A few days ago, I sauntered up to Pete Walker to pick his brain about pitching and the art of coaching at the big-league level.
I knew Pete when I was player, back when he was a low-level coach working with rehabbers — of which I was one. He was always more conversational than just about any other pitching coach I’d ever been around.
The scars of the game were still fresh on him then, and from the way he delighted over the ball coming out of your hand and singing through the air to hit leather with a sizzling pop, you could tell he wasn’t ready for them to fade, and may never be.
Though I laboured to get the ball 100 feet back then, I felt like a great pitcher around Pete. He was encouraging. Not because he was paid to be, or because he was the cheerleader type that gushed with frenetic, saccharine positivity. He just knew how to encourage baseball players. He spoke our language.
He still speaks our language.
Days ago, as both of us stood propped by padded dugout railing watching the boys warm up on the foul portion of the Atlanta Braves spring infield grass, Pete said that when he was first hired, there were some senior coaches around the game that looked at his arrival on the coaching scene as something like an insult.
Why him, so young and inexperienced? Why not someone of the older guard? Someone with more time in the game — not to mention more time in coaching.
I knew why. I’d known since I’d first met Pete. It’s not the experience or the length of career that matters. It’s ability to know what the player is feeling and articulate it in a way useful to that player. Experience is useless without the means to fashion it into something that helps the men playing now.
After all, How does a coach like Pete Walker go out to talk to a player like Mark Buerhle, a player that’s nearly 2,300 innings more experienced?
It’s not about giving Buerhle some chunk of unknown enlightenment from his own trials and tribulations.
“It’s about meeting Mark where he is now,” said Walker. “Working with Mark where he’s at this season, helping him accomplish his plan and his goals. Understanding how you can over coach and under coach the individual.”
Pete does that very well and it aids both the older and younger players.
He does not stamp out Pete Walker brand arms, but helps those arms make their own stamp. He understands that coaching at this level is not about instilling his values into the talent under him, but figuring out how to unlock that talent and get out of its way.
And part of helping those arms is making them feel comfortable.
The big-leagues can be a place where dreams come true, but it can also be terrifying and elitist.
Young players come to the upper levels and despite having all the talent to succeed there, they cannot play to their full potential because everything around the game is different, more demanding and more invasive.
Sometimes big-league coaches hold back until you “prove” yourself capable of holding your own at the top.
After all, why waste time on someone who won’t be around for long? An ironic stance to take since coaches holding back may be the very reason those young players fail.
Pete strives to make the guys feel comfortable in the majors — even if the closest they ever come is a few weeks of big-league camp. He says you never know who is going to figure it out and be the next hero of a club.
In order for them to figure it out, they need to feel comfortable there. And in order for that to happen, a coach needs to know who that individual person is outside of some big league worthy mold, and adjust.
“There is no reason to make a guy feel like they aren’t good enough to get the job done at the top. It’s counterproductive. You want guys to feel like they can get the job done as soon as they arrive. They’re there to help you win, after all.”