Trevor Bauer Threw a Ball 117 mph in This Crazy Drill

Trevor Bauer has found a way to make Aroldis Chapman look like Jamie Moyer.

Indians pitcher Trevor Bauer has found a way to make Aroldis Chapman look like Jamie Moyer. He can throw 117 mph, as long as he takes a 10-step running start, jump in the air and uses a tiny baseball. 

If you read Lee Jenkins’s 2011 profile of Bauer in Sports Illustrated, you already knew all about Bauer’s crazy training methods. He and his dad used to cut baseballs open and fill them with sand and fishing weights, or they’d stick nails into softballs. He grew up using an aggressive long-toss program and would go to a ranch in rural Texas every summer to work out with a coach who preached an unorthodox approach to training. The insistence on doing things his way reportedly contributed to the Diamondbacks’ decision to trade him less than two years after taking him with the third pick in the draft. 

The drill Bauer is doing in the video above isn’t all that unusual, though. Hard-throwing White Sox prospect Michael Kopech (acquired by Chicago in the Chris Sale trade) threw 110 mph in a similar drill last winter, though it’s unclear if he was using an under-weighted ball like Bauer.