Davey Martinez thinks Cade Cavalli was nervous cutting his hair originally appeared on NBC Sports Washington
It didn’t take long for the Nationals’ first-round pick in the 2020 draft to bring his hobby to the team in Spring Training.
Rookie pitcher Cade Cavalli, who’s more known for throwing a fastball that can consistently reach the upper 90s than throwing any cutters, began cutting his college teammates’ hairs his sophomore year in college at Oklahoma. After a long layoff from the game due to the pandemic, it was only a matter of time before he began cutting his teammates’ hair in the pros.
First up: Nats 2017 first-round pick Seth Romero.
After Cavalli’s performance was deemed successful, he moved up the ladder to Nationals manager Davey Martinez.
“We had picture day the next day so (Martinez) was like, ‘Hey, let’s get it right,'” Cavalli told reporters after pitching an inning in the Nats’ 8-4 loss to the Mets on Thursday. “I’m like all right I got you. So I went to his office and cut his hair a little bit. It was fun.”
Cutting his teammates’ hair, as well as his own, has taken off to become quite the hobby for Cavalli. He told media last June that he enjoys the 1-on-1 conversation he gets from it and apparently had plenty of time to do that with his new coach.
“It took a while, I think he was nervous cutting my hair. It took an hour to get done,” Martinez said. “We talked a lot, had some good conversation, but I thought he did a good job.”
Perhaps Cavalli wanted to test his barber skills a tad too much, though, when cutting Martinez’s hair.
“He wanted to give me a some kind of fohawk or something like that,” Martinez said. “I’m a little bit too old for those kinds of things.”
Still, Cavalli’s name was called upon to pitch on Thursday. That must mean he didn’t do too bad of a job, right?
“I guess so. I didn’t mess it up too bad,” Cavalli said.