Next Steps

I’m still smarting from the verbal smackdown laid on me by Thy Drunken Rookie in last week’s comments section. His scathingly funny witticisms aside, his post did actually contain valuable information and actually further confirmed some mechanical issues I was questioning in my delivery.

At the Fort Myers showcase, I did notice that the pitchers—both lefties and righties—who were really bringing it velocity-wise all had incredibly long strides and almost seemed to vault towards the plate. They were, as TDR so eloquently put it, generating an obscene amount of power with their lower halves.

I have been toying with the idea of lengthening my stride, thereby getting lower in my delivery. Hearing it from the peanut gallery (albeit a knowledgeable peanut) has catalyzed my desire to put the muscular strength I’ve created over the past few months to uses other than just lifting barbells.

Oddly enough, I was toying with a longer stride at my throwing session on Thursday and I actually noticed that the control and break on my curveball improved tenfold when I lengthened my stride just short of a groin-tearing distance.

I’ve been hard at work trying to get more throwing time for myself in March before I hit the next block of independent league tryouts. A rival team in the league I played in last year has been gracious enough to invite me to their indoor sessions on periodic Sundays in March and April. Also, I will be making a trek to London, ON in early March to throw in a top notch facility run by guys with a myriad of professional baseball experience. 

I will still be throwing my weekly simulated games on Thursday nights and I hope to tag along with another team’s indoor workouts on an alternate day of the week. There should be plenty of throwing opportunities for me in the coming weeks so I can turn those sevens on the radar gun into consistent eights.

I’ve sketched out a preliminary tryout schedule for myself as the winter chill gives way to the spring thaw. I’m planning on attending one independent league tryout at the end of March, two in April and then a tryout in Brockton, Massachusetts on April 30 and May 1. I’ve picked Brockton over the Frontier League Tryout and Draft in Kentucky because there will be five leagues in attendance at the Brockton tryout, whereas there will only be one league watching in Kentucky. Obviously, I want to attend tryouts that will give me the best opportunity to get a contract.

As of right now, the one tryout in March and two in April will be for some combination of Atlantic and Frontier League teams, but that is subject to change as I conduct further research and more tryout details become available.

Truthfully, I want my schedule to be as malleable as possible. I’m waiting to see if the Canadian franchises in Quebec City, Calgary, Edmonton or Winnipeg will be having open tryouts since playing in my home and native land for the summer means that I would avoid the work visa headaches associated with playing south of the border.

Plus, I’m still keeping the final Indy Pro Showcase of the year in Detroit in July on my radar as a last ditch effort to get a contract this summer. Obviously, best case scenario is that I have a team in place by then, but it’s always good to have a contingency plan just in case my velocity doesn’t come around by the first of May.