My First Professional Offseason
By Kumar Nambiar, minor leaguer in the Oakland Athletics organization,@kumar4123
I was so excited to be heading home. It was August 2019. My first professional season had just ended and I couldn’t wait to get back to New York, to sleep in my own bed, and to see my family and friends. I loved baseball but had played my senior season at Yale and my first professional season for the Oakland Athletic’s back to back. My arm was tired and I was ready for a break.
I was now heading into my first offseason.
In college, my teammates and I would sometimes discuss our potential post-graduation plans. We always sulked at the idea that once we started our first real jobs, we would no longer have long breaks for holidays or summer vacation.
Some of us, myself included, dreamed of being drafted and playing professionally. We were superstitious and never discussed what our plans would be if we ended up in pro ball. So, when I returned home after my first season, I had zero idea of how I was going to spend all my time. While I had to train and wanted to make some money, I had six full months before Spring Training in March 2020.
Many of my closest high school and college friends were working long hours at their new jobs. They had already joined the corporate world, gotten into a routine, and made new work friends. Playing professional baseball had always been my dream job, but after my first season I had made less than $5,000. I had to remind myself that not many people got to play pro baseball. For me, it was not about money. It was an opportunity to play the game I loved for another day.
Without consulting my parents, I created the plan for my offseason – to live at home in New York and train at a baseball facility nearby. I didn’t put much thought into it. In my head, it seemed like it could be a productive and affordable offseason. When I told my parents, they surprisingly did not support my plan. Having my best interest in mind, they didn’t believe that me staying at home was the best idea. So, I began to brainstorm other options.
I had been to the Cressey Sports Performance facility in Hudson, Massachusetts two times while I was at Yale. Their workouts were a huge reason I got drafted, helping increase my velocity while reducing my risk of injury. Their work with athletes was very prominent in the baseball world; established stars like Max Scherzer and Corey Kluber followed their programs. Most of the well-known athletes trained at the Cressey facility in Jupiter, Florida. However, the original was in Hudson, only three hours from my house in New York. With help from numerous people, I found an apartment in Worcester, about twenty minutes from the Massachusetts facility by car. My new, revised plan was to spend as much time training there between October 1st and the end of February, right before Spring Training.
My main goal for the offseason was to put on weight. The majority of pitchers in the Major Leagues are over 200 pounds. On October 1st, I weighed 185 pounds and getting over 200 pounds while I trained at Cressey would help me increase my velocity. I trained six days a week there for the next five months, cooking almost all of my meals at my apartment, and rarely eating food from restaurants or fast food joints. On my last day of training, I weighed in at just under 205 pounds and my velocity had increased.
I was one of the youngest professional pitchers at the Cressey facility. Most of the pitchers there were smarter and more successful than I was, with various years of experience in the Minor Leagues. I envied the athletes I became friends with who had been training at Cressey for years, even before they played professionally. They had the opportunity to utilize its many great resources years before I even knew the place existed.
The two-time Cy Young award winner Corey Kluber was a regular there. It was dreamlike getting to watch him throw bullpens next to me. Other pitchers who had Major League success trained there too: Oliver Drake and Aaron Civale. By just being around those guys every day, I was able to learn so much about being an elite pitcher, including things I had never even known were important.
I was able to find work as a local math tutor during the week and gave baseball lessons on the weekends. This helped me pay for some of my trips since I didn’t spend many weekends in Worcester. I made it down to D.C. for a World Series game, out to L.A. to visit friends, and to Jamaica with my family for a week-long escape. I also got to see my sister play soccer in her first collegiate season and visit my brother at Amherst College. On weekends that I didn’t travel out of Massachusetts, I would hop on a train to visit some good friends in Boston. Since my training was intense, it was enjoyable to forget about baseball on the weekends and take a physical and mental break. It helped me reset my mind for the upcoming week of work.
Between the training, working, and traveling, my six-month offseason went by in a flash. I enjoyed every moment of it. I am grateful that my parents pushed me out of the house and I want to thank everyone that helped make this possible. Being able to train at the Cressey facility was so advantageous; I was able to prepare myself for Spring Training at the best place possible. I hope I am able to surround myself with such successful baseball players in my future off-seasons, because it is a privilege to play Minor League baseball and an even bigger privilege to be able to receive the best training.