EP101 – Is Sleep Important For Performance? Plus, Is MLB Baseball Boring Now?

Some coaches claim that sleep is critical to recovery. Sure – this is true, and everyone needs sleep. But is it actually relevant and important to be talking about to younger athletes? Second, Dan discusses the new state of MLB baseball – is it capturing the attention of young players? Is it boring? Should young players be playing this swing-and-miss style of baseball?

To submit a question for the Q&A segment, email a voice recording to Dan at hello@danblewett.com. Want to support the show? Buy a copy of Dear Baseball Gods on Kindle or Paperback, or listen on audiobook. Or, pick up Pitching Isn’t Complicated, his advanced-but-understandable pitching manual. Enroll in one of Coach Dan’s online pitching courses or his mental skills course. Use code BASEBALL GODS to save 20% on any course, just for being a listener. Sign up for Dan’s Email list and get a free pitching checklist, and follow up with him on the interwebs: YouTube Channel | Twitter | Danblewett.com

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Transcript: EP101 – Is Sleep Important For Performance? Plus, Is MLB Baseball Boring Now?

You’re listening to the dear baseball gods podcast. In this show, I helped parents, players and coaches better navigate their baseball careers.

welcome back to the Dear Baseball Gods podcasts. Last week was the episode. The big number 100. So it’s a, it’s like, Oh one Oh one. Okay. We’re so far from any other relevant milestones, so, Oh, how the mighty have fallen, uh, but quick reminder or announcement, depending on, uh, if you’re on my email list or any of that next week, I’m releasing a new strain of conditioning program, a online program, which I’m really excited about.

This is a collaboration between myself and my good friend, fellow strength, coach Andrew Sachs. So look for more details, uh, in the upcoming week, if you’re not on my email list, definitely sign up. There’s links in the show notes, but this is a really good program. We spent the last, well, we started this in March and then covert happened, but.

Um, about a hundred episodes or a hundred exercises filmed, a lot of really good detail. Um, just a lot of moving parts in general to make this successful, but we’re excited that next week it’s finally gonna launch and you’ll be able to get, uh, a free two week trial. So if you want to jump in and try it, you’re more than welcome to.

So just a little bit of housekeeping. Also, you’re gonna notice some new intro music and transition music, which I’m excited about. My old stuff was as grading on me a little bit. And, uh, I do like a high quality podcast expense. So hopefully you enjoy the new tunes. So in today’s episode, we’re going to talk about two things.

Number one, is baseball boring. I’ve been watching the world series. And by that, I mean, I watched the first game last night, um, and I was bored. And so I want to talk about it a little bit and then second. Is recovery, but specifically is sleep important as a ballplayer. I listened to a prominent coach.

Talk about this a couple of weeks ago, and just have some thoughts in general, when we start talking about little nitpicky details like that.

all right. So first off is baseball boring? Uh, I think the answer objectively is yes, and this is disappointing to me. I will admit last night I watched game one of the world series. It was the first game I watched all season. Part of that is that just like in the busy life that I live, I’d never owned a TV as an adult.

Don’t intend to, for at least going to keep holding up, I guess. But so typically I would watch baseball with a friend just like in a restaurant, in a bar, but with them being closed, like the opportunity wasn’t there. Obviously the COVID season just didn’t feel super compelled honestly, to watch. I don’t know this whole mess of a year, I was pretty turned off about the way it was handled, uh, with Manfred and all that.

So, but anyway, having watched this game between the Dodgers and the rays, it was just like, strike out, strike out, strike out, strike out ground ball, strike out home, run, strike out. And I just wonder out loud, which I think a lot of people have been like, is this really like the, the version of baseball that we want?

And now today’s, uh, this topic is not just me being a curmudgeony old, you know, old fart or whatever, because I know a lot of people, especially on Twitter where, you know, everyone complains at each other, Oh, well, if you don’t like the new, you know, a new version of baseball, then just don’t watch it. I mean, that’s fair.

But unfortunately that’s probably what is going to happen because I was watching that game. I was just like, I was just put on a YouTube video and learn something and just catch the highlights because they’re going to hit, it’s going to be like five home runs to four, and they’re just strike out 12 guys on each side.

And I can, like, I can pick that up in baseball tonight. Which I think is really disappointing to be perfectly, perfectly honest. I was texting a couple of kids that I worked with during the game, and they were kind of saying the same thing. Like, yeah, it’s, you know, they’re stressing home runs and it’s just, it’s like all or nothing.

And, uh, and so my question here today is not just about my personal feelings, but for you as a parent or, or a coach or a young player, it’s a weird situation that you’re in because you do kind of have to fit the mold. Of what baseball is and what it’s becoming now, I will say this. So last fall, when I moved, did you see, I went to a couple of nationals games.

I went to an Orioles game. I went to a bunch of Atlantic city games and I went to a couple of college games, uh, early in the spring. And what I would like to convey is that. All levels of baseball below major league baseball, not like major league baseball, at least in the sample size, which is a reasonable sample size.

I watch like 10 games. It’s not as, it’s just like, not as crappy. I mean, to be probably looking honest, you go watch a D one baseball game. Uh, you know, I watched the university of Maryland play Rhode Island. I watched Georgetown play. Um, I can’t remember who I watched my Alma mater U UNBC play a lot. I’ll watch a lot of D one teams in the local, mid Atlantic area.

And it was like still normal, good baseball. Like they’re singles, like guys have good at bats. They don’t strike out every year of every game. Um, there’s hit and runs. There’s, you know, they’re just like, it was a dynamic interesting game with players playing their role, instead of all nine players playing the same role, which is I’m going to try to do damage, hit a double or a home run, or I’m going to strike out.

And so it, it’s hard to know. I think as a parent or a player as a coach, who’s coming up in this environment. What you need to be emulating. So if you’re a, you know, if you’re a draft pick in the white Sox organization or the tigers organization, or just pick an organization, you do have to sort of conform to their archetype to say, this is what we believe an outfielder looks like at the big league level.

So for you, mr. Meyer, leaguer, you need to fit this mold or else we’re not going to push you in the big leagues. Right? So if that means 35 home runs, we don’t care how many times you strike out whatever. Um, so be it, you have to fit their mold if you want to get paid and get into the big leagues. Right? So at that point, you’re very much trying to do the job that they’re asking of you, but to all the levels below that, it’s not clear to me.

And I’ve had a lot of conversations with coaches and, you know, I know a good amount of people in the industry. It’s not clear the game is that same way, lower levels. Obviously everyone is changing. A bit, right? So you talk to any level of college baseball coach, and they do want guys that are gonna put the ball in the air a little more.

They’re not stressing ground balls off the bat, which is a good thing. Very smart thing. But they’re also not, they’re not also not gifted with all these athletes who can put the ball out. Like if you look at a major league roster today, you know, like Mookie Betts is a small guy. He’s not a big dude, but he’s got crazy athleticism, crazy bat speed.

And he’s just, he is an incredible ballplayer. So you have these smaller guys who are realizing, yeah, I’ve got the bat speed and the actual velocity to put one out. So I’m going to start doing that, which makes sense for them at the major league level, because if you hit 30 home runs versus 20, you can get a pretty significant pay bump and your career takes a different direction.

So for them, it makes sense. And I’m not suggesting that a murky Bess was in playing division one baseball. They shouldn’t hit a home run, he should do what he’s capable of doing. But my point is that more division one players are not capable of hitting home runs like he does at his size. And most players are not.

So yeah, baseball is changing in general, but I think this is a little bit of a red herring, a little bit of a misleading situation where. Major league baseball is not indicative of what’s happening everywhere else. The overall subtle trend of no ground balls, let’s do a little more damage. Lift the ball a little more.

That is a trend that’s taking shape everywhere. However, I have not seen that. The game is really changing where kids are just whipping. We’re a small kids are still trying to swing for the fences where everyone’s trying to hit a double or a home run, um, or coaches are stressing that. Cause I don’t think they are.

I think in general, baseball is somewhat as normal, but slightly improved. Like it makes sense to be lifting the ball a little bit more. Does it just does it doesn’t make sense if you’re a young team to be swinging for the fence is all the time and trying to lift everything cause you’re gonna fly out way more than you’re going to actually.

Quote unquote do damage, right? When you’re a major leaguer, the rules are very different for you, minor leaguers as well. So I think it’s just important to have this conversation out loud because I’m distressed that the highest version of the game that I love is just ugly and boring. It’s just dull. It just is.

I mean, I’m a pitcher, so you’d think that I love like a two to one game, but. It’s just not that exciting one. It just seems to be pretty easy to punch everyone out. Cause they have a very specific goal in mind. And it’s very different than 10 years ago when you had Pedro Martinez actually carving highs up who were actually fighting him to knock it, carved up.

Whereas now it’s like, I’m not even gonna fight you. I’m going to still try to hit a home run. Oh two or one two. And if I don’t, so be it I’ll go back to the dugout. So there just seems to be like a fundamental shift and it’s just very different. And the two to one game today. It’s not the same two to one game of yesteryear.

And I think a lot of you would probably agree with that. So I, but again, I think as parents, it’s not clear that your 13 year old should be trying to emulate what’s happening in the big league level, because that’s not what’s happening yet at the high school level. It’s not what’s happening at the college level and it’s not what’s happening at the, at the  level, even.

You know, and obviously Atlantic league baseball is a high level of independent baseball. Independent baseball is a little bit different than mildly baseball, but you’re just going to have more guys that can’t do those crazy things where it doesn’t behoove them to swing for the fences as much. And to try to lift the ball and have more of the zero sum game where it’s all or nothing, swing and miss, or, you know, I’m going to lift it in the gap.

So. I, uh, it’s, uh, it’s just a weird thing. Like I said, it’s, I think it’s disappointing and I’m not sure this trend will reverse. Um, but I think at some point, and this is, I think what’s what happens in like a, like a little tiny pocket every year is as everyone starts to do the same thing, you know, other people that pivot.

Tend to rise in value. Right? So everyone in the big leagues throws super hard, kind of over the top now. So our guys like, you know, I just watched Moneyball, uh, the other day on, on Netflix is a guy like Chad Bradford, right? Like a submariner, highly successful. There’s still a couple of them floating around they’re in the big leagues.

Are they going to become more and more valuable? Now there’s fewer and fewer of them. Probably right. So, you know, guys that are, that have value, that’s a little bit against the grain, you know, with all this shifting, are there going to, is there going to be a premium on players who are more, less the Dustin for Julia Jose Al to of a type who, you know, can do lots of things, different things.

And aren’t just like, Hey, I’m going to pull the ball. And if I don’t, I don’t kinda like Joey, uh, Um, I’m drawing a blank here. The other big power hitter from the, from the Texas Rangers, um, you know, guys that are like, I’m only going to pull the ball or that’s it. Right. So guys that can actually play small ball a little bit, actually the ball, the other way, you wonder if that’s going to start to come back at some point, and for those of you who have kids in middle school, high school or early college, I mean, you don’t know what the big leagues is going to look like in five to 10 years, right?

Or more like 10 to 15 years, depending on your age. So it’s hard to say that we should throw all of the, uh, the old. The old timers, it’s a way to call like my generation old timers, but should you throw all these things pulls away? Should you not? Does it not matter if you know how to bond? Does it not matter if you know that, you know, push a bond or, or hit and run or just hit the ball, the opposite field, you know, as much?

Um, I think, no, I think you probably need to retain those skills because a good, valuable hand, eye coordination, developmental kind of skills. Also, we just don’t know what baseball is going to look like. You know, this surge in. Power and focus on lifting the ball has come on pretty quick. Like this is, this is, this was a fast shift and it could just quiet and just, it could flame out just as quickly as it came.

So, you know, it’s just important to keep that in mind that don’t necessarily completely model your game today. Off the major league game today, when you’re potentially chasing a major league dream that’s 10 or 15 years away in the future. Cause you just don’t know what’s going to be there. So again, staying well rounded learning how to pitch you probably you saw that, you know, throwing 99 miles per hour down the middle doesn’t work.

Right? Like it works some of the time, but. Lot of times it doesn’t. Right. So all these things, it’s still just important to be a balanced ballplayer, learn how to do lots of different things. Don’t focus on only one outcome. And, uh, just understand that we know the criteria for success in the future. We just don’t know.

All right. My second topic for today is sleep important. So. Here’s the thing I listened to a prominent coach, talk about this and you know, this was like, he was like, so excited to share about like how important recovery is and sleep is. And, you know, at the, at the highest recovery becomes more of a, it becomes more of a box that you want to.

Check because you have, you’re trying to separate yourself from other players that are very, very good. So the difference between you and the guy next to you is very, very slim. So you’re looking for every little edge you can. So if there’s two players who are pretty much identical, um, you know, one that’s kinda like.

Not getting much sleep or just gets a poor quality of sleep or playing video games, um, you know, late into the wee hours of the morning, or just out partying too much. The recovery aspect between two very similar players, you know, might come into play we’re again. I w you know, if you want to get to the big leagues, getting your eight and nine hours of quality sleep, all that stuff really matters.

Um, but not that that ever doesn’t matter. Cause it always yeah. Matters. I mean, I know personally for the quality of my own work, my writing, my creativity, just my focus and productivity in general, sleep matters. If I get six hours a much less productive than if I get eight hours. And, uh, you know, a caffeine doesn’t quite, um, catch me up.

So I think all of us know that you’re, you’re better off getting more sleep, but when we start talking as if this is like legitimate performance enhancement, these are things that just don’t matter when you’re a young player. Now again, you have to understand what I mean. When I say they don’t matter, getting a good amount of sleep matters and matters were brain development for focus, all that stuff.

Like it matters. But as far as things, yeah, that will make your son a good ballplayer or will make you a good ball player or not sleep is absolutely a non-factor. If you suck at baseball and you get great sleep, you still suck at baseball. If you’re really good at baseball and you’re mentally tough and you get terrible sleep and you stay out late too much too often.

You’re still going to be really good at baseball. You might be slightly less good, but yeah. Is not going to make a massive difference. And I think that’s, what’s important to understand. And the only reason I bring this up is because everyone is trying to like, find the new thing to talk about. So to separate themselves from other coaches that maybe aren’t talking about that thing.

But when you start talking about the stuff that makes one player. Way better than another. That’s not it. It’s just not it like your, your nutrition habits are not it. Your sleep habits are not it. I mean, again, go back to the Dominican Republic where players have very poor nutritional habits. And I’ll tell you a quick story.

When I was there coaching, I coached for a week, I coached an American team and all those kids, you know, paid a lot of money to go play over, over there. It was an expensive trips, like $4,000 a kid to go have this cultural trip, which you know, was worth it in its own. Right. You know, I think more so than spending a week in Jupiter, Florida playing tournament’s because they really got a good cultural experience.

They got to really see how people live in another part of the part of the world where they’re not as fortunate. So I think it was special. So if you were to justify the cost, um, there’s definitely something. I think a lot of kids came back a little bit changed, but. Here’s what happened? One of our, I think it’s like our fifth at a seven or our fifth day out of this seven day trip or eight day trip, we went to a field.

It was like an hour drive. It was super hot that day. We were, we always brought our own cooler, like a big Gatorade, orange cooler fill with like 10 gallons of water. And the other team came in and you know, they’re in the other dugout. This is like an old kind of like an abandoned mine park. So parched grass, like it was pretty much dirt field.

And, uh, Kids started coming over and like, maybe like the fourth inning to fill their water bottles up in our jug. And, you know, everyone’s like helping them, like if they need to like tilt the bottle to get a little more water out of our jug, as it kinda like got empty and they, they help them. Um, and I asked them like, are you guys out of water?

Like, do you guys need help getting refilled? Or like, what’s up? And they’re like, no, we don’t have water. And so even like the little things, like they’re going to be out there for a doubleheader all day on a really hot day, And they just didn’t have any water. So you start to think about like all the things that make a difference.

Like they just, those little things being malnourished, you can still be a great ballplayer. Um, being, just living in poverty, you can still be a great ballplayer. I don’t assume you get great sleep when you live in poverty. Um, you know, all these different things, ultimately don’t make the difference in why one person succeeds and another does.

Now. Obviously it’s going to be way easier. If you’re living a life of comfort, you have all the food and, you know, healthy food and good training and good sleep and a comfortable upbringing. You’re going to be advantaged over someone who doesn’t have that. But it’s not clear that those things really make a difference where if you’re an American kid looking for an advantage that getting eight hours of sleep is going to make a significant difference.

Again, if you’re good, you’re good. Suck you suck. And these things, as I hear coaches, like actually spend time talking about it, it’s like fine. Like, you can talk about it, like, you know, talk about whatever you want, but. If this is your message at like of, of how to, how to get to the big leagues for 14 year olds.

I just find it to be a stupid waste of a time message. I just, I just don’t think it’s, I will think that they need to hear over and over. Sure. You absolutely need a good, good sleep. Good news. Nutrition is a great thing. All these things are normal. Healthy functioning, you know, high functioning human things.

Great. But if you’re going to run home and focus on only so many things, right? Like kids just don’t want to have a sleep chart. They just don’t. You know, if you ask them, Hey, are you logging on your sleep? Are you making sure your room is at 67 degrees? So you get optimum sleep. Like kids don’t care about that stuff.

And they don’t. They have every right to not care about that. Cause it’s just really not that important. So I think one of the things that I liked talking about and the things my. Partner in my other podcasts, Bobby Stevens in the morning, brushback back that we tend to talk about is just trying to like lighten the load for parents, especially who maybe haven’t played the game themselves, where you can just like stop worrying about some of these things.

Right? I mean, you think about prepping for the unknowns, right? Like if you’re going to go into a job interview and you’ve never been to a job interview, you’re super nervous and you’re trying to think of every possible question they could possibly ask you. Right. And. It’s pretty relieving to say, no, they’re not going to ask you these 20 questions.

Only focus on these 10 things, right? You go, okay, great. Now I don’t have to prepare for everything in the world. And that’s where this sleep thing falls into. It’s in the bucket of stuff that doesn’t matter. That’s not going to ever play a major role in your athletic development. And chances are, if you get terrible sleep and you don’t get much sleep, that habits, you know, that’s like a personal habit.

It’s not a baseball habit. It’s not a sports habit. And again, if a, you know, you’re Usain bolt, you’re for sure, making sure your nutrition is on point and you get the perfect amount of sleep for you. And all these conditions are right because your body is a machine and you need to run a 9.79 or whatever it is a rather than a 9.81.

Right. That’s important. That’s where this stuff really matters a lot more. But in baseball, you know, I think all of us who’ve played long enough have rolled out of bed after being out all night. Maybe you’re still half drunk. Maybe you only got three hours of sleep or one hours asleep. I’ve I’ve mentioned many times I was not a drinker, but I did pitch one morning where I was out really late.

Like I think I went to bed like 7:00 AM and got up at like nine and I pitched really well. Because I just didn’t care. Like I didn’t care that I was tired. It didn’t matter. And these stories again, are common to everyone. If you’re mentally tough enough and you’re prepared well enough, one day of fatigue, one day of feeling sick.

Cause I pitched when I had the flu and that was miserable as well. You just suck it up and you go do it. And. I think a lot of times this stuff can fall into the category of self-handicapping where you’re like, Oh, I can’t pitch well today. I didn’t get enough sleep or I didn’t pitch well enough today.

Cause I didn’t get good sleep last couple of nights, like bull crap. No one cares. If you didn’t, if you didn’t get eight hours of sleep, you still should be able to pitch well on six or eight or three. And obviously my illegal life, you get terrible sleep all the time. You just get the worst sleep, you know, being on a bus from 10:00 PM until 4:00 AM you roll out of the bus?

You fall out of the bus. Go into your hotel room, get, you know, four terrible hours of sleep, especially going different time zones. You know, I had a whole summer where I got average of four hours of sleep. It was a miserable, miserable time physically, but I still pitched really, really well because I just found a way to do it.

So hopefully that rambling rants, um, make sense. Again, my goal here is not to disparage anyone. If that’s the, the song they want to sing is about recovery and sleep. So be it, but as a parent and as a kid, who’s chasing a dream, you only have so much stuff to focus on. You really just do a certain point.

You’re like enough. Like I’m not going to take, I’m not going to log down another thing. I’m not going to make another journal. I’m not going to make a sleep. You’re a sleep diary. Like, I’m just going to go play baseball. Can I just like practice enough and do my lifting and be on my way and then do other well-rounded kid things?

I think the answer is absolutely. Yes. And that’s what I want people to understand that there’s more and more people out there giving information out, which is good information. Again, this is good information about sleep. It is, but it’s just not super relevant to anyone who’s not at the very top of their game.

All right. So thanks for listening. Be sure to tune in next week. And if you’re not on my email list, definitely jump on it. Cause I have a new strength program. That I mentioned earlier is going to be launching very, very, very, very soon. That’s it for today’s episode of dear baseball gods, I’d greatly appreciate it.

If you’d subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts, don’t forget in the notes of this show. You’ll find links to my pitching manual pitching isn’t complicated. My memoir, dear baseball gods. My online video pitching courses and my new baseball strength training program called early work.

You can sign up right now for a free 14 day trial to early work. And if you’re interested in one of my online courses, you can save 20% on any one of them. The promo code baseball gods. Thanks again for listening and stay on your hustle. You never know, who’s watching. .