There R Giants Pod-127 with Mason Black and Hayden Cantrelle
I’m joined this week by a couple members of the Richmond Flying Squirrels: RHP Mason Black, the Giants 3rd round pick in 2021 out of Lehigh University, and infielder Hayden Cantrelle, whom the Giants acquired from Miami last year.Mason and I talk modern training methods, arm care regime, the mental side of the game, searching for the perfect breaking pitch and much more. Hayden tells me what it felt like going through three different organizations in little more than a month’s time and how he maintained his course through that experience. He also gives some insight into a question that many fans had in the days of 40 round drafts — why do teams draft some high school players they don’t intend to sign? There are reasons!If you like the podcasts, you might enjoy being a full-time subscriber to There R Giants as well!Mason Black (2:00)Hayden Cantrelle (16:00)Intro/Outro: “Alright” by SupergrassAs an experiment, I’ve had some readers write in to say that they don’t enjoy listening to podcasts, but would like to have access to the content, so this week I’m trying out a transcribing app to see if that helps bridge the gap. These voice interpreting software apps are far from perfect, but maybe it helps? Let me know what you think!MASON BLACK TRANSCRIPT:RM: All right, Mason, how you doing? How's the how's how you feel about the start of the season?MB: Everything's been great. A lot of fun being back on the East Coast obviously had some family you got to come see last week so really enjoyed it here. Especially Richmond weather's beautiful, so can't say enough good things.RM: This is actually one of the best Aprils I've seen on here. So far. This is pretty sweet weather. Sweet. Yeah. Awesome. So I think a lot of people know that, in an alternate universe you might have gone to med school. I wonder if I could rely on some of your your Med School knowledge to ask you some things that we're seeing in pitcher training regimens that I think people hear about a lot, but they maybe don't understand.MB: Okay, I'll try my best but I did not go to med school. That's just a disclaimer. RM: Right. Not a real doctor, right? Yeah. Well, let's start with pylo balls. Okay, they're everywhere in the game. They seem to have really revolutionized training. What exactly are they and what did they do for you?MB? There's overspeed and under speed one so either heavier than the traditional weight of a baseball or lighter and what they've helped for me at least I know the guys might use it for different mechanisms, but I like to use them as kind of like training how my body should feel so like put a heavier weight in your arm and just move how your body should feel. It gives you almost like a hypersensitivity to like how you're supposed to be moving that way you get a feel for and you can apply it in your actual catch by what's the lighter one did the lighter one is more of like an arm speed thing that allows you it's a little bit like gives you a little bit more fluid motion. So you can kind of train the the heavy stuff first and then move into the lighter ball and just feel like that looseness in your arm. Like just really relax it.RM: Do some of them help you with with spin. Are there other pylo balls that help you get shape on pitches better?MB: Not necessarily. Or at least that's not what I use it for. I'm sure if you talk to probably 10 other guys they would have different answers. But I like it. There is just like the aspect of like supinating when I throw the ball or when I throw a plyo ball I tried to supinate and just like try to mimic my natural arm slot so I guess you can say it does have some aspects of turning that that spin but it might not be directly spin grade correlated more of like a spin. Like altering like getting that good supination around the ball.RM: There's a thing I see so I'll come in the the word visitors guys are warming up. There's a thing I see all the time. And it's like, pitchers get down on their knee with their back to a wall and then they take what he's saying and throw it backwards against the wall as hard as they can. And you look at it like looks like my shoulder would come out of it’s socket. what what are you doing? What are they trying to do when they do that? MB: That is called a reverse throw. It's almost like step A when you learn how to use bio balls. That's like the first thing you always do. And I think I speak for almost 90% of our pitches where we just all do that one. It's just something that we're taught. And I mean for me at least I like the counter rotation aspect of it like you feel like you're reverse like pulling a seatbelt. Like you're almost unclipping a seatbelt so it takes you from like that lower left side to that upper right side for right hander, and it's kind of like I use it as like a priming the system kind of thing. Like just get the scab engage. Get like the mid back to, you know, that lower left side really firing.RM: So you're I think we're two days out from your next start. So where in the whole kind of arm care regimen between starts, would you be doing something like that?MB: I do those every day, actually. Every day and that's something that our our front office and pitching coordinators all the way from the top down really emphasize is just having that consistent routine that like gets you going for every single day. So I do the reverse throws as well as a couple other quiet ball drills every day just to feel good, whether it's 11am 9am like yesterday or or nice five feet hereRM: just kind of wakes wakes up the system MB: Oh yeah.RM: There was the other night Sean Manaea was pitching in the Giants game and I forget who it was. It was Javy Lopez with somebody was saying that he said this year is the first time he'd ever had an arm care routine, which is kind of hard to imagine. Is that something new that you guys get when you come to pro ball? Is it just like does this anything you guys know about when you're college or is this is this pro and how do you like figure it out?MB: It really is trial and error. I do have to say I mean coming into pro ball I really didn't have like an arm care like are a day after I got to do this day two days after I got to do this. It was just kind of like in college. I mean, you always feel you're like a rubber band and you're at 19 years old feels great. You're like I could do a couple arm circles that I'm good to throw whereas like now it's like now you're throwing every day. It's like you do have to kind of structure your weeks around when you're going to pitch and I actually enjoy it just because like we've had incredible like strength staff and everything that'll work with you a ton and just finding what works for you. I've really enjoyed doing that so far.RM: So there's what you're doing now like basically the same or very different from what you're doing a year ago and you're in San Jose.MB: It's a lot of parts of it are the same. I do that another lift in like the day before but for the most part it's been like pretty consistent just like hopped on the Giants, rotator cuff and SCAP strengthening programs and then kind of pick and choose what I like add that in there but the structure is almost the same. So it's been enjoyable. People smarter than me foot made that so I'll take their word for it. It's been helping. I was able to throw a lot of things last year so it ain't broke don't fix it.RM: Is a lot of it just listening to your body like I'm four days out from the starter How do I feel kind of thing? Is that just basically feeling your body?MB: Yeah, a lot of it is just like feeling it out with like, Oh, I'm like I'm kind of hanging today might be a good day to take it easier on the throwing side of things and really focus on the weight room side.RM: When you were at Lehigh I think the story was that that you kind of changed your mechanics going into your final year and then changed more or back or something once you got into pro ball. How did that sort of progression go? Like what were you changing and what were you trying to accomplish when you're going through those various changes? MB: Well, if you went ahead and did some advanced scouting on me, my freshman and sophomore years at Lehigh, I had this real long arm action like at footstrike My arm was never in the same spot twice. And while it was like I was good, I was able to throw strikes for the most part and really just like command my off speed. It wasn't I didn't think what was gonna get me into pro ball or make me make that like next step in my development like it was almost like a cap. So I went ahead and took a risk and change my arm action a little bit alongside of one of our coaches. At Lehigh. And while it did backfire in the short term, I think like long term I was able to get to where I am now and had not done that it probably would have. I probably wouldn't be here. I could tell you that much. But yeah, just as like, it was almost like an overemphasis of like a shorter arm action and trying to get that arm consistent at footstrike and then once like as the year progressed, it kind of went back to more of like a neutral position between my old arm path and that recent like for short one so kind of like averaged out and got me into a good spot.RM: So where are you now? Are you kind of at the shortest end of where you've been, are you in between?MB: I'm in between. So I mean, I still had some control issues when I shorten things up a lot. So I think going back to like that neutral in between my really long one and that shorter one is out RM: Basically the last year last year and so far this year your control had been pretty impeccable. I don't think you've walked a guy yet this year. Certainly in San Jose, you know, the walks have been very, very limited as a pro. Have you gotten into a place where you feel like I'm a reliable strike thrower. I feel confident that I'm going to be able to get ahead of counts at this point.MB: I think so. Yeah. And a lot of that is not only like physical but it is on the mental side of things like just from the top down like pitching coordinators and pitching coaches like oh, he preaches it as well as like, we do have to own the zone and if your stuff is is good en
