How dropping two-way play helped Jonathan Santucci become a draft prospect
Yahoo Sports senior MLB analysts Jake Mintz and Jordan Shusterman are joined by the Duke pitcher to discuss how ditching being a position player helped his development on the mound. Subscribe to the “Baseball Bar-B-Cast” podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
You kind of dropping the two A game and focusing only on pitching, talking about what you missed about being a position player.
What did focusing solely on pitching do for you as a pitcher this past season?
I definitely because I was hurt for most of the year last year.
Um And I had to use the entire summer and fall kind of to rehab back into it.
So kind of putting the bat down, kind of just finally put me in a pitching mindset for the first time in my life.
And I think being able to fully um be involved with all like the routines and like pre work and post work that felt like I had to rush through as a two way player.
Um I think, I think I could like finally sit down and like, go through it, take my time with it and um just take my time with it.
I feel like, and I think that really helps down the road and kind of switching from that mindset of going out there and throwing and just going out there and throwing as hard as I can to like the mindset of being a pitcher and like working through like situations when you're out there, we had a conversation with Brodie Brecht who described a similar thing, dropping football and how he feels like he's just scratching the surface of what's possible.
Do you kind of feel like that?
Same way as you look forward to your pro career where there's still so much more for you to learn on the mound?
And were there any moments this spring when you were focusing on pitching full time?
When you had a moment?
Like, oh man, like I'm figuring this out or?
Oh, because as you mentioned, it's con you're constantly learning every, every outing.
But that process where there are moments were like, oh, I'm, I'm figuring this out.
Oh, I'm figuring this pitch grip is now working in a way that I didn't have time to figure out, you know, when I was still focusing on hitting.
Yeah, 100%.
I mean, throughout my entire high school career, I think I only threw 10 innings um for my school.
So like that's, that's the thing like you were listed as a pitcher because you had the good arm and you would see it occasionally in showcases, but it's not like you got a lot of game reps in high school, so you have a lot to catch up on.
I always consider myself more of an outfielder, especially even going into college.
Um So it's always been a learning curve for me, like, kind of learning on the fly, um, when I got into college and I think I'm just scratching the surface of what I'm capable of and, um, I don't think I'm anywhere close to the final product, so I'm excited for that.