August 17, 2023 • 54 mins
The Book of Joe Podcast with hosts Tom Verducci and Joe Maddon begins with former player and pitching guru Tom House joining the show. With almost 50% of pitchers spending time on the injured list, we explore what's happening on the mound. For all the technology in the game, how can arm strength keep up with the pitching speeds? Tom explains the four pillars of health and performance for athletes and how these pillars need to be adapted for each individual athlete. While Joe has his Maddon-isms...we hear some of Tom's 'House Rules' around his coaching. An insightful conversation with advice for players at every level of every sport!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
The Book of Joe Podcast is a production of iHeartRadio.
Hello again and welcome to the latest edition of the
Book of Joe Podcast with Me, Tom Berducci and Joe
Madden and Joe I always like to call this the
most interesting baseball podcast on the planet. I like to
(00:26):
think of us as the craft Brewery of baseball podcast,
or maybe the artists in bakery. How does that sound
to you?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Good?
Speaker 3 (00:35):
I love artists in bakeries. I got my nice cup
of Americana with an extra double shot of espresso sitting
next to me. Yeah, yesterday I was playing golf here
at Ruffled Feathers. I'm here in Chicago for the week,
doing different things and ready to tee off on the
first tea and who shows up culls up right alongside
me but Ozzie Gean, and we had a great conversation.
(00:57):
He looked great, and he says he looks great because
he's not managing anymore.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Always a fun conversation.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
I just quickly two thousand and eight, when we beat
them in the playoffs with the Rays, we beat the
White Sox. I'm sitting in my office after the game
and Guard comes in from the front door and says,
Ozzie wants to see you.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
So walk out to the front.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Door and he's standing there to congratulate me and us
on winning. From that moment on galvanized our Friendship's he's wonderful,
he's he's he's electric, and there's a lot of different things,
but I when it comes down, he's got a great
heart and it was a great meeting yesterday.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Yeah, it's a great way to describe him. And he
is a straight shooter, there's no doubt about that.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
The question and everybody loves it.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
And speaking of interesting, we've got a really interesting guest today.
Looking forward to this one. Say hello to Tom House.
Now you might know him, former Major league player and coach.
He's really devoted his entire life to really how to
be a better baseball player in person. Actually he's the
founder of the National Pitching Association. That's a health based
(02:05):
performance program for everybody, youth professionals. And he's got a
new app out. It's fairly new, I guess mustard, which
really a lot of players are in other sports, not
just baseball, are digging right now. So say hello to
Tom House. Tom, how are you.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
Doing very good? Thanks for having me on guys.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Yeah, I can't wait. There's so many things we want
to dive into it. And I know you work with
athletes in all kinds of different sports, from Tom Brady
to Justin Rose. We probably want to spend most of
our time here on pitching. But we were just talking
Tom about the connection between some of the movements in
(02:45):
these sports that may seem disparate to a lot of people.
But what have you found to be a common thread
as you work with athletes from different sports.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
Well, the surprising thing when we first started getting into
high steed motion analysis in three dimensions was that rotational athletes,
throwers and strikers have the exact same kinematic sequence. Now,
the timing of the total movement might be a little different,
but as far as feet to fingertips, with the legs, hips, shoulders, arms, due,
(03:20):
it's all pretty much the same movement.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
It's interesting.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Yeah, you know, Tom, I got to start with this.
We talk a lot about how much we use technology.
You were at the forefront of using some of the
technology a long time ago, and the technology has only
grown better and deeper in terms of the information we
get from it. But at the same time, we're not
keeping pitchers any healthier. At this point of the baseball season,
(03:47):
there have been three hundred and thirty eight pitchers put
on the injured list. Now there's been eight hundred pitchers
who've pitched this year. So basically, forty two percent of
pitchers wind up on the il and we're not done
with the season yet. We're going to get close to
fifty percent of pitchers breakdown by the end of the year.
That is costing team so far this year four hundred
(04:09):
and forty three million dollars and twenty three thousand days
lost to pitchers who can't pitch. Please, as best you can, Tom,
explain to me why we know more about pitching and
yet we can't keep pitchers healthy.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
Well, you you nailed it, And those numbers are only
going to get worse. And here's why. We've created a
generation of great athletes who's when it comes to pitching,
their arm speed and their adaptability to the what it
takes to do it for a full season kind of
(04:49):
precludes them being healthy. There's three basic things you look
at when you're asking a pitcher to be healthy for
a full season. His mechanical efficiency, his functional strength, and
these workloads. The one hundred pitch per game at fifteen
pitches per inning. Go all the way back to one
(05:09):
of my mentors when I first signed Paul Richards, he
had the Baby Birds, He had four guys in Baltimore
that won twenty games, but he had been implementing the
hundred pitch thing in the minor leagues, and that was
like fifty years ago. And they try Baseball tried, and
(05:30):
I have to get an a per effort. And you're
very perceptive. We have more technology now than has ever existed.
We can majure and quantify better than ever before, but
we haven't figured out with those measurables how to come
up with a deliverable to have pitchers adapt to the
(05:51):
armspeed we've created. Do you mind if I take another
little sidebar real quick here?
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Absolutely sure?
Speaker 4 (05:57):
Okay. When we did the initial study on weighted balls,
it was to fix god blen all humoral internal rotation deficity,
and we have we had a six month study. The
efficacy was awesome. The secondary benefit when we fix GOURD
was that velocity's increased, and once it got out that
(06:21):
weighted balls would improve velocity. But you have the numbers
better than I do. I think when I was in
the big leagues, the average big league fastball was like
eighty six and some change. Well now it's ninety two
to ninety three, and that's the good news. The bad
news is we haven't been able to figure out how
to keep that arm speed healthy. Did that make sense?
Speaker 1 (06:43):
But I just absolutely it does seem the harder these
guys throw, the more they're at risk, exactly.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
And there's some great athletes out there, and the same
goes with the everyday players, but the functional strength training
hasn't caught up with the ability of showing how arms
to go faster and that's to go quickly. It's going
to happen. But in this little slot we're in right now,
(07:12):
You're right, the incidence of injury and guys on the
you know, the injured list, it is really kind of unacceptable.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Does this also like conclude?
Speaker 3 (07:21):
I mean, that's the technical side of it, but just
like body types, tall and slender, thick and stocky, when
you're evaluating these players and they go through all these
different training components, whether it's the way to.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Ball, which actually we had back in the day.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
I might have had your first set of weighted baseballs
back when I was running the minor leagues with the
Angels back in the day. But is there any kind
of correlationship to this concern with arm injury just based
on body type? Is that even a consideration or does
that not even enter the equation?
Speaker 4 (07:52):
Body type is a consideration, but it's more of the
height of the individual. We know that the average height
of major league pictures. Let me take a step back.
If you go to the Hall of Fame. Okay, the
average Hall of Fame picture was six feet and some
change and right around one hundred and ninety pounds whitey four. Well,
(08:14):
now the average height of a picture in the big
leagues is sneaking up on sixty three. We know that
a picture that is taller than six ' five he
is three years behind the same age picture that is
six ' one's. It has to do with the joint integrity, nerves,
(08:37):
talking to muscle, and what you're seeing. If you look
at the injuries that are occurring, it bloke down to
their mechanics pretty solid. But with workloads, the ability of
the body, especially the shoulder or any mobile joint, the
ability of the body to handle the best of one
(09:00):
hundred mile an hour fastball, it hasn't quite adapted to
the tree, but it's coming.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
I will say that just when you get to be
that big or long, long armed, or limbed, I mean
just to coordinate the stroke, isn't that become problematic too?
Whether you're playing golf, whether you're throwing a baseball, football, whatever,
you know.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Automatically I want big tall guys.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Yeah, but isn't there like like you're saying, there's an
optimal height, there's an optimal weight in order to coordinate
all these different things. Had I had Jeff Neman with
the Rays back in the day. I love Jeff Neman.
If that boy could have stayed well and he didn't
throw that hard, I mean he did his best work,
like between eighty nine and ninety two. That's to me
again where the gun is important. What does a guy
do his best work in regards to repeating his delivery,
(09:43):
action on his pitch, his ability to locate. All these
things are factors for me too. But he was six
or nine, and he kept getting hurt and it was
difficult to stay well. Just based on that, and then
I just thought he of all that one of the
tall people that I've had was able to coordinate great
sink great command. He would cruise in the middle innings,
(10:03):
but he would He was the unicorn for me. So
I've always thought that there might be like we're describing
right on, optimal height and weight to be at to
be able to control this armstroke, repeat it consistently. Like
the term do it easily, not be the full effort.
I mean people use the word maximum effort. I always
wish I was doing giving my maximum effort. But it's
(10:25):
like this full effort component also where guys are bumping
and grinding to get to their number, whereas the guys
that do it easily to me, at least from a distance,
appeared to be able to repeat their pitch, their location,
stay healthy, stay well, and not be soorn between starts,
at the point that you don't have to back off
them and maybe go on ten or hundred and fifteen pitches.
(10:46):
I know it's a long consideration there, But does that
play into anything whatsoever at all?
Speaker 4 (10:52):
Oh? Yeah, you hit a couple of buzzwords that are
really true. For every one inch of growth, it puts
the body back two months. For every five pounds of
weight gain or loss, it puts the bodies kinesthetic awareness
back two months, and we're in this battle right now
trying to coordinate tall pictures with weight, training with functional movement,
(11:18):
with workloads. Throwing down the mound really enhances arm speed,
but trying to decelerate that arm speed hasn't quite matched
up yet, so you can only accelerate what you can decelerate.
You're only as strong as your weakest length. And what
we're seeing right now are really good athletes that at
(11:41):
twenty two, twenty three, if you're six foot seven, six
foot eight, you're really just a big twelve year old. Now,
we're getting better, the research is getting better, the quantification
is getting better, but we're still not quite where we
need to be to help that tall guy adapt to
a ninety eight to one hundred and two mile an
(12:01):
hour fastball question.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
Of you're that you're you're the Scotty director of whatever team,
and you're going to speak to your scouts as they
go out on the road in January to prepare for
the June draft. If you had to give them one
physical parameter to look at it, you're looking. We're looking
for pictures that are how much, how tall, and how heavy?
Is there any kind of like a template mental template
(12:27):
you could give your scouts in order to follow, because
if we get enough of these, we're going to hit
paydirt more often.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
What you want to do is look for the tallest
pitcher that can walk into chew gum. Okay, and then
tell your developmental people in your in your organization, and
it's going to take three more years to get the
Randy Johnson body to the big leagues. Okay, then it will.
But even though they're throwing hard, even though they've got
great stuff, they're going to take a little longer to
(12:55):
be developed so that their arm speed and their arm
strength matchup with their functional mechanics and the workloads that
they're expect. You do, I don't know if you're aware,
but about I think it's almost ten years ago. Our
research showed that the only way you can kind of
monitor while we're in this new era of velocity is
(13:19):
pitch totals, and the game is actually aiming towards what
we predicted, where you're going to have twelve pitchers that
they'll throw one hundred plus pitches a week, but they're
going to do it one time through the lineup three
times rather than during a game. The days of the
Nolan oriance where Bobby Valentine would go out to take
(13:39):
Nolan out of the game and Bob would say that's
it text, and Nolan would look at it and say, no,
it's not Bobby. One of us is leaving this mouth
that it ain't going to be me those days. Those
days are over. You would know better than I would, Tom,
what is the average starting pitchers? Is it five innings? Now?
(14:00):
I know it's getting closer and closer to five innings
than it ever.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Yeah, it's just a shade over five innings, right. Pitch
count continues to go down as well. By the way, Joe,
that was a great question about what you look for.
To me, I always look for pitchers who are good movers,
good athletes, if they played another position, if they played
another sport. I would rather have that guy who moves
well and naturally than that seventeen year old kid who
(14:28):
has learned how to throw, not to pitch, who's not
a great athlete and can throw ninety five miles an
hour at seventeen. Those ones scare me, so Tom, I
when we're gonna take a quick break here, when we
get back, I want to ask you about because the population,
as you know, is getting taller, and we're seeing that
in baseball, and meanwhile pitchers are throwing less. So I
(14:50):
want to ask you about these young pitchers such as
Jodi Perez of the Marlins, who they sent down to
the minor leagues just to not pitch for a month
or so, Grayson Rodriguez of the Orioles. These are guy's
big time arms who there's governor's placed on them. Are
we doing them well by putting governors on them? Are
we too careful with these young pictures? I want to
(15:11):
have Tom dive into those questions right after this. Okay,
Tom House, It's a big topic. I know, and I
know that the industry has gone ultra conservative with how
they treat young pictures. And listen, I've been on this
(15:32):
forefront for years something that people have referred to as
the Verducci effect, where I notice young pictures I'm talking
about under twenty five who get their innings bumped up
more than thirty percent are more at risk of breaking down.
Listen to everybody's at risk of breaking down. I think
we know that by now. But I wouldn't run a
marathon if all I ran were five ks. I couldn't
(15:53):
go straight from five k I have to train for
that marathon. So packing on fifty seventy more innings on
a yearly basis for a young picture whose joints are
still developing, probably not a good idea. But the other
side of this Tom is there's so many governors on
these pitchers in the minor leagues. Guys are getting the
major leagues now without pitching out of a jam from
(16:13):
the sixth inning on, without reaching one hundred pitches, and
so they have to be taken out of games early
and have to be limited when they get to the majors.
Where do you come down here on the volume that
we're asking young pitchers to make as they develop into
major leaguers.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
Well, it can be quantifying, and we actually have curriculum
and data to support. When you throw a baseball, we
can look at your mechanical efficiency, we look at your
body type like Joe was talking about, we look at
your athleticism. We also look are you pitching specific It's
(16:48):
the only thing you did going through high school was pitch.
If you didn't play other sports. All these kind of
mixing together and it blows down to energy in, energy out.
Glenn flies A bit of research study, it takes more
muscle strength to throw ninety five on flat ground than
(17:09):
it does throwing ninety five down amount and that confuses
a lot of people. But literally, the Japanese, I think,
are the best at this. They throw, throw, throw, throw,
and then throw some more. But they don't throw off
the mound that much. In youth ball over there, there
(17:32):
are no mounts. It's all flat ground. So eventually the
arm will adapt to whatever you ask it to do.
But what's happening because of the economics of the game.
You sign a young picture for four million bucks, ownership
is going to want to get that guy to be
producing in the big leagues as quick as possible. There
(17:52):
will be a time when everybody, conditioning, coaches, pitching coaches,
front office, scouts, etc. Sit down and put a time
time frame to the development of each picture in the organization.
It's got to be personally adapted. It can't be a
cookie cutting thing for everybody. So Joe asked, what does
(18:14):
that perfect picture look like to your scouts? Think of
Bartolo Cologne. You would never see him looking at him now,
But what did he pitched? I think he's steal I'm
be pitching. He might be fifty years old right now.
And look at Randy Johnson. Randy was in the big leagues,
but he wasn't productive until he was twenty seven to
(18:35):
twenty eight years old, and still is. When nerves and
muscles can get the task done between the lines and competition,
but durability comes with all the what you just mentioned.
Did you play other sport? Can your body move forward
and backward? Do you have a conditioning program that fits
(18:56):
your body type? It does no good for a six
foot ten kid to do a bench presis when the
joint in tech you have his shoulder is that of
a twelve year old. So it's all this information, guys
is out there, but putting it together in one unified
process that all organizations will agree upon. Good luck. That's
(19:21):
what I've seen. It's easy for me to sit back
and look what's going on out there because I live
in this information and instruction bubble. I have all the
access to technology and I can experience experiment with whatever
we want. It's doable, but I'm not sure the makeup
of the game will have it happen in the short term.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
You talk about Bartolo bartol is one of the best
athletes I've had on the field. I worked with Bartolo.
I mean he looked one way, quick feed, covered first base,
great defender, great move to first base, and he could
hit a little bit. He was just a big guy.
I totally understand that, and I do agree. You just
don't know what the package is going to look like
that's going to be successful. But there's got to be
(20:01):
some kind of a template.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
I asked my guy used to go look at it.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Just listening to all this, at what point does observation
skills experience enter into this. I mean just I liked
my data, but I've also liked my eyes. You know,
I was trained to do a certain thing at the
young age as a scout, and we didn't have the
benefit of all of this.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Biomechanical breakdown.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
I mean, Benny Hines got into this a little bit
back in the day with hitting in the early nineteen eighties,
as it began to blossom, and I was starting to
hear stuff like this doctor Harrison with the eyes and
vision kind of training that became popular, and of course
doctor Ken Ravisa and Harvey Dorfman was just the mental
skills breathing in the moment and how that led us
to be better what we did and more efficient. Again,
(20:49):
at some point, I still believe in everything you're talking
abou one hundred percent, but also I believe in eyeballs
and experience and handling each case differently because you just
don't know. You just don't know what's going on inside
and when that body's going to break down, and there's
so many variables involved in this situation. So for me,
(21:09):
the best way to do all this, in my opinion,
is to do exactly consider everything that you're talking about,
but also consider your eyeballs. I've had, like given in
the book, Tommy was able to research. I permitted Bobby
Kipper to throw one hundred and forty pitches in a
rookie league game in Salem, Oregon several years ago, and
Bobby went on to a really good major league career.
(21:32):
I was never hamstrung by my front offices by saying,
somebody can't.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
You can't you have to pull somebody after so many pitches,
even on a minor league level.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
And you were able to watch and was coming out
of his delivery as he starting to try to overthrow pitches.
Quite frankly, something like that. Was he just coming up
in his own he had been down in his own
like things that you say, Is there any in your mind?
Is there any substance to that to combine everything you're
talking about with just good old baseball acumen, just based
(22:05):
on experience watching somebody throw a baseball, all of a
sudden he's throwing it differently, and this might be the
time the plumb is an example, and not necessarily make
it a hundred pitch exercise.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
Tom, I'm going to tell you right now, he can
ask more questions in one.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Sentence, so I make questions.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
You're dead on, Joe. The one thing that artificial intelligence
can't do is have the benefit of experience. They can
look at numbers and crank like. But experience leads to knowledge,
leads to wisdom, and that's what you've got, call it,
call it baseball smarts. Artificial intelligence can't do that. So
let's take the fact that you are. You have an
(22:49):
experienced on You have seen a whole bunch of things
that are artificial intelligence will never see. Hold that in place.
In your long question you mentioned a few things. There's
four things that keep an athlete healthy and productive. His
biomechanical efficiency is functional strength is metal, emotional makeup, and
(23:12):
nutrition and sleep for recovery. Those are the four pillars
of health and performance for an athlete at any level,
and we are getting better and better at each one
of those, but very few individuals or organizations have put
them together in a program that is personally adapted, not
(23:32):
cookie cutting throughout the organization. So there's one set of rules,
but there's a million interpretations, and it's really hard to
put that on development staff that they have to look
at each kid differently, and the organizations that do where
(23:52):
it's personally adaptive and all their instruction is the function
of what they need to work on. You can have
the best athlete in the world that doesn't have metal
emotional makeup and he's going to look like his mechanics
suck and you can't throw strikes. You can have a
kid that's throwing hard that can't throw it over the plate.
You can have a kid that throws it over the
(24:13):
plate but doesn't throw hard enough for these effective velocity.
I mean, the great thing about baseball is that there
are so many variables that there's a way for anybody
if they put their pieces together. I'm a perfect example.
I got to the big leagues with an eighty three
mile on hour fastball. I wouldn't even be able to
play in college in today's game, but I threw a
(24:36):
curveball for a strike. And Warren Spahn said, there's good
curveball's hitters, but nobody hits a good curveball. So I
gave up on velocity when I was seventeen or eighteen
years old and started hitting the Nassas with a curveball.
And it took me forever to get to the big leagues,
but I got there. Did that make sense what I
just said?
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Of course, yeah it does. And Joe, it really reminds
me that I know what you've said. A lot here
is who's doing the teaching right. We have a lot
of the instructors now I call them instructors because they
come armed with their certificates and technology. But there's more
to being a major league pitcher in this case than
(25:14):
your spin rate than your velocity. Garrett Cole said it
really well the other day. The Yankees pitcher said, listen,
everybody wants that one pitch with a super spin rate,
the right spin access. They want their one pitch to
get on pitching Ninja Twitter, But what about pitching? It's
the difference between throwing and pitching. And I think what
(25:34):
you just did, Tom is very eloquently. You talked about
the difference between knowledge and wisdom, and with experience comes wisdom.
Speaker 4 (25:44):
No, you're dead on, and I'll take it one step further.
We live in an outcome world and everybody's trying to
keep their kid or their athlete from failing. You will
learn more from your failures if you treat failure as
a learning experience. We don't give kids permission to fail
the same way every time. You've got to learn from
(26:05):
your screw ups. But because kids are rushed through the
minor leagues now, they're literally and I think Joe said
it when we first started this get together, you got
guys in the big leagues that are not really prepared
to pitch in the big leagues. And I say the
word pitch. They can throw, they can throw one hundred
and two miles an hour, but hitters have adjusted to
(26:29):
one hundred and two miles an hour. And I hope
you notice that there's pictures on all staffs in the
big leagues now that are learning how to get people
out with a changeup. And it's because to hit one
hundred and two mile our fastball, you pretty much have
to sell out. Anybody can hit a hundred mile in
our fastball in the big league now, And the trick is,
(26:52):
can you change speeds off of that fastball so the
guy can't go all out and make contact.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
Yeah, that's pitching. I mean you said it. Well, we're
in an age now where there are fewer fastballs thrown
in a major league game than at any point in
the game's history, and we also have the highest velocity.
And that's the case because of what you just said
that hitters have adjusted a pitch. A fastball ninety eight
and above has a higher batting average than an average slider.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
Yes. Yes, Julio Franco said he could hit a bullet.
If you put him in a game where he can
see the bullet, he could get the bat on it.
But if you're mixing a break and ball and a changeup,
he's got no chance to hit a ping pong ball.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
He could probably hit a bullet still, and he's about
fifty two years old.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Hey, we're going to take a quick break here when
we get back. I know we in our book, the
Book of Joe is full of what I call maddenisms,
the wit and wisdom of Joe Madden and Tom House
is of a similar vein. I'm going to call these
house rules. So we'll take a quick tour among the
house rules. Our guest is Tom House, guru of all
(28:16):
things pitching and other sports as well. And Tom, you know,
going through your Twitter feed, I love some of these
pearls of wisdom that you have out there, So I'd
like to throw some out here and have you and
Joe kind of respond to what I call house rules.
How about this one. The travel ball industry is optimized
for people to make a living, not for developing players.
(28:38):
I know that's a whole nother show, Tom, but real
quickly the thought behind that, and real quickly.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
With an answer. I don't deny anybody the right to
make a living, but travel ball is all about money.
It's not about developing developing and a young pitcher or
a young hitter. And the kids get really good at
being travel ball players, and you said early in this
get together that they don't know how to play the game.
So while I understand the need to make a living,
(29:07):
it should not be at the expense of a young
player's health and development.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
I'm totally against the travel concept. I much prefer all
star teams made in cities. I'd rather see leagues and
cities and towns and counties whatever, you earned a right
to be on an all star team and then play
for your city, for your group, and not become a
mercenary at such a young age. You're attempting to become
best in show. In these particular showcases, there's no team
(29:34):
element whatsoever. And like you said, the game's not being tough,
and I think parents are losing a lot of money
quite frankly to say that their kids on.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
A travel team.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
I just I really don't like the concept at all.
You have a lot of friends that are involved in it,
that are running these things, so they talk to me
about it very and they're very jacked up about it,
and they can't wait to tell me about it. But
at the end of the day, man, I would I
love the idea of playing for your town, your alma mater,
win for the group, win as a group, play the
game properly, and I'd much prefer that method of parents.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Please your money, you're here.
Speaker 4 (30:05):
I agree, one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
I love that. Here's another one speaking of parents, because
we know they're under a lot of pressure because you know,
they see other people having their kid, you know, spend
three hundred and four hundred dollars on a bat and
sign up for travel ball and think they need to
keep up to quote unquote compete. Here's another house rule.
Your eight u athlete doesn't need an offseason throwing program
(30:29):
for max velocity.
Speaker 4 (30:31):
You got that right. An eight year old doesn't even
know what planety's on. So the bottom line, an eight
year old should play all sports in season and not specialized.
Another problem we have with travel teams and all these
showcases is kids play baseball year round when they should
be playing all sports. The neuroplasticity of focusing on one
(30:56):
sport kind of precludes anything happening. If if he can
get out of high school with all one sport, if
he gets hurt when he's playing college or pro ball,
he's got nothing to pull from for the athleticism required
to use a different set of nerves. So my suggestion
(31:16):
and my wish for all sports is you play all sports,
so you have to specialize, and that takes place senior year,
freshman year in college.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
One hundred percent agree with that.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Also, I mean the fact that you do specialize at
such a young age is so ridiculous to me. Just
even coming down to regarding all the points that you
made there obviously wonderful, but just playing for different coaches,
differ different coaches, different sports, it's different, man. You know,
my football coaches are pretty tough, not that my baseball
coaches weren't, but it's a different kind of tough. And
(31:51):
my basketball coaches made me run till I wanted a pute,
you know.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
And then you're getting these different.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
Philosophies from these people, and you have to adapt and
to just as a as an athlete at a young
age to a personality that diferent coaches and what they
are going to bring to bear, and you're gonna learn differently.
So beyond everything else, it's just a matter of tapping
into different theories, different thoughts, different philosophies, And like you're
talking about body movement and just not getting stale. I mean,
(32:19):
my god, you just get you get stale just by
doing one thing all the time. And all this stuff
is being done for the benefit of the parent more
than it.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Is being done for the benefit of the athlete.
Speaker 4 (32:28):
And unfortunately the parents are made to believe that if
they don't afford their child this opportunity, he's not going
to get college scholarship. He's not going to be seen
by a scout. If your kid pops in ninety five,
everybody in baseball is going to know he pops the
ninety five. So don't panic about it.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Yeah, absolutely, the better of dropping drop them off at
the library instead.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Go ahead, Tommy, I'm stuck.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Yeah, I was gonna say. There's also you know, we
don't need to see kids at eleven and twelve being
pitchers only, never mind specializing in one sport. Specializing in
one position, Your kid is going to get better no
matter what the discipline or sport is, when there is
joy attached to it. We have to make sure there
is joy that this is not work for adolescents when
(33:16):
they're quote unquote playing a sport. And tom what I
see is the training methodologies which we can see online
now for all these major league players and they're grown men,
is trickling down to adolescents and high school players. You
talked about weighted balls. You know, there's probably a danger
(33:36):
with somebody trying to adopt a waited ball program for
someone who's twenty one twenty two when they're eleven or
twelve years old.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
No, you're exactly right. And unfortunately, like I heard the
other day, a parent was saying, everybody's their fastballs get
better when they recover from Atommy john Why don't we
just give all our kids Tommy Johnson go from there. Well,
what they don't realize is that the post surgery throwing
(34:07):
program and conditioning program from when Tommy john can be
done on the front side in a prehabilitative mode, and
you'll never have the Tommy john So the information is
out there. The problem is they get focused. And Joe,
I'm going to give you some kudos here. You just
explain what long term adaptive learning is. Kids learn to learn,
(34:31):
they learn, and they learn to relearn, and in their experience,
they will be across many coaches, and the style of
the coaching and the style of the learning don't often
match up. But a youngster will learn just as much
from that basketball coach that made you pew as you
will from the football coach that made you tough, as
(34:52):
you will from the pitching coach who taught you how
to have touch with a changeup. But what happens if
you zero in on one sport and one set of
coach and one process. You're going to be standing on
one leg when you need to be standing on too.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Yes, I totally agree with that, obviously.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
And as you're just saying that, it's just thinking of
litany of the different coaches I've had in different sports
and the communicators, the guys that wanted to do it
through intimidation, the positive ones, the negative ones, the ones
you did not even want to engage in conversation because
you couldn't, and the ones you just could not wait
to speak with. It's all over the map. It's all
(35:33):
over the map. And that's the stuff to me that's
really educational. That's the stuff that permits me to sit
here and talk to you right now more than anything
else that ever did. It's coach Bob rud at Lafayette,
best communicator ever and coach Adam simonskyt Hyston High School
that made major run Slate Banks after a Friday night
loss on a Saturday morning. So it's all over the map.
Speaker 4 (35:55):
Yeah, it's framing and reframing from the instruction side to
the student side. Socrates learn more from his students than
his students learn from him. And Socratest asked questions because
he realized that his teaching style may not be the
same received the same to his various students. But when
(36:19):
you ask questions, you get this communication process. Someone has
to reframe, and more often than not, it's going to
be a coach. But there are times when the athlete
has to reframe to what the coach is actually trying
to say. Don sim were telling me not to hang
a curveball was his way of saying, throw a good curveball.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Well, that's like that.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
That's like Adam Simiski told me on the sidelines playing
Chica Lamey in a really big game.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
I seen your whatever you do, don't throw an interception.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
Yes, sure enough, that next play was right into the
safety's hands.
Speaker 4 (36:52):
Exactly because here your brain can't edit good for bad.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
It just speaking of coaching, I think, Joe, you'll like
this latest house rule.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
The most powerful the thing you can say as a
coach is I was wrong. I learned new information that
changed my mind.
Speaker 4 (37:10):
It's so hard. Can I expand on that a little bit? Tom?
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Absolutely sure.
Speaker 4 (37:14):
The greatest right we have is the right to change,
and the hardest thing to do is change especially if
you've been successful. So it's a very humbling thing to
know that you've got education, you've got experience, et cetera,
et cetera. If someone comes along that has something better
(37:37):
than you do, if you can't adapt to, what's better
than your offering your tread and water until you die.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
Even in the book, I talk about my real bad
moment in Midland, Texas where I put classified ads on
the back of bathroom stalls and above toilets, and god,
I just really wish I could have had that moment back.
And then not many years ago, one of the players
in Tampa Bay, I got them in the back room
and here's him of not caring, not housling, all this
(38:05):
other kind of stuff, and that if you don't apologize,
I'm not going to put you back in the lineup. Wow,
was I wrong? Call him in a couple of days
after that being we apologized them for being so stupid.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
Yeah, you when you know you've screwed up, you've screwed up.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
And obviously since that moment on that particular player and
I have got.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
The greatest relationship ever. But yeah, I cannot agree more.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Because we want we want the accountability from our guys,
our players, and then we don't want to be accountable ourselves.
And that's Oftentimes there'll be in situations where coaching staff's
coaches will be critical of the group of the players,
and then they don't even recognize these deficiencies in our
own methods. So yeah, it's incredible. Sometimes you get so
(38:53):
much power that you feel your above all that stuff,
but you're not. And I agree the accountability component really
kind of galvanized. Can galvanize relationship when you're a player?
Speaker 4 (39:05):
I agree.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
One more house rule for you here. This is an
interesting one. Most pictures don't sprint as much as they
should want more Velo sprint more forward, end backwards.
Speaker 4 (39:17):
There's the key. The backwards is the key. Sprint work
is great, but sprinting backwards with the same parody of
effort in distancing time will improve your fastball two to
three miles an hour just balancing off your decelerators in
your legs.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
You know what, Tom, That reminds me of a question here.
Roger Clemens used to run so much. He once told
me he could tell you the location of every crack
in the sidewalk next to the Charles River in Boston.
A few pictures run now And I've talked to Garrett
Cole about this and he thinks it's kind of a
waste of energy. I am max, sure's are up until
(40:00):
I don't know if he still does. It's always been
a big runner, but very few pictures compared to what
you were playing. Especially Tom do a lot of running.
Where do you stand on running?
Speaker 4 (40:13):
Call it running, call it biking, call it whatever you want.
You need to have aerobic activity and anaerobic activity, and
if you want to do it running, that's great. You
can take care of it on a rowing machine. You
can take care of it on a stationary bike. Aerobic
activity is getting your heart rate and your breathing rate
(40:34):
up that low intensity, conversation intensity for twenty to forty
five minutes, three days a week, and it's on your
own time. And it's not for making you faster, it's
for recovery. It's flushing lactic acid. Anaerobic activity is what
athletes should do every day they're in a uniform, and
(40:54):
that's for VO two max the size of your lungs
and the fact that it recruits growth hormone when you
go anaerobic. Like the coach that made Joe puke in basketball.
But when you go to where you're puking, you're guaranteeing
that you're gaining whatever growth hormoon you have available in
your body to help your body heal and recover from
(41:17):
your last outing or sliding and getting a bruise on
your knee. So it does not have to be running.
There are a number of different ways to get aerobic
and anaerobic activity, but both of them are necessary for
the prepair, compete and recover cycle.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
Yeah, in my mind's eye, I can still see Nolan
Ryan on that stationary bike.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
Right.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
How many hours did he put in on that?
Speaker 4 (41:41):
Oh, you have a great and we took Nolan off
the field. We made him do all his If he
was going to run, he did it in a pool
and that was a concession to the aging process and
that his joints took a beating when he ran. So
we had the same aerobic anaerobic when he was in
a pool or on a stationary bike. And I think
(42:03):
he is loud. Fastball you through in Seattle at age
forty seven was not eight months from now.
Speaker 3 (42:09):
That just really comes down to each take. Got to
take each case as it is differently different body types,
different different makeup, different heartbeats, different different dribe. We're all different, man.
And I mean again, that's why I am so in
tune to listen. I'm an analytical maybe, I mean I
(42:30):
started this stuff in the mid nineteen nineties up until
when they.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
Began with the rays.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
But god, I mean to not utilize your eyeballs and
old school techniques or whatever however you want to phrase
them and combine them and morph them together, and that
say you become the maximum coaks that you can be
to become an extremist either way, I'm just old school
or just new school. To become an extremist is not
the way to do this, and I think we promote that.
(42:57):
It's almost like you got to choose sides. And to me,
I'm always about the word balance. I think balance is
the most critical word or method in our existence. When
you're able to again be willing to accept change, be
willing to understand why this might be a better way,
and even just to consider it and then consider the
fact of no. I still after considering all that, really
(43:20):
giving it an opportunity. I still prefer this method, maybe
a little bit something more tried and true, But all
this stuff is important, and when you are able to
work follow that together, then you become as good of
a coach or manager as you can become. But to
be again an extremist, I think you're cutting yourself short
and your group, your players' organization is not getting full
(43:41):
of benefit.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
Well, Tom, before we let you get out of here,
we do have some work for you. Don't worry. It's
not that hard. It's time for a reading from the
Book of Joe, and we like to have our guests
pick a number between one and three hundred and sixty eight.
That's the number of pages in the Book of Joe.
And we guarantee no matter what number you picked, Tom,
(44:03):
we're going to land on something that's really interesting. So
it's your choice. You pick any number between one and
three sixty eight, and we'll see see what's in the book.
What do you got?
Speaker 4 (44:14):
What's three hundred and sixty eight divided by two.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
I didn't know there was going to be math involved
in this.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
Yeah, that's one.
Speaker 4 (44:20):
What you're right? Okay, go to page eighty four.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
Nobody's gone triple digits. I love it.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
He went high on this one. Nobody's gone high before.
I like it.
Speaker 4 (44:30):
Well, we're halfway through the book. There'll be a little
bit of what was and a little bit of what's coming.
Got it.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
I like that theory balance. Okay, well this really fits
the topic well, because we're talking about pitch counts and
workloads for pictures and how analytics have put some governors
on people. The twenty fifteen season, this is Joe had
just joined the Cubs, began a precipitous decline as the
new gospel of third time around spread. Of course, we're
(44:57):
talking about taking starting pitchers out as soon as the
lineup turns over a third time. Based on analytics, the
twenty six percent rate of twenty fourteen fell to fifty
percent in twenty twenty one. So, in other words, the
pitcher came out fifty percent of the time the third
time around in twenty twenty one, as it was seventy
six percent in twenty fourteen. And here's Joe Madden. When
(45:20):
I first started with the Rais in two thousand and
six in the big leagues, Andrew Friedman, the GM was
really into it. Man, he was up my butt all
the time. I used to keep track of pitches per game,
the stuff that I always into right around one hundred
to one oh five is not going to hurt anybody.
Not only that, just who's the guy Scott Kashmir would
take one hundred pitches to get to the fifth inning,
(45:40):
So then you were forced to use your bullpen more
than you want to. But I think the new system
is based on front offices. It's based on data and
information the third time through the batting order, all this
stuff that they're actually nurturing in the minor leagues because
they don't let guys pitch through issues. By the time
they get to the big leagues, they're looking at their
pitch count, not just if we're winning or losing. They
(46:01):
want to know where where they're at going to pitch
another inning? Do I have another in me? I don't
even know how many pitches have I thrown? Really not
a good method, not at all.
Speaker 3 (46:13):
Yeah, I mean exactly Scott Shield, James shields. Excuse me
if I had both shields. He James wanted to pitch
more complete games. And James is a freaking bulldog, and
I was pulling him, kept pulling and pulling them because
his waterloo, weirdly was one hundred and eight pitches.
Speaker 2 (46:31):
It just happened to be that.
Speaker 3 (46:32):
He'd be cruising, cruise and cruise, and here it comes
one oh eight. And I didn't even say that to
might be watching, and all of a sudden stuff would
start happening.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
So I eventually said, listen, you know, it's just.
Speaker 3 (46:41):
Thought, I'm not lovey to do this pitch more complete games.
I'm not opposed to throwing more pitches, but you kind
of fall apart at this point. So just by pointing
that out to him, all of a sudden, he put
another gear, and this guy got on a run and
was starting to go like one ten plus a lot
and getting really deeply into the games and became a man.
Speaker 2 (46:59):
Became a dude. I mean this, It was kind of
one of those things.
Speaker 3 (47:03):
The mind one stretched has a difficult time going back
to his original form. Once that pitcher knows how to
do this and visu adversity to do this, he becomes
a different animal. I also used the example in there
with Arietta when Jake one time we were playing in
Minnesota and was like a close game, and all of
a sudden we broke it open in the eighth and
(47:25):
I think it was eight to zero Minnesota, but Jake
was cruising. He was like a right around the low
one hundred pitches in the seven or eighth inning. But
I've always thought in a major league when a pitcher
can pitch a complete game shutout, it does something to him.
So I did I let him go. I let him go,
and then he pitches a complete game shutout. We win
(47:45):
ate nothing, and it threw right around hundred and twenty pitches.
And I got all kinds of craft for that because
I should have taken him out because it was not significant,
But to me, it was very significant in regards to
the development of Jake Arietta. I did it in the
minor leagues with different guys. Again a mind one stretch.
When you permit a starting pitcher to do that pitch adversity,
learn how to pitch, and once to complete what he started,
(48:07):
the third time through becomes a little less intimidating. And
when you want to teach pictures that the third time
through is intimidating, it becomes that self fulfilled prophecy kind
of stuff. So I believe this stuff. I believe it's
I believe in it. I believe it's true. You could
throw all the data you want at me, but if
you train your guys to pitch to adversity, and they
(48:28):
should occur in a minor league level app and like
in the latter part, Double A Triple A pictures guys
that you're really into, let them do it.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
Let them do it.
Speaker 3 (48:35):
They're not going to get hurt because they threw ten
extra pitches tonight. And if you have to somehow mitigate
it the next time through, maybe bump them a day,
if there's times you may even have to skip a start, whatever.
But once you teach a picture how to do this
stuff by him teaching himself, you're going to get really
the kind of product you're looking for. And after all,
it's very expensive to buy starting pitching, very expensive. So
(48:58):
let's go ahead and develop it and not get in
the way of greatness of these young men. Let them
do things. Watch comes out of delivering something different. But
I could go on and on about different examples. You
permit them to do this, they become animals.
Speaker 1 (49:12):
Well, Joe, let me just take that James Shields example,
Because James Shield's in twenty eleven through eleven complete games
where you led the league, he pitched two hundred plus
innings nine years in a row. And James Shields pitched
till he was thirty six years old. It made one
hundred and fourteen million dollars in his career, Tom, will
(49:33):
this game allow there to be another James Shields.
Speaker 4 (49:36):
It's coming back. I don't think it'll ever be that way.
Joe's in. Joe's he hit it dead on the metal
side of a complete game has to be matched up
with a physical recovery. And what Joe said was letting
a guy know he can complete a ball game, making
the adjustment and recovery by giving him next day. It
(49:59):
has to be managed on both sides. If that made sense,
I don't I think it's ever going to be. Was
it Burt blind Levin that had twenty nine complete games
one year? I think that's why he went into the
Hall of Fame. Think about that, twenty nine complete in
one season. That's never going to happen again. But it will.
The penim will go back to where seven innings might
(50:23):
be the vanguard rather than five innings right now. But
it's never going to be complete games that are going
to be the major of the starting pitchers.
Speaker 1 (50:36):
Well, Tom, for that to happen, I think we're going
to have to have free thinkers the way you have
been in your career. When I think back and I
saw those Texas Rangers pitchers warming up in the outfield
with footballs, and you know, the naysayers would say, who
do they think they are? They're reinventing the game, And
now you look around, it's very common to see such
(50:57):
a thing in the game. So it's going to take
people who are willing to do what they think is
right than going along with the crowd.
Speaker 4 (51:06):
You know you're one hundred percent right. I didn't hear
my last name in Boston for two years. It was
now fishing for the socks, number twenty nine, tom Boo.
Because to the fans, I gave up a home runner,
Chris Shambliss. That costs us a pennant, and the fans
never forget. But if you stick by your guns, you
(51:27):
show every day. I'll tell you about I'll hang out
with you guys anytime. These kind of conversations don't happen
enough in baseball, where you sit down at a table
and you look for a way to collaborate. If you
could push one thing from our gets together today. There
needs to be more collaboration in baseball and less.
Speaker 1 (51:45):
Confrontation well said, and on that, we want to thank
you Tom. This has really been not just educational, but
enjoyable as well. Really enjoyed it. Thank you, Thanks Tom.
Speaker 3 (51:56):
I mean I did the Mustard gig the other night.
Was very cool to be able to participate with your
group there too, spoken enough. I mean, I love what
you're just everything you've said today, I could definitely learn
from you. I appreciate your method too, your outstanding teacher,
your betsend manner is perfect. So hopefully I get a
(52:17):
chance to visit more often.
Speaker 4 (52:18):
Thanks, guys, have a blessed day.
Speaker 2 (52:20):
You got it, buddy.
Speaker 1 (52:21):
Hopefully our listeners got a chance to really appreciate the
uniqueness of Tom House. We're talking about someone who has
been a coach with the Astros, the Padres, the Rangers,
University of Southern California, of course, major League career with
the Braves, Red Sox and Mariners. He's someone with a
PhD in Sports psychology, Master of Science, Master of Business Administration,
(52:41):
Bachelor of Science. I mean, he's Joe. He's just so
well prepared to speak about, you know, all aspects of pitching,
especially a very holistic approach, and hopefully our listener's got
a chance to appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (52:58):
Yeah, I just found out that's my mistake by not
talking to this guy a lot more. I've always heard
different sources. Lindsay Bearra extolls his virtues all the time.
I recently did his Mustard Broadcasters podcast recently. But Wow,
my takeaway was, I need to talk to him more often.
Speaker 2 (53:14):
I need to listen to it more often. I need
to follow him.
Speaker 3 (53:17):
His his stuff is outstanding, and the way he explains
it is beautiful, simple, particulate, and something you could learn from.
I just I mean, I might have enjoyed that as
much as any conversation that we've had.
Speaker 1 (53:32):
Yeah, and I love his Twitter bio. It's very simple.
It says, I coach kids of all ages to be
their own goat greatest of all time. Love it caught
Hank Aaron seven hundred and fifteenth.
Speaker 2 (53:45):
Yeah, that's right, he dead. He's on that video every time.
Speaker 4 (53:48):
You're right, that's awesome. That's beautiful. Man.
Speaker 1 (53:51):
Oh that was enjoyable. Joe, you have something to decap
this episode with.
Speaker 3 (53:55):
Yeah, I actually was anticipating all this and some to
quote my former player president super Scout Todd Green, I
think we've talked about this before Greeney ran this by me.
We're having a beer in Pittsburgh a couple of years
ago with him and David Hollins, and Greeney dropped this
saw me. We're talking about old school. He says, I'm
not old school, I'm not new school. I'm in school.
(54:19):
And that's exactly where we need to be.
Speaker 2 (54:22):
You know.
Speaker 3 (54:22):
Of course, we all hold on to the vestiges of
the past, and we always want.
Speaker 2 (54:27):
To be able to be contemporary.
Speaker 3 (54:30):
And then sometimes these two groups butt heads. But you
really should be in school constantly. Greeney pointed that out
to me, and.
Speaker 2 (54:38):
I want to be in school.
Speaker 1 (54:40):
Great wisdom from Greenie. Joe, thanks for passing that along.
Really enjoyed this episode.
Speaker 2 (54:44):
Outstanding job, brother, Thank you very much. It was great.
Speaker 1 (54:52):
The Book of Joe podcast is a production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
The Book of Joe Podcast is a production of iHeartRadio.
Hello again and welcome to the latest edition of the
Book of Joe Podcast with Me, Tom Berducci and Joe
Madden and Joe I always like to call this the
most interesting baseball podcast on the planet. I like to
(00:26):
think of us as the craft Brewery of baseball podcast,
or maybe the artists in bakery. How does that sound
to you?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Good?
Speaker 3 (00:35):
I love artists in bakeries. I got my nice cup
of Americana with an extra double shot of espresso sitting
next to me. Yeah, yesterday I was playing golf here
at Ruffled Feathers. I'm here in Chicago for the week,
doing different things and ready to tee off on the
first tea and who shows up culls up right alongside
me but Ozzie Gean, and we had a great conversation.
(00:57):
He looked great, and he says he looks great because
he's not managing anymore.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Always a fun conversation.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
I just quickly two thousand and eight, when we beat
them in the playoffs with the Rays, we beat the
White Sox. I'm sitting in my office after the game
and Guard comes in from the front door and says,
Ozzie wants to see you.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
So walk out to the front.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Door and he's standing there to congratulate me and us
on winning. From that moment on galvanized our Friendship's he's wonderful,
he's he's he's electric, and there's a lot of different things,
but I when it comes down, he's got a great
heart and it was a great meeting yesterday.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Yeah, it's a great way to describe him. And he
is a straight shooter, there's no doubt about that.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
The question and everybody loves it.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
And speaking of interesting, we've got a really interesting guest today.
Looking forward to this one. Say hello to Tom House.
Now you might know him, former Major league player and coach.
He's really devoted his entire life to really how to
be a better baseball player in person. Actually he's the
founder of the National Pitching Association. That's a health based
(02:05):
performance program for everybody, youth professionals. And he's got a
new app out. It's fairly new, I guess mustard, which
really a lot of players are in other sports, not
just baseball, are digging right now. So say hello to
Tom House. Tom, how are you.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
Doing very good? Thanks for having me on guys.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Yeah, I can't wait. There's so many things we want
to dive into it. And I know you work with
athletes in all kinds of different sports, from Tom Brady
to Justin Rose. We probably want to spend most of
our time here on pitching. But we were just talking
Tom about the connection between some of the movements in
(02:45):
these sports that may seem disparate to a lot of people.
But what have you found to be a common thread
as you work with athletes from different sports.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
Well, the surprising thing when we first started getting into
high steed motion analysis in three dimensions was that rotational athletes,
throwers and strikers have the exact same kinematic sequence. Now,
the timing of the total movement might be a little different,
but as far as feet to fingertips, with the legs, hips, shoulders, arms, due,
(03:20):
it's all pretty much the same movement.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
It's interesting.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Yeah, you know, Tom, I got to start with this.
We talk a lot about how much we use technology.
You were at the forefront of using some of the
technology a long time ago, and the technology has only
grown better and deeper in terms of the information we
get from it. But at the same time, we're not
keeping pitchers any healthier. At this point of the baseball season,
(03:47):
there have been three hundred and thirty eight pitchers put
on the injured list. Now there's been eight hundred pitchers
who've pitched this year. So basically, forty two percent of
pitchers wind up on the il and we're not done
with the season yet. We're going to get close to
fifty percent of pitchers breakdown by the end of the year.
That is costing team so far this year four hundred
(04:09):
and forty three million dollars and twenty three thousand days
lost to pitchers who can't pitch. Please, as best you can, Tom,
explain to me why we know more about pitching and
yet we can't keep pitchers healthy.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
Well, you you nailed it, And those numbers are only
going to get worse. And here's why. We've created a
generation of great athletes who's when it comes to pitching,
their arm speed and their adaptability to the what it
takes to do it for a full season kind of
(04:49):
precludes them being healthy. There's three basic things you look
at when you're asking a pitcher to be healthy for
a full season. His mechanical efficiency, his functional strength, and
these workloads. The one hundred pitch per game at fifteen
pitches per inning. Go all the way back to one
(05:09):
of my mentors when I first signed Paul Richards, he
had the Baby Birds, He had four guys in Baltimore
that won twenty games, but he had been implementing the
hundred pitch thing in the minor leagues, and that was
like fifty years ago. And they try Baseball tried, and
(05:30):
I have to get an a per effort. And you're
very perceptive. We have more technology now than has ever existed.
We can majure and quantify better than ever before, but
we haven't figured out with those measurables how to come
up with a deliverable to have pitchers adapt to the
(05:51):
armspeed we've created. Do you mind if I take another
little sidebar real quick here?
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Absolutely sure?
Speaker 4 (05:57):
Okay. When we did the initial study on weighted balls,
it was to fix god blen all humoral internal rotation deficity,
and we have we had a six month study. The
efficacy was awesome. The secondary benefit when we fix GOURD
was that velocity's increased, and once it got out that
(06:21):
weighted balls would improve velocity. But you have the numbers
better than I do. I think when I was in
the big leagues, the average big league fastball was like
eighty six and some change. Well now it's ninety two
to ninety three, and that's the good news. The bad
news is we haven't been able to figure out how
to keep that arm speed healthy. Did that make sense?
Speaker 1 (06:43):
But I just absolutely it does seem the harder these
guys throw, the more they're at risk, exactly.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
And there's some great athletes out there, and the same
goes with the everyday players, but the functional strength training
hasn't caught up with the ability of showing how arms
to go faster and that's to go quickly. It's going
to happen. But in this little slot we're in right now,
(07:12):
You're right, the incidence of injury and guys on the
you know, the injured list, it is really kind of unacceptable.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Does this also like conclude?
Speaker 3 (07:21):
I mean, that's the technical side of it, but just
like body types, tall and slender, thick and stocky, when
you're evaluating these players and they go through all these
different training components, whether it's the way to.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Ball, which actually we had back in the day.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
I might have had your first set of weighted baseballs
back when I was running the minor leagues with the
Angels back in the day. But is there any kind
of correlationship to this concern with arm injury just based
on body type? Is that even a consideration or does
that not even enter the equation?
Speaker 4 (07:52):
Body type is a consideration, but it's more of the
height of the individual. We know that the average height
of major league pictures. Let me take a step back.
If you go to the Hall of Fame. Okay, the
average Hall of Fame picture was six feet and some
change and right around one hundred and ninety pounds whitey four. Well,
(08:14):
now the average height of a picture in the big
leagues is sneaking up on sixty three. We know that
a picture that is taller than six ' five he
is three years behind the same age picture that is
six ' one's. It has to do with the joint integrity, nerves,
(08:37):
talking to muscle, and what you're seeing. If you look
at the injuries that are occurring, it bloke down to
their mechanics pretty solid. But with workloads, the ability of
the body, especially the shoulder or any mobile joint, the
ability of the body to handle the best of one
(09:00):
hundred mile an hour fastball, it hasn't quite adapted to
the tree, but it's coming.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
I will say that just when you get to be
that big or long, long armed, or limbed, I mean
just to coordinate the stroke, isn't that become problematic too?
Whether you're playing golf, whether you're throwing a baseball, football, whatever,
you know.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Automatically I want big tall guys.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Yeah, but isn't there like like you're saying, there's an
optimal height, there's an optimal weight in order to coordinate
all these different things. Had I had Jeff Neman with
the Rays back in the day. I love Jeff Neman.
If that boy could have stayed well and he didn't
throw that hard, I mean he did his best work,
like between eighty nine and ninety two. That's to me
again where the gun is important. What does a guy
do his best work in regards to repeating his delivery,
(09:43):
action on his pitch, his ability to locate. All these
things are factors for me too. But he was six
or nine, and he kept getting hurt and it was
difficult to stay well. Just based on that, and then
I just thought he of all that one of the
tall people that I've had was able to coordinate great
sink great command. He would cruise in the middle innings,
(10:03):
but he would He was the unicorn for me. So
I've always thought that there might be like we're describing
right on, optimal height and weight to be at to
be able to control this armstroke, repeat it consistently. Like
the term do it easily, not be the full effort.
I mean people use the word maximum effort. I always
wish I was doing giving my maximum effort. But it's
(10:25):
like this full effort component also where guys are bumping
and grinding to get to their number, whereas the guys
that do it easily to me, at least from a distance,
appeared to be able to repeat their pitch, their location,
stay healthy, stay well, and not be soorn between starts,
at the point that you don't have to back off
them and maybe go on ten or hundred and fifteen pitches.
(10:46):
I know it's a long consideration there, But does that
play into anything whatsoever at all?
Speaker 4 (10:52):
Oh? Yeah, you hit a couple of buzzwords that are
really true. For every one inch of growth, it puts
the body back two months. For every five pounds of
weight gain or loss, it puts the bodies kinesthetic awareness
back two months, and we're in this battle right now
trying to coordinate tall pictures with weight, training with functional movement,
(11:18):
with workloads. Throwing down the mound really enhances arm speed,
but trying to decelerate that arm speed hasn't quite matched
up yet, so you can only accelerate what you can decelerate.
You're only as strong as your weakest length. And what
we're seeing right now are really good athletes that at
(11:41):
twenty two, twenty three, if you're six foot seven, six
foot eight, you're really just a big twelve year old. Now,
we're getting better, the research is getting better, the quantification
is getting better, but we're still not quite where we
need to be to help that tall guy adapt to
a ninety eight to one hundred and two mile an
(12:01):
hour fastball question.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
Of you're that you're you're the Scotty director of whatever team,
and you're going to speak to your scouts as they
go out on the road in January to prepare for
the June draft. If you had to give them one
physical parameter to look at it, you're looking. We're looking
for pictures that are how much, how tall, and how heavy?
Is there any kind of like a template mental template
(12:27):
you could give your scouts in order to follow, because
if we get enough of these, we're going to hit
paydirt more often.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
What you want to do is look for the tallest
pitcher that can walk into chew gum. Okay, and then
tell your developmental people in your in your organization, and
it's going to take three more years to get the
Randy Johnson body to the big leagues. Okay, then it will.
But even though they're throwing hard, even though they've got
great stuff, they're going to take a little longer to
(12:55):
be developed so that their arm speed and their arm
strength matchup with their functional mechanics and the workloads that
they're expect. You do, I don't know if you're aware,
but about I think it's almost ten years ago. Our
research showed that the only way you can kind of
monitor while we're in this new era of velocity is
(13:19):
pitch totals, and the game is actually aiming towards what
we predicted, where you're going to have twelve pitchers that
they'll throw one hundred plus pitches a week, but they're
going to do it one time through the lineup three
times rather than during a game. The days of the
Nolan oriance where Bobby Valentine would go out to take
(13:39):
Nolan out of the game and Bob would say that's
it text, and Nolan would look at it and say, no,
it's not Bobby. One of us is leaving this mouth
that it ain't going to be me those days. Those
days are over. You would know better than I would, Tom,
what is the average starting pitchers? Is it five innings? Now?
(14:00):
I know it's getting closer and closer to five innings
than it ever.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Yeah, it's just a shade over five innings, right. Pitch
count continues to go down as well. By the way, Joe,
that was a great question about what you look for.
To me, I always look for pitchers who are good movers,
good athletes, if they played another position, if they played
another sport. I would rather have that guy who moves
well and naturally than that seventeen year old kid who
(14:28):
has learned how to throw, not to pitch, who's not
a great athlete and can throw ninety five miles an
hour at seventeen. Those ones scare me, so Tom, I
when we're gonna take a quick break here, when we
get back, I want to ask you about because the population,
as you know, is getting taller, and we're seeing that
in baseball, and meanwhile pitchers are throwing less. So I
(14:50):
want to ask you about these young pitchers such as
Jodi Perez of the Marlins, who they sent down to
the minor leagues just to not pitch for a month
or so, Grayson Rodriguez of the Orioles. These are guy's
big time arms who there's governor's placed on them. Are
we doing them well by putting governors on them? Are
we too careful with these young pictures? I want to
(15:11):
have Tom dive into those questions right after this. Okay,
Tom House, It's a big topic. I know, and I
know that the industry has gone ultra conservative with how
they treat young pictures. And listen, I've been on this
(15:32):
forefront for years something that people have referred to as
the Verducci effect, where I notice young pictures I'm talking
about under twenty five who get their innings bumped up
more than thirty percent are more at risk of breaking down.
Listen to everybody's at risk of breaking down. I think
we know that by now. But I wouldn't run a
marathon if all I ran were five ks. I couldn't
(15:53):
go straight from five k I have to train for
that marathon. So packing on fifty seventy more innings on
a yearly basis for a young picture whose joints are
still developing, probably not a good idea. But the other
side of this Tom is there's so many governors on
these pitchers in the minor leagues. Guys are getting the
major leagues now without pitching out of a jam from
(16:13):
the sixth inning on, without reaching one hundred pitches, and
so they have to be taken out of games early
and have to be limited when they get to the majors.
Where do you come down here on the volume that
we're asking young pitchers to make as they develop into
major leaguers.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
Well, it can be quantifying, and we actually have curriculum
and data to support. When you throw a baseball, we
can look at your mechanical efficiency, we look at your
body type like Joe was talking about, we look at
your athleticism. We also look are you pitching specific It's
(16:48):
the only thing you did going through high school was pitch.
If you didn't play other sports. All these kind of
mixing together and it blows down to energy in, energy out.
Glenn flies A bit of research study, it takes more
muscle strength to throw ninety five on flat ground than
(17:09):
it does throwing ninety five down amount and that confuses
a lot of people. But literally, the Japanese, I think,
are the best at this. They throw, throw, throw, throw,
and then throw some more. But they don't throw off
the mound that much. In youth ball over there, there
(17:32):
are no mounts. It's all flat ground. So eventually the
arm will adapt to whatever you ask it to do.
But what's happening because of the economics of the game.
You sign a young picture for four million bucks, ownership
is going to want to get that guy to be
producing in the big leagues as quick as possible. There
(17:52):
will be a time when everybody, conditioning, coaches, pitching coaches,
front office, scouts, etc. Sit down and put a time
time frame to the development of each picture in the organization.
It's got to be personally adapted. It can't be a
cookie cutting thing for everybody. So Joe asked, what does
(18:14):
that perfect picture look like to your scouts? Think of
Bartolo Cologne. You would never see him looking at him now,
But what did he pitched? I think he's steal I'm
be pitching. He might be fifty years old right now.
And look at Randy Johnson. Randy was in the big leagues,
but he wasn't productive until he was twenty seven to
(18:35):
twenty eight years old, and still is. When nerves and
muscles can get the task done between the lines and competition,
but durability comes with all the what you just mentioned.
Did you play other sport? Can your body move forward
and backward? Do you have a conditioning program that fits
(18:56):
your body type? It does no good for a six
foot ten kid to do a bench presis when the
joint in tech you have his shoulder is that of
a twelve year old. So it's all this information, guys
is out there, but putting it together in one unified
process that all organizations will agree upon. Good luck. That's
(19:21):
what I've seen. It's easy for me to sit back
and look what's going on out there because I live
in this information and instruction bubble. I have all the
access to technology and I can experience experiment with whatever
we want. It's doable, but I'm not sure the makeup
of the game will have it happen in the short term.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
You talk about Bartolo bartol is one of the best
athletes I've had on the field. I worked with Bartolo.
I mean he looked one way, quick feed, covered first base,
great defender, great move to first base, and he could
hit a little bit. He was just a big guy.
I totally understand that, and I do agree. You just
don't know what the package is going to look like
that's going to be successful. But there's got to be
(20:01):
some kind of a template.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
I asked my guy used to go look at it.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Just listening to all this, at what point does observation
skills experience enter into this. I mean just I liked
my data, but I've also liked my eyes. You know,
I was trained to do a certain thing at the
young age as a scout, and we didn't have the
benefit of all of this.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Biomechanical breakdown.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
I mean, Benny Hines got into this a little bit
back in the day with hitting in the early nineteen eighties,
as it began to blossom, and I was starting to
hear stuff like this doctor Harrison with the eyes and
vision kind of training that became popular, and of course
doctor Ken Ravisa and Harvey Dorfman was just the mental
skills breathing in the moment and how that led us
to be better what we did and more efficient. Again,
(20:49):
at some point, I still believe in everything you're talking
abou one hundred percent, but also I believe in eyeballs
and experience and handling each case differently because you just
don't know. You just don't know what's going on inside
and when that body's going to break down, and there's
so many variables involved in this situation. So for me,
(21:09):
the best way to do all this, in my opinion,
is to do exactly consider everything that you're talking about,
but also consider your eyeballs. I've had, like given in
the book, Tommy was able to research. I permitted Bobby
Kipper to throw one hundred and forty pitches in a
rookie league game in Salem, Oregon several years ago, and
Bobby went on to a really good major league career.
(21:32):
I was never hamstrung by my front offices by saying,
somebody can't.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
You can't you have to pull somebody after so many pitches,
even on a minor league level.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
And you were able to watch and was coming out
of his delivery as he starting to try to overthrow pitches.
Quite frankly, something like that. Was he just coming up
in his own he had been down in his own
like things that you say, Is there any in your mind?
Is there any substance to that to combine everything you're
talking about with just good old baseball acumen, just based
(22:05):
on experience watching somebody throw a baseball, all of a
sudden he's throwing it differently, and this might be the
time the plumb is an example, and not necessarily make
it a hundred pitch exercise.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
Tom, I'm going to tell you right now, he can
ask more questions in one.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Sentence, so I make questions.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
You're dead on, Joe. The one thing that artificial intelligence
can't do is have the benefit of experience. They can
look at numbers and crank like. But experience leads to knowledge,
leads to wisdom, and that's what you've got, call it,
call it baseball smarts. Artificial intelligence can't do that. So
let's take the fact that you are. You have an
(22:49):
experienced on You have seen a whole bunch of things
that are artificial intelligence will never see. Hold that in place.
In your long question you mentioned a few things. There's
four things that keep an athlete healthy and productive. His
biomechanical efficiency is functional strength is metal, emotional makeup, and
(23:12):
nutrition and sleep for recovery. Those are the four pillars
of health and performance for an athlete at any level,
and we are getting better and better at each one
of those, but very few individuals or organizations have put
them together in a program that is personally adapted, not
(23:32):
cookie cutting throughout the organization. So there's one set of rules,
but there's a million interpretations, and it's really hard to
put that on development staff that they have to look
at each kid differently, and the organizations that do where
(23:52):
it's personally adaptive and all their instruction is the function
of what they need to work on. You can have
the best athlete in the world that doesn't have metal
emotional makeup and he's going to look like his mechanics
suck and you can't throw strikes. You can have a
kid that's throwing hard that can't throw it over the plate.
You can have a kid that throws it over the
(24:13):
plate but doesn't throw hard enough for these effective velocity.
I mean, the great thing about baseball is that there
are so many variables that there's a way for anybody
if they put their pieces together. I'm a perfect example.
I got to the big leagues with an eighty three
mile on hour fastball. I wouldn't even be able to
play in college in today's game, but I threw a
(24:36):
curveball for a strike. And Warren Spahn said, there's good
curveball's hitters, but nobody hits a good curveball. So I
gave up on velocity when I was seventeen or eighteen
years old and started hitting the Nassas with a curveball.
And it took me forever to get to the big leagues,
but I got there. Did that make sense what I
just said?
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Of course, yeah it does. And Joe, it really reminds
me that I know what you've said. A lot here
is who's doing the teaching right. We have a lot
of the instructors now I call them instructors because they
come armed with their certificates and technology. But there's more
to being a major league pitcher in this case than
(25:14):
your spin rate than your velocity. Garrett Cole said it
really well the other day. The Yankees pitcher said, listen,
everybody wants that one pitch with a super spin rate,
the right spin access. They want their one pitch to
get on pitching Ninja Twitter, But what about pitching? It's
the difference between throwing and pitching. And I think what
(25:34):
you just did, Tom is very eloquently. You talked about
the difference between knowledge and wisdom, and with experience comes wisdom.
Speaker 4 (25:44):
No, you're dead on, and I'll take it one step further.
We live in an outcome world and everybody's trying to
keep their kid or their athlete from failing. You will
learn more from your failures if you treat failure as
a learning experience. We don't give kids permission to fail
the same way every time. You've got to learn from
(26:05):
your screw ups. But because kids are rushed through the
minor leagues now, they're literally and I think Joe said
it when we first started this get together, you got
guys in the big leagues that are not really prepared
to pitch in the big leagues. And I say the
word pitch. They can throw, they can throw one hundred
and two miles an hour, but hitters have adjusted to
(26:29):
one hundred and two miles an hour. And I hope
you notice that there's pictures on all staffs in the
big leagues now that are learning how to get people
out with a changeup. And it's because to hit one
hundred and two mile our fastball, you pretty much have
to sell out. Anybody can hit a hundred mile in
our fastball in the big league now, And the trick is,
(26:52):
can you change speeds off of that fastball so the
guy can't go all out and make contact.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
Yeah, that's pitching. I mean you said it. Well, we're
in an age now where there are fewer fastballs thrown
in a major league game than at any point in
the game's history, and we also have the highest velocity.
And that's the case because of what you just said
that hitters have adjusted a pitch. A fastball ninety eight
and above has a higher batting average than an average slider.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
Yes. Yes, Julio Franco said he could hit a bullet.
If you put him in a game where he can
see the bullet, he could get the bat on it.
But if you're mixing a break and ball and a changeup,
he's got no chance to hit a ping pong ball.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
He could probably hit a bullet still, and he's about
fifty two years old.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Hey, we're going to take a quick break here when
we get back. I know we in our book, the
Book of Joe is full of what I call maddenisms,
the wit and wisdom of Joe Madden and Tom House
is of a similar vein. I'm going to call these
house rules. So we'll take a quick tour among the
house rules. Our guest is Tom House, guru of all
(28:16):
things pitching and other sports as well. And Tom, you know,
going through your Twitter feed, I love some of these
pearls of wisdom that you have out there, So I'd
like to throw some out here and have you and
Joe kind of respond to what I call house rules.
How about this one. The travel ball industry is optimized
for people to make a living, not for developing players.
(28:38):
I know that's a whole nother show, Tom, but real
quickly the thought behind that, and real quickly.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
With an answer. I don't deny anybody the right to
make a living, but travel ball is all about money.
It's not about developing developing and a young pitcher or
a young hitter. And the kids get really good at
being travel ball players, and you said early in this
get together that they don't know how to play the game.
So while I understand the need to make a living,
(29:07):
it should not be at the expense of a young
player's health and development.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
I'm totally against the travel concept. I much prefer all
star teams made in cities. I'd rather see leagues and
cities and towns and counties whatever, you earned a right
to be on an all star team and then play
for your city, for your group, and not become a
mercenary at such a young age. You're attempting to become
best in show. In these particular showcases, there's no team
(29:34):
element whatsoever. And like you said, the game's not being tough,
and I think parents are losing a lot of money
quite frankly to say that their kids on.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
A travel team.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
I just I really don't like the concept at all.
You have a lot of friends that are involved in it,
that are running these things, so they talk to me
about it very and they're very jacked up about it,
and they can't wait to tell me about it. But
at the end of the day, man, I would I
love the idea of playing for your town, your alma mater,
win for the group, win as a group, play the
game properly, and I'd much prefer that method of parents.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Please your money, you're here.
Speaker 4 (30:05):
I agree, one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
I love that. Here's another one speaking of parents, because
we know they're under a lot of pressure because you know,
they see other people having their kid, you know, spend
three hundred and four hundred dollars on a bat and
sign up for travel ball and think they need to
keep up to quote unquote compete. Here's another house rule.
Your eight u athlete doesn't need an offseason throwing program
(30:29):
for max velocity.
Speaker 4 (30:31):
You got that right. An eight year old doesn't even
know what planety's on. So the bottom line, an eight
year old should play all sports in season and not specialized.
Another problem we have with travel teams and all these
showcases is kids play baseball year round when they should
be playing all sports. The neuroplasticity of focusing on one
(30:56):
sport kind of precludes anything happening. If if he can
get out of high school with all one sport, if
he gets hurt when he's playing college or pro ball,
he's got nothing to pull from for the athleticism required
to use a different set of nerves. So my suggestion
(31:16):
and my wish for all sports is you play all sports,
so you have to specialize, and that takes place senior year,
freshman year in college.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
One hundred percent agree with that.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Also, I mean the fact that you do specialize at
such a young age is so ridiculous to me. Just
even coming down to regarding all the points that you
made there obviously wonderful, but just playing for different coaches,
differ different coaches, different sports, it's different, man. You know,
my football coaches are pretty tough, not that my baseball
coaches weren't, but it's a different kind of tough. And
(31:51):
my basketball coaches made me run till I wanted a pute,
you know.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
And then you're getting these different.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
Philosophies from these people, and you have to adapt and
to just as a as an athlete at a young
age to a personality that diferent coaches and what they
are going to bring to bear, and you're gonna learn differently.
So beyond everything else, it's just a matter of tapping
into different theories, different thoughts, different philosophies, And like you're
talking about body movement and just not getting stale. I mean,
(32:19):
my god, you just get you get stale just by
doing one thing all the time. And all this stuff
is being done for the benefit of the parent more
than it.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Is being done for the benefit of the athlete.
Speaker 4 (32:28):
And unfortunately the parents are made to believe that if
they don't afford their child this opportunity, he's not going
to get college scholarship. He's not going to be seen
by a scout. If your kid pops in ninety five,
everybody in baseball is going to know he pops the
ninety five. So don't panic about it.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Yeah, absolutely, the better of dropping drop them off at
the library instead.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Go ahead, Tommy, I'm stuck.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Yeah, I was gonna say. There's also you know, we
don't need to see kids at eleven and twelve being
pitchers only, never mind specializing in one sport. Specializing in
one position, Your kid is going to get better no
matter what the discipline or sport is, when there is
joy attached to it. We have to make sure there
is joy that this is not work for adolescents when
(33:16):
they're quote unquote playing a sport. And tom what I
see is the training methodologies which we can see online
now for all these major league players and they're grown men,
is trickling down to adolescents and high school players. You
talked about weighted balls. You know, there's probably a danger
(33:36):
with somebody trying to adopt a waited ball program for
someone who's twenty one twenty two when they're eleven or
twelve years old.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
No, you're exactly right. And unfortunately, like I heard the
other day, a parent was saying, everybody's their fastballs get
better when they recover from Atommy john Why don't we
just give all our kids Tommy Johnson go from there. Well,
what they don't realize is that the post surgery throwing
(34:07):
program and conditioning program from when Tommy john can be
done on the front side in a prehabilitative mode, and
you'll never have the Tommy john So the information is
out there. The problem is they get focused. And Joe,
I'm going to give you some kudos here. You just
explain what long term adaptive learning is. Kids learn to learn,
(34:31):
they learn, and they learn to relearn, and in their experience,
they will be across many coaches, and the style of
the coaching and the style of the learning don't often
match up. But a youngster will learn just as much
from that basketball coach that made you pew as you
will from the football coach that made you tough, as
(34:52):
you will from the pitching coach who taught you how
to have touch with a changeup. But what happens if
you zero in on one sport and one set of
coach and one process. You're going to be standing on
one leg when you need to be standing on too.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Yes, I totally agree with that, obviously.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
And as you're just saying that, it's just thinking of
litany of the different coaches I've had in different sports
and the communicators, the guys that wanted to do it
through intimidation, the positive ones, the negative ones, the ones
you did not even want to engage in conversation because
you couldn't, and the ones you just could not wait
to speak with. It's all over the map. It's all
(35:33):
over the map. And that's the stuff to me that's
really educational. That's the stuff that permits me to sit
here and talk to you right now more than anything
else that ever did. It's coach Bob rud at Lafayette,
best communicator ever and coach Adam simonskyt Hyston High School
that made major run Slate Banks after a Friday night
loss on a Saturday morning. So it's all over the map.
Speaker 4 (35:55):
Yeah, it's framing and reframing from the instruction side to
the student side. Socrates learn more from his students than
his students learn from him. And Socratest asked questions because
he realized that his teaching style may not be the
same received the same to his various students. But when
(36:19):
you ask questions, you get this communication process. Someone has
to reframe, and more often than not, it's going to
be a coach. But there are times when the athlete
has to reframe to what the coach is actually trying
to say. Don sim were telling me not to hang
a curveball was his way of saying, throw a good curveball.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Well, that's like that.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
That's like Adam Simiski told me on the sidelines playing
Chica Lamey in a really big game.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
I seen your whatever you do, don't throw an interception.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
Yes, sure enough, that next play was right into the
safety's hands.
Speaker 4 (36:52):
Exactly because here your brain can't edit good for bad.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
It just speaking of coaching, I think, Joe, you'll like
this latest house rule.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
The most powerful the thing you can say as a
coach is I was wrong. I learned new information that
changed my mind.
Speaker 4 (37:10):
It's so hard. Can I expand on that a little bit? Tom?
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Absolutely sure.
Speaker 4 (37:14):
The greatest right we have is the right to change,
and the hardest thing to do is change especially if
you've been successful. So it's a very humbling thing to
know that you've got education, you've got experience, et cetera,
et cetera. If someone comes along that has something better
(37:37):
than you do, if you can't adapt to, what's better
than your offering your tread and water until you die.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
Even in the book, I talk about my real bad
moment in Midland, Texas where I put classified ads on
the back of bathroom stalls and above toilets, and god,
I just really wish I could have had that moment back.
And then not many years ago, one of the players
in Tampa Bay, I got them in the back room
and here's him of not caring, not housling, all this
(38:05):
other kind of stuff, and that if you don't apologize,
I'm not going to put you back in the lineup. Wow,
was I wrong? Call him in a couple of days
after that being we apologized them for being so stupid.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
Yeah, you when you know you've screwed up, you've screwed up.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
And obviously since that moment on that particular player and
I have got.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
The greatest relationship ever. But yeah, I cannot agree more.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Because we want we want the accountability from our guys,
our players, and then we don't want to be accountable ourselves.
And that's Oftentimes there'll be in situations where coaching staff's
coaches will be critical of the group of the players,
and then they don't even recognize these deficiencies in our
own methods. So yeah, it's incredible. Sometimes you get so
(38:53):
much power that you feel your above all that stuff,
but you're not. And I agree the accountability component really
kind of galvanized. Can galvanize relationship when you're a player?
Speaker 4 (39:05):
I agree.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
One more house rule for you here. This is an
interesting one. Most pictures don't sprint as much as they
should want more Velo sprint more forward, end backwards.
Speaker 4 (39:17):
There's the key. The backwards is the key. Sprint work
is great, but sprinting backwards with the same parody of
effort in distancing time will improve your fastball two to
three miles an hour just balancing off your decelerators in
your legs.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
You know what, Tom, That reminds me of a question here.
Roger Clemens used to run so much. He once told
me he could tell you the location of every crack
in the sidewalk next to the Charles River in Boston.
A few pictures run now And I've talked to Garrett
Cole about this and he thinks it's kind of a
waste of energy. I am max, sure's are up until
(40:00):
I don't know if he still does. It's always been
a big runner, but very few pictures compared to what
you were playing. Especially Tom do a lot of running.
Where do you stand on running?
Speaker 4 (40:13):
Call it running, call it biking, call it whatever you want.
You need to have aerobic activity and anaerobic activity, and
if you want to do it running, that's great. You
can take care of it on a rowing machine. You
can take care of it on a stationary bike. Aerobic
activity is getting your heart rate and your breathing rate
(40:34):
up that low intensity, conversation intensity for twenty to forty
five minutes, three days a week, and it's on your
own time. And it's not for making you faster, it's
for recovery. It's flushing lactic acid. Anaerobic activity is what
athletes should do every day they're in a uniform, and
(40:54):
that's for VO two max the size of your lungs
and the fact that it recruits growth hormone when you
go anaerobic. Like the coach that made Joe puke in basketball.
But when you go to where you're puking, you're guaranteeing
that you're gaining whatever growth hormoon you have available in
your body to help your body heal and recover from
(41:17):
your last outing or sliding and getting a bruise on
your knee. So it does not have to be running.
There are a number of different ways to get aerobic
and anaerobic activity, but both of them are necessary for
the prepair, compete and recover cycle.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
Yeah, in my mind's eye, I can still see Nolan
Ryan on that stationary bike.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
Right.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
How many hours did he put in on that?
Speaker 4 (41:41):
Oh, you have a great and we took Nolan off
the field. We made him do all his If he
was going to run, he did it in a pool
and that was a concession to the aging process and
that his joints took a beating when he ran. So
we had the same aerobic anaerobic when he was in
a pool or on a stationary bike. And I think
(42:03):
he is loud. Fastball you through in Seattle at age
forty seven was not eight months from now.
Speaker 3 (42:09):
That just really comes down to each take. Got to
take each case as it is differently different body types,
different different makeup, different heartbeats, different different dribe. We're all different, man.
And I mean again, that's why I am so in
tune to listen. I'm an analytical maybe, I mean I
(42:30):
started this stuff in the mid nineteen nineties up until
when they.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
Began with the rays.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
But god, I mean to not utilize your eyeballs and
old school techniques or whatever however you want to phrase
them and combine them and morph them together, and that
say you become the maximum coaks that you can be
to become an extremist either way, I'm just old school
or just new school. To become an extremist is not
the way to do this, and I think we promote that.
(42:57):
It's almost like you got to choose sides. And to me,
I'm always about the word balance. I think balance is
the most critical word or method in our existence. When
you're able to again be willing to accept change, be
willing to understand why this might be a better way,
and even just to consider it and then consider the
fact of no. I still after considering all that, really
(43:20):
giving it an opportunity. I still prefer this method, maybe
a little bit something more tried and true, But all
this stuff is important, and when you are able to
work follow that together, then you become as good of
a coach or manager as you can become. But to
be again an extremist, I think you're cutting yourself short
and your group, your players' organization is not getting full
(43:41):
of benefit.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
Well, Tom, before we let you get out of here,
we do have some work for you. Don't worry. It's
not that hard. It's time for a reading from the
Book of Joe, and we like to have our guests
pick a number between one and three hundred and sixty eight.
That's the number of pages in the Book of Joe.
And we guarantee no matter what number you picked, Tom,
(44:03):
we're going to land on something that's really interesting. So
it's your choice. You pick any number between one and
three sixty eight, and we'll see see what's in the book.
What do you got?
Speaker 4 (44:14):
What's three hundred and sixty eight divided by two.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
I didn't know there was going to be math involved
in this.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
Yeah, that's one.
Speaker 4 (44:20):
What you're right? Okay, go to page eighty four.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
Nobody's gone triple digits. I love it.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
He went high on this one. Nobody's gone high before.
I like it.
Speaker 4 (44:30):
Well, we're halfway through the book. There'll be a little
bit of what was and a little bit of what's coming.
Got it.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
I like that theory balance. Okay, well this really fits
the topic well, because we're talking about pitch counts and
workloads for pictures and how analytics have put some governors
on people. The twenty fifteen season, this is Joe had
just joined the Cubs, began a precipitous decline as the
new gospel of third time around spread. Of course, we're
(44:57):
talking about taking starting pitchers out as soon as the
lineup turns over a third time. Based on analytics, the
twenty six percent rate of twenty fourteen fell to fifty
percent in twenty twenty one. So, in other words, the
pitcher came out fifty percent of the time the third
time around in twenty twenty one, as it was seventy
six percent in twenty fourteen. And here's Joe Madden. When
(45:20):
I first started with the Rais in two thousand and
six in the big leagues, Andrew Friedman, the GM was
really into it. Man, he was up my butt all
the time. I used to keep track of pitches per game,
the stuff that I always into right around one hundred
to one oh five is not going to hurt anybody.
Not only that, just who's the guy Scott Kashmir would
take one hundred pitches to get to the fifth inning,
(45:40):
So then you were forced to use your bullpen more
than you want to. But I think the new system
is based on front offices. It's based on data and
information the third time through the batting order, all this
stuff that they're actually nurturing in the minor leagues because
they don't let guys pitch through issues. By the time
they get to the big leagues, they're looking at their
pitch count, not just if we're winning or losing. They
(46:01):
want to know where where they're at going to pitch
another inning? Do I have another in me? I don't
even know how many pitches have I thrown? Really not
a good method, not at all.
Speaker 3 (46:13):
Yeah, I mean exactly Scott Shield, James shields. Excuse me
if I had both shields. He James wanted to pitch
more complete games. And James is a freaking bulldog, and
I was pulling him, kept pulling and pulling them because
his waterloo, weirdly was one hundred and eight pitches.
Speaker 2 (46:31):
It just happened to be that.
Speaker 3 (46:32):
He'd be cruising, cruise and cruise, and here it comes
one oh eight. And I didn't even say that to
might be watching, and all of a sudden stuff would
start happening.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
So I eventually said, listen, you know, it's just.
Speaker 3 (46:41):
Thought, I'm not lovey to do this pitch more complete games.
I'm not opposed to throwing more pitches, but you kind
of fall apart at this point. So just by pointing
that out to him, all of a sudden, he put
another gear, and this guy got on a run and
was starting to go like one ten plus a lot
and getting really deeply into the games and became a man.
Speaker 2 (46:59):
Became a dude. I mean this, It was kind of
one of those things.
Speaker 3 (47:03):
The mind one stretched has a difficult time going back
to his original form. Once that pitcher knows how to
do this and visu adversity to do this, he becomes
a different animal. I also used the example in there
with Arietta when Jake one time we were playing in
Minnesota and was like a close game, and all of
a sudden we broke it open in the eighth and
(47:25):
I think it was eight to zero Minnesota, but Jake
was cruising. He was like a right around the low
one hundred pitches in the seven or eighth inning. But
I've always thought in a major league when a pitcher
can pitch a complete game shutout, it does something to him.
So I did I let him go. I let him go,
and then he pitches a complete game shutout. We win
(47:45):
ate nothing, and it threw right around hundred and twenty pitches.
And I got all kinds of craft for that because
I should have taken him out because it was not significant,
But to me, it was very significant in regards to
the development of Jake Arietta. I did it in the
minor leagues with different guys. Again a mind one stretch.
When you permit a starting pitcher to do that pitch adversity,
learn how to pitch, and once to complete what he started,
(48:07):
the third time through becomes a little less intimidating. And
when you want to teach pictures that the third time
through is intimidating, it becomes that self fulfilled prophecy kind
of stuff. So I believe this stuff. I believe it's
I believe in it. I believe it's true. You could
throw all the data you want at me, but if
you train your guys to pitch to adversity, and they
(48:28):
should occur in a minor league level app and like
in the latter part, Double A Triple A pictures guys
that you're really into, let them do it.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
Let them do it.
Speaker 3 (48:35):
They're not going to get hurt because they threw ten
extra pitches tonight. And if you have to somehow mitigate
it the next time through, maybe bump them a day,
if there's times you may even have to skip a start, whatever.
But once you teach a picture how to do this
stuff by him teaching himself, you're going to get really
the kind of product you're looking for. And after all,
it's very expensive to buy starting pitching, very expensive. So
(48:58):
let's go ahead and develop it and not get in
the way of greatness of these young men. Let them
do things. Watch comes out of delivering something different. But
I could go on and on about different examples. You
permit them to do this, they become animals.
Speaker 1 (49:12):
Well, Joe, let me just take that James Shields example,
Because James Shield's in twenty eleven through eleven complete games
where you led the league, he pitched two hundred plus
innings nine years in a row. And James Shields pitched
till he was thirty six years old. It made one
hundred and fourteen million dollars in his career, Tom, will
(49:33):
this game allow there to be another James Shields.
Speaker 4 (49:36):
It's coming back. I don't think it'll ever be that way.
Joe's in. Joe's he hit it dead on the metal
side of a complete game has to be matched up
with a physical recovery. And what Joe said was letting
a guy know he can complete a ball game, making
the adjustment and recovery by giving him next day. It
(49:59):
has to be managed on both sides. If that made sense,
I don't I think it's ever going to be. Was
it Burt blind Levin that had twenty nine complete games
one year? I think that's why he went into the
Hall of Fame. Think about that, twenty nine complete in
one season. That's never going to happen again. But it will.
The penim will go back to where seven innings might
(50:23):
be the vanguard rather than five innings right now. But
it's never going to be complete games that are going
to be the major of the starting pitchers.
Speaker 1 (50:36):
Well, Tom, for that to happen, I think we're going
to have to have free thinkers the way you have
been in your career. When I think back and I
saw those Texas Rangers pitchers warming up in the outfield
with footballs, and you know, the naysayers would say, who
do they think they are? They're reinventing the game, And
now you look around, it's very common to see such
(50:57):
a thing in the game. So it's going to take
people who are willing to do what they think is
right than going along with the crowd.
Speaker 4 (51:06):
You know you're one hundred percent right. I didn't hear
my last name in Boston for two years. It was
now fishing for the socks, number twenty nine, tom Boo.
Because to the fans, I gave up a home runner,
Chris Shambliss. That costs us a pennant, and the fans
never forget. But if you stick by your guns, you
(51:27):
show every day. I'll tell you about I'll hang out
with you guys anytime. These kind of conversations don't happen
enough in baseball, where you sit down at a table
and you look for a way to collaborate. If you
could push one thing from our gets together today. There
needs to be more collaboration in baseball and less.
Speaker 1 (51:45):
Confrontation well said, and on that, we want to thank
you Tom. This has really been not just educational, but
enjoyable as well. Really enjoyed it. Thank you, Thanks Tom.
Speaker 3 (51:56):
I mean I did the Mustard gig the other night.
Was very cool to be able to participate with your
group there too, spoken enough. I mean, I love what
you're just everything you've said today, I could definitely learn
from you. I appreciate your method too, your outstanding teacher,
your betsend manner is perfect. So hopefully I get a
(52:17):
chance to visit more often.
Speaker 4 (52:18):
Thanks, guys, have a blessed day.
Speaker 2 (52:20):
You got it, buddy.
Speaker 1 (52:21):
Hopefully our listeners got a chance to really appreciate the
uniqueness of Tom House. We're talking about someone who has
been a coach with the Astros, the Padres, the Rangers,
University of Southern California, of course, major League career with
the Braves, Red Sox and Mariners. He's someone with a
PhD in Sports psychology, Master of Science, Master of Business Administration,
(52:41):
Bachelor of Science. I mean, he's Joe. He's just so
well prepared to speak about, you know, all aspects of pitching,
especially a very holistic approach, and hopefully our listener's got
a chance to appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (52:58):
Yeah, I just found out that's my mistake by not
talking to this guy a lot more. I've always heard
different sources. Lindsay Bearra extolls his virtues all the time.
I recently did his Mustard Broadcasters podcast recently. But Wow,
my takeaway was, I need to talk to him more often.
Speaker 2 (53:14):
I need to listen to it more often. I need
to follow him.
Speaker 3 (53:17):
His his stuff is outstanding, and the way he explains
it is beautiful, simple, particulate, and something you could learn from.
I just I mean, I might have enjoyed that as
much as any conversation that we've had.
Speaker 1 (53:32):
Yeah, and I love his Twitter bio. It's very simple.
It says, I coach kids of all ages to be
their own goat greatest of all time. Love it caught
Hank Aaron seven hundred and fifteenth.
Speaker 2 (53:45):
Yeah, that's right, he dead. He's on that video every time.
Speaker 4 (53:48):
You're right, that's awesome. That's beautiful. Man.
Speaker 1 (53:51):
Oh that was enjoyable. Joe, you have something to decap
this episode with.
Speaker 3 (53:55):
Yeah, I actually was anticipating all this and some to
quote my former player president super Scout Todd Green, I
think we've talked about this before Greeney ran this by me.
We're having a beer in Pittsburgh a couple of years
ago with him and David Hollins, and Greeney dropped this
saw me. We're talking about old school. He says, I'm
not old school, I'm not new school. I'm in school.
(54:19):
And that's exactly where we need to be.
Speaker 2 (54:22):
You know.
Speaker 3 (54:22):
Of course, we all hold on to the vestiges of
the past, and we always want.
Speaker 2 (54:27):
To be able to be contemporary.
Speaker 3 (54:30):
And then sometimes these two groups butt heads. But you
really should be in school constantly. Greeney pointed that out
to me, and.
Speaker 2 (54:38):
I want to be in school.
Speaker 1 (54:40):
Great wisdom from Greenie. Joe, thanks for passing that along.
Really enjoyed this episode.
Speaker 2 (54:44):
Outstanding job, brother, Thank you very much. It was great.
Speaker 1 (54:52):
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