how to become a professional pitcher

What’s up!

Today I want to tell you a little about my unlikely story of becoming a professional pitcher, and the step by step process I followed.

If you’d rather watch than read, you can do that here:

In 2017, I was a 16-year-old throwing about 78 to 80 mph. Fast forward two years, and I signed a professional contract with the Philadelphia Phillies, topping out at 96 mph. This is the story of how I did it.

There are three steps to becoming a professional baseball pitcher.

1. You need to become a desired product.

2. You need to distribute this product.

3. You need to showcase the product.

Step One: Become a Desired Product

This basically means you have to become good. As baseball players, we’re essentially products in a competitive marketplace. There are thousands of players trying to get a college scholarship, earn a starting spot, and get signed or drafted. We have to find a way to stand out.

To gain an edge, we need to find the qualities in a pitcher that are most in demand. And for the longest time, pitching velocity has been the number one sought-after metric for pitchers. We can say what we want about it. We can complain about it. But in the end, someone who’s throwing 94 mph is going to get way more opportunities than someone who’s throwing 84 mph.

Driveline Baseball created a diagram that makes this point clear: if you throw 84 mph with great command, you’re probably only going to get a small college scholarship. However, if you throw 94 mph and have good command, you’re probably going to get drafted. With this in mind, pitching velocity should become our number one focus.

For a general outline of how I gained this velocity, I did five things:

1. Gained 30 pounds of quality weight.
   When I was throwing 78 to 80 mph, I was a skinny kid weighing about 175 lbs. When I was topping out at 96 mph, I weighed about 205 lbs. If you’ve never lifted before, start now, because newbie gains are overpowered. You’re going to be gaining weight and muscle like crazy, and this is what’s going to help you throw harder.

2. Two high-intensity throwing sessions per week.
   As the saying goes, if you want to throw harder, you’ve got to throw hard often. During my week, I would have two high-intensity throwing programs. Usually, one of these days would be a plyo day, and the other one would be a weighted ball pulldown protocol.

3. Increased strength through progressive overload.
   If you’ve never lifted before, you’re going to start gaining strength like crazy. Keep adding the weight. Don’t go too overboard—we don’t want to get injured—but keep pushing your body at a good pace.

4. Hammered plyometrics and velocity-based training.
   This included a ton of jumping and lifting a lot of weight as quickly as I could.

5. Stopped playing baseball.
   You might be thinking: What? You stopped playing baseball? How does that help increase velocity? The reason I took half of 2017 and most of 2018 off from playing was because I needed to focus on training to increase my velocity, rather than worrying about competing on the weekend.

This shift allowed me to structure my workouts and throwing programs to maximize throwing velocity. Instead of throwing a bullpen midweek, I’d be doing a plyo day. Instead of making a start on the weekend and throwing 100 pitches, I’d be doing a weighted ball pulldown protocol. Instead of going lighter in the weight room because I didn’t want to be sore for a game, I was pushing my body with progressive overload.

During this training period, I also visited Driveline Baseball in Seattle. This trip was pivotal because being around like-minded athletes who were all trying to increase velocity created a great environment to train in. We would all do plyo days together. We would push each other. We would do pulldowns together, hype each other up, and even smash Bangs before to caffeinate ourselves into an optimal state to throw as hard as we could.

It was a great time, and this period of constant iteration and obsession over what increases velocity produced significant results. After training in the low 90s, only then did I reintegrate into playing games. The first games were awkward since I hadn’t faced hitters in a long time, but after three outings I felt confident to compete again.

Step Two: Distribute Your Product

Once you’re throwing about 90 mph consistently, you can start distributing your product. What does this mean? Basically, it means you have to create some interest around you. Even if you’re really good, if no one knows about you, you’re not going to get that scholarship or get drafted or signed.

For me, as an Australian player considering both college and professional baseball, this was actually a pretty hard task. No college scout was flying 20 hours from the U.S. to Australia when they could just recruit someone a car ride away. Luckily, the internet does just as good of a job.

After my trip to Driveline, I got some video of myself throwing 90 to 92 mph. With this video, I cold-emailed more than 100 college coaches. I personalized each email to the school as much as possible. I sent them all out, and the results were unbelievable. I got a whopping 0.5 replies out of those 100+ emails. And I say 0.5 because I didn’t get a single email back.

Here’s what happened: the coach at the University of Washington reached out to Ryan Rowland-Smith, an ex–big leaguer, to ask if he knew about me. Obviously, after putting in all that work and getting no direct replies back, it sucked. But it turns out that 0.5 replies was all I needed.

Ryan Rowland-Smith got in touch with me and asked if I wanted to be part of a recruiting trip called NextGen Baseball. It included 20 to 30 promising Australian players, and we were all headed to Arizona to showcase our skills. That trip would change my life forever.

A quick note on this: today, there seem to be even better ways to create interest, like posting yourself on the Flatground app on Twitter. But I still think there’s value in taking initiative and emailing college coaches and professional scouts. Do both. Doing both increases the surface area of your life. Close mouths don’t get fed.

Step Three: Showcase Your Product

The last step is to showcase your product. This means you have to get into showcases where you know coaches and scouts will be.

For me, this was the Arizona Fall Academic Game and the Arizona Fall Classic. Ryan Rowland-Smith and NextGen Baseball did a great job contacting all of these college and professional scouts to come watch us play. At one of the showcases, there were 50+ coaches and scouts watching us compete.

That was my chance to let it rip. At those showcases, I pitched to my full potential. The result was a wave of offers from schools and growing professional interest. After a long negotiation process, I made the decision to sign with the Philadelphia Phillies.

Conclusion

The path from a 16-year-old throwing 78 mph to signing a professional contract at 96 mph boiled down to three steps: become a desired product, distribute that product, and showcase it. It took weight gain, structured velocity training, and stepping away from games to focus purely on development. It required persistence through rejection, creative self-promotion, and finally performing on the biggest stages when the right eyes were watching.

That is how I became a professional baseball pitcher.

P.S.

We are at one of the most important times in your career right now.

High school athletes are in their offseason getting ready for the 2026 season.

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Please, from the bottom of heart… don’t waste it.

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