How Rob Friedman Became the Pitching Ninja

DECATUR, Ga. — It’s typically troublesome to inform the place Rob Friedman’s skilled work ends and his interest begins. On a go to to his residence outdoors Atlanta, Friedman sometimes will cease midsentence, look at his cellphone, after which take off sprinting within the course of his residence workplace.

“Oh, there we go,” he mentioned, working away. “He simply struck out the facet.”

Who? It didn’t matter.

It was a Saturday, earlier than the pandemic, which was already rising critical sufficient to threaten the 2020 season. However so long as there was baseball on someplace — any baseball — Friedman’s accountability wouldn’t change. He scrolled frantically by way of his MLB.television subscription for the inning in query, added a pink tail impact to every body monitoring the movement of a slider, and tweeted the video to his 250,000 followers.

Over the course of the afternoon, this occurred a number of extra occasions. Friedman, alone in his home sporting a pink hoodie and joggers, handled every strikeout as if he was cheering firefighters placing out flames. It was the second week of spring coaching.

For the previous six years, Friedman has averaged practically 30 tweets a day because the Pitching Ninja, an account that has roughly as many followers because the one run by Mookie Betts, the star outfielder for the Los Angeles Dodgers. In 2021, to be “Ninja’d,” or tweeted about by Friedman, is a badge of honor, even amongst big-league pitchers. When Yu Darvish was requested how he discovered to throw his curveball, Darvish, a starter for the San Diego Padres, responded, “I contacted Pitching Ninja.”

Friedman has sometimes fielded messages from pitchers throughout video games wherein they’re collaborating. “Amir Garrett was tweeting at me final 12 months,” Friedman mentioned, referring to the Cincinnati Reds reliever. “I’m like, dude, it’s the seventh inning.”

“I’m a pitching whisperer,” Friedman mentioned, earlier than a smile parted his bushy black beard. It sounded foolish even to him. He’s truly a 54-year-old lawyer who manages the division of an web software program agency he co-founded in 1999. He has by no means coached outdoors the youth stage, and he performed tennis in highschool.

However in his walkout basement, with its double-height ceilings, there was a pitcher’s mound and netting, a can of Agency Grip, and a Rapsodo — a machine that may measure the spin charge and axis of any pitch.

“I did all the time need to be a pitcher,” Friedman mentioned. The actual athlete within the household is his son, Jack, a sophomore pitcher at Georgia Tech. Friedman used to volunteer as a coach for Jack’s youth groups. He observed numerous coaches allotted one-size-fits-all recommendation, in all probability as a result of the strategy labored for them. However Friedman knew that good pitchers may are available a wide range of types. It grew to become a mission, he mentioned, to study every part he may about how pitching was being taught, and who appeared to have the suitable solutions.

Friedman discovered a kinship inside a small circle of baseball wonks on boards buried in esoteric corners of the web. Surrounded by coaches and trainers, he was the goofy and inquisitive sports activities dad, posting underneath the username mcloven on LetsTalkPitching.com. He found a community of skeptics and deep thinkers, like Kyle Boddy, the founding father of Driveline, and Paul Nyman, regarded by some because the godfather of recent pitching mechanics.

“We had been simply sharing info,” mentioned Lantz Wheeler, one other coach and coach who acquired to know Friedman by way of the discussion board. “In contrast to Twitter, we weren’t making an attempt to succeed in the plenty. It was simply the sharing of information about pitching.”

Friedman then started tweeting movies he discovered on YouTube or made by way of a screengrab software downloaded off the web. He adopted the deal with, @PitchingNinja, as a nod to his spouse, who’s half Japanese.

“I simply began sharing stuff that I discovered, and other people began saying, ‘Wow, that’s fascinating stuff,’” Friedman mentioned. “They’d marvel how individuals threw totally different pitches, so I began tweeting that. Then the leisure half — individuals mentioned: ‘Hey, there’s this child who threw a depraved slider, are you able to get that?’ I’d say, ‘Yeah, I’ll get that, too.’”

The expansion of Friedman’s feed says one thing in regards to the uncommon conduciveness of pitching to movies and social media. It wasn’t precisely intentional, however Friedman discovered that an motion occasion that lasts solely four-tenths of a second may be fairly catchy on a scroll. He popularized one thing known as a pitch overlay, wherein a sequence is condensed to make a number of pitches seem to blow up out of the hand directly, vividly illustrating the depraved motion generated by right this moment’s finest arms.

The tough, unvarnished cuts of his movies appeared to reinforce the guerrilla nature of his not-so-insider account. He added emphatic nicknames (“Airbender”) or slogans, like “swords,” every time a hitter regarded silly making an attempt to slap at a pitch (the reference is from the film, “The Benchwarmers,” Friedman mentioned.)

“It’s so easy,” mentioned Jessica Mendoza, a baseball analyst for ESPN. “However to have the ability to present the issues which might be soiled, which might be nasty, in such a inventive manner and have them be in these brief digestible little GIFs, I adopted him early on.”

Mendoza mentioned his GIFs and overlays helped advanced pitching ideas leap out. Reasonably than explaining how “depth” or “tilt” made sure pitches simpler, Friedman may present it. She satisfied her producers to enlist Friedman to contribute movies to ESPN’s baseball telecasts.

Friedman has had a considerably rockier relationship with Main League Baseball. In April 2018, he was woke up in the course of the evening by messages telling him his Twitter account had been suspended after league officers complained that his screen-captured movies had been violating copyright protections. The in a single day ban appeared to raise him to people hero standing amongst his panicked supporters, particularly those that felt baseball had overstepped.

“I used to be simply considering, ‘OK,’” Friedman mentioned. “I’ve free time.”

After a couple of week, the league relaxed its stance and gave Friedman’s account its blessing as a paid contributor. He lately signed a deal to provide long-form content material for the media firm based by the pitcher Trevor Bauer.

“He’s one of many extra formidable accounts within the baseball world,” Mets pitcher Marcus Stroman mentioned.

Stroman has been corresponding with Friedman for years, and he’s not shy about crediting Friedman for assist alongside the best way.

“As pitchers, we miss numerous that, we’re watching our personal video games,” Stroman mentioned.

“I’ll ask him, ‘Hey, ship me Scherzer’s changeup,’ or how Kershaw holds his curveball,” Stroman mentioned, referencing the All-Stars Max Scherzer and Clayton Kershaw. “He’s in a position to zoom in and discover me a YouTube video.”

The diligence and omnipresence of his pitching-centric account can typically idiot individuals into considering there may be a couple of Ninja working behind the scenes. However no. It’s not that Friedman is towards hiring the additional assist. It’s simply that doing so would possibly recommend that is not a interest.

“You understand how you go down rabbit holes? That’s what I do each day,” he mentioned. “I’ll get up in the course of the evening considering, ‘I’m wondering if Pedro’s changeup was something like Luis Castillo’s?’ Then I’ll go downstairs and attempt to examine them.”

A lot of what’s left of Friedman’s consideration span is directed towards movies of novice pitchers being despatched to a second account, Flatground, that he created two years in the past. The feed is a conveyor belt of grainy, wobbly, home-shot movies of younger gamers showcasing their mechanics and heaters. Friedman, who inspects each submission, even has rules for tweeting, which embody pitchers’ highlighting their grade level common in addition to their earned run common.

It has already produced some astounding success tales. In August 2019, video of a 23-year-old software program salesman throwing 96 miles per hour inside a concourse sales space at Coors Area throughout a Colorado Rockies sport went viral after it was despatched to Friedman and he retweeted it. The salesperson, Nathan Patterson, signed a contract with the Oakland Athletics just a few weeks later.

Friedman mentioned Patterson’s story was not as a lot a Cinderella story as preliminary experiences instructed (he was being watched by scouts nicely earlier than the Coors video). However D.J. Snelten, a left-handed journeyman who had spent a while with the San Francisco Giants and the Baltimore Orioles, mentioned he was considering quitting the sport earlier than his coach reached out to Friedman with movies of Snelten’s improved mechanics.

After Friedman shared a video of Snelten throwing 97 m.p.h., a scout from the Chicago White Sox reached out throughout the hour, Snelten mentioned.

“My agent known as me asking what on earth I did as a result of his cellphone was blowing up,” mentioned Snelten, who in the end signed with the Rays. “If Rob had by no means pressed the retweet button, who is aware of what may have occurred? It went from no cellphone calls to a few to 4 a day for about two weeks there.”

Flatground, Friedman mentioned, was conceived after seeing a few of his son’s teammates battle to journey to showcases, extensively thought of the most effective — and typically the one — locations the place prospects can carry out in entrance of scouts. It bothered him immensely that the game gave the impression to be walling off gifted gamers from getting a glance. “Baseball shouldn’t be a wealthy child’s sport,” he mentioned. “For the sport to develop, it wants extra entry.”

With the dimensions of his following, Friedman has begun feeling one thing considerably new: stress. “It’s wonderful that 10 individuals need to hear what I’ve to say,” he mentioned. “Now, if I make a mistake, it’s going to come back again to hang-out me. The second I mess up all people will say, ‘He doesn’t know what he’s speaking about.’”

It hasn’t occurred but.

“Individuals have come as much as me to get my autograph,” Friedman mentioned. “I’m like, what the hell is that? I’m a freaking lawyer!”