Ty Buttrey on joining Astros, retirement and reasons for it

• Sports

Ty Buttrey wanted to end his career at the age of 28. It seems as if he no longer had the motivation to play, and that he "burned out" in the whole process. In the 2022 season, he returned to the field and played again for the Angels.

Buttrey decided to reunite with former Angels pitching coach Doug White. Nothing prevented White from traveling to train with him. “I was like, ‘Oh, I think it’s time we start calling some teams and see if we can find a place for you to play,’” White said, as quoted by mlb.com Ty Buttrey signed a Minor League deal with the Houston Astros earlier this month.

He wants to raise his game to a higher level in order to be competitive. “I was like, if I want to be a better pitcher and I want to truly see how good I can be, I have to play with the best. I want to play with the best.

That’s what sealed the deal. The competition breaking with the club is going to be way more difficult than other organizations, but that’s a challenge that for me raises my bar that I can hopefully achieve”.

Josh Miller and Bill Murphy

Astros pitching coach Josh Miller and Bill Murphy can be of great help to Buttrey. “I understand how they’re going to use technology to help observe and evaluate and then develop, and also I’m comfortable with being able to be the middleman there, too,” White said. “When Ty has meetings, he calls me and we talk.

… I’m going to be able to help him bridge that gap quickly, so that’s a win-win for the Astros and Ty." Buttrey also explained the reasons why he had decided to retire. It seems that the anxiety was too great, and he experienced a big roller coaster of emotions.

“Certain things I wasn’t taking care of, I wasn’t addressing maybe as much attention as I needed to with anxiousness and perfection, trying to chase perfection and trying to be the very best and forcing it too much and getting caught up in the results,” he said.

“The highs and lows were super high and super low. It was a roller coaster and [has] been a roller coaster for 10 years. It brought me a lot of confusion, and I started just not really understanding certain things and started diving deep in my mindset and what I’m doing to overcome it”.