It is fair to say that since he was drafted in the 1st round of the 2015 draft, Mike Soroka has been a favorite here at Talking Chop. Possessing a two-seam fastball that acts like a sinker, a four-seamer that has good life, a breaking ball that is variable (in a good way) and sharp when he throws it a bit harder, and a changeup that has become an above average pitch that helps him against lefties, Soroka has done nothing but perform since his pro debut with the Braves.
During his minor league career, Soroka has career marks of a 2.81 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, and has struck out 321 batters in 361.1 IP against just 77 walks. Slowly but surely, the national outlets became more and more aware of Soroka has he shot through the Braves farm system leading up to his major league debut against the Mets in May during the 2018 season. Soroka showed why he was so highly regarded in spurts during his time in the majors, but an injury to a muscle in his shoulder/scapula cost him a big chunk of the 2018 season.
Mike was nice enough to chat with us yet again to talk about his MLB debut, his injury and recovery, as well as about his advocacy for awareness of mental health issues. Enjoy!
Going into the early parts of 2018, you were killing it down in Triple-A for Gwinnett. What was working particularly well for you when you started the year down in the minors that maybe wasn’t as good in other parts of your career thus far?
I think starting off the year with my first big league spring training camp kind of got it off to a bigger kick start than usual. You get there and with the adrenaline, you are excited and spring training moves by a lot quicker when you are up there with the big guys. It is just a lot more fun in general. You start to take each throw a lot more seriously when you are playing catch and you are working on your craft because you are seeing better arms and better teammates around you as well that push you even farther.
I got to Gwinnett and I found that the biggest thing last year was consistency. Instead of knowing that I was only going to have one pitch that night, I was pretty confident that I was going to have at least two or three and most of the time it was three. Having the confidence to go out and know that you are going to have most, if not all of your stuff every time you are going to go out there is pretty huge for being able to relax and have fun with it.
That brings us to a pretty big moment for you. Its May and you get the call to the show and you are having to pitch against the Mets in your debut. Walk us through what happened leading up to your debut and what was going through your head.
Well, a couple of days before I think, they gave me notice that my start was either going to get pushed back in Triple-A or I was going to be going up to New York to throw for Atlanta that day. It wasn’t made official until a couple of days after I was told that, so I had a couple of days to think about it and stew on it a little bit (laughs). It was a long couple of days and then I was back at the apartment and (Damon) Berryhill gave me a call and just laid it straight out. There is no real funny story behind it...the first thing he said was “You are going to the big leagues.” As much as you think about that moment and you prepare for it, you don’t really know what you are going to feel when you finally get that you are going. It is a totally new level of excitement. I called my dad first and then on from there is kind of a blur, but I do think I did a pretty good job after that of being able to slow things down until it was game time.
Well, to say that you performed well is a bit of an understatement. What was that start like for you throwing against such a good pitcher and what were the biggest differences you felt on the mound?
Well, getting my first at-bat before I had to go on the mound actually really helped because it kind of ironed things out a little bit. I already had that moment where I made my debut at the plate before I had to go on the mound so it felt like a rollover inning. I didn’t really have time to think about it in the dugout because I am up at the plate focusing on the fact that we had runners on and trying to push one across for myself. I got out, but I got a decent piece of one. I was pretty late, but a got a decent piece and shot it towards first. I just didn’t have time to think about it, I had to get back to the dugout, get the glove, and lets go.
It didn’t feel like the first pitch of a game after that….I’m not sure I have ever done that in my career in terms of hitting before I’ve pitched in a game. It literally felt like a rollover inning and I executed my first pitch better than I could have ever really dreamed of. I think most guys just talk about throwing a strike first and I dotted my first pitch and that was a huge confidence boost. I don’t think I have gotten a bigger confidence boost with one pitch and I just took it from there.
Lets talk now about when you noticed something wasn’t quite right with your shoulder. Can you pinpoint a time where you noticed something wasn’t quite right or was it a gradual thing?
So, it wasn’t until after my start in Miami. It was just a different feeling. I have come out of a game and have been tired obviously, but when your arm is tired...you know what that feels like. It feels like jelly legs after a tough workout or a long run or something like that. Soreness the next day after a start...that is obviously normal, too. I remember feeling sore after the game and writing it off as not much because I remembered I was pushing it pretty hard in my last inning because we had guys on and I was trying to get back in the dugout. I wrote it off that night and the next day was an off day in Tampa. I threw my bullpen in Chicago because we had a make-up game there and I noticed then that it was more sore than usual especially with an extra day off. It just wasn’t the same and it was one spot towards the back of the shoulder actually that was just tight on me.
I was getting some work done on it and I figured it was just a little knot or it was just a little angry. I wrote it off as nothing and it just didn’t go away. I brought it forward before my next start because the worst thing you want to do when you know you are not feeling good is come up limp on start day because that either forces a really speedy roster adjustment and/or your bullpen is going to have to wear it for you. Nobody really likes it when you come in the day of knowing that he has been hurting all week, so I made sure to make that known and let them know “Hey, I think I could throw it and didn’t hurt when I throw. It just doesn’t feel right.” We erred on the cautious side and took a few days off and worked back and it was good again for a while. Even throughout that start against the Mets, it was great and it wasn’t sore after. I just kept getting work done and made sure we were staying on top of it.
When I went out in Toronto, my arm speed just wasn’t there that day and that was the first thing that noticed because it just felt slow. Nothing ever really hurt until the last few pitches I made. Then I knew something wasn’t right because it has never hurt for me to throw before. I came out that day and tried to make it as inconspicuous as possible that I wasn’t feeling great and I didn’t pitch well either so it was easier to say that it just wasn’t my day and move on because you don’t know what it is. At that point, I hadn’t had MRIs or had the medical staff really look at me yet so I can’t really come out and say anything because nothing is for sure. I hadn’t really been hurt before so I didn’t know what to expect. After that, I got evaluations and MRIs and everyone came to the same conclusion which was awesome. Then, we just set a part forth to get better.
There was never a hard timetable set for my return. It was always day-to-day more or less and towards the end of the year, I was making calls and trying to be activated towards the end of the year to join the team in the playoffs and down the stretch to try and help them out even if it was in the bullpen. That would have been awesome and I felt like I would have been capable of doing that, but I also understand that decisions they made to postpone that until instructs and be able to come into Spring Training this year full go. That is also really important to me to be a part of an organization that does care about your long-term health, because they could have easily rushed me back. Realistically, had I known a little better…it could have been a rush me back in September sort of thing, but then who knows? I could have lasted through September and maybe come down with it again during the playoffs and then I am battling it during the offseason and that is not something any of us want to have...this as a nagging issue. I wanted to be able to come into spring training this year ready to go.
You have talked pretty openly about the injury being a muscular issue that was pretty specific and that you had to make some changes to deal with the issue in a specific way as a result. Did you make any changes to your mechanics or has been been solely altering your workouts to build up your muscles and flexibility in different ways there?
Nothing mechanical has changed. You have to be careful when you get hurt because the moment you change something, you are all of sudden doing something that your body doesn’t know how to do. You can’t really ask yourself to change mechanically and how your arm action works based on one injury because you could be putting other muscles as risk that aren’t used that kind of stress. It was mostly understanding what put that muscle at a deficit and how to move the scapula properly again and being able to use all of the big muscles to make sure everything is firing and that there is no weak link. A lot of times, the muscle that gets hurt isn’t always the muscle that is the issue. It is usually the surrounding muscles that aren’t doing their jobs.
I’ve been lucky to be with really good trainers at home in the offseason for the last four or five years. Being able to learn from them that it wasn’t necessarily predictable. You can’t really look at somebody and say “oh, that guy is going to have a sub-scap issue.” You have guys that throw in the weirdest ways that will never have Tommy John and sometimes you have guys with the “cleanest mechanics” that have nothing but issues. There is just nothing to pinpoint to some of those things and this wasn’t something that anyone could have prevented until it happened. I also got with Eric Cressey down here in Jupiter. He is kind of the go-to guy in baseball for shoulders. He is really good at pinpointing muscular dysfunctions and body type awareness is another thing of his in baseball as well. I am not going to be able to work out some of the ways I used to and the way I have to work out may not work for other guys. It is individually tailored and it is tailored to being a baseball player and not a lifter.
So where you are at right now, is everything back to normal for you in terms of velocity, stuff, action on pitches, etc.?
Yep! Everything feels great. It almost feels better than it did before because I don’t think I have ever felt this loose in those spots in my lifetime. It is feeling a little easier and a little whippier and now it is about keeping it that way because the way I have learned my body is that it gets tighter over time. My struggles are are going to be staying on top of soft tissue work and making sure those knots stay out of there. A lot of the little muscles in my shoulder are big for me and for other guys, they can be the opposite and they get hyper-mobile and get too loose when they throw. You have to know who you are and now, knowing that, it gives me a much better chance at staying healthy in the future.
One last question before we let you go. Over the last couple of years at least, I have noticed that you have been very vocal in your support of the #BellLetsTalk campaign and mental health awareness. What has your involvement consisted of and why is that cause in particular close to your heart?
Yeah so, it is always something that has been bigger back home. It is a Canadian telecommunications provider that puts it on. The unfortunate part about it, and we are getting better about it at home, is that it started as that one day a year that we are doing this #BellLetsTalk day and it would be brought up for that one day and then never talked about again for another 364 days. It is something that is being talked about more often at home now because it is something that can affect everybody. There are many, many players today that are coming out in support of being able to talk about it and realize that just because somebody seems okay and seems like they are having a great life on the outside that that might not be telling the whole story. Its something we don’t know a lot about because our brains work so differently. You can’t really pinpoint somebody and how somebody’s personality meshes with their daily life. You just never know and that is the point that everyone is trying to get to now and I think people are doing a better job now of understanding that you can objectively be in a good place and no one can really know if you hide that. It is not something can be shown. I have friends and family that have been through their issues...one in particular that is really close to my heart and you just never really would have known.
People need to know that there are ways that they can reach out and that it is normal. It is very common especially among teenagers growing up. We live in such a demanding world now because everyone wants what they want and they want it now. With social media and things like that, it is easy to get caught up in wanting an objectively better life and I think that goes into a lot of it. Understanding that happiness isn’t money and a big house. Are those things nice? Sure, but I think a lot of people get caught up in idolizing people for what they are looking at as opposed to how they are as a person. I think that gets lost a lot.
The same can be said about fans in some ways. A lot of the players like to be treated as people and it goes the other way, too. That is why a lot of things like ChopFest are so good to be able to interact with people and show them that you care about them as people as well. I don’t think I am any better than any of those people coming through just because I am the one wearing the jersey. That is just nonsense. I know I am getting a little off topic here, but being able to show people that regardless of your status in life, we can all be struggling with our own things. Mental health issues don’t discriminate and there is nothing you can a lot of times to pinpoint it and it is extremely important to understand that and be able to talk about it.
Everybody goes through their issues and I know a lot of guys that have been hurt that have gone through those issues as well. I lot of people don’t understand that after you get hurt, you know, “what do you do for six months?” You don’t just sit around, watch TV, and wait around for it to heal. It isn’t that simple. A lot of guys go down and you start to have those thoughts. You start thinking about “what if I never do throw a baseball the same again?”. Little things like that that can eat away at you and your overall mental health and that stress just isn’t good. It is something that I have become a little more in touch with now that I have been on that side and being able to look at things objectively goes a long way. Talking about it doesn’t make anyone soft, it doesn’t make anyone unfit to handle pressure in pressure situations. It just means that your perception of things just might be not where they should be and that can affect anybody. It doesn’t matter who you are.