All right. Welcome. Dude, first off, this is just my PSA to anyone out there that has the ability to use a bidet, purchase a bidet, even if it's just one of the toilets in your house, I highly recommend looking.

Into it. It's so comforting. It is, dude. They're not expensive and they're very easy.

To install. I always say it makes no sense. If you are walking around out on the street and you step in shit and you come home, what's the first thing you do when you come home? You take your shoe off and you like- Spray it off. Yeah, you get to the hose and you spray it off. You don't go into your house and get a paper towel and start wiping it off. It just smears it. I blame the American government.

Great analogy.

You like that analogy, dude? Dude, I told you I'm a big analogy guy. -are getting slightly back on track, man. Dude, Trev, can I call you Trev? I'm never going to call you Trev again. I'm sorry. Of course you can. But I can. All right, Trev it is. I'm kidding. Welcome one, welcome all. Huddle and close. Prepare yourself because we're about to blow your mind as we introduce our next guest on AFK with Ninja, standing tall at six foot five and boasting nearly a decade of dominance in the Major League Baseball. He's a pitcher, he's a runner, he's a track star. He's the unstoppable. Trevor May, by day. You can catch Trevor striking out batters and traveling in the country, but by night. He dawns a new mask as a content creation powerhouse. He doesn't just toss heaters, he tosses dough as an avid baker. He runs not one but two YouTube channels for gaming and baseball alike. He's the mastermind behind MaycontainAction, an incredible podcast bridging the gap between gamers and athletes. But wait, there's one more curveball. Trevor's also none other than DJ Haybeef, the DJ sensation you need to see to believe.

Seriously, just do a quick DJ Haybeef YouTube search. Trevor, welcome to the show.

Oh, it's over now?

Awesome. Now it's over.

Now it's over. Yeah, dude, all of that stuff, the DJ Haybeef thing, I'm glad that's not dead. Yeah, there's one video. If you see that one video, though, it's from 2012, probably before some of the people listening to this were born.

True.

That's actually- Enjoy that.

-pretty crazy when you put it like that. They'd be eleven years old listening. Trevor, we're going to jump right into this, man. I'm going to go down with the ship on this one, man. Trevor, you are, people may not know this about you, you are hooked on Minecraft. You're a Minecraft gamer, dude. What's that all about? Please talk to me.

Ii've always loved engineering games, figure out how to make this thing work, games. My guilty pleasure is playing things like, I don't know if you've ever played it, like Oxygen Not Included, Remworld, games like that.

Are those two different games? Oxygen Not Included and Remworld?

Yes, those are two different games. You have to build a little civilization and then keep it alive.

Dude, so you were probably a huge Tamagachi fan.

I did have a Tomagachi, yes, and I was pretty obsessed with it. I was.

Too, man. Obviously, keep coming back to Minecraft. You would think that you would have been a better builder in Fortnite.

It's funny. I played Fortnite before Minecraft. I wasn't into Minecraft at all during four days. No way. To be honest, I went back four times before I really got into it. But our mutual friend, Marcel, basically I do work his fault, actually. Love Marcel. He got me in on the purge, and everyone was on.

That server. It was.

So fun. I remember that. It was so fun.

I remember.

That, dude. It was so fun.

I could never get into Minecraft, dude. It's literally one game to this day. I've even done stuff with it. I've done stuff with some of the funniest creators, too. I got into the Dream, right? I got into the Dream server, and I was dealing with Timmy and all those guys, and I just did.

You just like to compete, bro. I do, man. That's the thing. You just like to cross-air versus cross-air. You're going to win, and you like that.

Get me in there, dude.

Get me.

In there. I cannot stand. But listen, here's the thing, I don't hate on Minecraft gamers either. People think that Minecraft is a kids game. To that I say, look at all the people who played who weren't kids. Truly. It's a well-done game, a great game, which is why I'm waiting for what's going to have to happen for Fortnite to not be considered a kids game. Because Minecraft fated hard. Minecraft took a massive dip, especially when Fortnite came out. Fortnite was everything. Then Minecraft had a massive resurgence two years after for Fortnite released. Now, Minecraft is like, whoever plays it is whatever. No one judges you for playing Minecraft. However, right now, Fortnite is on that really weird kid game stigma.

Well, I think one thing about Minecraft has been around long enough that people were kids and now they're adults and they still play it. That's a big thing. Actually, all the Hermacraft people, some of the most famous people to play that game are in their 50s. There's 50-year-olds to play.

Yeah, you got to be careful on what server you're on, that's for sure.

Exactly. But I think that we were actually just talking about this before the pod about their opening up the unreal, make-your-custom stuff on here. That's what Minecraft does so well with the mod culture, right?

So people- Can you make money in that way, though?

On Minecraftmods?

Yes.

1,000 %. There's extremely wealthy people that do that, yes. Wow. Yes, and have been doing it for years. There's companies that do that.

That makes sense. You pay to get access to the server or is it like-.

Yeah, it's like you can pay to play on servers or you can pay to get exclusive mods that they're making by hand, and then you can be part of a community, and then there's in-game economies and stuff, and they build that all out, which is always like gray area, but there's all kinds of ways. It's just really open. It's just like a really open game. So that's.

Why it's.

Keep coming back, I think.

Maybe I never got into Minecraft the right way, dude. Maybe I got to start expanding my horizons, dude. There's so much...

You know what? We've had PFP. We've had PFP. Pvp in it?

Yeah, I know. You can find those things. Do you remember the Symphony video, dude? Have you ever seen the Symphony video of him PVPing?

Yes. I vaguely remember it, but yes.

He's like 11 years old, 10 years old or something like that, PVPing in Minecraft back in the day before he became this cod sensation. Oh, man, it was hilarious.

Is that like two years ago?

Yeah, actually, no, it might have been... Right, right, right. Dude, poor little sim, dude, Mason. Actually, I think it was discovered in Fortnite or H1Z1. I don't remember. But I know I remember he tried to get into H-1-Z-1. He tried to get into basically just something completely different from obviously Minecraft, but he was originally a Minecraft peer-to-peer. That was hilarious.

I did not know that.

Oh, it was incredible. I mean, a lot of people's origins come from, I imagine, come from Minecraft.

Fk with Ninja.

Dude, unfortunately for me, man, growing up, I was the kid that couldn't even hit the ball off of the T in T-ball. That was that guy. Iy hand-to-head coordination when it came to striking a ball was very poor, and that is honestly reflecting into my golf game right now. But yeah.

Dude, I can't get- Oh, yeah, you guys are all golfing.

Aren't you? Oh, we're golfing religiously. I've got the bug worse than everyone else. I just came back from Illinois, and Jess and I are on a course and we're part of a club, we're right there. I was just at the range every day. I was trying to play at least nine ones every other day. Dude, it was tough. It was way more tough. The courses were way more tough than the courses that I play here down in Florida. I come back and I'm talking of a big game and I play a quick nine holes of Tim and Alexis, his wife, and I just had arguably the worst nine I've ever played. It was terrible.

Are you and Tim like close-close or is this just down the road?

No, we are close-close. I could walk to his house in five minutes. Okay.

It's nick who's not close.

To you guys, right? Yeah, nick is the one who's like, he's like mid-Florida. He's like Miami or something like that, Orlando.

He went down to Palm Beach area.

Yeah, he got suckered, bro.

Yeah. It's really nice down there.

But like-Ten degrees hotter.

-and very warm, yes.

It's beautiful here, too. Today, I always just came back from the pool. Literally, we went out and about, had a call as well about Project V with the boys. Yeah, dude. That went well. But yeah, dude, it's beautiful. It's beautiful here. Again, there's Navi making her appearance. I don't know if you can hear.

There she is. Hey, Navi.

Oh, dude, she's just adorable, man. She's just to me, she's lately, too. Actually, I'm getting a little off track, but.

Dogs are good. It's a podcast. There is no track, bro.

Agreed, by the way. Dogs are good. Freaking golf game getting better. Yesterday I was just literally pitching in my backyard. I was just hitting little pitch shots with my pitching wedge, and they were all going exactly where I wanted them to 30 times in a row. It was beautiful. I was like, If only I could have played today.

You know what I mean? Everyone says that. It's so funny. Golf is just... It just kills your ego, kills your confidence, and then you just hit one good shot and you're like, I'm going to spend the rest of my life.

Chasing that feeling. It really is so accurate. I hit it... Dude, literally. I was playing nine with Tim. I was playing the worst nine I've ever played. We're finally at the 18th hole because it was only the back nine was available. With the 18th hole, it's a par five. Literally, I hit five shots. I had a decent drive, hit a terrible second shot, terrible third shot, tail before shot. It's one of those things where I'm playing pinball. The left side of the fairway, right side of the fairway, left side of the fairway, right side of the fairway, just zig-agging my way up to the freaking green. Then finally, I hit this nice shot. Unfortunately, it goes in the sandpit right in front of the green. I hit a beautiful... When I tell you I had no room, I had a foot, literally a singular foot, maybe less half a foot to get out of the sandpit. I did it with my pitching wage, and I chipped it beautifully up. It landed a couple of yards away from the pin, dude. Then I one-put it in for like, it was double-bogy. But those back-to-back last two shots were like, dude.

It was textbook.

Literally professional golf-level shots, those two shots. It's like, There's no way he's getting out of this one. Boom, right next to the pin. He's got to sink this put. Boom, hit the put. It's like.

Yeah, dude. Yeah, that sounds nice. I think I might get into it a little bit.

Dude, you have to. Trust me. First off, he's going to take over everything, so make sure you have time.

Yeah.

I'm getting slightly back on track, man. Dude, Trev, can I call you Trev? I'm never going to call you Trevor again. I'm sorry. Of course, you can. But I can't. All right, Trev it is. I'm kidding. Trevor, dude, you run two YouTube channels now, one baseball, one gaming. What was the decision behind that? Walk me through that a little bit.

Well, back in the day, I know you had... I'd noticed that Cipher was the first guest here on the show. It's up live now, I believe. I'm not ruining anything now. He was the guy talking a lot about separating your stuff and doing multiple channels. Then Jack, Courage followed, and everyone's got them, right? Yeah, definitely. It took me about four or five years to realize that just the Venn diagram of baseball and gaming just was not overlapping enough for me. They're very different, and I really enjoy talking about both of them and doing both, but there's just not enough overlapping. Putting everything on one didn't really make any sense. Obviously for the algorithm, if you're posting random gaming stuff and then random baseball stuff, the algorithm is like, What is this channel?

Yeah, what are you trying to do?

That's what I was happening. I was like, Why am I doing this? Why am I putting so much work into this if I'm just going to keep shooting myself in the foot? I made two. The baseball one is actually the one where I edit everything on there. I do all the editing, scripting, everything. Actually, to be honest, since last fall, I've done everything on both. However, that's not going to be tenable moving forward. But basically, whatever I'm most excited about at that time, I have a place to put it. That was the point. It's funny because they're both about 50,000 subs, and I really want a play button. I'm like, I wish I could combine these two.

Just combine them, dude. You could probably send a couple of messages, maybe get two half dollar play-Button.

-two minis. -two minis, too. -two minis ones or just half of a plaque cut in half. That would be hilarious, actually. You'll get there. Yeah, I'm not worried about it. Every time I post a video on the baseball one, it does great. All I got to do is just do it. That takes time and day job. We mentioned that. It's still there. Still taking up the time, that day job.

Listen, dude. Not a bad day job to have the professional MLB player, man. Dude, I don't even know if this is even on here. I got a nice beautiful sheet here that I have a little that I go back and forth to. But I would love to ask you right now, since we're on the topic of your day job, which is obviously being a professional pitcher, dude, what are your thoughts on the new box rules or the new rules where it's like the stepping into the box, right? And to shorten the games? Are you a fan?

At the beginning, I hated it because there's a pitch clock, 15 seconds to throw the ball with nobody on base and then 20 with somebody on base. They changed that. They changed that. The hitters can't leave the box and they can only call time out once. We're both being rushed, it feels like, and it was really bad at the beginning of the year. People who had never done it, so they've been doing the Miners for a year or two. There's people who are in the Minars and they're now in the big leagues who had no trouble making the transition. Yeah, they played it, right. But all the old heads, the guys in their late 30s are like, I'm so tired. It's too fast. We hated it.

At first. You guys had to become real athletes.

We're just so used to having these really in-depth scouting reports, knowing all the stuff about all the hitters. You just don't have that much time. You have to communicate with your catcher. We have this thing called pitchcom. That's like a button they push. They don't put down signs anymore, which is slower. We slowed that down, and then we sped up how fast we need to do it. A lot of people are really struggling with that. There's some weird stolen base rules that are just like you can only pick over, throw over to the base twice, and then after that, it's a bach and they get to go for free. You're just like, That seems stupid. What? And it is. But there's been a lot of stolen bases here. They basically changed a bunch of stuff to make more offense happen, which has happened in football as we know. You can't hit anybody anymore and nobody's touching anybody because they want more points, which I get that as a fan of sports, I understand that's more fun to watch. Basketball is the same way. You can't hand-check, can't do anything. So baseball is just following. But the biggest one that I think people are really struggling with the most is the no time-out thing, like not being able to collect yourself.

So pitchers can't do it at all. If no one's on base, I can't step off, which is crazy.

It's insane. I still don't know how that doesn't exist. And then you have to, if you step off with a guy on base and you don't throw over, it still counts as if you did. So you still only get two. So if you do it twice, they still go for free. So you have to be economical. So yeah, it was a lot to get used to. That's how this stuff is happening. But I've come around a lot, honestly. The innings are over way faster. I can rush hitters a little bit and get them to swing at dumb stuff sometimes.

Yeah, right. Dude, they're legitimately changes the entire... Just changes the game. It's a game-changer, legitimately. Not just by making it go by quicker, but also you have to think differently. I love that. More mind games, right? It's like tricking them to hit.

The game shorter is great too.

Yeah, all right. So next, not really topic, just things we've already touched on. Trevor, what do you think is harder? Pitching in the album in the Major League baseball, right? Pitching in the Major League baseball or running a YouTube channel? What's more difficult?

Definitely pitching.

Dang it, dude. Oh, my God. I was sitting here waiting for a little stinger, dude.

No. I don't think.

-i'm.

Kidding. I don't think running, I think it's difficult in a certain way. Like having success, but even then, pitching in the major leagues and having success is really hard.

100 %. You're top point of 1 % of pitchers in the world, dude.

I would say it's even percentage wise, it's probably pretty comparable to people who play baseball and then never pitch in the big leagues in their lives and the people who start a YouTube channel and never get to a million subs. I bet you it's pretty comparable in terms of the number, like the percentage. But yeah, it's harder for different reasons. But YouTube, you can get there much quicker. I think that's the thing. It just takes forever to get here as a.

Baseball player. Unfortunately, man. Unless you're some freaking the next born.

It is faster now. A lot of kids. There's a lot of kids around, bro. We had the the memorial for September 11th, and we did all the pre-game and stuff. I looked over and I realized that we had a kid on our team that wasn't born yet during September 11th. Oh, my. Dude. I was like, Oh, my God. I hate that.

Realization so much. Yeah, definitely a wake-up call. Midlife crisis at 30 for that one. Jesus, dude, that's rough.

I got real old for a second.

Oh, my God. I was in fifth grade, I think. I just remember. We're not going to talk too much on that, man, but that.

Is-well, we remember it. Of course, never get it. We were old enough to remember it.

Yeah, I remember it. It was very strange coming home. Just confusion. I was so young, right? Very confusing. Yeah, that's right. I was like, don't understand what's happening. Then even when someone sat me down and explained it, I was like, huh? You can't tell a 10-year-old or 11-year-old, even younger, what a terrorist attack is. 100 %, man. Okay, a little bit lighter, a little bit... I mean, first off, I love what you're doing. Right turn. Right turn? Right turn.

We're going AFK. Afk with Ninja. We're going AFK. Afk with Ninja. We're going AFK with Ninja. What's he going to say?

Dude, I love what you're doing. I think that when you have something, you have such a massive understanding of something that millions, I mean, that billions of people in the world can't even begin to fathom. You have so much knowledge that you can teach. I love that you're doing that with your YouTube channel, man. Obviously, you're posting a series sharing benefits of being a pro Major League baseball player, dude. It's called The Hidden Perks series. Dope fucking name, got to say. What was the thought process behind that? Was this something you were just like, I should do this. This would be a great idea.

Yeah, I just had the idea last winter and I was like, I'm going to make a long-form video, do some research, get my ducks in a row here. I have a relationship with our players, the associate and stuff, so I could back all this stuff up. I could get the actual handbook that explains everything. I'm like, People don't know this stuff. They think that we're, Oh, you're rich and you fly private everywhere, and that's not necessarily true. I was like, Okay, what else is there? Just talking about the insurance and how things change. Honestly, a lot of it came from, we just had the lockout the year before too, and I was already explaining the things we were yelling at each other about. I was trying to think of that, yeah. The things we have in these 23 Perks came from those conversations before, so it was relevant there. I made a long-form video. It's by far my most, I think it's 700,000 views at this point. It's by far the best video that's not gaming related that I've ever had. I was like, Oh, this is literally 23 sections, so let's just make this 23 short forms.

I'm going to be honest, I messed around with some AI tools for it.

Nothing wrong with.

That, dude. Yeah, and it got chopped into 23 beautiful videos. I was like, Oh, my God.

-it's amazing. -it's amazing. Hell, yeah. Dude, that's actually our little tips. I got two tips then. Number one, potentially using AI to help you create structure and what you want to do. I think it was a great call using every tool that's at your disposal, dude. But again, this goes out to everyone that has some access oryou know, a sight on insight rather on something that the majority of the world doesn't have access to. It's basically like if I did a behind the scenes, let's say I was a professional AI player still back in the day, and now I wanted to do a series of behind the scenes at a professional tournament as a pro player. That insight and that look at just something that no one has access to is so desirable. I think that's a great idea that you're doing it. I mean, just keep it up. I love it.

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, it's crazy because it's so normal to us. Then I'm like, Oh, wait, people think this is cool.

Yeah, because we were actually talking about this yesterday. We were actually talking about this yesterday. Absolutely.

We were like, just think about... I was talking to some other teammates and we're like, Just think about you putting on your glove because our glove is an extension of our bodies. You just put on your glove and you just catch stuff easy without even thinking about it. Most people put that thing on and they feel like they're on another planet. They have no... It's like, What do I do with this? I'm like, You've been doing that for, in my case, 30 years. It is almost up there with eating is how natural it is. I was like, Oh, man, when you're done and you don't put your glove on anymore, that's going to be crazy. I just had that realization. We were all talking about that like, Oh, my God. And then the hitters were like, Yeah, picking up your bat. It's like one of the best feelings. Like just like, Oh, this is mine. This is my tool. People don't even have any context. If you can explain that and have it in a way that people understand or can identify with, I think it goes way farther and inspires people more than we even realize.

I really do. That's why I think it's so important to.

Do stuff like that. Yeah, you become desensitized in a way where it is your everyday life, right? Right now you're hitting perks. You got team chefs, massages, or tax deductible, and you have nap pots. Sign me up, dude. Are you saying that this could have been my life, Trevor?

Maybe. Did you try playing baseball forever? I remember I did.

T-ball. T-ball. Couldn't hit it off the T, dude. I could proudly say that baseball was the first sport that I gave up.

I mean, that's a lot of people's experience. One of my favorite clapbacks to people who just give me, when I post a clip, they're like, Hey, why couldn't you get the job done? Or, Why are you guys... On those videos, a lot of people are like, Oh, you guys are so spoiled. This, that, and the other. I have to do this, and you get that. I go, Oh, I'm sorry, man. Did you try playing professional baseball? Yeah.

You missed the sign-up sheets?

I don't know. Was it a sign-up issue? Did you just miss the email? Or was it because you can't? That's the point. That's why this stuff exists. It's because not everyone could do it. That's why some people are good at things and some people aren't as good as things. It's fine. It's okay. I'm not trying to flex on anybody. I'm just telling you, this is what exists. Sorry, don't hate.

Me, please. Yeah, 100 %. I said the same thing with streaming. It's the same criticism that happens to me all the time. A lot of streamers, it's like, Oh, well, man, get a real job, which is so funny. I still get people that message me that. I think it's so great. But it's like, get a real job. L-o-l is streaming so hard. Yeah, I'm sure. Blah, blah. It's like, Dude, if you think it's so easy, you do it.

Yeah, why don't you do it?

You do it then.

It's like Turner, right? When Tifu came out with this video? Yeah. There was a bunch of hate on it. I'm like, Guys, he just wants to do something else. Don't you ever want to do something else sometimes? He just wants to do something else. He likes other things.

Yeah, not to mention that a lot of people really understood the pressure that Turner was under with like, this is 90 % speculation, but 90 % I think... I think I know what I'm talking about. Yeah, he had a deal with Twitch. He was obviously exclusive to Twitch, and it was very demanding for him. It was very stressful. If he wanted to reach his hours and meet his contract obligations, he wouldn't have been sued or anything like that, but they might have had legal rights to not pay him. It became where he was forced to be doing something that he did love, but once it becomes a job and once you become forced to do it and you have to meet hours and it does stop being this, Hey, I'm having fun, I'm streaming and I'm gaining to my audience, and it actually does become work. To anyone out there still giving Turner shit for being overwhelmed and being emotional on his retirement video, he really did have... He really was in a rough spot.

And it's his life. And you know what? Take care of yourself. And at the end of the day, money is great. But you don't have to make every decision for money all of the time. You don't. If you're willing to deal with the consequences of it, not coming in the way it came in anymore, and you're okay with that, that's all that matters. That's all there is. No one else really matters. I don't know Turner personally, and I don't think I've ever even played with him or talked to him, but I was really proud of the way he handled that. It took a lot of courage to do that. I didn't think his persona doesn't give that off that.

He would go there. Emotional?

Yeah, that type of emotions or just being vulnerable like that. -yeah, he did. - Video. -he's been growing a lot. -it was really cool. It was good for him. I know he likes to do all kinds. I know he loves to backflip off Bridges. Go back flip off bridges. Just don't, please, please stay safe.

It'll be all right. Well, did listen, I could say he'll be all right, but actually knowing how crazy he is, he might not be. But hopefully, he'll be as safe as absolutely possible. Turner's definitely living his best life right now on his little mini vacation. Trevor, when did your love for baseball start? Was it something that the more you played, the more you were like, Dude, this is actually incredible? Was it like a gift? Did you have to put in a lot of work? Or was itlike, would you say that you're naturally gifted as well? Give me some context here, man.

Yeah, I think there's a level of natural giftedness. I don't think everyone can just work their way into anything. I used to think that, but I, through experience, I've realized that you cannot.

Are you talking about your four night.

Skills, man? Yes, that's what I'm talking about. I tried really hard to hang, hang. I could stick around, but I couldn't hang, hang. I wasn't out there with you guys. You were at the top of the tower. I was just trying to get up there. And that's okay. I'm okay with that level. I wasn't for a while, but now I am. But yeah, you feel like you have an aptitude. I started growing, getting really big. I started to get the physical attributes to be like, pitching could be a thing. Basketball was actually in that mix, too. I really love basketball. My dad was a basketball player. He played four years in college. He has a scoring record for our high school. He was a very good player. And he'd always ask me whatever season it was, growing up, it was basketball or baseball, he'd be like, Which one is your favorite sport? I would say, whatever one we were playing, until I stopped growing at six-five and I'd have to be a point guard. I'm not going to play in the NBA. So Ieah, let's try baseball. I just kept being a little bit better than my opponents.

I thought I was like, I think that just the next level just kept being a possibility. I just said, Why stop if it's a possibility? So I go to college. I was going to University of Washington, D1. I'm a D1 player. Yeah. Come on, baby, let's go. Then they're like, But what about pro? I was like, Pro is an opportunity? They're like, Possibly. Scouts started showing up. They're like, Dude, you're throwing hard. You're big, you're 6'5, you throw low 90s in Washington, of all places, where it's not a baseball hotbed here. Then they just kept saying, It's a possibility. It's a possibility. Then the draft happened. They're like, Fourth round, here you go. I'm like, Well, oh, my God, it's real. Then I just kept going.

You were a college player, and then did you spend any time in the minor leagues, or did you go right to the majors? No, I.

Didn't even go to college. I skipped it. You skipped college? I committed. You can go in the draft and just see what happens. It's not like basketball or football where you have to say you're going in the draft and you're no longer eligible to Blaine College if you're in high school anyway.

That's dope.

Then I just called my coach like, Hey, I'm going pro because the money, like they offered money. My dad was like, Hey, don't be an idiot. I was like, Okay, you're right. I'm not going to be an idiot. That pops. I just went at 18 to Florida just in July of 2008. Just go live on your own. Never been away from home for more than two weeks. It was really hard. Then everyone there throws as hard as you and as big as you and was drafted higher and has more money. Then you got to find ways to do it. Then that's when work started. So then at that point, you have to then... I made a decision that I wasn't going to be outworked by anybody then. I love that. I'm going to honestly say that here we are, 16 years later, and I don't think I've ever been outworked.

How? Okay, so as a pitcher or just a Major League baseball player, what is the way that you... How do you track your progress? Or to you, what is progress? What are things that you work on throughout your entire career? Is it just pitching speed, speed-to-speed or talk to you about that?

Bro, that is such a really relevant question.

Yeah, this is a deep question, man. I'm really excited.

To hear your answer. So I've done a ton of work on that this year because I think that post-playing, that's something that I would love to pass on to the next generation of players is the systems that I built to improve and be better and how I look at every little thing I do to monitor where I'm at. Right now, this year, I have recorded every single-thing to every single night I wear nine wearables, I whoop, I record all my sleep, I take my blood pressure every day. I do all these things to see, I know how much caffeine I drank. I know all these things to see what's affecting what, because again, that's what I'm interested in. But in terms of performance, it's very hard in sports, and it's the exact same for you because you played professional games too, is trying to be as process-oriented as possible for as long as possible and trying to keep the overthinking the actual results, what happens out on the stage or out on the field, in a vacuum a little bit and just be like, Okay, I'm getting... That's just feedback for my process. That's not the thing that I'm hyper-focused on and caring about all the time because it takes care of itself.

That's really hard to do when the stakes are like keeping a job, making lots of money, and getting yelled at by fans. It's so hard to cut through that stuff. Some of the big stuff I do is I've actually... I've been using... I use ChatGPT a lot now.

Oh, no, they were going back to the AI. Oh, Jesus.

It's teaching me how to... I'm learning how to write my own statistical algorithms, like writing my own stats. Wow. And how I go through and get all the metrics on how all my pitches move, and then all the metrics on how well I'm commanding the zone, quote-quote, throwing it where I want to because there's thousands of stats out there now. And so I'm building these equations that weight everything the way that I want them weighted to give me feedback. Are you doing this well or are you not doing this well? Versus the League versus your own averages versus a benchmark you set. And once I got an idea of what those things were and how to do it, it was just like I just can't stop writing them. I just keep making them up because it's fun. So now I have this spreadsheeta sheet that I fill out every outing that tells me how I like, if these things are all green, the results tend to be better. And it's pretty much true every time. So I've dialed it in pretty good. And so now I can tell if I'm getting improving in the way I want to improve, or if I'm maintaining in the way I want to maintain, or if I'm not, then I can go look deeper and see which element is the one hurting it the most and work on that.

Yeah, what are you lacking in? That's just the rinse and repeat. That's every day. That's just what I do. It's beautiful, man. It works really well.

That sounds like I feel like I should be doing that about my streaming.

I can't wait to apply it to making content, frankly.

For sure. You're just a chatty fiend.

Oh, it's so good. Come on now. My best friend.

I know, right? All right, noted. I'm going to start... You know what? It's like people are already going to be using it, man. What's going to hurt if I start dabbling in.

The GP? I think you'll have fun, man. I think you really enjoy it.

Yeah, probably, dude. We're going to dive into a little bit of the mental wellness, right? As a professional athlete, content creator dude, you're basically at the mercy of fans, as a content creator, 100 %, because you literally are required to have an audience and accept their feedback and stuff like that, and then build off of that, et cetera. How do you experience burnout and how do you deal with it? As a content creator and as an athlete?

That's a big issue for me. I am a very high energy dude, passionate when I'm into something, I'm in. I'm falling down that hole and I'm just going to see where the bottom is. When that stuff happens, when I'm really into something, especially when it's during the season or something and I try to share it and there's just noise about what I should be doing. I have this just natural need to defend myself, and it's just not real. You don't need to defend yourself to people who actually don't really care as much as they're trying to put on because it's social.

Yeah, social media, bro.

Once I had this realization that this isn't real, it's not a serious, like Twitter, for example, or X or whatever it's called now. X, dude. Oh, so stupid. Anyway, once you realize that this isn't real, like this isn't a real place. It's not real reality. This stuff won't affect me one way or the other unless I let it. Once that happened, I developed a much better relationship with social media. There was a while there, man, where I was like, Am I going to delete everything? Because I'm so burned and not enjoying talking about or doing anything or sharing anything that isn't like me striking someone out to end the game. That sucked because we did that in 2018, 2019, when we were just posting everything we did, and it was just a blast. Obviously, the growth was phenomenal. But it was just so fun because we knew that everything was just going to play. There was so much positivity that the negativity didn't really get through. Then things settle and you feel like this pressure to keep going. I'm sure you know this more than anybody. You got to find a way to navigate it and enjoy it and then stave off that, say, I'm burning out, and then just take a step.

Taking that step is so hard. It's so hard. Just saying like, You know what? I'm cool. I'll revisit this in two weeks. This is what I'm actively doing this. I have a lot of practice on this stuff, like having that self-talk where it's like, whatever you are doing right now is exactly what you're supposed to be doing. That unlocked it a little bit. I'm like, just do whatever your best is, and in some days it's going to be worse than others. But that's really helped with burnout. It doesn't feel so life and death anymore. Once that emotion was, not I want to say removed, but just put into context, it made making those decisions. It didn't feel like I had to make this big decision to step away. It was just like, casual. You know what? I'm going to not make anything for five days, or I'm not going to make anything for a week, or I'm just not going to worry about making a blog for a month because it doesn't matter if I make one, it's just for me. So if I don't want to do it, I don't have to do it.

Why do I have to do it? This feeling that you have to do things, I think, is something that, especially our age group, really feels everywhere.

Yeah, dude. There's the memes of our generation committing to painstaking, crippling anxiety when we have trouble committing to like, Yeah, you want to come over next week? Yeah, sure, dude. Then it's like, Oh, shit. Now It.

Have to go. Because that's the one thing we have control over. Everything else is like, I have to. I have to. I have to. When we have a choice to say yes or no, we always just wishy washy to try to keep control over it so that we can feel like we're in control.

But one thing that will trigger me and make me something that I am not, like I don't like about myself, I hate about myself is like having to do something that I don't want to do. Truly, someone being like, Listen, you have to do this, and not streaming. I've never felt that way of streaming, luckily. But I have been on a set, filming content, and I just... Dude, they're like, Okay, dude, I remember it was Justin. Justin and I were doing this series, and we had to do this. We did this Q&A thing. It was adorable. Then we did this guest the other person's favorite thing. All these little mini games, and we were filming for three hours, four hours straight, and it was so much fun. It was all great. Then they're like, All right, we're going to have you guys do a cook-off. I was like, Okay. Sure, what's it going to be? Pancake? Some shit. They're like, It's going to be a Chipotle label challenge. I was like, Excuse me? They're like, Yeah, you guys are going to try to make a Chipotle label and see whose can be better or whatever.

I was like, Do you have any idea? The level of in-depth ingredients that go into a Chipotle? Dude, they wanted us to cook. They really wanted us to cook the chicken, prepare the chicken the way they do, make this like... Dude, prepare the lettuce and then the salsa, dude, to make the Green Verde salsa or whatever they wanted us to do that shit. I'm in a kitchen that I've never been in, so I don't know where fucking anything is, literally anything. They're like, You have to measure out like this, and you have to dice up and then sauté and blacken the peblano peppers. Dude, I was so uncomfortable because it was just so out of my control. I literally, I was like, I don't want to do this. We were recording. I'm like, I don't want to do this. Everyone's laughing like, It's okay. You can keep on going. I literally look at Jess and I look at Andre, my now assistant. I'm just like, No, I want to stop recording. I don't want to do this at all. I was getting hot, bothered. I was getting short tempered. I was like, Dude, get me out of here, bro.

It was one of the most uncomfortable feelings in the world.

Sometimes you're just like, Nope, sorry, guys. Nothing against you. Love all you guys, but I just can't do it.

I was like, We had a great day today. We had a great filming session. But this right now, this year, I already don't like cooking that in-depth. Then just all of the shit combined to me just not wanting to be there and not knowing where I was cooking at a place where you don't know where anything is, dude, I was triggered out of my mind, bro.

I couldn't. You got to wrap your head around that for a week before.

Literally. Dude, if I knew I was going to be doing this, I would have prepared... I thought it was going to be a simple, tiny, funny, happy-go-lucky cooking challenge. It's like, no, I'm sitting here preparing Chipotle's Green S salsa. They're medium salsa, which again, it's a shitload of fucking ingredients and a lot of preparation, and I've never done it before. Again, I already don't prepare freaking food in-depth. I make pasta, bro. I put noodles and boiling water, and then I sauté them up a little bit in some sauce.

How did you do the sour cream? Do you guys have to milk the cows, too?

Well, we left. I was ready for it, though. They're like, All right, now we're going to go churning in the back here. We're going to make sure this sour cream is all prepped.

Oh.

My God. Kill me, dude. I just left. Basically, again, it was a very small group there, like a lot of people that I actually already worked with. It wasBecause I joke a lot, but once I was able to really express those guys, I am really uncomfortable. I know I probably sound like a little whiny bitch right now, but after a long day of filming, we had to drive an hour and a half into the city, into Chicago to get to the studio to film to begin with, I was turned off. I was done.

Shit happens. Hey, guys out there. Sometimes just go, No, I'm okay. That's okay. Just do that sometimes.

Pass.

That's.

Not interesting. It was definitely, legitimately, one of my... I would say, one of my weakest moments in the last 10 years. I was like a human. I was like a man. I felt like, Wow, I'm a little fucking bitch, but I really just don't want to do this.

Which is just not real either, but that's the very thing to do, too, where dudes are like, Well, I said I'm going to do it, and I'm a man of my word. You know what? I'm not a man of my word. I'm leaving. You know? I'm getting them. Get out of here, man. Take me if you want. I don't care. Get me out, literally. Don't want to do it, man.

You already got six other videos.

Don't get this one. Yeah, we're good.

I still think they use the footage out there. If you can find the video, maybe you'll see me literally dying on the inside of my eyes.

We're moving.

On to the final segment, dude. The final segment of the podcast, we ask all of our guests. We do a little this or that and some other questions. You can be as in-depth as you want or as short as you want. Okay. Are you ready?

I am always ready.

All right, dude. Minecraft or MLB the show? Minecraft. Okay, okay. Sandlot or The Mighty Ducks?

Sandlot. It's the biggest movie we ever made.

I do. I haven't seen that movie in such a long time I got to rewatch it. Classic, dude. Overwatch or Fortnite?

Oh, no, Fortnite.

Yeah, there we go, dude. Nothing will take place. Nothing will ever be able to replace those 2018 and 2019 memories, bro. Seriously, it's so fun. Face a 100-mile-power fastball or bake a three-tiered wedding cake.

Oh, three-tiered wedding cake. Bring it on.

Dude, I love cake so much.

Hundred is so fast. It's scary. I don't like hitting. I don't know how they do it.

I can't. Dude, just stick to throwing them, dude. All right, date night out or date night out or day night in?

Day night in.

Believe it or not, that's everybody's. Yeah, right.

No one likes sleeping and going anywhere.

Nowadays, dude, COVID just like...

We saw the light.

Literally like, we could just be inside all the time, okay? Massages or nap pods?

Massages.

There we go. There we go. Tashon Watson. Ring-ring. Hello.

I don't know if you've read the comment section on that video, but yeah. No, no, no, no, no. Them too.

All right. Tommy John surgery or Ligma.

Oh, my God. I'll take TJ again.

Hey, man, as a survivor of Ligma, that's a good call. You don't want to live like this, man. It's not a life to live. All right, back to our other questions now. That was a great rest of that segment. Which wood is the best wood in Minecraft?

Oh, which wood is the best wood? Spruce.

Spruce? Spruce wood. Interesting. Is that legitimately like it just is or is that your opinion?

I think it is most people's favorite. Birch is the worst for most people, though I have come around. I've found a lot of uses for birch.

You're a Birch guy now, huh? Yeah. Okay. What is your best baked dish? Trevor.

Oh, my best baked dish. The thing that I've done better than anything is probably my cinnamon, raisins, bagels. I crush those literally every time. Then I make maple bars, donuts, and the maple blaze is my own concoxion, and it's incredible.

I'm going to have to have some, dude. You have to bring some some time, dude. We're going to do the next 10 to tap, man, tail, gate. Bring those bad boys, dude, for sure. What is your go-to remix or mash-up for DJing?

Oh, bro, there's so many.

Over the years. Just a classic. It's got to be in, dude. It's got to be in there. It's got.

To be something. It's going to be something, Veechie. Okay, okay. You know what? There's a song that when I was DJing a lot when I was college age and I was hanging out with a lot of my friends who were in a frat and doing frat parties, a song before actually, he was Viji. His name was Tim Bergling, that's his real name. He had a song called Broomance. I played that all the time. I love that song. I want to listen to it.

Right now. Dude, is that the... Wow, I see it, Tim Berg. Seek Broomance.

Seek Bromance, yeah.

Single by Swedish producer DJ Viji. Meanwhile, he was under the name Timberg, and it's also his second release single in October 17th, 2010.

I loved it.

I love it so much. It got charted at number 12.

Great. Great song.

Finishing up here, dude. If you had to delete... This is one of my favorite questions I ask our guests here, dude. If you had to delete all but three apps from your phone, which ones would you keep? The messages, you have to download them from the App Store. That's how you...

The app that I check the most every day is Whoop.

What.

Is that? That's my wearable, gives me all my recovery score at night and whatever.

Okay, so.

Whoop- It's like a Fitbit. Just think of it as a Fitbit. Sure, sure, sure. Okay. We'll go with Whoop because I don't know if I could do anything that I do right now without it. Okay.

All right, whoop.

Next, we would do what social media? Yeah, which one do you have to have one? We have to have one. God, X is so bad. It doesn't even work. I'll go to Instagram. I'll take Instagram. No, no, no, no, TikTok. There you go. Tiktok. What are we doing? And third... Oh, no. Third...

Can't live without. Can't live without. Every day, every day. Can't live without.

Can't live without it.

Yeah, we've got TikTok.

I have-I'm over here like, What's on my phone?

Dude, that's what everyone does. Grab your phone, dude. What are you trying to go to naturally?

What do I look at? What do I look at? We got TikTok. I use a note-taking app called Obsidian, and I'm opening that a lot, too. We'll go those three.

Dude, one of our most unique answers, man. Then to interpret the final question, all right? The name of this podcast is AFK, right? Afk with Ninja. We already know what it means, but in your own words, dude, define AFK, dude. What do you do when you're AFK?

Frankly, doing a lot of my content things, sitting, and like I said, I use sitting a lot, I take lots of notes. I have just ideas, and I like writing stories sometimes. I do all kinds of random stuff. That's a way I decompress. I'm on my computer working on those algorithm things. But that's stuff I enjoy doing, which is weird. I get it. I know what I sound like.

Listen, dude, I'm not saying anything, man.

You're just- I love it. It's just fun. It just gets me going. I enjoy it. It expands my mind. Sometimes when you go, you play baseball for, like we said, 16 years professionally, it's the same thing every day. It's nice to do other things that are random day to day.

All right, dude. Trevor, thank you so much for coming on, man. I had an absolute blast talking about everything, bro, to baseball, to Minecraft, to freaking to whoop. To whoop. To whoop. And there you have it, folks. We've reached the end of another epic AFK with Ninja episode. If you've enjoyed the journey thus far, please consider leaving a rating, review, and hitting that Follow button. We have a ton of incredible guests coming your way, and I want you to be the first to know when a new episode drops. Until next time.

Catch you soon. It's AFK with Ninja. Ninja's got a show. It's AFK with Ninja, the best podcast in the world. Afk.