Matt Mikulski's short(ened) route to success

Photo Credit: Fordham University Sports Department

Technology has transformed pitching development over the last few years. Biomechanical sensors can be applied to every part of a pitcher’s bodies, giving scores of micro-data on the way their bodies move through their mechanics, allowing for the most informed, nuanced changes. Reams of data on each and every pitch are employed to maximize efficiency and production. Pitching development has become so high tech that every team and most private pitching environments are referred to as “laboratories,” and teams literally employ analysts who have worked for NASA previously. It’s truly a brave new world.

So when Matt Mikulski wanted a pitching makeover, what means did he employ exactly? “It was me and my buddies,” he told me at the Giants Papago Park facility this week. “That’s it…The three of us against the world.” Day after day, hour after hour, throwing hundreds and hundreds of reps on a local field, Mikulski tried out a new delivery in front two buddies, and they would tell him how he looked. Old school as can be. But that old school solution ultimately boosted Mikulski from a player who went undrafted and unsought after in the shortened 2020 draft to a player taken with the 50th overall pick as a four-year college player in 2021. Sometimes “old school” is a pretty good learning environment!

But how exactly did this master class get started? What led Mikulski and his besties to spend the COVID summer of 2020 watching him throwing hundreds and hundreds of pitches alone in a field, looking to perfect a new delivery from scratch? “I guess it all started with the 2020 draft.” Coming off of a decent, if COVID-shortened, junior season at Fordham, Mikulski thought and hoped that he would hear his name selected in the five-round MLB draft that took place that summer. “Obviously, unfortunately, that didn’t happen. So I had to kind of sit down with my team back at home and get a feel of what I needed to do in order to separate myself from the pack.”