Simon Mathews’ pitching career ended right as the entire world was shutting down in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The then-24-year-old right-hander with an 89-mph fastball had maxed out his abilities as an undrafted free agent with the Angels, reaching Triple-A but released by that organization shortly after spring training was halted by Major League Baseball.
Still needing money to pay the rent, Mathews used some personal connections to take a job in business development that he despised but allowed him to then pursue the coaching career that now appealed to him. He spent the free time he had in 2020 doing work for a pair of noted pitching labs (Push Performance in Arizona, Driveline Baseball in Seattle) and met Sean Doolittle, who was working to keep his MLB career going.
The next thing he knew, Mathews was hired by the Reds to run the pitching program at their Dominican Academy, then climbed the organizational ladder to work as a roving pitching instructor and ultimately as Cincinnati’s assistant pitching coach this year.
And then last week this previously unknown 30-year-old was named the Nationals’ new pitching coach, a member of Blake Butera’s still-under-construction staff who is even younger than the majors’ youngest manager since 1972.
From washed-out minor leaguer to big league pitching coach in five years? Was this somehow Mathews’ grand plan all along?
“No. That’s the short answer,” he said with a laugh. “The long answer 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. Getting into coaching, getting into pro ball and then getting to the major leagues has really driven my love for the game again in a way that just really makes me happy.”
Just as the Lerner family is taking a chance on 35-year-old president of baseball operations Paul Toboni, and just as Toboni is taking a chance on Butera, now Butera is taking a chance on Mathews. The rookie manager has quickly developed a full appreciation for his rookie pitching coach.
“He’s incredible,” Butera said. “Just going through the interview process with Simon, he blew me away right off the jump. Obviously, he was in the big leagues last year with the Reds. Terry Francona was his manager. I talked to Terry a handful of times about Simon. He couldn’t say one bad thing about him, said he’s one of the best pitching coaches he’s been around, even at just 30 years of age.”
During the course of a 30-minute Zoom interview with beat reporters Wednesday, Mathews offered hints of what Butera and everyone else who previously worked with him learned. He may have the boyish looks and blond locks of a Southern California surfer, but he’s got an understanding of pitching mechanics far beyond his years. And he has a diverse background that brought him to this point.
A native of West Haven, Conn., Mathews spent fifth grade living abroad when his English professor mother earned a Fulbright Scholarship to the University of Barcelona. He’s been fluent in Spanish ever since, really putting that to use while working at the Reds’ Dominican academy. He also minored in Spanish while earning his bachelor’s degree in political economy at Georgetown, where he put together one of the best pitching careers in Hoyas program history.
With that background, combined with his experience pitching in the Angels system and then coaching in the Reds system, Mathews has learned how not only to speak two official languages but also how to communicate in all the different baseball languages that now permeate the sport. He noted the collaborative work he did in Cincinnati this year with the organization’s strength and conditioning staff, sports science team, analytics experts and front office executives to help a number of homegrown Reds pitchers blossom into a playoff team.
“I think that’s where I thrive more so than anything,” he said. “I’m not going to be the one who feels like I have to solve the problem all by myself. We’re a major league group full of subject matter experts that I want to bring in. I welcome and need their feedback when it comes to keeping world-class athletes at the peak of their potential.”
Asked what immediately stands out to him about the Nationals pitching staff he’s now in charge of, Mathews raved about the young talent already in place that just needs to realize its full potential.
“I remember sitting in the dugout feeling helpless watching MacKenzie Gore pitch against us in Cincinnati last year,” he said. “And feeling that there was just 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 slinging 100 mph sinkers from the left side … it’s a really exciting group from a young talent perspective.”
Mathews will be working directly with Doolittle, who so far is the only member of Davey Martinez’s former coaching staff to be retained – “He’s become a great pitching friend of mine in the industry” – and together will collaborate with the Nationals’ revamped front office in hopes of elevating the pitching staff to a higher level of performance.
“The most important thing I can do is listen,” he said. “Listen to our players. Listen to our front office. Listen to Blake. Listen to our staff, whether it’s the strength coaches, medical group, sports science or what have you. My job is to really, truly listen and then be able to amalgamate all of that information and put it to use to help our players.”
Mathews said all of this with a wide smile on his face and obvious passion for the job. He may be the youngest pitching coach in the majors, and he may never have imagined he’d reach this level so quickly as he was getting released by the Angels only five years ago. But he’s ready to jump headfirst into this new endeavor alongside several other newcomers to the Nationals who all share a common approach to baseball.
“Paul talks about joy a ton with how he wants our organization to function. That really resonated with me,” Mathews said. “Baseball’s been such a massive piece of my life. And I’ve been extremely fortunate over the past 5-6 years to fall into a career that allowed me to fall in love with the game again.”