspects. Yes.

Liam Bowen: Yeah. I would say in some aspects and I would also say. Like, if you’re talking about a guy, you know, being productive for your team early on, because remember, you know, I’m a, I’m a college coach. Like we don’t have a ball, like, you know, a guy can’t just go walk the yard in a ball and figure it out, down there.

Like he’s, he’s got a pitcher of midweek games and we want to win those. We need to win those. Yeah. So who’s going to be productive for you. You know, a guy who can blast his own with a couple of decent pitches and you wait for him to maybe. Fill out and get some strength and figure out how to utilize this stuff and throw a little harder and spin it a little bit or whatever it is, or the guy who, you know, is that guy you were talking about on the Cape, who you’re kind of watching through your fingers to see if he’s going to embarrass somebody or, you know, hit the backstop.

So, yeah, and I just, I think. We still fundamentally undervalue, you know, and you see big leagues now, like it seems like the Indians have a pitching staff full of these guys that were, you know, kinda pitchability, you know, college righties that were really good and their stuff took a step forward as they got to pro ball.

And now they’re devastating. Um, and then I think that’s more a model you’re going to see more and more as we go forward.

Dan Blewett: Yeah. When you see a guy like a, and I haven’t watched that much of Shane Beaver, but I was watching some of his like 10 punch outs and was like first star of the year. And I have not watched most much baseball on this nonsensical year, but he just looked completely in control.

Just like Matt bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop. It just didn’t matter. And that, like, you can’t take someone who doesn’t have that and give them that. And w which is like fine. Like, and I don’t know if it’d be what his command rates are, what his numbers are. I haven’t looked him up, but he seemed an impeccable control of just himself.

And like, it seemed really easy just watching him to just like peppered in the zone. Like before he even threw the ball, you’re like, Oh, that’s going where he wants to go. You know what I mean? But, um, But, yeah, so like one of my friends, Darren Siler, who’s coach at John Carroll high school in, uh, in Maryland, he’s very, he’s very heavy.

Yes. Franz Bosch and the, um, skill acquisition, which God, I hate hearing that term just makes me want to punch myself in the face. Um, people put that in the Twitter, Twitter bio it’s like, I believe in skill acquisition. So yeah, I believe in sculpture, like I learned to wipe my own butt when I was four, like.

Acquiring skills is awesome. It’s great. But

Liam Bowen: it isn’t

Dan Blewett: a skill, but they talk about attractors. Right. And attractors is essentially just, I tried to get out of Darren. I’m like Darren. Yeah. What is an attractor, Darren? Is this just a fancy way of saying repeating your delivery? He’s like, well, the elbow retractor and this retract, I’m like just use real words.

And we were kind of like saying the same thing overall, but. Some of the stuff that they’re doing, like Franz Bosch and these others is interesting. They’re trying to do like easily, has you complete tasks in unstable situations and do more things to build out, like find proprioception, all that stuff. Do you buy into that?

Do you find that there’s merit there? I mean, are you having guys PIRO wetting with a water bottle and then throwing a pitch? I mean, is there something there.

Liam Bowen: Yeah. I mean, I think there’s definitely something there without question, I think. That if you’re trying to build facility in throwing and making adjustments, you can’t have only complete one pass.

Can’t have him to stand on the mound 60 feet away and try and beat the mid up. Like, I think what we’re talking about when we’re talking about command is, Hey, I let that pitch leak. Six inches arm side, the next pitch. I want to hold my line a little bit better. You can’t do that. If you haven’t, you know, overcome some, some different challenges as a thrower.

So I definitely think that’s the case, you know, just having that facility to make adjustments. I don’t think it needs to be. Um, crazy elaborate, frankly, like I think putting guys into some constraints rules, and then to basically vary the target, you know, I think honestly like standard long toss, John really properly with a ton of intention and focus is really good for that.

You know, if I’ve got, you know, uh, my buddy at 65 feet and then he moves back to 70 and I still want to hit him, you know, on maybe on a, you know, the glove side hip, then I’ve got to change the way I’m going to shape my throw into his Mitt. The guys who just, if they just throw yeah. If they just throw it back and forth, they’re not going to get that.

And that’s why I like that deliberate practice. And that focus is super important. So I definitely buy the concept. I wouldn’t say we implement it in a. Um, you know, particularly a fancy way, you know, I, I think we, we do a lot of constraint roles to try and get guys to move more productively and then. I think just bringing, uh, uh, a next level type of focus to their work is what gets you there?

Dan Blewett: Yeah. I see those drills and obviously many of them are silly looking like guys are literally doing like a pure wet spin and then throwing. And they’re like jumping up on a thing and then throwing and then jumping off a thing and throw. And it’s like, and, and to your point, you wonder how much of that.

If you get enough of that just from doing normal looking things like playing Sandlot, baseball, like throwing a ball from shortstop on the run, like growing up as a young baseball player, like you said, long tossing long tossing is a magical thing. When you think about it. Like you’re progressively getting back to the point where you can hit someone with the chest, someone at the chest from 320 feet, like thing of how precise you have to be to throw a ball 300 feet and hit your partner where he’s just like, this is pretty remarkable.

That’s a really, I mean, you have, if you’re off by two degrees at 300 feet, it’s like 15 feet off course by the time it gets there. Right. And so I think there’s something to be said for that to outfield arms. Like if you have an accurate outfielder. That dude’s got some command of the baseball, right? Like that’s all, those are long for sure, for him to throw it in that, you know, six foot grouping or whatever,

Liam Bowen: or maybe

Bobby Stevens: is it almost, is it almost too late once they get to that level?

Liam, you think of like college or even professionally? Like, I, I kind of equate it to learning a language. Like if you start a young, like a kindergarten or learning a second language, Eventually by the time they get to second, third grade, like they probably have a good grasp of that second language and, and can probably speak it a lot better than maybe say myself, who’s 33.

I try to pick up a second language right now. I think it would be incrementally more difficult just because of that. I’m almost so sad. Like my brain is so set in the ways that it thinks about. Whatever, you know, in what language I’m thinking and trying to

Liam Bowen: process, you know,

Bobby Stevens: speaking a different language.

Whereas when they’re younger, they, they pick up, there’s so many things

Liam Bowen: that they’re still absorbing and learning and

Bobby Stevens: learning. So is it better to have to have him do things know that when they’re younger and is, and how hard do you think it is when you get guys are 18 years old, almost being sure.

Adults. Essentially to try and change them

Liam Bowen: from what they’re so used to,

Dan Blewett: but that’s okay. My point is that aren’t, they aren’t, they all getting that when they’re young, like they’re playing baseball right before you’re a pitcher, only your memory, every pitch, every pitch, every position on the field. And you’re

Liam Bowen: throwing really though, right?

Bobby Stevens: Like, I know what they should be. The answer is they should be right. Like they should be doing it and they should be on the playground, like doing the monkey bars and stuff like that. But now kids are doing like, they’re getting pitching lessons, you know? And then this

Dan Blewett: thing

Bobby Stevens: come set. Well, it’s, it really is.

It’s not necessarily a missing link, but it’s, everything is so privatized and specialized. It’s very narrow.

Dan Blewett: Yeah.

Bobby Stevens: Yeah. You lose all of the creativity that you get when you just go and play. And then it’s hard to. Ingrain that back into an adult, even if they understand what you’re trying to get them to do.

It’s like they think about it and they process it in what they’ve been taught the last 12 years.

Liam Bowen: I think there’s a lot there. Um, definitely a lot there that I agree with. Um, I think building, I think teaching guys super specialized mechanics at a young age is the opposite of building facility as a thrower.

So I’m not a fan. Of like pitching lessons for 10 year olds or, or anything like that. I’m a fan of those guys trying to be the touch football quarterback, trying to throw one hand passes in basketball, trying to throw a wiffle balls, like, like just, just throw different stuff, like rocks different challenges.

Yeah. I don’t, I don’t know how you grew up, Dan. We, we, we, um,

Dan Blewett: you know, the soft stuff,

Liam Bowen: but yeah, I just, I just think, um, Building that facility is throwers at a young age is super important. Building competitiveness in that age is super important. Building a comfort of in situations where, you know, winning is in doubt and everybody’s trying as hard as they can.

I mean, not everybody’s comfortable in that situation. You got to build it as a young guy. And then when it, you know, I don’t want to be too pessimistic guys on improving command, particularly like with high school and college and even pro players. Um, because although I do think it’s a natural ability that you, you kind of develop as a, um, a young person.

The you’re still able to really, um, improve it with these guys because a lot of these guys have not been incentivized to really develop it. So if you have a training program for 14 and 15 year olds and. You know, they’re on the gun all the time. And you know, they’re, they’re getting a lot of affirmation for throwing hard.

They’re probably a little bit underdeveloped when it comes to creating timing and their delivery, creating alignment, um, you know, getting a rhythm, a signature for every single throat and you can give them those things, you know, because you can say, Hey, you know, we’re going to keep developing you to produce more force, but we’re also going to do it in like a rhythmic and repeatable way.

That’s going to, you know, Allow you to apply it to winning and losing in a way that that helps our team. So, you know, because it’s so under taught, I think you can still really improve it. It’s just, you can’t take a guy who can’t control his body and get them to control his body. There’s not a drill for that.

Dan Blewett: And

Liam Bowen: I wish I had one, but we don’t.

Dan Blewett: I felt like while Bobby was talking that it kind of sounds almost like the immune system, like when you’re young, exposing them to lots of different stuff. Is going to serve them to be better and more adaptive when they’re older. Like they can, like, for example, how many times is a young player?

Do you throw off like the worst mound you’ve ever been on? Like every time it was like the new worst mound, right. And your mechanics are different and you have to adjust and like figure out how to throw strikes. Right. Um, today kids also have like a perfect crappy. Turf mound on these fields. Right? And you wonder how much of that helps or hurts them.

It’s almost like paving the road for them. Like maybe those terrible, terrible mountains that we had to pitch with actually met us, made us better strike throwers back in the day

Bobby Stevens: it’s adjustability, right? Like you just early age, you learn how to move. You learn how to move your body or advise you’re going to fail. And you’re. More pursue more receptive to, I guess, adjusting and changing.

Liam Bowen: W it’s also a matter of incentives guys. Like,

Dan Blewett: you know, I think about that.

Liam Bowen: Yeah. For me, when I was a young pitcher, I wanted to pitch, I love to pitch.

I just wanted to be out there. I wanted to be the guy who got the ball as many times as possible. And to do that. I had to blast the strike zone with multiple pitches. I wasn’t a super hard thrower. Um, I, I never was a very, I gained velocity, but never was like a hard throat from my level. And I had to just beat it up with multiple speeds.

And if I did that and, and I accomplished that goal, usually that led to success at the level I was playing at, you know, high school and college. If you can change speeds in the strikes on usually you’re pretty effective, you have decent secondary and. I was able to get more opportunities that way. So I was getting, well, what I wanted by, by doing those things.

Now, most guys are pitching it. Yeah. An environment where, you know, a lot of times other than their high school team, their innings are assured because they have to throw a certain number of innings on each of these teams. And the affirmation comes from something other than changing speeds in the strikes.

To me, it’s like the fundamental skill of pitching, unless you’ve got outlier, carry turbo sink, you know, some sort of invisible fast ball, which only a few people have then. You need to change speeds in the strikes on otherwise, you’re just going to get hit a lot. You’re going to pitch on easier, whatever your velocity, you know, it’s not going to play that way.

I mean, Bobby I’d like, I’ll ask you, you were, you know, you were a pro hitter. Like if a guy’s gonna throw you a vanilla 95, And you can load up for it, like, like at a certain point, if you, if you have enough natural, bad speed and ability to turn the bat fast enough, it’s not crazy difficult.

Bobby Stevens: It’s not, it’s not,

Liam Bowen: I think, uh, yeah, I, I, and I think we just see that a lot.

We see a lot of guys where it’s like, Oh geez, the, um, you know, this, this guy throws 96 and he can’t miss a barrel. It’s like, well, if you’re, if you’re not getting guys to respect, you know, another pitch in the strike zone, then. Yeah. Like that’s how this that’s how the sport works. I think it’s

Bobby Stevens: comparable to a lot of things too.

Like the first time you drive on the highway, if you’ve never gone 70, 75 miles an hour in a car, like you’re pretty nervous. And then you do it a dozen times and all of a sudden it’s, it’s like, it’s just natural.

Dan Blewett: Same thing with hitting. Yeah. Get back to texting while driving, you know, it’s like

Bobby Stevens: tax things.

Yeah. Car karaoke, do whatever you need to do in the car. But the same thing with the same thing, like you said, If you see 90, 90 to 95, you know, consistently straight, you’re gonna either, especially at that level at the, at the high college and professional. Yeah. You’re either going to barrel it and continue to be successful, or you’re going to be out.

You’re gonna be done. Like done playing essentially. Cause that’s you need to be able to do that. And most guys at that level have the capacity to do that. It’s when you throw a wrinkle in like, okay, the fall now the fall is 92, but it moves six inches or it’s 98. And you don’t see that as often. So now it’s something to adjust for.

It’s. I mean, it’s definitely, if you know, what’s coming similar, like the Astros, like, you know, when you know what’s coming and you can plan for it, it’s a lot easier than when you’re playing a little bit of a guessing game.

Dan Blewett: Well, Liam, along those lines of needing to throw strikes, do you feel like guys who have exceptional block velocity when they’re young, essentially are de-incentivize to ever learn command?

Like if you’re Hunter green, for example, who I think is doing well in the minor leagues, right? Isn’t he maybe up with the reds now, but that dude threw a hundred when he was in high school. Who needs to, who needs to command the zone? You just got to throw it over the middle of the plate when you throw that hard.

Right. And of course you only have to throw a hundred in high school to be youth are 88. Okay. You can do a lot of stuff without having to be actually good at pitching. Do you feel like that D incentivizes you like you miss a critical window where you would otherwise have to like bear down and learn to pitch?

Liam Bowen: I think there could be something to that. I also think sometimes it’s harder for those guys in a way, because they get so little contact. Like they get so little, like so few quick outs. Um, and, and a lot of times hitters are sort of intake mode, you know, like the bottom end of high school order against the guy throwing 91 is not usually swinging super aggressively that they don’t have maybe some of the same leeway that other guys have.

So. You know, that’s, um, you know, that maybe goes back to kind of the strategy point that you were talking about earlier that there’s like a strategic element to command as well. And then I think sometimes you can have a guy who’s walking numbers are a little inflated if he’s got really high Vilo for his level, but he actually does have the ability to command the ball.

He just never gets like an oboe ground out on a ball. That’s like a ball below the strike zone because it’s a take every single time. Whereas a guy throwing, you know, 85. You know, a guy might chase it, just knock it into the ground, save him some pitches. I do think there’s something going on there. Um, but at the same time, I think like what you said, you know, what you say is, is right.

Like if it’s not, it’s not emphasized. If, if, if, if at the end of the day, if the player doesn’t have the intention to do it, it’s going to be tough for him to learn it. You know, that’s, that’s about as simple as that. Yeah.

Dan Blewett: Well, and there’s also no good reason. Like if I throw 92 in high school, There would never be a reason that I had to throw it on the corner of the plate.

Like, there’s just never a situation where I have to bear down and throw it there. Cause I feel like I’m going to get hurt. Like, that’s just not like, not a thing when you throw that hard and like outer half maybe. Right? Like, I don’t know. But do you remember Tim? Lincecum when he came up, they were talking about his walk rate.

Like they were nervous about it and people said, no. His walk rate, which was kind of high for college. I don’t know if it was like five per nine innings. It was like a little, I don’t know. What’s average for is what do you think is average for D one baseball three per nine, Liam.

Liam Bowen: Uh, and in our league, it’s, it’s four and a half.

And I think, um,

Dan Blewett: that makes sense because it’s three in the big leagues, I think.

Liam Bowen: Yeah. Yeah. Maybe closer to five nationally. It’s actually increased the last few years, which I think is a function of some of the, you know, the changes in the game and the, you know, how players come to our level. Oh, wow. You’ve kind of been alluding to.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, well, honestly, baseball is hard, like, like I’m not trying to sit here and tell you this, this stuff is easy, man. Like, you know, the guys in the stands saying, just throw strikes. Like they don’t have any idea how hard it is. Um, and it’s, it’s like any, you know, we’re a division one school.

We’re looking for people who are outliers. Like we’re looking for people who have like an outlier amount of body control. You know, most people, even fairly explosive athletes. Can’t control their body the way we need them to. So that’s, you know, at the end of the day, that’s what makes it an elite unit, right?

Like

Dan Blewett: you,

Liam Bowen: you can’t take everybody and that’s kind

Bobby Stevens: of just to jump back into Lincecum he, over the course of his career, he was a 3.6 Walker, nine and nine points.

Dan Blewett: Do you know what he was in college? Can you pull the scholars numbers? Because basically the sentiment with, with Lincecum was that he was walking a lot of guys in college because his delivery was so unorthodox and you just don’t like 97 and they’re like, look, these dudes just like, have no idea what to do.

And they’re just taking and taking and taking and in probate guys are going to swing a lot more. They’re going to put the ball in play. They’re going to be better at putting him in play. Whereas there’s this guys in college, I had no shot of actually hitting. Lynn’s comes curve ball or 96 coming out of there, you know, his back pocket, but in pro ball, guys can actually put the ball in play.

So his strikeout rates, they assumed would come down and guys would just put the ball in play. And so now it’s not three, two every time he pitches to every hitter. So what, what was his college walk rate? Do you know? Uh,

Liam Bowen: I’m

Bobby Stevens: looking for right now. It was, yeah. So in Oh four it was 6.5, seven Oh five Oh 6.12.

In Oh six, the year he got drafted was 4.52, but then when he goes as soon, like as soon as he got into the minor leagues, it was three, nine, 3.19. And then his first year in the big leagues was four. So it definitely dropped dramatically. Um, but you’re also talking about a gap. The guy that struck out 14 guys at game 14 per nine, 15 per nine,

Liam Bowen: and his.

And there’s a

Bobby Stevens: ball season. I mean, he’s just, he’s not used to the ball being

Liam Bowen: put in play

Bobby Stevens: ever. It’s walk, strike out, block, strike out.

Liam Bowen: Yeah. Yeah. Outlier stuff, you know, it’s, it’s, it can be harder at lower levels for those guys to express their command. But I think one thing you saw that was important was the drop in the walk rate in college.

I mean, I think that that’s got to get noticed, you know, he didn’t, he didn’t leave college like six and a half. Um, and he was a guy I remember, um, you know, uh, old enough to remember his, his heyday in the big leagues. Like. He wasn’t a precision instrument. You know, it wasn’t like watching Shane Bieber pitch, but at the same time, he wasn’t Buckwild.

Like w w I don’t remember a ton of big misses. And like you say, Dan, a guy like that with ridiculous stuff, who’s around the plate, you know, he’s going to be successful. It’s like anything in our sports, a sliding scale, you know, if you have outlier stuff and you get a ton of swings and misses, you get a little bit more leeway on the command side.

You know, if you throw, you know, a pretty. You know, middle of the road, 92 and have kind of an average breaking ball, then you got to keyhole it and it’s, it’s kinda different for different guys.

Bobby Stevens: Is he what you guys would consider the prototypical effectively wild pitcher from the, in the big leagues? Like if there were, there was an effectively wild guy in the

big

Liam Bowen: leagues with

Bobby Stevens: Tim, one’s going to be that guy.

I know he’s not wild. So if you still have to feel like at any point he could walk you on for straight or strike you out in three straight.

Liam Bowen: Yeah, I effectively, while it’s a funny term, I’m kind of, I’m glad you brought it up. Uh, Bobby, I think when guys are effectively wild, they’re actually much less wild than, than, than people think.

Like, I think there are, there are a lot of people who are pitching, who are trying to hang onto the effectively wild label when they’re really just wild. You know, I, I think, um, the, you know, effectively wild to me, Means kind of just what you said, a guy who’s got incredible swing and miss stuff that he can get away with.

Uh, you know, an extra Walker, two per nine days. Those guys absolutely exist. I think, I think the two things, the bar for what level of stuff that is, is higher than people think like, even at our level, you know, a guy will be 89 92 and say, well, you know, he’s a good Vilo guy. He’s he’s maybe effectively while I was like, well, 89, 92.

Isn’t going to get enough swings and misses, unless it comes with it just a, you know, uh, best in the league type of secondary pitch. Um, you know, like that’s just not fast enough. Uh, you know, 98 99 might be fast enough, but the, the bar is really much higher than people think. And then, and then the, the, the bar for wild is, is lower than people think.

You know, like

Bobby Stevens: when you consider effectively wild, maybe more of an attitude or like a guy who’s got a little bit of an edge where if you piss him off like a Nolan, Ryan, he might just throw one at your back just because like, yeah. Cause that’s what I, as a, as a hitter, a guy that’s affectively wild as someone that makes you a little bit uncomfortable in the box because he might actually just throw at you or he might miss, and it

Liam Bowen: will hit you

Bobby Stevens: just because he doesn’t either command it or he’s that big of a.

A jerk where he’s just going to be like,

Liam Bowen: well,

Bobby Stevens: I don’t like this guy as much. Here’s one up and in. Cause that’s as a hitter. That’s how I perceive effectively while like a little bit of nervousness in that at bat

Liam Bowen: sure will. Well, you know, different pitchers have different intentions, right? Like, you know, the guys were talking about Ryan Lincecum, they’re trying to get you out with stuff.

All right. People think. I think sometimes when they watch those guys are thinking about it, I think they’re all over the place. They’re really not. But their intention is to beat you with their stuff rather than beat you with like precision command and because they’re beat you with their stuff. And they’re not necessarily as you know, worried about, um, keeping it around the Mitt, like as a hitter, you know, that’s, that’s gotta be a little bit more uncomfortable, whereas.

Um, you know, maybe yeah. I’m thinking about some guys kinda in there’s fewer of them now, but maybe, um, back when I was playing there, you know, guys in the league, I’m thinking of like, you know, Jeff Soupon, you know, um, uh, you know, Joe Blanton, like as you’re kind of that, that, that kinda, um, everyday like third, fourth, fifth starter, who they’re trying to beat you by moving the ball around the zone, it’s probably a little bit more comfortable as a hitter, but they can also maybe pitch to your weakness a little bit more.

To me it’s a little bit stylistic. Is, you know, kind of what we’re talking about.

Bobby Stevens: Yeah. We touched that. We touched on just, um, essentially fear as a hitter and what role fear plays as being a hitter and how it plays a little bit more of a role. Obviously, if the guy’s throwing a lot harder and you see it in younger players, especially like you face a kid who’s throwing unusually hard for his age.

Most of the kids on the bench are a little bit nervous, even if they’re not saying it out loud, some of them are almost, you know, some of them are noticeably nervous and they let you know it. And they’re probably in tears, even when the pitches are coming anywhere near them. But there, I mean, it happens in pro ball too.

Is it as probably good as a role as chapter? It is 105 is still 130. And if he’s feels like. You disrespected them, it could be 105 up at your chin. And that’s a little

Dan Blewett: dude, Randy Johnson. How did anyone ever get in the box against that, man? They’re just terrifying. Watching him pitch is unreal. Like I watched a throwback game of him on YouTube, like a couple of months ago.

And I was like, how did anyone do this? Like, how did anyone ever do this? It was, and he had good command,

Bobby Stevens: but

Liam Bowen: essentially with

Bobby Stevens: two pitches cider. Basketball.

Dan Blewett: What else, what else could he throw on? What else would he need to throw? But

Bobby Stevens: he’s not mixing and he’s a starter. So usually it starts going a three pitch mix or catch mix gimmes.

You use it basically closer type mentality.

Dan Blewett: Well, he through fear, fastballs and sliders, those three things, fear.

Bobby Stevens: We had three, three images for sure.

Liam Bowen: I know that the, I think that the thing that you can learn from guys like Randy Johnson, or like really. You know, for big parts of their career guys, like Curt Schilling and Roger Clemens were really to pitch guys.

It was like fastball split, you know, like a once in a while, get me over curve ball. But there’s, there’s more guys who are elite pitchers at the highest level with really just a couple of pitches, but what’s always the case with those guys. Is, they’re not beating themselves. You know, they’re guys that are, that are blowing up the zone for the most part.

And the two pitches are lookalikes. You know, if, if a guy has, has upper echelon velocity and can throw a look at like secondary pitch that he can put in and out of the strike zone, that kind of checks all the boxes right there. Like, yeah, it’s, it’s nice to, you know, maybe spice it up every once in a while, but.

It’s there’s really no answer for a hit or other than guessing, right? If that’s the case, I’ll defer to you, Bobby, but like the guys who have like true lookalike secondary, you know, that’s, those are the guys who, um, when they combine those pitches, it, it takes both of them to another level. And on our. You know, much, you know, we don’t have, you know, peak Randy Johnson on our team.

Nobody does, but we try and do that with our guys. You know, if you got a guy who’s 88 and he can move it around his own, if you give him something that goes 78 to 81, one, but looks like the 88, you know, whether it’s a cut or change of whatever, um, little slider, it could be a lot of things like that. Guy’s gonna pitch above his stuff.

You know, he’s going to be that guy where maybe the, the less initiated look at them and say, well, how’s he getting some many people out he’s only 88? Well, you know, you, can’t, it’s hard to be on time for 88, if it can be 78 whenever he wants. Yeah.

Bobby Stevens: Like instead of, especially if it looks the same, like I remember facing the guy closer who was fastball split, um, with York and the Atlantic league, but he would, you could, he was tipping his split all the time.

He tip is split and we all knew it. So we’d, we’d had that and he wasn’t, it’s very effective against us because you basically knew when you could spit on the splitter. Cause he’s not throwing a first strike, but it looks exactly like a spasm and it just dives right out of the zone. It’s not a pitch. He throws for a strike.

He doesn’t wanna throw for a strike. He wants to swing and miss. So when guys like that, that just are, they don’t tip, they have no talent on their pitches. And they’re just, like you said, 88 and then 78 look exactly the same. It’s. It’s the most frustrating at bat because you should be able to hit 88 as a hitter you’re you’re in your mind or something like this is something I should tee off on.

And he just it’s like Kyle Hendrix just gotta be the most frustrating games when he cruises through six, seven, and eight with one hit and he’s barely breaking a pane of

Liam Bowen: glass. I’m really glad you mentioned him. And I thought you might. Cause I know you’re a Chicago guy, but I actually did something with our pitchers one year.

I think it was, it was. I think 2018 where it was part way through the year. And I, uh, I looked at the numbers and you can, you know, it’s all online. Now you can break it down by zone and fast balls in the dead center of the zone. So like the, you know, middle, third, you know, both up, um, up and down and left and right fastballs in the dead center of the zone guys were hitting something like two 60 off Kyle Hendricks, which you think that’s like impossible because.

He’s, you know, it’s a well, below average fastball doesn’t have a lot of velocity. And I even showed the guys like a video of one of them. It was like a two, one count. And a guy just like fouls off the fast ball. Um, you know, a little bit APO side to the, to the backstop. And it’s like, well, why is this happening?

Like, if, if, if one of, if a guy from our level went out there and pitched against this guy at 88, he would take them out of the stadium. But Kyle Hendricks is getting away with this pitch. And the reason is obvious. It’s the change up. Like he has to respect the change up. You can throw it in any count and it’s a look alike pitch.

Bobby Stevens: Do you, if you’re baby, you basically guess you’re, you’re banking on a pitch. Like you’re look, you’re sitting change up the whole time and hopefully he doesn’t throw you three straight fastballs and just sits you right down. It’s a, I mean, it’s a trust game. He’s playing chess where he’s not throwing, he’s not relying on power.

And those guys are tough to hit against, especially at that level when you’re basically going up against 90% guys that have power stuff or are they, it got there because they throw plus plus pitches and he’s throwing. Average pitches that will go to all parts of the plate and at all speeds. And he’s just frustrating.

I can only imagine just being in the box and just coming back with like a angry after a ground

Liam Bowen: out. Right. And, but I think one thing that I think we can all be a little bit more diligent about is if, to me, if you have a plus change up that you throw in any account, none of your pitches are average.

Because like, if, if, if I can throw you a plus change of any count, then my fast is above average. Like you’re not going to react to it like an average festival. It doesn’t really matter how fast it’s going. It’s an above average festival. Like if I’ve got, um, if my change of fades arm side, and I’ve got like a little cutter slider that can go the other way, but they look the same.

It doesn’t matter how you evaluate that pitch in isolation, that pitch will be above average. Mark Burley’s cutter was way above average because it’s changing.

Bobby Stevens: What a frustrating what a frustrating guy that must’ve been. Cause he’s not even trying to throw it past you. He wants you to just hit it off the end and ground out in one pitch and you do it.

It’s so frustrating. It’s like, I’m just, I’m like I’m sitting here like, ah, I’m frustrated. I’m even hitting. Right. It’s just something frustrating thing.

Liam Bowen: Yeah. You know, I had a scout tell me one time, a scout that I respect. And I think it was a really smart baseball guy telling me, you know, Cliff Lee doesn’t have one plus pitch.

This was when cliff Lee was like, you know, you know, starting the year with phase three. Yeah. Something absurd. And to me, that’s not a condom cliff Lee. That’s a condemnation of how we evaluate pitchers because we evaluate the pitches in a vacuum. The hitter perceived them, the hitter perceives them in relation to each other.

You know, and to me all, a click fleas pitches are functionally plus because the hitter has to respect all the other ones. And that’s why we just never get to that part of the conversation. When we evaluate young pitchers, we always evaluate the pitches in isolation and we don’t. That’s why we don’t understand certain guys.

We don’t understand why certain guys are getting banged and we don’t understand why certain guys are super effective. And it’s because we just. You know, truthfully, we just don’t know what we’re looking at. You know,

Bobby Stevens: people, the room for error too. I mean, Dan, you could use you through Dan and you were hard for, I mean, the room for error when you throw mid upper nineties is a lot different than the room for air.

When you throw upper eighties to low nineties, it’s just, you have, you can be, you can miss a little more. Cause the reaction time for the hitter is a little bit less and that’s it. So now you’re talking about guys like Kyle Hendricks and cliff Lee, who. Apparently don’t have, according to some, you know, some observers, any plus pitches, but you’re, you have almost less room for error as a hitter because everything looks exactly the same.

So you need to either recognize it or

Liam Bowen: guests correctly,

Bobby Stevens: perfectly or you’re out. And it’s, I almost rather face the guy who’s trying to blow a pass me. Cause at least I know. I’m going to get something hard. I gotta react quick. And what I see is probably what I’m getting, like, I’m going to recognize it a little bit earlier as a hitter anyways.

Liam Bowen: Oh, yeah. We talk about it all the time with our guys and, and the way I explained it. Yeah. To them, just try and keep it as simple and streamlined as possible is either every pitch you throw either needs to be an absolute outlier or look like all your other pitches. You know, there’s no profit being in between those things.

So it either needs to be Clayton Kershaw’s curve ball, which everybody in the stadium knows that it’s going to climb up out of his hand, but it’s just so different than any other curve ball that the hitter’s facing on a day to day basis. That it’s still hard to hit. Or you have to make the pitches look like each other, because essentially what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to create margin for error because we we’ve been talking about commands really hard.

You know, it’s hard to be so precise over and over and over again. And the way to create that margin of error is either to be blessed with that kind of dynamic stuff, um, or have created that kind of dynamic stuff through a ton of work and accessing some natural ability there. Or by creating deception on your pitches and making them look like each other and being good enough at repeating your delivery that you can give the hit or the same look every time.

And I think what you have to do as a coach and what a pitcher has to do with themselves is God’s got to look himself in the mirror and say, well, where do I have more ability? You know, do I have a really, do I have an honest chance to create outlier stuff? And I can just tell you personally, like, You know, I think we have a lot of tools to get the guys to, to throw harder and have better stuff.

95 was never going to come out of me as a player. I don’t care what you did. I just wasn’t explosive enough. So if I want to, I want to keep helping my team. I got to maybe go to the, the man route, you know, a guy who’s maybe a little bit springy or he’s got longer levers. He’s got some, uh, you know, maybe a little bit more juice in the tank.

He can look himself in the mirror and say, well, I have a chance to be an outlier. I got to kind of go down that road and that’s. You know, that’s why coaching each guy’s really individual. It’s fun to watch guys

Bobby Stevens: like Kyle Hendricks pitch as someone who’s not in the batter’s box, or if he’s on my team, because you just watch the frustration that he creates.

And it seems like he shouldn’t be that good, but now he’s, he’s better than good. He is an unbelievably good player and pitcher and he’s just using everything he has. To make it so uncomfortable for you as a hitter that it’s fun to watch. And it’s, it’s also fun to watch guys that throw hard now that I S the emphasis on throwing hard is more than emphasis on command, because you’re gonna get more opportunities with more, I guess, raw talent, what stuff?

Quote, unquote stuff. Then you were, if you were a master craftsman with your, with your pitches, there’s your pitch selection, but it’s. I find it much more fun to watch a guy that can just pitches certain pitch circles around hitters, as opposed to a guy who maybe just throw a hundred and those guys get hit around if they can’t command it, or if they’ve got no secondary stuff.

So it’s fun to watch a guy like burlier or

Liam Bowen: Hendrix,

Bobby Stevens: just roll through a game, not to mention the speed at which they pitch, which is also very nice as a position guy.

Dan Blewett: Well, the problem

Liam Bowen: is for sure. And no,

Dan Blewett: go ahead, bud. Is that when you,

Liam Bowen: no, I think I’m on a delay. My bed.

Dan Blewett: Yeah. There is a little bit of a delay.

You know, the problem, I think with a lot of younger players is they think that humping up, like they throw 90, 92 and they want to reach back and throw 93. It’s not a meaningful difference, you know? And they’re better off just like. Relaxing and throwing 91 on the, on the black, if they can, rather than reaching back for 93, then goes over the middle of a plate.

And that’s where it always ends up going when you try to overthrow and that’s not a meaningful difference. And the same thing with guys training for velocity like, Oh, I want I’m on the road to 95, which is like the most tired thing. It’s like, it’s just such a tired thing. But, um, You know, it’s like, all right, well, how hard do you need to throw?

And if you can’t jump at it an entire bracket of velocity, then there’s no point in spending your entire off season trying to go from 90 to 94, going from 92 to 94 will not change you as a pitcher. It like you’ll get away with like another couple pitches per game, but you can’t pitch differently if you go from 92 to 97.

Sure now you can pitch completely different, but guys don’t make that jump once. Are that old? Not, not really. Like once in a while, like guys will go two miles per hour and then they think they can pitch different. And now they’re completely obsessed with how hard it goes. And now they’re throwing junky 94 center cut instead of 92.

That’s well located because like you said, this is what I want to get into is that that intention throw strikes. Like I really want the ball to go where I needed to go.

Bobby Stevens: Do you, do you think you see more like velocity jumped by the guys that are starters that can just jump in the bullpen and blow it out for an inning, as opposed to a guy who’s like the works at trying to throw harder and trying to get to that racket.

Does that make sense? Like the guy who’s 90, 92 as a starter, but has never had the opportunity to just warm up and blow it out for 15 pitches as a, as a relief guy who might be 95, 96. Do you, do you think you got a bet? You have a better opportunity as a guy who was a starter, who’s got, you know, middle of the road, velocity at the pro level to make that jump to the next bracket.

If he becomes a reliever or, or if he tries to be a, or tries to do more arm, arm care, velocity stuff.

Dan Blewett: I don’t know Liam would

Bobby Stevens: have given me. I don’t know if you have any Bactrim Baxter.

Liam Bowen: I think he can definitely turn up the intent and the, like the tempo and guys deliveries, and you will get them to throw harder a lot of the time, I would say, um, sometimes those guys, they kind of get to a point where they’re, they’re moving so fast.

They can’t still move efficiently. And then, you know, they don’t get those same kind of return on investment there. You can definitely turn them up and, and have them throw a little bit harder. I would say in my coaching experience more times than not the question is to me, how do we get the most outs like it?

You know, we play three game series, individual, one like everybody else. And if our game one starter throws 95 pitches and gets 11 outs, that’s a train wreck. Like that’s, that has a domino effect for our entire team. That’s really negative. You know, and I would say, and I’m going to speak in generalities.

And I know that command and velocity are not oppositional. I do not want to talk about them that way, but I would say generally speaking a delivery, that’s really high effort. It can be harder to regulate than a delivery. That’s that’s much lower effort. I believe that.

Dan Blewett: I think they are a little oppositional personally.

I don’t mind getting into that fight. Yeah.

Liam Bowen: Yeah. I mean, I would like, I think, I think it’s a little bit more complicated than the vivo and command being oppositional. I think, I think, you know, you only have so much intention to spend and if you spend all the intention on trying to throw hard, then yes, it will impact your command, you know?

Cause you can’t double your intentions. But the, um, the thing for me is like at the end of the day, like if, if you want to be valuable, you have to clock out. Like you just have to. You have to be a guy that can, that can roll through lineups. Like the, it’s not to say relievers aren’t valuable, but to me, they’re in a, they’re in a different category than a guy that can turn a lineup over like a guy that can turn a lineup over two and three times at our level is an absolute piece of gold and a guy that can come in and get you.

Three outs really helps, but it’s not the same. And to me, if I’m coaching a guy and it’s like, Hey look. We can, we can red line your delivery and you might bump a 95 and that will be really cool. Um, but you can kind of pitch at that maybe 90 to 95% effort level instead of, you know, hitting the pedal on the floor every single time.

And you can get a ton of outs for us by, you know, being firm enough to put pressure on the hitter, but also manipulate them with secondary and location. Like that’s an easy call for me in terms of value to our team. And. You know what that guy is going to accomplish in his career? Well,

Bobby Stevens: there’s, there’s a, it’s a part of this, like a Scouts.

You, no notes too, is as a guy max effort. And what he does, or is it an easy 90, 92? Or if he’s a max effort, 92, like he’s giving everything he’s got, maybe he’s got good command like that. Maybe his command is okay, but a guy that’s easy. It’s like

Liam Bowen: from a

Bobby Stevens: projectability standpoint, I think Scouts look at that and like, okay, there, there might be some more in there.

His command. Like we can,

Liam Bowen: we can

Bobby Stevens: work with this command, cause he’s not max effort. So maybe it’s just something like he’s cut himself off. Maybe it’s more mechanical because you see it with hitters too. Like max effort swings. It’s like, it’s hard to corral them into like a 95%. So they get more barrels.

Just if I can relate it to hitting, like, if you’re a max effort, it’s, it’s hard to bring them back down to. Something more controllable and get them to at least buy in. Like, Hey, the ball’s gonna go, justice are five feet over the fences. It’s just as good as 50 feet over the fence. Like, I need you to catch a barrel Mark, same thing with a pitcher.

Like I need you to, I need you to be okay in the zone more. Even if that means 90 instead of 93.

Dan Blewett: Well, I, yeah, and I don’t think it’s actually dialing back. I think it’s getting mentally absorbed in the task because at least from my, yeah, well, like from my own experience and I’m sure this is hitting too, when I was completely focused on a throwing the piss out of the ball, which I always was, but B this ball absolutely has to be there to hit the black, or it has to be in like, I’m going to miss in, on this guy when I’m like completely absorbed at like, Seeing and everything in my being is getting this ball in on this guy.

Then you’re not thinking about your effort level, and then you’re just competing. And then the ball comes out at the speed and you throw it at the intensity that, you know, you do it like intensity takes care of itself. But when your consciously trying to throw this ball is 95. Then there’s nothing left.

That’s like what Liam said. Like, I use the analogy of like, like your computer memory. Like if you’re just a computer, if you’re spending all of your memory, your Ram on how hard can I throw this? There’s nothing left to focus on a task, which is hitting your spot or whatever. But when you’re so engrossed in hitting the spot, The other stuff couldn’t just like come along for the ride too.

Is that how you kind of, uh, would think of it and Liam or

Liam Bowen: no, I think that’s perfect. Dan. I mean, I think that’s, um, that’s a big, big part of it is being bought into, you know, executing tasks that’s in front of you. And that’s kind of goes back to what I said at the beginning. You gotta make the scoreboard, the scoreboard.

Yeah. That’s a big part of it. I will say. It’s also about application of effort, right? Like when you apply it, if we get, if we want to get in the nitty gritty of the pitching delivery, like I think the guys that are doing what you’re talking about, where they’re, where they’re taking all of their intention, they’re putting it on trying to throw the ball.

You know, with a lot of velocity and not as much in, you know, focused on execution, you’re going to see a lot of effort early on in the delivery. Whereas the guys who their intention is to get aligned with their target and then let it rip. You’re going to see that the, the effort applied when the front foot gets down, which, you know, somebody told me a long time ago, you CA you can’t and throw with one foot in the air, you know, like you got to get both feed down and then.

Like when our guys get both feet down, I want them to cut it loose. Like, I don’t think it works, you know, trying to, you know, drive the car with the governor on like, I think you need to, when that front foot’s down, you need to, you need to absolutely let the whip crack. But what, so when I’m talking about being maybe a little bit lower effort, I’m talking about letting the, letting the velocity kind of build as the delivery goes along, not getting out ahead of yourself.

Um, and trying to. Almost turned it into like the Olympic javelin

Dan Blewett: or something like that. I completely agree. And you see that with young pitchers, when they try to throw harder, they try to throw hard early and then, and then the ball just goes up and you can see it. You can see them trying to do it, whereas you’re right.

It’s a very tough to beat. I’m gonna throw the crap out of this ball, do to do, to do it. You’re relaxed. And then boom, like you said, you crack the whip at the end. That’s a really, it’s hard to do that because when you’re excited and you’re about to like, It’s hard to not do that, or it’s just to then calm back down and then hit the gas late.

It’s hard to do that.

Bobby Stevens: You can’t throw the ball with one foot near challenge, et cetera.

Dan Blewett: That sounds like a rock. It sounds like a Roger Miller song. Well, maybe not. Can’t roller skate in a Buffalo herd. He can’t throw a baseball with a foot in the air. 

Liam Bowen: I

will

Liam Bowen: say.

Bobby Stevens: You can throw with

Liam Bowen: one foot in the air. It’s just not going to go all that.

Well, um, you know, it’s um, yeah. Will you shoot me the video? Uh, Bobby will, may be great at the Villa, uh, on that without getting the front foot down. But now I think you guys, you know, bring up a lot of good points that, um, probably the fundamental thing is your intention, you know, like what’s your what’s you’re really trying to accomplish.

And I think that’s expressed. In the way that you move. Like I watched a lot of guys pitch a baseball in my time and I can look at a guy and say, this guy is living or dying with getting this pitch to be where he needs it to be. Versus this, this guy is, has come. You know, doesn’t have a lot of clarity in his process, you know, he’s um, and you know that that’s where you can help a guy.

You talk about making command better. I think a lot of it is. Just beating that division of mindset. You know, if a guy’s trying to do two things, I think there’s always, you know, those are the guys who tend to beat themselves is what I would say.

Dan Blewett: Yeah. I would agree. It’s like the guys who were really good strike throwers are just very absorbed and in the channel, that’s going to take their ball where it needs to go.

And the guys who were obsessed with velocity or out there just kind of like in their own separate little world, completely. Outside of that. So, Liam, what do you guys do to try to foster it? Cause I know a lot of stuff we talk about is unfortunate in the sense that if a dad’s at home and he’s like, well, what do I do with little Johnny to help him be better than baseball?

You’re like,

Liam Bowen: yeah, I should have brought this up earlier. Um, you know, that some of the strategies you have for guys command in the ball, I think, um, I think you can kind of put them into three categories. I think the first is getting guys into like productive constraint drills. And that’s some of the stuff you were talking about with coach Seiler, like where you’re basically almost giving the guys a throwing challenge that promotes the movements that you do.

So if a guy, um, is land’s really heavy on his front foot, kind of gets his upper body moving forward too early in the delivery. Maybe you’re going to have him. You know, jump back and then make a throw as part of his warmup. You know, we basically tailor each guy’s warm up to the constraint drills that are going to get them moving in the way that we’re hoping for them to move.

Um, so I think that’s one of, I think a gigantic one that is wildly under taught is a rhythm and timing. I think every single fro our pitchers make needs to have a timing signature where like literally a cadence that they can count out, you know, one, two, three throw, whatever it is. And I think there needs to be elements in the way that they move, that they can put onto that time.

And so what I mean by that is if you and me are playing catch Dan and. Um, you know, shuffling and throwing you the ball. We’re, we’re just, um, doing our throne, progression the outfield, the way my hands move on. Every throw, it should be in sync with maybe my front knee and it should be on that cadence that I have, and I need to be able to fall out of bed and repeat that cadence.

I’ll tell you right now to this day, you know, I’m in. Throwing competitively in a long time. But if I, if I throw two balls in a row and BP, you can watch my mouth and you’ll see my, my lips move, counting out that cadence. So I’m not trying to throw three balls in a row and BP. Yeah, that’s no good. So

Bobby Stevens: I usually try, I appreciate the

Liam Bowen: heck out of that.

I, um, I tell guys like, you know, I’m, I’m a, I don’t claim a lot. I, you know, uh, I try hard as a husband and a father. I’m an honest guy and I throw a lot of strikes and BP. Those are, those are kind of the boxes. I’ll pass that. Everything else,

Bobby Stevens: glutes. This is the absolute right there.

Liam Bowen: I, you know, I don’t know.

I don’t want to claim too much else, but those things I can, I can

Dan Blewett: that’s what if that’s the difference that gets you through the pearly Gates? They’re like, man, you’re on the fence, but. And packable BP, man, come on in, get yourself

Bobby Stevens: were some questionable life choices, but man, you’re batting practice plays.

This plays up here. Get in, come on it

Liam Bowen: that that’s a religion that may be a, I could sign

Bobby Stevens: up for it, but

Dan Blewett: Joe that’s where Joe Booz waiting to greet

Liam Bowen: you.

Bobby Stevens: Hey, you know, you got to set a tone,

Liam Bowen: but, uh, the, just having a timing to every single throw, like to me, if the feet are moving at a different signature, that’s a problem.

When a guy’s in a windup, if he’s not using his step back and the pivot with his feet to establish a tempo in his delivery, I think that’s generally a problem. You see some big league guys who can play around with that. And I think we have, we’ve had guys who have gotten to a point where as long as they got to the top of their leg lift, They could do with a number of different ways, but once they broke their hands, their timing was so good that they could give the hit or different looks.

Anybody who’s struggling at all to command the baseball. I think that’s really tough. Um, and you just got to give him a, a single timing for every throw they make. And then the last thing is ball flight, right? You got to understand your ball flight. You got to get to the same spot at release. And if I’m a.

Let’s say I’m a two seam guy. I’m trying to sink the baseball. Once again, I’m playing catch with Dan. Like when, as he’s moving back, I’ve got to get the ball the same shape. It’s going to change my distance, but that ball’s going to have the same shape. And like, if it’s a two seam guy and, um, you know, dancing right-handed, I would want his, maybe his Mitt.

Like backhand, like opened up to so that ball could, could go straight in it. If you understand what I’m saying, I want to visualize the balls shades every time. Because when I get on the mound locating that two seamer is all about where I started and knowing that the, um, the movement is going to take it to the spot that our players have heard me say, literally hundreds of times, it’s a paper airplane with a bent nose.

You know, you just, you got to start it in the right spot. And know that the ball flight is going to be something you can predict. If the ball flight is unpredictable, then Greg Maddux can’t command it. Like nobody can command that.

Dan Blewett: Yeah. And it’s funny that you mentioned that because my last season, when my shoulder was like killing me and I was like frantically trying to find ways to get people out because the way I always pitched wasn’t working, because my stuff wasn’t the same.

I started throwing a two seamer on advice of don’t know I was crowdsourcing. And it was perplexing. I remember, I remember like the first couple that I through where I released the pitch. And of course me throwing all four seamers, like the five years prior to that I released a pitch. And like, as it left my fingers, I like knew it was a strike at the bottom of the zone.

And then it was a ball hitting the dirt. Right, right. At the catcher’s Mitt. And I was like, no, that was, that’s a strike. I was like confused because I knew like the way it came off of my hands and the trajectory that it was. Supposed to be a strike, but because it was now a sinker, two seamer instead of a four seamer that would’ve like risen up and stayed at the bottom, it was a ball.

And then I did it again and it was the same exact thing. And I was like, what? No, I’m not supposed to be two. And I should be, Oh, and two right now. Or he should have grounded out. Like this doesn’t make sense. And it was, it was honestly such a strange feeling because I knew I threw a strike and yet it was a ball.

Um, So, yeah. Understanding like you have to, at that point, I was like, what do I do I have to like, throw this sinker, like at the mid thigh, like, I didn’t even have to think about where, what I would do prior, but now it’s like I had to retarget everything and it was, it was strange. And it was kind of like, I felt very lost.

So anyway,

Bobby Stevens: Dan, Dan making self go insane and a real time. Pro ball career. Whereas like pitter, he’s like a hitter that sees a great patient. He just filed a straight back and it’s like,

Dan Blewett: wait, what? I hit a home run on that. I hit home, run that, not a home run

Bobby Stevens: I’m barrel ball. I barrel ball now. And then he’s swing and miss.

And that’s just your fight. You’re just fighting an uphill battle.

Liam Bowen: Yeah, I was going to say where I’ve seen that be a real challenge for young pitchers is change ups because guys just always site their change ups at the bottom of the zone. It always falls out of the bottom of the zone. If the hitter sees anything where it turns over at all, it’s just a take I’ve had to coach so many guys over the years that, Hey, you have to try and throw the change up at the mask, which feels uncomfortable because it’s like, wait a second.

I’m going to throw the ball slower than I can throw it. Higher than I wanted to be like that’s okay. And that’s where it comes back to understanding your ball flight. Right. And, you know, buying into what you need to buy into to be a real competitor. So like, and that’s, and that’s where guys like forgot to have a plus change up at our level.

He has to have the conviction usually, cause it’s usually going to have more depth than the fastball. He’s got to have the conviction to throw it, you know, at the, the neck guard or the mask. And that’s a separator, there’s a lot of guys in division, one baseball that have. Well, like you watch them in the pitch and be like, man, that’s pretty good.

Change up like good arm speed. It’s got like good movement, you know, good separation from the fastball. And it’s still total non-factor cause they just never throw it in the zone because they don’t have the conviction to throw it high enough.

Bobby Stevens: Yeah, a little nervous to throw it. That’s a, I feel like that’s a, that’s the Achilles heel of the, a lot of kids when they have a change up, they’re scared to throw it.

They don’t trust it as much. And it’s like, don’t worry about that slower,

Liam Bowen: but don’t worry

Bobby Stevens: that it’s slower than a fast ball. Like it doesn’t, that’s the point, throw it, trust it. Just let it go. Throw it again. Trust it. It’s there. They trust things that they can throw at full speed, or that goes at a speed that they’re comfortable throwing.

Liam Bowen: I feel like at least for younger guys that I see.

Dan Blewett: I remember my first college changeup that I, through that I got to swing and miss on. I vividly remember it because I taught myself that pitch in the winter. And then I threw in the game and I watched it go straight, like dead, straight, right. For the middle of the strike zone.

And I was like, starting to like hide as it was mid flight. And then the dude whiffed. And I was like, Whoa, that was, it was like wild because I’d never, it, I’d never thrown a competitive change up before that day. I didn’t throw in as a kid, I always had a good curve ball. It was just like fast ball curve ball.

And I was just like new pitch here. It goes. And it was legit scary. I was like waiting for it to come back to my face.

Liam Bowen: Yeah. A lot of our conversation guys. It, and there’s, this has this a scouting as well. It goes back to. It’s uncomfortable to be exposed in certain ways. Like if you’re a scouting director and you draft a guy that’s 88 91 and he gets banked April, like that’s a rough look. You know, if you, if you draft a guy that’s 95, 98 and he gets smashed and a ball that’s Hey, what are you who could of fuck it?

Like he, the guy can’t get anybody out. And it’s same thing for our guys. Like guys don’t at a lot of times Bobby you’re you’re exactly right. Guys. Don’t want to get beat. Trying to pitch certain ways they want to, if they want to get beat it’s it’s Hey, look, I’m just going to try and throw it by this guy.

And, you know, that’s, that’s kind of, what’s worked for me in my career and you know, I’m going to, I’m kind of going to live and die with that. And, and, and that’s where, you know, my job as a, as a coach comes in, as you gotta get them to buy into a certain identity and not everybody’s identity, that could be the same.

We have certain guys where it’s like, Hey, you’re going to try and be. An outlier stuff, guy, I’ve got like a ton of Carrie, we’re going to throw a ton of fastballs. We’re going to make them as fast as possible, you know, and see if we can get guys swing underneath the ball and most guys can do that. You know, that’s, that’s the nature of being an outlier.

Most people aren’t outliers. So

Bobby Stevens: like when you said earlier, that I’m exactly right. Appreciate that. Yeah.

Liam Bowen: The, um, you’re ready for politics. My man.

Bobby Stevens: I need a bunch of yes-men next to me.

Liam Bowen: You’re in. Yeah. So that’s, I think that’s a really big part of it. Like I said, I don’t have all this stuff, you know, completely hammered down.

I don’t think anybody he does, but I, you know, those are the kinds of things that I think about when we’re talking about trying to get guys to, to really just ask you pitches and just how important that is for so many guys to be successful at our level and how. Under emphasize it is on their way to our level.

Yeah. It spend time in pro bowl, but I’m sure it’s the same as move up the chain, you know, like, you know, I mean, even within pro ball, you know, like the things that made you successful to get access to the next level won’t necessarily make you a success once you get there. And that’s kind of a big part of the Arctic art of pitching the art of coaching.

Dan Blewett: Yeah, well, Liam, this was a great talk. I appreciate you coming back on the show. I mean, like you said, I think we covered a lot of the different avenues from command because no one really does have an answer. And I think it’s been like, Oh, we gotta put these fancy targets in the bullpen. We gotta do this.

We gotta do that. But there really does seem to be something intangible. And I think I hit a lot of the different, uh, threads in that discussion really well. So, um, Man, we appreciate you coming back on. You have a lot of really good insight and man college baseball is going back in whatever form. So I’m excited for you guys.

What are you looking forward? What are you looking forward to most with one thing and this fall, is it hitting a fire? Is it just

Bobby Stevens: batting practice?

Liam Bowen: Yeah, sure. Actually we take it off the machine a lot now just to, because the, my, my, my Vilo is not cool. NCA D one, you know, game speed these days, but the just being with our guys on the field and getting to, um, getting to do the work, you know, that, that one’s easy.

Like, you know, being with our pitchers while we’re doing this stuff and not just, um, this was fun for me because, you know, I’m, I’m starved for, for this kind of. Uh, you know, deep talk on some of the concepts that we want to put into practice this fall. So it was, it was helpful for, uh, for me, um, but getting a chance to do it with a bunch of like talented, motivated people.

Like, you know, it’s, it’s hard to replace that. So I’m excited that we get to do it again.

Dan Blewett: All right, Bob, you want to send us off,

Liam Bowen: Liam?

Bobby Stevens: Appreciate you coming back on. Uh, we will see everybody on

Liam Bowen: whatever episode. We resume in the morning. Brush back. Thanks. .