From 5 College Innings to a Sub-1 ERA in Professional Baseball

The Beginning and First Breakthroughs

I wasn’t the guy you expected to make it.

As a freshman in high school, I was throwing in the upper 70s — undersized, overlooked, and far from the level I needed to be. But I was obsessed with figuring it out. I wasn’t going to guess—I was intentionally going to create the measurables needed to compete. Velocity, strength, power, speed, explosiveness—I didn’t have them yet, but I knew I could build them.

I dove into methods that were still considered unconventional at the time: long toss, weighted balls, heavy lifting, intentional recovery routines, utilizing constraint-based throwing drills to make mechanical changes. I read everything I could from places like Kyle Boddy’s early Driveline Baseball blog, the Texas Baseball Ranch, Paul Nyman, and The Armory. I didn’t care what was popular — I cared what worked. If it made sense and helped me move better or throw harder, I was all in.

I wasn’t just trying things — I was tracking results. Over the next few years, I completely rebuilt my body. My 40-yard dash dropped nearly a full second. My vertical jump increased by over 15 inches. Every lift in the gym virtually doubled. These weren’t flukes, they were the result of a focused process. My fastball jumped from the upper 70s to the low 90s by junior year. That spring, I broke a single-season strikeout record and committed to Stanford. I thought the hard part was behind me.

Major Injuries and Challenges

It wasn’t.

Heading into my senior spring, I rolled my ankle and fractured my foot. Most guys would’ve shut it down. I didn’t. I long tossed from my knees every day — alone on a football field, throwing buckets of balls, then hobbling on crutches to pick them up. Over 12 weeks, I worked back to nearly 100 yards. My arm had never felt stronger. The first day I was cleared to walk, I did what any obsessed 18-year-old would do — grabbed a radar gun. I hit 95 mph for the first time. The next morning, my elbow was in sharp pain. Weeks later, I re-fractured my foot. Back on crutches. The elbow still wasn’t right. The diagnosis: a partially torn UCL and a unique foot fracture notorious for not healing. Having foot surgery right before heading to Stanford, I ended up spending nearly a year on crutches with multiple surgeries on the same foot, watching from the sidelines and trying to stay relevant.

College wasn’t what I imagined. After arriving at Stanford, I spent most of my first 2 years still recovering from foot surgery. By the time I was healthy, the roster was set — and I looked exactly like a guy who hadn’t thrown in two years. I wasn’t close to breaking in. But I didn’t sit around. I trained. Whatever it took. Late-night lifts, throwing after games, finding ways to rebuild myself one piece at a time. While the team hosted a regional, I was on a back football field with an ex-teammate and a radar gun. I wasn’t even allowed in the dugout. Unwanted. I had to get over myself — it wasn’t about pride. It was about doing the work, no matter what it looked like.

But just as things turned, they fell apart again. My elbow has never healed. PRP failed and I had Tommy John surgery. Another year gone. I built my own rehab process and trained through the doubt — again — and made it all the way back to 97 mph. I thought I was ready. After just two bullpens, I was thrown into a weekend series… and blew up. Walked two, pulled, elbow locked up. I wasn’t ready. It cost me another season.

But just as things turned, they fell apart again. My elbow has never healed. PRP failed and I had Tommy John surgery. Another year gone. I built my own rehab process and trained through the doubt — again — and made it all the way back to 97 mph. I thought I was ready. After just two bullpens, I was thrown into a weekend series… and blew up. Walked two, pulled, elbow locked up. I wasn’t ready. It cost me another season.

Turning to Coaching and a New Perspective

I enrolled in grad school to earn my MBA — but my body wasn’t fully cooperating. Fighting through lingering issues from Tommy John, struggling to recover consistently, and trying to hold velocity together on bad days. Then COVID hit. Seasons were canceled. Everything went quiet. And just like that, the window felt like it slammed shut.

I finished my MBA during that year of uncertainty and moved to coach at a prep school alongside an old friend, Ian Walsh. It was the first time I fully stepped onto the other side of the game — coaching full-time, developing theories, testing ideas, developing systems, learning the why behind the what, and pouring everything I had into the next generation. With throwing still limited, I went all-in on development. Helping younger players break through became just as addicting as chasing it myself. And after all the setbacks, it finally felt like I had something real to offer.

The Comeback and Long-Awaited Results

After being fully immersed in coaching, something shifted. I’d spent so much time learning to help other players break through — and somewhere in that process, I realized I wasn’t done. I needed to know what was still in the tank.

Not to chase closure. Not to “make it back.” But to chase truth — how good could I really be, now that I knew what I knew?

I started throwing again. Slowly. Smarter. With clarity and intent. My arm felt better than it had in years. The ball was jumping. For the first time, it felt like the thousands of hours of work — all the injuries, learning, experiments, and adjustments were finally compounding. 

When it came time to test it, I wasn’t chasing anything. I just needed to know if all the work meant something. The radar gun read 102, then 104, then I got on the mound and sat 95–97 with the best breaking ball I’d ever thrown.

For the first time in a long time, I felt peace. I wasn’t in pain. I wasn’t chasing the past. I wasn’t trying to prove anything. I’d let go of the idea of “getting back” to who I was — and just focused on becoming the best version of who I could be. All the setbacks, all the adjustments — it had finally added up to something real.

I did it again. The videos made their way out, started to gain traction, and before long, I had multiple affiliate options on the table. At 25 years old — with five college innings in seven years — I signed with the Toronto Blue Jays.

At times, I was ashamed of where I was. Watching from the bench while everyone else played. Staying home while the team traveled. Rehabbing injuries that never seemed to end. Making training mistakes I wish I could take back. But when you really want something, there’s only one option: do the work. No matter how long it takes. No matter how hard or unrewarding it feels. You show up and get it done.

It’s easy to blame injuries. They become a comfort blanket — a way to explain why things didn’t work out. And sure, everyone’s dealt a different hand. But if your goal is to win, that stuff doesn’t really matter. You either get the job done — or you don’t.

Most days in this journey weren’t exciting. They were fought through. Quietly. Alone. But every hard day built something in me — something I now get to pass on. Because even if I never made it anywhere, the lessons, the growth, and the people would still be worth it. And now, I get to help others chase their version of it.

This journey wasn’t pretty. It was painful, frustrating, and full of failure. But it was deeply rewarding — and it gave me something I can now pass on: a roadmap built from experience, not just theory.