The Pitcher’s Handbook Blueprint For Healthy Velocity

Radar-gun culture has turned a lot of young pitchers into speed-chasers, and we see the fallout everywhere: inconsistent command, rushed mechanics, and more shoulder and elbow injuries at younger ages. Dr. Kevin McGovern brings back Coach Brian Hall, a longtime high school coach from Colorado, to talk about his new book, The Pitcher’s Handbook: A Complete Pitching Development System, now available on Amazon and Apple Books. We get into why Brian wrote it in the first place, how it grew from a team manual into a full pitching blueprint, and what players and parents keep saying they love most: clear structure, day-to-day routine, and a plan you can actually follow.

We break down the traits that make a pitcher improve fast, starting with being coachable and doing intentional work outside practice through dry reps and repetition. Then we go straight at the mental game of baseball: “clear the last pitch,” competing with composure, emotional control, and why acting like you’ve done it before isn’t old-school fluff, it’s part of being a reliable teammate that coaches trust.

From there, we talk pitching mechanics and injury prevention with a practical lens: using the lower half, creating ground traction, improving arm timing, and finishing through the catcher instead of recoiling. We also tackle velocity training myths, why “practice makes permanent,” how to think about pitching backwards and deception, and why arm care can’t be just a pitcher thing as position players face more Tommy John surgery. If you care about pitching development, arm health, and sustainable velocity, this conversation is a must.

Subscribe, share this with a coach or parent, and leave a review so more players can find a safer path to throwing harder.

Transcript

Welcome And The Book Journey

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hey everybody, this is Dr. Kevin McGovern. It's another Velocity RX podcast. I have a special guest today, Coach Brian Hall from way out in Colorado. And he is here to talk about his new book that he now has. We had talked about he's a prior guest. We talked about it a couple months ago, but now he actually has it published out on the big Amazon. So welcome, coach. Thanks for coming on. And it's got to be exciting having a book out on Amazon, right?

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Yeah, it is. Thanks for having me, Dr. McGovern. And uh it's it's been quite the journey. It's something I didn't even really know that I was gonna do. I was creating this manual for the high school guys I coach, and it was getting so in-depth, and one thing led to another, and I'm like, I'm getting close to a book here. So I started following the publishing process, and here we are. I'm really excited about it. I'm hearing extremely good things about it from both players and parents.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

So, like, you know, how how long, excuse me, how many man hours do you have into it, do you think?

SPEAKER_00 1:11

I don't even, I can't even say it's it took me about eight months, and it was working, it was like three, four hours a night, maybe one hour the next night, but it is very extensive. And I my goal behind it was making it a complete development system. It's almost like a one-stop shop of all things pitching, whether it's philosophy, the mental game, mechanics, off-season workouts, anything and everything. My goal was for my guys to have a constant reference point throughout the season of what's being taught, what's maybe coming up, something they can study at home and all that stuff. And I feel really proud of it because I think it's really, really helped my players and hopefully many, many players to come.

What Coachable Pitchers Do Daily

SPEAKER_00 2:02

Excellent.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

So when you write a manual, create a course, have a development program, whatever it is, you have to have two distinct people be able to follow it. One one is the player, and two is the parent. So let's start with the let's start with the easy one first, the player. So what does a player have to have, you know, in his character or in his athletic drive, or what would you say to follow to follow this?

SPEAKER_00 2:35

The biggest one for sure is being coachable. A lot of times, it in my 15 years of high school experience, I've always seen two types of guys. One guy that will listen to anything and everything, even if they know it's wrong, for example, and then another guy where they're more reluctant. But once you kind of prove yourself and they see results from the instruction, then they'll listen. And I'm always telling my guys be culchable, do what you're told, ask questions at the end if you honestly don't know why I'm asking you to do something. And if I ever can't justify why we're doing what we're doing, then we shouldn't be doing it. So the culture piece is definitely the big one. And along with culture preparation, I always tell my boys it's one thing to practice and do what you're told at practice, but you're not gonna get where you want to be by just within that time frame. You've got to prep and prepare at home, before bed, doing dry reps. You don't even need a ball or partner a lot of the time. It's just going through the motion, sequencing correctly. And I have some guys that message me multiple times weekly asking questions, and that's showing me they're coachable, but they're taking preparation seriously too.

Clear The Last Pitch Mindset

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Yeah, you have a couple things in your in your first few pages. One, I which I like, which is clear the last pitch. Talk about that.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Yeah, so that's again, that's more of the mental aspect of you know, baseball's a game of failure. I'm always telling the guys, you're gonna fail more than you're gonna succeed. And I would argue that hitting is harder than pitching, and the fact that three out of ten will get you in the hall of fame. That means you're batting 300. Where if you're having a bad game command-wise on the mound, you've got to know that coming in. So if you throw a bad pitch, or let's say you walk a couple guys in a row, the odds are in their favor. So they need to just start with a clean slate, forget about what's happened or what just happened, and just attack the hitter because again, strikes are the name of the game. And if you throw strikes, odds are the hitters gonna get themselves out.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

And then also in that you know list, you have competing with composure. I like that one.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

Talk to us about that body language. So uh I played in college, I've coached, and I've also umpired. And competing with purpose, with composure, it's huge because baseball, like I just said, is a humongous mental game, and your actions will eventually go up to your mind, and whatever you're doing physically is gonna create whatever you do mentally. And a lot of times, my guys, physically they have it, but mental maturity, they're nowhere near that. So I oftentimes like to attack the mental aspect of the game first before we get into more of the physical aspects.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

Now, staying on that on that topic, you do have emotional control. You know, we we don't have to look too far, other than this year's you know, college world series or college playoffs, where we have both pitchers and hitters, you know, coming off the mound, or the or hitting a you know, game-winning hit like they've just won the lottery, or you know, really showing up the other team, or you know, it's okay to be excited, but to really over the top and getting thousands of clicks. And uh and most of the comments are yeah, that's great. And I was always taught to act like you've been there before, even if you hadn't.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

I was just gonna say not.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

Because you never want to be on the receiving end the other way, right? It's you know, it's you know, it's okay to get excited to you know pump your fit, but I mean, some you know, I forget what pitcher coming off, throwing his glove, jumping up and down like he was like, Okay, dude, you you got it out, that's your job. Um, even I see little the little league, there's some clip the other day, some you know, not to make fun of the kid, some little 12-year-old twerp throwing the bat, spinning around, you know, going to short stuff, shooting a basket. You know, look at I know some of these major league guys do the same thing. It drives me crazy. What do you what do you say about? I mean, to me that that that that's someone I don't even want to coach. Like, okay, pass, like next guy.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

Well, it and to your point, I always have always and have always told my guys, act like you've done it before. And again, it's it's composure, it's playing with the purpose. A lot of times, you could be the best player in the world, but the worst teammate. A college is gonna take a guy that has average ability, but the intangibles of being a person and a good teammate than they are a guy hitting 650, but they're sitting alone in the dugout, they're not up on the fence cheering on their teammates, they're not communicating. And a lot of times, to the examples you just mentioned, that is some of the kids we're dealing with these days. And uh I've been blessed to coach some really good kids. And when I do have kids that do show some of those um characteristics, you kind of gotta just lay it out there for them and make them realize that maybe I shouldn't be doing this and maybe I should act like I've done this before, because that makes me look more professional than all these antics that they see on TV.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

I always go back to the movie. I don't know if you ever saw the movie Draft Day with Kevin Costner. You know, one of the reasons why he didn't draft the guys, yeah, some how come no one showed up to your birthday party? How come none of your teammates showed up to your birthday party? And yeah, you have to be a good, you have to be a good teammate. So to me, all of that starts at home. I wouldn't have to worry when I get off the field doing something crazy like that for my teammates or my coach, I'd have to worry about the ride home with my dad, who might leave me on the side of the road if I had done something as asinine as that.

Parents Need Structure And Warmups

SPEAKER_01 9:27

So how if parents, you know, you know, because sometimes, you know, every every not everybody, I don't want to use the always in everybody, but there are many parents who think, you know, little Johnny is going to the major leagues, you know. I've heard my son, I see it all the time. My son is an elite nine-year-old pitcher. Elite. He hasn't hit puberty yet. He's elite at nothing. You know, so how does it, you know, now, you know, with all the noise that's out there, you've got this manual, and you know what, and we've got drive line, we've got tread, we've got all this, all these other people out there. What do parents say about you know, a manual or something, a how-to book? What is your reaction with your with your kids' parents?

SPEAKER_00 10:15

You know what? I I've been incredibly grateful for all the feedback I've gotten, not just from my athletes and their parents, but just parents in general. And one thing I wanted to mention is I think a lot of what's missing out there is just structure, consistency, routine. And a lot of the feedback I've gotten is they absolutely love how the pitcher's handbook just lays each phase of pitching out for them. So it's something they can follow religiously, it's something they can reference day in and day out. Because a lot of times, even at the Little League fields, I see teams show up, they just start throwing. They're not stretching, they're not getting blood flow going, they just start playing catch, and in one minute they're at 90 feet. And I don't think it's so much of the kid, it's I don't think no one's taught them properly how to warm up or a proper throwing progression. I I'm a big guy in throwing with the purpose. And if we never just play catch. If you're a pitcher, you're pitching from the very first throw you do when you pick up a ball because you're gonna play the way you practice. And you've got to play with purpose and practice with purpose because that's what's gonna make it permanent when you step on the mound.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

And a lot of times practice makes permanent not perfect.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

It doesn't. Even some of the guys I coach, maybe half the time they can repeat their mechanics, or let's just say getting into their backside hinging. Other times they drift out, and I attribute that to not being intentional when doing our throwing progressions and during catch play before every practice.

Mechanics That Protect The Arm

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Nice, nice. All right, well, as we move further on with this book, we we you know the we we come to mechanics, comes comes to the pretty pretty close in your book, pretty up front. What is your overall feeling on mechanics, their their purpose? You know, there's a lot of things out there about mechanics, there's a lot of you know things out there that the latest I heard is well, this is just how he moves. Well, that's great. I like to stay home and eat eat six pizzas a day, too, but that's not healthy for me. So, you know, what is how have mechanics? I know you have contacted me numerous times about kids reluctant to change, and those kids have not ended up in a good place. So talk to me about that.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

Yeah, and that's one of the reasons I just love your work so much because my first answer with mechanics is are they gonna keep you healthy, not just now, but in the long term? So the more and more research I've done when I put together and published this book was you gotta use your large muscle groups. The the butt is much bigger than the quad, and the butt is much bigger than the bicep and the shoulder and all those things. So we need to leverage our large muscle groups to generate power versus relying on the smaller muscle groups. So, with that said, I'm really, really big on, and and you say it probably a million times a week, the first movement must be down. Because if I'm drifting down the mound, I literally cannot gain traction from the ground. It's impossible. So the purpose of the first movement down is I'm sitting on the back side, the back hip, so that I can then ride down the mound. And the biggest thing I'd say I'm on mechanics is arm timing. A lot of times, front foot strike, whether it's a nine-year-old, 12-year-old, 18-year-old, arm timing is not consistent. Sometimes they get up in the power L position, and then their lower body brings the torso through, the torso brings the arm through, and then other times the arm will be down here. And I always tell my guys, well, literally, it's a muscle move at that point before the kinetic chain does what it needs to do. So I'm really big on using the lower half, arm timing, but then also extension and not recoiling. They need to finish their momentum all the way through the catcher so that they're not fighting themselves or fighting gravity.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

With arm timing, what's the biggest? I mean, the biggest thing I see is that obviously they're accelerating the ball from you know behind a lot a lot of layback. What what do you see in the not only with your guys, but even even opponents, what what do you see with the arm arm timing?

SPEAKER_00 15:10

So I would say one thing is a lot of kids majorly drift, and obviously if you drift, you're not the body's not giving your arm enough time to catch up. But another thing I've seen is kids are breaking their hands at different times during different pitches. And I'm a big believer in even if you're breaking your hands either too early or too late, if you're at least consistent with it, your body's eventually gonna know, okay, it's gotta be up here. So I like to do a lot of armpath drills just so they get the proprioception, they get the feel of, okay, this is where I'm supposed to be. And I'm a big, big dry rep person. I see awesome drills online, and I'm I actually love a lot what I see, but I'm like, you don't need a band or a medicine ball or even a mound. You just need to go through the motion over and over to actually know what good timing is and what bad timing is.

Velocity Hype Versus Real Development

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Well, you know, everyone is chasing, you know, the velocity, right? That's the big word. But yet, I always say if you can't hit a fastball, you you can't play. I mean, obviously, when we look at someone like Mizarovsky's throwing 105, that might be different. But everyone in the major leagues, on any professional team, can hit a 97 mile an hour fastball if it's in the middle of the plate. And and guess what? They can hit it a really long way. A really, really, really long way. So, what is kids talking? Like, what's what's the talk about velocity? And you know, sometimes when you change mechanics or change, make a change, you know, there is a dip until the body, until the body can correct itself and and and ramp back up. So how how is that? Or are you have you run into that where the velocity might dip? It might not, it might, it might explode up, but sometimes there is a dip. How how is that? Have you seen that? How do you overcome that? What's going on with that?

SPEAKER_00 17:19

Yeah, it's velocity is like the eye candy for, I mean, even for adults, but specifically middle school, high school age kids where all they care about is velocity. And in a lot of ways, I get it because again, I was a kid at one time and I was the same way, but it got me to two shoulder surgeries because I was more worried about radar gun readings than throwing properly and in a healthy way. So I again I'm a big believer good mechanics will lead to high velocity. You can do all this, these velocity programs with the plyo balls, which I I I've made it known I'm not a fan of at all. They cause more injury than benefits. But again, my most successful kid last year, he loved velocity, but he was so honed in on what we were preaching mechanically, to where he started the season at about 77 and now he's sitting 85, 86 consistently. And I wish everyone kind of bought in that same way because yeah, throwing hard's good, but it's it's the saying velocity may get you a ticket to the dance, but once you're there, can you dance? And a lot of times you can't because you're either gonna get hurt, you don't have the best command, and consistent, proper mechanics will get you all those things.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

Absolutely. So, you know, with mechanics, I was like so honed in on the fastball, in and just the guys you coach just a rough number, I'm not gonna hold you to anything. What's the strike percentage on all the secondary pitches? Is it less than 50%?

SPEAKER_00 19:11

Yeah, well, again, without me, like I can if I had the data in front of me, but I'd say it's less than 50%. And I'm glad you asked that because we really like to pitch backwards because high school hitters, they're just sitting on the fastball. But again, right? As everyone should without proper and consistent mechanics, you're not gonna consistently get off-speed pitches over for strikes. You can't throw a strike with the curveball with the late arm or with major drift because your arm has no time to catch up to have all the leverage behind it.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

And how is that you know, when he's when you telecade he's got to pitch backwards? You know, to me, when I was pitching, I thought it was great to throw three change ups in a row and be like, here, hit it. Can't hit it, right? You know, to me, uh to me, blowing a change up past somebody or making them look silly, swinging like the old Bugs Bunny commercial or you know, the cartoon when he falls over swinging was more satisfying to me. But that's I mean, I played in a different era. Like, what what is that? What is that today? I mean, do kids even have a change up. I mean, like my changeup was I don't know, 12 miles an hour, slower than my fastball. I mean, yeah, you know, went both different ways. It was my best pitch, but I don't hear that. I don't hear a lot of that.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

You know, I I I think nowadays kids actually love, oh, that pitch was dirty. Did you see how much it moved? I think they're more bought into the off-speed stuff. And the way I like to teach kids these days is it's all about deception. So you can throw 75 fastball, but if you can get a changeup over consistently and then throw a fastball, it's now deceiving. That 75 mile per hour fastball may now look 83, 84 because a hitter now has to. Oh, I've got to keep this guy honest. He's throwing a curveball and changeup. What's coming now? And then sooner or later that fastball gets blown by him at 75.

Arm Care For Pitchers And Fielders

SPEAKER_01 21:23

So I'm gonna throw a little curveball at you and switch switch gears here. There's a lot of talk about arm care, and I want to talk about arm care for position players first. I watch a lot of baseball. I'm a Yankee fan, I watch a lot of Yankee games, but you know, I do watch a lot of baseball. And it'd be hard pressed for me to find to really think hard about five outfielders that can throw the ball from their outfield depth to home plate on a line. Two of them might play for the Yankees, and one of them is constantly hurt in John Carlos Stanton. The other's Aaron Jones, who's also hurt. But The arm care, or whatever's happening with arm care. I mean, I can name guys in the 80s and 90s, Jesse Barfield, Dave Winfield, Dwight Evans, Jim Rice, who could throw rockets from the outfield. Like and even the rating system, like, oh, he's got an 89 arm, 92 arm, and then he'll catch the ball and be like three hop it to you know up the line. Who is who are ranking these? Like, where where's this ranking system coming from? Were you where you know they're doing all this throwing, all this long toss? You can't throw to me, you can't throw 250 feet on a line. You have no business playing the outfield in Major League Baseball, but yet they're there. So, like there's the whole arm care from the pitching, and then now position players are getting Tommy John surgery. What is going on?

SPEAKER_00 22:53

You know, it I think one of the biggest things is lack of arm care, where some people believe only pitchers, for example, should be doing their bandwork, like internal lex rotation, external, abduction, all that stuff. A lot of times, position players are the first ones to grab their glove, grab a ball, and start throwing. I think sometimes they're not throwing enough in the sense that when they're playing catch play for the date, they're ready to go in three or four minutes. And I'm like, there is no way because you may be ready in that moment, but five minutes from now, uh, the issue with position players is you're not throwing everybody. So you may have two innings where a ball doesn't even get hit to you, and now there's a runner on second, you're the right fielder, you've got to throw home, and you're your blood's not flowing, your muscles aren't warm, they're not elastic. So a lot I would almost attribute to a lot of that is they're not warmed up, they're not ready, they didn't warm up enough. Their flexibility is very support, especially in their shoulder joint.

SPEAKER_01 24:09

So, like your guys, you know, your your position players, what are they doing for arm care? And like it just just on your on your on your local team. Because I'm I'm just as I mean, I'm just as concerned about the injury epidemic. I mean, twenty-five years ago, you never heard of any position player getting Tommy John surgery. And to me, like I just named off without even saying, I mean, I mean, I just remember Bo Jackson. I mean, obviously, he was a freak of nature, but he wasn't the only one that could sit at the base of the outfield wall and hit third base on the fly. Okay. I don't see too many people can do that today. So what's happening with with the injury rate, with with the exercises, are they are they different? Is it is it too too I mean to me, arm care is arm care, whether you're pitching or playing out in the outfield.

SPEAKER_00 25:05

Well, and I and in my in my current position, it it is hard sometimes because as a high school pitching coach, almost all kids play multiple positions and they hit. So the time factor, if we have a two-hour and 15-minute practice, it's hard squeezing in like a legitimate warm-up and getting the baseball stuff done that was planned for the day. So what I have like, and it's in my handbook, is the non-negotiables that players must follow. And a lot, it's soft tissue prep, it's activation, it's some core activation. And then uh I mandate about 12 band exercises, both like scapular stability stuff and just arm rotator cuff stuff. And we've had pretty good luck, knock on wood, of arm injuries that have happened within our control. And it's just getting the boys bought in into the routine every day where they're rolling out with foam rollers and they're gonna take a lacrosse ball, do some soft tissue in their shoulder, elbow, forearm. Then they're gonna do a dynamic warm-up and then band routine. A lot of boys they like to do bands immediately, and I'm like, it's good you're doing them, but it's better if your muscles warm, if your body's warm, so you get the maximum benefit of the exercises.

Big Takeaways And Where To Buy

SPEAKER_01 26:37

I love it. So before and we're gonna do another series of this, what are what are three things you would think of the whole book aside, cover to cover? What are three things you you want to get across to your audience?

SPEAKER_00 26:53

I would so within the book it's having a complete system, not just throwing mechanics or not just throwing progression, but a beginning, middle, and end of a process. So everybody knows I'm doing this because, or in next month I'm gonna do this because. And it all relates to throwing and mechanics, where, like in the handbook, there is off-season weightlifting, and in collaboration with you, it's they've got to have the basic movements, they've got to have squats, they've got to have lunges, they've got to have basic upper body strength. And when that happens, then mechanic, mechanical flaws that are called out should be more easily correctable because they have the strength and functional movement. And another thing is I put this book together through my personal experience of having two shoulder surgeries and not really having guidance or a routine to follow. I was blessed to pitch in college and get college scholarships, but I was shut down pretty early because of poor mechanics and lack of strength and lack of structure through high school through college.

SPEAKER_01 28:16

Well, everybody, the name of the book is The Pitcher's Handbook: a Complete Pitching Development System by Brian Hull. Prepare, perform, and win. And you can find it. Where can they find this book? I know we can find it on Amazon, but you have a website too. Do you want to give everyone your website?

SPEAKER_00 28:34

Yeah, so if this is now on Amazon and Apple books, so obviously, both on Apple and Amazon, if you search up the pitcher's handbook, the cover will show up. And then I do have a website, and I made a specific page for it that has the links to Amazon and Apple and Google and the PDF file. And that is a purposefulpe.com backslash handbook. So purposefulpe.com slash handbook. And you can access all of the locations where the book is currently housed on if one format or the other worked best for you.

SPEAKER_01 29:19

Fantastic. Well, we're gonna come back and we're gonna delve into this book and go through and do some later chapters another time. But coach, thanks for coming out again. I I appreciate it. And guys, get this book because I'm actually cited in it, so that's good.

SPEAKER_00 29:35

Yes, yes, you are. I I do cite you a variety of times with some of your drills or verbiage or methodology. So, yes, there's a lot of good stuff that you put out weekly that I definitely wanted to kind of echo in my book.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

Well, I appreciate that. All right, guys. Well, stay tuned to the next Velocity RX podcast. I appreciate listening and like and subscribe. It helps me spread my message to save a million arms. Everyone, thanks for listening. Thanks, Dr. McGovern.