BASEBALL COACHES UNPLUGGED
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BASEBALL COACHES UNPLUGGED
Competitive Bullpens and Developing a 3rd Pitch
Prepare to transform your coaching approach as Coach Ken Carpenter opens the door to invaluable insights with Darren Ware, the pitching coach at Walsh University. Explore Darren's unique journey from teaching middle school science to guiding college pitchers, an adventure fueled by his connection with the legendary Tim Meade and unwavering family support. Discover Darren's strategies to create a culture of competition and camaraderie among his pitchers, ensuring not only their athletic success but also their personal growth. Gain a deeper understanding of the crucial role of arm care and structured training programs in preventing injuries and safeguarding pitchers’ careers.
Darren Ware shares the secrets behind Walsh University's pitcher recruitment, emphasizing the importance of both physical prowess and intangible qualities like leadership and character. Learn how weather conditions challenge pitcher management in early spring, especially in the northern climates, contrasting with teams in warmer areas. The conversation shifts towards building mental toughness, equipping pitchers to handle the escalating pressures of the season. Darren explains how a careful balance of physical preparation and mental resilience can lead to success on the mound, even under the most demanding circumstances.
Finally, join a heartfelt dialogue about the passion and purpose driving coaches to adapt their strategies. Ken and Darren discuss legendary figures in baseball and the emotional journey of coaching family members, highlighting the profound bonds sports create. This episode is a treasure trove for coaches, players, and baseball enthusiasts, offering strategies that inspire and elevate your understanding of the game. Whether you're on the mound or in the dugout, these insights will enhance your perspective and coaching philosophy.
Join the Baseball Coaches Unplugged podcast where an experienced baseball coach delves into the world of high school and travel baseball, offering insights on high school baseball coaching, leadership skills, hitting skills, pitching strategy, defensive skills, and overall baseball strategy, while also covering high school and college baseball, recruiting tips, youth and travel baseball, and fostering a winning mentality and attitude in baseball players through strong baseball leadership and mentality.
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Hello and welcome everybody. I'm your host, coach Ken Carpenter, and this is Baseball Coaches Unplugged, a podcast that helps you, the listener, with strategies to elevate your coaching. You'll gain practical insight from some of the best coaches around the country that you can implement with your teams today. On today's podcast, pitching coach at Walsh University, darren Ware, breaks down how to make bullpens competitive, what college coaches look for in a pitcher and how he develops pitching plans.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Baseball Coaches Unplugged with Coach Ken Carpenter, presented by Athlete One. Baseball Coaches Unplugged with Coach Ken Carpenter, presented by AthleteOne. Baseball Coaches Unplugged is a podcast for baseball coaches, with 27 years of high school baseball coaching under his belt. Here to bring you the inside scoop on all things baseball, from game-winning strategies and pitching secrets to hitting drills and defensive drills. We're covering it all. Whether you're a high school coach, college coach or just a baseball enthusiast, we'll dive into the tactics and techniques that make the difference on and off the field. Discover how to build a winning mentality, inspire your players and get them truly bought into your game philosophy Plus. Get the latest insights on recruiting, coaching, leadership and crafting a team culture that champions productivity and success. Join Coach every week as he breaks down the game and shares incredible behind-the-scenes stories. Your competitive edge starts here, so check out the show weekly and hear from the best coaches in the game. On Baseball Coaches Unplugged.
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Speaker 3:Well, hey, thank you very much. Glad to be here. I appreciate what you do. Like I said, I love hearing voices of other coaches talking with you and I'm learning stuff from them, and I hope they can learn some stuff from me. So thank you for letting me on, and I love to talk baseball.
Speaker 1:Well, I've got to start off with what's it like being the pitching coach at Walsh for legendary head coach Tim Meade.
Speaker 3:Well, ken, you know, to me it's almost it comes full circle for me. I graduated from Walsh University, I played for Coach Meade and, you know, after I left Walsh I became a teacher and I was a teacher for 25 years. So I taught middle school science. I loved it, loved the school where I was at, and coach reached out to me about three years ago and asked if I wanted to come aboard to be a pitching coach. And you know, one of the things that he said was you know, you still can be a teacher, come in after your. You know, after your day's over, you can work with the pitchers and so on.
Speaker 3:One of the things that was kind of bothering me with that was when the guys went on the road or when they went on spring break and stuff like that. I wouldn't have been able to be there. So it's almost like coaching them and then just saying, okay, tell me how it goes when you get back. So I sat down with the family and we had a great talk with my wife and two kids and they all said, hey, go do this. This is what you've always wanted to do. We're going to be fine. Go do what you do, follow your dreams.
Speaker 3:And when I told coach I'm on board, but I want to be there full time, he welcomed me with open arms. It was an awesome thing and it's one of those things where I learned a lot from him when I was younger. I'm still learning some things from now, you know, as far as coaching and on the business side of college baseball and the coaching part of it. But I get to work alongside him every single day and I'm excited to get up in the morning and coach these guys and put them in the right direction and stuff like that, and I think that we put a great product out on the field every year and he's continued to do that. Coach Meade's got over 900 plus wins. He's been coaching for 42 plus years. Just a great, just a great man and a great leader and somebody I look up to very much.
Speaker 1:Well, I love talking about competition and getting players to compete to be the best they can be, and you know, I can recall when I coached, you know, at the end of practice I'd split the teams up into two teams or let them pick and I'd say, hey, it's, you know, you get one pitch and whoever loses they, they get a. They have to clean up the equipment for the day, or whatever it may be, you being a pitching coach, do you do anything to make the bullpens competitive?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. You know it's funny that you say that we do a lot of stuff as far as competitive stuff, whether it be in the bullpen playing catch stuff like that. Far as competitive stuff, whether it be in the bullpen playing catch stuff like that. In the fall, when we're doing our bullpens and getting ready for live and getting ready for inter-squat scrimmages, sometimes during the week we'll have many competitive bullpens where we'll have 16 pitchers and we'll have two lines of eight and the first two guys up they'll throw a 15-pitch set bullpen. But it'll be scripted. So it'll be like you know, fastball glove side, and they both got to execute that pitch. If one does, they get a point, if one doesn't, they don't get any points. And you know those. Those two will face off against each other and not only do they have to execute the pitch but they also have to listen to their teammates behind them and just rip on them as far as talking to them, clapping their hands, saying stuff. You kind of learn a lot about the team and about some of the guys from the things that each other are saying. So it's competitive and they try to zone out that. They try to clear the mechanism. Clear the mechanism as a Billy Chapel would say in the, for the Love of the Game, you know. So they clear that mind and they just work on the execution of pitch. So not only do we execute the pitch, but we might say, oh wait, this has to be a fastball arm side in. You know 1.3 seconds, so we also execute. How quick can we get it to the plate? You know how good is your slide step, and this is good for upperclassmen, it's good for the younger guys who might have been able to in high school get away with a 1.4, 1.5, but here you got a 1.5 to the plate. You're giving somebody a free base. So we work on all kinds of things execution of pitch, pitch control, hitting spots, getting the ball to the plate. So we always do that. And then again, when we play our our catch at 30, 45, 60, 90 feet, when we start coming in now, all of a sudden we do play a game of catch at 60 feet where it's competitive.
Speaker 3:One day I might have them standing up from the waist to the shoulders inside the body. They got to be. The next week we did. The guys were sitting down in a chair and they were putting their gloves out. And it had to be from, like, the shoulders to the kneecaps, and so they had to get those. And now now we're we're getting closer now. So this this past week we did actually where their partners were sitting down on the floor crisscross applesauce, you know and sitting down and now they're, you know, focusing on that, and I don't want them to think, man, I hope I don't skip it off the floor to these guys, or I don't want to catch your thinking. I don't want these guys to skip it off the floor, I just want them to concentrate, throw strikes and believe in themselves, you know, and be confident with everything that they throw.
Speaker 1:Makes sense and I love that for pitchers and that's something that every coach that's listening to this, could you know, install with their program right away if they're not already doing it. Well, what would you recommend to high school pitchers? That they show up on campus their freshman year. That will put them in a position to be able to compete and make a big contribution to the team early.
Speaker 3:You know one of the things and it's a good question, because one of the things when what we see a lot is when high school freshmen or high school seniors become freshmen in college you know they'll come in and they'll be so reliant on their fastball slider, fastball curve. They don't throw a lot of change-ups in high school. So one of the things that I try to tell them is you know, work on that third pitch. You know you need to have a third pitch At this level. Hitters can pick up spin, hitters can hit speed and you know if we can execute a change up that looks like a fastball but it's coming out of hand slower, we have a great you know great opportunity and if you can get that and manage that pitch and be able to throw it at any count, you're going to be able to come in early and be effective for us. So we have a lot of guys. When we come in the first two weeks when we start going live, all our pitchers can throw our fastball change-ups. And then you hear a coach. You know I don't really, I don't really have a good one, but as long as it's something different and you know so, the first two weeks we'll go fastball change-up. The hitters know what's coming. But we're guys were getting so many rollovers and so many fly balls and ground balls with this that, as you, we progress throughout the fall. We started seeing these pitchers now who couldn't throw change-ups, throwing their change-ups on 2-0, 3-0 counts, felt so much confident with that, you know. And and now they have that third pitch and they they're, they're getting better with it. So we're always playing catch with fastball change-up every day. We're spinning it as well, but we want to concentrate on those two pitches the most. So when they come in, that's kind of what we say Make sure you have a third pitch, that you're confident with.
Speaker 3:A freshman this past summer called me and he said, coach, what do I need to do to be ready? And sometimes you don't get that phone call. Some of those seniors they think, hey, I was the real deal on my high school team, I know what to expect. But we have some guys who are really concerned. They come in, they call and they say, coach, what do I need to be ready?
Speaker 3:And I tell them two things. One, make sure that after your summer season is over, you continue to throw, don't just shut down in the middle of July and then come day one for your fall baseball season and not be ready to compete, because this is where you're trying to win a job. So keep your arm moving. It doesn't have to be two, three bullpens a week, but throw a bullpen a week, play some long toss, play some catch. And then the second thing is I said, come in ready to take somebody's job. You need to come in and you need to push. So we have a get-chase-be-chase mentality at Walsh University. So you're either getting chased or you're being chased. And I think if both of those things are happening, ken, I think that everybody's going to get up and everybody's going to want to compete and everybody's going to get better.
Speaker 1:Well, you've had two sons that have pitched in college and I wonder about this quite a bit Are pitchers throwing too much before they get to campus? Meaning they probably have a pitching coach that they work with in November, going into their senior year, then they pitch their whole spring season straight into travel baseball and then now they're, you know, in August, september, showing up on a college campus and I don't know. There's got to only be so many bullets that you're able to shoot. You know Right, are they too tired, I guess?
Speaker 3:You know that's a good question. You know we've had some guys coming out of high school that when they get to us in the fall they've already they've thrown, believe this or not. Some of them have thrown 80 to 90 to sometimes even 100 innings in high school baseball. Then they go play summer. They probably throw, you know, I don't know how many more. And then, yeah, you're right, they come to us and it's like now, especially freshmen, they're not used to playing fall ball, you know. And now they're coming in and we're throwing every day again. And so you know, I do.
Speaker 3:I think that some guys are playing catch more and sometimes they're not guided the right way, whether it be by themselves or just don't know how to do things. But I think if you get with somebody that knows what's going on, how to kind of take those, like you say, bullets and bring them in a little bit and understand that, hey, listen, we got to make sure that you know you're good to go, you're going to be at school, the school that you picked and the school that you chose, and you're going to be ready to go for them 100%. But you know, we start talking about that Like when we have guys that come into Walsh. We'll look at their high school season, we'll look at their summer season and then sometimes we have them have a short fall, like we had some guys you know they pitched all spring for us. They went away in the summer. They some of them went to the Northwoods league and they had great summers. They came back in the fall and we just said, hey, listen, you're going to continue to go up into this state and then you're done. And so we really look at that, we really kind of study that.
Speaker 3:I think that's an important thing. We try to take arm care super serious. So we're always doing what we call ACE arm care exercises. So we're always trying to do all that stuff and we're trying to kind of get them stronger so that as they get to sophomore, junior, senior year, they continue that buildup and their workload might get a little bit more and more, because you might come in as a freshman or sophomore and be a be a relief guy and then all of a sudden, junior, senior year, now, all of a sudden you're, you know you might be one of the you know, weekend starters. So we got to make sure that you're you're healthy. So you know, on the one end yeah, I do think that some guys throw quite a bit.
Speaker 3:But then, on the other end, I think, man, if you get with this, with the person that understands what's going on and what your goals are, and a lot of the summer coaches, they'll reach out to me and they'll just say, hey, listen, is it okay if we do this? Is it okay if we start him here? Or they'll ask me how many innings do you want him to pitch this summer? And I'm telling you, they do a great job of putting those plans together and, man, when you say an inning limit, that's it. And so it opens up a good thing, a good communication. These summer coaches want to win, but they also understand that these guys are going back to a school where they're getting money, they're getting an education, they're getting all that stuff. So it's important to them as well.
Speaker 3:So, as long as you have a plan, and instead of just throwing, throwing and not have a plan and all of a sudden doing this and doing that, because you know how pitchers are, whether you're coming off an injury or not, if my arm's feeling good, I want to throw more, and sometimes you just got to follow that plan and say this is my last throw and then let it be your last throw, kind of thing. So I'm always there when we have guys coming back from injury, I'm always. You know what's your plan? Let me see your plan. Okay, you're throwing 50 pitches or 50 feet for this many throws and I'm there counting. Man, I got the clicker, I'm just making sure. Okay, that's it, you're done. So we're really on top of that stuff here.
Speaker 1:Coach Pugh down in Georgia. He's a high school coach but he also coaches an elite travel team and the thing that kind of caught me by surprise is he's like we only play five, maybe six tournaments in the summer and no pitcher throws over 80 pitches, and I think he had a great understanding of what it takes to help these guys when they show up on a college campus. And arm care is so critical now with the way Tommy John surgeries are just wiping guys out.
Speaker 3:Oh for sure. A long time ago these tournaments used to be Friday, saturday, sunday, mostly Saturday Sunday. Now, all of a sudden, these tournaments are starting on Wednesday morning and they're going through. You're starting a guy on Wednesday, you're bringing them back maybe on Friday or Saturday and the pitch limits are going up.
Speaker 3:Travel teams that my sons played for, that it was like it's awesome because they said hey, listen, we're like you said, we're going to play five tournaments, we're going to get the best teams in the country together and we're going to go to Georgia and we're going to play just like a round robin. We're not playing for a trophy, we're not playing for anything, we're just going to go play baseball against some of the best players in the country and we're just going to compete. You know and see what happens. And then you know you pitch that game and all of a sudden, the next couple days you're just relaxed and being a great teammate and I think that's the thing too. You know pitchers will come in and I know it's a lot of money that if you're a PO, you'll come in on the day you pitch or the day before you pitch. You'll stay, you pitch and you get.
Speaker 3:You know you are a PO, but let's say you pitch on Friday and your first game, your first game is like Wednesday or Thursday. We're going down Wednesday, thursday and we're going to stay till Sunday, cause I want you to know how it is to be a great teammate, help out any way you can to talk to somebody. You know, I just want you to be a part of team, not just a one day, you know guy. So, and again, if you're staying, you know, and after you pitch, it kind of helps you to get your work in. You know, do your arm care exercises, get your stretching in, get your running in, instead of just going home and then God knows what happens. You know if you're going to stretch, work out or if you're going to just wait for the next tournament. So we'd really try to kind of touch on that really much too.
Speaker 1:Well, when you're recruiting pitchers, what are some things that you look for? You're like, if this guy's going to show up and be a part of Walsh University, he's got to be able to do this. And on the opposite side of it, what are some things that you look at and go, he's off the list. I'm not going to look at that guy.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, I was doing a podcast a couple months ago and you know the size question came up. I mean, do you look for size? And if you look at our pitching staff this year, we are big, we have some tall pitchers, but we also have some guys that are small, that can also bring it. So it's like, yeah, you look at the size, you know. Do I want a 6'5 pitcher that throws low to mid 80s, that has a hard time throwing strikes, or do I want a 5'10 guy that has that attitude, that mentality, that instinct, that throws the ball mid to upper 80s but can control everything To? Doesn't matter.
Speaker 3:When we watch you, there's a couple things we're looking at. We're looking at first pitch strikes. Do you get a head and counts, um, your overall strike percentage? Do you throw lots of strikes? Can you avoid barrels? Do you do a good job of doing that? Are you a good teammate? Are you a good leader? Um, all these things come into play.
Speaker 3:Academic standards you know we want a guy who we can. You know our team GPA was a 3.3. We had over 50 percent on Dean's List. We had over 70 percent over a three point. So we get a lot of great guys and so we also look at that. Plus, I mean, we give great academic money. So if you're up on that 3, 5, 3-6, 3-7, 3-8 range, you're getting some great academic money that's going to help you out. So we look at that. But as the time goes on, you know we also look at, you know, the projection of what this person can bring. Is he a hard worker? So the first thing I do, before we have a checklist and bring these guys on campus, I'll have a checklist, I'll talk with their high school coach, I'll talk with their summer coach. Is he a good teammate, character, guy, family, I mean I think that's a big thing as well. So we'll talk about that and if they got those checks in a box, we'll get them on campus.
Speaker 3:There are some things that you know we look at and we don't like. Maybe attitude, Maybe their mom presence is not very good. I think mom presence is an important thing. How good are you doing when things are going good and how good are you? What's your mound presence like when things aren't going good? Your teammate makes an error Are you going to look at them, show them up, do all that stuff? Are you going to pat them on the butt, say let's go get them next time. So those are the things we're looking for and I think that's an important part. But things that kind of are turnoffs. Sometimes we'll look on their X page, We'll look on their social media and, you know, we see things that we're like wow, I don't know if this is a guy that is, you know he talks a lot or he says stuff and just not the kind of character that we're looking for here at Walsh University. But we get to see a lot of what we're looking for when we go see him.
Speaker 3:I get there early, I get there super early. My wife's like the game doesn't start till one. Why are you getting there at 11, 1130? I want to get there when the team pulls in. I know who I'm looking for and you always say you never know who's watching you, so I might be there watching somebody else. And all of a sudden I see this guy and I'm like, oh okay, what's his name? And now I'm starting to build like that. But I want to see when they get out of the car, do they carry their own bags? Do they go stretch? Do they do stuff by themselves? Do they get themselves prepared to practice and then prepared to play the game. I think that's an important thing.
Speaker 3:And you know we went to go see a kid a couple years ago and we go there and it's a district semi game and he walks the first kid on four pitches. The next guy lays down a bun which he fields, the pitcher fields, throws it down the right field line. The guy from first scores. So within I don't know, let's say I don't eight pitches. Uh, less than that. It's already won nothing.
Speaker 3:And now I'm like let's, I want to see how he comes back from this, Cause I've seen things snowball and go south. He continued to pitch. He was also hitting that day, had some great hits, did a great job in the field and they ended up losing the game, but it was only one, nothing. So he really showed that. Hey, I know I made the mistake, it's on me, I'm going to work right now. And he was a teammate on and off the field first one on, first one off and it was just awesome. We brought him down, he loved what we had and now he's part of us and as a freshman, last year he was one of our conference starters as a freshman.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, before we started recording, we were talking about the Cleveland Browns-Pittsburgh-Steeler game and you know you being a Pittsburgh fan, and I'm a Cleveland fan, you know it kind of went my way, which is very rare when it comes to being a Browns fan, but you know you're up close to Cleveland. So you know, for teams in the South they got it great. You know, the weather really isn't that much of a challenge like it is here in the North. How do you handle your pitchers early in the spring when it's freezing cold?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's the hard thing because you know we'll have some guys obviously coming back from arm injury. We'll have some guys coming back that are reliever starters and know how to take care of themselves. So we have all kinds of the realm of different things. But in early spring when I played, we didn't open up until March 4th, 5th, something like that. Our first game this year is February 14th. So it seems like it gets earlier and earlier and there's actually teams that play before us, I mean like two weeks before us. But again, you're right, they're playing in down south North Carolina, all that stuff. But what we'll try to do is so December 2nd they'll start their throwing program. So I say, okay, so February 14th is our first game. I'll go back 10 weeks, I'll make a throwing plan and then when they get to week 4, 5, 6, in that plan, all of a sudden it becomes we're starting to throw bullpens, we're starting to throw 25 to 35 pitches and the next week it's 35 to 40 pitches and we climb.
Speaker 3:So we try to get our starters into that 70 to 75 range. We try to get our middle relief, our stretch guys, probably 45 to 50 pitches and then we try to get our short-term guys anywhere between 35 to 45 pitches and then they can build up from there. So when we start doing that, we start doing our live stuff inside. We really go at it and attack the inside.
Speaker 3:But when we get to the games in February we really say, okay, listen, this is his first outing, it's 38 degrees, we're in West Virginia, let's, let's, let's go 60 to 65, let's see how he feels after that. And then we were very cautious that first week we're not winning any conference tournaments in February. So when we go West Virginia we do all this stuff and then on spring break we're going to Missouri-St Louis and we're going to North Carolina and then all of a sudden we're coming back to play our conference opponents and that's when we want to start being really ready. So we try to ease them into it, we push them, we have them ready to throw 75, but in that type of weather, you know it might be, it might be 60 pitches and let's go attack another guy who can, who can throw another 60 and or whatever, and we can try to piece this weekend together well, I've got to ask you you know, with the pitching side of things how much time do you spend working on the mental toughness side for your pitchers?
Speaker 3:I'm an over communicator, ken, and one of the things that I like to talk to my guys and you hear about this all the time is that how baseball's 90 plus percent mental and then all of a sudden you hear the other side.
Speaker 3:Well, if it's 90% mental, then why don't you spend a lot of time on it? I think we do a great job. I think being competitive in the bullpen, I think being competitive when you're throwing those are all part of being that mental side. What am I going to do if I have to throw seven out of ten pitches for strikes at this distance? All right, and I've already missed two, right, and I got to throw six more pitches? Okay, am I going to feel that pressure or am I going to just be like, okay, this it's one pitch at a time? So we talk a lot about that mental side. I want our pitchers to understand that it's okay to fail. You're going to fail. There's going to be days where you're not going to have your stuff. But can you compete? All right, compete with the stuff that you have. We have some guys that have sliders and I'm like you know, sometimes the slider isn't breaking as much as it used to or it doesn't have as much depth and a changeup just doesn't feel good. Or a guy has a split finger and in the cold weather sometimes it doesn't work as much. Okay, what can we do to scratch that? And let's, let's go. So we try to teach. I try. What I try to do is get, show me what your fastball grip is, curve ball and change up and all these different grips. So those are your, those are your A pitches, and then I'll say, well, here's your plan B, here's your plan B grip. So if plan A doesn't work, well, here's your plan B, see if it works. So sometimes you have to have a plan B and be able to execute that really quick. So we try to give them multiple grips that they are comfortable with but also can throw. So the mental side of this we sit down and we discuss this constantly. You know be compete. I want you to go as long as you can, as hard as you can, and let somebody else do it. We call it passing the sword, you know, because we're always swords up and passing the sword to the next guy.
Speaker 3:As a pitcher for myself, I always hated being taken out of games. I don't care if I was winning big or losing big. If I was winning big, let me finish this. You know, let me finish this. If I was losing, let me get this right. Let me try to figure this out, and I know what it's like to be taken out of games. I always tell my pitchers well, when I come out to get you I know you might not like that or you're going to disagree, but understand that you've done your job to that point Let us get one of your brothers in there and let's clean it up and let's go from there. We always try to work it Again.
Speaker 3:The mental side is just talking about it. I want to talk about that mental side. Sometimes they lock it in and they don't say anything and they they keep it or they don't breathe. So we do breathing things, you know just, I want you to take five breaths, I want you to be big, I want you to breathe it out, I want you to relax and I want you to go. So and I. We do a drill too, where they had the 22nd clock. Most pitchers throw the ball under 20 seconds anyway. But, like anything else, you start saying, well, here's a clock, and they see the clock, and now, all of a sudden. I got to hurry. I got to hurry. No, you don't. You know you throw the ball. You get the ball back from the catcher. You got 20 seconds to throw. You're going to be fine. You know you're going to be fine. Just take a deep breath, think about the situation, erase that. Now you're throwing strikes. So we try to kind of just try to be repetitive in everything that we do and be consistent with that stuff.
Speaker 1:Do you hate losing or love winning? Excuse me, love winning.
Speaker 3:Oh boy, I love winning. I love winning. But I think there's a lot of lessons in losing and sometimes when you have a person or a guy that has too much winning, they don't know how to handle the failure. And sometimes in this game you're going to fail in big moments and do you want to walk off that field feeling that failure or understanding that failure? So we talk a lot about winning and doing the best that you can, but also in the understanding where, listen, you're going to get knocked down but we're going to give the ball, ken.
Speaker 3:I've heard horror stories on athletes where they would fail in college and all of a sudden they won't get the ball back for six've heard horror stories on athletes where they would fail in college and all of a sudden they won't get the ball back for six, seven, eight, nine weeks, you know. And now it's like then, when they do come back now they're thinking, oh my, I have to be good. I have to be good or else I might not ever see the field again, whereas in the fall we do a good job of putting guys in situations and we say okay, guys, on second and third, there's one out. The winning runs at second base. Here's the ball. You're going to succeed sometimes and you're going to get out of there. You're going to be pumping your fists. I love showing emotion. I think that's a big thing, as long as you're doing it in the right way, of course. But then all of a sudden it's like you're also going to give up a backside double and that guy from second is going to score and you're going to lose. Understand that that's going to happen, but it's how you get yourself back. How are you going to fail and then the next three, four or five days get better to, to go ahead and compete again? Or when you do really good, are you going to say well, you know, I did really good last time, so I'm not going to work as hard this time and it's going to happen again? We try to say it doesn't matter what happens good, bad, you need to work and we need to continue to get better as we go. Winning is great, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 3:I love winning, but I also do think, on the other side of this, that losing does create that mental toughness and that ability to kind of understand that hey, this is a hard game. It's hard to hit baseballs. All we want to do is throw strikes as pitchers. So I tell our guys we have one of the best defenses in the conference. We're going to get you six-plus runs a game. My goodness, listen, throw strikes, throw strikes. You know, if they get three hits, that's okay. We're going to get outs. I don't care if it's a loud out, I don't care if it's a pop out, fly out ground ball, it doesn't matter to me, just get outs. Let's get back in the dugout so our offense is ready to go and compete for you. So I think that's huge. I do. I think the losing side of it does teach lessons, and I think lessons need to be taught in this game.
Speaker 1:Do you have a controversial take on something in baseball that maybe most people might not agree with?
Speaker 3:where you're like. I think this is it. Oh, a controversial, like a rule or something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, on anything. Is there something you look at and you go I believe this way. And you know like, for example, some people are like I don't believe in small ball. We got guys who are just going to go up and swing for the fences.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think Coach Meade has a great one, and I kind of tend to agree with that is win when we can win, you know, and use the guys that can help us. So if we're winning a game and it's the, you know we're playing nine innings and all of a sudden it's the seventh inning and it's a close game, why wait to hold our throw in our closer? You know, why wait till the ninth inning to throw our closer when in two innings things can change like that and you might not be able to use him? Bring the guy in that can win the game for you right now and let's win this game now. We'll worry about tomorrow and tomorrow.
Speaker 3:I think that sometimes that you know some coaches have a plan and they stick to that plan and it's like this is what we're doing, there's no changing, there's no changing. And we have that mentality of hey, listen, when we can win and we have the opportunity to win, we're going to put the guys or leave the guys in there that are going to win us the games, and I think that's huge. I think you know that kind of sets the precedence, especially game one or game two of a series. Let's win this because you know game three and game four, especially game four, it could be a high score, it could be a 14 to 12 game, who knows what's going to happen. But we want to take care of business early. We want to take care of business when we can and we want to be able to use our guys when that time calls for them, whether it be the seventh inning, eighth inning, whatever. So win when we can win and let's take care of today and then we'll worry about tomorrow.
Speaker 1:Okay, you're a MLB manager or MLB pitching coach If you can have two starters and one reliever. In Group A, you've got Greg Maddox, roger Clemens and Dennis Eckersley, and Group B, you've got Pedro Martinez, randy Johnson and Trevor Hoffman. Who are you taking?
Speaker 3:That's a hard thing to pick. Those are all great, great players. I would probably go on the side of Group B. I love Pedro, I love what he brings. Obviously you've got Hoffman. I mean, when the game's on the line, you hear that music. It seems like it's all over when he comes out of that bullpen. So you've got Hoffman. I mean, when the game's on the line, you hear that music. It seems like it's all over when he comes out of that bullpen. So you've got that. And then you've got Randy Johnson slinging it from here with that game face, with that mentality, that attack.
Speaker 3:I would say group B for sure. But then again, how can you go against Maddox and how he can control the ball and all this stuff, and Roger Clemens and his attitude and fire and stuff like that. But I would just have to go with with, with Pedro and his in that group right there, because, just because of the fact that, plus, I'm a Boston fan, so I love Pedro when he pitched and stuff like that for Boston. But you know, Hoffman, and then you got Randy Johnson from the left side, man, that's, that's a pretty good combination right there.
Speaker 1:Well, to finish up, what is your best or?
Speaker 3:funniest story from the baseball field. Best and funniest story from the baseball field. Well, you know, at this age, ken, you know, when I'm coaching, I always leave my career out of it. You know, I don't want to be that coach that says, well, when I played, this is what I did, and when I played, this is what happened. When I got older, it became more of the coaching side of it and the enjoyment of seeing our guys succeed after the hard work that they put in.
Speaker 3:We, you know, we use words like grit and sometimes the word grit gets tossed around and maybe doesn't. Nobody really knows the true meaning of it, and so what we try to tell the meaning of GRID is working so hard for something that you don't know when it's going to happen or if it's going to happen. So in the fall, we're working hard to win a championship this coming spring. We can work as hard as we want, we can work on anything and go over and over and over and over again, but that doesn't guarantee us anything. So when we're doing our running, we're doing our conditioning. You know we have conditioning today at two o'clock and we're doing it outside. I told our guys rain, snow, sleet or hail. We're going outside, and right now it's 35 degrees and it's going to be raining, and we're going outside. Does that mean we're going to win a championship? No, not really, but I would much rather be prepared and then give it a try.
Speaker 3:So when we talk about good moments in sports, there's a couple that stick out. One I'm going to start personally is I have two boys in college and my oldest one just graduated last year. So being able to be with him and see him play and seeing him progress he played it as he went through the process and he played for me his final year being able to be there for him when he threw his last pitch and being able to be there with him every day at practice. This game has brought us so close since he was a little kid and when we made it to our conference tournament he was able to pitch. He was coming off a shoulder injury, so he wasn't at his best, but he was able to muster up whatever he could. And when he came out and he threw that last pitch I mean you're talking about that phrase where everybody says when they get into an accident, your life flashes in front of you sometimes. Well, when that last pitch was made and he's walking off the field. I mean the visions of us playing catch when he was small and him coming off the field.
Speaker 3:It was an emotional day. I knew it was going to be emotional from the beginning of the fall season. I just didn't want that to. I didn't want it to be over so fast. And you know, then, all of a sudden we had that long embrace after the game was over, that final game, and you know we talked and it just became super emotional.
Speaker 3:Now, on the other end, I have a younger son who's a junior right now in college and so I'm gearing up for oh man, he's only got two more years. I'm going to be doing this all over again home. I end he's only got two more years. I'm going to be doing this all over again. So, seeing my kids be able to throw their last pitches. I was there for my son's first college win. I was there for my younger son's first college win.
Speaker 3:Man, little things like that, just to see what they were like and what they've grown to be because of the coaches that they've had the hard work they've put in, that's tremendous. So those are huge moments for me that I will never, ever forget, and I think that that's I always tell them. You know, I'm not in it for your wins and losses and I'm not only going to remember your no hitters and that, but it's the embracement, the hugs, the talks, the conversations that we've had and we've been able to have about this game and about the love of this game and how we want to go about it, and that's been awesome. And then on the other side, the team side of this, because I believe that the guys that I'm coaching are like my kids as well. I'm there for them, for baseball, for other things that they need or whatever to see them be excited, to see them get into a dog pile, to see them I mean, we had a maroon and gold World Series and just you know even though they're all the same team, but then all of a sudden see the winning team celebrate and the other team kind of not. You know you go like, wow, this is awesome, seeing these kids succeed and being able to see these kids kind of succeed when the hard work is put in.
Speaker 3:That to me is the best part about coaching and about baseball is doing the work and then all of a sudden, seeing the results and seeing their expressions. And then when they graduate man, thank you, coach, you know and getting your pat on the back and then all of a sudden, another kind of going off of that is when they graduate and now they have jobs, and then four or five years later they're coming back from alumni stuff and they're working, they're having families. That is another huge proud moment is being coached. Not only coaching them on the field, but seeing them being successful in life and being a dad and doing all that stuff. Being successful in life and being a dad and doing all that stuff it's guys that I've coached in high school are all already in their late twenties, early thirties, have families. You know it. To me that is that's what it's all about. That's what it's all about, and to be a part of that is is truly special.
Speaker 1:Well, where could the listeners follow you on social media?
Speaker 3:I. I have an ex page, you know, and it's CoachWear17. So anytime any coaches want to reach out, talk. I'll be going to the ABCA National Coaches Convention in January. So I'll be down there from the 2nd to the 5th, I believe, down in Washington DC. So any coaches want to link up, feel free to DM me and we can talk. And any players out there 26s whatever that are looking for homes that come across this Walsh is a great place. We're in North Canton, ohio, and we have a beautiful campus, safe campus, and we're looking for the best possible guys to kind of lead us to that championship man. We're looking for the best possible guys to kind of lead us to that championship man. So we're pumped.
Speaker 1:Well, it's Darren Ware, pitching coach for Walsh University. Coach. Thanks for taking the time to join me on Baseball Coaches Unplugged.
Speaker 3:Ken, it's been my pleasure, man, and I'd love to do this again whenever we can, and if I don't talk to you before then, have a great Thanksgiving, great holiday, with your family.
Speaker 1:And keep fighting my man. Today's episode of Baseball Coaches Unplugged is powered by the Netting Professionals, Improving Programs one facility at a time. Contact them today at 844-620-2707 or visit them online at wwwnettingproscom. Enjoy your Thanksgiving holiday with your family and friends, and, as always, I'm your host, Ken Carpenter. And thanks for joining me on Baseball Coaches Unplugged.
