On this week’s episode of the ALL BEEF NO FILLER podcast, 2018 Bellevue West grad and current Orioles pitcher Cade Povich joins the show.  Povich talks about his offseason habits, his journey from JUCO to pro ball, and more.

You can read a sample of the interview below or listen to the entire episode on our website, Apple Podcast or Spotify. 

---

What's it like in those years that you are in junior college and what did you have to change personally? 

I changed my diet, whatever diet I had before, I guess.

Coach [Tyler] Gillum went over with us the nutrition side and I remember one of our first weeks there one of the days he said, ‘I'm going to go to the store on Saturday’. We're all fresh out of high school too, for the most part. He's like, ‘if you guys want to learn how to shop, what to shop for, you can come with me and I'll basically run through everything, what's good, what's not good.’ 

So that's one thing that definitely helped.

I still have my ID from when I was a junior [in high school], they haven't for some reason changed any of my height and weight. So I'm 5-10, 110 on my ID when I was 16. So stepping up the nutrition part and eating a little bit more [was important], but then also it was being patient with everything because I grew from junior year to senior year. I went from 5-8, 5-10 to 6-1. My freshman and sophomore year of college, I was 6-2 or 6-3 and then now I'm up around 6-3 or 6-4. It was tough to be patient, but it was something that a lot of coaches kept telling me to do.

We're still working on it a little bit, but it's coming. 

You knocked over some goals in that process. I've seen you work out or I've seen you work, you know, my previous job was at a facility that you trained at and you like to have fun, I would say, when you train. Is that something that you've always had, even when you were younger? And do you continue in pro ball or is that just something you were doing around the facility? Because you got your work in for sure, but you definitely like to have a good time while you're playing baseball.

No doubt. I think especially early on it's easy to want to make it everything and be like, I have to stay focused on this, like I have to do all this to perfection. I gotta stay focused. 

And I feel like after a while that gets a little bit exhausting in the mind. And then, two, looking back on it when we were a kid -- and even now -- it's still a game, you have to have to have a little bit of fun just in order to continue enjoying it. I think if you're just constantly in there being hard nosed and being like, get out of my face, it's going to get tiring.And after a certain amount of time, you're just going to get worn out and not want to do it anymore. There's definitely a mix between having to work hard and be focused and not just goof around the whole time. I think there's also a certain element of let's just have a little fun here and there.

What's the biggest thing you think you need to work on to make that next jump from where you're at now to being in the big leagues? 

I was talking to our pitching coach, actually. We just got a new big league pitching coach [Drew French]. I was talking to him the other day, just kind of getting to know each other a little bit.

I think the one thing last year, my walk rate was a lot higher than it usually is, but when you look more in depth, actually my in-zone percentage, I was in the 83rd percentile of being in-zone. So obviously I'm throwing a lot of strikes, but why am I walking a ton of people too? I think that's getting deeper in at-bats where they're fouling stuff off or I'm losing like the 0-0 and 1-1 counts that really change at-bats. 

I think the main thing going into spring training will be just trying to end at-bats as quick as possible and not getting deep in counts to where they might get lost and turn into walks and then, you know, walks turn into runs. Free bases, we don't like those.

++CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE++