Not only was Frank Herrmann recently promoted to the majors by the Indians (where he’s doing very well in relief), but the Athletics promoted Shawn Haviland straight from A+ Ball to AAA. Congratulations to Shawn on the promotion!
The Indians called up Frank Herrmann over the weekend, and the Harvard graduate is off to a great start. In 2 2/3 innings he’s allowed one hit, no runs, no walks and struck out two. Go Crimson! Meanwhile, another Harvard grad, Shawn Haviland, has 70 strikeouts in 65 2/3 innings in high A ball, with a low walk rate. Time to promote him!
Former Harvard pitcher Shawn Haviland is off to a good start with the Athletics advanced A team. Time to move him up to AA!
Shawn Haviland dresses for a major league game, and learns something about playing catch:
Just as a quick aside, the throwing program is basically what we, as pitchers, do every day to get ourselves loose for early work, bullpens, flat grounds etc. The distance and throws vary based on when the last time you pitched and when you are going to pitch again. I didn’t really notice that most minor leaguers were not getting the most out of this program, myself included, until I saw the pitchers on the major league staff play catch.
Rather than throwing to get loose, the big league pitchers executed every single throw with a purpose. The key to pitching is repeating your delivery. I know a lot is said about mechanics, arm slots or whatever but you can be very successful repeating a bad delivery from a funky arm slot. What separates the major league pitchers from the minor league pitchers is that they are working on repeating their delivery every single time they throw the baseball while most minor leaguers work on repeating their delivery when they are on a mound.
Shawn explains how he changed his pitching program to make sure he’s going through his correct pitching delivery every time.