UCLA's Bird Reveals Keys to Career Season

Former UCLA standout and current Colorado Rockies premier reliever Jake Bird is having the best year of his career. On Wednesday, he caught up with FanGraps' David Lauria and discussed what has led to such a dominant season in Colorado.

Before one of the worst appearances of his career against the Boston Red Sox on Tuesday, when he allowed five earned runs in just 17 pitches, Bird had a season ERA of 2.79 and was deemed one of the best relievers in the National League. July hasn't been too kind to him, though.

Below are transcriptions of Bird's quotes from Lauria's interview with him:

On why he's having so much success at Coors Field:

“I think a lot of it is just the comfortability factor. After being here a few years, I’m realizing that Coors isn’t the big monster that everybody makes it out to be. It’s not that big of a deal. Sometimes [the ball] gets in the air, and the [pitches] move less, but as long as you have a plan of where you want to go with the ball, and sequence pitches, it doesn’t make too much of a difference.

“Some of it is just baseball, too. I’ve gotten a little better luck at home than on the road. But again, I’m comfortable there and I know my plans. Having less movement on the pitches has helped me really wire in on where it is I want to throw, as opposed to when we’re on the road and the ball is moving a little more. You just have to make those adjustments to get into those areas better.”

On his pitching location game plan:

“I have the same plan, it’s just that the sights are a little bit easier because of the ball breaking a little bit less. If I’m throwing a curveball, it moves 20-25% less, generally, so my sights are closer to where I want to land the pitch. On the road, I have to set my sights a little further out. The home base has kind of been where I’m really dialed in.

“In the past, we’d go on the road and it felt like a safe haven, almost. It was like a vacation, where you just flip everything in there. This year, I’ve been in the zone a good amount, home and away, but I think I’ve walked fewer guys at home. Just overall, everything has played up.”

On his full pitching artillery:

“For the most part, it’s going to be a sinker with a lot of vertical break, a slider that’s kind of a sweeping slider, and then a curveball, which is kind of a slurve curveball. I also throw a four-seam and a cutter, but those have kind of taken a back seat because they didn’t get exactly where I wanted them to be during spring training. They weren’t quite as effective as the other three.”

On which his best pitches are:

“I think they’ve all been good. The curveball has kind of always been my safety net, I guess you could say, and because of the new slider I’m throwing — they seem like they play really well off each other. Originally, the slider was supposed to be something to help me with right-handed hitters — in 2023, I was better against left-handed hitters than I was against righties — but my catchers called it a few times against left-handed hitters and I realized how well they tunnel off each other.

“The slider I can throw at the bottom, and it sweeps straight across in the zone. Then I can throw a curveball out of that same slot. Before, when I was just sinker/curveball for the most part, it would be an easy take because if you saw it down, you could just let it go. Now, because of that slider they have to respect, I can throw the curveball below the zone and get more swings.”

On how the Rockies have grown in terms of pitching development:

“For sure. It’s been changing and getting better over the course of my career. I remember in 2019, in the minor leagues, they had the TruMedia stuff and you could kind of get in trouble if you took a look at those numbers. They didn’t like us looking at that stuff, at least not in the minors — I don’t know how it was in the big leagues — so you kind of had to be sneaky about it. Since 2020, when the regime kind of changed, it became more, ‘Whatever you want to look at, you can.’

“The way I learned about the data and the numbers was actually from fellow teammates. In 2021, it was two guys that came over from different organizations. They kind of taught me. Zach Matson was one of the guys. I remember asking him about my sinker. I could throw it right down the middle and it would end up on the ground every single time, yet on another day, even if I would throw it down, they’d be hitting it in the air. He pulled me into an office and showed me the numbers on TruMedia. He explained the spin-induced movements. He basically explained that my sinker was better when it was more of a three o’clock tilt out of my hand, so more of that zero induced vertical break, and negative. The ones that were getting hit in the air were 2:15, 2:30, more of that positive induced vertical break.

“He asked me, ‘Is there anything you can feel that you think will get it more to that three o’clock?’ At that point in time it was just feeling more inside of the ball, and immediately I was able to make the adjustment. It helped me right away. But again, it’s gotten better. As the years have gone along, the organization is giving us more of those numbers, and more talking about it with us. It’s increased a little bit each year.”

Bird was a standout ace for the Bruins in his three seasons at UCLA, none better than his senior year in 2018 where he boasted a Pac-12-leading 2.17 ERA, finishing the year with a 7-4 record. His performance on and off the mound earned him an Academic All-American Third Team selection, the first Bruin since 1988 to earn those honors, and an All-Pac-12 selection.

Bird was drafted by the Rockies with the 156th overall pick in the fifth round of the 2018 MLB Draft. This is Bird's fourth season in Colorado and is easily his best. He never had below a 4.33 ERA season in his first three years and is currently on pace to have one of the best reliever seasons in the National League.