Reading Tom Verducci's article in new SI (annual Baseball Preview) and wanted to share this info on Halladay from the article:
- At 23yr-old, Toronto demoted Halladay all the way to class A ball. He was depressed. He and his wife wondered if they'd saved enough money for him to quit baseball and go back to school. He recovered mentally by using the book, "The Mental ABC's of Pitching" by Dorfman as his instructional manual
- at spring training before the team is required to be on the field, Halladay has already completed 90min of non-stop work lifting, fielding a reaction ball, sliding laterally on a slide board, using ellipital machine, running, tube work, and stretching - is endurance and obsessive need to train is "freakish"
- "No one is more prepared." He has cataloged every start, every hitter, every side session, every workout and other nuts and bolts of his pro life in notebooks and computer files
- in 2003 halladay pitched 266 innings in 36 starts. He struck out 204 and only walked 32!
- He's got top five leg strength in all of baseball. He has the stamina of a mountain climber
- After 3 IP in a recent night spring game he changed clothes and went running in the shadows on a back field as the start to a 2hr post start workout
- Halladay attacks hitters with brutal, clinical efficiency, having almost no use for waste pitches, setup pitches, or "pitching around" hitters. His philosophy of pitching is predatory: "I try to go after them as quickly as possible."
- After being sent to the minors Halladay vowed that if he was going to be out of baseball he would be able to look back and say he did everything to the best of his ability. That's why Roy "runs."
- "It's command and movement" Derek Jeter says. "You can't go up there thinking you're going to take some pitches and work the count because you'll be 0 and 2 before you know it."
- Escalating the pressure on a hitter, Halladay works quickly between pitches and pounds the strike zone early, often and hard.
- Last year he went to 3-and-0 counts only 16 times out of the 963 batters he faced.
Thanks to Tom Verducci. Pick up the SI Baseball Preview (Apr 5, 2010 issue) for the full article and more gems.
.rockdad
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