T-Rat Talk: Joey Matulovich

When Joey Matulovich took the mound for his High-A debut the Timber Rattlers on July 29, it was his first time on the mound at Neuroscience Group Field in 23 months. He packed a lot of baseball experience into those two years.

Matulovich, the Brewers’ 20th round pick in the 2018 draft, struggled in his debut season with Wisconsin in 2019. Pitching exclusively in relief, he posted a 7.62 ERA across nine appearances, allowing 28 baserunners in 13 innings. The work to improve on those results, however, began nearly immediately.

As noted in a Frosty Microbrews feature at the time, Matulovich spent a month in the fall of 2019 working out at Driveline Baseball, a highly-regarded third-party training facility. They describe themselves as “the world’s best data-driven baseball player development program,” and have developed a reputation to back up that claim.

“The environment out there is incredible,” Matulovich said. “You kind of hold yourself accountable. They don’t make you do anything while you’re out there, because you’re the one paying for it, but you hold yourself accountable going in every day and doing stuff, asking questions, it was just a great training environment to learn from.”

Brewers Minor League pitching coordinator Cam Castro said he thought Matulovich’s experience at Driveline was “pretty impactful for him.”

“He got to learn a little bit more about himself and a little bit more about how to prioritize his training and gathered some information that ultimately he and we were able to weaponize into formulating a plan for the lost season last year,” Castro said.

As MLB organizations continue to embrace and implement many of the training methods found at facilities like Driveline, more and more Driveline alums have landed jobs in affiliated player development. Castro worked briefly as a trainer at Driveline in between collegiate coaching jobs in 2016 and Bryan Leslie, a throwing trainer who worked with Matulovich during his time at Driveline in 2019, was hired as the Brewers’ Assistant Minor League Pitching Coordinator in January of 2020.

“We all kind of seek high quality information. I think that’s one thing the third party training facilities have done is they’ve created opportunities for players and coaches alike to evaluate our own processes and improve on them. For us as an organization, especially now with the big complex in Arizona, we really pride ourselves on trying to provide an all-encompassing experience for each player in our organization,” Castro said.

While the 2020-21 offseason made it difficult for players to train at the Brewers’ facility in Phoenix, Castro said the goal going forward is for the organization to “provide anything that they would be able to track down in the public sector” while also providing access to the Brewers’ training and medical staff.

“It was a great experience. I wouldn’t trade it back,” Matulovich said of his time at Driveline. “All of last year during COVID it was super helpful too, being able to train on my own, hold myself accountable and have to put in the work on my own every day through the whole year, it definitely helped a lot.”

Of course, during the fall of 2019 no one could have predicted how much time Matulovich would have to work out on his own over the next 15 months. Matulovich did not pitch professionally while the affiliated minor leagues were shut down in 2020, but remained in touch with Brewers coaches and continued to train for baseball’s eventual return.

“To know Joey is to know his tenacity to want to get better. So I think really what it speaks to is just how important and how vital remaining diligent was for our players during the lost 2020 season, with Joey very much among those,” Castro said.

While many organizations decided to furlough employees during the pandemic, Castro noted that the Brewers’ baseball operations department remained active and their work is paying dividends in 2021.

“Myself and the rest of our pitching coaches, we were extremely fortunate last year to have our baseball operations staff intact, and because of that we were able to keep a close eye on the Joey Matuloviches of the world and ensure high quality programming. In Joey’s case and many others, the guys who really put in the work are seeing it all come to fruition this year,” Castro said.

Matulovich also described himself as being “very lucky” to have access to a baseball facility in California where he’s trained since childhood. During his time there he got to spend time with several current and former major leaguers, including longtime Athletics and Padres pitcher Tyson Ross. Matulovich described Ross as “one of the most helpful human beings in the world.”

“That helped me a ton last year, and just kind of put everything with baseball into perspective. I think in the past I almost put too much weight on pitching and felt like I had to do well every time, instead of trying to go out and get a little better every day. Once I kind of simplified that and learned from those guys, it helped a ton,” Matulovich said.

With all that work under his belt, Matulovich returned to the Low-A level to start the 2021 season and wasted no time showing off what he’d learned. In 16 appearances for the Carolina Mudcats, including a pair of starts, he posted a 1.80 ERA across 40 innings and struck out 56 batters. In his High-A debut and return to Wisconsin on July 29, he pitched five scoreless innings.

“We knew coming into this year that there were going to be some surprises, some good and probably some bad, and obviously as an organization we wanted to do everything in our power to make sure that we came back to spring training in 2021 with far more of those good surprises,” Castro said. “So that was a lot of time and effort spent last season communicating with our players over Zoom, writing programming and still trying to tackle some developmental tasks. Joey was very much a champion of that process and he took last year incredibly seriously, worked really hard to get back to this point.”

Matulovich’s success in 2021 has come in a variety of roles: During his time with Carolina he pitched in long relief (two full innings or more) nine times, short relief five times and made two starts. With Wisconsin, who recently lost incumbent starter Reese Olson to a trade and Justin Bullock and Carlos Luna to promotions, he’s slotted into a spot in the starting rotation.

Castro cited Matulovich’s versatility as one of the highlights of his successful season.

“To his credit he has been in a litany of roles, and I think that to not only put together the season that he’s put together so far but to do it moving back and forth between long relief, spot starting and short relief roles is the ultimate testament to him and his adaptability,” Castro said. “I think anytime you have a guy like that it’s a major bonus to have someone that can fill that role on a roster, let alone to fill it the way he did.”

Matulovich said the key to his success in a variety of roles has been keeping things simple.

“I’ve just really tried to make everything the same and not overcomplicate it, whether it’s a start or whether I’m closing or really whatever. Try not to overcomplicate it, try to keep things simple and take it one pitch at a time, one hitter at a time. Don’t try to get three outs at once,” Matulovich said.

Returning to Wisconsin meant a noticeable step up in the quality of competition for Matulovich, but he described the experience of coming back as “awesome.”

“In low-A there were some talented hitters, but the level of play is definitely a step up here,” Matulovich said. “I love the challenge, it’s great. I have two starts under my belt and I’ve enjoyed it a ton so far. I’m excited to keep it rolling. I’m happy to be here, it’s such a fun place to play, especially Appleton, we’ve got the hometown Brewers fans and it’s a great experience.”

After his time at Driveline, his time working with major leaguers and a successful return to affiliated pro baseball, Matulovich said the biggest thing he’s learned this year is the importance of confidence.

“I’ve felt it in the past at different times, but this year I really learned: If you go out there and you believe you’re better than everyone else, good things are going to happen,” Matulovich said.

It’s been a long road to this point, but Matulovich is reaping the results of his hard work.

“One of my favorite quotes is, ‘hard work doesn’t guarantee you success, it guarantees you honesty.’ And I think we can look so far this year and say that Joey has honestly earned every bit of the success he’s had so far,” Castro said.