I'm All In On Yankees Pitching Coach Matt Blake And I'm Convinced He's Going To Bring New York a World Series Championship Right Away
Matt Blake has officially been anointed the savior of the Yankees pitching staff. The transition from the silver fox dinosaur Larry Rothschild to the rocket scientist in Blake is complete. It's go time. Aside from a few blogs and tweets, however, we really don't know a ton about Matt in general.
For the most part it looks like the Yankees nailed this signing, but any details about Matt are pretty light. In order to get a better feel for who we're going to be dealing with we thought it would be a great idea to get two guys who have worked closely with Matt in his past and bring them on the show. I say this without exaggeration, if you were unsure about the 2020 Yankees pitching coach heading into today you will be all in after listening to our interviews with his former manager when he was a pitching coach in high school, Kirk Fredericks, and a former pitcher who trained under him at Cressey Sports Performance up in Mass.
Kirk and Matt Blake were actually involved in a Pussification of America blog that Dave wrote back in 2015. The story is pretty much a new AD stepped in and changed up things at Lincoln Sudberry high school, specifically how parents of players communicated with coaches. The feedback aspect was cutoff and as a result parents began to complain to the AD about their kid's playing time because the world is incredibly soft. Eventually they were let go because of this which is just utter bullshit. Small world as he's found his way back into the Barstool world. We had Kirk on to talk about what Matt was like as a coach and how he thinks he'll handle New York and coaching this staff.
We also spoke with Cam Linzilli, who trained under Matt at Cressey Sports Performance. Cam played college ball at UMASS and Eckerd College. Since he was 13 he worked with Matt Blake and you can tell how much of an impact he had on Cam. The first hand accounts he gives of Blake are incredible here. I'm completely all in on Matt Blake being the savior of New York Yankees pitching. One of the bigger takeaways was how Matt positions his pitchers to throw in the healthiest way possible. Health is imperative, especially when talking about what the 2019 Yankees went through with the I.L. Severino, Paxton, Tanaka, etc. We get those boys healthy for 2020 that's a huge step in the right direction. It's also very clear how into analytics he is and how he sees the game differently. Also, how interactive and hands on he is with his pitchers. When we brought up seeing Larry in the dugout while Chad Green pitched and just muttering "Come on Greenie" to himself Cam said that Matt Blake will be watching every pitch intensely with a clipboard charting every pitch. That's the shit I want. That's the shit we need. He's going to bring this team a World Series championship. It's going to happen. We have a pitching guru. Matt Blake is the chosen one.
Interviews start at 42:40 of the show, beginning with Kirk and followed by Cam. Truly fascinating stuff. Go listen!
