I absolutely love watching pro pitchers throw bullpen sessions in the winter time. It’s such a unique aspect of the game of baseball. You can go from watching them honing their craft in silence, experimenting on different groups, arm slots, tempo while having every movement recorded and tracked on Rapsodo one minute and then things can just erupt into this testosterone-fueled excitement over hitting a new personal record.
Today was a great example.
I was down at The Arm Academy in Farmingdale, which is owned by Tyler Levine, as he was working with his group of pro pitchers. This particular group had Frank Valentino (NYIT 2017), John LaRossa (Hartford 2017) and Greg Weissert (Fordham 2016). Valentino is currently signed to pitch in the Frontier League but was previously with the Mets and LaRossa went the opposite route, and is currently in the Milwaukee Brewers system. Weissert is still in the New York Yankees farm system as he has been since 2016. It wasn’t a typical bullpen session, most of their throwing session consisted of “pull-downs”, which begins with the pitchers at the mound but getting a running start and firing the ball as hard as they can or with “max intent” into the net. The drill may look strange to those that are not pitchers but it has tangible results. By training your arm to move at that rate, you are now attempting to improve your muscle memory and transitioning that arm speed to when you pitch. While the speed is always going to be much higher during this drill, it is still indicative of your arm strength and players take pride in hitting new personal records or “PRs”.
It was fun to watch the competition between these guys. Valentino and LaRossa went first and rotated on each throw. The first couple throws were in the upper 80s, which then turned into the low 90s, but you can just tell they had more in the tank. Eventually, Valentino hit 95 and LaRossa raised the bar with a 98. They were hyped up, with Meek Mill blasting in the background to set the perfect vibe.
Weissert went by himself and you could tell he was going to top that, since his fourth throw was 97. He wound up amping it all the way up to 101 MPH. This was a great scene as all the other pitchers hanging out were pumped up and cheering. It was a great antithesis to the normal mood of a bullpen session, which usually is very cerebral with minimal conversations aside from minor tweaks to the delivery.
The Arm Academy has a great thing going this off-season. Every pitcher has a daily agenda, track on Levine’s laptop. He has their workouts tracked right down to the percent of effort they should be expending that day. As they say, “failure to plan is planing to fail.” He told me, “we are trying to get these guys to the big leagues.”
In addition to these three, you can also spot Matt Seelinger, Matt Vogel, Ryan Smith and Chris Tessitore working out there this off-season. They also have a number of college pitchers working out, although, I’m not as familiar with those players.
For me, it’s the perfect type of event for me to attend in the off-season.
