Baseball Isn’t Boring
Presser: New Nationals Pitching Coach Simon Mathews Presents His Plan
23 Nov 2025
Chapter 1: How did Simon Mathews become the Nationals pitching coach?
Take us through how you came about to join the coaching staff and your relationship possibly with Sean Doolittle and meeting Paul Taboney and Blake Matera through this process.
Yeah, absolutely. Um, so, uh, I don't know how much you guys know about my relationship with Sean, but we go back. He trained with me when I worked at a facility called push performance in Arizona. Um, and he and I have stayed in touch over the years, um, And he's become just like a great pitching friend of mine, you know, in the industry, right?
It's been really cool to see him transition into coaching. And it feels like every single conversation I have with him, he's like, learned exponentially more and increased his skill set. So that's been awesome. So when I found out that the Nats were reaching out to potentially interview me, he was my first call.
I kind of wanted to know where he stood, but also what his feeling was around everything that was going on.
Chapter 2: What experiences shaped Simon's coaching philosophy?
And he had a lot of really great things to say about Paul and Blake and And Blake and I didn't know each other before this process, but I had heard some really spectacular things about Paul from people I trust deeply in the industry. And yeah, so that was kind of how it came about.
And then, you know, to have an expectation going in of people you've heard a lot of great things about and then to have them really deliver and go above and beyond kind of what my expectations were made me really excited about it.
Andrew Golden, Washington Post.
Hey Simon, great to meet you. Um, I read briefly that you worked as a business development specialist before you returned to coaching. Um, what made you want to get back into baseball and did that brief stop in doing that? Like how did that help you if it did at all?
Chapter 3: How does Simon plan to establish a pitching identity for the Nationals?
Uh, I got released from playing, um, about 15 minutes after they canceled spring training and in 2020, uh, I joked that I was the angels first call. Um, and, uh, You know, that was just a weird time and a weird year. And a lot of people experienced that in a lot of very different ways. And I had to pay rent. So through some friends, I was able to catch on. I was terrible at it.
Chapter 4: What strategies does Simon use to honor individual pitcher gifts?
And I was, uh, I was trying to sort of launch my coaching career at the same time I started working at push and working with driveline. And I just, I had my sort of intentions and energies elsewhere. Uh, and yeah, I'm really grateful that that was able to allow me to not get evicted in the summer of 2020.
And I learned a lot about work ethic and kind of sticking your nose down and getting things done that you might not have any interest in whatsoever. But other than that, my focus was elsewhere for sure.
For sure. And then as the pitching coach, how important is it for you to establish an identity as a group? What do you want that to be? And I guess, how do you balance that with the fact that each individual pitcher is unique and different?
I think my sort of foundational belief about pitching is that you really have to honor the individual gifts of the player, right? And one of the things that's really fabulous about the modern age of baseball is we can shorten the feedback loop on identifying those. Like, really, what is it about this guy that makes him awesome, that makes him a major league pitcher?
And I want guys to feel celebrated for that. And I want that to become the centerpiece of kind of how we approach baseball building a successful major league arsenal and game plan for them. Um, and I want to bring them in and feel like partners in the process. Right.
Um, and I think ultimately when, when first you promise to do that and then day in and day out, you deliver that and people feel as though that's what's happening. That's their experience of playing for you. Um, I think that's where you get a foundational relationship that you can build a culture on top of, if that makes sense.
Yeah, thanks.
Spencer Nussbaum, Washington Post.
Hey Simon, nice to meet you.
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Chapter 5: How does Simon's bilingualism impact his coaching approach?
When you talk about, I guess, like honoring the individual gifts of players, I was wondering if you'd be able to brag on yourself a little bit from your time in Cincinnati, just in terms of some individual gifts you were able to unlock with pitchers on that staff, whether it's adding a pitch that maybe wasn't there or helping develop a pitch that was strong and making it even stronger.
Like what are some of the examples that come to mind when you think about ways that you helped development in Cincinnati?
Yeah, I think I'm going to reject the premise of bragging on myself, first of all. They're major leaguers for a reason, right? And I think that overall, what we were able to do a really good job of in Cincinnati as a collective pitching group was... identify and preserve and then create a feedback loop that like got guys back to what they're supposed to do. Right.
So a great example is, is Tony Santay on who just had an absolutely monster year out of the bullpen with the reds, 80 appearances, right. Just took the ball every single day. And this man is a gigantic human with an angry fastball and a banger slider, right? All we're trying to do is keep him on the rails.
and keep him available and we were able to put in some systems that were able to identify earlier hey as tony starts to get tired or feel the effects of the fact that he's on track for 80 appearances he's going to pitch every other day for six and a half months right um How do we, how do we get him back to that? And that's looping in different departments.
That's looping in strength and conditioning and sports science, as well as pitching, as well as the front office and analytics group. Right. And I think that's, that's where I thrive more, more so than anything is like, I'm not going to be the one who feels like I have to solve the problem by myself. We're a majorly group full of subject matter experts that I want to bring in and
And I welcome and need their feedback, right, when it comes to keeping world-class athletes at the peak of their potential.
I guess on that topic, you touch on this a little bit, but I guess often maybe the lack of nuance way of thinking of it is like, you know, you have stuff and you have health and sometimes those things... aren't always equal.
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Chapter 6: What did Simon learn from his time with the Reds?
Um, when you think about the guys who both have been able to remain durable and have really good stuff, I know that's been a big part of your career. Um, what is the secret sauce of that or what are the most important things to keep in mind?
Uh, that's a great question. Um, I think being really diligent about the work in between, um, and really valuing not just the throwing, not just the pitch design, but the work in the weight room, the delivery components that we're going to measure on a pitch-by-pitch basis in every major league ballpark, right?
Because I don't believe fundamentally that durability and stuff are these mutually exclusive ideals, right? I think we are... really good training away from really maximizing guys' potential to perform and stay healthy at the same time. And, you know, like it's baseball and stuff happens, but we can put guys in a position where they stand the best chance.
Jessica Camerato, Hobie.com.
Hey, Simon. Welcome to the Nats. Thanks. When you were approached for this job offer, what stood out to you about this current group of pitchers on the major league level and also the depth that they have coming up?
Yeah, I mean, I remember sitting in the dugout feeling helpless watching Mackenzie Gore pitch against us in Cincinnati last year. and just kind of this feeling that there was a ton of talent on this staff. Diving into guys like Cade Cavalli, Jake Irvin, Mitchell Parker, watching Jose Ferrer come out of the bullpen, slanging 100-mile-an-hour sinkers from the left side, right?
It's a really exciting group from a young talent perspective. But there's also a ton of guys coming up through the minor leagues that – are really interesting and exciting in a lot of different ways. And I'm excited to see what this group can do to maximize those guys' ability to get to the major league level and be ready to contribute.
One thing that Paul mentioned to us when he was telling us about you was that you're fully bilingual and you speak Spanish. How did you achieve that? And why is that important to you when approaching a pitching staff?
Yeah, I'm really lucky in a lot of ways. The way I learned Spanish, my mom's an English professor. And when I was in fifth grade, she got a Fulbright to teach at the University of Barcelona. So I went to fifth grade in Barcelona. Kind of nailed that one from a learning Spanish standpoint.
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Chapter 7: How does Simon view the relationship between durability and pitching performance?
And then followed up on that through high school and college. I got a minor in Spanish at Georgetown. And then took a real turn into Caribbean Spanish when I entered pro ball, first as a player. And then, you know, living in the DR for six months in 2021 was what really... took my Spanish to the next level from a baseball specific standpoint.
And then in terms of like approaching guys and creating relationships with players on the staff, right? Like it's so impressive to me that Latin American players have made such an impact on this game. in often a language that they speak very little or don't speak at all, or just make a tremendous effort to learn. Learning a new language in adulthood is extremely difficult.
And living in a country where you don't have access to the kind of food you're accustomed to, all these different things. To just create a little bit of a level of comfort and understanding with a player by speaking their language, I hope makes an impact. But, man, they're doing the lion's share of the work still, and I give them so much credit.
Mark Zuckerman, Massesports.com.
Hey, Simon, we've heard in recent years about a lot of big leaguers who go to these pitching labs like you used to work at. Can you just kind of describe what you do at those places, what you did, and how that translates to coaching them on a day-to-day basis at the big league level?
Yeah, I think in my personal experience, working at a place like that in 2020 and 2021, which was kind of a hectic time for the industry, guys didn't know where they stood with regards to roster decisions, right? Minor league contraction. Guys wanted an invite to the alt site in 2020, right? And didn't know how to get one of those. And providing the resources to guys who were
in full-blown compete mode to then share with their organizations and see what they valued was a massive learning opportunity for me as a young coach because the fact of the matter is if you want to get an invite to the alt site or whatever it was at the time. Being able to demonstrate readiness was a factor that teams were considering.
And so we were making videos of guys throwing bullpens or live BP with a radar gun in the background and just saying like, hey, for your consideration, like this is how ready I am. And then I think now as the industry has settled again, right, and we're playing baseball, I think guys become really tethered to what drives major league winning. And they know that's what gets them paid, right?
They know that's what gets them the next job. They know that's what keeps them employed, right? And in a lot of cases, it's this sort of outside opinion that becomes really attractive because they have ownership of it. Right. They can say, OK, I'm entering into this partnership with a facility that's going to provide me some resources that I seek and that it's going to help me in my career.
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Chapter 8: Who are the key influences in Simon's coaching career?
When you think back on that, pitching at Georgetown, getting your degrees, the search for the job you're talking about from five years ago only, was this in the grand plan that you'd be a big league pitching coach at any point, let alone five years later at age 30?
No. I think that's the short answer. The long answer, man, is that I wasn't very good as a pitcher, certainly at the end of my professional career. And that soured my relationship with the game in a meaningful way. And getting into coaching and getting into pro ball and then getting to the major leagues has really, like, driven my love for the game again in a way that just, like,
really makes me happy. And I think Paul, Paul talks about joy a ton with how he wants our organization to function. And that really, that really resonated with me because baseball has just been such a massive piece of my life. And I've been extremely fortunate over the past five or six years to fall into a career that allowed me to fall in love with the game again.
And then to have success to this point to where I'm being entrusted with this fabulous opportunity. And I'm just I'm really grateful.
Jake Mintz, Yahoo Sports.
How's it going, man? Um, welcome to DC. Thanks. Uh, I'm, I'm interested at what point during your playing career, whether it was a Georgetown or, you know, in summer ball or pro ball where you were like, I could be a coach. Like I could see myself, you know, doing this for a life.
Yeah. Um, I read the arm in college, uh, and, um, that exposed me to the breadth, if not necessarily the depth of thinking that was going on in the progressive baseball sphere. And I was the guy who, You know, the summer after my sophomore year of college, I played summer ball and I threw, I think, 53 straight fastballs, 89 miles an hour, having never touched 90. Right.
And I'm for my personal career. I was like, what is going on? And then I read I read the arm and there's this. whole industry that's sort of blossoming in the game thinking about solving in a lot of ways the very question i was wrestling with myself um and a lot of the things just kind of made sense right the dots seemed to be kind of right next to each other right here i was extremely luckily
getting a degree in political economy from Georgetown where I'm taking a bunch of statistics courses that like maybe I certainly now can't apply to the world economy right but I've got I've got these skill sets that make it make it a little bit easier to draw these connections and I speak Spanish and I still throw 89 so I'm probably not going to be a big leaguer right but I keep getting guys out so maybe I can play pro ball right like all these kinds of things and
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