 What's up everyone? Welcome back to Sequence. I am your host Trevor Ploof and today we have a very special guest on the 2019 Silver Slugger Award winner for Ketcher. Your stats are by far the best of any Ketcher in 2019. We've got Mitch Garver of the Minnesota Twins. What's up Mitch? How you doing man? What's up Trav? Good to be on here brother. I'm happy that you agreed to come on the show and I kind of laid it out. I said hey we want to go over a few of bats and do you use at bats to go back and try to get that proprioception back? Like do you do that and you're like yes I do and I got a bunch of them. What do you need? You listed about three or four at bats and we kind of handpicked a couple of them. Why these two at bats? So this this Lou Trevino at bat against Oakland was it was it's tough dude. He throws 90 amount on our bowling balls with a really good breaking ball and it goes straight downhill and so I picked these two at bats because just where I was at like in my season. So when when Oakland came to town I was really really hot this series. I think I had two or three homers but this at bat was huge because we were up four to three in the eighth inning and really just attack on another insurance run because I think the guys they had coming up it might have been Chris Davis and you know if Chad Pender maybe but there are a few guys coming up that we're like all right we have a homerun threat here in this high game or up by one so as a catcher adding that insurance run to go into the ninth inning is just huge you know it takes a huge weight off your shoulders and so for me to be a part of that in this at bat was was really good and then the Toronto one against Aaron Sanchez I don't know something about going in Toronto dude when I hit there like I just see the ball great and if and if I'm going to slump or I'm struggling or I just don't feel like myself like going to Toronto for some reason this gets me right it might be the chicken fingers in the hotel for real but the bomb shelter of a visitor's clubhouse down there yeah dude I don't know something about it just it just makes me want to play a good baseball there but yeah we'll go through them and I'll kind of tell you what I was thinking at the time cool yeah and you know your approach you know I've been a fan of your approach I've been a fan of yours since you've been up with the twins and you see it all through the league guys have different setups and I think the guys that are most successful usually have kind of the simplest of setups because you're able to repeat it and kind that's what I see with you you're able to generate a ton of power I mean 31 home runs in 93 games that's that's something right there but you do it quietly and you do it simply is this something that you've always done or is this something that you've worked on and had the change over the last couple years so every year I've added something new like how do I get better at one specific thing and coming out of college I could always hit for contact my college head coach Ray Birmingham is a great teacher of hitting he always taught me to be short to the baseball that that you know a to b was the quickest way to get there and staying inside the ball and all these things that I learned throughout college were probably one of the bigger reasons I got drafted because I wasn't great defensively so I got drafted as a hit first catcher I started coming up and like I said every year kind of learned something new I got to double A Dougman Kovich was my manager so him and Tommy Watkins well Tommy was our hitting coach so him and Tommy like work together with us all the time and he was so dedicated and he loved you know hitting early on the field he was the guy who taught me how to like get my hands back right so like getting that separation between your hands and your hips and you know creating force that way that's in 2016 I was really when I started driving the baseball and then I got you know and I made it to AAA in 2017 and Chad Allen was my hitting coach who's probably there when you were with the twins as well you know he taught me some things as well as far as like approach and how to go about your games because when you get up to that AAA level like you're facing more major league talent and you know everything just kind of came together at the right time for this for this past year and I mean we want to talk about exactly what I did in the off season before last you know really I had like two things in mind I wanted to drive the baseball I want to drive it in the air pole side because if you look at if you look at the numbers across the league like the percentage of home runs that are going to the opposite field throughout the past 10 years is like 10% right and then it goes to a little bit smaller to center field and then the vast majority of home runs or a pole side I was like okay what do I need to do to get that path right what do I need to do and and you know I I made a few small adjustments with with my guy Jason Columbus out in Houston and had a great year that's awesome you had an excellent year you know you really remind me hearing you say that about the pool side that's that's a Brian Dozier he lives by that statement that is a Dozier thing right there and you know it's easy to say hey I'm going to go pull the ball in the air but if you're not trained to do it properly you're going to be exposed I mean everything on the outer half is going to be death to you so you really if you just say I'm going to go pull the ball you have to learn how to do it the right way and when I see you taking your swings you do it you do it the right way because you're keeping your hands tight to the body you're not just hitting the outside part of the ball like you're still hitting the inside part of the ball but you're extended on it right and it's you got to be taught that you can't just wake up one day or you got to work on it you can't just wake up one day and say I'm just going to pull the ball and it's going to work out for me so these are all things like I watch you hit and if I could choose a swing I always look at you and uh Rhys Hoskins for right-handed swings right now oh nice yeah well I love Rhys the swing yeah I just like everything about them I think they're kind of simple I think you guys are able to repeat it your head is very still which is awesome that's something that I struggled with the up and down in my head my entire career so I just noticed these things and um I'm I'm happy you're joining us now kind of letting us get in your brain a little bit so let let's start this about up we kind of prefaced it uh you want you're in the eighth inning here trying to get some insurance runs you see this guy on the hill bowling ball I have not watched this about yet because we were going to do a different one you said I want to do this one so we're going to go okay so first pitch here it looks like probably setting up a way heater I assume it misses up in it 99 99 no big deal that's kind of uh par for the course that's what I'm thinking right now it's no big deal right 99 yeah you're 0 for 3 you're like all right let me save my day all right let me get this knock save my day here one at a time dude you can change your whole day and one at bat absolutely oh my goodness second pitch here okay there's that's his bread and butter right there that is um nasty that is exactly what he's trying to do it against you he's going to throw it as hard as he can he's going to he's going to backdoor a two seamer at 100 miles an hour and he's going to make you get yourself out and with a guy like this I'm betting that he can't hit that spot three times in a row sure he's going to miss arm side right like as you saw in the first pitch arm side up is going to be his miss this based off his arm slot based off how hard he throws arm slide up so I go into this at bat and I may set my sights on the outer half but I'm still expecting something down the middle you know what I mean because absolutely I'm on top of the plate and my goal this year was to get on top of the plate pull for power and get the ball in the air so now the outside corner becomes sort of middleish for me but yeah so your your your your your sights are set on outer third maybe even the outer edge but you know that you're not swinging that way you're you're swinging to pull this pitch because it's gonna you want him to miss arm side and run into your barrel is that what you're saying okay so one one he's a two-pitch guy I've never faced yeah so okay you're you're probably thinking one one two heaters in a row off speed is it there's a chance here but I hadn't seen his off speed yet I hadn't faced him yet this year I I don't think I haven't had bat against him at all so I was like oh man I wonder what his breaking ball looks like even more sweepy does it have more depth yeah you watch that on film but it's not the same right you have to see the shape and there it was so that 93 that's a slider right I think that might have been a change-up or a split and I had basically you know what I going into that set bat I pretty much took that out of the picture I'm like all right I'm gonna sit on these two you know he's got two pitches and I saw a fastball out of the hand you're right that was a change up oh dude that was nasty look it actually didn't even catch it I was middle of the plate but I mean 93 with some movement with some movement is is tough now one two this is battle time right now so take me that I mean are you two strike approach in or is that out the window with you no no no I still got an approach you don't have to give it you don't have to give it all away bro I don't want you to expose the miscarver secrets here there are no secrets dude he still has to make a good pitch I still have to not chase a bad pitch I'm still looking over the plate right because I don't want to get I don't want to get beat by not taking my swing so I'm not gonna really change my swing when it gets to two strikes if I'm gonna get beat it's gonna be with my my best swing yeah basically I'm still gonna set my sights out over the plate I'm not gonna try to look in because you can't just away yeah and I think this might have been the pitch that I should have struck out on oh no it went high heater high heater tough to lay off right there okay so he's he's changing the sights right here yeah I mean if we're talking about high people say that all the time catchers say that all the time kind of give our audience what what that means change your sights oh he just threw a ball a hundred miles an hour you know a foot above the strike zone so I see that pitch and I didn't react to it but now after that pitch my eyes are set you know almost chest level because he throws up all that hard the actual perceived velocity is a lot harder because it's closer to your eyes so when you throw an off speed pitch after that uh it's supposed to look ultra slow or have even more depth because you're not really sure what the bottom part of the zone is interesting see I didn't I mean I understand what change your eyesight means but you're saying because when you throw a ball at that level closer to your eyes the perceived velocity is higher yes and then if you throw that off speed pitch after that and it may tunnel that pitch it may not depending on what kind of off speed you throw off speed pitch you throw but even if it doesn't tunnel it it's still going to have a lower perceived velocity because it's not going to be up there around your eyes yes exactly love that all right so okay fastball up change your eye level so here comes the breaking ball you know that as a catcher you got to be like yeah yeah the breaking ball is coming yeah I mean it's kind of hard to sit on that but look at this pitch thought it on the outside corner oh could have struck out let's go back and see I don't I don't know man I'm a hitter so I don't want to give that pitch but yeah he could have rung you up he could have he could have I have been rung up on that pitch before no you have two yeah so I'm gonna I get the full count I'm like all right now you're all here the slow mo right here it's off it's off okay it's off the plate all right three two now you're yeah some of your thinking right here so full count up by one he doesn't want to walk the lee off batter hasn't I mean he didn't really throw his breaking ball for a strike I think he's gonna go with his best pitch here he's gonna challenge me he's gonna throw me a heater as hard as you can on the outer half of the plate and it's basically mono a mono right here at this point you've basically locked in you know exactly what pitch is coming in your mind you said you went through all the scenarios the pitches he's thrown to you he said you can't control your breaking ball you don't want to walk me give me your heater and like you said mono a mono yeah your best pitch was my best swing exactly and and before this pitch is even thrown I'm going through my sequence like all right I'm sitting on this you know I'm sitting on the outer half of the plate I'm looking for a pitch I can make contact with out front I'm basically cheating this fastball you know I'm not I'm not gonna try to poke on the right field I'm gonna try to drive the ball the big part of field and do it with my swing so this is a direction I want my hands to go I want my hands to go slight just slightly right at the pitching mound make contact out in front of the plate get the ball in the air let's see it sitting up away oh my goodness we got to go back to that because and a little bit further back I mean I love seeing it again but you talked that whole time about wanting to pull the ball off him did you get it beat a little bit I don't want to get beat but it got a little deeper on you than you liked and you still were able to go hit out the center because your path was good yeah it probably it probably got on me a little bit faster than I thought I was going to and I had a few of those this year where I was like all right I'm looking left center here regardless of where the pitch is and it may have gotten a little bit deep on me and when I say deep I mean that's still gonna be out in front of the plate sure but it's not going to be another ball in front of that one so I'm still making contact out front did you find when your when your path was as good as it is on this swing did you find that if you were a hair out in front or if you were a hair behind you were still driving the ball to the gaps instead of maybe fouling those pitches off or or getting jammed or something like that yeah 100% 100% if I'm even if I'm a little bit late here it's gonna I think it's going to be a rocket to right center it's going to be a double the right center and if I'm a little bit earlier than this it's going to be a lofted fly ball to left center but this is like this is perfect contact right here I want you to get sets about a half whack I'll see you I mean okay I thought I got in on you a little bit but you you barreled that ball yeah you absolutely barreled that ball and you carried the bat all the way to first base I saw that I've done that a few times yeah I love it do you even think about that or you just like just kind of your thing ah yeah I'm smiling right there because I thought I struck out on the two two you're like thank you for that extra pitch yeah look at this goofball smile yeah with the homies in the in the dug I love that yeah so happy dude that we got that extra run huge huge you got you felt like you got a second life in that a bat they got to show some slo-mo's here let's let's check it out yeah here we're gonna get a we're gonna get a side view I want to see the side view there it is it's so simple man I mean I got to show that clip again I think the side view is so good you're so compact your idea is to keep is is just to keep that barrel tight to my head man if that thing gets away from my head or my hands get a little bit too stretched too far back too much separation I I get blown up on that pitch so keeping it tight tight to my head catching the ball out front those are all big keys for me right there I think everybody says the word tight to your body and then I think people have different keys for that so you want the barrel tight to your head that's going to keep everything else tight as well yeah sometimes I would think my left forearm kind of tight in everybody has a different key for you it's it's the bat the barrel the bat right on the head yeah so I you know I watch a lot of uh Bregman swing very very tight Mike Mike Trout the way his barrels tucked like right behind his head and he just launches from that position um that's what you know he doesn't he doesn't get beat on many pitches so his swing is very foolproof I would say yes it is it's on time and time again man he's so consistent yeah well I appreciate you coming on and talking about this at bat I mean your wealth of knowledge on the topic of hitting is it's really I I didn't I mean I knew you were a smart hitter but just hearing you talk about I really now understand why you've been able to be so successful oh dude I love talking about hitting I love it I love hearing you talk about hitting so thanks for coming on this at bat we're going to have another one up again Mitch Garver Silver Slugger 2019 are you the best catcher in baseball I think you're most yes sir