August 22, 2023 • 55 mins
The Book of Joe Podcast with hosts Tom Verducci and Joe Maddon begins with Joe on the road playing golf and selling some books! We explore what's going wrong with the Yankees and why no fiery speech from Aaron Boone would turn this team around. Analytics have taken over the game but how could they be holding back a team like the Yankees? Joe explains why every team's version of using analytics is tainted. Plus, what changes will we see in NY and will those changes involve Boone? Check out this episode to hear Joe and Tom at their finest on the nuances of managing and when can an argument be a good thing!
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
The Book of Joe podcast is a production of iHeartRadio.
Welcome back to the latest edition of the Book of
Joke Podcasts with Me, Tom Verducci and my globe trotting
buddy Joe Madden. Back from Chicago. What a trip you had,
(00:24):
h Joe, you.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Were just talking about it. I went there to do
some charity golf events, three of them at actually Midloathing
in the first course beautiful. There was several tournament stops
their years. I think Nicholas won there one time and
then ruffled feathers and I'm ready to tee off, but
who just pulls up in the golf car right next
to me Ozzie Again. Ozzy lives on the course there somewhere.
(00:47):
I had a nice conversation with him. And then the
last day we played cog Hill and I guess if
Tiger went there a couple of years ago. Public course
magnificent and had a wonderful event a something called Club
four hundred. We drew over four hundred people for special Olympics.
I think we raised one hundred thousand bucks or so.
Really an interesting week and great restaurants new one chi
(01:08):
Chio Meo, a little Tian restaurant, next to Bavetts. I
think it's owned by Bavetts. Kind of an exclusive little
place outstanding, and I to keep going. But the last
one was the Aster Club. My buddy Johnny Vincent was
singing there and Wendy and I showed up and it
was wow. It's something cut right out of the fifties.
Apparently Sinatra had been there in the past. I guess
Jagger had sung there and the Beatles of all things.
(01:31):
It's a go downstairs. It's our deco abbywhere gorgeous like
a supper club. So it was really an interesting week. Oh.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
I could see Joe Madden, the ultimate lounge lizard, sliding
into that environment and just completely digging it.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
You're describing my entire life right. The lounge lizardries began
at bell Hops bar on a bar still on Altar Street,
and I think it's what twelfth, twelfth then Altar or
something like that. Yeah, but I've always been attracted to
that environment.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Yeah, you've perfected the craft over the years. By the way,
I hope you sold some books as well. If our
listeners are not familiar our book, which obviously this podcast
is based on the book of Joe you know, I
call this podcast the most interesting baseball podcast on the planet.
I think you can say the same thing about the book.
If you haven't picked up the Book of Joe Man,
(02:25):
what are you waiting for? I mean, it doesn't matter
if you're a fan of the Cubs, the Angels, the Rays,
just a fan of baseball or life in general. You're
going to find something really really interesting in that book.
So glad to see you out there selling some books.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Joe is it isn't the paperback out sooner now or
something like that? Also, I think that was coming soon.
We'd selld two hundred and fifty. I brought two hudred
and fifty books with me to that event the night.
It was really great and honestly getting a lot of
wonderful feedback. And again, it's not just the baseball book.
There's a lot of life lessons. When we you and
I talked about doing it in the first place, it
wasn't just going to be Joey grew up on Eleventh Street.
(03:02):
It had to be a lot more than that. I
think we accomplished that, and I think the more it
gets out there and people gets in people's hands, they
do appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Absolutely and speaking of the book, a lot in the
book is about how the game has been changing over
the years, and along those lines, Joe, we need to
talk about the New York Yankees, because it's just been
fascinating what has happened to this team. And I especially
want to get into it with you from the manager's
perspective and dealing with media, dealing with negativity when you're
(03:33):
the manager. And I had an Yankees Red Sox game
on Fox over the weekend, and Aaron Moon made sure
he let us and other people in the media know
that he had a meeting after the game on Friday night.
Clearly Aaron Boone wanted this out there. This is after
a game on Friday night. I thought the Yankees had
looked really flat on the Friday night game. This is
(03:54):
after coming off a two and seven road trip. You're
back home, you got your rivals in a big house
at Yankee Stadium, and they were just flat, made some
careless mistakes defensive. They were out of the game early.
And Aaron decided to address his team after the game,
and he actually spoke about how he'd liked their approach
later in the game and it was something to build
on and he's telling them, you know, show up tomorrow,
(04:17):
remembering why you fell in love with this game in
the first place. So it wasn't you know, ranting and
raving and taking out anger on the team. But to me, Joe,
it was a sign that Aaron has taken so many
slings and arrows in New York. As you know with
the media, you know, losing streak is it sounds bigger.
Everything's amplified, right, And I think he wanted it out
(04:38):
there that I'm doing something about this team because he's
taking criticism among Yankee fans, mostly for being a little
too passive and not showing the kind of frustration that
the fans themselves are feeling. So I thought that was
interesting that he wanted out there that he had this meeting.
Of course, he had Garrett Cole his ace pitching the
next day. In my goodness, that's that's rule number one
(04:59):
when you hold the team meeting, right, check your rotation,
see's getting the ball. I think Cole comes out lays
an egg the next day and they lose that one
as well, so there was no effect to it. But
jo I'm curious your take now as a manager, maybe
specifically to Boom when you're in a losing streak like this,
the fans are so frustrated. We get it at it again.
In New York, you hear it over and over again.
(05:20):
And how sometimes maybe that can seep into the way
you run your team.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yeah, First of all, the thing that just jumps out
to me is to praise publicly and criticize privately. Regardless.
Everybody wants a pound of flesh when things aren't going well.
And a lot of our fan bases grew up borderline
at least of the Lombardi era, and and a lot
of people have a football mentality and they want people
to be angry all the time. And for me, the
main component of being a great leaders to be consistent.
(05:48):
That's what discipline is. Discipline and consistency to mere synonymous terms.
So you're going to go through some bad moments and again,
if in fact I have to say some things to
a group, I'd prefer nobody know. But sometimes you know,
it does leak out in some way. But I understand
where Bohny was coming from because everything is amplified there.
(06:09):
I watch, I read every day and I kind of
understand that. So yes, part of it is was that
I agree with you to ameliorate the fan base, to
let them know I am doing something here. But then again,
which you have to understand, conversations like that rarely have
an impact. It's if you're bad as a baseball team.
If you're a five hundred or less baseball team, I
(06:29):
think you're going to become a six hundred percent sixty
percent baseball winning team just by having a meeting. That's
just a bad bad form. It happens gradually over time.
I would in those moments try to present a plan
to the group. In other words, like for me, you
try to pick up one game a week. If you have,
we've already talked about this, something to that effect. I'm
(06:50):
happy to hear that he was not punitive about it,
and he attempted to rationalize what they were or try
to motivate in a way. But when you have to
have a lot of team meetings, and again, some gms
want you to do that because they think you don't care.
If you don't, and it's not true. I prefer individual
conversations in a situation like that, I prefer talking to you.
(07:11):
I'm perceived to be the leaders of the team. For me,
it would be my lead Bulls, and I would ask them,
if they haven't already done it, to maybe for them
to have a players only meeting, because to me, that's
still the best one. The manager's meeting. Yeah, I've had
one during the season. We've talked about it. I was
I was kind of pissed off, and they knew about it,
and that one did work, But that was because I
(07:33):
rarely ever do things like that, and there is then
it becomes impactful. So yes, there's in a market like that.
He probably felt compelled to do something and let everybody
know that he was doing something. But for me, it
would be more individual. I prefer the team leaders having
that meeting. Peers, peer pressure, peer substance, sustenance, whatever is
(07:59):
more impactful, I believe, so I would I would go
in that direction. Final point just now, but maybe, like
I talked about this at the All Star break, I
like little mini spring trainings during the season. I used
to do that with the Race. I did it with
the Cubs and you go out and you work on
things you had worked done in spring training during the
long home stand. I know early work has become almost
(08:22):
mandatory these days, and it's a choreographed early work probably
part of it, or a lot of it is because
young players are coming up that really don't know how
to play the game. But they don't know how to
play the game because the game is not being taught.
The line changles are being taught. Spin's being taught. Base
running is not funning is not. Hitting behind a runner
is not hit and run is not. Stealing bases is
not I mean, and now all of a sudden, they're
(08:44):
becoming more important. This starts in the minor league. But
again I'm getting off track. If you have struggles during
the season, go back to your fundamentals, long home stand,
bring them on out. Let's review this stuff. And almost
one hundred percent of the time it works.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Yeah, it's interesting because I agree mostly with what you said, Joe,
But I do think there are times when a manage
has to be realistic and grab his team's attention. And
the pat on the back is great. But sometimes, and
I'll go back to last year, Bob Melvin did this
with his Padres team late in the season. They did respond.
Tory Lavello had a meeting with his Diamondbacks players a
(09:20):
couple of weeks ago, and Tory told me that it
was probably a seven on the LEVELO Richter scale, and
he said, I've never blown up like that. Just was
tired of watching his team really just I guess unfocused
might be a better word, or at least they just
were not on point the way they were for most
of the season, and he has a younger team out there.
(09:42):
I think, I do think there are some times and
obviously the more you do it, the less effect that's
going to have. But I do think there are some
times you got to tell your team. And this has
nothing to do with the fans, by the way, guys,
we got to pull together right now because the idea
that hey, let's trust the process. We can't control the result.
There's so much of that that goes on in sports
now that I don't have a problems. Sometimes are the
(10:05):
manager coming in and just grabbing you by the shirt collar,
and even if it's just an emotional kick in the
butt to say let's get it in gear, it's it's
a little bit of a wake up call. Is the
reason why, you know, managers and coaches sometimes lose their jobs.
They try to, you know, get the team going. I'd
rather have the manager take control and again grab a
(10:26):
team by the shirt collar. And again, you know have
to tell guys that are the worst in the world,
but just to express emergency.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Well yeah, and again I understand what you're saying. For me,
it's rare that those meetings do work. I've sat on
the floor too many times to listen to managers do
those things, and a lot of times the anger is
to benefit whom whomever's angry. Again, I did it with
the Rays in two thousand and eight. We've talked about that.
It's in the book. I have had individual meetings where
(10:52):
I've been you know, it's been kind of testy at
times too, But I like to try to stay ahead
of those moments. For instance, right before I was let
go with the actually I was planning on it with
the Eagels. I was already planning on like a fundamental week.
I was talking like I try to steut of the
way of my coaches, but sometimes I will interfere if
I thinks need to be interfered with. So I was
(11:13):
already planning on coming out with extra work, taking participate
in early hitting, any any kind of drills we're going
to do on the field. I was going to do
that with that group prior to I mean, honestly, it
was almost right up to the day that I was
let go. I like to be proactive in those areas
when all else fails. Maybe you have to, but I
really tried to stay ahead of that. It's like quality assurance.
(11:36):
You try to stay ahead of the nonsense the bad moments.
Can't do it all the time, but there's a feel
part of this that you know your team is not
getting out of this funk, and a variety of different
things can be done. So I choose not to have
the meeting because I know that I've sat in on
them and they sound good on paper, but I don't
(11:58):
think they're really impactful. And I prefer doing one on ones,
talking to groups, smaller groups individually, and then I think
I could get my point across and finally get them
on the field. Bring back fundumb mentals. I mean, it
really comes down to that, when you stink you're not
playing fundamental baseball.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Yeah, let me say Aaron Boone, he could have the
most fire and brimstone meeting ever and it's not going
to change things with this Yankees team. I mean, just
look at the personnel here. You know it was a
flawed roster to begin with, and injuries have really put
them in a situation. And with their running out there
Jake Bauers, Greg Gallen, Ben Roartvett, I mean nothing against
those guys, but they're not your front line players, so
(12:38):
they've gone far down to the depth chart. They're just short.
I thought they came in Joe with a flawed roster
in a couple of ways. First of all, Houston exposed
them in the ALCS last year. They completely ate them up,
especially with breaking balls. They threw the Yankees forty percent
breaking balls. The Yankees ran back the same roster and
mostly a year older. When you think about guys like
(12:59):
Rizzo and Stanton and Lemayhew, you know, Donaldson, you know
it just and the game pivoted to a younger game
with these new rules that now are revaluing athleticism, base running,
putting the ball in play even on the ground. Yes,
I know people don't want to hit the ball in
the ground, but sometimes there's nothing wrong with it, especially
(13:20):
when you look up. And now they can't send three
guys on the right side of the field if you're
a left handed hitter. The Yankees are playing an outdated game.
This is a team that wants to swing with launch angle,
get the ball in the air. They think strikeouts are okay.
It's why they are not a good rally team at all.
They're terrible with runners in scoring position. They lack left
(13:42):
handed hitting, which should never happen when your home games
are in Yankee Stadium. So they began to me Joe
with a flawed, older team that does not run the bases.
It's the worst base running team in baseball. The White Sox,
Yankees and Mets are the three oldest teams in baseball,
and they look like it. And you look at the
teams that have jumped up this year. If they're young,
(14:02):
they're athletic, they can defend with range, and they can
run the basis. I'm talking about Cincinnati, Baltimore, Tampa Bay, Arizona,
on and on and on. And the Yankees are playing
right now an outdated game. So I didn't see this coming.
I'm not smart enough to tell you that I didn't
think the bottom would fall out the way that it has.
They're looking at right now in eight game losing streak
(14:22):
the first time in almost three decades. But this was
a flawed roster that got exposed in the ALCS last
year and more so this year. So that is not
on the manager, not at all.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
And you've convinced me, I'm bringing my bell bottoms back.
Get into close with the white lapels, the wider ties. Also,
real baseball's back. It's always cyclical. You just described the
launch angle, the three true outcome game as being almost obsolete.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
I hope it is obsolete. The game needs to be
played in its entirety. The game needs to be taught
on the minor league level. It needs players there, need
to spend a little bit more time there and understand
exactly what's going on. You want to be able to
get to the big leagues and have sustained success just
this moment. It's one of these brief moments where you're
really good and then you're not so again, even like
(15:11):
groups like cincin Night Baltimore. Yes, I love all of
that and I would love to see more of that,
And you're right, it is a Unfortunately, it's a copycat
situation throughout the industry. For me, if I'm running an
organization right now, I really it's the perfect time to
try to get out there and create this unique method
that only you employ. Want everybody else to copy. It's
(15:34):
something that I had implored with the Angels. I really
thought we had an opportunity to get out front with
all this. I don't understand why groups don't want to
get out front. They always want to follow. Baltimore's kind
of gotten out front, like you said, since an Eddie's
kind of gotten out front, and with him, they've gotten
out front by doing tried and true. And of course
you're going to also incorporate new with old and then
(15:55):
talk about this. It's not old school, it's not new school.
It's in school. You're always learning, but to not incorporate
in and and employ the past and just try to
develop new methods that you think are going to be
sustainable not good. I think extremism in either direction is
a bad method. There's always got to be a balance
(16:15):
to be struck. And the teams that you described that
are doing really well are pretty much I think in
creating the balance that's necessary.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Yeah, Joe, we're going to take a quick break, but
I want to follow up on that. It's an important thought.
When you mentioned that word balance, because we are going
to talk about analytics, okay, and every time you mentioned
that word people think you have to jump on one
side of the fence or the other. That's not the case, folks,
And as it pertains to the Yankees, it's a really
really important point. We'll be right back, Welcome back to
(16:53):
the Book of Joe podcast.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Joe.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
You probably saw some of the comments from a former
Yankees minor leaguer by the name of Ben Ruda. He
was on the Foul Territory podcast and then went on
x formerly known as Twitter to mention about some of
the methodologies and philosophies in the New York Yankees minor
league system as it relates to analytics. And I think
(17:16):
again it's really important to understand here. And the Yankees
have really really leaned heavily on analytics, There's no question
about it. They would tell you that themselves. But it's
really important here to understand that we're talking about a balance.
Of course, everybody loves analytics. You can't have them or
you can't have a team without them, and people want them.
The question is the deployment of analytics to use it
(17:38):
as an evaluation tool or are you deciding how your
players and your manager should be playing baseball by analytics.
That's the separator for me. So just to start out here,
this guy Ben Ruda, he was released by the Yankees.
He hooked on with the Padres plit a year and
their system was released. There no longer in professional baseball,
(18:00):
but he talked about how the Yankees system was so
dependent on analytics. They would play games in spring training
talking about the minor leaguers where it was the pitchers
against the hitters, and so it his offense against the pitchers,
and you got a point as a hitter if you
hit the ball ninety five miles an hour plus. And
(18:22):
if you were a pitcher, you got a point. There's
no runs here. You got a point if you struck
out the batter. That's it. It had nothing to do
with actually playing baseball. It was based on hitting the
ball ninety five plus or getting a punch out on
the mound. So normal baseball strategy moving a runner overs,
for instance, did not matter. That gives you one brief
(18:44):
window into how they're emphasizing analytics. But as he said,
i'll quote here, this is from Twitter. I do believe
there's a place for analytics. It needs to be a
healthy mix. It's not a knock on the coaches. They
have they were doing exactly what they were hired to do.
The strategy in organization like this is just dumb. Just
(19:07):
have analytics and teach baseball, have resources and voices for
players to fall back on in both departments. Is that hard?
And then he went on to say New York is
a tough market. Fans and media. Analytics are fine. But
when you have a bad product and it's obvious and
(19:27):
it gets defended by constantly telling you it's not as
bad as it looks because so and so analytics is
actually really good, this is how a fan base gets frustrated.
Your thoughts on that, Joe interesting.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
I mean, my first thought is that a minor league player,
if you get that much time platform to view his opinions,
and again that's all part of how information is disseminated today,
would be is that, Yeah, I heard the same thing
about the Angel minor league system before I had gotten there,
that they didn't even work on based on They did
(20:04):
not even work on funting, They just they didn't work
on those things. It's really the game has evolved and
had to evolve, and I think it's making our comeback now.
But when you just rely on one thing only technology,
and the people speak as though they know things based
on information that they receive. It's never it's never practical,
it's never been accumulated. It's never based on experience or wisdom.
(20:27):
It's just like here, look at this, read this, and
then we're going to try to get our guys to
do this. There's no there's no knowledge involved in that.
There's none. And then when speak people begin to speak
as though there are authorities on different subjects regarding pitching
or hitting based on a printout tech a method that's
just described via cameras and data accumulation that bothers me.
(20:52):
There's no there's no room in this room for actual
wisdom and experience and eyeballs that have seen this over time. Yes,
I've I was looking at some of my work the
other day from the late eighties and mid nineties. That's
all analytics. All my work was analytical. The difference now
(21:13):
is that you could get more of it, and you
need a computer to put it all together and try
to call it down. But so much of this information
is not really useful in the game or to the player.
It sounds good, it looks good, it's sexy, but what
we need in the game is our nuggets. We don't
need vast reams of information. It needs to be called
(21:35):
down to the point that it's useful. I hate to
bother you with this, but I'm playing golf a lot now,
and I've learned that, Gosh, when I carry more than
one thought with what I'm trying to do, I stink.
And when you get out of your own your internal
body and you get out there and actually play the game,
you play it a lot better. Players cannot carry all
of these things, they cannot. Coaching staffs to a degree can.
(21:58):
But I think it's been over romanticized at the point
where analytics has such a great impact on the game.
If that's the case, why is everybody why are there
so many teams in trouble, and why do everybody have
to go through a rebuilding a couple of years. If
this stuff is so glamorous and romantic and glorious balanced,
you need to have people that understand and can teach
(22:21):
tried and true methods of the game. You need other
folks coming in that could accumulate this information and data
do that and then give it to the people that
are the teachers. I don't like the idea of the
accumulators coming on in, the presenters coming on in and
acting as teachers. I don't like that quite frankly. I
like having them. I want their stuff, and I go
(22:42):
to them all the time, and I ask questions, and
I've asked questions for years, even like when a pitcher
back with the Rais, if somebody was off, I would ask,
could you do some work and see if his arm
angle has dropped? Just to click because from the sidelines
it looks to me that his arms a little bit
lower than it had been. As an example, that to
me is pertinent stuff. I've talked about Joe Peralta, Eric
(23:03):
the Andander figured out when joepe Rolta through a first pitch,
breaking ball strike batting average against them was all about
one hundred or one twenty something for rightings and lefties.
That's really pertinent analytical information. So there's a balance that
needs to be had. I want baseball eyeballs with experience time,
(23:24):
and then I want the new stuff coming in. But
at the end of the day, you can't have this
conflict of presentation. You cannot. It's got to come from
one voice. It has to be cold down, it has
to be Nuggets. Final point. The primary I think duty
and objective and where data and information and analytics shines
is acquisitionally, and nobody even talks about that. Everybody has
(23:47):
been kind of taught to believe that analytics has a
great part in winning the game on a nightly basis,
and that it's almost bulletproof. Analytics are pretty much based
on organizational biases. Who's ever putting together this analytical team.
They have their biases. It's not pure, it's what that
group thinks, and then they create these cocktails with more
(24:09):
way to one area, less way to another area, and
they get kind of what they're looking for. So that's
really what it is. That in the beginning, I thought
it was like pure. I thought analytical little information was pure.
It was infallible, it has to be true. When I
began with the Brays and I found that that is
not true. Balance, brother, real baseball people doing real baseball things.
Analytical people doing their thing. But at the end of
(24:31):
the day, I want information, give it to my guys, coaches,
and I want them to give it to the team
and not presenters. Wow, that's a long answer.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Yeah, but you're right, and they are presenting first of all.
You made me think of something about getting back to
real baseball. And I think one of the happily unintended
consequences of the pitch timer is you don't see as
many catchers now going to that wristband going through the
scouting report for every single pitch. Right. You actually have
to think now and run a game behind the plate
(25:02):
based on what you're saying from the hitter and from
the pitcher. I love that, and obviously you love the
fact that the game is faster. Second of all presenters,
I was told by a Yankee there was a game
this year they're facing I think it was Kintana of
the Mets, and they were telling the hitters they all
in the lineup should go try to hit the ball
in the air to the poll side. The Yankees don't
(25:23):
even have that kind of a lineup other than Aaron Judge,
who do you want in that lineup pulling the ball
in the air right now? So these things are being
presented directly to the players. As far as the analytics
they're chasing in the minor leagues, Ben Ruda again, this
former Yankee minor leaguer mentioned they're driven by something called
hit effect ops that's the holy grail in the Yankees
(25:45):
minor league system, and it's based on exit velocity and
launch angle. And his beef with this is that as
a hitter, it doesn't dock anybody for striking out, which
is kind of really amazing when you think about it,
because what do they want from pitchers strikeouts? But yet
it doesn't matter when it comes to the hitters. That
(26:06):
doesn't make any sense in terms of consistency. So his
point was, when you're chasing this hit effect OPS metric,
what you're doing is you're creating the same, or searching
for it, the same hitter over and over again. And
that's a problem. You better have diversity in your lineup.
And you can't turn Luisa Rise into a poll side
(26:29):
fly ball hitter. Why would you want to? And by
the way, Luisa Rise is one of the best hitters
in the game. Have you looked at his exit velocity?
It stinks it's below average. I want him on my team.
He's on base almost half the time.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
My case. You just said the word same. Everybody wants
the same thing that everybody else has. There's nobody wanting
to go out there uniquely and build their own little
arc to a certain extent, Baltimore has like we're talked about,
although they had to go through this long rebuild and
the same thing with Cincinnati, but it appears as though they,
(27:05):
for me anyway, had the right theories regarding the kind
of athlete we're looking for to play a complete game.
But really, I'm really annoyed by that word same and
it's it's become. And that's why I think you see
a lot of this mediocrity in the game because everybody's
looking for the same things. I don't have privy to conversations,
but I would be curious when one GM calls another GM.
(27:26):
They all have the same things in mind. They're always
looking for the same player. They're looking for the same
set of metrics, same set of analytical information. They're looking
for the same thing all the time, and nobody's looking
for the outlier rise. Yeah, I mean that, you're right,
and I was. I was a David Fletcher free and
(27:48):
now Fletch has been mired in the minor leagues. And
Fletch for a long time really had some good numbers offensively,
but horrible exit velossities, et cetera. And eventually it came
back and they were just pitching them in a certain ways,
hitting pop ups to the right side, and that needed
to change. That. Don't want to get news that method,
but Fletch is a really good baseball player. Nobody likes
really good baseball players that can't hit homers. So I'm
(28:10):
hoping that that thing comes back. But I'm sough the
groups that want to go out there and build their
own method and get away from this sameness, that to
me would be very interesting, and that's what the fans
want to see. If you're in a different city, you
want your I would want my team to be different.
I want my team to be known for something that
(28:31):
maybe most of the other teams are not known for.
I want a method of play, I want a style
of play. I want a certain kind of player want
I just want to be able to identify with a
real gritty group that plays just if they play hard,
I could identify with that. But that's not as important
as it had.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Been amen to that. You know, maybe I'm dating myself,
but I do think the glory days of baseball in
terms of the aesthetics of the game, or the nineteen eighties,
where the more diversity that you have, I'm talking about
diversity of style, diversity of philosophy, the more interesting the
game is. So you can have a World Series where
you have Harvey's Wallbangers against Whitey's Speedsters, right Cardinals hitting
(29:12):
the fewest home runs, the Brewers hitting the most. There
were different paths to win the World Series, not one,
and that's what you want as a fan, different styles.
And just one more time, getting back to what how
you can use analytics to drive decision making. I'm gonna
use Josh Donaldson as an example because the Yankees traded
for Donaldson in great part because his exit velocity his
(29:36):
year with the Twins was actually higher than it was
when he won the MVP in twenty fifteen. So they
saw signs he's still hitting the ball hard, nothing wrong
with that, but they keep running him out there, and
they kept insisting he was still an effective hitter because,
for instance, this year, his exit velocity is ninety two
point two. That's really good, right when he hits the ball,
hits the ball hard, But Josh Donaldson's hitting a buck
(29:59):
forty two. You can't sell me on exit velocity. And
if you look at his bat speed and he's thirty
seven years old, this is not a knock on just Allinson.
It happens as you age against pitches ninety five and above.
He's hitting forty eight one hit against fastballs ninety five
and above. So how much does this exit velocity mean
(30:21):
at that At this point, he's had two years with
the Yankees where he has the third lowest batting average
by any Yankee in history whoever got more than six
hundred played appearances. So don't tell me about his exit
velocity if you're hitting two oh seven over six hundred
played appearances. But yet that is going on in the game.
(30:42):
And I think the Yankees right now, to me, Joe,
this is a wake up call. They can dismiss Ben
Ruda as some disgruntled minor leaguer all they want, but
I think they have to look in the mirror and
look at their systemic processes and say we're broken, because
right now their offense is broken. You mentioned the Orioles.
(31:02):
You know, I love the way they play baseball. They
do put a premium on athleticism. They do have younger players.
By the way. They may bring up Jackson Holiday nineteen
years old. He's just crushing it in double A. That's
another guy with a middle of the order, athletic player
hits from the left side, runs the bases, defends well,
I mean, give me a whole team of those guys,
(31:23):
I'll find a place to play them. So I think
the Yankees have to look at their processes and say,
right now, offensively, it's not working and it's broken.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
I capture one thing you just said regarding Donaldson and analytics. Okay,
ninety five plus, he can't hit it. That, to me
is where analytics shines in regards to giving me a
game plan for my pitcher and catcher that night. I mean,
when you know that and the guy can your pitcher
can do that, and you hang a slider and he
(31:54):
hits it out, I want to That's why I want
to throw up and dougout. You know, this is the
kind of stuff that stands up all the time. If
he hits that ninety five plus, it's not going to
be the kind of contact that's gonna hurt you. So
that's a perfect example of that, I believe. So, yes
with the Orioles, Yes with athleticism. Go back to the
Kansas City Royals Baseball Academy. Go out there and just
(32:16):
get a bunch of athletes take them down to spring
training and instructional league and just teach them how to
play the game. And you may I know at that
time it didn't necessarily work as well, but I like
that concept. I think it's kind of like happening in
the Dominican Republic. All these academies down there. They go
out there, they grab a bunch of kids and they
put him in there, and eventually you're gonna find maybe three,
(32:38):
four or five, maybe six guys that can impact your
major league organization. I would start right there all the time,
and don't run away from the baseball player. Really good scouts,
I believe, really good instructors, I believe recognize just a
good old fashioned baseball player where maybe it does it
not the fastest runner, maybe he can't hit the ball
(32:58):
the farthest, maybe he's just an average defender, but the
guy knows how to win, I knows how to play
the game. An example, James Edmunds, Jimmy Edmonds. I had
Jimmy in the minor leagues. Jimmy on a sixty yard dash.
He's not going to blow you up if you watch
him as a kid hitting line drive hitter. A lot
of it was opposite field, and I love that. I
(33:20):
love when a young hitter drives the opposite field gap
to me. That lights me up immediately because we could
teach him how to pull. The one thing Jimmy did
have was a great arm, not a good arm, a
great arm. So I'm watching this guy playing one night
in Palm Springs. He's in the right field and he's
just mediocre at this point, and all of a sudden,
balls hit him in the right field and I'm there,
(33:42):
I'm watching from the dugout area, and he threw a
missile to third I had never seen it before. You know,
guys like Jimmy, sometimes it takes one you don't really
pay attention. He did that. I called in the next day.
I wanted to see him in center field. And then again,
not being the fastest, you will never see Jimmy Edmons'
first step, which I learned as we went through this process.
(34:03):
So the fastest guy never see his first step. The
most incredible routes online from the moment the ball is
hit right and I guess you might be able to
measure that now metrically whatever. But Jimmy Edmunds was not
this killer looking athlete, but He's one of the best
baseball players I've ever had. And on top of that,
great base runner, great slider, he would slide to avoid
(34:25):
tags before that was in vogue. But he just knew how.
So all these things to me. As a good scout
with real eyes, you see these things. So Jimmy Edmonds,
I'm here to tell you a lot of people think
it was a really great player. He was, but when
he began, you could have easily said no on this
particular guy. He's going to wash out. Didn't like his attitude,
(34:47):
didn't really know where to playim below average to average
speed at best. Then he turns into one of the
best outfielders we've ever seen with power. With power, the
power came later and this guy struck out a lot.
But he also moved the ball when it was necessary.
But a high fastball, well, he can hit as a
left hand here he can hit a high fastball. Going
(35:08):
on and on. But that's an example of a baseball
player that didn't necessarily grade out well as a youngster.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Great story, and by the way, Jimmy Edmonds probably deserves
another well, he does deserve another look at Hall of
Fame consideration. He was a one and done. Ballot guy
sit down sometime with his numbers and chew on that
for a while. Okay, we talked about the Yankees. The
question is where do they go from here? The Baltimore
Orioles are absolutely loaded for years. When you think about
(35:35):
Gunnar Henderson, Natalie Rushman, Jackson Holliday, those are three franchise players,
all twenty five and younger. This team is only going
to get better. They're not going away. The Yankees are
up against it. Where are they going and will it
cost Aaron Boone his job? We'll talk about that right
after this, Okay, Joe. The Yankees had a rough season,
(36:07):
there's no question about it. And actually, if you look
at the Yankees last well, going back to the middle
of last year, two hundred and eleven games, they're one
oh one and one ten. They've been mediocre. Not just
for a month, not just since the All Star break,
not just since Aaron Judge went out with the toe
injury for two months. No, they've been mediocre for a
(36:29):
season and a half. Again, there's something systemic going on here.
So my question is where do they go from here?
Does this cost Aaron Boone his job? Listen, I think again,
I think this is not a manager issue. But in
the world we live in, especially in New York, and
you've got the highest payroll in the American League and
(36:51):
you are literally playing out the string, you know, to
houses at Yankee Stadium that are seeing a non competitive team,
it's tough to bring the manager back. It takes a
lot of faith that this is still the right guy.
So again, does it change things? I don't know, But Joe,
you know how this game operates, and especially in a
place like New York.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
For me, you don't get rid of Boonie. Boone has
done a great job. There's this is not on Boonie
at all, not even a little bit. And again, this
is what I've been talking about all along, and I like,
I love Brian Cashman, but this is more front office
than than on field as far as I can see.
And I know that, I quite frankly know that it's
this is where field personal get too much of the
(37:30):
blame and the acquisitional process does not. It's all about
the acquisitional process. Who do you get in there, who
do you bring in, who you bring in the spring training?
What kind of player do you get And because after
all the field personnel have nothing to do with the
acquisitional process nothing. You know. I was always asked in
certain situations, but the way it's working today, there was
(37:50):
a time when the manager had a lot of juice
regarding that, but he has zero juice right now. So
this is this is more front office generated, not more.
It is front office generated than field generated. But Boonie's
record over the last several years has been outstanding. The
team has gotten deep into the season. They have not
wonder World Series. I get it, it's not easy to
(38:10):
do that. But he's done a great job. He's a
great communicator. I think the players like him a lot
from what I understand, and I can see why as
a broadcasters to come in my office all the time
and we had wonderful conversations and he's really sharp. I'm
a big Boonie fan, So to lay it on him,
I think is wrong quite frankly. And going forward, yeah,
(38:32):
this is a situation where they the Yankees have to
maybe like I hate these word pivot because I don't
like that word, but they have to do something differently,
and they may have to go against their years of history.
They might have to loosen up a bit quite Frankly
and go out there and just play with a little
bit more zeal and zest. And in order to do that,
you got to get the right guys to do that. Again,
(38:54):
they rely too much on attempting to bludget everybody else,
and it's hard to bludget like you're seeing in today's game.
I want those that can do the three run Homer. Absolutely,
I want early Weaver guys, but I also want rock
out there, and I want kurk Flood and sorry, I'm
going to my old Cardinal dates, but I want guys
that could run and play defense too. So it's a again,
here comes the word balance, So don't lait on Boonie.
(39:18):
That's my opinion. I'm absolutely one hundred percent believe that
it's about the acquisitional process and that's what got them
in trouble this year.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
Yeah, one hundred percent agreed, Joe, And listen, Brian Cashman
has done a great job here, So I think it's
more about maybe tweaking philosophies and what you're looking for
to put a team together. And he's already started that
a little bit because he did for the first time
since he's been gaming the Yankees, he fired a coach
during the season Dylan Lawson. Now, you can say that
has very little effect, and if you look at the numbers,
(39:47):
it's had no effect. But I think it was sort
of an admission that it's not working right. And a
lot of the instructors in the Yankees minor league system
were connected to Dylan Lawson and some of his philosophies.
So I think that will be revisited after the season
see if there's changes there. But I think you hit
on something that's super important here, and that's the type
(40:08):
of players the Yankees are seeking. So if you want
to try to keep trying to hit on guys like
a Franchis Cordero or a Jake Bauers, guys who are
going to strike out trying to lift the ball in
the air, maybe you should be looking for other type
of players as well, to have more of a balance
so that when there's a run around second base and
two outs, you know this guy's gonna put the ball
in play and maybe get him. In next couple of weeks,
(40:29):
they're going to give a run to Everson Pereira, twenty
two year old outfielder. Great job by the Yankees bringing
him up at this point, in the season. Give him
a run. Start him every day. I don't care if
he goes oh for eight. Tell the kid he's in
the lineup. Because right now, with Harrison Bader being a
free agent, the Yankees essentially have one outfielder, Aaron Judge.
They need to find a couple of outfielders. They need
to find a couple of starting pitchers. They need to
(40:50):
get younger. As we talked about so eversin Pereira, You'll
see him get some run. Austin Wells is a catcher
that they like. Hasn't killed it offensively, but he controls
the strike zone pretty well. You know, give him a chance.
I'm sure he'll be up soon. So maybe they can
find out some things here in the next couple of weeks.
And if you're Aired Boone, let's face it, Joey, Aaron
Boone is still being judged here. Maybe the playoffs are
(41:12):
out of the question, but how this team plays out
the rest of the season will go a long way,
maybe in terms of how he comes back. And as
you mentioned, he connects well with young players. If that's
where you're going, maybe he's still the right guy for you.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
I think he is. And if you touched on something there.
It's like the hiring process for coaches. They're going to
the you know, the drive line groups, and they're going
to guys that are all about tech and not about
experience and wisdom in the game. Again balance, Yes, I
want these guys, I would want them to be part
of the staff, but I still want you know, the
(41:43):
Larry Bows of the world and my dougout are on
the line for me or somewhere within the process of
the organization. You need that. Again, this is another component
of balance that I think has been absolutely ignored. When
I was coming up, you always had the experienced coach around,
whether it was Preston Gomez, whether it was Don Zimmer,
whether it was Dave Garce, whether it was John McNamara.
(42:06):
I had all these, Bob Cleary, I had all these
guys at my disposal coming up as a young coach.
The game was passed down to me from these guys, okay,
without their input and their wisdom and quite frankly, their toughness,
and the fact that I didn't get a worm fuzzy
from them. Only did if I if they thought I
(42:26):
did something well. I didn't get a trophy for not
being good at what I did, so that's missing. I
would love to see a resurgence in the hiring of
former players, coaches, et cetera. That can coach, that can teach,
there to augment and teach coaches young coaches. I don't
(42:47):
think that's being done. I'm running a minor league system. Yes,
I want to hire a lot of young fire. I
was one of those man. I was an absolute grunt.
I threw I took out the machines that rolled up
the cords, that pulled out the tarps, you do all
those things. But I needed Bob Aloo. There. I needed
Johnny McNamara. There. I needed Dave Garcia. There, I needed
(43:08):
Marcel Latchman. There. This cookie roster. I could go on
and on. These guys today don't have that benefit. Who's
passing the game along to the young coaches and the
minor leagues and even in the major leagues and thus
passing on the game itself. Scouts. Same thing I used
to love when the scouts came into town, Like whether
it was the Gene Thompson's of the world, you know,
(43:30):
the Thornton Lee's of the world, Eddie Howsen, all the guys,
all the dudes, Scottie Reed, the guys that taught me.
I wanted to talk to them. I'm running the instruction
league team. I'm on the field, I'm the coordinator. But
they're standing by the fans. I'm over there asking them questions. Right,
and these kids, these new coaches, don't have that opportunity.
(43:50):
So I'd like to see a resurgence of that, hiring
real baseball coaches to run your minor league system, to
be a part of your major league team. Don Zimmer
coming into my office in Tampa Bay the next day
after a game with the bag of Coney Island hot Dogs,
sit down, smirk at me, and we would recap the
day before his game. Wow. How beneficial is that to me?
(44:14):
I mean, that doesn't happen anymore, and it needs to.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
Yeah, you're driving at something that it's always been important
to me, and that is the difference between knowledge and wisdom, right.
I mean, I do I want guys in my staff
who have certificates from drive Line. Absolutely, There's no question
about it. We've learned so much in these pitching and
hitting labs. I want to take advantage of that. But
(44:38):
I also want here's that word again, the balance of
people who are teachers. Right, Teaching is a skill. Just
because you have a certificate in some area of expertise
doesn't mean that you are a great teacher. That certifies
that you have learned this particular area of expertise. But
(44:59):
connecting with people and actually passing on that knowledge, that's
where experience and wisdom comes in. That's what I want.
Look at the Atlanta Braves. They're the best team in baseball.
Look at their coaching staff, Ron Washington, Walt Weiss, salf Asano,
Rick Kranitz, years and years and years in the game.
Why are people not copying the best team in baseball
(45:20):
the Atlanta Braves when it comes to putting a staff together.
By the way, their manager baseball lifer mid to late sixties,
Brian Snicker. So you've got all that going now. In
the Yankees credit here. They did bring in Sean Casey
as their hitting coach midseason. Cas has not certainly been
to drive line, and you know, he's a former player
career three hundred hitter, has been at a game a
(45:42):
long time, so that was a bit of a risk.
But you look at their front office. They brought back
Brian Sabian, Omar Meanaya, they are acknowledging they want a
better balance here. But I think it will come to
their emphasis on how the information is delivered to players.
Who's driving the bust when it comes to instruction and acquisition.
Getting that input is great, but then how much is
(46:04):
that valued? How much is that driving decision making? And
that's why I say the Yankees are at a crossroads
in terms of their philosophies.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
What are you looking for? You're looking for control over
your people? Are you looking for leadership from your people?
When you want to control your people, that's self explanatory.
You want them to take what you give them and
have them implemented. I'm always about that. I'm always about
following organizational policy, but I'm also about we're talking about individualism,
(46:33):
coaches that can bring their wisdom to bear within the group.
So you're looking for control are you looking for leadership?
And leadership really requires the fact that you permit and
allow these guys to do their thing out there. And
I think that's an immediate difference between how this young
(46:55):
coaches are being hired today. You want a controllable asset.
You don't want one out there that you can empower
and let loose and bring to bear what he knows,
and also bring the organizational message to the player. I
see that as a stark difference, and I believe this
is true. The coaches from drive Line are very controllable.
Coaches that have played for the last twenty years or
(47:18):
coach for the last twenty twenty five years. They're going
to come with some opinions, man, and they're gonna have
to be convinced what you want to do is the
right thing to do. A great line from Colin Powell
that I try to incorporate all the time when he
talked about his loyalty to the president. I give him
my best advice something like that, and then I give
my strongest loyalty. In other words, when after we discuss this,
(47:41):
I'm going to tell you straight up if I agree
with you or not absolutely between the eyeballs. If I
don't agreement it so I don't agree. But after we
sit in the room, we have this discussion or argument,
whatever you want to call it, and I like arguments
about the right way to do this. Once we leave
this room, this is what we're doing. We have a consensus,
this is how it's going to be done. But I
don't think that that's I know it's not the method anymore.
(48:04):
Nobody wants that argument. They don't want the fellow that's
going to be there, the outlier that may challenge the
methods being employed. I think that's a mistake. So you
don't want just a controllable asset when it comes to
an employee. You want one that you can empower and
then receive the full benefit of his ingenuity, his imagination,
(48:28):
his experience that is not sought after anymore. That is
an absolutely true what I'm telling you right now, And
I think that needs to come back.
Speaker 1 (48:38):
Yeah, we keep coming back to the same word, right, balance,
And I think that's super important. And I'm assuming, Joe,
you're a fan of the band the Eagles. Yeah, right.
At one point they had two of the three biggest
selling albums of all time. I don't know if that's
still true, but that's pretty amazing, right. And I think
about a guy, an original member who died recently, Randy Meisner.
(49:01):
He was from Nebraska, interview introvert guy, just an incredible voice.
He started actually he came from the band Poco and
then was part of the Eagles. Their first gig. By
the way, was at Disneyland nineteen seventy one. So anyway,
Randy Meisner was not one of your lead bulls, right.
(49:21):
This is a band that had Don Henley, Joe Walsh,
Glenn Frye. Those are lead bulls, and Randy was the
one that his voice was the one on Ticket to
the Limit great tune, right, And they wanted him to
go center stage when he sang that song, and he
just didn't want to do it. It wasn't who he was.
He wasn't an alpha male, and he eventually wound up
(49:43):
leaving the band. It just became too much for them.
There's a lot of other things going on, as you know,
back in the nineteen seventies that got bands off their tracks. Yeah, baby,
but I just love the fact that you had this
introverted guy from Nebraska. It's part of what made the
team the team, what made the Eagles. Yeah, superstar talent,
(50:03):
but diversity of styles, diversity of personalities. You know, Randy Meisner,
you go back at the early Eagles stuff was just amazing.
Was eventually replaced by Timothy B. Schmidt, who actually replaced
them on Poco too. But yeah, I think about baseball
teams and rock and roll bands and kind of the
same vein where I don't want all of the same.
(50:25):
If it's a band of entirely of extroverts, we know
that's not going to last too long. And it's the
same way with the baseball team. You got hitters all
chasing the same thing. I'm sorry, that's not going to
be a championship team.
Speaker 2 (50:39):
I love all that, and that's that's a great breakdown.
I never had heard that before. And you just use
the word diversity. We're seeking that within our society, and
then all of a sudden, we want to get this
same approach to everything. It's so counterintuitive. Again, I think
it's it's a premier society in general too. We talk diversity,
but that's not what we want, at least that's not
(51:00):
what I'm seeing. So within a baseball organization, we used
to have the most intense arguments. In instructional league. I'm
like in my date twenties or early thirties, I'm running
the system, I'm running instructional leader, and here comes Bob
Clear in the room. I've talked to you about this,
and it was one morning. It was a picture of
a Mark McGuire on the cover of the Arizona Republic.
(51:23):
Hitting the ball in his hands were a certain way,
I said, bab Alu, check this out. His hands are perfect.
I love palm up, palm down, whatever, and boba is
and that's not what you want. This top hand needs
to be in this position rolling over, I said, you're
full of crap man. That led to half an hour
argument with my mentor loud in this back room of
(51:44):
Geenautry Park. That was a typical morning, typical when we
had meetings about players. It got loud and it was
varied opinions. It was great because everybody felt the ability
that it was fine, was okay to disagree and to
disagree vehemently if that was necessary. Not the case. No,
(52:05):
everybody's afraid to argue. Everybody's afraid to argue for their point,
and that's a mistake. I want. I want that group
that is talented, experienced and opinionated that we could get
together and arrive at some conclusions, because when you get
(52:25):
around people like that, you know you're gonna hear the truth.
You're going to hear the truth. It's not going to
be people telling you what you want to hear. And
that's the most dangerous place to be when you get
people telling you what you want, just what you want
to hear. That's my conception, that's what I believe in.
I flourished because of that. I'm sitting here talking to
(52:46):
you because of that. The best arguments ever. Every morning
in the back room taught me so much about the game.
Speaker 1 (52:54):
That's so well said. I mean, in any business, not
just baseball. Don't be afraid to have your positions and
opinions challenged. Welcome those and if he hears something different,
ask yourself, hey, can I use that? And maybe you don't,
Maybe eventually you dismiss it, but be open to being challenged.
It'll make you better.
Speaker 2 (53:14):
Right on, Totally in agreement.
Speaker 1 (53:15):
Cool stuff, Joe, I really enjoyed this. We'll see what
happens with the New York Yankees. It's been a strange
season to see them entering here September without really a
chance for the postseason. But I know you don't like
the word pivot, but to me, it's a chance for
the Yankees to pivot in what I call now the
modern game, the pitchclock, erara athleticism, ground balls, putting the
(53:36):
ball in play, moving runners. It's a beautiful thing and
hopefully it gets better along those lines. You got something
to take us out today.
Speaker 2 (53:42):
Yeah. One of my favorite authors is Nelson Demil, and
I've read most of his books, Believe it or not,
I've read most of his books, from Charms School to
Upcountry the Gold Coast, I read all these things. But
he wrote one called By the Rivers of Babylon, and
in that book the great line that I've kept with me,
and it really applies to everything we're talking about today.
(54:06):
I can't remember which character said it, but By the
Rivers of Babylon by Nelson the meal society will survive
if everyday people did every day things every day. An
organization will survive if every day people do every day
things every day. Be opinionated, tell me what you think,
but then be part of the group and support the group,
(54:26):
support the team, have each other's back. So I love that.
I've loved that. I mean, I read that book probably
I don't know, in the late seventies, early when whatever
the copyright is on that date, that's pretty much when
I read it. I started reading him The Talbot Odyssey
about it in the bookstore at the Vancouver Airport while
I was roving Vancouver British Columbia and from the Tabot Odyssey.
(54:49):
I just kept going and then this book really I
loved it. So yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:53):
I love that the answers to success are not complicated.
I remember one guy once said, do simple better.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
Yeah. I guess I was subconsciously impacted by not even
realizing by reading things like that.
Speaker 1 (55:09):
Cool stuff. Great show, Joe, We'll see you next time.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
All right, bye, give you well. Thanks.
Speaker 1 (55:21):
The Book of Joe podcast is a production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
The Book of Joe podcast is a production of iHeartRadio.
Welcome back to the latest edition of the Book of
Joke Podcasts with Me, Tom Verducci and my globe trotting
buddy Joe Madden. Back from Chicago. What a trip you had,
(00:24):
h Joe, you.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Were just talking about it. I went there to do
some charity golf events, three of them at actually Midloathing
in the first course beautiful. There was several tournament stops
their years. I think Nicholas won there one time and
then ruffled feathers and I'm ready to tee off, but
who just pulls up in the golf car right next
to me Ozzie Again. Ozzy lives on the course there somewhere.
(00:47):
I had a nice conversation with him. And then the
last day we played cog Hill and I guess if
Tiger went there a couple of years ago. Public course
magnificent and had a wonderful event a something called Club
four hundred. We drew over four hundred people for special Olympics.
I think we raised one hundred thousand bucks or so.
Really an interesting week and great restaurants new one chi
(01:08):
Chio Meo, a little Tian restaurant, next to Bavetts. I
think it's owned by Bavetts. Kind of an exclusive little
place outstanding, and I to keep going. But the last
one was the Aster Club. My buddy Johnny Vincent was
singing there and Wendy and I showed up and it
was wow. It's something cut right out of the fifties.
Apparently Sinatra had been there in the past. I guess
Jagger had sung there and the Beatles of all things.
(01:31):
It's a go downstairs. It's our deco abbywhere gorgeous like
a supper club. So it was really an interesting week. Oh.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
I could see Joe Madden, the ultimate lounge lizard, sliding
into that environment and just completely digging it.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
You're describing my entire life right. The lounge lizardries began
at bell Hops bar on a bar still on Altar Street,
and I think it's what twelfth, twelfth then Altar or
something like that. Yeah, but I've always been attracted to
that environment.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Yeah, you've perfected the craft over the years. By the way,
I hope you sold some books as well. If our
listeners are not familiar our book, which obviously this podcast
is based on the book of Joe you know, I
call this podcast the most interesting baseball podcast on the planet.
I think you can say the same thing about the book.
If you haven't picked up the Book of Joe Man,
(02:25):
what are you waiting for? I mean, it doesn't matter
if you're a fan of the Cubs, the Angels, the Rays,
just a fan of baseball or life in general. You're
going to find something really really interesting in that book.
So glad to see you out there selling some books.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Joe is it isn't the paperback out sooner now or
something like that? Also, I think that was coming soon.
We'd selld two hundred and fifty. I brought two hudred
and fifty books with me to that event the night.
It was really great and honestly getting a lot of
wonderful feedback. And again, it's not just the baseball book.
There's a lot of life lessons. When we you and
I talked about doing it in the first place, it
wasn't just going to be Joey grew up on Eleventh Street.
(03:02):
It had to be a lot more than that. I
think we accomplished that, and I think the more it
gets out there and people gets in people's hands, they
do appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Absolutely and speaking of the book, a lot in the
book is about how the game has been changing over
the years, and along those lines, Joe, we need to
talk about the New York Yankees, because it's just been
fascinating what has happened to this team. And I especially
want to get into it with you from the manager's
perspective and dealing with media, dealing with negativity when you're
(03:33):
the manager. And I had an Yankees Red Sox game
on Fox over the weekend, and Aaron Moon made sure
he let us and other people in the media know
that he had a meeting after the game on Friday night.
Clearly Aaron Boone wanted this out there. This is after
a game on Friday night. I thought the Yankees had
looked really flat on the Friday night game. This is
(03:54):
after coming off a two and seven road trip. You're
back home, you got your rivals in a big house
at Yankee Stadium, and they were just flat, made some
careless mistakes defensive. They were out of the game early.
And Aaron decided to address his team after the game,
and he actually spoke about how he'd liked their approach
later in the game and it was something to build
on and he's telling them, you know, show up tomorrow,
(04:17):
remembering why you fell in love with this game in
the first place. So it wasn't you know, ranting and
raving and taking out anger on the team. But to me, Joe,
it was a sign that Aaron has taken so many
slings and arrows in New York. As you know with
the media, you know, losing streak is it sounds bigger.
Everything's amplified, right, And I think he wanted it out
(04:38):
there that I'm doing something about this team because he's
taking criticism among Yankee fans, mostly for being a little
too passive and not showing the kind of frustration that
the fans themselves are feeling. So I thought that was
interesting that he wanted out there that he had this meeting.
Of course, he had Garrett Cole his ace pitching the
next day. In my goodness, that's that's rule number one
(04:59):
when you hold the team meeting, right, check your rotation,
see's getting the ball. I think Cole comes out lays
an egg the next day and they lose that one
as well, so there was no effect to it. But
jo I'm curious your take now as a manager, maybe
specifically to Boom when you're in a losing streak like this,
the fans are so frustrated. We get it at it again.
In New York, you hear it over and over again.
(05:20):
And how sometimes maybe that can seep into the way
you run your team.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yeah, First of all, the thing that just jumps out
to me is to praise publicly and criticize privately. Regardless.
Everybody wants a pound of flesh when things aren't going well.
And a lot of our fan bases grew up borderline
at least of the Lombardi era, and and a lot
of people have a football mentality and they want people
to be angry all the time. And for me, the
main component of being a great leaders to be consistent.
(05:48):
That's what discipline is. Discipline and consistency to mere synonymous terms.
So you're going to go through some bad moments and again,
if in fact I have to say some things to
a group, I'd prefer nobody know. But sometimes you know,
it does leak out in some way. But I understand
where Bohny was coming from because everything is amplified there.
(06:09):
I watch, I read every day and I kind of
understand that. So yes, part of it is was that
I agree with you to ameliorate the fan base, to
let them know I am doing something here. But then again,
which you have to understand, conversations like that rarely have
an impact. It's if you're bad as a baseball team.
If you're a five hundred or less baseball team, I
(06:29):
think you're going to become a six hundred percent sixty
percent baseball winning team just by having a meeting. That's
just a bad bad form. It happens gradually over time.
I would in those moments try to present a plan
to the group. In other words, like for me, you
try to pick up one game a week. If you have,
we've already talked about this, something to that effect. I'm
(06:50):
happy to hear that he was not punitive about it,
and he attempted to rationalize what they were or try
to motivate in a way. But when you have to
have a lot of team meetings, and again, some gms
want you to do that because they think you don't care.
If you don't, and it's not true. I prefer individual
conversations in a situation like that, I prefer talking to you.
(07:11):
I'm perceived to be the leaders of the team. For me,
it would be my lead Bulls, and I would ask them,
if they haven't already done it, to maybe for them
to have a players only meeting, because to me, that's
still the best one. The manager's meeting. Yeah, I've had
one during the season. We've talked about it. I was
I was kind of pissed off, and they knew about it,
and that one did work, But that was because I
(07:33):
rarely ever do things like that, and there is then
it becomes impactful. So yes, there's in a market like that.
He probably felt compelled to do something and let everybody
know that he was doing something. But for me, it
would be more individual. I prefer the team leaders having
that meeting. Peers, peer pressure, peer substance, sustenance, whatever is
(07:59):
more impactful, I believe, so I would I would go
in that direction. Final point just now, but maybe, like
I talked about this at the All Star break, I
like little mini spring trainings during the season. I used
to do that with the Race. I did it with
the Cubs and you go out and you work on
things you had worked done in spring training during the
long home stand. I know early work has become almost
(08:22):
mandatory these days, and it's a choreographed early work probably
part of it, or a lot of it is because
young players are coming up that really don't know how
to play the game. But they don't know how to
play the game because the game is not being taught.
The line changles are being taught. Spin's being taught. Base
running is not funning is not. Hitting behind a runner
is not hit and run is not. Stealing bases is
not I mean, and now all of a sudden, they're
(08:44):
becoming more important. This starts in the minor league. But
again I'm getting off track. If you have struggles during
the season, go back to your fundamentals, long home stand,
bring them on out. Let's review this stuff. And almost
one hundred percent of the time it works.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Yeah, it's interesting because I agree mostly with what you said, Joe,
But I do think there are times when a manage
has to be realistic and grab his team's attention. And
the pat on the back is great. But sometimes, and
I'll go back to last year, Bob Melvin did this
with his Padres team late in the season. They did respond.
Tory Lavello had a meeting with his Diamondbacks players a
(09:20):
couple of weeks ago, and Tory told me that it
was probably a seven on the LEVELO Richter scale, and
he said, I've never blown up like that. Just was
tired of watching his team really just I guess unfocused
might be a better word, or at least they just
were not on point the way they were for most
of the season, and he has a younger team out there.
(09:42):
I think, I do think there are some times and
obviously the more you do it, the less effect that's
going to have. But I do think there are some
times you got to tell your team. And this has
nothing to do with the fans, by the way, guys,
we got to pull together right now because the idea
that hey, let's trust the process. We can't control the result.
There's so much of that that goes on in sports
now that I don't have a problems. Sometimes are the
(10:05):
manager coming in and just grabbing you by the shirt collar,
and even if it's just an emotional kick in the
butt to say let's get it in gear, it's it's
a little bit of a wake up call. Is the
reason why, you know, managers and coaches sometimes lose their jobs.
They try to, you know, get the team going. I'd
rather have the manager take control and again grab a
(10:26):
team by the shirt collar. And again, you know have
to tell guys that are the worst in the world,
but just to express emergency.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Well yeah, and again I understand what you're saying. For me,
it's rare that those meetings do work. I've sat on
the floor too many times to listen to managers do
those things, and a lot of times the anger is
to benefit whom whomever's angry. Again, I did it with
the Rays in two thousand and eight. We've talked about that.
It's in the book. I have had individual meetings where
(10:52):
I've been you know, it's been kind of testy at
times too, But I like to try to stay ahead
of those moments. For instance, right before I was let
go with the actually I was planning on it with
the Eagels. I was already planning on like a fundamental week.
I was talking like I try to steut of the
way of my coaches, but sometimes I will interfere if
I thinks need to be interfered with. So I was
(11:13):
already planning on coming out with extra work, taking participate
in early hitting, any any kind of drills we're going
to do on the field. I was going to do
that with that group prior to I mean, honestly, it
was almost right up to the day that I was
let go. I like to be proactive in those areas
when all else fails. Maybe you have to, but I
really tried to stay ahead of that. It's like quality assurance.
(11:36):
You try to stay ahead of the nonsense the bad moments.
Can't do it all the time, but there's a feel
part of this that you know your team is not
getting out of this funk, and a variety of different
things can be done. So I choose not to have
the meeting because I know that I've sat in on
them and they sound good on paper, but I don't
(11:58):
think they're really impactful. And I prefer doing one on ones,
talking to groups, smaller groups individually, and then I think
I could get my point across and finally get them
on the field. Bring back fundumb mentals. I mean, it
really comes down to that, when you stink you're not
playing fundamental baseball.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Yeah, let me say Aaron Boone, he could have the
most fire and brimstone meeting ever and it's not going
to change things with this Yankees team. I mean, just
look at the personnel here. You know it was a
flawed roster to begin with, and injuries have really put
them in a situation. And with their running out there
Jake Bauers, Greg Gallen, Ben Roartvett, I mean nothing against
those guys, but they're not your front line players, so
(12:38):
they've gone far down to the depth chart. They're just short.
I thought they came in Joe with a flawed roster
in a couple of ways. First of all, Houston exposed
them in the ALCS last year. They completely ate them up,
especially with breaking balls. They threw the Yankees forty percent
breaking balls. The Yankees ran back the same roster and
mostly a year older. When you think about guys like
(12:59):
Rizzo and Stanton and Lemayhew, you know, Donaldson, you know
it just and the game pivoted to a younger game
with these new rules that now are revaluing athleticism, base running,
putting the ball in play even on the ground. Yes,
I know people don't want to hit the ball in
the ground, but sometimes there's nothing wrong with it, especially
(13:20):
when you look up. And now they can't send three
guys on the right side of the field if you're
a left handed hitter. The Yankees are playing an outdated game.
This is a team that wants to swing with launch angle,
get the ball in the air. They think strikeouts are okay.
It's why they are not a good rally team at all.
They're terrible with runners in scoring position. They lack left
(13:42):
handed hitting, which should never happen when your home games
are in Yankee Stadium. So they began to me Joe
with a flawed, older team that does not run the bases.
It's the worst base running team in baseball. The White Sox,
Yankees and Mets are the three oldest teams in baseball,
and they look like it. And you look at the
teams that have jumped up this year. If they're young,
(14:02):
they're athletic, they can defend with range, and they can
run the basis. I'm talking about Cincinnati, Baltimore, Tampa Bay, Arizona,
on and on and on. And the Yankees are playing
right now an outdated game. So I didn't see this coming.
I'm not smart enough to tell you that I didn't
think the bottom would fall out the way that it has.
They're looking at right now in eight game losing streak
(14:22):
the first time in almost three decades. But this was
a flawed roster that got exposed in the ALCS last
year and more so this year. So that is not
on the manager, not at all.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
And you've convinced me, I'm bringing my bell bottoms back.
Get into close with the white lapels, the wider ties. Also,
real baseball's back. It's always cyclical. You just described the
launch angle, the three true outcome game as being almost obsolete.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
I hope it is obsolete. The game needs to be
played in its entirety. The game needs to be taught
on the minor league level. It needs players there, need
to spend a little bit more time there and understand
exactly what's going on. You want to be able to
get to the big leagues and have sustained success just
this moment. It's one of these brief moments where you're
really good and then you're not so again, even like
(15:11):
groups like cincin Night Baltimore. Yes, I love all of
that and I would love to see more of that,
And you're right, it is a Unfortunately, it's a copycat
situation throughout the industry. For me, if I'm running an
organization right now, I really it's the perfect time to
try to get out there and create this unique method
that only you employ. Want everybody else to copy. It's
(15:34):
something that I had implored with the Angels. I really
thought we had an opportunity to get out front with
all this. I don't understand why groups don't want to
get out front. They always want to follow. Baltimore's kind
of gotten out front, like you said, since an Eddie's
kind of gotten out front, and with him, they've gotten
out front by doing tried and true. And of course
you're going to also incorporate new with old and then
(15:55):
talk about this. It's not old school, it's not new school.
It's in school. You're always learning, but to not incorporate
in and and employ the past and just try to
develop new methods that you think are going to be
sustainable not good. I think extremism in either direction is
a bad method. There's always got to be a balance
(16:15):
to be struck. And the teams that you described that
are doing really well are pretty much I think in
creating the balance that's necessary.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Yeah, Joe, we're going to take a quick break, but
I want to follow up on that. It's an important thought.
When you mentioned that word balance, because we are going
to talk about analytics, okay, and every time you mentioned
that word people think you have to jump on one
side of the fence or the other. That's not the case, folks,
And as it pertains to the Yankees, it's a really
really important point. We'll be right back, Welcome back to
(16:53):
the Book of Joe podcast.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Joe.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
You probably saw some of the comments from a former
Yankees minor leaguer by the name of Ben Ruda. He
was on the Foul Territory podcast and then went on
x formerly known as Twitter to mention about some of
the methodologies and philosophies in the New York Yankees minor
league system as it relates to analytics. And I think
(17:16):
again it's really important to understand here. And the Yankees
have really really leaned heavily on analytics, There's no question
about it. They would tell you that themselves. But it's
really important here to understand that we're talking about a balance.
Of course, everybody loves analytics. You can't have them or
you can't have a team without them, and people want them.
The question is the deployment of analytics to use it
(17:38):
as an evaluation tool or are you deciding how your
players and your manager should be playing baseball by analytics.
That's the separator for me. So just to start out here,
this guy Ben Ruda, he was released by the Yankees.
He hooked on with the Padres plit a year and
their system was released. There no longer in professional baseball,
(18:00):
but he talked about how the Yankees system was so
dependent on analytics. They would play games in spring training
talking about the minor leaguers where it was the pitchers
against the hitters, and so it his offense against the pitchers,
and you got a point as a hitter if you
hit the ball ninety five miles an hour plus. And
(18:22):
if you were a pitcher, you got a point. There's
no runs here. You got a point if you struck
out the batter. That's it. It had nothing to do
with actually playing baseball. It was based on hitting the
ball ninety five plus or getting a punch out on
the mound. So normal baseball strategy moving a runner overs,
for instance, did not matter. That gives you one brief
(18:44):
window into how they're emphasizing analytics. But as he said,
i'll quote here, this is from Twitter. I do believe
there's a place for analytics. It needs to be a
healthy mix. It's not a knock on the coaches. They
have they were doing exactly what they were hired to do.
The strategy in organization like this is just dumb. Just
(19:07):
have analytics and teach baseball, have resources and voices for
players to fall back on in both departments. Is that hard?
And then he went on to say New York is
a tough market. Fans and media. Analytics are fine. But
when you have a bad product and it's obvious and
(19:27):
it gets defended by constantly telling you it's not as
bad as it looks because so and so analytics is
actually really good, this is how a fan base gets frustrated.
Your thoughts on that, Joe interesting.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
I mean, my first thought is that a minor league player,
if you get that much time platform to view his opinions,
and again that's all part of how information is disseminated today,
would be is that, Yeah, I heard the same thing
about the Angel minor league system before I had gotten there,
that they didn't even work on based on They did
(20:04):
not even work on funting, They just they didn't work
on those things. It's really the game has evolved and
had to evolve, and I think it's making our comeback now.
But when you just rely on one thing only technology,
and the people speak as though they know things based
on information that they receive. It's never it's never practical,
it's never been accumulated. It's never based on experience or wisdom.
(20:27):
It's just like here, look at this, read this, and
then we're going to try to get our guys to
do this. There's no there's no knowledge involved in that.
There's none. And then when speak people begin to speak
as though there are authorities on different subjects regarding pitching
or hitting based on a printout tech a method that's
just described via cameras and data accumulation that bothers me.
(20:52):
There's no there's no room in this room for actual
wisdom and experience and eyeballs that have seen this over time. Yes,
I've I was looking at some of my work the
other day from the late eighties and mid nineties. That's
all analytics. All my work was analytical. The difference now
(21:13):
is that you could get more of it, and you
need a computer to put it all together and try
to call it down. But so much of this information
is not really useful in the game or to the player.
It sounds good, it looks good, it's sexy, but what
we need in the game is our nuggets. We don't
need vast reams of information. It needs to be called
(21:35):
down to the point that it's useful. I hate to
bother you with this, but I'm playing golf a lot now,
and I've learned that, Gosh, when I carry more than
one thought with what I'm trying to do, I stink.
And when you get out of your own your internal
body and you get out there and actually play the game,
you play it a lot better. Players cannot carry all
of these things, they cannot. Coaching staffs to a degree can.
(21:58):
But I think it's been over romanticized at the point
where analytics has such a great impact on the game.
If that's the case, why is everybody why are there
so many teams in trouble, and why do everybody have
to go through a rebuilding a couple of years. If
this stuff is so glamorous and romantic and glorious balanced,
you need to have people that understand and can teach
(22:21):
tried and true methods of the game. You need other
folks coming in that could accumulate this information and data
do that and then give it to the people that
are the teachers. I don't like the idea of the
accumulators coming on in, the presenters coming on in and
acting as teachers. I don't like that quite frankly. I
like having them. I want their stuff, and I go
(22:42):
to them all the time, and I ask questions, and
I've asked questions for years, even like when a pitcher
back with the Rais, if somebody was off, I would ask,
could you do some work and see if his arm
angle has dropped? Just to click because from the sidelines
it looks to me that his arms a little bit
lower than it had been. As an example, that to
me is pertinent stuff. I've talked about Joe Peralta, Eric
(23:03):
the Andander figured out when joepe Rolta through a first pitch,
breaking ball strike batting average against them was all about
one hundred or one twenty something for rightings and lefties.
That's really pertinent analytical information. So there's a balance that
needs to be had. I want baseball eyeballs with experience time,
(23:24):
and then I want the new stuff coming in. But
at the end of the day, you can't have this
conflict of presentation. You cannot. It's got to come from
one voice. It has to be cold down, it has
to be Nuggets. Final point. The primary I think duty
and objective and where data and information and analytics shines
is acquisitionally, and nobody even talks about that. Everybody has
(23:47):
been kind of taught to believe that analytics has a
great part in winning the game on a nightly basis,
and that it's almost bulletproof. Analytics are pretty much based
on organizational biases. Who's ever putting together this analytical team.
They have their biases. It's not pure, it's what that
group thinks, and then they create these cocktails with more
(24:09):
way to one area, less way to another area, and
they get kind of what they're looking for. So that's
really what it is. That in the beginning, I thought
it was like pure. I thought analytical little information was pure.
It was infallible, it has to be true. When I
began with the Brays and I found that that is
not true. Balance, brother, real baseball people doing real baseball things.
Analytical people doing their thing. But at the end of
(24:31):
the day, I want information, give it to my guys, coaches,
and I want them to give it to the team
and not presenters. Wow, that's a long answer.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Yeah, but you're right, and they are presenting first of all.
You made me think of something about getting back to
real baseball. And I think one of the happily unintended
consequences of the pitch timer is you don't see as
many catchers now going to that wristband going through the
scouting report for every single pitch. Right. You actually have
to think now and run a game behind the plate
(25:02):
based on what you're saying from the hitter and from
the pitcher. I love that, and obviously you love the
fact that the game is faster. Second of all presenters,
I was told by a Yankee there was a game
this year they're facing I think it was Kintana of
the Mets, and they were telling the hitters they all
in the lineup should go try to hit the ball
in the air to the poll side. The Yankees don't
(25:23):
even have that kind of a lineup other than Aaron Judge,
who do you want in that lineup pulling the ball
in the air right now? So these things are being
presented directly to the players. As far as the analytics
they're chasing in the minor leagues, Ben Ruda again, this
former Yankee minor leaguer mentioned they're driven by something called
hit effect ops that's the holy grail in the Yankees
(25:45):
minor league system, and it's based on exit velocity and
launch angle. And his beef with this is that as
a hitter, it doesn't dock anybody for striking out, which
is kind of really amazing when you think about it,
because what do they want from pitchers strikeouts? But yet
it doesn't matter when it comes to the hitters. That
(26:06):
doesn't make any sense in terms of consistency. So his
point was, when you're chasing this hit effect OPS metric,
what you're doing is you're creating the same, or searching
for it, the same hitter over and over again. And
that's a problem. You better have diversity in your lineup.
And you can't turn Luisa Rise into a poll side
(26:29):
fly ball hitter. Why would you want to? And by
the way, Luisa Rise is one of the best hitters
in the game. Have you looked at his exit velocity?
It stinks it's below average. I want him on my team.
He's on base almost half the time.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
My case. You just said the word same. Everybody wants
the same thing that everybody else has. There's nobody wanting
to go out there uniquely and build their own little
arc to a certain extent, Baltimore has like we're talked about,
although they had to go through this long rebuild and
the same thing with Cincinnati, but it appears as though they,
(27:05):
for me anyway, had the right theories regarding the kind
of athlete we're looking for to play a complete game.
But really, I'm really annoyed by that word same and
it's it's become. And that's why I think you see
a lot of this mediocrity in the game because everybody's
looking for the same things. I don't have privy to conversations,
but I would be curious when one GM calls another GM.
(27:26):
They all have the same things in mind. They're always
looking for the same player. They're looking for the same
set of metrics, same set of analytical information. They're looking
for the same thing all the time, and nobody's looking
for the outlier rise. Yeah, I mean that, you're right,
and I was. I was a David Fletcher free and
(27:48):
now Fletch has been mired in the minor leagues. And
Fletch for a long time really had some good numbers offensively,
but horrible exit velossities, et cetera. And eventually it came
back and they were just pitching them in a certain ways,
hitting pop ups to the right side, and that needed
to change. That. Don't want to get news that method,
but Fletch is a really good baseball player. Nobody likes
really good baseball players that can't hit homers. So I'm
(28:10):
hoping that that thing comes back. But I'm sough the
groups that want to go out there and build their
own method and get away from this sameness, that to
me would be very interesting, and that's what the fans
want to see. If you're in a different city, you
want your I would want my team to be different.
I want my team to be known for something that
(28:31):
maybe most of the other teams are not known for.
I want a method of play, I want a style
of play. I want a certain kind of player want
I just want to be able to identify with a
real gritty group that plays just if they play hard,
I could identify with that. But that's not as important
as it had.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Been amen to that. You know, maybe I'm dating myself,
but I do think the glory days of baseball in
terms of the aesthetics of the game, or the nineteen eighties,
where the more diversity that you have, I'm talking about
diversity of style, diversity of philosophy, the more interesting the
game is. So you can have a World Series where
you have Harvey's Wallbangers against Whitey's Speedsters, right Cardinals hitting
(29:12):
the fewest home runs, the Brewers hitting the most. There
were different paths to win the World Series, not one,
and that's what you want as a fan, different styles.
And just one more time, getting back to what how
you can use analytics to drive decision making. I'm gonna
use Josh Donaldson as an example because the Yankees traded
for Donaldson in great part because his exit velocity his
(29:36):
year with the Twins was actually higher than it was
when he won the MVP in twenty fifteen. So they
saw signs he's still hitting the ball hard, nothing wrong
with that, but they keep running him out there, and
they kept insisting he was still an effective hitter because,
for instance, this year, his exit velocity is ninety two
point two. That's really good, right when he hits the ball,
hits the ball hard, But Josh Donaldson's hitting a buck
(29:59):
forty two. You can't sell me on exit velocity. And
if you look at his bat speed and he's thirty
seven years old, this is not a knock on just Allinson.
It happens as you age against pitches ninety five and above.
He's hitting forty eight one hit against fastballs ninety five
and above. So how much does this exit velocity mean
(30:21):
at that At this point, he's had two years with
the Yankees where he has the third lowest batting average
by any Yankee in history whoever got more than six
hundred played appearances. So don't tell me about his exit
velocity if you're hitting two oh seven over six hundred
played appearances. But yet that is going on in the game.
(30:42):
And I think the Yankees right now, to me, Joe,
this is a wake up call. They can dismiss Ben
Ruda as some disgruntled minor leaguer all they want, but
I think they have to look in the mirror and
look at their systemic processes and say we're broken, because
right now their offense is broken. You mentioned the Orioles.
(31:02):
You know, I love the way they play baseball. They
do put a premium on athleticism. They do have younger players.
By the way. They may bring up Jackson Holiday nineteen
years old. He's just crushing it in double A. That's
another guy with a middle of the order, athletic player
hits from the left side, runs the bases, defends well,
I mean, give me a whole team of those guys,
(31:23):
I'll find a place to play them. So I think
the Yankees have to look at their processes and say,
right now, offensively, it's not working and it's broken.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
I capture one thing you just said regarding Donaldson and analytics. Okay,
ninety five plus, he can't hit it. That, to me
is where analytics shines in regards to giving me a
game plan for my pitcher and catcher that night. I mean,
when you know that and the guy can your pitcher
can do that, and you hang a slider and he
(31:54):
hits it out, I want to That's why I want
to throw up and dougout. You know, this is the
kind of stuff that stands up all the time. If
he hits that ninety five plus, it's not going to
be the kind of contact that's gonna hurt you. So
that's a perfect example of that, I believe. So, yes
with the Orioles, Yes with athleticism. Go back to the
Kansas City Royals Baseball Academy. Go out there and just
(32:16):
get a bunch of athletes take them down to spring
training and instructional league and just teach them how to
play the game. And you may I know at that
time it didn't necessarily work as well, but I like
that concept. I think it's kind of like happening in
the Dominican Republic. All these academies down there. They go
out there, they grab a bunch of kids and they
put him in there, and eventually you're gonna find maybe three,
(32:38):
four or five, maybe six guys that can impact your
major league organization. I would start right there all the time,
and don't run away from the baseball player. Really good scouts,
I believe, really good instructors, I believe recognize just a
good old fashioned baseball player where maybe it does it
not the fastest runner, maybe he can't hit the ball
(32:58):
the farthest, maybe he's just an average defender, but the
guy knows how to win, I knows how to play
the game. An example, James Edmunds, Jimmy Edmonds. I had
Jimmy in the minor leagues. Jimmy on a sixty yard dash.
He's not going to blow you up if you watch
him as a kid hitting line drive hitter. A lot
of it was opposite field, and I love that. I
(33:20):
love when a young hitter drives the opposite field gap
to me. That lights me up immediately because we could
teach him how to pull. The one thing Jimmy did
have was a great arm, not a good arm, a
great arm. So I'm watching this guy playing one night
in Palm Springs. He's in the right field and he's
just mediocre at this point, and all of a sudden,
balls hit him in the right field and I'm there,
(33:42):
I'm watching from the dugout area, and he threw a
missile to third I had never seen it before. You know,
guys like Jimmy, sometimes it takes one you don't really
pay attention. He did that. I called in the next day.
I wanted to see him in center field. And then again,
not being the fastest, you will never see Jimmy Edmons'
first step, which I learned as we went through this process.
(34:03):
So the fastest guy never see his first step. The
most incredible routes online from the moment the ball is
hit right and I guess you might be able to
measure that now metrically whatever. But Jimmy Edmunds was not
this killer looking athlete, but He's one of the best
baseball players I've ever had. And on top of that,
great base runner, great slider, he would slide to avoid
(34:25):
tags before that was in vogue. But he just knew how.
So all these things to me. As a good scout
with real eyes, you see these things. So Jimmy Edmonds,
I'm here to tell you a lot of people think
it was a really great player. He was, but when
he began, you could have easily said no on this
particular guy. He's going to wash out. Didn't like his attitude,
(34:47):
didn't really know where to playim below average to average
speed at best. Then he turns into one of the
best outfielders we've ever seen with power. With power, the
power came later and this guy struck out a lot.
But he also moved the ball when it was necessary.
But a high fastball, well, he can hit as a
left hand here he can hit a high fastball. Going
(35:08):
on and on. But that's an example of a baseball
player that didn't necessarily grade out well as a youngster.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Great story, and by the way, Jimmy Edmonds probably deserves
another well, he does deserve another look at Hall of
Fame consideration. He was a one and done. Ballot guy
sit down sometime with his numbers and chew on that
for a while. Okay, we talked about the Yankees. The
question is where do they go from here? The Baltimore
Orioles are absolutely loaded for years. When you think about
(35:35):
Gunnar Henderson, Natalie Rushman, Jackson Holliday, those are three franchise players,
all twenty five and younger. This team is only going
to get better. They're not going away. The Yankees are
up against it. Where are they going and will it
cost Aaron Boone his job? We'll talk about that right
after this, Okay, Joe. The Yankees had a rough season,
(36:07):
there's no question about it. And actually, if you look
at the Yankees last well, going back to the middle
of last year, two hundred and eleven games, they're one
oh one and one ten. They've been mediocre. Not just
for a month, not just since the All Star break,
not just since Aaron Judge went out with the toe
injury for two months. No, they've been mediocre for a
(36:29):
season and a half. Again, there's something systemic going on here.
So my question is where do they go from here?
Does this cost Aaron Boone his job? Listen, I think again,
I think this is not a manager issue. But in
the world we live in, especially in New York, and
you've got the highest payroll in the American League and
(36:51):
you are literally playing out the string, you know, to
houses at Yankee Stadium that are seeing a non competitive team,
it's tough to bring the manager back. It takes a
lot of faith that this is still the right guy.
So again, does it change things? I don't know, But Joe,
you know how this game operates, and especially in a
place like New York.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
For me, you don't get rid of Boonie. Boone has
done a great job. There's this is not on Boonie
at all, not even a little bit. And again, this
is what I've been talking about all along, and I like,
I love Brian Cashman, but this is more front office
than than on field as far as I can see.
And I know that, I quite frankly know that it's
this is where field personal get too much of the
(37:30):
blame and the acquisitional process does not. It's all about
the acquisitional process. Who do you get in there, who
do you bring in, who you bring in the spring training?
What kind of player do you get And because after
all the field personnel have nothing to do with the
acquisitional process nothing. You know. I was always asked in
certain situations, but the way it's working today, there was
(37:50):
a time when the manager had a lot of juice
regarding that, but he has zero juice right now. So
this is this is more front office generated, not more.
It is front office generated than field generated. But Boonie's
record over the last several years has been outstanding. The
team has gotten deep into the season. They have not
wonder World Series. I get it, it's not easy to
(38:10):
do that. But he's done a great job. He's a
great communicator. I think the players like him a lot
from what I understand, and I can see why as
a broadcasters to come in my office all the time
and we had wonderful conversations and he's really sharp. I'm
a big Boonie fan, So to lay it on him,
I think is wrong quite frankly. And going forward, yeah,
(38:32):
this is a situation where they the Yankees have to
maybe like I hate these word pivot because I don't
like that word, but they have to do something differently,
and they may have to go against their years of history.
They might have to loosen up a bit quite Frankly
and go out there and just play with a little
bit more zeal and zest. And in order to do that,
you got to get the right guys to do that. Again,
(38:54):
they rely too much on attempting to bludget everybody else,
and it's hard to bludget like you're seeing in today's game.
I want those that can do the three run Homer. Absolutely,
I want early Weaver guys, but I also want rock
out there, and I want kurk Flood and sorry, I'm
going to my old Cardinal dates, but I want guys
that could run and play defense too. So it's a again,
here comes the word balance, So don't lait on Boonie.
(39:18):
That's my opinion. I'm absolutely one hundred percent believe that
it's about the acquisitional process and that's what got them
in trouble this year.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
Yeah, one hundred percent agreed, Joe, And listen, Brian Cashman
has done a great job here, So I think it's
more about maybe tweaking philosophies and what you're looking for
to put a team together. And he's already started that
a little bit because he did for the first time
since he's been gaming the Yankees, he fired a coach
during the season Dylan Lawson. Now, you can say that
has very little effect, and if you look at the numbers,
(39:47):
it's had no effect. But I think it was sort
of an admission that it's not working right. And a
lot of the instructors in the Yankees minor league system
were connected to Dylan Lawson and some of his philosophies.
So I think that will be revisited after the season
see if there's changes there. But I think you hit
on something that's super important here, and that's the type
(40:08):
of players the Yankees are seeking. So if you want
to try to keep trying to hit on guys like
a Franchis Cordero or a Jake Bauers, guys who are
going to strike out trying to lift the ball in
the air, maybe you should be looking for other type
of players as well, to have more of a balance
so that when there's a run around second base and
two outs, you know this guy's gonna put the ball
in play and maybe get him. In next couple of weeks,
(40:29):
they're going to give a run to Everson Pereira, twenty
two year old outfielder. Great job by the Yankees bringing
him up at this point, in the season. Give him
a run. Start him every day. I don't care if
he goes oh for eight. Tell the kid he's in
the lineup. Because right now, with Harrison Bader being a
free agent, the Yankees essentially have one outfielder, Aaron Judge.
They need to find a couple of outfielders. They need
to find a couple of starting pitchers. They need to
(40:50):
get younger. As we talked about so eversin Pereira, You'll
see him get some run. Austin Wells is a catcher
that they like. Hasn't killed it offensively, but he controls
the strike zone pretty well. You know, give him a chance.
I'm sure he'll be up soon. So maybe they can
find out some things here in the next couple of weeks.
And if you're Aired Boone, let's face it, Joey, Aaron
Boone is still being judged here. Maybe the playoffs are
(41:12):
out of the question, but how this team plays out
the rest of the season will go a long way,
maybe in terms of how he comes back. And as
you mentioned, he connects well with young players. If that's
where you're going, maybe he's still the right guy for you.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
I think he is. And if you touched on something there.
It's like the hiring process for coaches. They're going to
the you know, the drive line groups, and they're going
to guys that are all about tech and not about
experience and wisdom in the game. Again balance, Yes, I
want these guys, I would want them to be part
of the staff, but I still want you know, the
(41:43):
Larry Bows of the world and my dougout are on
the line for me or somewhere within the process of
the organization. You need that. Again, this is another component
of balance that I think has been absolutely ignored. When
I was coming up, you always had the experienced coach around,
whether it was Preston Gomez, whether it was Don Zimmer,
whether it was Dave Garce, whether it was John McNamara.
(42:06):
I had all these, Bob Cleary, I had all these
guys at my disposal coming up as a young coach.
The game was passed down to me from these guys, okay,
without their input and their wisdom and quite frankly, their toughness,
and the fact that I didn't get a worm fuzzy
from them. Only did if I if they thought I
(42:26):
did something well. I didn't get a trophy for not
being good at what I did, so that's missing. I
would love to see a resurgence in the hiring of
former players, coaches, et cetera. That can coach, that can teach,
there to augment and teach coaches young coaches. I don't
(42:47):
think that's being done. I'm running a minor league system. Yes,
I want to hire a lot of young fire. I
was one of those man. I was an absolute grunt.
I threw I took out the machines that rolled up
the cords, that pulled out the tarps, you do all
those things. But I needed Bob Aloo. There. I needed
Johnny McNamara. There. I needed Dave Garcia. There, I needed
(43:08):
Marcel Latchman. There. This cookie roster. I could go on
and on. These guys today don't have that benefit. Who's
passing the game along to the young coaches and the
minor leagues and even in the major leagues and thus
passing on the game itself. Scouts. Same thing I used
to love when the scouts came into town, Like whether
it was the Gene Thompson's of the world, you know,
(43:30):
the Thornton Lee's of the world, Eddie Howsen, all the guys,
all the dudes, Scottie Reed, the guys that taught me.
I wanted to talk to them. I'm running the instruction
league team. I'm on the field, I'm the coordinator. But
they're standing by the fans. I'm over there asking them questions. Right,
and these kids, these new coaches, don't have that opportunity.
(43:50):
So I'd like to see a resurgence of that, hiring
real baseball coaches to run your minor league system, to
be a part of your major league team. Don Zimmer
coming into my office in Tampa Bay the next day
after a game with the bag of Coney Island hot Dogs,
sit down, smirk at me, and we would recap the
day before his game. Wow. How beneficial is that to me?
(44:14):
I mean, that doesn't happen anymore, and it needs to.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
Yeah, you're driving at something that it's always been important
to me, and that is the difference between knowledge and wisdom, right.
I mean, I do I want guys in my staff
who have certificates from drive Line. Absolutely, There's no question
about it. We've learned so much in these pitching and
hitting labs. I want to take advantage of that. But
(44:38):
I also want here's that word again, the balance of
people who are teachers. Right, Teaching is a skill. Just
because you have a certificate in some area of expertise
doesn't mean that you are a great teacher. That certifies
that you have learned this particular area of expertise. But
(44:59):
connecting with people and actually passing on that knowledge, that's
where experience and wisdom comes in. That's what I want.
Look at the Atlanta Braves. They're the best team in baseball.
Look at their coaching staff, Ron Washington, Walt Weiss, salf Asano,
Rick Kranitz, years and years and years in the game.
Why are people not copying the best team in baseball
(45:20):
the Atlanta Braves when it comes to putting a staff together.
By the way, their manager baseball lifer mid to late sixties,
Brian Snicker. So you've got all that going now. In
the Yankees credit here. They did bring in Sean Casey
as their hitting coach midseason. Cas has not certainly been
to drive line, and you know, he's a former player
career three hundred hitter, has been at a game a
(45:42):
long time, so that was a bit of a risk.
But you look at their front office. They brought back
Brian Sabian, Omar Meanaya, they are acknowledging they want a
better balance here. But I think it will come to
their emphasis on how the information is delivered to players.
Who's driving the bust when it comes to instruction and acquisition.
Getting that input is great, but then how much is
(46:04):
that valued? How much is that driving decision making? And
that's why I say the Yankees are at a crossroads
in terms of their philosophies.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
What are you looking for? You're looking for control over
your people? Are you looking for leadership from your people?
When you want to control your people, that's self explanatory.
You want them to take what you give them and
have them implemented. I'm always about that. I'm always about
following organizational policy, but I'm also about we're talking about individualism,
(46:33):
coaches that can bring their wisdom to bear within the group.
So you're looking for control are you looking for leadership?
And leadership really requires the fact that you permit and
allow these guys to do their thing out there. And
I think that's an immediate difference between how this young
(46:55):
coaches are being hired today. You want a controllable asset.
You don't want one out there that you can empower
and let loose and bring to bear what he knows,
and also bring the organizational message to the player. I
see that as a stark difference, and I believe this
is true. The coaches from drive Line are very controllable.
Coaches that have played for the last twenty years or
(47:18):
coach for the last twenty twenty five years. They're going
to come with some opinions, man, and they're gonna have
to be convinced what you want to do is the
right thing to do. A great line from Colin Powell
that I try to incorporate all the time when he
talked about his loyalty to the president. I give him
my best advice something like that, and then I give
my strongest loyalty. In other words, when after we discuss this,
(47:41):
I'm going to tell you straight up if I agree
with you or not absolutely between the eyeballs. If I
don't agreement it so I don't agree. But after we
sit in the room, we have this discussion or argument,
whatever you want to call it, and I like arguments
about the right way to do this. Once we leave
this room, this is what we're doing. We have a consensus,
this is how it's going to be done. But I
don't think that that's I know it's not the method anymore.
(48:04):
Nobody wants that argument. They don't want the fellow that's
going to be there, the outlier that may challenge the
methods being employed. I think that's a mistake. So you
don't want just a controllable asset when it comes to
an employee. You want one that you can empower and
then receive the full benefit of his ingenuity, his imagination,
(48:28):
his experience that is not sought after anymore. That is
an absolutely true what I'm telling you right now, And
I think that needs to come back.
Speaker 1 (48:38):
Yeah, we keep coming back to the same word, right, balance,
And I think that's super important. And I'm assuming, Joe,
you're a fan of the band the Eagles. Yeah, right.
At one point they had two of the three biggest
selling albums of all time. I don't know if that's
still true, but that's pretty amazing, right. And I think
about a guy, an original member who died recently, Randy Meisner.
(49:01):
He was from Nebraska, interview introvert guy, just an incredible voice.
He started actually he came from the band Poco and
then was part of the Eagles. Their first gig. By
the way, was at Disneyland nineteen seventy one. So anyway,
Randy Meisner was not one of your lead bulls, right.
(49:21):
This is a band that had Don Henley, Joe Walsh,
Glenn Frye. Those are lead bulls, and Randy was the
one that his voice was the one on Ticket to
the Limit great tune, right, And they wanted him to
go center stage when he sang that song, and he
just didn't want to do it. It wasn't who he was.
He wasn't an alpha male, and he eventually wound up
(49:43):
leaving the band. It just became too much for them.
There's a lot of other things going on, as you know,
back in the nineteen seventies that got bands off their tracks. Yeah, baby,
but I just love the fact that you had this
introverted guy from Nebraska. It's part of what made the
team the team, what made the Eagles. Yeah, superstar talent,
(50:03):
but diversity of styles, diversity of personalities. You know, Randy Meisner,
you go back at the early Eagles stuff was just amazing.
Was eventually replaced by Timothy B. Schmidt, who actually replaced
them on Poco too. But yeah, I think about baseball
teams and rock and roll bands and kind of the
same vein where I don't want all of the same.
(50:25):
If it's a band of entirely of extroverts, we know
that's not going to last too long. And it's the
same way with the baseball team. You got hitters all
chasing the same thing. I'm sorry, that's not going to
be a championship team.
Speaker 2 (50:39):
I love all that, and that's that's a great breakdown.
I never had heard that before. And you just use
the word diversity. We're seeking that within our society, and
then all of a sudden, we want to get this
same approach to everything. It's so counterintuitive. Again, I think
it's it's a premier society in general too. We talk diversity,
but that's not what we want, at least that's not
(51:00):
what I'm seeing. So within a baseball organization, we used
to have the most intense arguments. In instructional league. I'm
like in my date twenties or early thirties, I'm running
the system, I'm running instructional leader, and here comes Bob
Clear in the room. I've talked to you about this,
and it was one morning. It was a picture of
a Mark McGuire on the cover of the Arizona Republic.
(51:23):
Hitting the ball in his hands were a certain way,
I said, bab Alu, check this out. His hands are perfect.
I love palm up, palm down, whatever, and boba is
and that's not what you want. This top hand needs
to be in this position rolling over, I said, you're
full of crap man. That led to half an hour
argument with my mentor loud in this back room of
(51:44):
Geenautry Park. That was a typical morning, typical when we
had meetings about players. It got loud and it was
varied opinions. It was great because everybody felt the ability
that it was fine, was okay to disagree and to
disagree vehemently if that was necessary. Not the case. No,
(52:05):
everybody's afraid to argue. Everybody's afraid to argue for their point,
and that's a mistake. I want. I want that group
that is talented, experienced and opinionated that we could get
together and arrive at some conclusions, because when you get
(52:25):
around people like that, you know you're gonna hear the truth.
You're going to hear the truth. It's not going to
be people telling you what you want to hear. And
that's the most dangerous place to be when you get
people telling you what you want, just what you want
to hear. That's my conception, that's what I believe in.
I flourished because of that. I'm sitting here talking to
(52:46):
you because of that. The best arguments ever. Every morning
in the back room taught me so much about the game.
Speaker 1 (52:54):
That's so well said. I mean, in any business, not
just baseball. Don't be afraid to have your positions and
opinions challenged. Welcome those and if he hears something different,
ask yourself, hey, can I use that? And maybe you don't,
Maybe eventually you dismiss it, but be open to being challenged.
It'll make you better.
Speaker 2 (53:14):
Right on, Totally in agreement.
Speaker 1 (53:15):
Cool stuff, Joe, I really enjoyed this. We'll see what
happens with the New York Yankees. It's been a strange
season to see them entering here September without really a
chance for the postseason. But I know you don't like
the word pivot, but to me, it's a chance for
the Yankees to pivot in what I call now the
modern game, the pitchclock, erara athleticism, ground balls, putting the
(53:36):
ball in play, moving runners. It's a beautiful thing and
hopefully it gets better along those lines. You got something
to take us out today.
Speaker 2 (53:42):
Yeah. One of my favorite authors is Nelson Demil, and
I've read most of his books, Believe it or not,
I've read most of his books, from Charms School to
Upcountry the Gold Coast, I read all these things. But
he wrote one called By the Rivers of Babylon, and
in that book the great line that I've kept with me,
and it really applies to everything we're talking about today.
(54:06):
I can't remember which character said it, but By the
Rivers of Babylon by Nelson the meal society will survive
if everyday people did every day things every day. An
organization will survive if every day people do every day
things every day. Be opinionated, tell me what you think,
but then be part of the group and support the group,
(54:26):
support the team, have each other's back. So I love that.
I've loved that. I mean, I read that book probably
I don't know, in the late seventies, early when whatever
the copyright is on that date, that's pretty much when
I read it. I started reading him The Talbot Odyssey
about it in the bookstore at the Vancouver Airport while
I was roving Vancouver British Columbia and from the Tabot Odyssey.
(54:49):
I just kept going and then this book really I
loved it. So yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:53):
I love that the answers to success are not complicated.
I remember one guy once said, do simple better.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
Yeah. I guess I was subconsciously impacted by not even
realizing by reading things like that.
Speaker 1 (55:09):
Cool stuff. Great show, Joe, We'll see you next time.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
All right, bye, give you well. Thanks.
Speaker 1 (55:21):
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