Rick Peterson has had a long and interesting career in baseball. After a stint in the Pirates’ minor league system as a player, he became a Single-A coach in 1979. Other minors coaching gigs eventually led him to the Oakland A’s, where he became major league pitching coach in 1998. It wasn’t long before his development of hurlers like Barry Zito, Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder made Peterson one of the most recognizable names in the industry. So when Dan Duquette was looking for a director of pitching development shortly after being hired by the Orioles in late 2011, Peterson — who had been let go by the Milwaukee Brewers a year earlier — was a natural fit.
In this week’s “Minor League Podcast,” voice of the Bowie Baysox Adam Pohl sits down with the O’s pitching guru to discuss his philosophies on mechanics, the mindset needed to succeed in professional baseball and even life lessons he’s learned along the way.
Hear how Peterson used his experience coaching the likes of Tom Glavine and Pedro Martinez to guide one of the Orioles’ young arms. And how new technology is being used in an effort to keep pitchers on the mound and off of the operating table. You won’t want to miss the fascinating discussion.
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As much as I like everything I heard from him in this interview -- and he certainly has a great pedigree -- I can't help wondering why we haven't seen anything like his previous success now that he's in the Orioles' system.
I wonder if all of the new research and data has inevitably led to Analysis Paralysis, as in the classic book Inner Game of Tennis: there is a time for mental involvement in the development of physical skills, but that time is NOT while you are performing the physical skill, especially in a competitive situation. Our minds sure do get in the way!
The mind as a GPS/Black Box analogy is a good one, and it sounded like he was talking about what I expressed above, but I'm not sure "focus" is the right approach -- could it be not the "control" of the mind, but the freeing of the mind that is key? My favorite example: stand at the top of a flight of stairs while holding an armful of books. Now run down the stairs like you're escaping a fire (without losing a book.) Do you "focus" on the skills required to negotiate each step while holding the books, or do you look at the flight of stairs, tell you mind to "do this!" and allow it to do the job faster and more efficiently than if you thought about hitting each step along the way?
Of course, the other possibility for lack of success: overhyped talent, I guess.
Thanks for a great post. I'm excited by the new research possibilities.
I think there is no doubt that it is very hard to quantify the results of what this process has done for the organization five years in.
What I enjoyed is that it seems that Rick wants to stay on the crest of the wave of continually finding new data to push the narrative. He wants to stay "outside of the box."
Thank you for listening!