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Interviews

Live with Chris Burke – College Baseball analyst on ESPN and SEC Network and former MLB Player

All right, we’ll go ahead and get jumping here. Chris, appreciate you spending some time with us on a Monday morning, hopefully for you.

Thanks are great, man. Thanks for having me. Kind of a gray dreary morning here in Louisville, Kentucky, so feels like baseball season’s a mile away, but always fun to talk ball. 

Yeah, absolutely. I just got back from New York City over the weekend and talk about cold and gray back being back in Florida.

I’m a happy man now. Yeah, there you go. 

Well, for our audience and those that’ll be listening later on, obviously having Chris Burke, former SC Player of the Year led the Tennessee Balls of the 2001 College World Series, first round pick of the Houston Astros. Played six years in the big leagues member of the Tennessee Baseball Hall of Fame. I think one cool thing for me looking at your career is making your debut on America’s birthday on July 4th was probably a pretty cool thing for you. And as we probably all recognize the voice now, one of the major players over at ESPN as an analyst for both SEC Network and College Baseball Hole. So a lot to jump into today. I I’d like to start quickly, Chris, if you could just tell us all the way back to when it first started, how did you fall in love with the game of baseball and what did that path look like for you? 

I fell in, well, thanks for that intro and yes, my debut was fun even though we got beat 18 to three, so it wasn’t that much fun. Anyway, I think pretty typical story. I had a dad who loved the game. I had a dad who coached the game and played the game when I was born. He was the head baseball coach at what’s now Bellarmine University, which is a division one school in the a sun, which has been cool to see them. They’ve actually been on Tennessee’s schedule the last couple of years growing up. I wouldn’t have never thought that, but when he was the head coach there, they were division two school called Bellamy College, and he was a very good player catcher, left-handed hitting catcher and then became the head coach there and did that as a young man. And then as I got older, he moved into selling insurance and then eventually into the financial services world. 

But I had an older sister and an older brother, and as soon as my older brother and I got old enough, I mean we were playing ball in the backyard and when dad would come home from work, we would play together as somebody that’s involved in coaching. Not all the sports but two other sports in addition to baseball. One thing I’ve kind of come to realize baseball a little bit like coffee is more of an acquired taste. First time you drink Coca-Cola, everybody likes it. First time you have a cup of coffee, not so much. And baseball can be like that to a degree unless you play it for fun in the backyard. I think it’s very easy pathway to fall in love. Somebody throws you a ball, you try to whack it, right? Somebody hits you a ball, you try to catch it. Sometimes the games themselves are a little bit slower moving and I think coming off the heels, especially traditional sports schedule, you come off the heels of basketball season, a lot of great athletes sometimes have a hard time falling in love with baseball just because they don’t get to have the ball in their hand all the time and the pace is slower and especially in a lot of the parts of the country, the weather’s maybe not great in March and April. 

And so I am really grateful for a dad and an older brother who introduced me to the game and we played the game a ton organically. As you know Matt, that’s the way you played most of your ball then not to sound like an old guy, but there just wasn’t a million games on the schedule the way there is now. And so that’s where I learned to play the game. I still love to watch my crew play it in the backyard because I love, you know what I really love Matt? I love to watch kids who don’t play baseball, play pickup baseball and they love pickup baseball. Everybody at the pool in our neighborhood in the summertime, there’s a big grass area next to it. Kids that have never played a day of organized baseball, love to play whiffle ball, nobody. You know what I mean? So anyway, that’s just kind of a note of, I think the game is, I like to say when you learn to play it organically, you can sit through the misery of a real game waiting for your next opportunity. 

I just picture my 12-year-old who no longer plays the game. I picture him, he never fell in love with it. I picture him and and what you’re saying and picking the flowers out in right field and just not knowing what to do. Right. And it’s funny you say that because when people ask me like, Hey, how do I get my son or daughter to start being better or start playing the game, the first thing I tell ’em is go get one of those huge bats from Kmart or Walmart with the big barrels on it, the plastic ones. I say throw ’em a ball and just let ’em feel getting the ball on the barrel, right? Instead of starting them right in t-ball or going to machine pitch or whatever it is, when they’re trying to hit this thing, it’s tougher, right?

I think, excuse me, on two baseball, three on three baseball where you’re constantly up to bat, you’re constantly running the bases. You’re playing with ghost runners. We grew up, we used to ride our bikes to a church softball field. This is funny now, but you weren’t allowed to hit the ball, the right field. There’s one infielder, one pitcher, one outfielder. If you hit it the right field, you were out. Everything was a mound out, everything was ghost runners and we played three on three baseball. It’s a blast. And then you’re waiting for your little league game for that one at bat for that because you’ve been working on it all week. It just, again, I’m not trying to get into the better or worse world, it’s just different, but it is a fun way to learn the game, and that’s how I grew up playing it. 

So you grew that way, grew up just playing organically. When did you realize that maybe I got a shot at being pretty good at this thing? 

It’s interesting. I was always a good player. It was clear I was a good player and I started on the all-star team. As an 11-year-old, I was the shortstop. When you’re doing it, you don’t realize that’s a big deal. And then now as somebody who covers little league baseball for ESPN, there’s not a whole lot of kids at 11 that are the starting shortstops. So they’re all-star teams, but I didn’t think much of it. We won the state for the first time in 25 years and went to the regionals. Back then there were only four regionals, so there was 12. It was this poor team from Kentucky. We had to go play Texas in the southeast regional, what are we doing? Texas, Florida, Kentucky, right? Georgia, Right. It’s crazy, crazy. So we got beat three to two. And what’s funny is the guy who beat us, a guy by the name of Brian Gordon, I ended up playing against him in aa. That’s great. Crazy funny story. But he struck out 16 and drove in all three. I hit a two run homer the second at bat of the, our first guy got hit, then I hit a two run homer. Then he struck out 15 in a row.

If I do my math, that would include you, right? 

Yes. So next time he threw me three straight curve balls, which I don’t think I’d seen a curve ball to that point. I saw I missed all three of ’em. And then I actually did make contact my third of bed. So I felt pretty good. I made contact in two of the three of bats. But anyway, funny how you remember those details. And I walked up behind him and I said, after I realized it was him, he was so good, Matt, I wrote, I got the baseball that I hit the home run on my dad and I decided we’re going to write that kid’s name on the ball. So it was Round Rock, Texas. Well, my first year, first full season in pro ball, I was in AA in Round Rock, Texas, and this kid comes up to bat for El Paso, named Brian Gordon, and the place starts screaming and I’m like, Brian Gordon, Brian. 

Now mind you, this is 10 years later, 11 years later, 10 years later, I’m like, Brian Gordon, Brian Gordon. I called my dad that night. I said, dad, go in my bedroom and find that old ball. Look in the name on it. Who was the pitcher that day? Brian Gordon. I’m like, no way. So I walked up to him the next day before bp. I said, Hey, man, you remember some little fart that did a home run off of you in the little league regional? He turned around, he goes, no way. No way. I was like, that was me. So we had a big laugh about it. So anyway, I had moments like that as I was growing up where I’m like, I’m pretty good at this deal, but I would really say my sophomore year I earned a starting shortstop job. I was playing basketball all winter, so I was late to the season, but about a month into the season, they moved me up from JV to varsity, and I was the shortstop on our St X here in Louisville, which is a very good program. 

I was playing shortstop and I had a good season. And in that summer, back then, I don’t know how you all did it, but we just had 18 U team, so it wasn’t a 16 U 17 U, so we were playing 18 u and I was the shortstop on this 18 U team that was a really good competitive team. We went around, played quite a few people, and I hit leadoff and played shortstop as a 16-year-old. And that was the first summer where I looked around and I thought, I think I’m the best player on the field. Whether I was or not, I don’t know. But that’s how I felt. And that was my dad was a college baseball coach and he was breathing that kind of same energy in a very healthy way. He still coached my tail off, but he was encouraging me that I was developing well and I was running good. So anyway, that was when I first started thinking, I think I can play this game at a pretty high level. 

Yeah, absolutely. So you talk about we’re the advent of what has now become obviously much bigger in the travel baseball scene, in the travel baseball world, but you did talk about getting together with some better players from around your area, I’m guessing, right? Traveling around a little bit. 

Yeah. 

What benefit do you think that debt did have on your development as a player? 

Yeah, I certainly don’t want to be a hater on the current model. I mean, my kids are, I got my Vipers t-shirt on. I’m associated with a travel organization and I know that’s your world and there’s a lot of great benefits to travel baseball. It’s not all the negative narrative that people painted out to be. And really, I was a part of a group called Louisville Thunder that was kind of on the front end, and this really to that point, the only travel baseball was Legion Ball. And a guy by the name of Jim Powell, along with my dad and a few other dads, put together a team called Louisville Thunder. And we played a bunch of games against Lexington was kind of out in front of us in this, and Lexington had an organization called the Dixie Stars. Austin Kerns was a part of that group. 

They had a lot of really talented players coming out of Lexington at that period of time. So we used to do battle, but a lot of the best players from Louisville were leaving Louisville to go play in this kind of travel model. Well, this guy started, we kept a bunch of kids home, and so we had a good team. And as the University of Louisville’s proven, Louisville’s got a nice group of players as they’ve won with some of their homegrown kids. And I think the biggest thing for me was you get out of your zip code and you play against the team and somebody goes, that kid’s going to Mississippi State. Somebody goes, that kid’s going North Carolina. I remember the first time I faced a kid that I was told was going to a division one, I remember facing a left hand was going to North Carolina. 

And I just remember thinking North Carolina like, wow, that doesn’t even feel real. And he was 88 to 90 with a breaking ball, and he carved me up my first at bat, and I came back in the dugout and dad was like, you better get used to it. You keep telling me at that time I wanted to go to Alabama or LSU, like you keep telling me you want to play at Alabama or LSU, you better get used to it. That’s what it looks like. And so playing against high level competition, being on the field with kids that were going to major division one schools, it’s a very good feeling out process. How do I stack up? How competitive am i? Am I able to make the adjustments necessary to have a good or bad against a kid with this kind of stuff? So that part of it was just a blast. 

Different to me, the post puberty piece of travel baseball is much, or at least the mid puberty, post puberty, not to get weird to the conversation, but 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, even the opposition can’t present that many problems. The ball’s not moving that fast. The pitchers can only do so much with it. The bats are juice, the fields are small. There’s just not as many problems that can be presented. Soon as you get on a 60 90 field and you’re playing against kids that are starting to play the game like men now, a lot of times you got to stretch your wings and see what’s out there and you got to see left-hand breaking balls. You got to see pickoff moves, you got to see sliders, you got to see, you know what I’m saying? And so now the travel piece to see what’s out there I think becomes a much more important part of the journey. I’m not saying all travel 8, 9, 10, 11 is bad. I’m not saying that. I’m just saying it becomes much more important as you get into that 14 to 17-year-old phase. 

They’re definitely two distinct worlds, I think. Right? And I think that they should be looked at that right pre big field post big field. That’s obviously the separator. And I think one thing that obviously from major league baseball all the way down that we’d like to try to make a dent in is making the retirement age a little bit later. The retirement age of a current baseball player is around 11 years old. And so if the retirement age of a baseball player is 11 years old, that’s hurting our future coaches, our future fans of the game, all those types of things. So I think that there are definitely two distinct worlds in this travel ball place as you described, Chris, I think that’s really, really good. So you realize I’m going to be pretty good at this thing sophomore year in high school. You end up finding your way to the University of Tennessee. 

I think this will kind of get us to the next part of this conversation, which is really talking about, I think one of your big passions is player development and hitting and what that looks like in preparation for this. I was noting that you went from, I think it was two home runs your first year, four your second year to 20, your junior year, and leading Tennessee to the World Series SEC Player of the Year, first round draft pick that year. Is there anything in there? There’s got to be something unpack, right? Going from four to 20 average jumped up, I think about 50 points. Is there anything in there that happened that you can share with us? 

Yeah, I look back at it, there’s a lot to that. The first thing I would say is, and this is an interesting thing, I think a lot of our audience would agree, maybe some of the younger folks that are listening maybe don’t even realize this, but when I was growing up, the biggest thing in the game of baseball from an individual record as a hitter was the batting title. 

Everybody wanted to win the batting title. I had the highest batting average, and I love analytics. Give me as many numbers as you can give me. I’m going to sort through ’em and tell you the ones I like and tell you the ones I don’t like doesn’t make me right. That’s just my ideal. I try to walk in the middle of the old school, new school, and I understand, and I tell kids this all day, the batting average can very much be the devil of this game. You can become obsessed with your batting average to the point of it defines how you view your success. And we know that batting average has an insane amount of circumstance involved with it. And I’ve had to have this conversation with my boys a thousand times. That being said, I still don’t know any hitter that doesn’t like to get a hit when they go up to bat. It’s the most basic fundamental day. I go up to bat, I want to get a hit now I like to get hard hits. I like to hit line drive hits. But to be honest with you, I’ll take any hit you give. I was a hit. Go ahead. You look like you say something. 

I was going to say, you ask any hitter, not any, but you ask 90% of hitters, you’re going to get this answer. Would you rather hit a ball 102 on the barrel right at the center field or on a line, or would you rather hit a bleeder over the second baseman’s head and get on base and they’re going to be like, give me that bleeder. Give 

Me the, I just want hit. I just want to hit please. I just want to hit. I want to go two for three. I want to go three for four. Who doesn’t want that right now? Again, we know why the analytics exists. Reaching first base is just a means to an end. And you can do that with a walk. I get it. Obviously, the harder you hit it, the more consistently you hit it hard over a long stretch of the season, you’re probably going to be a better hitter than a guy that’s not hitting it that hard, that consistently we get all that. I’m just saying, I grew up a hit collector. I just give me hits. I want as many hits as I could possibly have. To me, that was the whole thing I want to hit. Now, I did hit home runs my whole youth career. 

I was a guy that once I got to a level of strength at whatever age I was at, I barreled the ball up a lot and I had a pretty good flat, slightly upward path. So when I barreled it up, the ball usually went and I had double digit home runs through my high school career. But I got to Tennessee, that was the first year the bats changed my freshman year in Tennessee, the bats went from two and three and minus five to two and five eighths barrel and minus three. Now, in today’s world, they would still be considered, I don’t know. I don’t know what’s happening to today’s world. It’s pretty close nowadays. I say numbers have kind of gone back to my generation, not the previous generation. But anyway, the bats were still good, but they weren’t crazy. They were in the mid to late nineties, the gorilla ball, right? 

So the fields obviously were bigger than in high school, and the bats were a little deader, and I was a freshman and I was hitting lead off and let me just get a million hits. I’m just trying to get hits, and I was successful. So my freshman year, I think I hit whatever, 3 75 or something in my sophomore year, I hit over 400, I hit 4 0 3, and I set the school record for hits, and I stole 50 something bases and I was going to play for team USA, and I made the All American team, and I thought things were great. And Coach Damon, I just so thankful for his ability. I tell this to coaches all the time, don’t be afraid to coach your best players. I think sometimes in baseball, we’re so scared, this guy’s really good. Let me not mess ’em up. Because what happens is kids, no disrespect because I’ve been there too, it’s easy to use a coach as an alibi. 

Oh, he messed with my swing. We see this in pro ball a lot. Nobody wants to coach a first rounder because nobody wants to be the guy who messed up a first rounder. And so part of my story, and the reason I’m passionate about teaching is because I’m a product of great coaching, and my dad certainly was a huge piece of that. But in college, I set the freshman record for hits. I then on the next year, I set the school record for hits. I’m getting all these hits. I’m hitting for this crazy high average, and I was hitting a lot of doubles. But Coach Damon comes up to me and he goes, Hey man, I have to been waiting all year to tell you this. You got some juice in there that you’re not using because you don’t get loaded at all. Your hands are leaking with your stride. 

I just had the bat right here. And as I would stride, I was a front foot guy, high hand eye coordination, high bat to ball skills, and I would just flick and I would figure it out on the way to the ball. I was disconnected a lot, butt out, one-handed base hits, and it never really like, what’s wrong with that? I’m getting a bunch of hits. What’s wrong with this? He was like, dude, if you could get loaded up, stay on your backside a little bit longer, give yourself some time to recognize the breaking ball. Quit swinging at so many marginal pitches outside the zone, even if you’re getting hits, that’s not a great way to make a living at the next level. So I’m not going to tell you how to do it, but I’m going to send you out. Go make that team in the games, do what you’ve always done, why you’re on this team. 

They want you to be a lead off hitter and play middle infield. But I want you to spend the summer watching Mark Erra and watching Ryan Howard watching and Xavier Na. You guys are going to be in some big league ballparks. Watch those guys. Figure out a way to get your hands into a position where when your foot’s down, you’re what I would say now, coiled up and ready to roll, really ready in a position to make your best swing. So what’s funny is I spent that summer watching a bunch of people, and one day we’re in LA and we’re going to play at Dodger Stadium the next day, and we’re watching the Rockies play the Dodgers. And of course, Todd Hilton was somewhat new in his career at that point in time, but was dominating the league. I mean, it was as good as any hitter as there was in the game. 

And if you remember Hilton Hands, real high leg kick. And of course he’s the Tennessee legend. And Coach Damongo was always shoving him in my face all the time. And I’m like, let me watch this dude. And I just was like, well, let me try that. My thing was I was trying to start where my hands had already had always started and then make a different move from there. I was like, I probably need to get my hands in a different spot and I’m not going to hit from here. I’m not going to leak forward from here. They got to go somewhere from there. So all of a sudden I started leg kicking and I moved my hands up here above my helmet and I’m doing in bp, and I’m like, this kind of feels good. Come back that fall. And I’m not kidding you, Matt, it was all I could do to hit a ball out in batting practice. 

My first two years of Tennessee, my buddies used to give me a hard time. I mean, I hit a few on runs, but not many people would know know this, but Tennessee is like 15 or 20 feet shorter now than it was then. It used to be one of the biggest parks in the SEC. But through renovations, the home plate’s been moved out. They left the wall and they moved home plate out. We had huge left center field gap. So I had a bunch of triples, but it was a big old ballpark. It was like 405 feet out there in lip center field. So anyway, all of a sudden I’m hitting ball out of ballpark in fall practice. And I remember on scout day, I hit like 11 or 12 straight balls out and my teammates were looking at me and Coach Damon’s shaking his head. 

And so I told my dad, I said, dad, I’m going with this. And I just remember he said to me, he goes, don’t forget who you are. I get it, but don’t forget who you are. Well, I went from 4 0 3 to 4 35. So my average went up and I went from four homers to 20 homers and a bunch of other numbers on top of that. That increased, not decreased. Now, I probably did strike out more just being honest, but I walked more also. And the net was I probably went from being a mid second rounder to the 10th pick of the draft. And so I always tell people, coach Delco made me a million dollars. He did just by having the balls, the challenge, right? Not C to coach me. Coach me. That’s right. And so my point is twofold. Number one, he wasn’t afraid to coach me and he coached me with the right information. What he told me was correct, and he had the video to prove it. He my nobody was using video back then, but he put the video up, he’s like, I want you to watch her. And if he didn’t show me, I wouldn’t have believed him. I’d be like, is this guy serious? I rake, what is this guy talking about? And then number two, so he wasn’t to coach me. He coached me with the right information. But then the second part of that is, and I credit my parents for this, I was coachable. 

It takes two to dance. And so he wasn’t afraid to coach me and I wanted to get better. I actually believed him. I’d hit home runs in my pass. I thought I could hit the ball of the ballpark a little bit more. And I was okay with changing. I wasn’t afraid to change. I thought it would make me better. So you look back on that and say you put those two things together and my junior year was one to remember. 

Yeah, I’ve got two little tidbits that I’d like to throw out there based on that conversation, that story. Number one, as a hitting coach, one thing that I’ve always done, obviously you played it a lot higher level. I’ve had the opportunity to live in Orlando, Florida and get the coach. A lot of really good players. The first thing I always did with a kid is I tell ’em, Hey, I want you to get in the cage the first time you hit with me and I want you to pretend you’re playing wiffle ball in the backyard. What would that look like to you? And I’m not saying that’s how we’re going to swing, but what does the freedom to move, how your body wants to move that I typically have worked with older kids, Chris, and I think that from what I’ve seen in my own life, it might be a small microcosm, but I see a lot of over coached and over mechanical swings at a young age and the ability to free that kid up and to let him move how he naturally moves. Obviously there’s going to be things that you’ve got to do, but I think when I heard you say, I got my hands up, a motorcycle leg kick, whatever it might have been, not big, but I let it 

Was big. 

You look at a guy like you who’s twitchy, who moves well, right? In my mind, that is what you want, right? That is what you want. And another thing that ringed true to me is we hear a lot of ex-players in your generation, my generation, I heard you say that you had the really good swing path right in the zone for a long time, slightly uphill, slightly is a really important word. Do you feel like growing up that you thought you had that or do you feel like growing up you thought you were more this way, trying to be on top a little bit, putting that belt on, right? What would you say? No, 

I’d say my dad always. My dad was one of those guy, I always say I’m thankful for a lot of things about the way my dad raised me. But one of those was as a hitting guy, he just always said the word level. I’ve played with some of the best in the world that think down for me, level always made sense. Now we know now that the bat isn’t level. It should move up. And when I say we know now, Ted Williams said it 60 years ago, it’s really not new. The path of the bat should move slightly up. 8, 10, 12 degrees. There’s some guys that’ve been doing it at a higher attack angle in the modern game, the bat should move up. I think the feel is what matters, right? Feel and real. And what do you need to feel to produce good ball flight? 

I think the genius of a coach, I think some of my best coaching jobs as a coach is where I’ve just thrown the KBP. You’re swinging awesome. And you know how I know that? Watch the ball. The ball doesn’t lie. Your feeling will. Your feelings will lie to you. Your mind’s eye will lie to you. The ball will not lie to you. Watch the ball. And I had this long conversation with kid the other day. There’s never been a hitter a hundred years ago or today that didn’t concern himself with how hard he was hitting the ball and the flight the ball was taking, never, never. Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Lou Gehrig, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Albert ols, Mike Trout, they all are trying to hit the ball hard and with the flight that they choose to use to practice at. And the greats, Freddy Freeman likes it. 

One hoppers a shortstop. Who am I to tell Freddy Freeman how he should spend his batting practice? What I know is when you turn on the tape in the game, the guy’s a barrel fest and he’s in a bunch of rockets. You know what I’m saying? Whereas other hitters are a little more loose with their bp, they’re going to try to hit every ball into the seats if they’re, I remember Matt Holiday telling me he’s trying to hit the ball in the opposite field, bullpen every swing. So not an opposite field, one hopper and the opposite field bullpen. He’s trying to hit the ball out to right center. Whatever that ball flight is. I still don’t know hitters. And again, you get the occasional guy. Most hitters don’t like making outs, so they don’t like practicing outs. So I tell kids all the time, I’ve never seen a shooter miss free throws, like practice missing free throws. 

We’re going to try to get line drive hits. And you go to most cages, depending on how tall your cages are, a 15 degree, the highline drive at college and pro baseball is the highest batting average there is. What’s a 15 degree highline drive is pretty much just over the infielders. Or if a pitcher’s standing on the mound, it’s over his head. Now that’s not a new thing to tell a kid that’s 15 degrees high is a new thing. But to tell him to hit a line drive over the infield is not a new thing. And I tell coaches this all the time, more than you think. It hasn’t changed as much as you think it has. If you were ever telling kids to not hit line drives through the infield, you were wrong. And if you’re telling them to not hit ’em, now you’re probably wrong with the exception of the occasional uber talented kid. But even those kids, I still think most of those kids would do well to practice line drives over the infield head and just say that a homer in a game is a line drive. My dad, as long as I can remember, used to tell me a home, a line drive you just missed. And science has proven that over, and I know the swing isn’t level, but the thought 

Of being in an athletic posture and feeling the bat, stay square and notice my hands now moving up. But in my mind, man, I’m just trying to get the bat to the zone and keep it there. And if I maintain an athletic posture, that bat’s going to work up on its own. 

So yeah, the bat’s moving up, but really I’m trying to hit the middle of the ball with the middle of the bat. So my dad never told me to hit ground balls and I could run. He we’re trying to hit line drives and we’re trying to be line drive machines, and we didn’t really talk about what our misses look like. That’s not a line drive. Let’s do it again. That’s not a line drive. Let’s do it again. And I just think exit velocity and launch angle are just fancier ways to measure. They’re not new that we’re just measuring and have terms around what’s your ball flight and how hard did you hit it? 

Exactly. 

It’s not as new as it feels like it’s, and what’s new, Matt, is that we now have these things that can give us some of that feedback and we can get slow motion video to tell somebody, this is why you’re not hitting enough line drops, or This is why your body’s not moving well enough to get to what I think your peak exit velocity could be 

Correct. 

But the measurement of those two things, while it sounds new, is two things hitters have always done. I hit that ball hard and I hit it on a line. That’s not a new thing. 

And the crazy thing for me about hitting, we have not, you can, we have hacked the kinetic chain when it comes to pitching, right? Guys are consistently, maybe it’s not throwing harder. I think there’s arguments that the radar guns are a little bit different in the way that they work, but I would argue that there are more guys doing it than there were 

Definitely, definitely 

20 years ago. So on the pitching side, a hundred percent right. You look at the hitting side, I use the analogy a lot. You could have, this is probably an over exaggeration, but you could have the worst mechanical swing in the world and be on time with those mechanics and hit. So timing to me is one of the most important things when it comes to a hitter, right? Being on time, swinging at good pitches. So again, you could have the most beautiful swing in the world. Your kinetic chain matches up perfectly, your barrel speed, your acceleration are top 5% in the country, but you can’t figure out how to swing at good pitches or beyond time. It doesn’t matter, right? It doesn’t matter. So there is still this innate, 

Well, now we’re into the hand-eye coordination piece, which is, it’s kind of the secret sauce that that’s the one thing as instructors, I can’t give you good eyes. I can’t do that. And that part of it is what you’re saying, which you can have an ugly saying If you got great eyes, great depth perception and the ability to make adjustments that trumps mechanics any day of the week. 

Absolutely. And something that you can’t, you’re born with it. Yes. But I do think there are things out there that you can work 

With. Train your eyes for sure. 

Train your eyes. I think small things I love to do drills where when we’re doing front toss, if you’re a good hitter, you should be squaring every ball up on front toss, right? You shouldn’t be missing front toss. So let’s challenge ourselves. Let’s swing at two seams only, right? Let’s swing in zone six or seven only, right? Things like that that I think that for our listeners, 

Change speeds. I like to change speeds, change speeds on front to like, Hey bro, I keep getting you on every changeup on front toss and you’re going to go get a real dude. I don’t know about that, 

But I think training the mind for our listeners, for those coaches, for those parents, for the kids that are listening, taking the opportunity that within your training sessions that you are doing things that are obviously you’ve got to work on the way that you move and how your barrel’s moving through the zone. Super important. But don’t neglect the opportunities early in your sessions to really focus on what your eyes are seeing whether you’re making good swing decisions. I think those things are really, really important. 

And I think everybody has to prioritize. Most of my clients I see once a week for 30 minutes, and I usually attack my sessions. If this is the only 30 minutes this kid gets to train, what’s the most important thing I can work on him with? Now I got some elite hitters I know are, I’ll see Daylon Lyle today. He’s hitting six days a week, maybe seven. We’re going to work on different things. I mean, we’re still very concerned about our ball flight, but we’re going to work on some different things than a kid who I know maybe this is the only, maybe he’s in basketball season and this is the only time he’s working, right? So those are two different things. But there is instructing 1 0 1 and there’s instructing 4 0 1, and it’s our job to know where is each kid at? And some kids, just like you’re saying, they need to learn how to move and you got to prioritize that. But some kids that are already moving pretty well at that point, then we got to make the ball change speeds and change levels and change trajectories and whatever. Our ability to either do that personally, whether it’s me pitching to ’em or use machines to help with that. I agree. It’s very important part of the development process. 

Absolutely. Again, I’m just going to make an announcement for all of our attendees. Anybody here, if you’ve got any questions, question and answer button there at the bottom, you can click. We got probably about 15 more minutes of our conversation then try to get some of your questions. So Chris, let’s talk about you see it every day from whether it’s you coaching your boys, being part of the Vipers program up to your analyst job with ESPN, I think I’d like to start from the top and work our way down, and this can go a million different ways, but what are some of the biggest changes that you are seeing at the apex of college baseball, which is obviously the SEC that you think parents and players should know about? 

Where would you like me to go with that? We want to talk transfer portal. We want to talk. Let me tell you what I don’t think has changed. What hasn’t changed is that let’s just talk position players, coaches want position players that are athletic and that have grit. I would just tell you those two things. Now, sometimes the recruiting process is harder to 

Vet out the grit, 

To vet out the grit, but that’s where some of the better travel programs continue to send their players to certain places because the coaching staffs at those schools trust the, if Kevin O’Sullivan calls Matt Gerber for a player, the recommendation that Matt Gerber gives holds weight. He trusts what Matt Gerber says about ex-player makeup. And also travel organizations have gotten to a place now where they know this kid, probably it’s not going to work good there. And that’s not necessarily always good or bad, it’s just can be some different strokes for different folks as it pertains to certain types of programs. But I do think across the board, coaches are seeking athleticism and they’re seeking players that can deal with the immense failure and pressure of the game at its highest level. And the sport of college baseball has always been insanely competitive at its highest level. 

You asked me to talk about it at its apex, which is where I cover it. I’m blessed to do that, but it’s never been more so than now. Players are literally making six figures. Literally the best players are making hundreds of thousands of dollars to beat good baseball players. That is just the truth. And the coaches are making millions of dollars and all the games are on TV and dudes like me are talking about. So there’s never been more pressure. So because of that, the journey to making sure that as a parent and as coaches, you are developing kids that are ready for the mental stress of playing in that environment, it couldn’t be more important. And that’s not a black and white equation on how to develop that, but just know failure is your friend and you better learn to tell kids to accept it and figure out how to deal with it. 

Or they got no shot to play in that kind of ring. Because when you step into that arena, I cried in the, I went one for 14 against Louisville the third weekend of my freshman year, second, third weekend of my freshman year, I won 14. I cried my eyes out in the stands after everybody had left. Me and my dad were just sitting in the stands. I made sure everybody left. I’m crying my eyes out, dad, I don’t know if I’m good enough. He’s like, well, you better figure it out. I think you are, but you better figure it out. And those are the kind of moments where you’re like, rubber meets the road, whatcha going to do tomorrow? You going to show up to the cage? You’re going to stay in your room. So I say that not with empathy, because I’ve been there, but every kid, every big leaguer has had a moment where they wonder, am I good enough? 

Am I good enough? Am I actually cut out for this? And your ability to answer that question and dig it out of the dirt, as Ben Hogan would say, will be your ability to make it. And so no matter how fancy the game gets with the metrics that we use to play to judge players, that competitive grit is just a non-negotiable to make it. Now, you might get there without it. You might get there without it, but to stay there, it’s probably not going to last. And also the coaches are now, they can recruit over you in the blink of an eye. So you better be ready for the fight on your way in. Because it used to be if a coach gave you a big scholarship and there was no transfer portal, you might get two years to find your way. Now, first of all, there’s half a dozen dudes on campus that are already fighting for your job, and if the coach doesn’t think any of you are good, he’ll get a new batch the next year. And oh, by the way, that’s not his fault. That’s the rules that the way they’re set up. And if he doesn’t win, he gets fired. So he’s got to tell his kids they’re moving. So don’t blame. It’s not the coach’s fault either, right? So I would just say that being ready for the fight and being okay with the fight. So what does that mean for travel sports? 

Again, this is going to sound judgmental. How many kids we’ve got that have already played with half a dozen organizations by the time they’re 15 years old, you’re leaving, you want a perfect fit? Well, you think college is going to be a perfect fit. You think when you get into pro ball, you’re going to find a perfect fit, you think? I hate to say it. You think they’re worried about your feelings. They’re not. So again, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t some situations that aren’t good and you do need to get out. I get it. But every once in a while, you got to hang in there and fight for a job every once in a while. And so I would just encourage people, I know we got some people that are all different places. Also, I would encourage people, if your kid’s playing their primary position on a place that’s good for ’em and they’re playing a pretty competitive schedule, you might not need to go chase the high end of the travel ball. 

That’s a good place for your kid. Let him play his primary position. You go play for one of these halves on the travel circuit, and you might end up playing left field, half the game for half the games. And I’m not saying that’s wrong either, but there it’s complicated. And I know I’m rambling, but I would just say, you asked me what’s changed the most. I went with what hasn’t changed, which you better be, and matter of fact, maybe even more so you better be ready for the fight. Now, what has changed the most kind of coincides with what I said, which is in some regards, the mid-majors have become the minor leagues for the power fives. And so if the dream is power five, which by the way, there’s a million paths to the big leagues. So I hope kids aren’t just limiting themselves to that, 

And they should definitely be looking at that, right? I think that’s a really important thing. And it’s hard because the apex of college baseball is the SEC, you cannot argue that, right? You’ve got kids from all over the country, that’s where they want to be. That’s where the money is, right? That’s right. That’s also the top 1% of high school baseball players, probably even smaller percentile than that. I think I saw something the other day. I think it was like 270 kids got recruited in the SEC last year, right? That’s kind of the number. But two things that I want to say is, one is there’s many different paths to the big leagues. In fact, many of the big leaguers I’ve had the opportunity to coach, yes, you’ve got your Dylan Cruises of the world are dominating against boom, boom, boom, 

Boom, right? Boom, 

Boom, boom, boom, all play up. But there’s actually more stories of the kid that was left-handed pitcher throwing 69 miles an hour as a freshman, who ends up working his tail off. And I won’t name the kid’s name. You guys can look him up, ends up at AAU there for three years as a fifth round a U has been the big leagues for eight years as a starting pitcher for the Colorado Rockies. And there’s a lot more like that for sale. A guy that played for me, same thing, right? Kind of nothing, nothing, nothing. I don’t know if 

You work with Shael, but Shael was, where was he out of high school. Can’t run all that good. His position is his power elite. Next thing you know, the guy’s already in the big leagues, 

First guy, the big leagues, right? Yeah, absolutely. So Trey Turner’s another great example of that, right? 

Everybody missed one, right? Chris? Hard found him. Yeah, 

A hundred percent, right? So again, for the players, the parents that are listening to this, yes, there should always be goals like Chris is saying, and the SEC is the ultimate goal as it should be, right? But at the same time, there are different paths to get to where you want to be. And if we’re talking as a whole, the goal of playing college baseball still puts you, whether you’re at the NAI level junior college level, whether you’re at the division one, division two level, you’re still in the top 5% of high school baseball players 

And major League baseball doesn’t care. They don’t care. But I would say the similar analogy to that is college baseball coaches really don’t care who your travel team is. They’re looking for traits. You know what I’m saying? Major league baseball doesn’t care who your college program is, and college baseball doesn’t really care who your travel ball program is. They are looking for traits and it starts in your chest and in your mind, and then it obviously overflows by the way you move. And whether that’s a pitcher or a hitter, your ability to throw and command the baseball as a hitter, your ability to impact the baseball and control the barrel, and then can you play a position and can you run all these things matter a ton. But what they really don’t care is the name on the front of the jersey. They really don’t. I mean, damn, McDonald’s and neighbor of mine, he lives just right the street. We talk about it all the time. And now that doesn’t mean that playing for one of the top premier programs is evil either. If that’s your deal and you want to be in every big circuit, if that’s your family’s best thing for y’all, go for it. I’m just saying it’s not a prerequisite to making it. No, 

I think, but I will challenge this part of it. I think that the relationships are really important. Whatever the name is, is the guy that’s coaching you, whether you are the major division one guy, whether you’re the division two guy, does he, have you started the conversation? Does he have the relationships with the coaches that we trust 

That matters 

When that phone’s picked up? Because at the end of the day, I think that there’s this conception that exposure equals recruitment exposure does not equal recruitment. First of all, being good enough. I think currently exposure equals being exposed 

If you’re not ready for it, for sure. 

Right? Exactly. But the real equation, if we’re writing it on a chalkboard, is how you want to quantify it. Being ready plus the right people around you equals recruitment. So I think that that combination of being ready plus being with people that can move the needle for you is really important to reaching. 

And I appreciate you making that. I’m not saying that there aren’t programs and people that can really help. A hundred percent. I’m not, but I tell kids all the time, I can call this coach for you, but that’s it. Once he comes to your camp, perform 

Once he to 

You better perform, you better play good, right? Nobody’s giving you a scholarship offer, especially in today’s climate, because I told him that I think you’re good. That ain’t the way this deal 

Goes. And for those listening, if guys aren’t giving a scholarship based on what Chris Burke is saying, if anybody out there selling you that, we’re going to get you a scholarship because you’re playing for me, they’re lying to your face. 

And that’s back. Now we’re back to the traits conversation. That’s really what I meant, which is there are people that can certainly make life easier and streamline the process for you. No doubt about it. I can put you in front of a coach. There is no doubt about it. Once he watches you, he better like what he sees. And to their degree, it’s like I tell people all the time, tomato, tomato, some of these guys like certain traits, some of these guys are interested in some other traits, and that’s why recruiting can be very messy and the Nolan Sheels of the world can get missed. That’s how it

Happens. There’s no doubt about that. I remember about, it was probably about 10 years ago, I had a SEC pitching coach come up to one of our games when I was still coaching travel baseball. And we had a kid who in my mind was probably our ninth or 10th best arm, and he walks up, he’s throwing the tail end of a pool play game, and we’re up by eight runs and he’s out and he’s just ripping breaking balls. And this was before spin rates or anything, but you could just tell that thing’s falling off the table. Now he was skinny and 85, but he was just ripping, breaking balls, ripping them. And this SEC pitching coach comes up and his words were, I want that breaking ball. I want that breaking ball. And so he committed them, ended up going to, it was Mississippi State and having a really, really good career for them out of the bullpen, ripping the breaking ball. In my mind, that’s our eight best arm. If you asked me who’s going to go in. But he had that one pitch that they wanted and needed. And you look at a guy like cops a couple of years ago, I mean, that one pitch was just right. So again, what I would take out of that to those listening is also find what you do well and continue to refine that, right, and focus and do that really well. Not to neglect the other parts of your game, but the people out there that can do everything well, those are the guys that are playing shortstop or center field or second base or catching as the majority of kids do what you do well, fine with you, do well, and really continue to do that and make that the centerpiece of your game. I think it’s really important. 

And I would just, again, I tell the kids I coach all the time, if you love playing the game, love it enough to go wherever you can play and just give yourself a chance to keep developing. Because people, I mean, Brandon Fought is pitching in the World Series from Louisville, Kentucky who went to Trinity High School, which is, I mentioned Len Lyle earlier. It’s a hotbed of star talent in the area, and yet he didn’t play Louisville, Kentucky. He’s at Beman, and this dude’s pitching in the World Series at 24 years old, kids get missed, people develop late. Some of the best players in the world are the ones that carry chip on their shoulder from being overlooked or being underdeveloped at an early age. Again, I played it at the highest level. I’d love for my kids to get a chance to play in the SEC if they’re good enough, but if they’re not, I’d tell ’em, go to this D three school, grind your tail off. 

Be a part of a team. Take coaching. Get in the weight room. Learn how to manage your schedule. And wherever you go in life, that’s going to serve you well. And who knows, maybe you’re the late bloomer kid who somebody notices because the world’s smaller than it’s ever been. There’s not a whole lot of secrets in the scouting world anymore. So a lot of different paths to the big leagues. But I would just say if your goal is a power five, certainly an SEC Power five man, you better be ready for the fight. That’s all I can say. You probably didn’t expect me to go there, but that’s the only place I can go because it a pressure cooker. That’s just the only way you can put it. 

Yeah, and I think it’s great advice because everybody talks about the portal. Everybody talks about NIL, right? At the end of the day, those things come or go, whichever, whatever side of it you’re based on your ability to handle that pressure, right? And the guys that can handle that pressure, the ones that can play the game, I think as close to a big leaguer does wherever you, some guys play down here, some guys play up here. But wherever that is, you better stay with it all the time. If you’re Drew Gilbert and you’re playing with your hair on fire, you better play with your hair on fire 

Ever. That’s what makes you great. That’s right, exactly. And you got to be able to be coached like the whole coach doesn’t like me. Coach is hard on me, coach. I’m just telling you. Good luck in that league. Good luck. If you’re scared to be coached and you’re afraid to be talked to in a way that might hurt your feelings, good luck. Those dudes are coaching for their jobs. So good luck. 

One last question for you, and this one could hopefully we can condense it and not keep you too much over time. I know you got a life to live, but if there was such a thing and you were the commissioner of travel baseball, youth travel baseball, what’s one thing that just kind of comes to mind that you would do as the commissioner of that space? 

I would try to, well, this is, 

It’s a good one. What 

A loaded question. I would say, 

I think the part on a very practical level that frustrates me is the Tuesday to Sunday piece. Kids are spending their whole summer in a hotel to play one game a day, and it feels like there’s a better, I’m not saying don’t travel, and I’m not saying the big events aren’t great. They are, and I’m sure if I was a tournament director, I would see it through a different lens. The point is the play good. We say the whole point’s exposure. How am I getting better sitting in the hotel playing Fortnite the whole day and then going to the field for two hours? There has to be a better way than that. And again, I don’t have the answer, so I don’t want to be a guy that’s just crushing the current model, but it feels like the best players in the world. I tell my son this all the time. 

Corey Seger is going to take today, not in December, but if we’re in the middle of July, Corey Seeger today is going to go through his hitting routine, which is going to take 30 to 45 minutes and he is going to go out onto the field. He’s going to take 10 routine ground balls. He’s going to take 10 backhand, he’s going to take 10 forehand. He’s going to take 10 slow rollers, he’s going to feed 10 double plays. He’s going to turn 10 double plays. He’s probably going to catch a half a dozen popups over his head. Then he is going to hit on the field, then he is going to go back in and get something to eat. Then he’s going to probably get a few more swings. Then he is going to go play the game. He’s already the best shortstop in the world. 

He’s already the best in the world, and that’s his Tuesday. Yet what did we do today? We sat in a hotel room, swam in the pool, and I know these kids aren’t pros yet, but the ones that are investing again, post puberty, 15, 16, 17 years old. I had a kid the other day that came into my cage and he’s playing on this blah blah, and I was like, what’s your goal for colleges? I’m not sure if I want to play. I went, what the heck are you doing here? You’re 16 years old and you’re on that tribal organization. You’re on my case. You’re not sure if you want to play college baseball. I might need to call mom and dad. I’m not saying there’s no experiential value in what you’re doing, but this is a lot of money, time and energy spent if the goal is not to play college baseball. And so it’s like the development piece is more important than the one game a day piece. And I know everybody says that. What does it look like? But I just think when the tournaments are set up to go Tuesday to Sunday, how do we actually do that? 

Yeah, I think, 

I don’t know, could the tournaments allow for more time and space for kids to get practice time, but they’re using all their fields for games. So I don’t know what the answer to that. You probably know more than me on that. But that’s the one thing, and again, I know that’s real granular, but when you get into the summertime and I’m coaching some of these kids and you’re just like, man, you’ve been on the road for four weeks. How many ground balls have you taken in that period of time other than the three you got hit last game? 

I think there’s a couple ways to tackle it, Chris. And I think there are some orgs that do a really, really good job of it, which is that they do. They’re going to go out instead of just showing up at the, and we’re talking about the elite, the 17 elite kind of players. Instead of showing up an hour before the game at the cage, they’re going to find an offsite somewhere and they’re going to going to go take a college style BP where they’re taking ground balls and hitting ground balls with their guys and moving around and being a part of that. I think. So I think that there’s a way to do it. There’s obviously, and this is why the diamond allegiance exists, right? There’s also a way to reimagine it and how should it be done? And think about as we are able to bring together people like the Vipers organization that you’re a part of, and the members of that we have together is to come up with ways to do it better. So I think that I’m excited about where that’s going to be. You’ll see that from some things that we’re doing this summer, but I think it’s a really interesting piece and something that comes up a lot. And at the end of the day, kids, parents that are listening, you’re in a current construct as that construct exists, think about ways that you can get better surrounding those days when you are at the hotel for five days. And that’s part of what you’ve got to do right now. Take it upon yourself if you have to continue. 

Every hotel has a weight room. Everyone has a parking lot. Like you said, there are neighborhood fields around. You can’t just sit in a hotel for five days a week. You just can’t. 

Yeah, absolutely. 

But the money associated with that, it’s hard for me to wrap my, especially as a parent who’s about to go through it four different times, that part just feels tough on the youth side at the lower ages, what I would say, having just gone through, that oldest boy is now 14, but I got 11, I got eight that’s just starting. I got a 5-year-old that’s right around the corner and you’re like, one of the things that I had the hardest time with going through that with my oldest boy is like, why can’t we just play good verse good on a Sunday afternoon? Why can’t we play two Saturday and one on Sunday? Again, you got to find a field, but experiences matter and it is cool to play new teams and new environments. It is fun to play for a trophy. I’m not going to discount that, but we had this one team and it was like we would go all these different places and we’d end up playing them. How about us? Why don’t we just go play? 

You know what I’m saying? But we can’t get our schedules matched up and they want to go here. We want to go there. What field are we going to play at? But I think some of that at the younger levels is, and we have a league in town that I thought did a pretty good job of that this past year with my, he was 10 last year would be 11 this year where they played some Wednesday games and it was a lot of the best teams in their age group at that time, they played on a Wednesday afternoon. Nobody’s playing for a trophy. It’s just, you have a good team, we have a good team. Let’s play a baseball game. I think that part’s hard is when you drive two and a half hours to play a team that’s in your same zip code. I think. 

I agree. I think you are seeing more and more of that pop up at the end of the day in any industry and travel sports as a whole, the ance, we were meeting with some of our partners at NBC sports over the weekend and travel sports as a whole, by the end of this decade will be an 80 billion industry. So it is an industry and industry’s change. And if you look at travel sports as a whole, it’s an infant of an industry. It really is 10, maybe 15 years old. So it hasn’t even had the chance for the market really to talk back and say, this is what we want and this is what we need. But I do think you’re starting to see more and more of that. So, well, Chris, I took you five minutes over time. I certainly appreciate your time. You fire me up. It’s a really, really great conversation. Thanks for taking the time out of this Monday and hopefully offline we can talk soon. Yeah, my pleasure man. Thanks for what you guys are doing for the game. Appreciate Chris. Alright, thanks. Have a great one.

Chuck Jeroloman University of Florida Interview about College Travel and Pro Baseball

All right everybody. Thanks again for tuning in. My name is Matt Gerber, the executive director of the Diamond Allegiance. I’m excited for today’s conversations conversation with one of my good friends, coach Chuck Jarman from the University of Florida. Chuck, appreciate you joining me today, brother. 

Yeah, glad to be here, Curtis. 

Yeah, man. Well, let’s just jump right in. I think it’s always a fun story to kind of tell. Obviously you’re at the apex of college baseball, smack dab in the middle of the SEC playing for a national championship last year. Tell me the story about how you got to where you are starting with your playing career. 

Yeah, grew up born New York and then we moved down to South Florida. Grew up in West Palm Beach, played for a legendary high school coach and Scott Benedict, a really good high school program. Went to the final four all three years. I was on varsity, then ended up going out of state, went to Auburn University, played Shoreside there for three years, signed with the Red Sox after my junior year. Played up to AAA with ’em. Really good experience and I got to the point I played in the Atlantic League for a little bit at the end of my career, which honestly was as good of an experience as I had my entire time playing professional baseball. Won a ring my last year, played for Andy Etcher Baron, unbelievable manager. Caught more 20 game winners than anybody in the history of baseball one year at the Orioles. 

You passed probably four years ago now, but ended up they had it arranged to where I could go back and play another year if I didn’t get the job that I wanted. And we had just had our first son, Owen, and I want to say he was in daycare part-time a little bit, or he would’ve had to if I would’ve left. That’s what it was. My wife was teaching. If I got a job, I was going to go and take the job, but I wanted to make sure I could take the right job because I knew I wanted to coach college baseball. 

I did not want my son to go to daycare full time. So they had it set up so I could go late and play. And I ended up getting a job at TCU for Jim Schlau Nagel. I worked there for two years. I liked it a lot. I learned a lot. I definitely learned a lot. Schloss is definitely the right guy that I needed right out the gate because the baseball side is kind of the baseball side, but there’s so much more that comes to this profession than just coaching baseball on the field and the organization and Schloss, he really runs a company man. He knows exactly the way everything could really show you how to do all these things that it needs in the office side of it and kind the game planning and practice planning and all the things that go around it that I had no idea when I was a college baseball player. I swear to you, I thought Finney and RO and Coach Fuller, they showed up at practice, then they went home, 

Right.

I didn’t realize 

That’s not what happens. 

Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. I thought they’d talk to a couple of kids on the phone every once in a while, go watch a game. It’s very different than what I initially thought as a player and just kind of the window that I got into that early on was really good and I think that really set me up for success. And I don’t know where I’d be if I didn’t start off there. And then being from Florida, if I was going to really start recruiting and doing it at a high level, I needed to get back into the area that I knew the best where I had the most contacts. So I left a pretty good situation at TCU to go to Jacksonville University. I worked for Tim Monte and then that transitioned into Chris Hayes. Took over a program that was not in a good spot when it was Monty’s first year as head coach did not come off winning a whole bunch of games with the roster wasn’t special right away. 

And we got better every year. We hit the ground running recruiting the 15 class, which was a really, really good class in the state of Florida was our first significant class there. And that’s the one that pretty much changed the program and we got better every single year. Had some really good players, had some really good big leaguers during our time there and then won the championship in the a o my last year there. Then I ended up going to USF and worked for Billy for two years and he really gave me the reins of the entire position player side of it, which is part of what I was looking for as well as the recruiting. Had a really good club the first year. Had a lot of success. We had a bunch of big leaders in that club. Then after two years I ended up coming here to Florida and then I can’t believe it, but this is my fifth year here now. My role has grown here over the years, but working for Sly, it’s awesome, man. I’ve known Sully for a long time and he gives me a lot of freedom as he does with all of us to do our jobs and having an understanding of what the expectation is here. But it’s great, man. I mean this isn’t work, dude. I mean you get to come here, coach baseball and work with players every single day. It’s a pretty cool deal for sure. 

Yeah, absolutely. Living the dream. So a couple things just kind of popped to my mind as you kind of told that story starting at TCU. So you get that job there, you’re coming fresh out of playing. You talked about Slosh running it as a business almost and running the organization. What are some things that maybe one or two things that really stand out in your mind that you kind of apply to the way you go about your business that you learned in those two years at TCU 

Organization and planning? There’s no question. And the organization, like the office side of this thing, the amount that goes into it so that you’re prepared every single day, whether if it is on the recruiting side and having your contacts and your schedule and your own recruiting database and your group of players that you’re actively recruiting on the playing side. So it’s like planning practice every single day, going through the details of how we’re going to coach certain things. It’s not just throwing stuff on a wall and seeing what sticks. There’s actually a plan to what we do. And then really just the day to day in the office man and creating time for your players. And you learn a lot on the field, man. I mean, you go from playing professional baseball that I was playing GBS for seven years where you’re playing 140 games a year to then you come and play back into college baseball where literally every single game we play is equal to a series in professional baseball. 

Like the importance of it and then everything that comes with that. So getting to be able to tap back into that, the competitive spirit of that, it was definitely very different and Schloss helped immensely with a lot of that for sure. And then it was really learning from the ground up, like Gers, I did our dirt too. So I came in, I coached our catchers right away, which I didn’t know anything. My brother caught in the big leagues, but I didn’t know anything about catchers, was a Schwartz saw. And then I ended up taking over our infielders and I helped out our hitters and then I took over our hitters, but I did all the camp stuff, which I had no idea. And I’m in Texas with no contacts, so I am trying to create and keep this camp deal rolling with no idea what I’m doing or the people I need to hit up. 

And Schloss helped me work through all of that, which if I didn’t have him kind of in my head leading me the way at the beginning of that, that would’ve been really hard. And I had never worked on a field in my life ever. And we’re a private school, so honestly, and I didn’t make a ton of money the first year at all. My wife, we moved out there, we didn’t have anybody around us. So it was really, I think it was the best possible scenario that I could have had to start out with understanding of what all goes into what we do.

Absolutely. So I get to know you, meet you when you’re at ju didn’t know you obviously when you were at TCU, but I think you nailed it. One thing I would love to know, Jacksonville University is obviously a smaller school. A lot of people around the country may not know the real baseball tradition that is there at JU, right? Really good tradition, have had some great teams over the years. But recruiting at a place like Jacksonville where you were recruiting against Florida and Florida State and Miami and even some of the other mid-majors, what were some of the things that you really focused on in players? What were you looking for in players at JU that made you guys so good when you were there? 

So the first thing I think was the most important thing is that we talked about first got there, took over a program that had not had success and they had a longstanding tradition of a lot of success under Terry Alexander for a long time. He was a great head coach there for a long time. But the last four or five years, not a whole lot of success. They didn’t make the ACEs on attorney the year before we got there when they had a first round of throwing on Friday night. That’s not easy to do, especially in a league. The AUN was a really good league, but it’s not as Harold did as these other leagues, right? It’s not a Power five or anything like that. So the initial thing that was the most important was there was a certain skillset that guys needed to have success at the division one level, but we made an extreme precedent to have guys that came from winning programs. 

So since we did not have a winning program that the guys were coming into and a winning culture completely yet, we needed to make sure that we recruited guys. That was their experience. They were winners before they got here. So it was a lot easier in the transition teaching guys how to win that had already done that before. So the high school programs that the guys have had a lot of success and the travel programs that had had a lot of success, those were really important to us early on. And honestly that stayed the course the whole time I was there at ju. 

Yeah, really good. So winning matters. 

Yeah, dude, winning anything matters, there’s 

Nothing. And then we transitioned to USF and you said the first time getting the full reigns of position players and getting to really grind your teeth and get after it. I remember us having a conversation about you being able to come in and completely redo the way that hitting had been going at that place at that time. And so this is a good transition not only as a coach, what did that look like for you? But then also start to begin to talk about your philosophy as a hitting guy and what you like to do with your players. 

Yeah, so I think first of all jus me and Hayes worked together with our position players every day and we are truly on the same page as what we did. I mean Hayes ended up growing, had become the head coach my last year there. And when I say I took over the reins, I was like, I had it by myself pretty much and K would help me out at USF when I was at ju. It was completely together and everything we did, which was awesome. It was a really good experience and I love hazy. I think our players grew and got better because of it for sure, but being able to come in right away and what they had done prior to getting there, it works for certain guys. I felt like it didn’t really work for that group at USF. And over time I think you have to adapt in coaching, you adapt or you die in all areas, but especially in coaching. 

And I think you have to have certain foundations that are important to you. I came into USF and those guys, they had done a ton of machine work just velo machine every single day and they didn’t really learn to hit with their mind quite as much. They didn’t really have a mindset or approach or kind of an identity to who they were. And that was important. And the biggest thing was since they did so much of the velo machine stuff all the time and that was their consistent work, none of them really understood rhythm or how to get a load in. So that first fall, the main focus was teaching guys how to load and have rhythm when they hit. Because when you’re hitting off a machine, the thing’s humming like 90 miles an hour, you’re in a hurry, you’re just rushing. And I feel like with hitters, I’m trying to slow guys down more than I’m trying to speed them up for sure. And I think that was kind of going away from it and we made a really big jump offensively in that now there’s certain principles that we use every day that I think is really important and there’s certain goals that guys need to try to shoot for all the time to have success at our level, but those change player to player for sure. But as a group there’s certain things that you have to do I feel like to have success here for sure. 

So I think there’s a kind of team philosophy when it comes to hitting and then an individual approach to doing what your job is, identifying who they are. So what would you encapsulate, I don’t know if it’s one word, three words, four words, but what do you want the identity of a Florida offense to be? 

I want it to be super aggressive. That doesn’t mean swinging. That means our mindset and our approach, trying to develop players into hitters. Hitting is an act of aggression is offensive. You cannot be passive or defensive and have success. So in order to have success at our level, I think you have to be able to handle a fastball. And if you can’t handle a fastball, you probably need to go play a different sport. 

So that’s the premise of what we do. We work through the middle of the field all the time. There’s a bunch of different ways that we do it, but that is the base of what we do. Be on time, hit a fastball and be on time to smash it through the middle of the field. And then the aggression side of it, I mean that’s more mindset and thought process and I mean I don’t think I could get into as aggressive as we tried to get it out of them on something like this, but we have a pretty good idea. We try to turn ’em into killers, bro. That’s kind of what we’re trying to do. 

And I think you look all the way to the top of the food chain per se, at Florida with Sully, with you, the whole staff, you guys exude, you go to a perfect game or PBR event or whatever it is. And when the Florida Gators show up all the way from recruiting to, I was at the SEC tournament this year, just the way you guys carry yourself, you can tell that that’s preached from the top all the way to the players. And there’s no doubt about that aggressiveness and that style play that you guys have. It’s something that I know back when I was in my travel ball days really drew me to sending my better players to the University of Florida because I knew that they were going to be challenged. And that kind of brings me to my next question. So in today’s day and age and the kids change and times change and kids are able to, especially at your level, kids that are good enough to play at your level are able to read about themselves and see how highly they’re ranked and all those things. 

So a lot of kids come in with maybe a conception that they might be better than they are or maybe that’s not the right wording, but they’ve got less to prove. What do you guys do to put them in the right place mentally to understand that they are part of a team and that, like you said, at the end of the day, winning matters. You sully the whole staff, you guys are judged on whether you win and what your record is at the end of the year. So what do you guys do to really foster that? I guess that team atmosphere with a bunch of really, really good players. 

Yeah, I think your older group is really important in that. That’s something I think that we’ve gotten better with every year that I’ve gotten here and we’ll see how this club handles it. Last year’s group, the leadership that we had at all three levels, those guys would handle it. Wyatt, he was kind of quiet, he’s down there hitting right now, but those guys, they’re a little bit quieter in times, but when they speak, I think the guys have a pretty good idea of what’s important and what matters. Josh would run our infield and run the show and then BT the same thing. And on the pitching side, spro and wall drip, they were good, they were different in their way, but they were good. Whether if it was leading by example or they could knock you down pretty quick. I mean I think these guys come in here. We have really talented freshmen on our club right now.

We also have extremely talented sophomores and juniors. So for a guy to come in here, I think they recognize right away they’re no longer the only big dog in town, which is kind of what they’ve experienced leading up to. And I think that the success that the program’s had leads to them buying in a little bit faster than probably they might initially at some other places. When we tell them to wrap themselves up in the glove and to focus on winning and the rest of it’ll take care of itself and all the individual goals that you want. If you attack your opponent and you’re the one that’s going out hunting rather than the other way around, then everything that you want individually, you’ll not put pressure on yourself. If you truly do wrap yourself up in the club and your individual goals, you’ll end up preaching. 

But if that’s your focus, it’s really hard to have success. If you think of what Wyatt went through last year, I mean he’s coming into the last year, he’s supposed to go pretty high in the draft and wired to why are he ended up having a good year. And I think that has everything to do with the way he goes about his process every single day and the way he carries himself. He’s not sitting there worried about how he’s performing individually. Although in the back of his mind I think of course, but his focus every single day was how are we going to win? And if you could hear him in our dugout every day, it’s not just coach speaker or anything like that, but that’s truly the way that he felt. I mean hit me up all fall, finding out how these guys were doing here and we got a couple different tech groups and stuff like that with current players on our team that some of the older players are in and they kind of help those guys along as well, like our former players do for sure. 

Yeah, you guys have done a really good job for those that really pay attention actually even on the coaching staff where every single year it seems like you’ve got a guy that’s either fresh out of pro ball that’s getting his master’s or finishing up school or whatever it might be. So I see it even start there bringing these guys like Mikey Rivera is there now. Nolan Fontana has been there laying worthy, right? The list is probably pretty long of guys that you guys have done a great job of bringing that back in and them understanding the history of the program and how things are supposed to be done on any successful team. Chuck, I think that leadership from players is really important. And you just named three guys that I’d love to spend maybe just a little bit of time on each of them and what they went through to get to where they were at the end of last year and even moving forward into pro ball for two of them and why a BT and Josh.

So let’s start off with Wyatt when he was recruited, tell us the story from his recruitment to where he ended up being such a high pick, Big physical corner, infield type at bat speed with some questions of swing and miss on the way in. Tougher kid played football and basketball from Trenton, Florida, recruited out of camp, played for the hard ballers with Kolachi and Mays and came in here right away. We didn’t really know what to do with him. Positionally right away when he got here, did not talk very much at the beginning of his freshman year for sure was our number four behind the plate. So he caught a bunch of pens and then he would play a little bit of third and or first in our inner squads start off that fall really good. Ended up coming down to earth a little bit as the fall went on, got four at bats his freshman year. Most of ’em were spent running down from the bullpen late in the game when the game was usually out of hand. It worked really, really hard as he always did. It’s not something new, but he was able, since he wasn’t playing every day to really crush the weight room during that spring and get after it a little bit more than other guys are able to just because his workload wasn’t quite the same. And then he had a really good summer in Charlottesville that came back that fall and was smashing balls right away and we had to figure out where the heck he was going to play. 

So we ended up figuring out that he could probably play outfield and Wyatt’s the kind of kid man, if you told him he needed to do anything, he’d be able to do it. If you told me he needed to play second base tomorrow, he’s going to figure out a way. It’s just how mentally strong he is and how tough he is. And it’s a different kid man. He’s a special kid, dude. Everything he’s got now he’s earned. There’s no doubt about that 

In this day and age man for it. Back to the freshmen and just looking within to say what do I got to do to get better and what do I got to do to find myself away on the field and committing that processes and then obviously elevating himself to arguably the best player in the country last year if he didn’t have that injury in there, the numbers that he put up are just unbelievable. And some of the balls he hit in Omaha last year were just awe inspiring really. You just look at him and you’re just unbelievable. 

Toughest guy in America, dude. There’s no doubt about it.

So toughness is what defines Wyatt. Let’s skip down to Josh and tell me about his recruitment, what you guys saw in him and then his maturation as a player. 

So Josh was committed here before I got here. He was signed, so my first year here he was a freshman. I’ve never coached a day a game at the University of Florida without Josh. So he came in, he was not a shortstop in high school, played third base. We did not have a shortstop really on the roster and he really worked to put himself in position to be able to play shortstop. We worked every day, played short every day as a freshman in the covid short year, he got off really good to start and then everything came crashing down with Covid and all that and season was shut down sophomore year, did not go the way you wanted to. 

He fought. Everybody was kind of weird man that year playing in front of 500 people. It was a weird year, but I think he grew a lot in that year. At one point in time he played some second base, then he went back over to shore, he sat down for a little bit. He grew a lot maturity wise, both on and off the field I believe that year. And I think ultimately him going through that year is what is led to him becoming the player and the person that he is now. His junior year he had a really good fall and of getting hit by a pitch late in the fall. He didn’t get cleared to play until the week of our opening weekend. So he missed a lot of time in his lead up. We were able to do a lot with him, but he wasn’t completely cleared to do everything until then. 

So he kind of played catch up that whole year. And if you look and SEC play, he was probably one of our best if not our best hitter that year during SEC play. But over the course of the year, his numbers weren’t what they definitely could have been or what they should have been because of the amount of time he missed. And then last year, man, he grabbed the reins and I mean it’s like a quarterback that’s been in the offense for four years. He’s got complete control of it. That’s kind of the way that Josh played the game here last year. There was never any thinking through things. He was just able to go out and be aggressive and attack rather than kind of thinking his way through. And I put more on our shore socks plate than probably they usually do at other places. And by the time he’s in his fourth year, it is all easy man. He’s just running the show every single day and what he does and he ended up having, if we didn’t have Josh Rivera last, honestly, if we didn’t have any of those three guys that you just mentioned, I don’t think we end up where we ended up. But the growth that he had and the leadership that he showed with our guys every day, I mean he ran the show on the field, man. No. 

Well and then obviously from a national landscape, BT got a lot of pub in the regional super regionals college World series as he should. But one thing I’ve never asked you, BT was a grad transfer or a transfer from Coastal Carolina. I’m not sure grad transfer is the right word, but had a couple years left in the portal, did you know what type of person you were getting in bt? Did you have the opportunity to really recruit him or understand that you were getting that entire package? 

So the recruitment happened pretty fast. That was our first, that was easy. The only guy we brought in the portal then he was our first ever guy we brought in the portal, which was good and bad, right, because it was awesome. 

Leaves a bad taste in your mouth if you don’t get a BT from me here on out, right? 

No doubt man. Now I think the expectations of bring a guy in the portal are probably not realistic. But no, I called Schnall who I’ve had a good relationship with who had him at Coastal Kind, got an idea of why he went in the portal and what he was looking for, asked about him as a player and asked about him as a person. He is like, you’re going to love him to death man. He is like, he’s the kind of guy that when years from now when you’re done playing or when he’s done playing that you would want to go sit down and have a beer with and just check in with him, see how everything was going. And BT at first, he was kind of quiet when he first got here for him. He’s a very talkative dude, he’s awesome, he’s got a good personality to him, he’s very comfortable in his own skin. 

But he was kind of getting a lay of the landscape here and an idea of the way things were. And then, I mean Sully always said when BT was here that first fall at the end of the year, he’s going to be in our everyday guy. I can’t see us play a game at the end of the year and him not be a real factor. And he did not have a great fall. So the stuff our guys see in the falls, it is a pretty good jump from our arms. And he had some stuff mechanically that probably that we needed to clean up for him to have success against the level of arms that he was seeing. But BT iss competitive spirit dude, it’s unbelievable man. And he had an opportunity to go out and play after that year and sign and he turned it down to come back because all he wanted to do is win. 

So if he got on a guy, whoever it happens to be, if he got on a pitcher or on another player, dude, this guy is literally getting on just because he wants to win. He came back here just to win. That’s why he’s back here. He just wants to go to Omaha and he wants to win a national championship, he wants to win the SEC, that’s why he’s here. So even though you might not like what he’s saying, you might think he’s calling you out or you might think he’s talking down, he’s not. He just wants to win and he wants you to help us win. That’s all he wants to do. And I mean bt, he could hold his ground and at times with some umpires, he was probably a little bit too aggressive at times. But here in our program passive kids do not seem, and I think this that way in our league, they don’t really have a whole lot of success. You have to be aggressive to have success at this place and in this league, that kind of personality. And he’s that to a T and he had an opportunity to go out and play after this past year. He could have gone out and played pro ball, but he had already made his mind up kind of what he wanted to do moving forward. But BT brought so much to our program and to our team and reinstating and reinvigorating into this program what we needed and what this program is. 

If you’re a portal guy out there watching and you want to go to Florida, we’ve got some big shoes to fill. 

We’ve had some other good ones.

Waldrop, you have. That’s true. You’ve had a couple good ones. Let’s transition and talk a little bit about obviously most of the people that are associated with the Diamond Allegiance, travel baseball clubs and parents and kids and coaches. And I’d like to talk about the recruiting landscape where it’s at, how some of the things, some of the rule changes and things that are going on are affecting you and kind of hear it from your side of the fence. So let’s start first with the rule change with this not being able to have contact with the underclassmen and what that’s done to your guys’ recruitment and recruitment style. 

Yeah, I mean I think a lot of people are going to say that they like the way that it is. I like it better than it was for a period of time. What I truly do Miss Gers is when back before we’ve had two rule changes now, but back when I was at ju, if we wanted a younger guy, he could come on an unofficial at any point in time and sit down in our building and talk with us. And I can’t tell you how many guys we end up deciding not to recruit or we end up even potentially giving them more money because of the 

Person falling in love with the kids.

No doubt the person that was sitting across the table and you get a better feel for the player and the family and just in your decision, it allows you to make a better decision for both parties for them to have a better understanding of who we are because they’re always going to hear things, whether if they’re good, bad or indifferent about our program from the outside and you’re at a place long enough, they’re probably going to have a lot of people say good things. You’re probably going to have some people say bad things no matter where you’re at, no matter what program you’re in. The only person that doesn’t get that is a person that’s a first year head coach at a new place. Right? Exactly. But if you do a good enough job, we were talking earlier, there’s a lot of people that don’t like us in our league, I think because we’ve had success, but with that, when they changed the rule to where we couldn’t have in-person contact until they became juniors, I think at that point in time, us and the kids a lot of times were kind of taking shots in the dark because you don’t really have an idea of truly what the personality is of the kid and the family and they don’t have the same of us. 

So I think if you would probably go back and look at, I don’t have the numbers, but if you went back and looked at the numbers, I bet there’s a bigger rate of, there was a better retention rate before they instituted that rule, right? Things have changed now with the portal and all that, but even before the portal, I bet you the retention rate was better prior to that. And then now I do not love what we have now just because I think it’s easier for the waters to kind of get muddier for the kid and it’s harder for them to have conviction in where they want to go because there’s no communication and then all of a sudden they’re getting flooded. And if they don’t have people that they could really lean on when you were with the scorpions forever, those kids had you to be a liaison that they could lead on to help ’em figure out where they want to go. 

And I think, I’m sure most of the programs in the diamond allegiance are the exact same way, but there’s a lot of programs that are not that way. And when you deal with that, you deal with kids that are completely lost in this process because they haven’t had the ability to sit down as an early agent gather information. They just sit there on their phone and look at Twitter and see what looks cool. So I think the phone and the access, the ease of access to programs is good, but in a way I think it makes the kids’ decisions harder at times just because anybody can make something look good on social media is completely different and get a better understanding when you’re actually sitting here talking to us to lean on like yourself. 

Yeah, Chuck, that’s a great point. I mean I think that in this day and age you hear you want to play in the SEC, you want to play in the ac, you want to play in the power fives wherever it is. Obviously I’ll argue that the SEC is the apex of college baseball, but there’s a lot of good players in other leagues as well. But you said you’ve got to have toughness, you’ve got to be aggressive, you’ve got to have grit to be able to perform and play in those leagues and in your league in specific. And if players are making decisions based on what they see on social media or a cool interview, the work happens and the guys, whoever it is, if I’m talking about Dylan Cruz or if I’m talking about Wyatt Langford or whoever it might be, those guys work their tails off and are different animals. 

And if you’re a kid and you’re listening to this and that’s where you want to be and that’s who you want to be, I think it’s two things that I take away are really important. One, you got to surround yourself with people that have been through it and know the process and have relationships as you’re going through this because the advice and the fit that they can help you find is super important. You and I used to have conversations, there were kids that played for me that were really, really good players, but they would’ve never fit in at the University of Florida, right? Never. And even when you were at USF and ju, and that’s back to why I asked you the question, what type of kid are you looking for and people that fit that criteria. There’s a lot of talent out there, but what truly separates the guys that can play at your level I think is that grit and that winning attitude. 

So kids that are listening, obviously if you’re part of the dime allegiance, you’re lucky enough to be with groups that are like that. But if you’re not, you make sure you are because that guidance is really, really important. Chuck, we were talking, I don’t know you agree with this, a lot of times people think exposure equals recruitment and I’m a big believer that being ready plus being surrounded by people that can move the needle for you equals recruitment. I don’t know what you think about that and that equation, but I think that putting in the work and being good enough and then putting yourself in a place where you’ve got people around you that have the relationships that can call you or whoever it might be and say, Hey, I’ve got a guy really matters. How many times are you just rolling up to a field and being like, oh, that guy looks like he can play at Florida. 

Never. 

Whether if it’s now there’s kids that pop up all the time, but it’s from a call from you or a call from Johnny or Jimmy or Mark or Andy or any of these guys that, Hey, you need to go down there. We have these guys. You need to come check out. We have this guy you need to check out. That’s usually the way it starts. And there might be another kid that jumps off the field, it’s like, whoa, who’s this dude? And he might not quite have quite as much love, which happens a lot as some of these other guys are not the same accolades, but we fall in love with them. That’s the guy we want to recruit. And then we’ll end up going down the road, there’s tons of guys at that 

And then all of a sudden he gets ranked really, really high. 

Absolutely. Yeah, that’s the way goes. But in terms of what you said at the beginning, I think that’s a huge issue at times right now where I think kids are chasing, they feel like they have to go play games all the time to get exposure to come for us to see them when there’s a lot of kids that get overseen and they’re not ready to be seen. And then it’s really hard at times to get over that initial look that you had or get that out of your mind. On my shoes, I might see something that’s really hard to overcome. The kids do overcome it for sure, but it takes a lot to overcome that. And a lot of times it was because they were getting seen too early. And I think especially now with this rule change, I don’t know why you would play 1 million games during the summer if you’re a freshman in high school. 

I don’t know why you would do that. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me when it should be more based off of your development and trying to get bigger and stronger and put yourself in a position that when it is your time to get seen, then you can put your best foot forward. And if you’re not quite where you need to be when August 1st rolls around your junior year, it doesn’t matter if a player’s good enough and they’re the right kind of guy to have success at Florida, we’re probably going to give ’em an opportunity to come here. Whether if that happens August one of their junior year or in the fall of their senior year, 

I had a kid that played for me named Eric Handhold that played at University of Florida and Eric ended up pitching a little bit in the big leagues and he wasn’t ready. He wasn’t ready, he wasn’t ready, but then he was ready and it was literally his last outing of his senior year of his in the fall. It’s like it finally popped. You could always see it was potentially there, but okay, now, okay, yeah, it’s here and he’s ready. And I used to joke with Sully all the time, Chuck, about Nolan Fontana and when the early recruiting was really, really, really going hard. I used to tell him all the time, I said probably one of the, I don’t know, give him top three, right? Top three shortstops that have played there, did a really good job and was Sully’s type of guy said you would’ve never recruited Nolan Fontana in the early recruiting days. 

He wasn’t ready. He wasn’t ready until his junior year. So for those listening, I think it’s really, really important. This idea that you’re going to get left behind is not true. If you’re good enough, you’re going to find the opportunity and the focus on getting good enough and surrounding yourself with people that can help you do that should be one of your major focuses as you look to where you’re spending your time, your resources, spend it on getting as good as you can be. Now that doesn’t mean you don’t play games. I think that Chuck, there’s a fine balance between the two. You got to, we don’t want cage warriors and bullpen warriors. You still got to be able to compete. You still have to learn how to win and win because at the end of the day, like we said, winning is so important. So we talked about the early recruiting. Let’s talk a little bit if you would, about NIL and how that is affecting the game and do you see any changes potentially to the way that it’s administered going forward? Are there any rule changes or things like that that we might be hearing of coming down the pike? 

Yeah, I mean I would hope so. I mean, what we’ve been at Florida is what we’ll continue to be is we’re going to continue to recruit the high-end high school player. That’s what our place has been. We haven’t been super active in the portal some of these other programs have been, but I think it is part of the puzzle now. I think NIL is part of the equation too, but ultimately gers, if you’re making your decision solely based off of NIL and you’re coming to the University of Florida, if you’re the kind of guy that could command potentially a good bit of money in it, then if you fall one pick or two in the draft because you went to the wrong place for you, then you end up losing significantly more money than you would ever make an NI. So I think finding the right fit is really important. Finding the right place for you to be around a good team where you feel comfortable, where you’re going to be on a bigger stage. I think all those things are really important. But it is part of it now. I mean right now, dude, I think our league’s probably, if it’s not at the top on it, it has to be right.

It’s got to be right. 

And then I think the gap to the next league’s probably pretty good, but within the leagues there’s pretty big gaps too. So I think they’re going to have to grab a hold of this In all sports it’s becoming an issue. And usually the way this stuff works is I think football will probably, if it’s too big of an issue and football, then they’re probably going to look to attack it, which I’m sure is probably coming down the pipe. And then if it’s also a big issue in basketball, then they’re going to attack it. If it’s an issue in our sport, we’re not at the point in our sport where it is in football and basketball, but it is a factor. It is an issue I think at times, but it’s still, when you come to play college baseball, it’s still an investment in your life as a person and as a player. 

So the paper that you get wherever you graduate from, that’s not leaving you and that’s going to determine potentially how much money you make whenever your time playing baseball is done with. And then your ability to have these three to four years of your life, having your best experience of your life is pretty important because that’s what, this is the time of your life in college and you don’t want to do it losing, I promise you that if you want to do it around guys that are like-minded to you and that are fighting for a common goal and putting yourself in the best position that you could for when you start your pro career that you’re a priority. And if those things line up, then you end up making the best decision. If you’re just making your decision solely based off of where I can go get the biggest payday in NIL, I don’t know, man. That’s not where the priorities would be, I don’t think. 

Yeah, probably a little bit shortsighted as well. And I think we get wrapped up sometimes when we talk about the top half percent of the top 1%. And that’s what you’re talking about when it comes to NIL deals. At the end of the day, I think what you said, whether you’re a University of Florida player, whether you’re a division two guy, whether you’re a JUCO guy, trying to find places that are winning programs and have winning cultures winning’s a lot more fun than losing. I know personally, I spent my freshman year at the division one level and went to a school that did not have a winning culture and couldn’t have hated my time anymore. And then I ended up transferring and getting to play in the division two college World Series and obviously not the level of Omaha, but being part of a winning culture in a winning team is way more fun.

So I would a hundred percent agree with that recommendation for kids and families that are listening to this, right? Look for a place that has a culture winning because that’s not only going to help you. I mean even look even at the SEC, right? And I don’t know the numbers, Chuck, but SEC, the pinnacle of college baseball, how many guys in the SEC are actually making it to the big leagues and then making it past arbitration in the big leagues? I mean, the percentage even at that level is much greater that you’re not going to make a living in actually playing on the field. You might make a living in baseball doing something else, but the coaching and just becoming a man and becoming more organized and understanding all those things that go along with being an adult cannot be underscored as kids go through this recruiting process. So leave you with this last question and we’ll wrap it up. Give me just an anecdote, kind of your favorite story from your guys run through the College World series last year that you can say can on camera. 

I know I’m trying, dude, there’s so many that I cannot say, especially one-liners by some of our guys, but I mean the easy one would be why Homer Virginia against Virginia and the College of World series. That moment was electric. It was incredible. 

Yeah, let’s go with that one. Let’s break that down. You guys are in game one, right? In Omaha, first game 

In wind’s blowing in 20 miles an hour and we are continuing to smash balls to the warning track. 

And you guys are down, right? And you going to the last inning, correct? If I remember right. Yeah. 

Yeah. We ended up making up a little bit of ground. We had Ty and Dale Thomas come off the bench and Dale worked a walk and Ty smashed a double and that kind of got us going, but we were still down two heading into the ninth then. 

So that’s sets the stage and just kind of walk me through that. 

So Ty hits a homer and that’s the first time he went on a line kind of snuck out and the wind died down a good bit. Then Mike and then Wyatt came up and hit a ball that has not landed. So I think there was one out Zade I think struck out and why it had changed up off his left. He was the furthest ball ever hit in the stadium. So I think he owns the top two and three of the top four Now, something like that, that’s incredible. But when he hit the ball, it was unbelievable, man. And when he hit that, it allowed our team to relax. That is the thing. It’s just like opening day, opening day. Everybody’s so excited. Something’s got to happen to get everybody you individually to calm down for yourself, but for the whole team and then why it hit that it allowed our team take a deep breath and then just go play. Because up to that point, it’s not normal. 

Just play off baseball in the big leagues. It is not normal. It’s not what you’ve been doing all year. It’s a different environment with a lot of people on a bigger stage and it feels different. And until that happened, it felt like we weren’t able to play our game. It felt like stuff kind of wasn’t going our way in spots. Guys weren’t playing loose, they normally are, and as aggressive as they normally are. And then when that happened, it just flipped and we played our game from then that point kind of moving forward. But that was a pretty cool one when we clenched here against South Carolina and we had control of that game, that second game from the beginning to pretty much the end when you’re in the dugout and the eighth inning. That’s the first time I’ve ever experienced it. When you’re in the dugout in the eighth inning and ninth inning and that you’re, 

You’re going, dude, it is incredible that feeling and looking around the dugout and seeing all these dudes, seeing all the guys, just the excitement that you feel in that moment.  I mean, or would you rather walk in somebody off in the bottom of the ninth? 

Yeah, I mean I liked walking off Alabama, the S sec C attorney and being down three runs or whatever it was, and in six pitches we walk ’em off and bt it’s a ball hasn’t come down. There’s so many moments of last year’s team that will live with me and all of our guys and all of our coaches forever. Such a fun group to coach every day the experiences that they went through and all the different things they had to overcome throughout the year that people wouldn’t see from the outside when we lost Neely for the weekend, going to South Carolina, go up there and get swept and end up still winning the SEC like Dale coming off the bench in a homer at Kentucky, the last game that ends up winning us to SEC. All those different moments, man, it is just, there’s so many different things that’ll come up. It’ll remind you of that like, oh, I remember this, or I remember when Josh did this, or Tucker Talbot got the guys ready. There’s all kinds of different stories and things that little things kind of bring back memories of, 

Well, what a great experience. Obviously that was a tough one for me to sit and watch on tv, have my allegiances in both dugouts, but just an incredible series. That last series was an incredible run by you guys last year. So Chuck, I appreciate your time, man, as always, great catching up with you. Some really good nuggets here. I think for me, be tough, right? Be recruitable and when you show up, no matter where it is, understand that the winning culture matters and winning games matters. At the end of the day. That’s what I take out of this. So again, appreciate your time and I’m sure I’ll see you in person sometime soon. Doug, thanks for having me on, man. Go Gators. Yep.

AJ Pierzynski Interview – Former MLB catcher talks to us about how to stay in the big leagues!

Former MLB catcher talks to us about going pro and staying in the big leagues for so many years!

AJ would love to just start and talk to you a little bit about how you fell in love with the game of baseball. What’s your history growing up? How did you fall in love with the game?

Well, I grew up here in Orlando, went to Dr. Phillips High School, and honestly, I fell in love. I started playing when I was about four years old and my parents, my grandparents, everybody just loved baseball. And the first time I played it, I just couldn’t get enough of it. I honestly can say that people always ask you, what did you want to be? And I was like, I just wanted to be a baseball player as long as I can remember, I was very fortunate to be able to live that dream. But yeah, I mean, I just wanted to be a baseball player and I love playing the game and I love the competition and I just love just everything about it. 

Yeah. Was there a time when you were growing up, obviously that it kind of clicked and you said, I really do have a shot at this. When was that first time that you figured that you’ve got a chance to be a really good player?

Well, listen, I was always a year ahead in high school because of my age, so I started as school a year early, so I was younger. I didn’t realize it until later on that I was younger than what I should have been. So I graduated just turning, having turned 17, whereas most guys graduate now almost 19, 20 years old. So it was a little bit different. My junior year of high school, I probably would’ve been on JV again, but our starting catcher actually got hurt. He was a senior, so they were like, you got to come up. And I was like, awesome. I’ve been working really hard and I worked my tail off to get to that point. And so I got to play and the first game we played, we faced a kid that was going to Miami. I think I got a hit, I don’t know. And then it was weird, something changed. People were kind of paying attention to it. They were like, Hey, you’re pretty good. And that was kind of the first indication I had that I had anything going on because before that I was just kind of like, I’m playing high school, I’m happy. And then my junior year I played, it went well, and then I started getting letters in the mail. This was before email and before Twitter and Instagram and perfect game. Listen, I went to team one, which 

Back in the day was the precursor to perfect game. And it was because people came and saw me in LA as a junior in high school and we didn’t have travel ball. And so I got invited to all this stuff and kind of when I went to the team, one thing, which was in Cincinnati, and they had kids from all over the country, and it was kind of like the big would be the National Showcase they have now for Perfect game. And I did well there. And then after that, I mean you just start getting phone calls and they had to call the landline at your parents’ house. Your parents are answering like, oh, it’s the Florida coach or the Miami coach or the Tennessee coach or whoever was calling. And you’re like, what? Okay, so you talk to ’em. And then that was when that kind of stuff started happening. 

I was like, oh man, this is pretty cool. I got a chance to maybe go to college. And then I go through my senior year, and again, this is all different back then. So you start getting scouts talking to you and they want you to do these tests and they, they’d come to your games. You’re like, oh, okay, maybe I got a chance to maybe go play professional. So it was a step, it was a process of getting to that point. But like I said, for all the people out there that are like, man, my son might have to play JV his junior year. Well, I was going to play JV my junior year until I was fortunate enough where a guy got injured and then I was able to take the spot.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think nowadays you see it, you’re still in the game and around it. And a lot of times you get parents that get really antsy with the process. And I think a lot of the education that you hear, and when you talk to people, you find out that a lot of the best players really didn’t get to be the best players until they were older. And it’s a process and it’s just constantly getting better. So let’s talk me through that a little bit. So you get drafted, I believe in the third round, and we’re committed to the University of Tennessee. You get drafted and you make the decision to sign. So obviously go from your junior year being on jv. Now all of a sudden you’re a third rounder going off to play pro ball. What was that experience like for you? 

Yeah, absolutely. And I think nowadays you see it, you’re still in the game and around it. And a lot of times you get parents that get really antsy with the process. And I think a lot of the education that you hear, and when you talk to people, you find out that a lot of the best players really didn’t get to be the best players until they were older. And it’s a process and it’s just constantly getting better. So let’s talk me through that a little bit. So you get drafted, I believe in the third round, and we’re committed to the University of Tennessee. You get drafted and you make the decision to sign. So obviously go from your junior year being on jv. Now all of a sudden you’re a third rounder going off to play pro ball. What was that experience like for you?

It was weird. It was different. Yeah. You go from high school where you’re kind of the big fish. And then again, I was 17 years old and I’m living on my own making 800 bucks a month before taxes, and they took 400 a month out of my paycheck. So I was literally making 400 bucks a month before taxes to live off of for a month. And so you get a paycheck every two weeks for like 120 bucks. I thought I was rich. I’m like, man, I’m rich. Look at all this money I have. You’re living in a two bedroom apartment in Fort Myers, Florida with three other guys. You don’t even know. You literally met them because you’re all signed out of high school and you’re a bunch of dumb dumbs out of high school thinks you got everything figured out and you’re trying to figure out where dinner’s coming from every night. 

So it was different. It was awakening. It was an awakening. And you see guys that were ultra talented, you play with guys, anybody that’s at that level is ultra talented. They have something. But what I found out with the separator was the guys that were able to take it seriously, not get into the stuff kind of off the field, even at that age in the Gulf Coast League, which is the worst league, I don’t wish that league is just the worst. You’re playing noon games and it’s 120 degrees in Fort Myers, and there’s literally one person in the stands. It’s who ever mom or girlfriend was there. Other than that, there’s nobody there. You’re playing practice scrim basically.

And there’s too many guys on the team. You can’t even fit in the dugouts.

Yeah, yeah. There’s 45 guys on your roster. So you get drafted, you sign, you’re like, man, this is going to be amazing. I’m in the minor leagues. You get to the first game and you’re like, wait, there’s nobody here. No, there literally is no stands. You play on the same fields you play on in these tournaments in the backfield, nobody there except there’s more fans at the travel ball games than there are at the games you play now. So it’s crazy because then you find out who really loves it, who’s there, who wants to put in the time, and who really loves baseball. If you don’t love baseball, you cannot do it out of high school because it is really a hard job. It’s a job. 

Yeah, absolutely. So I guess from your development as a player will kind of transition to that, what was the hardest thing going from high school to pro ball? And then obviously we’ll kind of accelerate because I believe it was, is it 17 complete years in the big leagues? Is that the right number that I got?

Parts of 19. So yeah, 17 is right. So parts of 19.

Yeah, absolutely. So I guess from your development as a player will kind of transition to that, what was the hardest thing going from high school to pro ball? And then obviously we’ll kind of accelerate because I believe it was, is it 17 complete years in the big leagues? Is that the right number that I got?

Well, first talent level is the thing that you realize right away that everybody’s good when you get to the minor leagues. And then you’re also, the thing about the minor leagues that I think a lot of people don’t understand is when you’re in high school and you’re a senior in high school, you’re the oldest dude, you’re the alpha, you’re the alpha guy or the alpha person on your team because you’re a senior and you’ve done it. When you get to the minor leagues, you play against guys. I remember when I went to AAA for the first time, I was 21 years old, and there was dudes that were like 30 and they had kids and wives, and they’re talking about, when am I going to get my kid for dinner? I’m like, dude, I’m 21 years old. I can’t have a conversation with you. So you just realize that there’s a lot of good baseball players out there and that it’s every single day. 

There’s no days off, no let up. Oh, I went, oh, for four on Tuesday. Oh, I’ll get ’em on Saturday. Oh no, I went, oh, for four on Tuesday, I’m facing a dude on Wednesday. I’m facing a dude on Thursday. I’m facing a dude on Friday facing a dude on Saturday. So that is the biggest thing that I’ve seen is when even kids from college, they play three, four games a week, sometimes five, well, it’s seven days a week for three weeks straight. So 21 days in a row, you get an off day. We’re on a bus from Fort Wayne, Indiana to Appleton, Wisconsin. That’s your day off and you’re trying to get a little bit of sleep, and then you wake up and you play. So I mean, it is every day. And that was the thing. It was like, whoa, this is real. 

So a lot of the guys that I’ve been able to interview and ask when they go from high school to professional baseball, I think one thing I always used to ask them when they came home, AJ, was what’s the thing you learned this year? And I think it was to a man, A lot of them talk about taking care of their bodies and that their body was what was their paycheck essentially. How long did it take for you to realize that, and especially as a catcher, what are some things that you did to keep yourself able to go day after day after day?

So Matt, you’re going to laugh at this. When I tell you this, you’re not going to believe what I’m about to say. And I tell people this all the time, and they’re like, there’s no way. I didn’t do anything in the minor leagues. We ate. We literally ate crap. That’s all we could afford. 

You have to remember, I came up with the twins. We didn’t have strength coaches, we didn’t have any, we had a hitting coach, a pitching coach, a manager and a trainer. There was no strength coach. There was nothing. That was it. You had to do four guys and a bus driver. So you had five guys on the road with you and at home. So that was it. There was no, now they have strength coaches, nutritionists, mental coaches, two hitting coaches, four pitching coaches, six coach. There’s an army of dudes, video guys. We had none of that. And I came up with the twins. And when I first got to the big leagues, we didn’t even have a strength coach, so there was none. I mean, I would come home in the off season and I’d go to the local gym here and work out, and I’d be like, okay, maybe I’ll figure out I’m doing regular bench press like everybody else in the gym because it wasn’t so sports specific. 

And I was just doing that. I was skinny, so I was trying to gain weight. So I was like, how can I gain weight? And you’re taking your protein powder shakes and you’re trying to put on weight like, man, I need to get stronger, because I was, again, I was so young. So it was different. There was no, nowadays I watch these kids and people and they start training at such a young age, and it’s different now. That’s why I think the athletes are obviously better now. They’re stronger, they’re faster. They throw harder because they start at younger ages prepping for this career. And it’s different. I mean, I look back and we were in the Metrodome in Minnesota. We didn’t have a weight room. Our weight room was our training room, and there was two leg machines of leg press, one of the leg curls, and there was a set of dumbbells, and they were like, there’s your workout room. 

And I was just doing that. I was skinny, so I was trying to gain weight. So I was like, how can I gain weight? And you’re taking your protein powder shakes and you’re trying to put on weight like, man, I need to get stronger, because I was, again, I was so young. So it was different. There was no, nowadays I watch these kids and people and they start training at such a young age, and it’s different now. That’s why I think the athletes are obviously better now. They’re stronger, they’re faster. They throw harder because they start at younger ages prepping for this career. And it’s different. I mean, I look back and we were in the Metrodome in Minnesota. We didn’t have a weight room. Our weight room was our training room, and there was two leg machines of leg press, one of the leg curls, and there was a set of dumbbells, and they were like, there’s your workout room. 

And we’re like, we didn’t even have a batting cage. We had to hit on the field. They would drop a tarp. And for people that don’t know what the metrodome was, Google it, but there was a tarp in right field. Our batting cage was, they would drop a net down over the tarp and we’d bring the L screen that we used in bp. They would flip throw balls to us, and we would hit it into the tarp, which was the right field, which was the right field wall into the baggy. There was no batting cage. We didn’t even have a batting cage.

That’s Unbelief

Guys didn’t hit extra guys didn’t hit early. It just wasn’t a thing. And then about two or three years in, it started becoming a thing, and that’s when kind of everything changed. We hired a strength coach. Well, again, we didn’t have a gym. We’d wake up on the road and we’d go to a gym. There’d be five or six of us that’d wake up with a strength coach, and we’d go to the gym on the road at home. We had our gym in our apartment. We’d go to the there, but it was not a thing. 

Gotcha. So it wasn’t a thing, but then obviously through a 20 year career it became a thing. Right. So talk us. Oh, totally. Yeah. So talk us through how that changed as you got older. And then I think an important thing that I’d love to kind dive into for our listeners, a lot of kids around the country right now are starting their high school season, are starting to get going to have the excuse sustained career that you had. Having a plan and being prepared was obviously part of that. So getting some advice from you for these kids about how to take downtime and then how to ramp back up and prepare themselves for the season. So I guess two parts there. Number one, how did things change over your time in the big leagues in terms of that preparation? And then what are some things that you would recommend to high school aged kids nowadays to be able to shut down, ramp up and get ready for the season?

So when I first, I lived in Fort Myers when I was with the twins, so there was a ton of us that lived in Fort Myers. So again, we’d go like the Gold’s Gym together, there’d be like seven of us at the Gold’s Gym, and we’d go and work out. But one thing we all did is baseball wise, we all stopped when the season was over, we stopped, right? There was no baseball activity for, I mean almost all of us until we wait until January 1st. And then that gave us about six weeks to start ramping up. And that gave, especially after a big league season, you need some time off. I mean eight months of every day, it wears you out. And not only physically, but mentally, I was just like, dude, listen, I just need a break. I’m taking a break. And so we would go around January 1st, the first week of January, let’s say, and we’d go to the twins complex. 

And like I said, there was probably 12 or 13 of the big league team that lived in Fort Myers, and we were all young, we all didn’t have a lot of money. And so we’d go and work out, I mean, we’d hit, we’d throw, pitchers would throw, we’d go into cages and hit and the twins would open their complex for us and we would just do that. And that was kind of how we ramped up. I mean, we didn’t change our workouts, we didn’t do anything different because again, we didn’t know any better. We didn’t know that we’re supposed to have workouts. Now, how did it change over time? Basically, when I got to the White Sox was the first time where I had a true, we had a strength guy in Minnesota, and he was good when I was there, but when I got to Chicago, which was my sixth, seventh year was when we had a full strength guy that was dig in, let’s go, and they had a full weight room there and they had everything you needed. 

So it became more of a routine for me. About 2005, I started working out a lot during the season and I mean, I did something every day, whether it was lifting. When I was lifting, I was big into circuit programs. So I would do two exercises, either run on the treadmill, ride the bike for a minute to get my heart rate up, then I’d go do two weighted exercises and do it again. And the whole workout would take probably 30 minutes. And I do that two days on, and then I take a day where I just rode the bike for say 20 to 30 minutes depending on how I felt. But I did something every single day to keep my body going. And that was kind of how I did that kind of my whole career. Now the workouts changed and progressed depending on what team I was on or what the new thing is, but I was like, that was my thing. I would get there at one o’clock for a seven o’clock game. I get my workout in right away, grab some food, then get ready for batting practice. But I had to do that because one, it got my body going and just, so definitely over time things evolved into you learn your body, you learn what you need to do to get ready to play every day. And that was my thing. I had to do something workout wise every day. 

How many of the guys in the big leagues were in there with you on a daily basis, would you say? Most of them, everybody.

I can’t think of a team I was on that we didn’t have, I mean, listen, if not 25 of the 25 guys, 24 of the 25 guys we’re on some sort of a regular workout maintenance program during the season. Now some guys lifted heavy great, some guys lifted light just to do things That was more mine. I mean, I lifted kind of medium. And then the offseason when I would take the time away from baseball is when I do my heavy lifting until I started the baseball activities. And then once you got to the January baseball activities part of it, then I had a trainer here in Orlando that we would do more movement based, more body weight stuff to kind of get ramped up for spring training. So even that evolved over time. But every single guy, pitchers, they had their work after they threw bullpen, guys had their stuff, position players, whether they were starting or relieving, I mean, sorry, starters or bench guys, they all did stuff. So it was just a constant, let’s keep my body in shape. Let’s be ready for the game tomorrow. Gotcha. 

So you’re in the game still announcing, and you see these young players coming up and you talked a little bit about how the young players in this group is faster, stronger. Do you attribute that to this early specialization and what do you think about this early specialization? 

I do, and I also attribute it to earlier working out guys start working out way earlier. I mean, when were, I dunno how old you are, but when I was a kid, nobody really worked out until they kind of got into high school. It was like now kids are like eight years old. They’re like, I got a strength coach or nutritionist, a dietician, a personal trainer, a physical therapist I go to. It’s like, whoa, wait a minute, you’re eight years old. So it’s like, okay, that’s crazy to me, me. But yeah, I say it’s two things For me, it’s two things. One, it’s the specialization, which I’m okay with. I think at a certain point because of how good players have gotten, you have to make that choice. It’s almost impossible now to be a multisport person once you get to say your junior year of high school because everybody is so darn good and they’ve already all become specialized. 

Now can you do it? Sure, you can do it, but eventually you’re going to have to pick one the days of a Bo Jackson or Deion Sanders playing multiple sports of Brian Jordan. It’s kind of gone by the wayside. Then two, I also think the players are better now, I don’t want to say fundamentally better, but they’re better equipped to handle bigger situations because of the travel ball circuit and traveling into these tournaments and playing kids from all over the country because you get to see kids from all over the place. You think, oh man, I live in Orlando. We’re good in baseball. Then you go to these travel ball tournaments, you look up and there’s kids from California, there’s kids from Texas, there’s kids from New York and Washington and Oregon. And you’re like, dang, these kids are pretty good too. So you get to see more. And I think that helps kids develop better because they realize, man, I got to work hard in order to keep up with the 25 million kids that are my age playing baseball. 

Yeah, I couldn’t agree with you more. And we talk a lot about specialization in the diamond allegiance, and I think it’s important as a young kid for your athletic development to be playing different sports and to being part of those. But like you said, as you get older and you realize that this is what you want to do and you’ve got a chance to do it, whether it’s at the highest level or whether it’s at a division three college, it’s really important that you start to hone in on those skills and start to work on them. I noticed 

There’s no shame, man, lemme say this. Listen, there’s no shame. I know people, I think a big thing that people also need to realize is you got to go to where you can play. So when you’re talking about division three colleges, you hear all the time like, oh, he’s only going to division three college. Well listen, it’s still a place to play. And if you’re good, I mean, see there’s guys in the big leagues right now that played at division three colleges played in juco, right? Some guys were rafted, they’re in the big leagues. So I think that’s one thing we also like, if you can find a place that’ll take you and you can get a chance to play, and if you love baseball, then go. It might not be, listen, not everyone’s going to go to a Florida, Florida state of Miami. There’s other places you can go play, and if you love playing baseball and can get an education, and heck, they’ll give you money to go help your education, go do it. 

Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s a really important thing is everybody, you’ve got the first rounders, but what percentage of first rounders actually make it to the big leagues? I think it’s something like 40%. And you’ve got guys, like you said, there’s so many different roads. And when we’re talking about the big leagues, it’s such a small percentage of people that get to do that. And the goal should be for every kid should be to get that education if they can. And some kids it’s to make their high school team, whatever that next step is for you should be the one that you’re training towards. And that doesn’t lessen your intent of training, doesn’t lessen how hard you work, but it’s always about that next step. Right? 

Totally.

So you talk a little bit, I appreciate you kind of transitioning to the travel ball world and it a little bit. You’ve seen it a little bit. 

I think it’s nuts. I’ll be honest with you. I think it’s crazy, but 

It’s a necessary crazy though, right? I mean, I just think that it’s good because the kids get the exposure and they get to play. It’s bad because I don’t feel like kids are taught enough fundamentals. They don’t practice. So they just go and play games, which is fine, but there’s no teaching of anything. And I help out at First Academy and I helped coach there. The kids come and they play their high school season and we are like, you’re going to bunt, you’re going to hit and run. You’re going to do little things. And then they go to the travel ball circuit and they’re like, well, we don’t bunt and we don’t do anything except try to just showcase your kids, which is fine. I get it. It’s a different animal. But when you get to the travel ball, they expect the high schools to teach the kids the fundamentals. And then when they get to travel ball, it’s like, okay, let’s show off your skills. And for me, that’s where it can be good and bad because it’s good because of the exposure, it’s bad because what are they really learning other than let’s just go see how hard I can hit a ball and how hard I can throw it. 

Yeah, there’s no doubt. And I think that’s one thing that I think needs to be done better on the travel ball circuit is a recommitment to development and working hand in hand with the high school coaches or with the trainers or whoever it is, and understanding that. So data-driven as all the way up to the big leagues that everybody’s searching for that number, throwing 92 or running that six seven, that a lot gets lost in the fact that I’ve never met a manager that didn’t make a lineup based on who he thought was going to help them win that day. Right? Totally. And I think that winning player and being able to showcase and highlight that winning player is something that us as a travel ball world need to do a better job of. It is finding a way to let college coaches and professional scouts know that these are winners. These guys play the game the right way. And it’s something that’s really important.

I have a buddy that played with me, Doug Kovich, who played with me with the twins and had a long career in the major leagues and he helps coach a high school team down in the Keys. And he also does some scouting stuff for another organization. And his biggest thing, he coached in the minor leagues for a long time, managing aaa. So right there, the biggest thing he says is when someone will say, oh, my kid does this. My kid can throw 92, my kid can hit at 500 feet, my kid can run a six six. And he just looks him in the face and goes, CHP. And everyone’s like, what? And he is like, can he play? Can he play? I don’t care how far he can hit it. I don’t care how hard you can throw it. Can you play? Can you play the game the right way? 

Can you play? Can you do the things that you need to do to help your team win that game? Because ultimately, I don’t care what people say. Yes, first of all, you have to have a skillset in order to get to a college to get to the next level, to get to high school, start with high school, then you get to college, then you get to the professional ranks, and then you’re blessed beyond belief. To get to the major leagues, you have to have a skillset which is developed mostly handed down. Listen, you’re either, listen, there’s a lot of that’s just genetic. You’re either got it or you don’t, right? And work. But you still got to develop those skills. But at the same time, once you start getting into those levels, you go to high school, you want to win, your goal is to win the state championship, then you go to college, what’s your goal? 

Get to Omaha. If let’s say you’re at a power of a big school, you want to go to Omaha, you want to go to the World Series, you want to win the World Series, what is that? Winning, right? Winning the World State Championships. It starts with winning. Then you want to win the World Series College World Series. Then you get to the professional level. People say, oh, it’s about development. But the good teams also develop their players to learn how to win and win the right way. So then you get to the big leagues, guess what it’s about in the big leagues, because how many people lose their jobs on your team sucks. A lot. Managers, general managers, coaches, players lose their jobs if you can’t win. So at the end of the day, you have to know how to win. And I think that starts with teaching kids at a younger age that winning is important the right way. 

And I’m not saying go out there and try to blow kids’ arms out, throw 400 pitches because you want to chase a trophy in a travel baller. No, I’m absolutely against that. What I’m saying is teach them, and if you lose, it’s okay to lose. It’s not, I think also you lose things because you lose people because you say, oh, we didn’t win the 4th of July tournament wherever Myrtle Beach, we finished third, great, but did your kids get better? Did you teach ’em something? And a lot of times, I’ll say this, at the first academy where I helped coach, we learn more about not only the coaches, but the players when you lose, because that’s when you see the warts. If you win every game, you’re like, we’re the best team ever. We got nothing wrong. You go out and you get your butt kicked, you look in the mirror and you say, okay, we need to work on this. And it’s easier to talk to the kids and say, Hey man, we need to work on bunting, or we need to work on our cutoffs and relays, or we need to work on holding runners, or whatever the thing is. But if you don’t lose and you just win all the time and you’re playing teams that aren’t as good as you or weaker than you, you never get better. 

And I would say that in this day and age, we’ve even created a numbness to losing because the kids do play in so many things and understand, yes, there’s always tomorrow, but also that sting of that loss is really important. And feeling that and understanding what that feels like and letting that sit with you, that’s what drives you to work harder the next day. So again, always trying to create and get better and create a good balance. And obviously that’s what our hope that through the diamond allegiance and the teams that are a part of this, that they’ll look at this ecosystem of travel baseball and how can we do better? And so things that we always talk about. So let’s talk a little bit more, and for everybody that’s live with us today, if you guys do have questions, you can type ’em in the question and answer, and I’ll be sure to weave them in into our conversation here. I’d love to hear, as a former catcher myself, I’d love to hear what the feeling of catching a perfect game was.

The most nervous I’ve ever been on a baseball field by far. Okay. Because listen, before that, I had won a World Series. I’d played in all-star games. I’d done that pretty much. I watched Mark Burley throw a perfect game, caught a no hitter from Mark Burley, watched Mark Burley throw a perfect game sitting on the bench. And I’m like, man, I’m never going to get that opportunity because there’s only been what, 23 of ’em in the history of the world, 

In the history of Major league baseball. So I mean, listen, I got to see two of them from right here. I mean, I was right there in the fight with the boys. So when Phil Humber threw his, you start looking up, it’s about the seventh, and you start thinking about it and you’re like, okay, we got to a no hitter, it’s really cool. And then I’m like, wait, he hasn’t been in the stretch yet. And so you start looking at the scoreboard. We were in Seattle, and you be like, wait, he hasn’t allowed a base runner yet. Wait. Oh my gosh, he’s really got something cool going on here. And then you get to the eighth and we get to the eighth, and you get to the ninth and you’re like, okay, just don’t screw this up. Put the right fingers down. Don’t mess this up. 

Just do everything you can. And then I remember the ninth inning, he goes 3.0 on the first inning, and I’m like, really? I’m like, come on. And he went, boom, boom, boom, strike one, strike two, strike three. And I was like, okay. We got through that, right? And then he gets the second out. I forget how the second owl was, but it was like, I think a fly ball to our right footer. But at no point was there a ball hit hard. There was not a, I mean, there wasn’t even close to anybody getting on base. And so we get to the nine hole hitter, and it was Brendan Ryan, it was like a shortstop three, two, of course. And I’m like, well, this dude, Phil s had the nastiest slider. He is. Had I ever see slider, he shakes. And I’m like, oh no, he throws a fastball, he fouls it off. 

And I’m like, oh no, okay, alright, okay. And then I’m like, okay, let’s try this again. I’m like, fastball. He shakes and I’m like, slider? He like, yeah, he throws a slider. But it was way outside. It was ball four, right? It was so far outside. I actually missed it. And Brendan Ryan checks swung and the umpire called him strike right away. Well, he didn’t run. Thank God. He probably would’ve made first because the ball was so far and I had to run. If you watch the video, you see me row and I just throw, I’m like this away, he’s not running. So I kind of take my time, throw it, strike. Don’t throw this thing in the right field, right? Yeah, just don’t throw this in please. Because I could run it down there and he’s out. And the coolest part for me was because I had missed the ball and everyone knew what was going on. 

Everyone kind of congregated on the mound, and I was the last person to get there. So everybody ran and I wanted to enjoy it because I’m like, this probably I’ll never get to see this again. So I was kind of standing back and I’m kind of walking. I don’t sprint into the pile and I watch everyone kind of dogpile fill. And then if you ever watch, just Google it. You’ll see me. I just go on the pile and I just kind fall down backwards and I just lay on the pile and just lay there. And I was just kind of soaking it all in. And I mean, listen, it was the nervous I’ve ever been because no hitter perfect games. They’re not scripted. It’s not like when we won the World Series, we’re like, oh man, you feel it coming, right? You’re like, oh, we’re up 3.0, we’re winning games. 

Four, we’re going to sweep ’em. We’re going to win. It’s going to be great. It’s going to be an unbelievable party. This is one night. I mean, if you ask people that are watching, they’re like, who the heck is Philip Pumper? We had one day where he threw a perfect game again, there’s only been what I think 23 of them. And he threw one of ’em. So I mean, he’ll go down in history forever as a guy that threw a perfect game. And for that one day everything was right. And that’s why you’re just like, please God, don’t let me mess this up. 

Yeah. I can’t imagine as a catcher just that, especially three, two. And he shakes and you’re like, first thing I’m probably thinking is, if you don’t throw this for a strike, we’re going to have a lot of issues, right?

Listen, I’ve been in it, you Darvis, the first time I caught you Darvis with Texas eight and two thirds, perfect. 

Second game of the year in Houston, eight and two thirds cut her in into Marvin Gonzalez. I still hate him because he got a hit, hit it right through Ish’s leg. And I’m like, no, right through his legs. I’m like, you got to be kidding me, right? I mean, it was the right pitch. Everything. And then you always look back now when you say, man, Shelby Miller went eight and two thirds no hit in Miami, and we get to Justin Bohr was up, and I call first pitch heater in, and I just had a conversation with another guy in the morning. I was like, what do you got on this Justin boar guy? He goes, he always looks first pitch heater. He’s like, so if he pitches it, don’t throw him one. And I’m like, well, Shelby’s been throwing this heater in on these left. He’s bounding them in. He won’t be ready for 96, 97 miles an hour. And he breaks his bat and he throws it over center field. To this day, I’m still like, why didn’t I call ball? It’s just like, why didn’t I call a curve ball? I knew and I still went. But those are the things that happen. That’s why those things are so special. 

So you’ve got, obviously your memory recall is pretty phenomenal, right? I mean, remembering pitches and a 20 year career, right? Excuse me.

Mean give you, I mean, obviously I played a lot of games. I can give you a lot of stuff. I can’t tell you what’s the most fun. I tell you what about being retired though is I see guys now and they’ll tell stories about me and I’m like, that didn’t happen. They’re like, oh, yes. Funny. 

I love it. So question that came from one of our listeners is if you could go back to your younger self, whether that’s as a teenager, when you were first getting into this, what’s one thing that you learned through the journey that you wish you could go back and tell yourself when you were young?

Enjoy it more, enjoy it more. There are two things. I’ll say this, and I’ve learned this now as I’m getting older. I wish, one, I wish I would’ve enjoyed things more. Just my whole career until the end. Don’t worry. My last three years, I’d say it was all business. And my last three years of my wife and my kids were with me a lot on the road, and they forced me to go out and see the cities and do things. So even in the minor leagues, it was just hotel field, home, hotel field, home or home, field home. It was never get out and see places. So I would say that is number one. And then number two for me, and I swear on this, you got to find out what you’re good at. No, you got to find whatever you are. If you’re a lead off hitter and you have speed, then blunt run, show off. 

Use your speed. If you’re a power guy, figure out a way to use your power. If you’re a pitcher and you got a great slider, throw slider 80% of the time, whatever it is, whatever you have that is good work at to make it great. The thing you got, and I wish that somebody would’ve told me this earlier in my career, you have this skillset and this is what you can do. So I feel like I did a good job of it, but at the same time, you never know, but figure out what you’re good at and make it great and use your tool set and what you’re given by God or whoever to make people see that I have this specific skill that can help you down the road. 

Yeah, I think that’s a great piece of advice because if we talk about the high school kid that’s going through this travel ball stuff, a lot of times we as coaches even focus on the things that they don’t do as well. And every player has something they do really, really well, like you said. So as a player, the takeaway would be for me to focus on those things and make ’em even better and to utilize them. So I really love that. But

Still, you still have to work on your deficiencies. I’m not saying ignore ’em, you can’t ignore, but I think what happens a lot of times is we get so stuck and what you just said, you get so stuck on what you can’t do, right? Oh, this kid can’t steal bases. Well, okay, but what can he do? He can hit the ball the other way. I can hit and run with him, put the ball and play. He can bun. He can play a terrific outfield. He plays a great whatever it is, but we’re so hung up on, man, this kid can’t hit, or this kid can’t do this. Well, yeah, you still have to work on those things, but you also I think, get ignored. Your strengths get ignored because you think it’s always going to be there. So emphasize the strengths, but you also have to work just as hard on your weaknesses. But don’t forget about your strengths. 

No doubt. So I’ve got a couple more I’m going to pepper you with, and we’ll try to finish up here in about five, 10 minutes. Okay, no problem. What would you consider your biggest personal accomplishment throughout your career?

Besides my family, obviously is number one. Without a doubt. I mean, my wife and my two kids. Look, when you’re fortunate enough to make the major leagues, which I obviously was unbelievably lucky to do, winning a World Series. I mean, there’s nothing as a major league baseball player, that means more to you when you put on that uniform. It’s like the World Baseball Classic, right? You just watch. The games were incredible. Every game was incredible. The atmospheres were, I mean, the greatest thing I’ve ever seen. But why? Because they were playing for the USA. They’re playing for Japan, they’re playing for Venezuela, they’re playing for Puerto Rico, whoever they’re playing for. When you put on the uniform and it says whatever team you’re on, yeah, it has your name on the back. But if you’re not trying to win and win a World Series and you’re playing the game for the wrong reasons. And so to be able to pick up that trophy and jump in your teammate’s arms after eight months of everyday busting your butt to get to that point, there is no better feeling than just pure joy and everything, every dream, every person that ever worked for you, every person that ever helped you, it’s all wrapped up into that one moment of celebration and the emotions that come out of guys is what makes it all worth it. 

This one’s a tough one, and there’s probably a million of them you could name, but who’s your favorite teammate and why?

Oh, well, yeah. See, I mean, I have a better chance of telling you who I didn’t like, probably, which I’m not 

Going to do.

Okay? So it’s kind of tricky because I look at it in different ways. My favorite teammate I ever played with, and if we’re just talking about pure baseball playing, was Barry Bonds. Listen, I played with Barry Bonds for a year in 2004. If anybody out there listening doesn’t know what Barry Bonds did in 2004, Google it because that was the year he hit 360. He walked 230 times. 

His OPS was like 1400 I think, or something crazy, 600, 6 60 or something ridiculous. So from just a pure guy, if I had to get a guy, get a hit, Barry Bond’s is my favorite teammate of all time, because when he stepped into the Batard’s box, it was like, stop what you’re doing. I don’t care where you’re at. I got to see what this dude’s about to do. It was incredible. And then if you’re talking total package, I mean, mark Burley was awesome. Brad Radke was awesome. Adrian Beltre was unbelievable. E Kinsler was one of my favorites. Jeff Rankor, I’m trying to think. Adam Wainwright is really high on the list. Let’s see, I’m trying to think of, Paul Ko was great. Chris sale was unbelievable. There’s just so many guys that were just awesome dudes. I mean, and by far way, way, way more out of, I dunno how many guys I played with way very, I can count ’em one hand maybe the guys that I was like, ah, I’m out on the.

That’s awesome. One last question here. What’s the best advice, and I know that you could give to parents to best support their kids in baseball as a coach, as a high school coach, now as someone that sees the travel ball circuit, what’s the best piece of advice you would give to a parent?

Listen, I’m bad at this too, because I’m in the dugout, I’m in the fight. I’m in the game. I’m in it, right? Even though I’m not playing, I’m still in it and I feel for the kids. So I always try to look at it and think about this. And I always, when I do broadcast for Fox, or when I do my YouTube show, I always try to remember this. And it’s hard because again, I’m a parent. I played and you forget this, and I’ll tell everybody this, baseball is really, really hard. It is really hard to do. And I forget this with my own kids, and I forget this with, like I said, the kids that I coach. And you have to just kind of take a step back and say, man, this game is hard. And just remember that it’s hard. So try to be as positive as you can, and whether you play it as a parent, you never played baseball. 

It looks easy on tv. The people that are doing it are really good on tv. They’re incredible. But it is really hard and don’t ever forget how hard it is because the farther you are away from the lines, man, I think you could say as you played, the easier it looks, right? So the farther you get from actually being inside the white lines, a little diamond there, the easier it looks. Now when you step back in between the lines, you’re like, man, that ball’s moving fast. And these dudes are throwing hard and they’re hitting it hard. But when you start backing away, you’re like, man, how would he not hit that ball? I mean, I’ll be calling games for Fox. I’ll be calling the playoff games. And I’m like, I can guess what’s coming pitch wise. And I’m like, how do they not hit that? And I’m like, damn, I forgot how, man, I never swung at the ball in the dirt, right? Meanwhile, I can show you a thousand videos of me striking out, right? So it’s like it’s really hard and I think you just got to be positive and try to accentuate with your kids the positives that they had. Even if you lose, Hey, we lost, we played like crap. But you know what, we did certain things right? We’ll talk about the bad things too, but make sure you accentuate the good things.

Exclusive Interview: Shane Greene’s MLB Journey – Yankees, Tigers, Braves, Dodgers Insights

Everyone, thanks for joining us for our Diamond Allegiance webinar today. We have a special guest who happens to be a friend of mine. I’m Eric Lasseter. I’m the director of membership for the Diamond Allegiance, and we’re happy to have Shane Green join us who was drafted in 2019, in a 15 round pick by the New York Yankees,

2009, 2009

Oh, 2009, sorry, 2009. I’m missed all-Star game in 2019. Excuse me. There you go. And he has played for the Yankees, tigers, Braves and Dodgers in his career so far. And again, a 2019 all-star. But we’re happy to have you join us, Shane, so thanks for coming on.

For sure. Appreciate you having me.

A couple things, obviously everybody gets to hear about the guys that are highly recruited, prospects out of high school or even out of the Power five conferences and their story into the big leagues. Yours is a little bit more unique. Obviously I know not a super highly touted high school player, but would love to hear your story for a lot of the kids who may be late to develop or don’t have some of the looks that they’re necessarily looking for right now, and so they can have a chance to hear your story in how you made it to the big leagues.

Yeah, for sure. I guess we can start almost in middle school. Growing up in Florida, playing little league and travel ball, you’re basically playing year round. I was always on the better teams in little league or whatever, but once you get to the big field, things start to change. So then you go, absolutely. You go to the big field and I always pitched, but once I got to the big field, that’s kind of when I realized that I probably wasn’t the greatest hitter. And then fast forward to high school, I made junior varsity my freshman year. At that point in time I was pitching, but I was also playing some third base and some right field.

Ended up breaking my wrist, diving for a ball. And then when I came back from there, I was doing more pitching than anything because my wrist just was kind of jacked up. But also I was never the greatest fielder. Anyways, fast forward to sophomore year of high school. I made the varsity team, but I made the varsity team as a pitcher only back in my high school days, pitcher only wasn’t a very usual popular thing. So I think I was the only, or maybe two of us that were pitcher onlys on varsity that year. But I was a sophomore and my coach at the time was David Bima, and he basically said, Hey, you’re not going to pitch much, but we got this kid who’s kind of like our dude. We think that you could learn a lot from him, shadow him, do everything he does.

If it’s his start day, you’ll do the book and the dugout and then whatever his routine is, post start day, you’ll just do exactly that. If he’s got a long run today, you’re running with him. If he’s got a bullpen, you got a bullpen. So that’s what I did. And my sophomore year I didn’t pitch at all at the varsity level, although I was on the varsity roster and I got sent down to junior varsity once every two weeks or so just to pitch and get some innings and then I would come back and practice with varsity and continue to shadow him. Junior year I pitched well, but I wasn’t throwing hard sale. I was 82, probably 83, but I pitched well because that’s when I developed a breaking ball.

Fast forward to senior year, I feel like I had some pretty high expectations just because my junior year went so well, but I still wasn’t throwing hard. I was topping out at like 86 and I didn’t pitch great. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t great. And then at the end of my senior year, I only had one college offer, so I took that offer. It was to the University of West Florida where I went to pitch obviously pitcher only. And then when I was there, I found out I had Tommy John needed Tommy John’s surgery, and I had Tommy John’s surgery after my freshman year. So as far as the high school part goes for the guys that feel like they’re not getting many offers or they’re not getting the schools that they want or they’re not getting enough exposure, this, that and the other. I never really dealt with that because at the time I didn’t realize it was just different back then I guess. But I only had one offer, so I didn’t overthink it. I just took it. You know what I mean? I only really talked to two schools. Florida Southern talked to me, I went on a visit there, but they never put anything in front of me. So as soon as there was something put in front of me, I just took it right away.

I think some of that has changed, right? With social media, I know obviously I played way before. You was also one of the few, even earlier than you that was told they were a picture only and it was kind of like a snide off thing where most people are like, oh my gosh. But I was like, yo, once I saw the kids started throwing harder, I was like, all right, I’m good with this. Put me on the one throw in the baseball instead of standing in the batter’s box.

And our day pitcher only basically meant you probably won’t play for much longer, you know? You know what I mean? So yeah, it definitely understand that. But I never really threw hard until after I came back from Tommy John.

And so where did you end up? Did you stay at West Florida after surgery or

No, I ended up leaving there. I transferred to Daytona Beach Community College and did basically on my rehab on my own there. But before surgery, I hit 89 a couple times, and then my first time on a radar gun after surgery, I was 90 to 92, which is like I just did a Zoom call the other day with some guys that are going through Tommy John and they’re in college right now, and they were asking me basically, are they going to gain velocity because they’re having a surgery? And my answer to that is, well, maybe just because you’re having that surgery, people think just because you have Tommy John, you’re going to throw harder. That’s not necessarily the case. One of my best friends at the time, he was my roommate, he had Tommy John a month after I did. He gained one miles an hour, so basically didn’t gain any, and I gained four or five, which is a lot,

And we did the exact same rehab together every single day. So potentially I was lucky, but I attributed to that year was the first time in my life that I wasn’t playing baseball year round, and so I was actually lifting and running and working out and focusing on getting stronger and more powerful. When prior to that, I literally just played baseball. I never went to the gym ever, and he was already kind of a gym rat, and so he kind of took me under his wing our sophomore year when we were rehabbing and I got much stronger. I had never done it before, and then my vilo jumped.

So you probably had some untapped potential to a certain extent because he was already in

Weight. I would definitely say that.

Pre-surgery, right?

Yeah, exactly. He was 90, 91 before the surgery. I was barely touching 89 before the surgery. He came out 90, 92, and I came out 92, 94. So yeah, I definitely think that what that year taught me the most was you got to put in the work if you want to sustain whatever it is you’re doing. Right. Before I was just playing, I learned that the weight room’s a pretty important, I’m not the biggest, strongest person in the world, but I learned how important it was to get where I wanted to go I guess.

So I’m assuming you seeing those velo jumps kind of changed even your vision and where your baseball career could go. Once you got to Daytona State and started seeing those velocity jumps, did that kind of give you another step in motivation to say, wait, maybe there’s more to this than me just getting a college diploma or playing four years in college baseball, or did that happen a little later as the season went on?

So my freshman year, I obviously played, I pitched 20 innings or something, and then I had the Tommy John, and then I transferred. So then my sophomore year, I was just a student. I wasn’t on the baseball team at all. I had bright futures, so I was just going to community college. It was paid for bright futures. I had a conversation with the coach at Daytona Beach who allowed me and my roommate to use the baseball field to do our throwing program with a chance to either walk on or maybe even earn a scholarship. This was the first time they were doing this kind of thing. I think they had a developmental team, so almost like a JV team. So they were like, worst case scenario, you guys can play on that team and earn a spot. So anyways, he allowed us to use the facilities to do it, but for me, it happened so fast. I was off the mound for the first time after surgery two months prior to the draft. So I got off the mound for the first time, and then I got off the mound for the second time, and then now I’m healthy. I haven’t pitched in a year. They had the College War Bat league in central Florida. I don’t know if they still have that or not, but there was this team

I think it’s now the Florida Collegiate League has kind of replaced that a little bit, but yeah,

Okay. They had a team at eastridge, my high school, they had a team in Claremont that I was going to play for. So I called Jeff Dedo, who’s the scout for the Yankees now, but when I was eight, nine years old, he was playing third base at AAA level with the Yankees. So I used to go to him for hitting lessons, which obviously didn’t work out. But what did work out was he became a good family friend of ours and reached out to him a hundred times basically asking him like, Hey, can you watch me throw a bullpen and just talk to the schools that you know or have relationships with to get them to watch me during the summer in this league, so potentially I can get on a baseball scholarship again and go to school for free, but be on a team, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Sure, no problem. So he meets us at a local field in Claremont, my best friend’s catching me, he didn’t even catch his little sister’s five years old holding the radar gun behind the L screen. Jeff’s standing down third baseline, and I’m just throwing a bullpen. No expectations at all, right? I haven’t been on a radar gun. I’m just literally throwing a bullpen. I know Jeff’s there afterwards. Jeff’s like, do you want to play professional baseball? And I’m like, well, obviously. And so he’s like, well, when can you do that again? And I was like, well, that’s my third time. I’ve been going once a week, so give me a week. He’s like, all right, a week from today back here, I’m going to bring another guy. I’m like, okay. So go through the week, go back to the same field, same thing. My buddy’s back there catching.

He brought in a crosschecker, I threw a bullpen again, I was 90, 92. Same deal. When can you do that again? I don’t know. Give me a week. The following week they had me drive to Tampa. I went to the Yankees complex and I pitched in a scrimmage game on the backfield against guys that were already playing pro ball in the lower levels with the Yankees. And I pitched one inning, and when I came off the mountain into the dugout, Jeff came walking over and he was smiling from ear to ear, and I’m like, what’s so funny? And he’s like, no, hard you were just throwing. I was like, I have no idea. He said, you got up to 94? I was like, no way. He’s like, yeah, your stock just went way up. And I was like, let’s go. So that was literally 10 or 11 days before the draft.

So it all happened so fast that I didn’t even know what was going on. So much so that the day of the draft, I texted him and I was like, Hey, should I pay attention to this thing? And he’s like, yeah, but not until after the 10th round. I’m like, okay. So I got it on the computer and me and my buddy are playing Call of Duty, and we’re not even paying attention. We just have it on speaker over in the corner. We’re playing Call of Duty, and next thing you know, our dad’s come running in the house and they’re like, you just got drafted. We’re like, what? We didn’t even realize it was off. The computer had died. We were just playing Call of Duty and we’re like, whoa, that’s crazy. So we started freaking out and then Jeff called me and congratulations, and then he’s like, I’ll be in touch with you tomorrow or the next day. I’m like, all right, cool. And so we’re obviously crazy ecstatic. It all happened so fast, it’s a blur. And then two days later he called me again. I have no idea how any of this works. I don’t have an agent, I don’t have anything. It just happened that Jeff calls me, he is like, Hey, they want to know how much it will take for you to sign.

And I’m like, Jeff, all tell me the answer, right?

Yeah. He’s like, he’s just give me a number that I can tell him and I’m like 250,000. And he’s like, I’ll call you back, hang up the phone. He calls me back like 10 minutes later and he is like, they said they’ll give you a hundred. I said, send me the address. I’ll be there tomorrow. So I packed my shit up and drove to Tampa and signed that contract and here.

That’s awesome.

Yeah, man, it was crazy.

One of the things that you mentioned was obviously going through Tommy John, and you talked about it a little bit, but obviously for any of the people who are tuning in right now are going to watch this later, injuries happen in baseball and now at a younger rate. Is there any kind of advice that you would give to anybody? Like you said their setbacks are going to happen. How do you deal with ’em? Don’t expect obviously that you’re going to do what you did and jump five miles an hour, but is there anything specific that you would give to these players who may be dealing with injury early on in their career to know that it’s not over for you? There’s a lot of hard work ahead of you, but what do you do next?

Yeah, I would say there’s a couple answers to that question. One of them is there’s a saying in pro ball where the best ability is availability. So learning your body, figuring out what works for you to stay healthy for as long as possible will give you the most opportunities to get to the next level no matter what level you’re at. But injuries most definitely happen, and when they happen, understand that it’s not the end of the world. You just have to assess where you’re at, have a plan, make a plan, have a plan, and then execute the plan and you’re going to have setbacks. There was multiple during my Tommy John rehab that I would be playing catch and I’d be like, I think I just blew out. Again, I’m talking extremely painful stuff, not just like I don’t feel good. No, something just happened.

And because we had transfer schools and whatnot, me and my buddy Matt were just kind of doing it all together. We didn’t have a physical therapist or anybody to tell us right from wrong, and it would happen to both of us on different days, and we would just shut it down, take a day or two off, and then we’d try to throw again, and most of the time it would be okay. So we were kind of just making it up as we went. But what I learned from that was just listen to your body, number one. Number two, understand that you are injured. So anything can happen. Your body is a crazy thing, so things may still hurt for a while, but you have to understand that it’s a growing pain and not being injured and that it’s going to be different for everybody. You know what I mean?

Like I said, there was multiple times I stopped because I thought I was done, but then I tried it again two days later and I felt fine. So it’s a part of the rehabilitation process. But I will say that mentally for me not being able to play baseball for a year, watching all my friends play, I realized how much I loved it, and I knew that if I wasn’t going to make it back and be bigger or stronger or throw harder or whatever, it wasn’t going to be from lack of effort. So I woke up every day doing whatever I could do to get better, and then a year later I was throwing 92, 93, 9, 4.

So obviously don’t get frustrated is one of those key points, right? Because

Yeah, for sure.

And listen to your body, just because it hurts doesn’t mean it happened again, but take some time off. Don’t just try to keep throwing through it. Whenever you’re coming back from injury, listen to your body, take a few days off if you need it,

Especially when you’re young, you have plenty of time to make it to the big leagues. If the big leagues is the goal and you’re 17, I didn’t debut until I was 26, and if somebody would’ve told me it was going to take till I was 30, I would’ve said, okay, sign me up. So you have so much time, you just can’t lose hope, you can’t lose faith. One of the analogies I like to use when describing that mentality I guess is if you’re a pilot flying a plane and an engine goes out, you have to continue flying the plane or you’re going to crash. If the other engine goes out, you got to continue flying the plane or you’re going to crash. So if you get injured, that’s basically like an engine going out. You have to keep flying the plane. If you stop flying the plane at any point you’re done. So your career and your life or your plane never stop flying the plane, continue moving forward.

It’s a great analogy. And then obviously you mentioned a couple things, and I know it was obviously a different time. I’m quite a few years older than you, but we didn’t have the kind of technology that’s available. And I know even now when you first got drafted in 2009, the tech and all the different analytics were not. What are, once you got to the big leagues even, is there something that you learned from different guys, whether it be taking care of your body, mobility things, stuff that you just were almost jaded to a little bit when you were younger and just kind of athletic naturally. And as your careers has gone on that maybe some of these young guys need to hear as far as taking care of their bodies?

I think at a young age, people don’t realize how important it’s to stretch pre and post working out or game or whatever. Basically stay moving. It’s like people talk about, oh, I’m 50 years old, I must have, well, my back hurts. Well, no, your back hurts because you stopped moving 20 years ago. You have to continue moving. And once you get into these higher levels, especially in pro ball for the first year or two and you’re riding these buses for six to 12 hours and you’re playing 160 games in 180 days, you have to come up with a program that’s going to keep your body fluid and keep your body healthy. But that’s when you have to consult with strength coaches and conditioning coaches. So it’s like you still have to train, but you can’t overtrain, and then it goes back to listen to your body.

So the biggest thing for me personally in season is people always give me crap for it, all my teammates, but I’m always stretching. That’s what works for me. And it could be different for the next person, but for me, I’m always stretching and I tell people, and I tell people all the time, imagine if I didn’t stretch how tight I would be, I bound up because I’m naturally a bounded up person. And then plus, once you get to the higher levels, take advantage. People say stay out of the training room. Like yeah, stay out of the training room. You can’t complain about everything, but if you have a program set in place, then take advantage of the training room. Absolutely. You can’t walk in there complaining about your knee hurting and then the next day your neck hurts. But if you have a program like today, I need to do my shoulder program tomorrow I’m going to do my hip program and this day I’m going to do my ankle. If you have a program staying in the training room, the spine. So I think that there’s a little misconception there, but more than anything, it goes back to listen to your body, take care of your body, and the best ability is availability.

I think that’s one of the things that the Diamond Allegiance really has harped on. Obviously each one of our organizations gets a custom branded app, but within that app we’ve learned that

Just

Watching and me being a high school coach also, these kids don’t even know how to stretch and properly open up their body to give them the results that they want. And so I was wondering, within our app, we have a mobility and strength testing with AI and all those things. How do you think that would’ve improved you having something like that at a young age and learning how your body moves and even fixing some of those deficiencies that maybe you found at 22 or 23 years old?

Well, I think that’s why everybody in the big leagues throws a hundred now because they have this information provided to them at a much younger age where when you were 13 or when I was 13, the running and the conditioning and the lifting I was doing was basically military style punishment running

No doubt

Go run 40 hills basically. Let’s see how tough you are. That was working out. Now people have personalized programs, so that’s why people are throwing harder. That’s why people are running faster. That’s why people are jumping higher because they have access to these personalized programs at a much younger age. And if you start doing that at 16 years old, now you’re 22 6 years of personalized program where I didn’t get a personalized program until I was 20.

Right, exactly. You

Know what I mean? I don’t think I ever had one. Yeah. So six years later, I’m 26. That’s like almost old in the baseball world, you know what I mean? So I think that’s why people are throwing harder and running faster or jumping higher now because they have access to that. So that’s definitely changing the game. And then with that, you can even start talking about the analytics with the track man stuff and the hit track stuff, all that kind of stuff, and how big of an impact that’s taken onto the game where when I first got even to the big leagues in 2014, sure, we have scouting reports and they might shift over big poppies up, but it wasn’t like a shift every single hitter or what should we throw this guy in this count, the catcher checking his wristband. You know what I mean? So the game will forever evolve, and now that technology is where it is just in the world, who knows what’s going to happen, but there’s some really good tools out there to be used. But I’ll always forever say, work on your mental and be aware of your body and be aware of your health.

I got a couple of good questions in from some of the attendees live in the webinar, which kind of allude to this. What does your daily stretching routine look like personally? And then what do you do for nutrition and or mindset? Obviously you just spoke about mindset and then nutrition. How big of a key is that as you go through, especially with obviously the grind of a big league season, the travel, all that stuff. How do you maintain the proper nutrition? And then what is your actual daily stretching routine? Give us a day, obviously, I know it’s different every day depending on what you’re doing, but give us a little example of those things.

So if I’m being completely transparent, one of my biggest flaws is I’ll get into, I’ll do something I really like. Let’s say my, excuse me, my strength coach or my conditioning coach or whatever showed me a stretch and I’m like, wow, I really like that. I will hammer that thing every day for 30 days, but as soon as he shows me another one, I really like another, I’ll hammer that one. You know what I mean? So that’s one of my flaws. So I couldn’t give you an exact routine as far as stretching or mobility goes because I kind of bounce around. But I will say that the guy that I trained with now, he’s always frustrated with me because I take too long to warm up, but that’s because I’m always stretching. So it’s like I might not be doing the same exact stretch every day forever, but I take a while to warm up because I take pride in making sure that I’m loose and ready to go before I try to do something. I’m not going to get the most out of this single leg squat if I’m super bound up and tight and not loose and probably not even sweating yet. To me, I’m not going to get the most out of that exercise unless I’m sweating first.

So to me, the biggest thing is awareness of the body, but warmup before the warmup, if that makes sense. I like that. Even the high school player that’s going out, you ’em going on the line at whatever, three o’clock in the afternoon for a stretch, take pride in being stretched and ready before that stretch. Absolutely. That stretch is really just to make sure that the kid that’s not taking care of it on its own is stretched and doesn’t pull a hammy because not everybody’s going to take care of themselves, but realistically, you should take care of yourself.

To me, as a high school coach, I look at that as the team stretching period as a time really for you to be together and be unified. But we also, I mean you’ve been to some of our practices, but we also give about a 45 minute window before that even happens to all of our guys to do their own individual routines. Everybody should have one, and it shouldn’t be the same because my third baseman may have some hip e mobilities that bother him that he really needs to work on that we’re not going to really emphasize in a team stretch

Or

A pitcher may have X, Y, or Z to work on. So I think that’s really important to point out that it shouldn’t be the same for everybody. It should be different. And then even if you are doing team stretches, it’s not necessarily really there to really get everybody fully loose.

And don’t get me wrong, I played with many people who got the stretch and they haven’t stretched yet and they’re the best in the world.

Perfectly fine, right? Yeah,

Exactly right. But awareness, I’m very aware that I’m a very bound up person, so I have to be extremely loose and hot before I go stretch or i’ll, I’ll never be able to throw properly. My mechanics won’t be right, my arm will start barking, whether it’s my shoulder or my elbow, whatever, because I’m not loose enough where the next guy, potentially he is loose enough, just naturally. So it kind of goes back to the awareness thing. But if I was to make a recommendation to a kid, especially in the college level, take some pride and being ready before you have to be ready. If you’re not ready when you have to be ready, then you’re probably behind because somebody’s going to be ready before you have to be ready.

Absolutely. I think you just answered some problems with your golf game. I think maybe you need to stretch and swing a little bit more before

You do on that. Well, the craziest thing about that is the least amount I play golf the better I hit. So I just got to play once a year. I’ll be good.

There you go. Alright, so on the nutrition, is there anything specific that you like to do? Are you counting carbs? Are you doing anything crazy or are you just making sure that you’re eating healthy stuff? Essentially?

Nutrition’s so dicey because similar to my stretch routine where I bounced around, I’ve tried every diet that you could probably try. At one point in my life I was a full vegan for 10 straight months. So I’ve tried it all. I’ve done it all.

Probably another listen to your body type deal too, right? I’m sure through

That. Yeah. Well, and nowadays they have, you can get your blood tested and stuff and they can tell you what to eat and what to stay away from, which I’ve never actually done. But more than anything, do some research, find some people that you believe know what they’re talking about, and then if you believe in that, I would say do that. At the end of the day, it’s about what you believe in, whether it’s placebo effect or not. If it doesn’t work out, you got to be able to sleep at night. So find something that you believe in nutritional wise and then stick to it because really sticking to a diet or sticking to a plan, as much as it’s for your health, it’s for your mental as well. There’s just something about having a plan and executing a plan that makes you feel confident and prepared, even dialed into the nutrition that just doing that will give you an edge when performing. But once you get to the college level on the professional level, a lot of the meals will be provided for you. So then once that starts happening, every once in a while you’re going to get provided. Not a great meal probably. Right. So it’s like when you can make good choices, make them, and then when you can’t make better ones.

Yeah, that’s good.

So it’s like

Especially I’m sure in the minor leagues, they weren’t exactly feeding you the

Best food every given day, especially 15 years ago, man, we were eating chicken fingers in every kind of way. You could make a chicken finger one day, it was chicken parm, the next day it was just a chicken tender. The next day it was chicken cord on blue, but it was all the same chicken tenders with stuff piled on top of it.

Alright, I have a couple more questions for you and then we’ll let you get off here and get back to work. But is there

One your mindset, I know one of your mindsets that may be a little too highly rated for this call, but what’s your mindset when you’re going out to take the mound? What are some things that no matter how you feel, because obviously as a pitcher in the big leagues, you’re not going to feel that you’re best every single day. So how do you get through that when you don’t feel your best? Because I think that’s something that a lot of young kids struggle with. I mean, we have guys all the time, and I hear it through all different programs that are in the diamond allegiance where they don’t feel great. Next thing you know, they think they need Tommy John because they’re not in perfect condition. Or Hey coach, I don’t know if I can throw, I’m a little tight. What is your mindset when it comes to those things when you don’t have your best day? How do you get through that?

Well, I think that one, especially now more than ever, probably with hit tracks and Rek win and everything, everybody’s so worried about what the iPad says or how much the ball’s moving or how hard it was

Hard they’re throwing

Or how hard they’re throwing people stop talking about the thought process in which you’re doing it, right? So one small example is one time I played with James McCann, catcher with Detroit. He’s with the Orioles now, but he was in, we had a really good relationship. He was in a funk. He was like one for 20 or maybe even worse. And we were just talking about it and he’s like, man, I just don’t feel right up there. And I’m like, well, are you focusing on hitting the ball? And he is like, well, I’m working on trying the, and I’m like, no, but end game. Are you trying to hit the baseball or are you trying to have a good swing? Because if you’re trying to have a good swing when the pitcher’s trying to strike you out, well then that’s why you’re not hitting the baseball.

So the mentality is when you’re in between the lines for competition in game, you have to focus on the competition at hand, which is for a hitter, hit the baseball and pitcher hit the mit, right? Yeah. Worry about how much it’s moving and how to get it to move or what your path is doing and maybe whatever, I’m no hitter, but your bat path or what your hands are doing or whatever, where you’re stepping worry about that pregame, once the game starts, you have to focus on competing. If you’re not focused on competing, you are not going to win the competition. Right? Absolutely.

I think that’s something that a lot of high school kids now, because the data is literally given to them mid gain, like the other pitchers on a travel team have their stats up, Hey, you come in the game. Maybe he walks three hitters and strikes out three, isn’t worried about the walks, they come in the dugout and are asking how hard they’re throwing. Sometimes I just think what they’re thinking about as successful is wrong. And I think, like you said, all that stuff is great when you’re in a practice setting, right course or you’re in a lesson setting, you should be working on your swing, you should be working on your fundamentals. But one of the things I try to harp on with our players is once you get in between the lines, it’s FIO, figure it out. That’s all there is to do. If you’re throwing it up, change your vision, do something simple. Don’t start breaking all of your mechanics in the middle of a game or then your brain is really in the wrong place. You’re not worried about hitting the glove if you’re worried about, are my hands breaking if my arm here at foot strike? It’s too late when you’re in a game, right?

No doubt. So it’s like I’m a big analogy guy. So my analogy for that would be like, all right, Mike Tyson, if he’s in the boxing ring and he’s fighting, he’s not worried about how he’s going to throw his right hook or how he’s going to throw his left undercut. He’s just throwing them because he’s trying to knock this guy out. Now, if he gets knocked out when he’s training for his next fight during the training, he’ll be worried about how and when he’s throwing these punches. But end fight is reaction during game. It’s just reaction. And that’s when it goes back to having a plan and executing the plan so that you’re prepared and confident so that you can compete at a high level. And so it’s like use the tools for tools, but when you’re competing, you’re fighting, you’re literally in a boxing ring and you’re throwing haymakers and there will be a winner and there will be a Luther if you lose because you’re worried about how you’re sling or how you’re throwing your right hook while the other guy is just trying to hit you square in the nose. It’s not going to be easy to sleep at night.

But if you know that you’re literally, I always say bring your nuts first. If you bring it and you’re full competitive mode and you lose, you can live with that. It’s much easier to sleep at night. And then the following day you go back to the drawing board to figure out how you won’t lose the next time you practice that you work on that. And then when it’s time to fight again, you fight.

I love it. I love it. And then I’ll end with this and then we’ll go ahead and let you get back to work, like I said. But is there any piece of advice that maybe you got, and I’m putting you on the spot here, but is there any piece of advice that you got from a big leaguer once you were getting up to the big leagues that you think maybe would help a high school age athlete know? Or is it kind of what you just said, it’s somebody come up and tell you like, Hey, don’t worry about all that other stuff. You just got to bring it and be prepared to go and battle. Or is there something else that maybe somebody mentioned to you along the way that really stood out to you?

Well, I learned a lot from Francisco Rodriguez as far as pitching goes, but at the lower levels, like high school and college, the thing I learned most from him was how to call pitches or what pitches to throw and when and how. But at the lower levels, like high school and college, a lot of times the coach is doing that. So if we have a coach webinar, I would love to talk to them about how and what to throw when. But players pay attention because at some point you’re going to call your own game. When you’re watching a big league game on TV and you see a sequence in your head. You don’t have to tell anybody but in your head know what you might throw. And then if this guy throws it, look at the result and be like, damn, was I right or was I wrong? Or if they throw something else and they succeed like, well, maybe I wasn’t right, and this is why that succeeded forever be a student of the game. I think that you can do that at any level.

I would say for a high school or even a college player, the biggest piece of advice would be we kind of just talked about it. It’s a fight. It’s a competition during the game, but learn how to slow the game down because the game will get really fast, really, really, really, really, really fast, really, really, really, really, really quick. And next thing you know, boom, it’s gone. It’s different for everybody. I suggest learning how important breathing is and learning how to control your breath in those high intense moments. And that stuff starts with your bullpens, your cage work, your workout, your running, your sprinting. Always be aware of what your breath is doing, and that will help you slow the heart rate down in those big moments because you’re going to have big moments. And then if you can control your breath and you can control your thoughts and you can control your heart rate, it will be much easier to control the situation that you’re in end game.

That’s awesome. Oh, I did just get two more questions I’m going to hit you with before we get over. Yeah, rip ’em. Rip ’em. These could be a little different because obviously back then travel baseball wasn’t a different kind of bracket, but it says, what do you think would’ve improved your travel baseball experience? And then top tip for parents of travel baseball players, both of those questions were two that we just got here.

What was the first question? What would the first

Question, what do you think would’ve improved your travel baseball experience?

I mean, I never played for the best team around. At the time, it was like the Scorpions or the Renegades. I think they were called

Games back in the day. Yeah, I was never on either one of those teams, but we always had a lot of fun. And growing up in Florida, there’s a tournament every weekend somewhere close. So we were always in something. I truthfully don’t know if there could have been a better travel baseball experience. I played with the same group of guys that I played with in high school all the way up, and none of us were really on any of the best teams. I think it’s probably much different now than it was then, but I would say, who cares if you’re not on the best team?

Weren’t a top team guy, is what they call it nowadays. So you may have been on a second team, who cares? How about you just go get better and show your ability, right?

Yeah, just go play, man, because someday in your life you won’t play anymore. So take advantage that you can play.

I’m assuming that’s also probably one of the tips that you could give to parents of travel baseball is don’t worry about necessarily what team, but what else would you say for parents

To a parent?

I don’t have any of my own kids, and I’m sure it’s much more difficult for a parent, but gosh, man, you got to let the coaches coach one one. Your kid doesn’t listen to you probably because you’re the parent. So yelling at them what to do or get their elbow up or rocking fire, whatever, just like we were practicing the other. No, just let the coaches coach. Let your kid play and be a parent. If you want to talk about how to hit or how to throw later on that night when the games are over or the next day or whatever and you want to coach ’em up, they’re your kid, great. But during the game, let your kid play and let the coaches coach. Because if you’re yelling something at him and the coach is yelling something at him and he’s yelling something at himself, it’s probably not going to end well.

Right? Not going to be able to do a lot of the things you just talked about. Right? Control your breathing zone in on what you’re trying to do

When everything else yell. If you want to yell at your kid during a baseball game, tell him to find his breath or to slow the game down and leave it at that. So understand what he’s trying to do, and you can yell at him for that, but let the kid play, man. You see me when I come to your guys’ games by myself because I can’t hear what some of the parents are saying. It’s so hard for me to hear it. One, most of them don’t know what they’re talking about. So being that passionate about something is great, but being passionate about something that you don’t know anything about is not great, right?

It’s dangerous is what

It’s, yeah. So be passionate, but let your kid play, man. Let the coaches coach and if anything else, be available for your kid, if he wants to talk about it, talk about it. If he doesn’t want to talk about it, then don’t talk about it. Talk about it later. If he wants to hit extra batting practice, do it. If he wants to get there early, do it. Be there for him that way, but end game man, just let him play.

I think that’s a huge point because one of the things that I see, obviously having a travel baseball organization myself and having buddies all throughout this industry is, especially now in travel baseball, they have enough pressure on themselves to perform every day with the amount of colleges and schools that are in attendance to watch them play that, do they really need the added pressure of mom or dad telling ’em that they stunk that day or what they should have done different that day?

I think like you’re saying, the love and support goes a long way when a kid already has the weight on his shoulders to perform. He wants to be as good as you want him to be. I promise that. No doubt. So I think the support and love and letting them know, Hey, I support you. Even when you go, oh, for three son, or even when you throw five innings to give up eight runs, that goes a long way with a kid, with the pressure that he already has on his shoulders and that he’s put on himself. He wants to be a great player.

Yeah, you can be honest with your kid too. You suck today, but let’s talk about why. But a lot of times I see probably dads more than moms. They’re so angry with their kid for sucking today, where it’s like, dude, this is such a hard game. First of all, baseball is the hardest game in the world. You can do everything and suck, and then you can do everything wrong and be great today. So stop being so angry, man, and just talk to your kid about it.

Find out how MLB.com #1 Prospect Dylan Crews Prepares for the Draft and how he trains

When did you fall in love with the game? Tell me the process of when you fell in love with baseball.

Yeah, I mean, geez, I remember when I was five years old and at my grandma’s house just hitting baseballs over the house and my told my dad one day, she was like, man, you got your ballplayer right here. So I guess that’s when it all started was grandma. She was the one that kind of introduced me to the game. But when I started actually noticing I actually have a future in this game was about when I was 10 years old, 11 years old, when I started actually kind of putting some power behind the baseballs and driving him over the fence. And when I was working out with one of my old hitting coaches, do you remember was he was the one that really made me kind of fall in love with this game. He was a rocky style type of coach, and I remember RT was like a bucket filled or had APVC pipe in the bucket filled with cement, and it had a little rubber piece at the top of the PVC pipe. And just when that thing started wearing down, all you do is tape it back up. And so it just kind of made me appreciate it, appreciate the game, allowed me to fall in love with the game and fall in love with the process pretty much. So I guess that’s kind of where it all started.

So process is an important word. I think it’s something that as a coach I like to talk about a lot.

What

Was your process throughout high school and your travel ball years? What did it look like, let’s say from the time you were 13 on from a daily routine, what did it look like for you?

Yeah, let’s see. 13, let’s see, how old was I? What grade was I in? I think I was eighth.

Eighth grade. Eighth grade Seventh, eighth grade. Yeah, eighth

Yeah. So eighth grade. I think at that time I was, let’s see, I think I was working out with Mo at the time, actually. No, I was working out with you. I was working out with you at the time. Yeah, I was working out with, he started, yeah, no, I was working out with you. Mo was, before that I was working out with you and I’d go to school, I’d get finished, I forget around two 30 and then come hit with you at the time. Yeah. So that was my process. We’d get done around 4, 4 30 and then I’d work out after that.

Yeah. And then as the time got on, I went to TNXO and then that’s when I started, that’s when I think I’d finished school around, let’s see, like 11, 11 30. And then I’d go over there and then hit out, do everything and be done by two, three o’clock. And that’s when I had my free time after that. But yeah, and then in travel ball and everything like that, we would go play tons of in the summer. And then I think I started playing with Scorpions around that time, eighth grade freshman year. And then I started playing with the 2019 class when I was 14, I think 1415. And that’s actually when I started getting some notice in my game.

I think I got my first offer, I think it was eighth grade going into freshman year. Yeah, it’s crazy how early that was. I know kids nowadays are getting offers about the same time or earlier than that, so it was pretty crazy. And then that’s when it all blew up right there. As soon as I got my first offer going into freshman year, I started getting noticed from all over the place ICC schools and freshman year hit. And then I am in high school training working out every day. And then on the weekends I’d go to a different school every weekend I visited 15 different schools. You remember that? What you do. I visited 15 different schools. I wanted to get a true feel of what every school felt like. I never really had a favorite school growing up. I was very open with it, so visited all the different schools, got a feel for it, and then visited LSU and it was a huge eye-opener for me. I mean, this place is college baseball heaven, you know what I mean? It’s just the resources they have here, the development that they have here. It’s just a second home for me pretty much. And most importantly, the food here is amazing too, so I’m never going hungry here at all, dude.

I’m sure. I’m sure there’s a lot of restaurants where you don’t have to pay that bill either, so

Yeah, yeah. No, it’s good. It’s good. Everybody here loves their sports, so it’s a small world and you get noticed. I mean, and all over the place, all these restaurants you walk in and everybody knows who you are. So it is pretty cool. It is what I wanted at the end of the day. So senior year came and it was a tough time. It was like that covid year, but I didn’t have the year that I wanted to. I think people realized a lot of players and a lot of parents think that college is the worst thing ever. And in my eyes, I am telling you right now, it’s the best decision that I’ve ever had going to college. I’ve developed into a completely different player. I’ve matured at the time in high school when I was a senior, it was a lot of pressure on me as a young kid, I didn’t know how to deal with all that pressure going into the draft.

So I let the pressure of get to me and I didn’t play the way that I wanted to. I was trying to live up to this certain expectation. So it was a blessing in disguise is what I always say. So I, I take my name out of the draft and I go to college and I’m going to tell you it, it is been the best decision of my life and I’ve made some of the best relationships here, developed, like I said, into the player that I want to be leading up to the draft. And it’s just been awesome. And I got one more year left and I’m just trying to enjoy it to the best I can and hopefully win a national championship here soon.

Absolutely. Well, we’ll get into LSU baseball in a little bit here, but I want to ask you a couple more questions about your high school days. What do you think about that travel ball experience helped prepare you for LSU and for playing in the SEC? Is there anything that sticks out in your mind that really helped it so that you could come in as a freshman? Hit 360 2 with 16 doubles, 18 bombs, 42 rbis and an OPS over a thousand as a freshman in the SEC. Right. That’s unheard of, right? So what would you say prepared you best through your travel ball days and your travel ball experience to do that?

Yeah, there’s definitely one thing that sticks out to me the most, and that was me playing up. I was always a 2020 playing in the 2019 class since I was 14, 15 years old. So that transition period was very easy for me coming into college. Like I said, I always played up. So playing with these older guys, it became honestly kind of easy. It was easier for sure as far as the transition, the game didn’t speed up to me at all. I was always, like I said, always played up. So that was definitely the thing that helped me out with the transition part and kind of adjusting. So yeah, I just got here, did what I wanted to do, did what I was supposed to do, and at the end of the day, just be me. So that was, it wasn’t living up to a certain expectation, just trying to be the best me that I could be, and it was more than what I could have imagined. So it was good.

Awesome. Give me one of your favorite memories from your child all days, whether it was with the Scorpions team, USA, what was one of your favorite memories that you can think of?

Man, I got a lot of good memories in high school. I mean, those Jupiter tournaments were awesome, man. Going there and playing in front of all those scouts and the golf carts over there. That was one of the best memories of my life for sure. I mean, I remember playing under the lights there and you got golf carts lined up on both foul lines, just watching, and you got the behind the plate, tons of golf carts and got all the radar guns popping up. It was cool. It was awesome. Definitely something that I remember for the rest of my life, for sure.

Awesome. So let’s transition to LSU and where you are now. I remember the first time I saw you after it was your freshman year. Unfortunately, I wasn’t the best coach. I only came up to one series. It was the super in Tennessee, and I remember getting a big hug. I remember asking you at that time, what’s the biggest difference, and I actually share this a lot. Dylan, your response was at that time, and I’d like to hear your answer now, but that time you said, I only have to swing at strikes. Right? The strike zone, the umpires were better, right? The strike zone, you could command it better, but what are two or three of the biggest adjustments, maybe both on the field and off the field that you had to make transitioning from high school to the top level of college baseball?

Yeah, I think for me it was learning how to kind of slow the game down. Nowadays it’s really sped up. The game really speeds up. So it’s really important for me to learn how to slow the game down. And that all starts with my preparation. And first of all, the on deck circle, I am up there getting my timing down, learning how to be slow and early with the guy walking up to the plate slow, just really get the thoughts down, trusting you, trusting in your process, really. Yeah, that’s really it. Just learning how to slow the game down, really. I think that’s having the new coaching staff come over here last year helped me out tremendously with that. Learning how to do breathing techniques and really just using your eyes pretty much too. That’s one of Jay’s biggest things is using your eyes and using that to your ability and learning how to get behind the baseball with your eyes. And his thing, he always says, if you can’t see the ball, you can’t hit the ball. So really learning how to, like I said, see the ball and slow the game down has been the two biggest adjustments that I’ve learned through these past few years.

That’s a really interesting thing. What are some things that you do to train yourself? Train the i’s, are there some specific drills? Are there specific things that you guys do?

Yeah, so we got colored dotted balls. We get a red, we draw a red dot on the baseball, and then we do a blue one and then a black one and the green one. And then when he throws it in, you have to call out the color that he threw. And that’s one of the drills we do. Another one I guess would be, let’s see, we do like one where it’s like there’s an L screen, you got the L screen there, and then you draw a line or you tape a line on top of the L screen and if you throw above it, it’s a strike and if you throw below the line, it’s a ball and you have to take it. So that’s something we do. Yeah, that’s really it. Really. Using your eyes is huge for him. Another thing we do is we got a sock and we put seven balls in the sock and you lay in front of the plate and when he throws it in, you have to call the number that the ball went over in the balls in the socket. So yeah, that’s another thing we do. Yeah, that’s really it. That’s something that Coach J takes a lot of pride in and it helps out us tremendously for sure.

So we talked about your routine in high school, and I was lucky enough to get off of school early and get your lift in and get some work in. How has that transformed as you’ve gone into college? I think one thing that I always knew about you is obviously a guy that got to hit with you for four or five years consistently was you were a guy that liked to take a lot of swings, right? Yeah. Is that still the same or has things changed a little bit?

Yeah, I really had to learn how to be more quality over quantity, really taking game-like approaches and swings during my BP sessions compared to just going on there and having an auto swing type deal when I’m in the batting cages. And really, like I said, using your eyes, that’s what you do in the game. You want to see what kind of pitch it is instead of knowing that this pitch is going to be there and just trying to swing at whatever. So yeah, for me, I’m trying to get game-like as possible. I’m always visualizing a pitcher on the mound and just pretending like he’s up there and getting my timing right with that guy. Or if it’s a machine, I’ll pretend like there’s another pitcher up there. So yeah, it’s, for me, I literally had to learn how to get more quality over quantity. And it doesn’t have to be a hundred swings.

It could be 50 swings, it could be 30 swings. If I’m back spinning the baseball to the back of the cage or GA to gap on the field, then I’m in the right position. I’m more of a field guy. I’m more of a field guy. Like I said, if I’m back spinning baseballs and I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing and then I’m in the right position, I don’t really try and get caught up in all the numbers and everything like that on the track band or all the fancy stuff that’s coming out here.

So that’s really interesting. So tech and baseball is obviously booming now, right? It’s a big thing. And so for you, what I hear you saying is it’s about feel for you, right? You necessarily, the numbers are more of a reflection of what you’re doing than you trying to go for the numbers. Is that correct?

Yeah, so I think a lot of times when kids see those numbers, they start chasing certain numbers instead of really focusing on learning how to truly backspin a baseball or really learning how to get the right flight on a baseball and controlling your direction and path in a certain swing instead of some kids just try to swing as hard as they can and get a super high exit below. That’s not for me. Like I said, I’m more of a field guy, so I’m really just trying to really just back spin baseballs and work on my direction. A lot of the times I’ll swing a heavy bat. That’s big for me is swinging a heavy bat. And for me, if I can control that heavy bat as much as I can, then I can control my regular bat and I’ll do a bunch of things with a heavy bat direction stuff that path three quarter swings. I’m really big in angle hitting too. I’m really big in angle hitting because nowadays nothing’s straight at all. Nothing is straight, always hitting off the front hip, trying to get different angles from the right and left side, really just learning how to truly backspin baseballs from both angles. So yeah, that’s really it.

Yeah, I love it, Dale. Really, really good. Really good advice. So let’s talk about pressure and expectations, right? You were the number one ranked high school player for most of your high school career. You’re currently consensus number one, draft pick and the MLB for this year’s draft. How have you learned to deal with those pressures and the expectations? And I want to add one more thing to that, because as a person who would’ve been a first round pick if you wanted to be out of high school, withdrawing your name out of the draft, betting on yourself, and then let me read these again. As a freshman, coming into the SEC at the highest level and hitting 360 2 with 16 doubles, 18 homers and 42 rbis, and then following it up the next year, hitting 3 49 with 11 doubles and 22 home runs and 72 rbis. And I don’t think anybody is expecting you not to do the same thing this year, but how have you dealt with that pressure expectations? And again, you said you struggle with them a little bit as a high school senior. So talk about the struggle, what you learned from that and how you deal with ’em now.

Yeah, like I said, it’s not my first time around. This is definitely something that I’ve experienced and I know what’s coming and I know how to handle it now. And my senior year, I didn’t know how to handle it. There’s a lot of expectations, a lot of pressure at the time, and I was a young kid, I didn’t know how to handle it. So I went to college, learned how to mature and really grow as a ball player physically and mentally. And it’s been awesome. Even this year, there’s a lot of expectations, not just on me, but the entire team. And for me, it’s just really important just to be me at the end of the day. I think where I get in trouble or when a lot of kids get in trouble is when they try to be somebody they’re not with certain expectations here and there. So yeah, for me it’s just being me being the best leader that I can be and learning how to be, being comfortable, being uncomfortable, really. That’s a big thing for me. One of my goals this year was to lead more verbally instead of by example.

That’s a big one for you, man. That’s out of your comfort zone right there, brother.

Exactly. I was a quiet kid. I still am a little some of the time. So learning how to speak up really when things aren’t going the right way and learning how to hold each other accountable is huge for us. This year, especially a lot of guys coming in from the transfer portal, there’s a lot of egos that could get involved, so it’s really important for us to throw those egos to the side and just work together as one and hold each other accountable. So for me, it was important to earn my respect and earn my stripes is what I like to say. The past two years and now I feel like I can speak up and everybody says when I speak up, people listen. And so, because I know I’m not the guy that kind of says stuff, but once I say stuff, they tend to listen. So yeah, it’s good, man. Like I said, it’s learning how to be comfortable, being uncomfortable, trying different things. You’re going to fail a lot of the times. I mean all the time you’re going to fail. This game is very hard. So just keep going, keep trying, and just be you at the end of the day. Be me.

For all of our listeners, I want to throw this in there. We’re going to open it up for some question and answer toward the end of this. So at the bottom of your screen, there’s a button that says Q and a. You can click on that type in questions for Dylan and all the way through, if they come up in your head right now, go ahead and punch ’em in there and we’ll get to ’em towards the end of this call. So all the accolades you’ve had, team USA as a young kid, collegiate team, U-S-A-S-E-C player of the year. I could read a litany of things for me as one of your former coaches. One of the things that makes me most proud is SEC all community service team. And so tell me how you’ve earned that and tell me why that’s so important to you.

Yeah, that’s definitely probably the biggest accomplishment of my career here so far to those two. My parents always say It’s good to be a good ball player, but it’s going to take you further if you’re a better person. So I got involved in families helping families here. It’s disabled kids and people don’t understand, those kids don’t have a lot of friends, they don’t get invited to birthday parties, they don’t get invited to a lot of things. So trying to get involved in that community and building another audience, it’s awesome. It’s awesome. Me and my family, we have season tickets for families, having families for every game. We have a new family come out and sit in those seats, and it’s awesome to see the smiles on those kids’ faces. It is a lot of the times it’s their first game to ever first ever baseball game. So seeing those smiles on those kids’ faces, it’s awesome. It’s better than anything that I’ve ever done here at LSU for sure, and I’m definitely going to keep this going in the future and hopefully start my own foundation one day and we’ll see what happens. But yeah, it’s awesome. It’s a good feeling for sure.

Would you say that you started it to help other people, but it’s kind of transformed into helping you?

Yeah, yeah, definitely. It’s not an easy thing to do. It’s learning how to get out of your comfort zone and build a new audience, really. It’s definitely not easy to do. It takes a lot of adjustments and just everything really. It’s tough. It’s very hard, but it’s a good feeling playing for somebody else, really. Not just playing for yourself or for your parents, playing for somebody else and knowing that there’s other people out there that are supporting you. And it’s cool to think about. And like I said, it’s cool to see those smiles on those kids’ faces every game.

So in a world of self-promotion and influencers and NIL money and all this stuff that’s out there, right? Dylan, you don’t do any social media, right? Is that correct?

Yeah, I got Instagram, I got Twitter and everything, but I don’t really post much. It’s a new world now. It’s building your network and having a good social media is important now, and that’s definitely something that I want to learn and get more involved in at the next level. But right now, at this point in my life, it’s really important for me to kind of simplify things as much as possible. And I remember me and you used to always say back in the day, less is more. So for me, keeping everything simple makes me a better ball player and the most important thing is my performance out in the field and whatever I got to do to make that the best of my ability, I’m going to do it. And that’s just to kind of simplify things, not get on social media all the time and just stick to my process and just go out and enjoy the game pretty much.

WASHINGTON, DC – JULY 22, 2023: Washington Nationals first round pick Dylan Crews runs drills prior to a game against the San Francisco Giants at Nationals Park on July 22, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Diamond Images/Getty Images)

All right. I’m going to jump to some questions. We got a couple in here, and as they flow in, we’ll bounce back and forth between my questions and some that our listeners have. We’ll start with this one. What’s your favorite all time outfield drill to do? And I’ll kind of clarify that. What drill do you think really helps you the most?

Yeah, definitely live reads off the bat, no doubt, no question. It’s the most realistic. You’ll get out of outfield drills for sure. There’s all sorts of things you can do with clearing your hips, doing all that type of stuff. But for me, the best thing that helps me out to get game ready is live reads off the bat. And if you don’t have a place to do that, if you don’t have somebody to hit, you live reads off the bat like somebody throwing bp, having somebody hit for you out there, you can have somebody hit like a fungo or something at you and get some good reads going back, going in. So something really off the bat really. That’s really it for me.

Awesome. Another one, and this is a loaded question, but from a high school player, should we be doing showcases?

Oh yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, I did so many showcases in high school. Geez. Yeah, I mean I was doing a lot for sure. I mean, you remember I was, man, if I wasn’t playing a tournament, I was definitely doing a showcase. That definitely got me on the radar for sure. But I think as you get older, it’s important to definitely do showcases early in high school and then kind of simplify things as you get older. I think that’s something that I realized is learning how to simplify things as I got older and not really tire myself out and just get yourself on the radar and then ease out after that.

So that’s a good question and I’m probably embarrass you a little bit on this one, but we’ve got one that says, how old were you when you hit your gross spurt and did that make a difference in your ability to excel at hitting, was it early 68th grade or after that ninth or 10th grade? And I’ll just tell all of our listeners, feel free to go on YouTube and look up Dylan Crews recruiting video, and there’s a great video of Dylan from about seventh or eighth grade. He thought he was a catcher back then, and you guys can all see what Dylan looked like in seventh or eighth grade. But Dylan, I’ll let you answer that question. When did you hit your growth spurt and do you think it made a huge difference in you as a hitter or not?

I think I hit my growth spurt when I was probably a sophomore in high school. Maybe that’s when I, I’d say maxed out in height or something like that. And then my body actually started developing when I was about a senior in high school. But yeah, everybody’s different though at the end of the day. But yeah, if you go and look at that video, I think I was five eight, a hundred and sixty pounds, just a twig. But that goes back to the showcase part that got myself on the radar and I did little things like that to get going and get my name noticed more. But yeah, and it kind of played a role in developing, not as much the height part, but growing into my body more lifting weights, eating that definitely played a role as far as hitting more power, more for power and running better, getting more flexible. Definitely played a role for sure.

Great. Next one up, di is from John Payo. John is actually the founder and owner of one of our diamond allegiance teams, CBA baseball, you probably remember playing against them from California. Really good group. And John asked for all the high school kids that are in the audience tonight listening. What’s your weekly routine in the fall, preparing for the season with practices, classes, and then how much work do you do on your own?

Yeah, I mean we’re at it every single day. There’s really no days off. Our off days are optional, but they’re not optional. You better show up there pretty much. So no, I’ll go class in the mornings. I think I get off class around 1230.

How many hours are you taking in the fall typically?

I only have two in person and then the restaurant online, I got I think five total classes. So yeah, so I go two classes, two in persons, and then I’ll be done by 1230 and then get something to eat and then go to the field, get my, actually I’ll go lift in the morning, I’ll go lift and then go to class. So I’m lifting at like I’ll go eight, nine o’clock and then go to class to 10 30 to 1230, and then I’ll go back to eat and then go back to the field after that and do whatever I need to do as far as hitting early hitting. And then we have practice from two 30 to about five 30 and then I’ll probably go and hit after that again. But yeah, I’ll get my live reads off during our scheduled practice and then, yeah, that’s really it. I’m hitting twice a day, pretty much working out four times a week, getting live reads off the bat every other day. Yeah, and making sure, I definitely get recovery in, get some ice bass in, getting on the nx, getting some blood flow in the legs. So yeah, definitely get your recovery in for sure. It helps out the body, no doubt.

Another good one just came in the balance between academics, your social life and athletics. How have you learned to balance that? Is there anything that you do in your life that’s a routine that makes it easy for you to do that?

Yeah, that was actually kind of a struggle of mine. My freshman year. I struggled really with balancing everything as far as school and going to practice and having a good social life too, and enjoying things that I’d love to do outside of baseball, going fishing, hanging out with the friends, just really that it was a struggle of mine for sure. So what I really did was just we will slow everything down, take it one step at a time really, and learning how to write everything down. Having a planner almost writing my schedule down daily and it made things easier and it simplified everything for sure and just kind of made me go one thing at a time almost instead of piling everything all at once. So yeah, we got a mental coach here that actually helped me out with that, with learning how to write everything down and learning how to simplify things for sure.

So would you say that it’s important for you to actually schedule social time and in the position that you’re in, you’ve noticed that really help you? Do you think it helps you on the field

When

You’re balanced?

A hundred percent. Yeah. So I struggled with having a social life almost. I was always work, work, work, work, got to go in the case, got to hit, got to, got to do this, that. But it’s so important to go out and actually enjoy things with your friends, go out, hang with your friends, go fishing, go do whatever you do to get your mind off baseball. It just helps mentally. And I dunno, it’s weird how it works, but I’m telling you, it helps tremendously for sure. It’s less stress on your body and on your mind most importantly.

All right, Dale, next one is actually from one of the guys that I’m working with now. He’s a Florida commit, his name’s Braden. So he was you four or five years ago. Brandon, ask what was the hardest part of going from high school to college baseball, whether it was on or off the field?

Yeah, I mean that goes probably back to what we just covered, really learning how to balance everything. That was definitely very hard. Everything kind of came pretty easy as far as the transition period, I guess fitting in, having a routine. I guess the biggest thing was learning how to balance everything you said he is going to Florida, so it’s very important to when you go in, learn how to balance everything, learn how to go to go get your stuff done. I would definitely write some things down, makes things a lot easier. As a freshman, I was getting overwhelmed with all the stuff that was going on. A lot of things thrown at you at once and you get thrown into the fire. So it really helped me out was learning how to plan everything, schedule with times and just take everything one at a time and learning how to slow the game down and everything down pretty much. So I think that’s the biggest thing that I struggled with and I would give advice to.

So this was a follow-up question I missed a little bit earlier to the gross spurt question. They want to know how tall you are and how much you weigh now.

Yeah, so I’m six foot about 2 0 8 now, I think. Let’s see, I think hit 200 when I was a senior in high school and then freshman year I was up to two 15 and then sophomore year I got up to 2 23. I was a big dude, I was heavy and I found out my power was there, but my speed and mobility and everything was not there and I was getting tired really fast. So I really had to learn what my true body weight and what my true perfect, I guess weight and everything fit for me. So I guess 2 0 8 right now is perfect. I got the perfect speed that I want and I’m driving the ball tremendously. So yeah, six foot 2 0 8.

Beautiful. Well, I’m going to ask a couple more of my questions as more questions come in, but what are you most looking forward to this year at LSU? Obviously you guys are the number one ranked team in the country. Everybody that follows the game knows that maybe one of the most talented teams in a long time in college baseball, but what gets you the most excited about it and what do you guys need to focus on as a team, do you think, to reach your goals?

Yeah, let’s see. I mean, I’m really just looking forward to seeing how this team all comes together really. And I’m just really ready to face somebody new. Honestly, I’m tired of, I’m not really tired. I’m enjoying it day by day, but I am just ready to go and face somebody new and just see, I want to see how this team kind of handles getting punched in the mouth. Pretty much everybody’s seen it. We got a lot of expectations here and that really want to see how we react to getting punched in the mouth because that’ll tell everybody everything right there and how we react for sure. Yeah, like I said, a lot of expectations. Really looking forward to this year, man, it’s going to be a fun year. We got a good group of guys. A lot of chemistry on this team, man. Like I said, there’s a lot of guys coming in from portal, a lot of new guys, a lot of freshmen, so we got one of the best chemistry teams I’ve ever been on. That’s awesome. Yeah, chemistry’s there. Everybody’s holding each other accountable and yeah, it’s awesome, man.

So the guys are there for the right reason, huh?

Yeah, yeah, coach J definitely recruited the right guys for sure. Everybody’s their own leader in their own way. They work very hard. So yeah, it’s good.

That’s awesome. So next question up, how did your coaches do BP in high school? So that would be me pitching by someone who was throwing speed. Sorry, I’m stumbling. Essentially the question is did you like the underhand flip or the velocity and BP better? Which one do you think worked for you to become the hitter you are today more?

Yeah, so right now I don’t do any front toss straight ahead, so any front toss I’m doing is from the angle I’m always working on angle hitting. Like I said, nothing is straight nowadays. Everything’s moving left, and so working on trying to hit something from an angle and learning how to truly back spin a baseball to the big part of the field, middle way, it’s important. So yeah, so I go everything from angles as far as front toss on the T really it’s just I set things down the middle. I do some walkthrough drills, I do some back of the hip drills off the tee and then put it in different spots here and there. But I try and get game mostly game-like as possible. So having a live arm if it’s off the machine, I like to see spin a lot. I like to see sliders, I like to see get my hacks off the fastballs, but if I’m off the machine, I definitely want to see some sliders here and there.

So it sounds like a good balance of both, but when you’re doing front toss, it’s not necessarily just throwing cookies in there and seeing as far as you can hit it, right? It’s angled front toss, making sure you’re staying inside the baseball, things like that, right, though?

Yeah, definitely. I mean, anybody could hit front toss nowadays. I like challenging myself. I like to work on directional stuff, making sure my direction is right, working on making sure, like I said, everything is back spinning towards the back of the cage, no side spin, no top spins. If I get that true flight down, I know I’m in the right spot. So that’s what I try and focus on the most.

Beautiful. What accomplishment, and you’ve got a lot under belt so far. What are you most proud of?

Yeah, that goes back to what we were talking about, definitely the community service team. I think that’s a huge accomplishment for sure. I think it beats the player of the year accomplishment. Perfect game freshman of the year, all that type of stuff. Because like I said, it’s one thing to be a good baseball player, but it’s more important to be a good person. It just helps you out in the long run. That’s it. I think it’s the community service team for sure, helping out others.

That’s great. Well, I got one more for you and then we’ll let you go. We certainly appreciate your time. I know you guys starting here in about two weeks, so appreciate you taking the night tonight to spend some time with us, but I’ll leave you with this five years from now. Dylan Cruise is what?

Definitely a big leaguer for sure. If everything goes right in the way that I want it to. I definitely want to be a big leaguer in five years. No doubt if in my eyes, if I’m not a big leaguer in five years, something went wrong. So it’s got to be me at the end of the day. Just got to be me and hopefully everything will work out for itself.

Inside the 2023 LSU Baseball National Championship Run and Navigating Today’s Recruiting Landscape

Josh, I appreciate you Jordan, US tonight for all of our participants. My name is Mac Gerber. I’m the executive director of the Diamond Allegiance and really excited, welcome in. Truly one of the best in college baseball assistant coach and recruiting coordinator from LSU, Josh Jordan. Josh, appreciate you joining us tonight, brother

Matt, it’s an honor to be here. Our relationship goes back a long time and I kept seeing these pop up. I’m like, Hey man, you’re doing unbelievable work. When am I going to get the invite? So I’m excited and elated to have the opportunity to just provide some insight in an ever changing landscape of college recruiting.

Yeah, absolutely. And you said it right there, man, ever changing. And I think for coaches, for travel organizations, for parents, for players, things are tough right now, right? It’s really hard, especially at the high school level. And we’ll get into the recruiting in a little bit. I think one thing that I want to point out to everyone joining us and listening is Josh has got really interesting experiences having coached at the division two junior college, mid-major at the ACC and the SEC level, right? So you’ve seen it all. You’ve been to all the stops along the way. So when we get to those, obviously we’ll have some questions, I think about LSU specifically, but then maybe about recruiting in general. So I think first of all, obviously congratulations on the national title, had to have been an amazing, amazing feeling. I’d love to know for you that trip to Omaha, was there one or two things that really will stand out in your mind, the test of time, maybe one on the field, one off the field that you can share with us?

Yeah, for sure. First of all, thank you so much. I mean, what honestly, a dream come true. You talk about that trip to Omaha, that was my first trip to Omaha as a coach with a team. I was there in 2019 throwing in the college home run derby from Michael Rothenberg, whom I coached at Duke. But I had made a decision that I was never going to Omaha to see a complete game unless I went there as a coach with the team. And so to be honest with you, a very surreal moment for me. And I think two things that stood out to me. Number one off the field, what an unbelievable place to watch a baseball game. I mean, we’re blessed to have the most passionate college baseball fans in the country. I mean that championship series, I mean it was 22, 20 3000 tiger fans in that stadium.

And so the field, just seeing the response by our fan base of being there, and you’re talking about people who drove sometimes full days, 22, 23 hours just to be in Omaha, was something that I’ll never forget. And then on the field, just how you had those step up moments by guys that maybe weren’t necessarily always the star and that team never cared who got the credit. Obviously everyone knows the household names like a Dylan Cruz and the Paul schemes and so forth, but the way K Boso played that performance by Ty Floyd in game one of the championship series. And so just really the step up performances on the field by so many different people, and that’s what it takes to win a championship. Winning a national championship is very difficult to do. I know that sounds like an obvious, but it really, really is. And you have to have a group of people very committed to one another and committed to the mission and that can eliminate the distractions.

Sorry Josh. So that’s step up mentality that you’re talking about. What do you guys do at LSU to try to train for those moments and be ready for those step up moments? Is there anything you guys focus on?

Yeah, well I think Coach Johnson does an unbelievable job of really spearheading that we start that process on day one on campus. And Coach Johnson does an unbelievable job of continually talking about controlling yourself. Because if you can’t control yourself, you can’t control the outcome and being present, being in the moment and giving our guys tools on how to do that. And I think that that’s a tool that can be learned and developed that along with toughness. And it takes a level of toughness too, to have failure in Omaha. And I think the last game, I think 3.8 million people maybe watch that game. And if you remember game two didn’t necessarily go our way to say the least. And so you have to have a level of toughness and that doesn’t happen just because say all of a sudden we’re here in Omaha, we’re now going to be tough and bounce back.

That’s something that you started building in day one and there’s very much a process to it. And when you talk about development of student athletes, which is something we try to here at LSU hang our hat on, that’s also part of that developmental process because that process in itself along with the physical tools, prepares you just as much for professional baseball because it’s not always smooth going in professional baseball either. And you have to be able to manage that side of the baseball along with the physical side of things just as well. If you want to have a chance to play at the highest level, meaning the big leagues pitching Yankee Stadium have a chance to get a hit in Dodger Stadium. And so you have to be able to do that and learn how to do that. And I think LSU and the way we do it and Coach Johnson does it better than anybody.

I don’t want to steal any of Coach Johnson or yours special sauce or anything like that. But are there any things that you could recommend to the high school student athlete on the mental side that they can do to prepare themselves better when it comes to failure?

For sure, for sure. I think number one is just controlling the breath. Number one, it’s human nature. The heart rate goes up, the level of intensity starts to sweat a little bit. There’s just physiological responses to stress and being able to find a way for you to slow things down. Oftentimes it is through the breath. And the other thing too is I think guys should spend time not just in that moment collecting themselves. I think they should spend time leading into those moments, seeing themselves and those situations. So therefore when they get there, they’re not, oh, this is the time I go to my breath. No, you should be preparing yourself. And I think that’s something too that we do is it’s a routine. It’s every single day in terms of how you approach it and you can’t just turn it on when that moment when you need it in that moment, you have to be prepared. And again, no different than how you perfect your swing, no different than how you perfect your delivery of field in the ground ball. You’re perfecting that part of your game as well. And that takes time and it takes a level of commitment.

Absolutely. So let’s kind of change gears a little bit and talk recruiting. Let’s start with LSU centric. What are some of the key qualities and skills that you look for in a recruit, whether it’s a high school guy, a junior college guy, a portal guy? Obviously they’re all options now at the highest level, the SEC, but what qualities are you looking for and then what skills are you looking for?

Well, I think it’s a blend of things. Let’s start with kind of the obvious. The five tools are the five tools, and those are never going to change. The ability to hit, the ability to run, the ability to throw the build to defend, and then also hit for power. Those tools are always things we’re going to covet and always things we’re going to seek out Along those lines, however, we’re not just looking for a guy with a bunch of tools. We’re also looking for a guide with tools that can translate to winning and what works on the baseball field. And we always value guys that are able to control the zone. That’s something we hang our hat on is being able to stay and see a guy that can understand the stripe zone and how to control it. I think that’s really, really important. And on the other side, when we talk about controlling his zone, that also translates to the mound in terms of what you look for as a pitcher or in a pitcher, excuse me.

You want a guy that has a high strike percentage. You don’t want to have to try to teach a bunch of guys how to throw strikes. I know that sounds very simple, but just like power, I often think velocity comes and if you have a guy that, and we’ve all had guys in college baseball and recruiting where you find out a guy makes a jump and velocity wise and he turns it into a guy and you look and go, man, he used to throw this, but now he throws that and now look, he throws strikes. And so those guys are the highest performers at this level, and so you’re always looking for great athletes who have a ton of tools that really can blend into helping you win baseball games. We’re talking at this level and it should be that at any level it should be about winning baseball games and how to play a winning brand of baseball.

So how would you say, as a guy that’s obviously recruited a lot of levels, but at your previous stop at Duke, you were there for a long time and essentially were very instrumental along with obviously Coach Pollard and the rest of the staff, but really turning Duke from a basketball school to a basketball skill still, but really, really competitive on the baseball field. So obviously you’ve got an eye for talent, eye for winners when it comes to recruiting. It’s hard to get a lot of looks at guys. How do you really try to zone in and if you’ve got a board of five outfielders that all check the boxes, they all run the right 60, they all have all the right tools. How do you really kind of pair that down and decide that’s the guy that I want to recruit?

Well, you have to do an inordinate amount of research. You better know who you’re getting. And so you talk to a lot of people when you really kind of finalize it and start to narrow your focus in recruiting, I think you should be more like the sniper versus the guy with the shotgun, so to speak. And we truly try to say, okay, who fits us? What qualities are we looking for in him and who fits our philosophy? One of the things that goes hand in hand with that is you’re trying to look for a guy, you talk about athleticism, you have to have evidence of his athleticism and oftentimes the best way to really calculate that is does he play another sport? One of the things I always like to ask the guy, I’m like, Hey, it sounds like a random question. And it sparks a really good conversation that allows a young man to lead himself to tell you about his athleticism is Hey man, can you dunk?

Yeah, coach, I can dunk a volleyball or no, I’m two hand jammed. You’re starting to get an idea about him as an athlete and then you call his high school baseball coach. That’s still really important for us if he’s high school player, calling the high school baseball coach, including that gentleman in the process I think is really important. And obviously just doing as much research as you can, and oftentimes, to be honest with you, sometimes the best recommendations is, and I would say this to players, is oftentimes we other coaches that recommend a guy, I mean you’ve done that to me before Matt, where you’ve said, Hey, he’s not on our team, but we played so-and-so in pool play, and that guy’s pretty good. That carries a lot of weight. When the opponent’s coach tells you you’re pretty good, that means you played the game the right way and you stood out.

And so you’re doing an unbelievable amount of research. It’s more art than science. You’re taking everything and trying to blend it together and there’s no one way you can’t use someone else’s system. Sometimes that’s hard to, as a coach, to relay like, well, here’s what I do, but I chose to go that direction and talk to that guy based on what I heard here and you’re trying to navigate it. No different than parents and recruits are trying to navigate the recruiting process. We are too as coaches because it is very individualized. It should be your process.

Yeah, absolutely Josh. And I think one thing that you brought up there that parents might not and players might not realize is the importance of what other people think about you, not just the people that the coaches you’re playing for. And I’ve seen that time and time again and over my years in youth baseball, it is just what you explained is me seeing a kid and being like, man, did you guys see that dude the other night? He’s impressive. Or just the way he carried himself. So I think that’s a great tidbit for parents and players to think about is the way that you go about your business on a daily basis. Because I know for a fact, and I’m lucky enough to have been state of Florida guy, right? I’ve been around a long time. I get calls from guys like you or whoever it might be and say, Hey, what do you got on this kid? And just trying to do that research. So again,

Yeah, I mean I called you a few weeks ago about a guy that someone else’s parent had told me about and I said, you know what? I know who would know about that guy. So I reached out to, it’s just doing your research, doing your homework. And I encourage parents and I encourage recruits to do the same thing. You have social media in today’s age. You have technology and videos and data and all the things you can share with coaches, but word of mouth is still the best form of advertisement. And when I pick up the phone, I call Matt Gerber and ask about a guy who’s done this for a long time and you’ve done it over a long period of time very consistently and very well, then I know, hey, that’s where it goes to art. Excuse me, from science to art a little bit and okay, this guy knows what he’s talking about. He has some exposure to that student athlete.

Absolutely. I think relationships will never go out of vogue. We can have all the cool technology we never have, but the eyes and the relationships are always going to be important. So I’m going to skip around a little bit here. What do you think from a parent’s perspective, what can parents be doing to support their child’s journey towards playing college baseball? What are maybe two or three really important things for a parent to do?

Yeah, I think number one, be a good listener. I think anytime you’re in a leadership role, and ultimately that’s what parenting is, you’re trying to prepare a young man or a young lady for that matter, if it’s one those four, you’re trying to prepare that individual for success. And in order to do that, you better know who they are. It goes back to being a good listener and have an understanding of what they want and taking notes on that. And that may change. That’s why you can’t, there’s an ebb and flow to this. And so I think number one, being really a good listener, number two, I think being really encouraging our sport is very hard. Our game is very hard and you and I were talking just before we got on here live just about Dylan Cruz. Even for a guy that’s as talented as Dylan, the best player I’ve ever seen, there’s things that certain days he has bad days and it’s the way he’s very consistent. And so what I would say is whatever qualities a parent values and things that should be instilled in the process, they have to model If they want a consistent player, you have to be a consistent parent in terms of your time at the baseball field. If you want a positive energy player and you want a guy that plays hard, well, you have to also model that for that individual. And so I think being a good listener and obviously modeling a lot of the qualities that you value are huge and then ultimately understand something too.

You mentioned my resume and the stops I’ve made along the way, what I can tell you is having played division two coach, division two junior college and now the pinnacle of college baseball here at LSU, there’s great baseball players at every level. I mean, I coached Charlie Blackman at Young Harris Junior College. He’s a pretty good player. And so my point to that is there’s good baseball at every level. And so for parents to look at this, you should ask yourself, what are my goals? What are we trying to get out of this? And where does my young man, where’s he going to be happy? Where’s he going to grow and develop as a person and as a player? And ultimately, where’s he going to have some fun doing this because we only have a small window to play this game, even if you play at the highest level and you want to be able to enjoy the experience because it’s a game you want to be able to pass along to your kids one day when they’re become parents.

Absolutely. So we mentioned we had the name drop second overall pick Dylan Cruz. Obviously you guys had the first overall pick Paul Skees as well, first time in the history that the two teammates have gone one and two. I’m guessing a lot of the characteristics that they have are going to be what will answer this question, but in your experience, what distinguishes a player who really excels at the college baseball level from those who struggle to adapt to it?

To be honest with you, I think he used a word that I would use a lot of times adapt. And I think the interesting thing is you mentioned one and two and Paul Schemes and Dylan Cruz, those guys didn’t arrive when they showed up on the college campus. Dylan over the course of his career continue to make adjustments. Heck, he was still making adjustments in the springtime, working through things and making sure that he was perfecting his craft offensively even as good as he was. Same thing with Paul skiing. Paul skiing steps foot on the Air force and then makes the decision to come here to LSU, meaning he went from being a two-way player to pitcher only and saw what that did for his career. And so as you set foot on a college campus, you have to be adaptable as an athlete. You may hear something that, and it doesn’t mean the facility guy that you worked with was wrong, doesn’t mean your high school baseball coach was wrong.

It may just been the information they were giving you what was right at the time. But as you grow and develop and get stronger and more explosive as an athlete on the mound and at the plate, there may be need to be adjustments. And so you have to use the phrase that be that lifelong learner and continue to grow your game and say, okay, that doesn’t mean you tinker. You have to have a formula and a plan, but you need to always be seeking out how can you improve your game. I mean the best do that they do at the highest level, they continue to grow and develop. And sometimes I think young athletes feel like, well, if he’s asking me to do something that means I’m a bad player. No, it’s actually quite the contrary. Coaches that take time to help guys make adjustments and try to provide why they’re making that adjustment, not just throwing things against the wall and make sure they stick. If they have a why and why they’re asking you to do that, it’s probably a good thing to listen to and see if it works for you because again, that’s part of making the adjustment to this level and the speed of the game.

Yeah, absolutely. So speed of the game. One thing I’ve personally noticed, and I will give a plug for travel baseball is back when you and I played, we were lucky every once in a while in Legion to see a guy throwing 90 miles an hour. So how important would you say playing that high level travel baseball is to recruits at any level, right? Whether it’s guys that are trying to be division two players or mid-major guys or obviously play at the Apex. What’s your take on travel baseball and the importance of it? So one A player’s development and two to their recruitment?

Well, I think I would be the first to tell you I’m not an anti travel baseball person because I’m not an anti baseball person. Any chance you get to play baseball in any capacity, I would say take the opportunity to do so. But also with the understanding that you have to listen to your body. There’s times of the year where you need to play, there’s times of the year where you need to develop and so you have to listen and a lot of that determines where you’re from, what teams are even available to you, is there a particular coach that you feel like gets the most out of you and he’s on this team, but you know what, I have to go somewhere else in the fall because she coaches high school football. So you always just go into it looking, going, okay, playing this game is never a bad thing. That being said, I have to be smart about how I go about it and I think it’s really important guys nowadays have a better understanding of their body nutrition and really what they need to do to get better than ever before you and I would you look back to when you and I were in college, you know what it was like a lot of fast food, this and that and you just played and now our student athletes are way more educated, they have way more information, but just because you have that information doesn’t mean you’re wiser.

So you have to step back and go, okay, what is the wise decision here? Do I go play in this tournament for five straight weeks or do I need a break and do I need a week to get home and sleep, rest and recover and hydrate, eat and to make sure I maintain weight? So just because you have a lot of information doesn’t mean you are wiser about what you’re doing. And that’s really ultimately what I’m saying, try to make a sound decision. And I’m not anti travel baseball, I’m not anti high school baseball. I’m pro any baseball with the understanding that it’s a time that allows the student athlete get the most out of it. And then same thing goes with recruiting and how that plays into it. Prepare yourself to show your best in front of the most people you possibly can. So if that means playing in a tournament or setting out a tournament, that’s an individual thing.

There’s no right way to answer that for every single guy. It’s too broad of a brush we’d be painting with if we just said, well, don’t play in the fall. You need to use that time to lift and train. Don’t do this. I think that’s just too broad and I think just listen to your body. And one of the things I would tell you goes back to you mentioned having guys adjust to college well is young players need to understand that coaching and critiquing is not criticism. We’re not criticizing you as the individual. We’re critiquing and evaluating what you’re doing and how we can help make you better. And so therefore we’re making suggestions and recommendations on how to grow and develop. And so many times a young athlete now thinks of coaching and how you’re critiquing them as criticism, and that’s most of the time not the case. If a coach is taking time to tell you something, he probably has a good intention behind it. I tell guys all the time, the worst feeling in the world is when a coach or you should feel like the worst feeling in the world is when a coach stops talking to you. That’s the worst feeling in the world when you stop getting coached

When you pack up your bags and go somewhere else. So kind of parlay into taking this knowledge that players do have now and we do see it, right? Better athletes taking care of their better bodies, taking care of their bodies better at a younger age. I do see that. I think we all see that across the landscape, but when you get to college, it’s a different animal and you can tell people, you can prepare, you can prepare, you can prepare. But when you get there and it’s day one, what does it look like? What am I as a player? What am I as a player? What does my day really look like as part of the LSU baseball program?

Yeah, well I think number one, all high school players are bad college freshmen. And the reason I say that is because what you don’t know, you don’t know. And oftentimes you step in and you think the game is fast and you realize, geez, it’s really fast and I’m going to stop talking about velocity. I’m talking about the pace of play, the pace in which we do things, the way we transition in a practice setting, the way we execute, even the rundown in the pickoff, you look, geez, that’s a lot faster. Things are happening faster for, so I think the minute you said put on college campus, everything looks fast because you’re typically in a new area, you’re not at home, you’re in a new area, you’re around new people, even though you have some relationships maybe prior to, it’s still, it’s not like being with him every day and obviously you’re going to a different classroom setting in a different place and then ultimately the baseball’s faster so you feel like you’re drinking through a fire hose at that point.

So that’s what it’s going to look like and that’s very normal and that’s kind of for us here at LSU, coach Johnson does an unbelievable job of making sure that we go slow. Our first week of the fall ball season is the first week of October. So we started the class third week of August here and it’s been a constant in individual times teaching the fundamentals. That’s not coach speak. We’re talking from everything literally. The day one for us here was how to set up the field and break down the field, how to turn on the lights, how to properly lock up the Marucci center in case guys want to hit extra. Just simple things like that. We’re teaching you that and that’s a fundamental of how to work and work properly. And so in programs that really develop guys, they move slow and they teach the fundamentals.

They don’t assume anything. And even if you’ve been in this program as a senior and whatever, it doesn’t matter. Those reinforcement of what’s important is always productive for our student athletes. And so right now, this time of year, it’s an individual and individual time and our guys have pockets of the day where they’re doing stuff from a baseball standpoint that coincides with their classroom schedule. And then when we roll over to the fall ball season that first week of October, then it looks more like a traditional practice and maybe what the people would recognize as a troop kind of practice. But even here, we don’t use the word practice. I say practice because I think that’s how most people that will be watching this or tuning in with us tonight would assume what it looks like. But we talk about training. That’s the other thing I think for freshmen that it’s sometimes a major shock is they’re used to practicing. When you get into college, you’re training and training is what you do every day, every minute. That’s how you sleep, that’s how you hydrate, that’s how you eat. And obviously that’s how you work on your skills.

And even you mentioned the mental side of it. If you’re not taking time daily to practice the mental game for yourself and whatever tools that you need, and we here at LSU try to provide all of our student athletes with a lot of tools because not one thing works for everybody. Then basically you’re looking at that going, if you’re not spending time doing that, well then even that hitting session that you did that day that you felt really good about may not work with basic loaded in Omaha. And so you have to put all that together and that truly is training.

I love it. Honestly, Josh, first time I’ve ever heard that, and I think it’s a really, really good analogy. It’s something that players can really conceptualize and focus on that every day is a training day and whether that means you’re lifting or that means you’re working on your swing or whatever it is, every day is a training day practice.

One of the things I remember vividly, things that stick out to you when Coach Johnson first handed me the fall schedule last fall as a college coach, you’ve done this 20 years, you’re looking at going, okay, what are some things you’re looking at? And I looked at it and this is our mindset here. I mean, I walked in, I said, coach, I was looking at the schedule. When is our scout day? And Coach Johnson goes every day Scout day here. And so that’s a really, really great way to think about it. And so I loved it and that will always stick with me because I thought it was brilliant when you said that.

So a little bit off script here. I’d love to know from your perspective, what is it like being the third base coaching box at Alex Box Stadium? Right. I mean that’s got to be just incredible.

Obviously I mentioned we have the most passionate fan base in the country and I coach it and I’m human, I’ll be the first to tell you I make mistakes. I say coaching third base to me is even harder than being an offensive coordinator in football. That’s my opinion because I’m having to digest the information and do it most of the times really make that decision. And a lot of times really less than a second, but coaching third base in Mont Stadium is the best place to coach third base because you have a passionate fan base. It’s probably not once a game where I don’t look up, no man, this is really stinking cool, probably the second best place to coach. Third base is Omaha. But this place is awesome, man. And I love, and again, that doesn’t mean I’m flawless, coach, trust me, I get coached at coaching third base every day and that’s okay because I need it and I welcome it.

But making those decisions, there’s a lot of pressure sometimes with no doubt about. But Randy, what I will tell you from the base running standpoint, I always tell guys the best Baserunners really don’t need me. I remember Dylan hitting that triple in Omaha there where everyone saw ’em get up and do the ring thing and I’m standing beside him. I think that’s even the photo used for here tonight. But the ball’s in front of him, that’s his decision. And literally I’ve seen how hard he hit it and it’s going in that gap, which is huge. He’s rounding first, but in my mind, and then finally I’ve started verbalizing like balls in front, balls in front because I did not want him to look at me, make that decision to keep going. And the best baserunners really don’t need their coaches or they force me to wave them because their plan was such a level of intensity and they get great reads off the bat that they don’t need me. Decisions actually easy. It’s that hesitation and reservation on the part of the baserunner that sometimes makes my job difficult.

That is the worst. You get that base hit in the building, gets a little bit of a bad jump and you’re like, and

You’re screaming and yelling, then you’re having to make a tough decision. You’re having to start to evaluate arm strength from the fielder. How’s he accurate? Is he with the throw? And then yeah, it makes it tough.

So I’m a high school baseball player, I’m out on the circuit no matter what age I am freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, looking for a place to play. What are some things that I can control that I can do on a daily basis to catch the eye of somebody that is there to watch?

Well, the easy answer to that is they have an opportunity to control all of those. Playing baseball in the SEC and playing baseball at LSU, it’s a physical game and granted, there’s no contact involved like per se, SEC football, but to play in this league, there’s a level of physicality to it that doesn’t have anything to do with stature. That being said, you still have to be strong and explosive. And so the controllables, like I always said, how’s that guy look on the hook so to speak? He look, when he walks out on the field, does he look like an SEC guy? Is Coach Johnson when he gets to campus going to look at me and go, okay, that guy looks like he belongs here. And again, how you eat, how you sleep, how you hydrate, how you train and all those things play a role in and all those things you control as a player you do. I think the one thing too that a lot of guys don’t recognize about playing at this level is just the raw arm strength and developing the arm. And that too for me, when I see a guy with a strong arm that tells me he’s put time into it

And that he values the defensive side of the baseball, maybe there’s something with his hands and his feet that we might have to adjust. But I mean I watched our arm filters the other day through baseballs across the infield as I was hitting to him and Coach Johnson was out coaching him. I mean the arm strength was impressive. And so I think the physicality piece and I think the arm strength and for me, anytime you can improve your speed the better you are. It’s like these showcases. What’s the first thing you do when you show up at a showcase? Well you run. So that should probably tell you a little bit about how important it’s to a certain degree to the teams at the highest level. And I do think athletes now don’t run. They used to, I will tell you, the foot speed guy, the guy can really motor and really get down the line and can really score from first on a double. Those are becoming fewer and fewer because I don’t think guys train it that way. And so if you want to stand out, be physical, be explosive, and be able to run with some arm strength, and I think those to me are the obvious Now the hit tool and those things from a positional side of it, that takes time.

This takes time, but a big physical guy can really run, we’re going to give you some time and we’re

Try to evaluate. You’re going to show up even if it’s an oh for four day, right, exactly. You’re you’re going to give that guy that extra look and extra time. So for sure, great piece of advice. So this one might be a little bit tougher, but I want go here. Obviously NIL is a big thing in big time college sports. Now recruiting has changed. It’s not just the high school kid having to recruit your own team every year. I think the job of the college coach, a lot of people want to talk about what the kids are having to go through, but at the same time, you guys got a ton on your plate. You got to recruit your own team again every year. You got to recruit the portal, you got to recruit junior college, you got to recruit high school kids. So I guess my overall question is with all the changes that are occurring with the audience that we’re talking to tonight, mostly high school parents and high school players, what are these rule changes going to do? What does NIL do? What does the new recruiting rule against contact with younger players do? How do these affect the players of today?

Well, the easy and short answer is I don’t think anyone knows Matt, you’re talking about and LS U’S team last year is a great example of that. You have some really talented high school players that like a Dylan Cruz who came to campus and made decision to grow and develop here and bet on himself and it paid off as as well as anybody. Then you have some transfer guys, it’s part of the process now. And then granted, we only brought in five guys in the transfer portal. I think we lost six in the draft. And so we didn’t even bring in as many as we lost in the draft. And so it’s not like a lot, but you brought in some guys and that’ll lead me to my next point. The two types of recruiting are never going to change in college athletics. There’s two types of proactive and reactive.

Proactive recruiting is when you are able to recognize on your roster where you need and to make some adjustments to give yourself a chance to win a championship that’s proactive. And oftentimes the proactive piece is you’re looking far down the road and saying, okay, in three years when this freshman heres now is a really good player, he’s here on campus now, but in three years we’re going to need to identify who that is. That is the next guy is that’s proactive recruiting. Reactive recruiting is when all of a sudden you look up and what we have a lot of now is, well, okay, this guy signs this guy didn’t make grades, this guy decided he is moving on and now we have to react to that instance that we had no control over and go out and fill that because the expectation at every level, every coach, because we’re all competitors, even at the junior college level when I was there, we wanted to win at Young Harris Junior College.

So we went out and tried to fill that void with the best possible player we can. That’s always our job because we owe it to the other players. I feel like now that as a player here, coach Johnson in my opinion, owed it to Dylan Cruz to go out and recruit a guy like Paul Scheme, a guy that Dylan Cruz would poured his heart and soul in the LSU baseball and if Paul schemes is available in the portal and that’s a guy can obviously help us win the championship. And so other players or other great players want to be surrounded by other great players and that’s never going to change. And so the long answer of it may be is we really don’t know. Last year’s team is a great example of that. We don’t know what’s going to happen in the future with the new rules and all the things the portal and NIL and all those things.

We don’t have a big enough sample size to make an educated guess on it. And I’m really not sidestepping in the question as much as last roster’s a great example of that. I mean K Boso fifth year guy, Gavin Dugas, fifth year guy, you look, okay, well you put those on that team and they were so instrumental down the stretch force and so you look and go, we really don’t know. And I think that’s the difficult part also for the families, the same stress that sometimes I think they feel about the recruiting process. We also are coaches are sitting in the office going, okay, how do we make this work no different than the families, but what I do know is this, regardless of whatever landscape we’re working within as coaches, this is the people business. And if you keep the focus on the student athlete and keep them the priority and having them be the main thing in the process and not get away from the main thing, you’re probably going to find yourself on the positive side of it more often than not.

Because ultimately that’s what this business is about is developing young men and giving them an opportunity to live out the dream of playing professional baseball and while doing that, winning a championship at the highest level, that’s what we strive for and talk about here at LSU. And so at the end of the day, all those things, it’s really simply a people business. And do people do things you don’t expect? Sure they do. They transfer, do people do things they don’t expect? Sure they don’t make grades or sure they sign the draft. That’s just part of the business. And so if you keep the individual at the forefront, you’re probably going to find yourself in an instance where you’re going to be on the positive.

Yeah. How about specifically, can you talk a little bit about the new rule change with contact with younger players and how has that affected you? Obviously it’s really new, so it might be the same answer, right? We’re still trying to figure it out.

There’s some of it. Yeah, there’s some of it because again, there’s no question about it. You’re in an age where guys are committed to programs before the new rule, the new rule comes in, they can’t talk to the coach. That presents a stressor. And then you have the other guys that look and say, well, I’m not committed. What does that mean for me? And again, I don’t think you really know Matt, I really don’t. I do think what it does is if you really value development and we spent the first half of this call I guess talking about developing the player and what they need to do to have a chance to play at this level, now they can focus on that. They don’t have to worry about that. They can really develop a great routine with everything that evolves, becomes an opportunity.

Yeah

I agree. This is a great opportunity for the young player, a young man that might be a 2026 or 20 27, 20 80. You’re looking just going now I heard Coach Jordan say, I’ve got to get a great routine. Well guess what? I’m committing this fall to just doing the small things well. And when I master that, then I’m going to move on to something else. The small things meaning how I hydrate, how I eat, how I train, and I’m not worried about what happens. And so I do think that gives the student athlete a chance to do that, which I think is a positive. We can’t talk about being a people business and not mention that or bring that up.

So at the high school level, do you see yourself more LSU more actually recruiting that I guess So it’d be sophomore summer going into junior year. What are you guys doing to identify the guys that you need to see and are you still spending time to go watch them play at a younger age or are you going to wait until they get older now?

I think it’s really a blend. I think you’re going to look and go, okay, it’s inevitable. You’re going to know who some of the better players are because you see things on social media, you see things that pop up in terms of videos on great organizations like Perfect Game or PBR and all those things. Well, you’re not going to just go, ah, he’s a 2027, I’m not going to watch his swing. That’s not it. You look, go, wow, that’s a good looking swing. What’s his name? Okay, got it. You may make a note, but to really proactively go after that guy, well you can’t number one according to the rules. And so you really just kind of put him there and you may say, you know what? Maybe when the time is right, we send him some camp information and he has a chance to come to campus and experience it, which I think is a positive hundred percent.

I think it’s a positive thing for a young man to be able to come to a camp on a campus and not worry about, well, am I going to get asked about the recruiting process while I’m there? Because that can’t happen now. He can just simply come with his family, be as good as he possibly can be, get in his car or on a plane and go home and say, man, okay, that was fun. Is that on my list or not on my list? So I think there’s an opportunity here for young players to really maximize the camp opportunities that are provided by programs in the off season and when it works with their schedule all being, going back to what I said earlier is having an understanding of what’s right for them and where they are in terms of their playing for that year.

Well, I’ve got one more question for you and I’ll let you go. We’re already over time and I certainly appreciate it.

I apologize.

No, you’re awesome brother. My last question is, I’m going to revert back to the national title last year. What was in your mind, what will Endure and Be the Crowning moment, right from your perspective, your eyes when you were watching that last game unfold or a game before that? What memory will always stick with you?

This one, one is really cool. I mentioned being in the people business. You’ll know this because when I say this you’re going to laugh. It was in Game one, game one and we were scoring and doing well and Dylan Cruz is at third base and he looks at me and says, would you’ve imagined in the recruiting process that you and I would be standing here at third base in Omaha? As you know, Dylan Cruz made a visit to Duke University when I was there. I do.

You guys were on ’em really early, if I remember right. We

Were and were. He was kind enough to make a visit and his family and they’re awesome people. And when he said that, I looked and said, that’s really cool. And then I said, Hey, we got to get back to work here. This is just game one. I literally turned back around like, Hey, we’re trying to win championship here, so lock in on this. But it was really a cool moment for me. I think I actually have a picture of it at home, like when photographers took a snapshot of it and he’s kind of got his arm around my shoulder. And that was a really cool moment because when you talk about it, you just never know where this game or baseball is going to take you and who you’re going to interact with. And so for me, outside of just getting a chance to hold the national Championship trophy and have my parents, me, my kids, touch it as a parent and my wife give you a hug and outside of all those things and which are all great, that moment for me, which is long before we ever thought about doing that, really resonated with me.

And again, meant a lot actually for Dylan to say that because again, he’s the best player I’ve ever seen. So that was one that always stick with me.

I appreciate it, Josh. And it’s a testament and just parents and kids out there, like these teams are built over years and years and years. And whether it’s a national championship team, an Omaha team, a successful team, the work and energy that goes into it, I know Josh as a former owner of a travel ball organization, I certainly appreciate guys like you that value relationships that worked their tails off. Parents that are joining this call, you’ve probably seen Josh walking around the fields before because if there’s a game, you’re there and I know that it’s appreciated and the effort level that you give definitely doesn’t go unnoticed. So again, I appreciate your time tonight, brother. It was really good catching up and I hope all of our listeners could glean something from our conversation tonight.

Matt, thank you so much. It was an honor, man, always good to see you again. I feel like our relationship’s going back a long time and I’m excited to get a chance to get on here and go Tigers. That’s all I got.

Appreciate you, brother. Thank.

Pat Casey, Former Head Coach, Oregon State University Interview

So you and I got to know each other through the competition piece, and I love how our friendship has evolved over time. And so just the more that I get to know you, I see the parallels kind of in our career. And what I love about doing these interviews is how much I learn about people. So what I want to know is tell me about the Pat Casey and rising and the journey to, everybody knows about your three national championships and all that stuff, but how did it happen? That’s what I want to

Know. Well, first of all, nothing happens without being blessed to have the opportunity. So certainly was given that opportunity in 1988 by George Fox College, and it was kind of funny. I just got done playing eight years of minor league baseball and had my fill of baseball and did you say fail or feel both? You know what I mean? I was in the Coast League with the twins and I got released in the middle of the year and the Mariners wanted to resign me, but I did not want to go to Chattanooga for 10 days without a guarantee that I was going to be on the big league, be invited to big league camp. And so I got a call from small college, George Fox College and the hometown I was from who had really never had any type of baseball success or had any emphasis on the program. So I really had no interest in doing it.

I got to admit buddy, I’d never heard of that until I met you. I had no idea there wasn’t George.

The only reason I knew about I lived in the town that existed in, they only had one thing going for ’em. Well, they were okay in track, but basketball was something that they were pretty good in.

What’s the size of school?

At the time they were, when I was growing up, they were in AI and they were about 300 kids, and then they got to 600 kids and 900. And I think when I was there as a coach, they probably were around that eight or 900 kids. And then now they’re up around 2000. They become a Division III school. But anyway, I didn’t have any interest in coaching or staying in baseball. The ad, who was the coach, and he had so many hats. He was the ad, he was the baseball coach, he was the head of international students. And so he just had too much and just thought that I might be interested. And he kind of repeatedly called me until I finally relented and went and met with the president and he talked on it. And so I took that job, let’s say July 10th or 12th or whatever, and called my best friend who played baseball with me and said, Hey, you doing anything? He said, yeah, I just got my appraiser’s license. I said, you making any money? He said, no. I said, perfect. I got a job where you’re not going to make any money either. We’re going to coach together. So we started that journey together, George Fox in 88, and I had 17 guys on my first club and six of ’em were from Puerto Rico.

What really?

Yeah, because like I said, the coach before me, the ad was the head of international students. So he figured if I’m going to go to another area to recruit students, let’s go to someplace where they can play baseball. And they were pretty good. I had a couple guys who were really pretty good and had a switch hitter named Miguel Rivera and stayed in touch with him. And anyway, I just instantly enjoyed it. I enjoyed the competition. I enjoyed just being in the dugout and a different perspective of baseball. And so we had no field, basically we built a field and built a batting cage, did all the stuff anybody would really do at a small place like that. And we competing. We played played Oregon State and Washington and Washington State in the same year and beat Washington and Oregon State and Lewis and Clark State. So I mean, we were feeling like we were pretty good. The problem was that I continued to make $3,000 a year with three kids and a wife that thought maybe I needed to go ahead and grow up.

That’s a thousand a year for each kid, man.

Exactly, exactly, man. And North Cut still wasn’t my pitching guy. He still wasn’t making anything other than half of my money from stopping and having a good time. So anyway, just thought it was time. I had a real estate license and I wasn’t doing any of that really because I enjoyed the coaching piece so much, but thought it was time that probably I moved to a different arena and I got a call from a guy named Jack Rainey who was the commissioner of the northern division of the Pac 10 at the time.

I don’t know whether it was PAC 10 or, but they were, the northern changed so many times, right?

Yeah, yeah. We just keep adding teams. So anyway, he asked me why I didn’t apply for the job at Oregon State, and I just said, well, I know their assistant. He’s been there for a while. He’s a good dude. I heard they’re going to hire him. He said, no, man, you should apply. So drove down there, turned in my application and the gal says, I don’t even think the job’s open. And so I thought, perfect. So anyway, three or four weeks later, I got an interview, got the job at Oregon State, I would say around August 5th, and walked into my office and well, I didn’t really walk into my office because I went over to get some keys the first day I was there, and the lady asked me what I would need keys for, and I said, well, I’m the new baseball coach. And she said, oh, okay, well lemme check. So nobody really knew who I was, so it’s kind of a funny feel.

So I’m back in the Midwest. And then for me, this is just me personally, you on the radar when we competed against each other, when I was coaching Indiana and still again, not knowing your story. And I remember sitting down one time when I was at ASU because I was just curious because what everyone sees said, oh, what have you done for me lately? So you’ve won the three national championships, which well documented. But for you on that journey of building, because I always talk about the process and how hard this process is, building culture and all that stuff, when did you feel like, Hey man, we’ve arrived. Maybe that’s not the right word, but you understand what I’m saying. You take the job, you build it. It wasn’t just Oregon State out of the chute, you built that thing. So how many years did it take you to do that?

Well, when I first got there, due to the fact that you were north and south, your competition was mostly in the north. It was Gonzaga and Portland and Portland State had baseball at the time, Oregon did, not Washington, Washington state. And so we were relatively competitive the first I got there in 95, in 97 and 98, we should have played in a regional, no question. We were really, really good in 98. The South gave us the opportunity to play them to help with the RPI because they wanted to keep us out of a conference as a whole, which I totally understand. I’m living in Phoenix and Palo Alto and I got to go to Corvallis or Pullman, so well, that’s why I want you to only visit me now.

Exactly, exactly. That’s why you got a T-shirt on and I got a jacket on.

Right, Exactly. So in 98 we played Washington or we played in the south, and they didn’t count on your record, they just counted on your conference record, just on your overall record. So we played Arizona, they were 10th in the country that year, and we swept ’em. We played UCLA and we swept ’em. We went to USC, won one of three, and they won the national championship, and we lost on the last state of Washington who won the north, and we didn’t get to go to regional. And so I thought that we were very competitive from the beginning. The gentleman before me, coach Riley, did a really good job. They just didn’t, there was no vision at Oregon State from an administrative standpoint at that time that hey, other than going down to Central California and playing the spring break deal that we’re ever going to do anything.

And the very first thing I remember saying is that I expect us to compete regionally and then nationally I expect that, or I wouldn’t have come here. And I know that sounds bold, but it’s what I believed in. And I started really pushing about 97 towards just to be a conference. That’s why they did that. And then finally, 99, matter of fact, bless his soul, Mike Gillespie stood up in the meeting and goes, it’s probably not good for USC, but it’s good for our conference and I’m going to support this. So we got the presidents and the ADSD behind us, and in 99 we became a full conference and I got my brains beat out, and I remember coming back on the plane from Stanford getting beat 22 to four and on last day, and they had mercy rule, and so they only batted six times. So we rounded it out pretty good there. We gave up almost four, almost. What was that? About seven evening. And anyway, I thought maybe I was wrong, man. Shoot, man.

Did I screw this thing out? Stay Up here, man, out of the way.

One of the coaches said to me at the time, he said, case, man, I love that you’re into this, but man, you guys don’t have the facility. You don’t have the money, you don’t have the weather. How are you going to compete? You’re talking about Arizona State, Stanford, U-S-C-U-C-L-A, back to back to back. And so part of me doubted myself a little bit, maybe in that 99 season, it wasn’t the right thing. And then I just said, Hey man, we got to get into what we got into this for and get back to grinding and who we are. And basically the same principles that I coached with at George Fox, the beliefs I had, and I did a poor job of coaching in 99. We got moved around pretty good that year, the first year in the south. And so it was just like anything, I just don’t think you can exist beyond your belief system.

In other words, I don’t think anybody that gets into my opinion into anything, whether you’re running a company or a team or anything else that doesn’t have a belief that they can reach a certain level, they’re probably never going to believe in that. And then the importance of understanding how important the little things are, really what are the big things, because the big things are accumulation of every little thing. So we had certain things that we believed in at Oregon State that I thought made a difference, and for other people they may not mean anything.

Were those things. And I actually wrote this down, I was going to ask you, and I’ll tie it into something dear to your heart, IU basketball, but were those little things the same things that were important or the same little things that when you started your career?

Absolutely, absolutely. And I think the first thing is we talk about strategies and we talk about plans and we talk about how to execute strategy and execute plans, but what really matters is who’s executing the plan and who created, who created the plan. And if you can’t get everybody to commit 100% to oneness of purpose for a common goal, it doesn’t matter what you do, you might win, but I don’t believe you’ll ever win long-term when you have individuals that say that what we do together is more important than what I do individually, it’s amazing what they can do because they forget about themselves. And that’s, I think if I would hope that if somebody went through and said, Hey, we played Oregon State over a three or four or five or 10 year period, they would have something to say about something unique about togetherness or our unity as a team. I would hope that that would be the one thing that would stand out. Not that, oh man, they got great players, or, oh, they really know how to hit and run, but no man, what they do is they come at you together so relentlessly and so consistently that they never let you up. And my deal was that you get ahead and then you suffocate your opponent with pitching and defense.

Well, and along that line, you and I have talked about this privately, but maybe it’s, you’re right about that. I know competing against you, your teams, you knew going into it what the expectation was, what you were going to face in that other dugout, but even some of the subtleties, and I think it’d be interesting because I’ve asked you about this, but even your position in the dugout at the other end of the dugout, why’d you do that? Why do you do that?

Well, I did that because for me, I believe that practices are for coaches and games are for players. And I had a really hard time standing there when the guy would walk by the OnDeck circle and strike out and come to put his bat in and not have something to say about, well, we talked about his slider being out of the zone. It’s not like the poor guy doesn’t know that. So it really helped me have them believe that when I tell them I trust them, that I do trust them, and I’m away from that a little bit. And so I get it.

The guy isn’t trying to strike out, he’s not trying to swing at a bad pitch, but being human and competitive, if you’re standing right next to somebody, you usually say something guilty.

Yeah, me too, but you’re better than me because I couldn’t stay there. I can keep my mouth shut. I had to move to the other end. And it also allowed me to think about the game as a whole a little bit more maybe instead of really focusing in on that kid coming back from a good or bad or a bad at bad, it allowed me to kind of look at the play ahead maybe or what we’re going to do the next thing defensively or pitching. But we won games in practice. We created a practice that was, in my opinion, that had an intensity level that you couldn’t wait to get to the game so that you could just play and show people what you can and can’t do. And there is a balance in baseball because it’s so long that there’d be certain in drills that would be real high in intensity for a short period of time, then you’d go something where you could relax a little bit.

But I just a hundred percent believe in practice. I think you win there. I think when you learn to understand and value every minute, then ultimately how to respect the hour, what can you get done in an hour is amazing. If you believe that one minute can change anything in a game and 30 seconds can change anything that happens in one minute in 15 seconds, you can control the next at bat by what’s in your mind. And so our motto was, you can’t change the man until you change the mind. And we had a bunker mentality, and I think people relate that sometimes wrong. I think they look at it as, oh man, they’re regimented. Oh man, no, that’s not it at all. What it is is actually when you trust that a kid can take that thing across the white lines with the tenacity that you respect, then you let ’em play.

Because not always are good things going to happen, but if you don’t trust them and they don’t trust you, then you continually interfere during the game as to what they’re doing. And pretty soon they’re going to go, come on coach, man, we worked on this in practice. I just happened to not get to where I was supposed to be or whatever. And I’m guilty of doing that. And so like I said, I’ve told players this before. I got a guy playing in the big leagues for me right now, and he came in and asked me what he needed to do to play every day. And I said, well, that’s kind of hard for me to believe that you need to ask me that question because you come to practice every day and you know what you need to do to play every day. And the one thing we talk about more than anything is our belief system. And when you start believing that you’re going to be as good as I think you’re going to be, then you don’t have to worry about playing every day. All you got to worry about is what color ink? I used to write that lineup because you’re going to be in it. But I mean here again, it was not anything that he was doing physically, it’s just he had doubt. And when you got out, then you lose time.

Your comment, just maybe your comment about games are for the practices, what we’re doing, games are for the players, reminded me of the old Bobby Knight. That was the whole thing. I had a good fortune of watching some of those practices and the intensity, and it almost this coincidental segue here. I was going to ask you, and I think about this all the time myself, so you coaching at George Fox and so do you remember Butch Carter, the old Indiana basketball player, and then absolutely he played in the NBA. And so Butch takes the job at that time, he took his first head coaching job with Toronto Raptors, with Vince Carter, and I had the good fortune of watching Butch coach my brother-in-law, Greg coach high school basketball in Middletown, Ohio, and he took a bunch of football players. Now Greg was a basketball player, but took a bunch of football players and they did a great job and they beat some of the Oak Hills Academy and some of the top programs.

But where I’m going with this was, I remember I was riding with Butch, we’re up in Toronto, I’m up there visiting him, and I asked him the question, this is the young naive Tracy Smith. I said, Hey man, gosh darn, now you go from this and now you’re coaching in the NBA. I was like, what are the practices now in the NBA, whatever, whatever. And he’s like, Tracy, I do the same techniques. I teach the same thing that I did at Middletown High School back in the day, and I just thought it was interesting. And that’s what I wanted to ask you about. George Fox, I think me, I was thinking you had to change and be totally different, treat these guys different way, get away from your core principles because you’re at a high level now. That’s what I was getting to on those same principles apply at Oregon. I think people think or assume, and I was guilty of it too, that you have to create this whole nother alternative reality every level you go up when really, so I’d be curious on your thoughts on that. Do you coach the same way at Oregon State when you’re winning national championship division one level as when you were there? I’m sure there’s differences, but what’s the difference in that?

Well, the difference is that I think what you’re alluding to is absolutely correct. I say this all the time. You could go to a little league practice and find a coach that’s teaching the fundamentals of throwing a baseball very well or bunning, and those fundamentals are very, very consistent. And there are things in the game, in my opinion, it should never change, but there’s things that are always in fluxx. And what changed for me was the fact that if I was going to be an effective leader, I had to be a lifetime learner because great leaders never quit learning. And so I became a better coach and coached somewhat differently from the aspect of how I was able to communicate, maybe how I was able to articulate maybe how efficiently we could do things. We might be doing a drill at George Fox, of course, you had six balls, you had to wait until the other ones got in.

Hey, you need those balls to finish the drill anyway, for example, we run the same bunt defenses at Oregon State that we ran at George Fox. Okay, exact same bunt defenses. But how we changed in how we practice those became completely different because of my learning experience in game. And that is that in games, when you run a drill and practice, you run it maybe, and there are things you should do repetitiously, but if you run a, let’s just say you run a basic bunt drill and you say, we’re going to run this for three minutes, you just run it and you run it again, right? Well, that’s not what happens in the game. You get one shot at it. So what we do is we react to what we did on that bunt defense if we threw the ball and bounced it in the dirt at first.

Now you’ve got guys at first and second, you’re in a completely different defense. If the guy gets to third, now you’re first and third, the catcher has to come out and give you the first and third. So we took our short game defense and evolved it into a game setting to where you could rerun in three or four different defenses in our package instead of just saying, okay, everybody’s the pitcher’s over there playing grab, ask 15 of ’em standing along the line and your turns next and you run out there and Oh, I know we’re running Bundy two. Well, no, it’s not like that. Now you got to pay attention because you got to know who’s on first. You got to know what many outs are. I like it changed what we did and we even got better than that where we even created chaos. And so in other words, first and third guy standing there and he comes sat, I might call Bach, and he’s like, Bach, Bach, you sit there and argue with me. You can’t do that in a game. The coach gets to do that. I’m the coach and gets pissed off, man. He’s not thinking, well, let’s go. What happens when things go upside down? So that’s how that evolved. But you’re a hundred percent right. I think that when you get your tail down to play defense in basketball and cut your man off and get into the rack, it’s the same in high school, college or professional basketball. And so it’s just a matter of how much it means to you to keep him from getting to the rack. And that’s the same it is in baseball. You can put a bunt on, and I had a rule about how we sacrifice bunt and I let you have the freedom to drag bun any way you possibly could as long as it was effective. Sacrifice button was uniform. We were going to do it the same way every guy.

Why is that?

Why is that? Because I think that you have to have some things that are unique to your system that create a discipline that you fall back on. And bunning, the baseball is a very basic thing. They even tell you, we’re going to call it sacrifice.

You have to do is

Move the runner. So don’t worry about how I ask you to do it, giving yourself up right there. So we’re going to do it one way and that way I know my three hitter, Trevor Anick, or I know my one hitter, whoever it may be, Aaron Matthews, they’re all going to bump the same way so that we don’t screw up the sacrifice drag different story. You’re trying to get a hit, man, I’m okay if you can stand on your head and drag go for it. But the sacrifice, that’s a team thing. And I think the guy recognizes that, that’s sitting in the dugout that wants to play that says, Hey man, athlete rutman sacrifices just like I would sacrifice if I’m sitting.

That’s how you build that unity. That’s how you make the respect for your teammate. And we had one or two rules as far as our appearance. That was it. I wasn’t, people look at our club and think that we were extremely disciplined because maybe that I was very, very strict or firm with ’em. No man, the standards by which we lived by and which we played by, we all sat in a room and said, Hey, how many guys want to lose this year? No, I didn’t see anybody raise their hand. How many guys want to win this year? Everybody raised their hand, okay, let’s start talking about winning. How do we win? And then out of that discussion of humanity becomes this complex nonsense of all the shit that happens in baseball, right? Well, if we hit three 10 and if we have an all base percentage of three 70 and if our ERAI go, that’s all great, man, but that’s just a direct result of what we’re committed to.

I noticed you use the word standard too.

Absolutel not rule. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean that about standards, you’re vested in what you do if you’re part of the discussion. But when a guy walks in and puts the thing up on the board and says, all right guys, and for me not anybody else, and there’s been guys that have done this thing better than me by a thousand times and they have their own ways of doing it for me, I always thought it was better when we talked about why we didn’t do something the way that we talked about when they’re the ones that helped make the decision. If I told a kid, Hey man, I think that you need to hit three 40 and field 9 92 and steal 20 bags, and he might be out there struggling saying, well, shit, that wasn’t my, excuse me, that wasn’t my, that was you telling me that I could do that. So I just think a common purpose eliminates ego. I think ego gets in the way of success, and I think that individualism certainly gets in the way of overall production.

It’s funny you just did the illustration of a little bit of who you are. It’s funny because again, back to your national championships and everybody’s, Hey man, pat Casey, and I’ll get questions about, Hey, what’s he like? And we’ve gotten know each other. And so I’m actually looking over here as we’re doing the interview of the couch that we’ve sat on a couple times and had a beer in our hand and a cigar. And those are always fun for me because I would summarize it like this. I would always say the cool part about Pat or Casey, but I said is that he just has this way of making stuff really simple. You talk about these things and we sometimes make life so difficult and the complexities of it. And that’s why I said I think if people spend time with you, it’s profound statements, but they’re really not profound statements. It’s just like you get back to the simple and then you walk away going, you know what? That really makes sense. And what you just said there about even the bunning and how and why you do it, it may seem insignificant, but there’s a bigger meaning behind

That for me. That’s exactly right. And for me, like I said, that was maybe my inability to work in this tech world and this complexity of it and all things that are really important. I still have a profound belief that everything happens behind the uniform, and that’s the guy that’s buttoning it up. And so great leaders find a way to get greatness out of their players or out of their soldiers or out of their employees. Great leaders don’t sit around and talk about how great they are. And we spend a lot of time working on things that people would be shocked at how important they become to us because of someone else on the team.

And if you give somebody a task, you give a guy a shovel, one guy will dig a grave, another guy will dig it, well see, there you go again, you’re doing it again. But I mean, isn’t it true?

So in other words, if you just say, Hey, we’re going to practice for two and a half, three hours a day. I don’t know what the rules are anymore, but it can be just a long drawn out, monotonous deal if there isn’t a reason or a purpose behind that other than yourself, that’s just, and you’re right, I think genius in anything you do is finding the way to not only teach it, but to go ahead and execute it in its simplest form. I mean, there’s not anybody that I’ve ever followed in coaching that didn’t say things that were so, just hit you like a lightning rod, but were so simple. Once you heard ’em, I mean it’s like, and then other guys stand up and talk about, Hey, we got seven guys that got a launch angle of 18% or better, so we’re going to hit just not sure that I could coach in that world. And so it’s amazing what people will do when they believe and the purpose behind it. And that’s pretty could never be wrong. I mean that’s the way I look at it.

Well, if you just look at guys right now, for example, you’ve been in a lot of places and we’ve talked about that. We’ve had good times together. We go out and we go, yeah, case, that’s what I did when I was a kid or whatever. But your conversations with me, there’s always bringing somebody up in your past, whether it be a brother or a friend or a coach that had some type of significance in your life. And never once did I ever hear you say, yeah, this guy took me into the room. We sat down and looked at this computer screen and started figuring out this, that or the other. It was always, yeah, that dude nine, he played center field force us or that coach man, he gave me the freedom to go out and recruit whatever it is. And I do understand the importance of a lot of things in today’s game that are very, and I have deep respect for him. I do. And we use that stuff as well. I just think that sometimes we miss some of the most important things that are right in front of our eyes.

And for me, that’s always been the actual kid that walks into the locker room and then walks out of the locker room and things are so simple. The one question I have every meeting, the first meeting I ever have is how many hours in a week? And I never had anybody ever come in and know how many hours were in a week when they were freshmen. And the only reason I tell ’em that is not because I want them to understand the mathematics behind that, but understand about the fact that that is the one thing that we all have the exact same amount of. So Addie Rutman had one level of talent and Jimmy Smith might’ve had another, can’t control that. Tracy Smith might be six three and Jimmy Smith might be five eight. Time is something that they have the exact same amount of, and so there is no advantage for anybody in the room if you understand that. So it’s why I’m giving you that number so that you understand it because when you come back and figure out how many hours you are required to practice and lift and go to school and study, you’ll understand the amount of time that you get to make a decision of how you are going to create habits in your life, good or bad.

And A hundred sixty eight, a hundred sixty eight, You got it. I had to do the math because I didn’t want you to ask me on camera and it embarrassed me right there. Wasn’t going to ask you me many hours in a week.

Well, it’s a great point. I mean, the general question that I was going to ask you is, and you answer it in every answer you give, like your secret sauce. If you were to, it’s a hard question because it’s too, but what would you say your secret sauce that makes you a little bit different,

Willing to do everything that I ask my players to do? If you’re going to stand in the rain, I’m going to stand in the rain. If you’re going to get out of bed at five, I’m getting out of bed at five, build a trust them that I can make mistakes, let ’em know that I’m going to make mistakes, give them complete and total trust in one another, that I have that same belief in them as a team and there’s things I shouldn’t be involved with. That locker room is theirs. I’m going to come in and when I come in there, I got something to say. I think it’s going to be really important. And so I’m not coming in there very often. That’s your sanctuary. We get out between the white lines, we get out between the white lines and there is nobody, there is nobody that’s going to believe in what we can do more than us. And I just think that there’s a unity or a bond or a character trait of toughness and maybe a little bit of a will to do some things. I’m not a big, and there’s just so many things we can have. We can talk forever. I think it’s more important when man discovers that the difference between his heart and his will, I would say that would be very important to me.

Yep, I agree with that. So yeah, we could talk forever on this. So I’ll ask another question on this and we’ll transition a little bit about our venture that we’re working on together. But I always like this one because I think about it myself and how we evolve. But if you could go back to that young, and first of all, you were telling me how big you were back when you were young, but it just cracks me up when I think about that. If you go back and tell that young Pat Casey way back when and you started your career, what advice would you use now and what you’ve learned some of the key things over the time that you would tell that young one that maybe would cut that learning curve? Because I hope some of the folks that are watching this, some young coaches or whatever, appreciate you and the knowledge, the experience. And what I love about you is you were about as normal a human being as there is, which I love. But what would be something that you could tell that young Pat Casey that maybe you wish you had that that would cut that learning curve?

Well, young, the mistakes I made when I was younger, playing minor league baseball from 21 to 28 were confusing competitiveness with maybe common sense. I don’t know. I didn’t have a lot of patience maybe or a lot of respect for the process. I would guess when I was playing, I just played. I wasn’t fortunate enough. I never saw myself on tape playing a baseball game until I was probably in AAA or aa. I don’t know. We didn’t have high school video. I played three sports, which I’m glad I did. I wish kids would do it now, but probably just a better understanding. I didn’t understand what it meant to be a professional. I just wanted to play and have a good time. I tell my guys all the time, I said, listen, I played in Virginia as far as east is Virginia and in California and in Canada and in South America.

So I have done all, I’ve been in every bar between those. And I promise you one thing, they’re all going to still be selling beer when you’re out of college, so just go ahead and slow down a little bit. But I was never a bad guy ever. I just wasn’t anybody that ever really had a plan when I was playing. I just played and I wish I’d better. I wish I would’ve understood it better. I wish I’d had more respect for the game. I wish I’d have been more coachable. I think sometimes some of your greatest strengths are some of your greatest weaknesses and the lack of discipline probably of I, we didn’t have weights my senior year in 1977 in high school, they came in with a universal gym and the basketball coach said, basketball players can’t lift. I never lifted any weights in my life. And so I didn’t have a regimen of that.

We didn’t have batting cages, so I didn’t have a regimen of that. It was just different. I never forget this. I was in the locker room with John Crook leaving. It must’ve been AA and the last game, and I packed my stuff in there and still had the clay on the bottom of my shoes. I was in the Texas League when I went to spring training. I unpack that same bag the next year and had the same dirt on there. You didn’t fly to Arizona and work out. I was living in Newburg, Oregon. I played city league basketball and had a good time. So I wish I’d had a lot better understanding of the game and what I could have done with the game. But now that I can tell you, maybe it’s the best thing that ever happened to me.

I got to coach, I got to learn. I got to be around players that inspired me. And to this day, to this day, the first guy that I ever recruited, he went down to Oregon when we won a milestone game. I think it was like number 1000 in my career or some, this guy’s name’s Frank W. He’s the first guy I ever recruited. For me, that’s way more important than me ever getting hit in the big leagues. And so I would just say that there’s a lot of things I wish I’d have done differently. Not sure that if I would’ve changed those, I’d be in a better spot than I am today. But I’m not one of those guys that ever says, oh, I would never change anything. People say, Hey, I had a great career. I’d never changed anything. I would wish I could change a lot of things I did in my career playing and coaching.

Yeah, me too. Well, perfect. Kind of a segue into the platform and that we’re on, and we’ve both chosen to be a part of this adventure with the diamond agents and the stuff. So I guess I would just ask you, and people can find out more about it hopefully, but what’s the main reason you involved in what we’re doing together at this point in our careers with the diamond allegiance?

Well, I think, you know how this started with me as far as the Diamond Allegiance, you brought me into it when it was basically just the foundation and Sandy wanted to, Sandy wanted some people on that board that would help with what he was doing, and that is to help young kids get involved with baseball, stay involved. And it’s in particular those kids that couldn’t be involved. And when you coach at the division one level, you have a lot of work to do and you’re really concerned with the visual one guys. And when you go out and watch kids play, you watch the visual one guys and you don’t go to a lot of places where kids just play for the fun of it or kids or kids can’t afford it. And so I was happy to be on the foundation. The foundation piece was awesome to me.

And just being on the advisory board, and I don’t know who took that and morphed it into what it was going to be with the Diamond Allegiance, but when you guys shared that, hey, we want to continue to do what we’re doing on the foundation piece, but we think we can help a lot of kids across the country, and in order to do that, we’re going to have to create a model that allows us to interact with young kids. I just thought, man, what a great way for me to give back. You get into your world of coaching and you don’t get to spend a lot of time with that. And I honestly could go to West Delaware, Iowa and recruit a kid on the farm town and watch him play and have just a good time as I could going down to Long Beach and watching the area codes.

And so I just think for me, that’s a great way for me to give back. I want to see kids that are sitting there trying to make a choice. And that is, do I give up baseball? Do I start watching a lot more TV and playing a lot more video games or doing a lot more things that may not be as productive as to where a great game of baseball can get me, whether it’s building relationships. And so I’m inspired as much about the guy that’s at Fringe D one guy and helping him maybe say one word to him. I had a guy that’s with us right now that just called me, one of our teams that’s with us, their owner called me the other day and asked me some advice on a kid that was looking for some help with the mental part of the game.

And I just thought, that’s super cool. But I just think that the one thing that I really long for, and that is to see this allegiance make a difference, the decisions kids choose to make opposed to maybe something they didn’t have that opportunity. So in other words, if we can help two kids that could have never afforded through this allegiance, say, Hey, I got a scholarship to go play for the jackrabbits and I’m going to play baseball this summer. And he plays baseball, discovers that, Hey, I might be able to go to junior college. Or Hey, I met a guy that his dad owns a business that I really want to work in, whatever it may be. I just think we spend too much time inside those four walls thinking about what am I going to do when I’m 78 and hell, who knows where they’re going to be here when I’m 78? And so if we don’t inspire our youth, we’re going to pay for the consequences and therefore I’m involved from that standpoint. I love the game of baseball, baseball. This is such a big part of my life. I don’t want to give that up. So maybe there’s a part of it that feeds me, but I long to see kids understand what this great game can give. And also to, we’ve got so many plans in the works to help offset some of the costs for the families right now, I want to see families go see their kid play. I just think it’s hard when some family has to sit there and say, Hey, we can go to two. We can’t go to that third one. We can’t afford it. Maybe we can do some things that help there. But you just think about organizations. I don’t care if you got 500 kids within your organization, 300 or a thousand. If you affect five kids out of 500 and those five kids get married and have a family, you think about how many kids are going to be affected over the lifetime of that decision.

And even if you only get five out of, that’s just being conservative. I think that’s a big part of what we’re doing. And of course the tech piece of what we can present that helps facilitate the things these coaches are doing and the things that kids need to have at their accessibility to advance in the game. And I think advancing, like I said, I will be just as excited about the guy that never thought he’d make the high school team that made it guy that never thought he’d go to college, that goes to an NAI or three year. I never thought he was going to be AD one that becomes AD one. The guy that never thought he was going to be a big leaguer. That becomes a big leaguer. I think that that’s for me is what’s pretty cool. And then trying to inspire coaches to understand what our roles are as coaches and how important it is that we advance and create and nurture future leaders of our country.

So what would you say as we’re out talking to the organizations, the organization heads and those involved, that those, when they ask the questions, so you’re saying Pat Casey would really take an interest and help us, and he’d really come out and see our kids and talk to our kids. What would you say to that?

I absolutely would. Obviously two places at one time. But you know what? You and I have talked about that. You’ve probably heard me say that four or five times. Hey, Tracy, I’m good. And I do understand that everything we’re doing, my piece is the piece that send me to Texas to sit there and sit with an organization for a day and a half or two days and watch ’em work out and talk to ’em. And that’s what I would like to do. I mean, that’s certainly a big part of it. It’s hard when you sit up in this little corner and people, even if you and I could say that about Connecticut or Texas, but people don’t really know you. It’s funny, the first time I met Garrido, I was a player playing against Fullerton, and he was the coach in 1979, and we were in a regional in Fresno, and they won it and won the whole thing.

And I was a player and I was just like, oh man, we’re playing Fullerton and blah, blah, blah. And I never got the chance to coach against him early because that just wasn’t the way it was. And I went out, played eight years, and he’s moved around with Illinois, Texas, and the first time I met him, I was just blown away about, he is just, just going with this guy’s just like me, man. We’re just talking baseball. You guys ran that relay the other day I saw on tv. I’m just wondering why you trailed with, and I’m just laughing going, honestly, I had this picture in my mind that this guy wouldn’t talk to anybody. His ego was so big, blah, blah, blah. And he was just a great guy. And I think it’s the same there. I don’t think people really have a great perception of a lot of coaches when the only time you see him is in uniform or players. I had a player that was the first rounder, and I had a scout tell me, oh, Casey, he’s got a really bad attitude, and this is where I think that I’ll really help because I think I get to know the player or the organization. But he’s cocky. He’s got a bad attitude. I’m sure he is a guy that comes in late at night. I said, well, lemme tell you, the guy’s a 4.0 student. He doesn’t drink. He hobby is to raise funds for Children’s Christmas deal at his hometown. He works at St. Vincent de Paul, and I get it. He’s got his sunglasses flipped backwards and he’s styling and sometimes he doesn’t. So the misperception of who he more to the story.

What’s that?

There’s more to the story. What would Paul Harvey always say and the rest of the story, whatever Paul Harvey would always say, that’s the rest of the story. Yeah, yeah. No, and I just had to convince that guy that, Hey, look, he may appear that way, but I’m with him every day. And yeah, he does get upset with him. He is really hard on himself. And my job for him was completely and totally just to have him understand how he was being perceived. He ended up being a first rounder. And so I just think those things are right up my alley. I had plenty of people that probably thought I was a jackass when I was playing, and I probably was. And so just things like that are important to me. I don’t really have a, I’m not zeroed in on exactly what my role is with the allegiance other than the fact that I think that as I’ve looked at it from two or three different lenses and felt like that I want to be involved with the game. I want to be involved with people. I want to be involved with helping people. It was just a tremendous opportunity for me. And so that’s how I look at it.

Sustainable Human Performance – How to ensure Peak Performance Mentally and Physically

Scott, first of all, I appreciate you being here tonight. Big deal for the diamond allegiance to get somebody of obviously your stature and the type of people that you’ve worked with to join us tonight and talk about sustainable human performance, what that means, and some real practical applications for current high school athletes and what they can do. For those of us joining us, Scott, is the current, I guess CEO would be the correct term. Right?

Thanks Matt, and thanks for having me. It’s great to be here. Yeah. I’m the chief catalyst, I’m one of the co-founders of our company, tum, and what we do is help executives help basically all kinds of high performers be what we call a sustainable high performers. So how do you show up at your best day in and day out, make the biggest impact, bring your talent to fruition and win in the game, whether it’s business, we’ve worked with professional sports like the Oakland Raiders, we’ve worked with Arizona State University, Michigan, worked with some professional baseball players now, but mostly we work with executives and we work with people in the business world, but in the end, they all share the same thing and that’s their humans and they want to make the biggest impact at whatever they’re doing, and they also want to be the best human beings and make the biggest impact at home.

And that’s, so the idea is to be very practical and pragmatic and create some strategies and some skills and some tools that work in all those areas. Yeah. My background is a little unique, I’ll just say, because you guys see a fire helmet behind me, but I was a firefighter for 25 years, retired from the Phoenix Fire Department as a division chief. And so in my time during the fire department, I got my master’s degree in performance psychology and exercise physiology. So my passion was always around performance. How do firefighters and fire ground commanders and leaders in the fire station show up under the highest levels of stress and perform their best? And then I kind of transferred that when I retired and we started tum into other populations, whether it was the business world, whether it was working with the most elite military, you see a Green Beret here. We’ve worked with special forces, special operations, the most elite war fighters all over the world. And in the end, one of my takeaways is it’s all the same. So no matter how you’re aware, you’re applying it, it’s the same stuff. So I’ll pause there. That’s kind of me and what I bring to the table.

Yeah. Thank you, Scott. I appreciate that. And like you said, it’s high performers, whether it’s an athlete, whether it’s a business leader at a top 100 company, whether it’s our special forces who are probably doing the hardest job of anyone out there. I think it’s really interesting to talk about that performing under pressure and performing under pressure is one thing that whether you are a little league player, whether the lights pop on for the first time in your varsity baseball game, whether you’re playing at Arizona State or Michigan or Clemson, or whether you’re playing in the big leagues, you’ve got to deal with that pressure of performance. So why don’t you talk to us a little bit about your outlook on how to perform under pressure?

Yeah. Well, it’s actually interesting because you could argue that we as human beings will learn that naturally if I continually put you under pressure. But the hard part is that would only work if I could put just a little more pressure than you’re used to and let you adapt to that and then a little more pressure and let you adapt to it. But life isn’t so graduated. It turns out that sometimes more is thrown at us than we can handle. And as it turns out, one of the biggest myths that we have found is this idea that mental toughness is something you’re born with. Mental toughness is an outcome. It’s the outcome of practicing mental skills under higher and higher pressure until those skills would hold up under the highest level of pressure. And unfortunately, most people do not learn those skills. In fact, I’d say one of my takeaways, even at Arizona State University when I started with those guys, many of you athletes are so talented, and so people just rely on your talent.

You’re physically talented, you have fast hands, you have good eye hand coordination, you have good footwork, you’ve learned good baseball fundamentals, you can throw, you can catch, you can run, you can hit. But one of the problems is that how do you bring that talent day in and day out? Sometimes it’s not enough. How you show up can make a big difference whether you’re coachable, what your mindset is, how you deal with failure, how you deal with self-doubt, something we work with athletes and executives on all the time as human beings, we will doubt ourselves. The most successful athletes I’ve ever seen struggle with a lot of self-doubt, but they’ve developed skills on how to deal with it. But unfortunately, no one teaches that to us. The curse is when you’re talented physically, most coaches growing up do not want to touch your mindset because the worst thing they want to do is open up Pandora’s box and find out either what’s there or find a problem that they’re not really equipped to handle.

And so the way most people address mindset is a bunch of rah rah, a bunch of quotes, a bunch of cliches, a bunch of stories about athletes, but those are always the exhibition of a mindset. Those are not the skills that help you develop it. And I can tell you, I’ve worked with professional athletes that were exceptional talents and been blown away at some simple things that they didn’t know from a mindset perspective. So I believe there’s skills you have to learn, and the earlier you learn them and start develop developing them, the more your talent will hold up under pressure over time.

Absolutely. And that makes a ton of sense. So what are some of those important skills? I mean, what are some practical things that obviously are the people that are part of our diamond allegiance are youth players, right? Kids that are 18 and under.

Yeah.

What are some practical things that you would recommend that are really important to start chipping away at that mindset and starting to train for it?

So sometimes what we think of mindset skills are simple things that are easy to miss. So I always say at the foundation for every athlete, no matter where you are, is playing for the love of the game. So once we lose the love of the game, we lose our why, we lose our purpose. And we know that purpose is super critical for not only resilience, but for being able to keep perspective. And so if I don’t love the game, that’s a problem. Look at how the system, whether it’s travel, baseball, high school, baseball, it’s so easy for coaches and parents to take away that love for the game. Whenever I work with an athlete, I always go right back to, let’s go back to the days that you just couldn’t wait to get on the field the day that you just loved it and you played.

And when I see great athletes, whether it’s right now in the World Cup in their soccer players or whether it’s baseball players during baseball season, one of the things you always notice is they have this passion for the game. And if you have that, then we can build some hard work and other things. So to me, that’s a great start. And probably the second step is to train your mindset to be coachable. People don’t think of that as a mindset skill, but what is that? It’s vulnerability. Am I willing to try something I don’t know that I can do and fail if I’m not willing to get out of my comfort zone, I’m not really coachable. I can’t be put under pressure because I want to stay in my little safety zone. So well, am I willing to play against tougher competition? Am I willing to face the best pitchers? Am I willing to play a position that I may not be the best at, but it’s an opportunity to develop my skills? Kids that are vulnerable, we’ll take that risk and we can train that and use that humility.

How I handle humility makes me coachable. It’s very hard to coach an arrogant player. So a player that’s very humble, that listens. So curiosity, what don’t I know that I want to know? What can I ask the coach to help me with? Where are my opportunities to learn the skill of asking for help? That’s an interesting one. When we’re afraid to be exposed, we don’t ask for help because then my coach is going to know that I don’t know the answer. Coach, what do I do in this situation? And you’re afraid the coach is going to say, how could you not know that? Well, it doesn’t matter how I could not know it. In order for me to get to the next level, I need to learn it. But here’s a surprise for a lot of people, coaches love to coach. Coaches love to teach.

So when you’re coachable, you will get extra attention. You’ll get extra work, you’ll get the benefit of the doubt when you make a mistake because a mistake is nothing more than a learning opportunity. I remember you watch in football in the preseason or in training camp, players would make a mistake and the coaches would throw it on the clipboard and lose their stuff. And I would say, guys, isn’t this the place that we should be making this mistake? He could have gotten lucky and turned the other direction and run this route, but he didn’t really know what he was doing. He didn’t know what the play called for. I’m glad he made that mistake because now we can coach him on it. So look forward to mistakes. Well, that’s the mindset of the coach. So the mindset of the coach, the mindset of the parent and the mindset of the player all have to come together and then we can build upon that many more skills like learning to embrace, to suck.

The next level I would argue is can I work hard? Because at some point, if you’re going to be an excellent athlete, if you want to be a performer under stress, if you want to be able to compete with great teammates, you got to work hard and you got to sometimes outwork everyone else. Well, that sucks. So that means you better learn to embrace the suck. And there’s a process in that is recognizing that grinding through pays dividends and recognizing to focus not on the work that can fatigue us, focus on the benefits of the work because that will help us grow and get better. And it is amazing when you take two, I remember working with some special forces guys and they’d be going through selection and selection is brutal. There’s sleep deprivation, there’s amazing amount of workload. And the candidates that focus on how long we’ve been going, how far we’ve run, how little sleep we have, they often don’t make it. But the ones who focus on the little recovery breaks that they got, oh my God, I just grabbed five quick minutes. I didn’t have to do anything between this run and pushups. I caught my breath and I loosened up my shoulders and I’m good to go. The ones that have that mindset that are focusing on what they’re achieving and how much farther they’re getting, and even what they’re able to do that they didn’t think they can do. So recognizing that they learn to embrace the suck and learn that they can push through it.

Yeah, Scott, I would equate that to some things in baseball weight room, you get in the weight room, you start getting stronger, and that can suck sometimes, but really being focused on that end goal can really push you through those tough times. So I would agree a hundred percent. I think one thing too, Scott, that as kids get older, it does become, you have to balance that grind, right? With that love of the game. And I hear you hear it a lot in today’s youth sports that, especially in travel ball, Scott, one of the big words is, I’m on the grind. I’m grinding this summer, I got to play five games in seven days. I’m grinding. And I think nothing against the current athlete, but understanding what a true grind really means. And you can’t get that experience until you get that experience. And I think a lot of high school kids are really shocked when they move to the next level.

They think they’ve worked hard, they think they’ve grinded, and then they get to that next level, whether it’s collegiate baseball at any level, whether it’s professional baseball, and they understand that grind and then the importance of them taking care of your body. And I don’t mean to skip ahead or anything like that, but one thing that I’ve learned through the years, I’ve had the lucky enough to have coached about 40 big leaguers over my coaching career. And I think the one thing that is consistent with each and every one of them after they got drafted, I’d always come back after the first season and say, Hey, what did you learn the first season? What did you take away? And to a man, every single one of ’em that has made it has said, I learned that I had to take care of my body. So I don’t know if that’s something that you, I know we’ve got some things to go through, but if you maybe want to talk a little bit about that and being prepared to compete and what that looks like.

Yeah, both of those are huge. So the whole concept of self-care is so critical. And also when fatigue really impacts our mindset. So many times I’ll develop good mindset skills and there’s many more we’ll get into today, but then fatigue kind of chips away at ’em or fatigue allows self-doubt to really overcome my mindset. So it’s this constant kind of balance. Self-care is the place where I rebuild myself. And I’d say for young athletes, learning that self-care is not a nice to have, it’s a must have is the most important thing. So don’t confuse grinding and working hard and being willing to push yourself with putting my recovery aside. I would argue that that’s crazy. So there’s all kinds of recovery. There’s physical recovery that can be something like my stretching, my foam rolling, my active rest, getting out and doing light movements, doing sometimes players use massage, hot and cold therapy, all those kinds of things can be for physical fatigue.

Well, I also get cognitive fatigue. It’s hard to focus five games in a row, so I need to do stuff that gives my brain rest. Sometimes things like music or breathing techniques or just going and playing other games gives my brain a chance to check out. People don’t know this, but your brain has about 45 minutes of intense concentration. Well, that’s pretty interesting because when you think about it, a game is going to last three hours, sometimes two to three hours around a golf can last four or five hours, watch professional golfers, they know how to check in and fully focus, check out and get mental recovery focus recovery. Well, baseball players have to learn the same. So even in the course of a game, there is self-care between innings, taking care of myself, stretching back out, staying warm, allowing my brain to lose its focus for a little bit, bringing it back when I’m coming up to bat, that little kind of in and out without being intense all the time can also help.

And then there’s emotional fatigue, and that’s what a lot of us forget. And there’s some things that create more emotional fatigue. Like my mindset, if my perspective on competition is competition is war, meaning I have to win and you have to lose. And if I don’t beat you, it’s like going to the death. Well, that’s not a healthy competition perspective. That creates a lot of emotional fatigue. When I change my perspective to competition, and I say competition is actually partnership, we’re both in this to push each other to find out how good we can be. I want to play against the greatest talent and the better talent I play against. I want you to play your best. And then I want to see how I match up whenever we have this partnership or competition is partnership that adds way less of an emotional load, and it turns out it gives us much more emotional growth. The two best examples of that right now are in tennis, Raphael Nadal and Roger Federer. And when did we think in our lifetime we’d ever see two players have such a long and lasting successful career? McEnroe all the people before all people you young guys would never have heard of.

I don’t know, Pete Saners, Andre Agassi were pretty good though, but they didn’t have the sustainability. So It is interesting. But I would argue Pete Saners probably had a pretty good perspective on competition. Agassi too, but McEnroe was a complete competition is war, I have to win, I have to embarrass you, I’m going to have a temper tantrum. That’s a mindset skill of learning to keep that perspective. So I think good players treat your brain and your body. It is the driver of my talent and I have to make sure that I take care of all these aspects. I mean, I’m looking at the guys that got drafted from ASU right now, only one has made it to the major leagues that I worked with, right? Spencer Torkelson. The rest are on the long slow journey of miners. That is a grind. I mean for Spencer it’s a grind too. Torque will have his work cut out for him with a number of games and spring training. So much of it is, am I available for my coach to put me in? Well, I’m only available if I’m not injured. I’m only available if I’m cognitively, physically, mentally, and emotionally ready to go into the game. So those are skills I have to practice.

So obviously we transitioned to pro ball and think, and obviously not all of them have these skills, but a lot of them do and that’s why they’ve been able to get to where they are. There’s a lot of very talented athletes out there, and the ones that really can rise to the top of the top of the top do have these skills. So obviously those are type of people that we want to mirror. So what are some things that you’ve seen them do to be very successful? What are some things that you coach them to do to be successful? Both. We can use athletes, we can use top executives, but what are some things and some things that kids can do to really prepare like a pro?

Yeah, that’s a great one. I agree that the system of pro baseball is built to give you so many repetitions that you will eventually develop all the talent that you have and it will push you to develop the mental skills too. And without naming names though, I can tell you of players that were this close to winning the MVP of the league, that when I ask them, just curious, what are the things that destroy your mindset in a game? And they say a fan yelling something at me when I’m in the outfield or I make an error early in the game, or I strike out the first two times at bat. And then you say, but all those things are out of your control. You allow all those things out of your control to destroy your mindset. You realize that player made it on talent. They did not have the mindset. Those are things that you should be able to deal with at that level.

Yeah, absolutely.

So then I realized not everyone has learned those skills. On the flip side, and I can say this, when I work with the elite groups in the military, they have difficult selection processes just like baseball, whether it’s tryouts, whether it’s going through combines, whether it’s going through summer ball. So those are all kind of selection processes that do weeded people out. My job, my goal though is to say how many people get weeded out that actually had the talent and what was the thing that was missing, the missing piece of the puzzle? And almost always it’s mindset. So in that sense it was a mindset skill. So one, like you said, how do I mentally prepare myself to come to a game? But that starts with how I mentally prepare myself to show up for practice. Have I set clear intentions of how I want to show up?

So I might want to go through my mind and say, what does it look like when I’m coachable? What does it look like when I’m playing with passion and a love for the game? What does it look like when I embrace the suck and I want to be out there? How do I deal with failure and success? Because if I freak out every time I fail and yet I’m playing a game where failure is statistically built into the game, I’m not going to be a player that’s going to do very well. So that’s a mindset do I learn? So we try to teach players how they can quickly learn from a mistake. I go up to and at bat I get eight pitches overall out of those eight pitches if I’m honest. And then I end up, let’s say, popping up or striking out. If I throw my bat down, and to me that’s a failure and I put my head down, throw my helmet, run back, or walk back to the dugout.

I’ve taken everything I did in those eight pitches and thrown it out the window as a mistake. But what if I actually did nine things really well? My balance was really good in the box, my mind was clear and uncluttered and I was really ready. I was confident and set myself up for success. I managed my inner anxiety, maybe with my breathing between pitches. I stepped out and reset to get ready for the next pitch. But it just happened to be I swung a two breaking balls and this pitcher has a great breaking ball. If I throw my bat down and get angry, I’ve thrown away all those things that I actually just practice that were good, that I want to continue to do and build upon. So one of the things that we love to have players do is to quickly have an evaluation process to capture what did I just do well?

And then that means I’m going to continue doing that. What did I not do well? But most important, how would what I didn’t do well, look if I had done it well. So that might be laying off that pitch. Okay, so I do a quick visualization. I see myself laying off that pitch. I’ve had players tell me, they call me Scotty P, they used to call me Scotty P at ASU Scotty P. Hardest thing in the world is the first ball that’s hit to me after I make an error. And I say, well, why wouldn’t you fix that before the next ball’s hit to you? Meaning what if I were to play back in my brain, that same ground ball being hit to me and I moved to it with much more confidence. I had better footwork, I had better body position. I was more confident.

Maybe I was more aggressive. So rather than being on my heels, I was more aggressive moving into the ball. What would that look like? Why don’t you practice that five times in your head before the next balls hit to you? That would mean the last five balls that were hit to you, you fielded beautifully. How do you field the sixth ball when you fielded five beautifully? You fielded it pretty confidently. So yet a player is out in the field going, man, my last ball that was horrible, I can’t miss it. Another one, two airs. Oh my God, that would be horrible. This ball comes to me. They’re having this dialogue in their brain when they should have and could have fixed it mentally before. So that’s a skill that we work with them.

Yeah, don’t mean to jump in on you, but one thing that I hear my coach’s brain starts to go off, and obviously we do have coaches that tune in and listen to these type of things. So ss a coach, what can we do? Obviously this is an individual player thing, every player is different, but are there any processes that maybe that you help skip with at ASU or that you talked about that coaches can help their teams develop these type of mental skills?

Totally. So I think right out of the gate, coaches should never assume that kids have those mental skills. That means they have to be taught so they’re not going to magically appear. So be careful about judging players is mentally tough or mentally not tough. Again, mental toughness is the end result, practicing mental skills over and over again under higher and higher pressure. So as coaches, we should ask players, Hey, what are you feeling right now? And they may say, man, I feel nervous. No worries. I’ve been there too. Nerves are totally normal. In fact, nerves are a funny thing because there’s a weird thing that happens to humans. We look across to the other dugout and we go, man, those kids look so confident. I’m so nervous. And we forget that they’re looking across to our dugout and going, man, those kids look so confident.

I’m so nervous. We don’t understand that. I try to get players to recognize a nerves are good. When I get nervous, that means my body is doing what it is evolved to do to create adrenaline and energy and focus for moving forward. It’s going to give me more strength, quicker hands, more focus, and it’s going to prepare me to come out and play my best. But there’s also a downside. We all feel the downside differently. Some of us, our legs weigh a hundred pounds each. Some of us, we feel it in our stomach. Some of us, our chest gets tight. So what I try to get players to do is recognize there’s a good side and then find the one thing that helps you with the negative thing. So I’ve noticed a lot of pitchers get fast when they get nervous. So I tell ’em when you feel those nerves coming on a embrace the nerves as a good sign because number one, you care.

And number two, your body is giving you the energy you need to perform. And then on the other side, say, okay, I know that when I get nervous, it makes me go fast. So slow my breathing down, get back in my rhythm. It’s all about rhythm, 1, 2, 3 or whatever my rhythm is, fix the rhythm and everything else comes together. And I use the nerves to my advantage. Maybe my legs get tight before I get up to bat. Hey, maybe just a little bit of bouncing, shaking my legs out makes ’em a little lighter. Cool. I’ve solved the negative part of my nerves and I’m going to use the positive part of my nerves, but I’m going to tell you, you will never not have nerves. Talk to the best players in the world. There’s always going to be nerves. Learning to embrace an example of something coaches can help players do, rather than coaches often say, come on man, just be tough out there. Forget about those nerves. Well, I would love to forget about nerves, but I don’t know how no one’s taught me how. So we have to go back and say, Hey, let me teach you something of how you can do that. The other thing is recognizing when players do good things, Hey, you made a mistake and you kept your head high. So we call that a positive physical response. So one of the things we always want to do is do things that build self-belief. Well, when I drop my head and my shoulders, my body language tells my brain, I don’t believe in myself. I’m not good enough to be out here. So I want to be careful that I’m not communicating that language to my own brain. So I got to have positive physical response. My body posture, my body language has to be positive. Also, I want to be a good teammate. Here’s an interesting thing. When I’m under pressure, the more I focus on making my teammates better, the less pressure I feel.

So that’s a great thing for coaches. Hey man, be a good teammate. Cheer your teammates on. Now I’m not in my own head. I’m trying to help other players play good. They make a mistake. Hey, no worries man. We’ll get ’em next time and guess what they’re going to do for me when I make a mistake? No worries, we’ll get ’em next time. So there’s a lot of little things, and what I’d love for coaches to do is when they recognize a player exhibiting one of these skills, pause, point it out. Hey, did everyone see the way Steve just handled himself after that error? That was amazing. Shook it off, positive body, positive physical response, got his glove back, got focused, got right back in the game. That’s what pros do. Pros don’t let one error lead to two errors, lead to three errors. They clean it up, they move forward. Great job, John. I love that. And all of a sudden players want to do that. You know what I mean?

Yeah, a hundred percent.

In this way, I think coaches can help. I like to use questions. So one of them is like player. We’re trying to teach a player to work hard, to grind, to embrace the suck. So I’d love to ask them like, Hey, today we’re going to work hard. What are the benefits of working hard today? And I ask ’em and they raise their hands, we’re going to work harder than our opponents. How’s that going to help us? Well, we’re going to get into the ninth inning of a game or the seventh inning of a game depending on how many innings you’re playing, and we’re going to know that they’re tired and we’re not awesome. I’m going to know that even when my legs get heavy, I can push through. I can run for a ball in the outfield, I can still get down. Awesome. So I try to constantly ask questions that put the team there.

Maybe I’d show a video and say, tell me did we win or lose this game based on the body language You see? And if we see a bunch of heads down say, yeah, what did our opponents just, what did we just do? We made our opponents stronger because they know they kicked our butts. But if we walked off with our heads high, this is nothing more than a learning experience. So what does it look like when we win and lose with the same body language? Let’s practice that today. So I always coming back to that, why would your teammates love to have you on this team? My favorite player or favorite question I ask my pro players that I work with every single session, I start with the same question. Spring training comes, general manager sits you down. He says, Hey, there’s a hundred players here that all want to play. Why should I believe in you and what’s your answer going to be? And at first they look at me like I’m crazy, and then I no answer it. And every time I’m going to ask you that question, because until I believe that you believe in that answer, it’s bullshit. And that’s an amazing question actually.

It is an amazing question. What are the most successful guys typically answer to that question?

Yeah, so here’s the funny thing, super simple stuff. You know why you should believe in me, coach? I’m going to work harder than anyone out here. When I make a mistake, I’m going to have positive physical response and I’m going to learn from it and move forward quickly. I’m going to mentally and physically prepare for every game and every practice, and when I don’t, I’m going to learn from it and get better at it. Next time, I’m going to be a great teammate and I’m going to pick my teammates up when they’re not playing well and help them get excited. I’m going to play with a passion and love for the game. It’s all not rocket science. It’s mainly I’m going to be at every practice early and make sure that I’m warmed up and ready. You know what I mean? Scott? I’m going to ask for help when I need help.

I think, Scott, one thing that I go back to this on my coaching career and the guys that I’ve had the opportunity to work with and a lot of the stuff that, and this is the first time I’ve heard it from you, right? It’s exciting for me. I love it. But one thing that is uniform across the board, I look back and in this day and age of for the amateur player to take time off and just play when they want to play and play when they feel good. I’m a firm believer and I can go back and name a litany of guys that have played in the big leagues and I knew them when they were 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 years old. And to a man, they loved to play the game to a man, they loved to play the game. You couldn’t tell them to take a day off. We’d be in the eighth game in six days and I’d be like, Hey bud, you got to take the day off, man. No coach. I’m playing today. I’m playing today. So that love of the game, and that’s where it all starts, right?

A hundred percent. And then think, you know What ruins the love of the game more than anything

I do. But you can go ahead and answer that.

No, it’s funny actually. I think it’s even statistically proven. It’s parents. So it’s actually funny parents who want to be supportive but end up being hard on their kids or trying to be the coach. Now, I know some parents are the coach, but we have to remember, there’s lots of coaches my kid is going to have, but they’re only going to have one parent or two parents and parents that love and support their kid feed a passion for the game, a love for the game. Parents that try to overco their kids can sometimes destroy that because every time that kid looks at you, they feel judgment and judgment then leads to guilt and shame destroys the kid’s self-image and destroys their love for the game. One of my favorite stories was Hunter Bishop. He was playing for ASU and his mom had a horrible disease, got early and she was not going to live long.

And I remember it was in Hunter’s head and I asked him when we were talking and I said, hunter, take me back to when you played travel ball. And his brother also is a pro. They both played for San Francisco, I think. And he said, my mom took me to all my games. My dad was taking my brother to all his games. And I just never forget the fun I had with my mom of being on the road and just her smile when she saw me out in the outfield chase down a ball or when she saw me just steal base or get a great hit. And I go, okay, let’s go back to that. That’s what you’re here for. You’re letting a lot of stuff get in your head. That’s tap back into imagining that your mom’s in the stands right now. And the way you serve her, the way you the thank her for taking you to all these games is you come out here with a smile on your face, you play hard and you play with that passion why she drove you around. She loved it. And so I think about that. She probably never thought about it, but her love for her son playing the game was all that he needed.

So I’d love to hear what you were going to say destroys the love of The game. I was going to say parents, and I think I’ve obviously dealt with a wide spectrum of parents. I think a lot of parents do it out of love, but it’s showing love in the wrong way. And one thing, when I used to run a large travel program, we used to do a parent meeting at the beginning of every season, and my biggest to every single parent was when you get in the car, do not say anything about the game until your son or daughter says something to you about it. When they’re ready to talk about the game and open up about the game, they’ll come to you, right? They’ll come to you. And the other thing is show up. Like you said, show up. Be there. Be in the stands as much as you can. Obviously people work and we understand that, but be there because when they do look over their shoulders and they see you clapping for them, it means so much more than you’ll ever know. I had the opportunity today, just a little personal note, my middle son was essentially nominated to be one of the presidential nominees in his seventh grade class this year. I was thinking to myself, Sandy, the founder of our company, and I was supposed to have some important meetings this morning, and I looked at my wife and I was like, what should I do? And she said, well, what would Sandy do? I said, Sandy would figure out a way to be present for his kids. So I did that, and it really meant a lot for my son to be there today. And I think that as parents showing up and being supportive can push your kids in such great ways. Then I think as a parent, understanding that there are a lot of parents out there that have a lot of knowledge of the game, but I think those parents also need to understand that for the most part, once a kid reaches a certain age, they want you to be their parent and not their coach.

And so understanding the importance of finding people, if you are that parent that is very knowledgeable about the game, I look at Jackson Holiday was the first overall pick this last year, right? Played for an organization out of Florida, his dad, obviously Matt Holiday. I watched the way that Matt would watch Jackson play and it was, I don’t even know the games going on. Jackson would come up and he’d look, I had the opportunity, I coached Dan Odos son, Dan on the MLB network, former GM of the Rockies. Dan was probably the most mellow parent I’ve ever seen in my entire life, would go down the right field line, sit there and watch, never saw him get too high, never saw ’em get too low. So when I look at those guys that have been at that level as GMs in the major leagues as all stars in the major leagues and the way that they treat their kids, that’s the model. That’s the model. And I’ve obviously had the opportunity to be around that. And I think that the more that parents can understand that your job is to put your kids with people that you trust, and if you trust those people, let ’em do their job. I always used to tell people, Scott, my office is this dugout, would you come up to me at my office And tell me how to do? I’m not going to come into your cubicle and tell you how to do your job. This is my office, so respect my office. But again, parents do have such a big effect on kids, and it’s so important for all parents out there to hear that and understand that understand undue pressure that you put on them, they strike out, they make a bad pitch, and even your body language is bad in the stands can affect the output of the child so much, right?

I mean, there’s one thing that your child needs to know. I love you. No matter how you perform with the one exception, if you have a bad attitude, I’m going to call you on it because that’s not acceptable to play. You’re not playing with an attitude that deserves to be out here because we’re all taking time and money and all that. To me, if a kid has a bad attitude, I can’t just accept that the rest though, I love you no matter what. And you need to know that my wife is a great tennis player, and her dad was her coach growing up, and I don’t know where he learned it, but he was phenomenal. So when she would come off, he would only bring up things she did well and stuff that she forgot about because she lost. He’s like, I love the way you attacked her second serve. That was amazing. My wife said when she was growing up, she’d think I double faulted so often. How did he notice that I was attacking their second serve? Then the next day he would say, Hey, you want to go out and hit some serves? So he wouldn’t even say, because yesterday you double faulted, right? Because yesterday you couldn’t serve worth of shit, right?

Had he done it that day, it was too hot, it was too emotional. It would’ve been a criticism, but the next day it was a fun thing to just go out and work on serves, and it had no tie to success or failure. It was just a good thing to work on. And parents can do that too. Hey, let me know tomorrow when the tomorrow comes. You want to play catch? You want me to hit you some grounders? You want me to, but it’s not, Hey, yesterday you made two errors. We better go out and hit some grounders. I want to help you. But I will say, and you know how hard the job is of coaching. The hardest job is being a parent. It is hard.

No doubt, No doubt, no doubt. I understand that. And the things that we’ve been talking about today, they’re not easy, right? It’s not easy to see your kid fail, right? It’s not easy because you feel that for them. So I’m very empathetic with parents. I think that in our industry that use sports industry, parents get a bad name. But I also think that we need to put ourselves, I’m a parent. I’ve got three children. I know that how I react and how I feel, even though I’ve seen the bad side of it, sometimes I mess up. But I think that the two things that I try to do is when I do mess up, I let them know that like, Hey man, I shouldn’t have reacted that way. And being able to stand up and say that to them Totally. But I think also as coaches then, like you said, having a little bit of leash with them, because at the end of the day, what they’re trying to do is they want what’s best for their kid, and you are dealing with their kid as a coach, right? Totally. So understanding that there needs to be some leash. I’ll tell you one story, and as I do this, we’ve got about 15 minutes left. So everybody that’s on live with us tonight, if you want to pop any questions in the question and answer, this would be a great time.

But Scott, my first year coaching, we were down in a big USA baseball tournament, and our best player who ended up being a first rounder played in the big leagues for about 12 years. His dad, the USA coaches wanted, he was a shortstop, but the USA coaches wanted to see him pitch too, because at that level, at the 16 year old level, a lot of times when you make that USA team, they like you to be able to do both. So I told the player came in from shortstop, I was like, Hey, bud, USA guys came over, they want to see you throw today. Go get loose. So we were in the first base dugout and the bullpen was over between the two third base dugouts of the two fields. He comes back in about a minute and a half. I said, Hey man, there’s no way that you could have warmed up in that time.

He’s like, coach, my dad says, I can’t pitch. I said, your dad said you can’t pitch. What do you mean? I said, yeah, he just says, I can’t pitch today. I said, okay, bud. Well, either I’m the coach or your dad’s the coach. Please go let him know that. And he is like, okay. So he goes over and comes back and says, my dad says I can’t pitch. Now mind you, this is a kid that by far the best player on our team, he is going to be a first rounder, be in the big leagues, like I said, for 12 years. And I said, well, I’m sorry. Pack up your stuff and get out of the dugout. So do that. I’m walking after the game, walk into my car, and the dad lets me have it for about 15 minutes, just face-to-face. Scott and I let him finish and I look at him.

I said, sir, I won’t say his name obviously, but sir, I promise you that my heart is in your kid’s best interest and I will never do anything to hurt your son. I got in my car, closed the door, went to the hotel. About 15 minutes after getting back to the hotel, I get a knock on my door and it’s the kid just crying, just bawling, right? And he is like, coach, I want to play for you, right? I just want to play for you. And I said, Hey bud, I’ve got no problem, but we got to be on the same page with your dad. We sat down and to this day, one of the best friends that I have in baseball is that dad. So giving him that leeway, but then also standing your ground as a coach and understanding that, look, I understand what you’re trying to do for your kid, but also understanding that, that you are with that right person. So a couple questions here. So first one is how do you deal with coaching your son or daughter? And they don’t listen to you, but they listen to all the other coaches. Is there anything specific that we can do? Right?

Yeah. Do you want to take that one or do you want me to?

You can go for it. You can go for it.

You mentioned it before. Coaching our own kids is so hard. I also did it when my son was growing up and my daughter, I coached my daughter’s tennis. And it’s hard too because as a coach, I didn’t want to favor my son. I didn’t want the other players and parents to think, oh, it’s all about his son. Unfortunately, what I realized is I slighted my son because of that. So it’s a really, really hard one because now you’re stuck in this case where your son or daughter won’t listen to you. You’re now having a power struggle or you’re in an argument that really should not happen on the field there. In that case, I mean, the question is whether this, it’s time for your child to play for another coach, or if I have multiple coaches on the team, I get another coach to work. When I put kids in groups and move ’em around, I would never have my own child in my group. So I would eliminate that opportunity. Easier said than done.

It is, and my response would be, honestly, after doing this for a really long time is try not to coach your kid. I mean, it’s tough. Try to find people that you trust and surround them with my recommendation to parents, and there’s plenty of relationships that really work well and they gel well. But if you’re running into any friction, my response would be that it’s probably time, whether that player’s 10 years old, whether that player’s 18 years old, it happens at different times, but that friction is probably going to happen. And when you start to feel that friction as a parent, you’re the adult, it’s probably time to kind of step back and say, we probably need to make a change here and get a different voice into the equation

And maybe have that conversation away from the field with your own child. Hey, this is what’s going on here. We’re at the point now where you need to be coached by other kids. I can’t have kids on my team that don’t listen, and you are destroying what I said was the second most important skill. You’re not being coachable a hundred percent, and so I don’t want to ruin you because you’re learning bad habits. So that’s a great one. I saw another question about what if your kid already thinks, or you’re coaching a kid, not your kid, but you’re dealing with a kid who thinks they know everything.

And I’m going to argue this is one of the most hardest things. I face that all the time as a mindset coach. Trust me, when I come into a college program or whatever already, the last thing kids want is to expose themselves that maybe I think they’re mentally weak, so they want to portray a smokescreen for me to think they already know all this super, super hard. Now, what I used to do when I was more insecure myself was let me prove to you that you don’t know everything. But in essence, now we’re in a power struggle, and that’s not a very good place for a mindset coach to be or any coach to be. But in the end, that attitude is going to be a big problem. That’s not going to move them forward because that kid is again, missing that second step. They’re not training being coachable.

So one of the things that I want to teach ’em is what does it mean to be coachable and look at every level. What is one thing? Tiger Woods, the greatest, one of the greatest golfers to ever live, always has a coach. Do you think that he doesn’t know a few things about golf? What is the benefit that a coach provides for him? They step aside and with unbiased eyes, they get to watch their player and provide guidance. It doesn’t mean the coach knows everything, but the coach can offer something that even the best players, the smartest players in the world, Michael Jordan always had a basketball coach. Kyle Schwarber always has a baseball coach. Aaron Judge has always had a hitting coach. I mean, that guy looks like he was born with a bat in his hand and was just destined to hit home runs.

So again, that’s part of the conversation you have to have is if you want to move on in life and in sports, you better learn to be coachable. Now, there is a funny thing called the, I think it’s called the Dunning Kruger effect, which is the less we know, the more we think we know, and the more we know, the less we realize we know. And that’s one of the reasons for coaches that have been around for a long time, they actually sometimes are a little intimidated because they’re like, I’ve been around long enough to know that I don’t know a lot.

And new coaches and new players think they know everything. And I always sometimes will explain that to always. Sometimes, many times I’ll pull a player aside and go, you may not know this, but let me show you the science behind this. When you think you know it all, it is actually the sign that where you are on the growth curve is you don’t know enough to know what you don’t know. Young firefighters had the same problem. They come out of the academy, they know everything. And you’re like, when I was 20 years on the job, I was more nervous going and taking a group of firefighters into a burning building than I was with one year. And it wasn’t because I knew less. It was because I knew way more.

Absolutely. Well, we got one more question, and this is kind of switching gears to the other side of your business, obviously, but the question is, for professional entrepreneurs top 100 type that you work with, what are the top three things that they do to get their mind? And whether that’s in the morning at night, but what do you recommend the top three things for them to do to have that good process in place?

Yeah, it’s a great question. And I want to tell you, it probably applies to an athlete just as much as it does an entrepreneur or one of the CEOs that I coach, and one of them is, how do I want to show up today? And the three questions that I ask them to help them determine that is, how do I want to be perceived today? What do I want people to know about me today? How do I want to make people feel when I interact with them? And those three questions help prepare me, and that helps do a thing in our brain called priming our brain so that I don’t need to think about it anymore. It automatically is looking for opportunities to make those intentions come true. The second thing that I do is I look at my day and I go, where’s my recovery going to be?

Because like I said, we only have so much mental power, so much emotional resource, and therefore I need to build pit stops throughout my day so I can constantly recharge so that I can be my best, just like an athlete does between innings, just like a basketball player or soccer player does in halftime. And then the third thing I would say is I like to look for where are my most critical moments where I can make the biggest impact. So as a business person, I have my calendar and there’s certain events in that day where I want to make sure I’m really ready to be my best. And then I asked myself, so how do I need to show up at that event to be my best for my baseball players? It’s the same. My first at bat is going to set such a stage. I want to really make sure I’m ready for my first at bat, a pitcher coming out of the bullpen, that first batter that I face. I want to be really ready where I make my impact. That’s where I set my brain up for success. And that to me would be really, really good place to start.

The MLB Draft: What High-Level Scouts Look For? | Diamond Allegiance Live Webinar with Jack Cressend

First, I think tonight I want to talk about scouting and educate some of our members about the process and what really happens, and then talk a little bit about what you as a scout look for in a player. So let’s start at the top, if you wouldn’t mind. Pretend I’m a kindergartner and don’t know much about scouting. What does a major league scouting department look like? What does the organizational chart?

Yeah, I think each organization is unique in its own way, and I know for me, I’ve worked post playing days. I’ve worked for two organizations in Tampa Bay and the Dodgers. I’ve been with the Dodgers for the last nine years. And so I’ve been very fortunate to be part of such a classy organization and successful organization. I’ve learned quite, I mean, just incredible things through the years. I think in general, most organizations you have area supervisors that are kind of like your first line of defense, and those guys typically speaking cover a couple of different states. And so each organization, again, has it set up a little differently, but you have your area guys that are responsible for those specific areas. Then the next layer is the regional crosschecker where you have a crosschecker that is oversees three or four area scouts and a region of the country.

Those guys work together very closely to be experts in that territory. And then the next layer is what you call the national crosscheck level, where you have, again, different organizations have different numbers of those guys, typically two or three typically that kind of crisscross the country, work with the regional and area supervisors to again, just you’re trying to be very thorough and do a good job of getting multiple looks at players across the country. So the national guy just bounces around all over the country. And then typically, obviously above that is your scouting director who is the boss man who kind of directs traffic and is obviously very involved in the process and the targets and where we spend most of our time as we start getting further down the stretch closer to the draft. And I know in our case with our front office and we have vice president of scouting and player development, I think one of the benefits to being with the Dodgers is we have such a large staff, so have a lot of people seeing players. And at the end of the day, it really I think has served us well. And when we get into the room in LA to sit down and try to figure out, make our final decisions on that year’s crop of players, it’s very beneficial to have the variety of looks and the depth of looks throughout the spring. So that’s kind of the hierarchy and I think of it more as that’s the way the team sets up.

Everybody has a very important role, everybody has a job to do and working together, putting your ego aside, working together to ultimately just try to get the player right in the end. And that’s ultimately what our focus is with the Dodgers.

So within that chart, where do you lie? What is your role with the Dodgers?

Yeah, so my role is basically I’m the national pitching. So I used to be somewhat of a unique role in that I would just focus on pitching and really specifically that was my only real responsibility was to go in and crosscheck pitchers, really not being too focused on position players, primarily trying to help us to separate the top pitchers in the draft. And so that’s been my role for the last nine years and it’s a great role to have me having a pitching background and that’s what I did as a player. And then getting into scouting and being able to go again across the country and really evaluate the majority of the top arms for that year’s draft. It’s exciting. You see a lot of talented players, but it’s very challenging to try to separate these guys. There’s so much armed talent across the country and at some point you have to rank ’em, you have to separate ’em, and you have to make decisions and you’re wrong way more than you’re right. And it’s just part of it, but it’s certainly a challenge every single year and it doesn’t get any easier.

Well, I’m going to kind of go off script a little bit here. You said you make some mistakes. I know in my small travel ball days, nothing compared to a major league team drafting players. I’ve definitely cut some really good guys and missed on some really good players. Is there anybody in your mind that you kind of look back at through your career of scouting that you kind of kick yourself and say, man, I really liked that guy, but maybe I didn’t put ’em in as high as I should have?

Yeah, that’s a good question. I mean, I think there’s a lot of examples of that over the years because if you scout long enough, you realize that this is really hard and you miss more than you hit. And it’s just the nature of it. I think for me, one of the guys that I talk about a lot, which with our group and kind of a recent player that I felt like I didn’t gloss over but I didn’t value properly coming out of college was Zach, right-handed pitcher who has really been a big, big part of the Diamondbacks, but coming out of college, he is a really good strike thrower, maybe didn’t have off the chart stuff at that time, and he had success at North Carolina, but he wasn’t a guy that was throwing super hard or stuff didn’t necessarily grade above average across the board. And ultimately I had a report in lower than what he’s turned out to be, but I learned a lot of things from him and hopefully I don’t make that same mistake twice, but I mean he’s gone on to have a heck of a career, but that’s just part of it. You tip your cap sometimes and you have to make a decision at that point in time. And I missed on that one.

Well, I know we had a conversation about six months ago that I think was kind of surrounding Zach, and maybe we can expand on this a little bit. And a lot of times college coaches will look at high school players and they will project that high school player out. What’s that 16 year old going to be when he’s 20 or 21 when he’s on campus? And one thing that you said to me that really rung true with me is major league scouts and major league organizations need to do the same thing. And just because you’re 21 or 22 and coming into the draft, that doesn’t mean that’s as good as you’re going to get. And Zach’s a great example of that and I think that’s what puts so much guesswork in it. Sometimes you really don’t know. You can’t really tell who’s going to make that jump and who’s not. So really love that anecdote. Is there anything that you can share with the group and those listening about the Dodgers philosophy on scouting? Is there a particular thing that you guys look for in a picture, obviously what you do or even in a position player or in players as a whole?

Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things with the Dodgers that, that’s my personal opinion that we’ve done such a good job since the new group came over in 2015. And it’s a real credit to Billy Gasparino, our scouting director, and I guess the culture he has set for our scouting department. But I think one of our strengths is that we’re not married to one thing. It’s not one special thing we look for or one ingredient that we always take or always walk away from or I think it’s just we’re very open-minded each year. And I think just in general, the one size doesn’t fit all mindset. And I think that’s something we do really good. And we’ll get into this. I know a little bit about just the state of major league baseball now and the game with analytics and the game has really changed over the last five years.

And I think that’s been one of our strengths is we’ve been able to kind of change with it and just go through each and every year with a open mind, go through it with this growth mindset approach, continuing to learn and not necessarily just be married to one thing. And I think in scouting you have to account for several different things. You account for what I call the player, what a skillset is on the position side, the hit run, throw defense, the tools on the pitching side, you you’re looking at a variety of different things, the stuff crossing the plate, you’re looking at arm action delivery, you’re looking at the ability to move the body, what the frame looks like, the projection on the frame, how much strength can we add, is he maxed out physically? So there’s a lot of different things you’re looking at on the what.

But then you also have to look at the, who is the person, what’s his story, why does he do this, why does he want to be great? And I think it’s you take a combination of all those factors and ultimately it helps you to line up your board. But I think again, for us, it’s just kind of taken into account all of those things and not just being focused in on one specific thing. And I think I had kind of jotted down just some notes talking about the pitching side. I mean, I think the cool thing about scouting is each individual scout kind of has their own preferences, and that’s the beauty of it. And then when you write your reports and you go through the spring and you try to line up your own pre list, and once you get in that room in LA or in all the other organizations get into their draft rooms, you kind of throw your ego out the window.

It’s not about being right necessarily because really in what we do, we don’t know if we’re right for five years after really, but it’s just putting your ego aside and trying to help the team make the best decision. And that’s ultimately, I think for us, we’re very fortunate. We’ve had a lot of the same staff in for a number of years. There’s a lot of continuity amongst our scouting staff, and so we all know each other very well. And so when we get in that room, there’s no egos, it’s let’s just make the best decision for the Dodgers and try to pick the next crop of big leaguers. And I think we’ve done a fantastic job of it. I mean, it’s documented. The players we have that have impacted the major league club from the draft has been as good as any clubs out there. But the good thing is, is we’re continuing to push forward, continuing to find that next crop. And we’re looking forward to getting in the room here in a couple days and getting ready for July 9th.

So tell me about the room a little bit, right? Are there any fun anecdotes, give our listeners an idea of what the draft room is like and what it’s about if you can.

Yeah, it’s kind of like everybody, A lot of people play fantasy football or fantasy baseball, and you got your draft board with the names. And ultimately we’re trying to line up our board in the order of preference of the players. And so we get in there a week prior to the draft and we start talking through the different draft demographics and high school position players, high school pitchers, and then college pitchers, college position players. We’ll look at different relievers or guys that can really run that are outlier runners. We have different categories. And then we just go through those players that are going to factor into the top parts of the draft initially. And we as a group vote on it and as we go through it, we’ll vote on it, we revisit, we’ll discuss things that come up, and ultimately we put our order together.

So you can imagine just a big whiteboard with your magnets up there. They’re usually magnets. You can move ’em around pretty easily with the names and come draft day we’ll have our order set. And that’s when you sit back and you just let the draft play out. I mean, this year we picked 36 as our first pick, and so 35 names are going to come off our board before our selection. And typically speaking, you just would think you kind of play the board as the names start coming off. Your highest ranked player at your pick is generally the pick, unless there’s some other circumstances involved. So obviously those high end selections are fun for us to see who you’re going to get. But every pick matters, especially now in the 20 round draft. I mean, we had some players we signed last year after the draft that are really making progress and making some noise in our organization. And so there’s a lot of good players out there. And so 20 round draft is very much abbreviated, so you just got to be prepared and hope you make the right picks.

So on your board, about how many players do you guys rank when you look up on that big draft board? How many guys are on that board?

Yeah, I don’t know the exact number to be honest with you. I don’t know the amount of players that are actually turned in, but typically speaking on what we would call our big board, usually it’s like the top a hundred or top 150 players. And then from there we have secondary boards with players that we think are going to factor into day two or day three of the draft. And then yeah, some of the draft can be strategies and things like that that organizations try to do accumulate the most talent within their draft pool. And that’s what kind of makes it fun is just trying to collect the most talent you can with the amount of money you have to spend. But yeah, typically speaking, that big board is probably, I think it’s a hundred players, it might be one 50.

So you touched on it a little bit, and I know we could probably talk for hours about this, but I’m going to put these two questions together. What are maybe two or three of the biggest impacts you’ve seen analytics have on scouting, and then what are some of the adjustments that you’ve had to make as a scout over the years as analytics play a bigger, bigger role in the game at the major league level?

It has changed quite a bit. I think things that are now part of the equation with some of the analytics weren’t part of the equation five years ago, 10 years ago for sure. And I think nowadays with most, I mean, I think all organizations have full on analytics department, and I know, again, I can really only speak to from the Dodgers perspective with what I’ve experienced, but our room and the people involved in helping us make decisions, we have our scouting department, we have our analytics department, we have our player development department, but the analytics are a big, big part of the equation. And I think it goes back to what we talked about a minute ago where we kind of take a blend of it all and we’re not just completely reliant on analytics or we’re not completely reliant on the old school scouting approach of just the eyes, but there’s so much you can quantify in today’s game with the technology that’s out there.

And I think if you didn’t pay attention to those things, you’re selling yourself short in a lot of ways. But I think probably the biggest thing that’s been, I think a real change from the past is just the, some teams are completely model driven where they have models that quantify every single aspect of a player and then however they value those different things, whether it’s tools or makeup or whatever it is that they value, and then that’s baked into an equation and then all those numbers are kind of put in and then the model spits out an order of players, and some teams rely solely on that and draft off of their, what is called the model. And so I think that’s fascinating in a lot of ways. I’m fortunate that, again, I work for an organization that factors in all of it and we look at it from all angles and ultimately make a decision.

But yeah, I mean analytics is a huge part. What I see too, just with my, I guess you’d call it my hobby with the knights, it’s amazing the young players and how much they, especially the pitchers with how much they’re wrapped up with their pitch characteristics and spin rates and vertical break, horizontal break release, height, extension approach angle, all these numbers and things that are helping players, I guess develop. But a lot of these young kids, they’re just so wrapped up in it. I kind of laugh with them sometimes and having two sons that are pitchers and they’ll say, yeah, I had good vertical break. Yeah, but you were backing up third base a lot.

I don’t care what your spin rate is, let’s get ’em out. We still have to collect outs. That’s still what we’re trying to do. But I just think it’s for the younger generation, I think these kids are very much in tune to it and rely on it. And there’s a lot of, I think, dependence on it. But I do think it serves a great purpose. And again, I’m a believer of just balancing all of that, whether you’re in player development or scouting, use it as one part of your equation and just keep going. But yeah, it’s definitely changed. It’s definitely a different game than it was 10 years ago.

Yeah, I think this is from an amateur’s view of it, but I remember really looking at last year’s draft and noticing that there was a lot less high school players drafted. And I think one of the major reasons is it’s hard for these equation driven teams to get all the data that they need on those players. It’s like the guys that are going more, instead of taking that projectable guy in the seventh round, we’d rather take a college reliever from the SEC or the ACC because we’ve got all of his metrics for three years and we can put together that case. Do you kind of see that industrywide, not necessarily with the Dodgers, but industrywide kind of a trend to taking players that there is more data on and more track record?

Yeah, I think it’s a good point. And I think some clubs, if they can’t quantify it, they don’t necessarily don’t want to deal with it. So in a case like that with high school players, like you said, sometimes the information, the other thing you have to bake into the equation, is the information accurate? Does it what it says, does it really apply? Because I think the high school player, one of the challenges in evaluating those players is the quality of competition. It’s hard for sometimes you don’t know if a guy can hit velocity, you never really faced velocity. So anyway, I just think it’s definitely, it’s something that probably, yeah, the college player you have a lot more information on. You have a lot more quantifiable data typically, usually three years of college play and you start to develop somewhat of a track record, which helps predict the future performance. But I think it’s definitely more difficult on the high school player, of course, just with limited data.

So perfect segue yet again by you, Jack, but so what are some actionable things that the high school player can do to stand out, whether that’s a pitcher or a position player? What are some things in your eyes that you tell, obviously running one of the best programs as your hobby, so we will get into a little bit more here in a second, but what are some things you tell those kids about standing out on the field?

Yeah, I mean I think for me, I’m a little old school in some of those intangibles that you try to instill in your players and things that me personally are kind of drawn to. I was fortunate to coach in college for four years, and so I kind of had the coach’s view really before I started scouting and now having kind the evaluation eye sitting in the stands and watching guys play. I just think some of the things, and it’s nothing earth shattering, but I think just the importance of your body language and your presence on the field, how you carry yourself. I think it says a lot about your character, and again, it goes back to the who, right? You want to, yeah, that guy’s got really good skillset, really good tools, but who is he? And if you watch him fail on the field, baseball’s a game of failure.

You’re going to fail more than you succeed. So how do they handle themselves in those moments? What presence do they give off in those moments? I think it’s helpful to figure out who a kid is. We preach this to our young players, even the youth kids, about attitude, effort and energy. Those are things that you can control a hundred percent of the time. And so if I go watch a kid play and he hits a four hopper to the shortstop and he just runs down the line, 75% effort and kind of peels off at first base, that’s not something I’m attracted to. Rather see players play hard and go through the bag all the way and make aggressive turns at first base and get on and off the field with a purpose. The college game and the high school game’s a lot different than professional baseball.

Major league season is a six month grind. They’re playing 162 games and then the postseason, those guys, it’s very tough on their bodies. So sometimes we always say, you really can’t teach a young player to play the game by watching the major league game because it’s just a different volume of play. So young players, I always say stand out with those things. Actually this weekend I was talking to a couple of young kids about just get on and off the field with a purpose watching these kids walk out there or even just slow jog to their position. I’m a little old school in that it drives me crazy. It really does. I think, and again, talked about this a little bit, makeup matters who you are as a person, your track record as a person, it matters whether you’re going to try to play in college or whether you’re going to pursue, be a candidate for professional baseball, who you are your makeup, what your track record is, it does matter.

It factors in to the ultimate decisions. And so just again, it’s not, like I said, nothing earth shattering, but just the hustle and the grinders and the guys that really compete. I mean, it’s easy to see those guys. They stand out, competitive guys on the field, they stick out like a sore thumb. So those are some things I’m drawn to. Those are some things that I think are very attractive for a young player. And you can stand out because you’re going to go for four, right? You’re going to go for eight, you’re going to go for 12, you’re going to go out there and give up five runs. It’s just part of it. It’s certainly not a deal breaker if you struggle, but sometimes if you don’t run a ground ball out, that could be a deal breaker for you. Sometimes there’s very small margin of separation between players. And again, like we talked about, whether you’re a college coach or a scout or making decisions or a high school coach trying to make decisions on a roster, little things, separate players. So again, I preach to our nights guys to play the game the right way. Don’t ever let somebody cross you off a list for something you can control. And I think because the game’s hard enough, it’s a tough game. And so those are just a few little tidbits.

We were talking earlier about obviously the College World Series and your players that were on the field, I guess that was two nights ago now, but one that I specifically asked you about, correct me if I got the name right, Gavin Guidry, I believe is correct. And I saw his eyes on that stage as a freshman that said, I’m going to get you out. I’m going to compete. Talk to us a little bit about him and maybe a couple of other guys that are on that team because fresh off of it that played for you when they were young and what their makeup was like.

Yeah, I mean obviously we were pulling for the Tigers because we had nine Knights alum alums on that roster, so we were obviously pulling for those kids. And yeah, Gavin Guidry is the ultimate competitor, and he’s always been that way as long as I’ve been around him, which I guess is probably four years. He thrives in those moments. He wants the ball. And of course, he’s a two-way player this year. He primarily helped LSU on the mound, but he was big for them down the stretch in those high leverage spots. And that is who he is, man. There’s no fear in that kid. I think I mentioned to you earlier, one of the coolest things I saw the other night, even though, and it was a unique opportunity to be that far ahead in a national championship game where the game is in hand, you just got to finish it, but to see him kind of look towards the dugout, he kind of smirked.

It looked almost like he was looking around a little bit like I’m about to close this thing down and national champions, but to see him do that, that’s what that kid thrives on, man. And I texted with him a few times throughout the spring and just in moments where he’d come in and close out a game, and he’s a very fiery guy, and I just said, proud of you, man, or something like that. And he just said, man, that was fun. He just enjoys those moments. So I think, again, some kids can’t wait to be in that situation and they want the pressure and they want the high leverage moments and they are prepared to handle ’em. And Gavin’s another one of our former alums that had a series and was just so fun to watch for him and his family, he had been through so much, a lot of adversity in his career at LSU was Cade Veloso kind of became an LSU legend in this World series and had some really big hits for them.

And if you kind of know his backstory, and again, you talk about the who, what a fantastic young man, great family, he had a really unfortunate injury in the first game of, I believe it was what last year, first game of the season, pre-game huddle, about to take the field. They kind of did their little hype thing and he jumped up and he ended up tearing his ACL. And so he was out for the year, had to have surgery, but to see him come back and see him fight through that for a fifth year at LSU, and to have the success he did in the moments he did this year, he had a fantastic season. It’s just rewarding to see kind of it all come together for him. But yeah, we’re proud of all those kids. I mean, it’s what an accomplishment to be part of a national champion.

And yeah, it’s one of the greatest things about what we do with the Knights is just seeing the boys successful, seeing them reach their goals, and really more so than anything, it’s the relationships. That’s what really is, this is all about. And I know with our organization it’s a longer term view and we really want to be part of these kids’ lives as they progress and get off into college baseball, into pro baseball, and just support ’em, be there for ’em to help ’em if they need it and have that relationship with them for a long time.

Absolutely. Well, got one more question for you, and this might take us a couple minutes to get through, but tell me about how Knight Nation started, how you got involved and where you guys are today as a program. Obviously most people that follow travel ball are very, know the name, but if you could just give us a little bit about the program again, how it started, how you got involved, maybe a couple of people that are really, really important to what you guys do.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Our program started in 2007. I had just finished my playing career and I think I was 31 years old at the time and I still had some school left to finish up at Tulane. I wanted to finish my degree. And so I came home, enrolled back in school. That was my main focus. Let me finish up my degree and I really didn’t know what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to play, stay in baseball, and just had local family in my hometown just asked me if I was willing to coach a team and put together a team. And this is back in 2007, which travel ball was not even close to what it is today. There were way less teams and it just wasn’t nearly as big as with your experience in it. And we just started with one team and coached that team that summer just for fun.

Had an absolute blast, and then just one team turned into two. And we were a small program for a long time and we just started to, I guess build it a little bit at a time and started having some success and it just kind of happened. It was never a focus, it was never let’s build a big program. It was just more, I don’t really know. And I look back, I don’t really know how it happened. It just kind of did. We, from day one until this day, I can say with confidence, we’ve always tried to put the players first, and that was our approach from day one. And I’ve always looked back on it and thought if you prioritize people and you prioritize players and their wellbeing and you do what’s best for them, everything should take care of itself. And in our case, that kind of approach has allowed us to have a pretty wide reach in this travel ball industry. And there’s a lot of really successful programs out there. We’re obviously super excited to be part of Diamond Allegiance and what you guys have created and the programs you’ve brought in. And being able to learn from some of these other big programs and collaborate on ideas like the Keynes and Team Elite and some of the others that we have a tremendous respect for.

Our program today is in a really good place. We have a bunch of fantastic people involved and obviously, I mean, I can’t run this thing by myself, not even close. And especially with my real job with the Dodgers, I have to have some really good people in place to help us. And so yeah, we’ve got lot of, I guess it’s a 13 man management team that helps run our program. Got to give a quick shout out to Jimmy McCarthy, who is the day-to-Day, kind of my right hand man. And he grinds it out every single day and he’s fantastic. And Chris Poole’s been with us since 2007 when it started. So he’s been part of this organization for 17 years since it began. And there’s numerous others that have helped, obviously to build what we built through the years. So just very fortunate to be able to have impact on young people’s lives and help them through their journeys and seeing some of them go on and win a national title like some of our boys did the other night was just fantastic. It was a reminder of why we do it.

From Matt Gerber – Diamond Allegiance


As the seasons change from in season to off season, training and player development come into full swing. Today, I want to dive into the heart of the game: hitting.

Hitting, often regarded as one of the most challenging feats in all of sports, is where the game’s beauty truly shines. It’s a delicate balance of technique, mindset, and physicality. As a coach, I’ve had the privilege of helping players hone their hitting skills, and there are a few key principles that I always emphasize.

  1. Timing: At the heart of hitting is the ability to time the pitch. It’s not just about swinging hard; it’s about swinging at the right moment. A wise scout once told me that you could have the worst mechanical swing in the world, be on time, and still hit. On the flip side, have the most beautiful swing in the world and have your timing thrown off, good luck!

In my coaching experience, I often tell my players that “timing is everything.” One thing that is often overlooked with timing is SEEING. You can’t time what you can’t see, so pitch recognition and strike zone discipline also fall into this area for me. My favorite drill to work on with young players is the “7 Ball Drill”. Take 7 balls and write 1-7 on them. Place them on the plate, working from left to right. Make players take pitches in either front toss, BP, or Machine Work and tell you where the ball crossed the plate. Another efficient way to work on seeing the ball and timing is make EVERY pitch count in practice sessions. Have players swing at strikes and take balls, even in front toss. You can also put different spin on the ball and have players hit only certain types of spin (i.e 4 seam vs 2 seam)

  1. The Mental Game: Hitting isn’t just a physical endeavor; it’s a mental one too. Confidence and focus are paramount. Visualization and positive self-talk can make a world of difference when you step into the batter’s box. It’s crucial to keep a clear mind, trust your training, and stay confident, even as the game and pressure ratchets up. I firmly believe in training environments that put you in game like situations. One of my favorite things to do with hitters is to replicate increased heart rate during batting practice. When adrenaline starts to flow in the game, heart rate will increase. Learning to quickly lower one’s heart rate is so important. Try having your players do 15 push-ups as quickly as possible then stand up and try to lower their heartrate through breathing techniques as quickly as possible; then step in the box and take 5-6
  • quality swings. Rinse and repeat!
  1. Bat Speed and Mechanics: Generating bat speed is essential for hitting success. The torque generated by your hips and the extension of your arms play a significant role in bat speed. Strengthening your core and spending time in the weight room focused on multi plane rotational power is an absolute for elite hitters. Those that can rotate the most efficiently tend to move the barrel through the zone at higher speeds. The higher the barbell speed, the longer a player can SEE the ball, and then wait to attack it. Besides ensuring that a player is appropriately training in the weight room, I am a firm believer in underload/overload bat training for bat speed. I like to use a bat that is 3 to 4 oz lighter than their game bat for underload and 3 to 4 oz heavier for overload. Players can go through all their drill work using the light and heavy bat and see marked improvement in their batspeed
  2. 4. The Power of Repetition: Repetition is the path to mastery. Hitting is no exception. Practice, practice, and more practice. The more swings you take in a controlled, purposeful manner, the better you’ll become. Consistency in your drills and approach to practice can help you build muscle memory and refine your skills. I am also a huge believer in quality reps. If you are tired, STOP! If you take 3 bad swings in a row, STOP! Have a plan when it comes to your hitting sessions, more is not always better. Be tireless in your consistency but be smart about your reps!
  3. Adjust and Adapt: Great hitters are great thinkers. Learn to read the pitcher and adjust/understand what pitchers can and cannot do. Especially at the amateur level, as a hitter, I can quickly eliminate one to two pitches. It is not the norm to face a pitcher who can command and control three to four pitches and often times, most amateur pitchers can only control one. Be a student, as a coach and a player, and watch with intent the first inning. You will receive most of the clues you need to develop a plan. At the higher levels (college and professional), the pitchers get better but so does the information. No matter what level you are at, formulating a plan and understanding what the pitcher is trying to do to get you out is of utmost importance. Be a student and think the game! If you like to read, I recommend diving into The Mental Keys to Hitting by Harvey Dorfman. It is a little old school, but boy does it have some golden nuggets!
  4. Seek Guidance: As a coach, I can’t emphasize this enough – don’t be afraid to seek guidance. This goes for us coaches just as much as players. Being a lifelong learner who is open to new ideas makes you better at your craft. We all have our “go tos” and what we believe works, but I know that some of my greatest breakthroughs as a coach have come from someone else’s eyes/ideas. Don’t be afraid to have other coaches work with your players and players, don’t be afraid to seek more than one opinion! The job of a hitting coach is to help a player understand his or her swing and how to make adjustments on the fly, not teach the same swing to every player. The player’s job is to take a little bit from every trusted source he or she can find so that they understand their swing. In the end, the player is the one that, when the lights turn on, must perform. Keep this perspective!

So, as we embark on another offseason, remember that the act of both teaching and learning hitting is an art that can always be refined and improved upon. Stay committed, work diligently, and have fun.


Over the years, I have come to appreciate the art of hitting. It’s a complex dance between the pitcher and the batter, a constant battle of wits and skills. I hope each of you has a great offseason and that bombs are flying starting in the spring!. 

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