November 22, 2023 • 47 mins
The Book of Joe Podcast with hosts Tom Verducci and Joe Maddon welcomes World Series Champ Evan Carter to the podcast! Evan talks about joining the Rangers in late August and making a trip to the World Series at 21 years old. Tom looks back to how Evan got into baseball and his path to the big leagues. Evan missed out on his Senior season due to COVID and explains how he chose between college and the MLB Draft. Find out what's next for Evan now that he has a ring and the experience of winning a World Series!
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
The Book of Joe podcast is a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey Daron, Welcome back to the latest episode of the
Book of Joe Podcasts with Tom Berducci and my good
buddy Joe Madden. And Joe we got a special guest today,
(00:25):
and I mean special. We're talking about Evan Carter of
the World Series champion Texas Rangers. How does that sound, Evan?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
That's awesome. This has been This has been a ton
of fun.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Yeah, I got to start with this, Evan. What has
the last month or so been like for you, not
just playing in the postseason, but obviously winning the World
Series the parade. I mean, what a world win for you?
Just try to describe what the emotions have been like.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Yeah, you know, I feel a little bit spoiled just
because I kind of you know, you stepped in at
the end of the season and then get to experience
something that people don't get to experience for their whole careers,
and it's been really cool to see have people on
the team that have gotten to experience that and that
also have the perspective of, Hey, I've played for ten
years and not gotten to be in this spot before,
(01:13):
So it's really cool to get to experience that with
this group of guys.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
I mean, that's truer words have never been spoken. You know,
guys wait forever to get to that juncture. And it's
obviously I followed everything, and Tommy was with you there
on the ground and he spoke so glowingly of you
as a person also, But yeah, you handled yourself so
extremely well. I could just you're just dripping with poison
confidence right now as you're speaking to us and anything.
(01:37):
That's great and it's going to benefit as you move
forward to Again, congratulations on a wonderful first salvo into
the postseason, with many more to come. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Yeah, just so people kind of get the thumbnail of
how impressive Evan played throughout the postseason. Yeah, you think
about it. Just a couple of months before October, Evan,
you're playing in El Paso, and I'm not sure what
you saw the rest of your season playing out as,
but my goodness, you get promoted to Triple A before
you know it, Adultice Garcio is on the IL and
(02:07):
you get the call up to the big leagues and
then before you know it, you're playing in the postseason.
Started out hitting ninth for Bruce Boci wound up hitting
third in World Series Game one. Only Mickey Mantle was younger.
And it comes to starting the three hole in Game
one of a World Series, just amazing. In a postseason
(02:27):
in which you twenty three games, you hit over three
hundred on base over four hundred, slugging almost five hundred.
Just a remarkable run for you. So I gotta ask you, Evan,
I mean, you weren't on the radar of a lot
of people when you're playing at Alpasso midway through the summer.
What is on your radar? What are you looking forward
(02:48):
to as far as playing out the year.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Yeah, you know, obviously, nobody wants to be a career
minor league so when you're in the minor leagues, you're
just kind of, you know, you're preparing yourself to be
able to get to the big leagues and help them win.
So that's the goal, and that's what you're always looking
forward to. And you know, I think once you get
to double A and triple A, you kind of feel like,
you know, you're right there, you're kind of right on
the cusp of being able to do that. And so yeah,
(03:11):
whenever I got moved from double A to Triple A.
That was just kind of like one step closer to
like your in goal of being able to make it
to the big leagues. And then you know, it was
it was crazy this year I got you know, you
get to debut and then next thing you know, you're
in the playoffs, and then each each series is kind
of like you don't really have time to slow down
and step back and be like, oh, wow, you know
you're in the big leagues. Now, next thing you know,
(03:32):
you're in you know, every game matters, and you're in.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
The World Series.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
So it was a ton of fun though it was
it was it was awesome.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
Yeah, that's one of the things, like you that's what
you just said is so true. It's been true for
one hundred years. You're in the minor leagues wondering will
I ever get this opportunity, When is that opportunity going
to occur? And and you could be in the Middleville
Passo this summer, then at the end of the year
in the parade. It's just the nature of this game.
You just can't predict what's going to happen from when
(04:00):
you're to the next and that's why it's so important.
And I know you're at all the time, and it
seems like you're of that ilk too. Really appreciate the day,
seize the day, as they say, and take care of
your business today because you just don't know. But yeah,
I think that's spectacular. Just quickly though, L Passo. Did
you ever hear the ballpark the Dudley Dome there? Did
(04:20):
anyboy ever talk about the old Dudley domon in L Paso? Now,
that was the original ballpark there, which is right next
to the border with Mexico, and they'd have twenty five
cent beer night. I've seen some of the best fights
of my life in the stands at the Dudley Dome.
I want to even included Chris Bosio thrown at my
shortstop where both benches emptied. I had a shortstop going
(04:43):
to stands after a game. I had first baseman go
outfield of going with them afterwards. I had to run
back out out of the clubhouse to break this fight
in the stands on twenty five cent beer night at
the Dudley Dome. When I hear El Paso, L Paso
was like the epicenter of the fun part about minor
league baseball, and I loved it there that's awesome, Evan.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
You don't have those kind of stories from El Paso.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
No, no, I don't have any stories on that.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Yeah, it sounds like it.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
I think they've tamed down. I think they moved. They
moved all.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
I gotta tell you, Evan, I know you were on
the road in Double A called up the Triple A
on the road. I went back and looked at this,
and I know you probably maybe not aware of the numbers,
but all the time you've been in hotels, starting the
middle of August, for the next ninety three days, you
played fifteen home games. I mean, it's just a remarkable.
(05:38):
And of course this Texas team is going to be
known all time for going eleven and oh on the
road in the postseason, which is crazy. So I we
spoke about your whirlwind and how fast things happened, but
it's amazing to me how much of it was on
the road. So give us an idea of what life
is like. Literally, I would imagine living out of your
(06:00):
suitcase for that long from I understand you were living
at a hotel in across from the ballpark in Arlington.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Yeah, I mean it was it was definitely you know,
you can't complain about the big league hotels at all.
You know, I'm not gonna sit here and complain about that.
But you know, my wife and I we got really
good at living out of a suitcase. And like you said,
we were living out of a hotel in Arlington too,
so it was no different whenever we got whenever we
got home. But I mean, just you know, you have
(06:26):
your little I probably had seven outfits or so, the
seven collared shirts and seven pairs of pants that I
was just running through, you know, doing laundry at the
field and stuff. But it was I wouldn't trade it
for the world though. I mean, it was a ton
of fun.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
I also heard you were running your laundry over to
the Jenkowski's house. Is that true?
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Yeah, yeah, yeah they were.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
They were nice enough to let us come over there
and do some laundry too.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
It was It's crazy.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
The hotels were charging by the shirt to do laundry,
so I wasn't about to do that.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
That's awesome. Just buy a new shirt.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
It's cheaper, brother, yeahs is gosh. I mean think about
it now.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
I guess we really did spend our whole fall kind
of living out of a hotel.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
But I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
That's amazing. Hey, I've talked to Joe about this. Your
approach at the plate. We really need to dive into that.
I know, I guess it was in the minor leagues
you got the nickname full Count Carter because it seemed
like every time you got up there, the count was
getting full. Your plate discipline is just really amazing for
any player of any age, but to see that someone
(07:28):
at twenty one, to me, is remarkable. I'm wondering, Evan,
where that developed. Is there something that you can do
growing up as a hitter to really imprint upon your mind,
you know what the strike zone is, where the boundaries are,
or is that something that just came to you naturally?
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Oh, you know, I think that it came.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
It's never something that I've really worked on as far
as like the way I've always thought about the strike
zone is just kind of like I want to know
what I can hit and what I can't hit.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
So for me, it's just always been one of those things.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
If a picture makes a good pitch on the edge
of the zone, what am I really going to be
able to do with that? You know, the majority of
the time anyways, So just being really stubborn and picky
to kind of the heart of the zone for me
and what I want to be able to hit well.
And if a picture makes you know, three really good pitches,
good for him. But the chances are that you know
(08:24):
they will miss in the heart of the zone, and
when they do, you know you can't.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
You can't miss whenever he does.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
So, uh, that's just kind of been the way I've
always approached it, especially when stuff kind of starts is
on the edge, is just just let it go. Uh,
he's trying to fool me. So I don't wanna. I
don't wanna, you know, all.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
For that, I guess those type of things I was
Tommy asked the question. I already had that written down
plique discipline. I mean, okay, you just said is a
wonderful explanation. But was there anybody that really, uh suggested
this to you at a young age or is this
something that you just figured out. I got to do this.
If I do this, I'm going to become more popular
as a hitter. I'm going to be a better hitter
(09:00):
because they do have a more finite strike zone. Because
to me, you just that's such a mature answer. I'm
just curious that you had There had to be one
mentor I would imagine that helped you organize that thought
or is just all on your own.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
I you know, I grew up pitching.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
I didn't necessarily really grow up hitting, so I kind
of always that my mindset kind of comes from the
pitching side of things, I guess more so than the
hitting side of things. Okay, I don't necessarily think that
I've ever had somebody as far as just my mindset
about that. I've had a ton of people in my
life helped me with my swinging and you know.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
But as far as like approach and stuff, that's just
kind of been how I've always approached it.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
I guess, well, you know, for me, that's that's something
that normally, I mean, I think every organization wants that.
They want hitters that normally have really good plate discipline,
that are willing to accept their walks, that are not
going to expand their strike zone for me, and you're
always trying to nurture that among your minor league players.
It's hard to do unless you come with it, unless
you come equipped with that, unless you purchase that, which
(10:01):
they did with you when they saw you. I'm sure
this got report had something about your ability to organize
a strike zone except the walk. Whatever the method of
describing it was, but it is. I mean, it's something
I was hitting coach of the Angels for many years
in the minor leagues, and I was always about that.
It was always about attempting to balance walks to strikeouts.
(10:23):
Whatever the number of times you struck out, I'd like
to see it walk a similar number of times. Now.
Of course, a power hitter, a really legit guy, I
could take more strikeouts overwalks, no question, but less than
power hitter, a guy that needs to move the ball
gap hitter, kind of like yourself. I always wanted the
numbers to be balanced, and I thought if they were,
(10:44):
then you're going to see the greatest potential of this
particular player. This is what he's capable of doing. This
is the batting average he should have pretty much annually.
This is the on base percentage it should pretty much
have annually. Long, long, not even a question, but I
respect all that. If I look at your numbers before
we did this, and the fact that you created these
(11:05):
own thoughts just from pitching, it's pretty impressive. But beyond that, man,
what you do is sought after by many organizations almost all.
It was something that was really big in the American
League East when I managed in Tampa. You had to
get hitters out in the strike zone. Pitchers have to
get you out in the strike zone, and that makes
it very difficult to get you out.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Well, I appreciate that. Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
I mean, you know, I definitely think that on base
percentage is something that I've always kind of if I
had a goal or something that I wanted to strive
for as a hitter, on base percentage would be something
that I would put up there. Just as far as
like I want to feel like I see a lot
of pitches. I want to feel like I get on
base more so more often than most people. And then
(11:50):
I also want to feel like once I get on
base that I can you know, turn a walk into
a double or you know, with a stolen base, or
make the picture in the back of his head. You know, Hey,
now the guy coming up behind me, you know, is
gonna maybe see some better pitches as a picture on
the mountains thinking about a base runner on base, you know,
And it's just kind of in the back of his head,
so always trying to, I guess, get on base and
(12:11):
cause a little bit of a little bit of hecticness
for the picture.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
I guess I'll leave it alone. But I mean, like drill,
do you do when you take batting practice? Do you
refuse to swing at certain pitches?
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (12:23):
I think that in batting practice, you know, it can
That's a great way to practice is just you know,
be stubborn to I'm not just going to be swinging
at everything. You know, hey, if it's not a pitch
that I can drive in the game, I'm not going
to try and swing at it. And batting practice and
just be swinging at everything. You know, have have some
intent behind your practice as well.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
For sure. I used to throw a lot of VP
for the Angels in the early eighties in Major league camp,
and Rod crew is among that group, And I could
just see it in my mind's eye right now, throwing
a VP and you're throwing you know, you got to
throw a lot of strikes with these guys hate you
so but he would take one pitch kind of like
belt tie a little bit more than bell tieh and
(13:03):
I thought it was just right on the outside edge
but it was there and he took it every time.
And that always impressed me with Rodney thrown to him
is that he was so structured, and you know, you're
kind of describing him as you're describing yourself. He was
so disciplined, and he would he would be very big
on that too, as he was the hitting coach there
(13:23):
eventually too, But to really maintain your strike zone even
during batting practice and not just go up there haphazardly
swinging at everything. So I guess I'm comparing you to
Rodney a little bit based on what you're describing to me,
because that's how he would approach his batting practices. And again,
it was amazing, same pitch, never swung at it.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Well, Joe, as long as we're talking about comps, you know,
as I'm watching Evan throughout the postseason, the guy who
came to my mind and Evan, this is going back
before your time, I know, But Don Mattingly, I mean,
I just saw the body type, very similar, command of
the strike zone, more power than what you would think
as someone steps in the box. You know, Evan's not
(14:03):
an imposing guy in terms of weight or muscular muscularity.
But Donni Manningly was the same way. And listen that
you're talking about a former MVP, a guy who won
batting titles, you know before he hurt his back at
one of the best hitters young hitters I ever saw.
And I know that Don Manningly went to winter Ball
one year after his brief cameo in the big leagues, Evan,
(14:26):
and he specifically went there to see more left handed pitching.
And I know next year, I expect expect that Bruce
Bochi will allow you to get more run against left
handed pitching. We started to see that as the postseason
went on. But not sure if you know or heard
anything about Don Manningley, Evan, but you know this game,
we'd love to do our comps that stuck out for me.
(14:47):
And I'm just wondering for you if there were any
swings that you watched, either growing up transitioning from pitching
to hitting or even now in the big leagues left
handed hitters that you like to watch.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Yeah, I think the I think that growing up for me,
somebody that I always watched and kind of wanted to
be kind of like would be Christian Yelich. For me,
I loved his swing in high school and in middle school. Gosh,
I just loved watching him hit still do. And you
know that's somebody that I would probably kind of say
that I tried to emulate.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
A little bit.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
That's a great COMPI they're.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
Talking about the power Tommy too, and again I'm looking
at his numbers. That's going to come. You're going to
hit for more power consistently as you get older. I
believe the fact that you get the ball in the
gaps at a young age is most exciting to me.
I had Garrett Anderson and Jimmy Edmonds at very young
age and they were like that. They didn't hit for
power necessarily young, but there were always any gap, And
(15:45):
when they came up to the big leagues, all of
a sudden, the Holmans home runs started to become more plentiful.
Because what you do is you understand what you're doing,
and like you alluded to earlier, you get into that
good count and you see your pitch, you don't take it,
you don't fail it off, you hit it hard to
keep it fair. And when you get to that point
maturity wise, as a hitter, I think that's where the
power comes. You're going to bigger and stronger too. If
you saw pictures of Ga when he was a baby
(16:07):
compared to what he was like when he was twenty
seven to twenty eight years of age, completely different bodies.
So again, I'm totally confident. I don't even know it's
important to you or not, but I believe as you
go through this thing, and as you understand this even more,
the power is going to show up.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Well, Evan was a guy I think for a lot
of people. Joe first heard about him in the postseason,
with obviously the national exposure. But if you go back
to high school, you wonder where were all the scouts.
Baseball America would pick the top five hundred prospects in
the country, and Evan Carter was not on that list.
(16:44):
I want to ask him about that. What the scouts missed?
Right after we take a quick break, all right, Evan,
I mentioned that back in high school, an exactly a
(17:05):
known quantity among the scouting circle. Of course, it was
the COVID year, and I think you played only about
three games before your high school season was canceled in Tennessee.
But from I understand, you also were not one of
these guys out on the showcase circuit where a lot
of these names bubble up to the surface and it'd
become well known to scouts. So tell me about your
(17:25):
approach and whether you were playing travel ball and doing
the whole perfect game and showcase circuit thing.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
Yeah, I did play travel ball.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
I was never on a big team.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
I would say, I didn't pay a lot of money
to go down to Florida or Georgia or stuff like
that to be on these big teams and play you know,
the entire summer and fall. I never really did any
of the showcases or anything like that. I just kind
of I just played games. That's all I did. And
I would also say too that I was probably a
little bit more of a late bloomer. I was kind
of a baby giraffe in high school, just really tall,
(17:59):
really fast, and then hadn't really grown into myself, I guess,
but I would say probably my junior year of high
school was whenever I started to get a little bit
more serious about baseball. That was the first time that
I played fall ball and tried to you know, get
on a little bit maybe better teams and kind of
get in front of some more people and just you know,
(18:21):
it was it worked out the way it was supposed to.
You know, this was mine and my parents, obviously, our
first experience with kind of the whole how do we
get in front of who we're supposed to and we
ended up we ended up being able to do that.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
That's refreshing. I love hearing that, man, you did it.
I mean, for me, you did it absolutely correctly to
pay large sums of money to go and travel ball.
And I guess some guys do increase their market in
a sense. But if you're good, you're gonna be you're
gonna be found. You're good, you were really good, and
that you were found. I love what you did. I
(18:54):
love you. I just played games. I just played baseball. Man,
I wish more would adopt that method right there. I
think it's great. Too many times I can't bothers me
that parents spent all this money for special lessons, in
sending kids to different states, and they don't even represent
their cities anymore. Whether it's Little League, American Legion ball, whatever,
it might be good a good old fashioned summer league team.
(19:16):
And I'm not trying to date myself. I just think
there's a lot to be gained from that, and so listen,
I really respect and appreciate what you did. I think
it's great. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
So Evan, you got to tell the story then of
how the Texas Rangers did find you in a COVID
year in a shortened draft, and what happened on draft day.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
So, like I said, my junior year, that was the
first time that I'd really played fall ball. I did
the I went down to Jupiter, Florida and played in
a tournament there and ended up, I guess getting There
were some scouts there that ended up I built a
relationship with them there, and then there was a small
(19:57):
I guess camp that the Rangers actually organized themselves at
a hitting facility. So it was just kind of, hey,
we're gonna have a bunch of their scouts and a
bunch of people kind of in the area at the
same time. Let's have some guys come in and just
you know, take VP, hit, work out whatever. So I
ended up getting invited to that through the relationship that
I have built. So I went and did that, and
(20:18):
that's kind of the first time I got around, you know,
the scouting directors and a little bit more of the
front office people.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
But then obviously we.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Got shut down for covid H, so that was kind
of you know, hey, I don't know what's gonna happen
after this, Like you know, you can't talk to anybody
in person anymore. Your relationships are just kind of cut off.
You don't get to you know. I played I don't
remember how many, either one or two high school games,
and it was just over, like you know, hey, we'll
be back in two weeks. And then next thing you know,
they're like, actually school years shut down. Everything's done, like
(20:47):
we're not coming back. It was a crazy time, but
the draft ended up eventually showing up, and we had
no idea what to expect, just because I mean, there's
like it was just so I don't know, we didn't
have any whole senior season was completely cut out, so
you know, we had talked to some people and kind
of had an idea, Hey, this might happen, but you know,
(21:09):
you can't you can't count on that until you know,
you get the phone call and then we end up. Well,
I was fortunate enough to get the phone call that
they were going to be picking me, so that was
kind of the dramatic. I guess mysterious circumstances that I
got to go through there.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
It was a lot of fun though, Evan, did you
have colleges offering you scholarships? What was the decision like
to sign with Texas?
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Yeah, so I actually I was committed to go to
Duke University. School was kind of first on my radar,
and that's what was important to me at the time.
I was kind of using baseball as a means to
get an education, so that was what was really important
to me. Pro Ball wasn't really on my mind until,
you know, until it was a possibility, you know, late
(21:55):
in my high school career. But they Duke was actually
the only school that offered me. They were the first
and only school to get offer me a scholarship. So
that's where I committed. That's where I had signed to
go play baseball. But I when the Rangers called and
we kind of discussed with them, school will always be there,
the opportunity to play pro ball will not always be there.
(22:15):
So that was kind of my mindset going forward as
if you know, pro ball ended up not working out,
I would be able to go back to school and
you know, have the opportunity.
Speaker 4 (22:24):
To do that. Just quick question, do they cover school?
Is that part of the contract these days, because we
had a college scholarship plan when I was scouting, so
you could get to go to Duke or any school
if in fact you're done playing. How does that work?
Speaker 3 (22:37):
So they they cover, however much, four years of tuition
at the school that you were that you would sign
your letter of intent to go to.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
That's how much they cover.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
For your college. Got it.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
It's pretty amazing you think about it and how quickly
Evan you developed because I think in that first year
when you did play pro ball in twenty twenty one,
you had a back injury, struggled, you know, to get
on the field as much as you want. I'm sure
talk about the adjustment when you got into pro ball.
I know the batting average wasn't what you would love,
(23:10):
but the on base percentage was still high. What did
you find to be the biggest adjustment, especially after losing
your high school season in twenty to pro ball in
twenty one.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Yeah, I think the biggest adjustment for me was just
I had never played that much baseball before. I mean,
you know, you play a couple games a week in
high school, but it's you know, seven innings of baseball.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
It's not nine innings. You know, those extra two innings
are a big deal.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
And then all of a sudden you're playing every single day.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Of the week.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
It was just you know, obviously you're away from home,
but I would just I would say that playing that
much baseball was the biggest adjustment for me. And then
not only are you playing that much baseball, but it's
also against the best competition for your age that you
can find anywhere. So it's mentally and physically just a
lot more taxing than anything that I had.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Ever experienced before.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
And I didn't necessarily know how to deal with that
at the time, But that's what the minor leagues are for,
you knowigure out how to deal with that and how
to manage yourself physically and mentally, and how to be
able to show up every single day and compete to
the best of your ability. And that's you know, that
was my first experience with learning how to do that.
And then you know, got to take my experiences from that,
(24:19):
even though they were shortened, and learned from it and
make a plan and figure out how it was going
to be better at that and you know, kind of
apply that going forward.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
And Evan, I'm sure there was another adjustment to major
League Baseball. Were there certain guys in the team that
were I'm sure everybody in that clubhouse and it is
a fantastic clubhouse, that group of guys. There anybody that
you especially connected with in terms of just telling you
what major League baseball is.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
About as far as on the on the big league team.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Yeah, on the big league team, because I know, you know,
it's it's a little bit different than minor leagues and
in terms of just your work day and preparation and
information and all that.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Yeah, you know, I think that.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
I think what makes or what made our team special
this year was just the lot of people that whenever
I did first get there, it wasn't just one guy
that kind of like took me under his wing and
was like, hey, this is what it's all about. Like,
it was the whole team.
Speaker 4 (25:13):
You know.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
There was a bunch of guys on there that took
me under that were like, hey, this is this is
what it's all about.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Everybody had their own unique perspective.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
You know, You've got people that are you got the
Max Scherzers who are eighteen years older than me, and
then you've got people that are kind of similar to
my age that this is their first year too. So
it was it was a really really cool experience that
I got to learn from, just with so many different perspectives,
and you know, nobody was there wasn't a bad personality
on the team. You know, I felt like I could
(25:41):
talk to anybody and they talked to me.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
So But if I had to.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
Name one person, I think Brad Miller would definitely be
the person that I would throw out there. That was
that was definitely above and beyond as far as showed
me the ropes.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
And I should have asked you this. But when you
did come up to the big leagues, your first game
single and you're first at bat, I think you also
had a stolen base just from the outfield. Walk me
through that first game and what you felt just being
there putting the uniform on, and then what it was
like for that first at bad first hit.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Yeah, I mean, I gosh, I think I was more
nervous for my debut game than I was Game one
of the World Series. It's all the emotions at once,
you know, it's so much It's so much fun. I mean,
you get to go out there and this is what
you've dreamed of and worked for your entire life. You know,
it's just this is it's kind of all built up
to that one moment, and uh, you know, whether it
(26:36):
goes good or it goes bad, you want to remember
it that you had fun and that you went out
there and you just, you know, soak it in. And
you know, I don't want to. I don't want to
remember it as a negative moment by any means. So
it was you never gonna go out there and try
and help the team win. But you know, selfishly, you
want to soak it all in and just enjoy that
moment for sure.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
I just want to I'm listening to you, man, I'm
listening to you intently, and my my thought is that
when this when we're done with this podcast today, we
should send you a copy so that the Rangers can
play this back for all their minor league players and
how to do this thing properly. Listen. I don't know you.
I'm just meeting you for the very first time, but
(27:18):
I can't tell you how exactly everything you're talking about.
I would agree with how you've done it, your full
personal philosophy, your work ethic, how you approach that day,
the fact that you wanted to enjoy this really special moment. Yeah,
you've got to be nervous as heck, your first major
league moment at bat. But then you come to the
(27:38):
World Series and you treated it almost like a regular game,
which is why you were so successful. But yeah, man,
just might be jumping the gun, but just stay on
the path that you're on. This is really interesting for
me to listen to, and I think this is something
that a lot more young players, not only professionally, but
(27:59):
guys coming up through the amateur rights trying to become
a professional. What you're describing and how you're describing to
me right on the money, Thank you.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Yeah, I mean you think about what Evan did in
the postseason especially. First of all, the regular season was fantastic.
In twenty three games, the number is very similar to
the first twenty three games of Juan Soto. It's that
kind of combination of power and walks on base percentage.
But in the postseason, you know, at the age of
twenty one, with thirty total bases, there's only been two
(28:29):
other players who have done that that young in the postseason,
Jan Soto being one of those. In twenty nineteen and
Miguel Cabrera going back to two thousand and three. I mean,
a pretty darn good company. So you've got to ring Evan.
You've got this World Series experience, You've got your foothold
(28:51):
established in the big leagues. I got to ask you,
what's your off season going to be like? Because I
know you're a guy that's always striving to be better,
certainly not satisfied with where you're at right now moving forward.
So give me an idea of what your off season
is going to be like, what you want to accomplish,
what your training's like, what's ahead for Evan Carter.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
I think as far as the off season goes, obviously
it got cut short by quite a bit with the postseason,
but that's that's a really really good problem to have.
But it's right now, I'm just kind of taking it,
taking it easy. I'm taking a break for a couple
of weeks. I'll start getting back in the weight room,
just moving the body around and trying to eat a
(29:33):
whole lot and gain the weight back that I've lost
from this season. Just trying to get back in a
little bit heavier like I was to start the season
last year and then probably middle of December, I'll start
swinging the bat again.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
I don't have any huge.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
Mechanical changes that I want to work on or change
this offseason. I just kind of want to get in
there work on some certain pitch shapes attacking those. I
definitely want to work on, you know, left handed shapes
and things like that, and just I really really want
to get more consistent with what I've already got. I
just kind of, I know, that was one of the
biggest things for me, was not necessarily changing anything, but
(30:09):
just hey, with what I have, how can I be
way more consistent with my load and my you know,
kind of how I approach my bat. So that's that's
some of the things that I want to work on.
I'm very loose when it comes to the off season.
I don't I'm not somebody that's going to be like,
I've got to do this, this and this to get everything,
(30:30):
you know, the way I want it to do. It
just kind of kind of always is going to work
out the way that it's supposed to is the way
I approach it.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
That's interesting. You mentioned your weight, Evan, because you're listed
at one ninety. What's your preferred weight? And how much
weight did you lose by the time you got to
the World Series? How much did you weigh?
Speaker 3 (30:47):
Yeah, so I gosh one ninety. I wish I weighed
one ninety still right now, honestly, I probably weigh about
one hundred and eighty pounds.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
And for me, the weight has been one of those.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Tricky things that it's like everybody around me and outside
of the organization says, oh, I can't wait for you
to gain weight so you can get stronger and hit
the ball harder. For me, I don't necessarily think weight
has as obviously it would make me. You know, I
would like to weigh more, But at the end of
(31:21):
the day, if I don't, I just need to rotate
faster to hit the ball harder, so I can get
stronger without, you know, weighing two hundred and twenty pounds.
But for me, I think weight gain is going to
help me feel better throughout thought and the entirety of
the season. Obviously, I don't want to weigh one hundred
and seventy five pounds because one hundred and you know,
sixty games throughout an entire season is going to weigh
(31:44):
even more on you than it would be if I
had a little bit of a cushion, I guess so, yeah,
that's kind of the big thing for me, is just
to have a little bit of wiggle room and cushion
to help the body feel better at the end of
the year.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
I think I know the answer to this already, but
just curiously, I'm just based on everything you've been talking about,
will you at some point this winter already have you
already done it, like sit down and try to establish
some specific goals for yourself for next season or is
that another thing that you just like to almost organically
permit to happen.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
I don't necessarily like to.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
Set a certain goal of like, all right, this is
what I want to happen, because if that doesn't happen.
I mean, baseball is such a hard sport. It's hard
to set goals and be like, well, if I don't
reach that goal, then what. So for me, it's just
something that's like, all right, I want to put an
emphasis on this to be better at this, and whatever
(32:41):
happens from that is going to happen, you know. If
it's for me, all right, I want to be better
at hitting left handed pitching. Okay, I'm not going to
set a goal for what that's going to look like,
but I know that I'm going to put the effort
forward to be better at that. So that's just that's
kind of how I organize myself for things.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Joe, I think you can see why this guy is
so impressive. I mean, if you just didn't look at
the back his baseball card, you'd think he'd have five
six years already into the big leagues. Just a mature
approach at the plate, and obviously off the field as well.
I know obviously your family too, Evan is a big
part of your success, and your wife traveling around I'm
(33:19):
sure throughout this last couple of months. So how important
has family been for you?
Speaker 4 (33:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (33:25):
I mean, gosh, I wouldn't be at the physician i'm
at without the support of my wife. I mean, how
much she did for me, making my life so much
easier on the road and at home either one. I mean,
it's so vital for me to have something to come
home too at the end of the day and just
get my mind off of baseball, and for her to
be able to provide that for me, it was invaluable.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
That's so impressive. So happy to hear all about your success. Evan,
your story is really amazing. I think it proves that,
like Joe said, if you've got the talent, baseball will
find you. And I'm sure there's better things even ahead
for you after what's been just an amazing year. I'm
sure you're able to soak it up or hopefully you
are now looking back on it. Just an amazing year
(34:10):
and we really look forward to even better things in
the future for you. So thanks so much for joining us.
Really love this chat.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
Thank you, I appreciate you all this This is a
ton of fun.
Speaker 4 (34:20):
Yeah, just again, really, congratulations on your season, Happy holidays,
enjoy Europe. I love your perspective. Man, just stay right there.
It's going to serve you well for many years to come.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
It means a lot.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
We'll have some closing thoughts right after this. Well, Joe,
hopefully you and I and anybody listening to this podcast
understands even more about why Evan Carter is so special.
(34:54):
I mean, it was just watching him play in the
postseason you had to keep reminding yourself this kid's only
twenty one years old. But now to listen to him
and to think about his process and his story of
how he got there in the first place. I'm even
more blown away, and I'm reminded there was an old
scout you probably knew him, Joe Buddy Kerr, and he
(35:17):
talked about John Oliroud and a very young point in
John's career where he called him a repeater, and what
he meant by that was Oliroud had such a balanced approach,
such a sweet swing at the plate, and such kind
of an easy going disposition that there weren't going to
be ups and downs to his career. And listening to Evan,
(35:39):
that's who I thought about, was John Olerud, and Evan Carter,
to me, looks like a repeater. He's a guy if
you're the Texas Rangers, you do not worry about You
don't worry about success going to his head. You don't
worry about him whether he's going to hit for power.
You don't worry about him being ready to play on
a night in, night out. Basis that I know you
(36:02):
know this, Joe, That is a manager's dream. And again
at twenty one years old, amazing.
Speaker 4 (36:08):
What a great description. The repeater makes all the sense
in the world. We were just talking a little bit
before we got back on but I you know you
oftentimes compare you. I meet this twenty one year old
today for the very first time, World Series kind of hero,
came up meteoric rise to get to the big leagues,
and I think to myself, Man, I just the conversation
(36:29):
he just had with us that wasn't even in my
near my playbook at that particular juncture in my life.
It's so impressive to just hear him put a sentence together, explain,
like you said, his process, what's in store, how he's
going to go about his business, what it means regarding
his family and what his wife had done. Everything. Everything
he talked about right down to was plate discipline, and
(36:52):
he describes that as like as a pitcher, I recognized
that it's important to have. So I will out there
and I create plate discipline for myself as a hitter.
The Rangers have something special here, man, There's no question
they know that. But I think we mentioned it in
the podcast. I would have this guy talk to my
minor league players at some point. Maybe you don't want
(37:14):
to put too much on him too soon. Going back
to camp this year, however, I think he can handle
almost anything when it comes to being out front being
an elite singer or whatever he is. He does it
in a very poison balanced way. But that is the
Rangers having him at such a young age. They got
(37:35):
to feel wonderful about all of this moving forward. Like
he said, he's not going to change if anything's just
going to get better. He's not going to fall backward
as a person. I don't think ever, So there's a
lot to bet on right there. And I was over
the top impressed.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
Yeah, I was even impressed when he talked about his
weight Joe, because I think there is, you know, almost
a type of peer pressure in the game to continue
to get big. And I think most fans be amazed
if they see these players up close, how big they
actually are. But sort of like the guy he mentioned,
Christian Yelich, I think he's got a great baseball body
(38:14):
that does not need to get bigger. Now. One to
seventy five is probably too thin, right, just to hold
up to the riggers of a season. But he should
not feel like he needs to add muscles just for
the sake of being bigger. I think that's not his game. Listen,
you're talking about a guy last year in twenty three games.
I know It's a small sample, but he slugged six
(38:35):
forty five. I've seen him absolutely destroy pitches. I mean,
this guy on fastballs is just light out. I mentioned
he does have to work on hitting against left handed
pitching just because he hasn't seen much of it yet.
But I don't want to see him get bigger. To
be honest with you, I think where he's at right now,
(38:56):
it's a great baseball body. He's extremely fast. I mentioned
Don Mattingly. Just think if Don Mattingly had plus wheels,
that's having carter to me. So even that was a
mature approach or or at least a perspective that he
gave us in terms of his weight.
Speaker 4 (39:12):
Here's what my I mean For me, my scouting background
helps because I did scout. I did Scott in nineteen
eighty one, and then I would go ahead and manage
rookie ball. Then I eventually went ahead and managed a ball, etc.
But you see these guys that come in at eighteen,
nineteen twenty years of age, great athletes, really thin, lacked
(39:32):
strength or muscle, whatever you want to call it. But
over just the next couple of years, and I'm not
talking about eating a lot, we didn't have the weight
training program or the methods at our disposal then as
we do now, and eventually they became bigger, stronger dudes
without a whole lot of effort. I just it's a
natural progression. And the way he described that, I get
(39:54):
that he doesn't want to overly emphasize that because he's
just going to create more torque centers or batspeed. And
I get that. But I from my own eyes, almost
every player that I had that turned into really good
Major League baseball players started out somewhat thin. As I mean.
I saw Jose Canseco in Medford, Oregon, when he was
(40:16):
I don't know, right out of Miami, whatever it was.
The guy was real thin. I saw Mark McGuire and
I know, talking about two guys from the Stairway ere.
I get that. But I saw Mark McGuire at the
Geodatry Park when he was just right out of USC
and my god, he was thin, and then all of
a sudden he did get bigger. I get that, But overall,
there's a lot of guys that I had had that
(40:37):
naturally just got to that moment. He's gonna he's gonna
get bigger, he's gonna get stronger, and like I said,
the fact that he's a gap guy and he goes
the other guy, he knows the apple gap. To me,
that is so attractive and regarding regarding developing power as
he moves forward, and then with that's gonna come more
runs in RBIs, et cetera. He's got it right. He's
(40:57):
just gonna go and he's gonna the goals are going
to be just to to do the right thing and
set up the right process and eventually the result is
going to be exactly what he's looking for. And I
love that.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
Yeah. And speaking of you know, kind of putting on
your scouts, hatch, I'm curious your take on this. When
you see a young player like this who does have
an extraordinary command of the strike zone, not just good,
it's extraordinary. That guy's going to be a star. I
don't know about you, but I think there's only so
far you can go with hitters in terms of plate discipline.
(41:31):
Can it be improved? Absolutely? Can you go from a
guy who chases wildly to a guy who's an Evan Carter? No,
I don't think that can happen. I think it's sort
of like change ups with pitchers. You have a feel
for it or you don't. There's only incremental movements that
you can make. So I feel that way about plate discipline.
(41:52):
It's sort of like the idol of a car engine.
It is what it is, and maybe you can tweak
it a little bit, but you're not going to take
a guy who's undisciplined and tournament to Evan Carter. And
I think when you have Evan Carter, he's not going
to regress into a guy who's going to swing wildly.
So I think when we see this base of plate
discipline at twenty one, my goodness, that this guy is
(42:16):
going to put up just amazing numbers. I'm talking about
on base percentage and batting average.
Speaker 4 (42:22):
Tell me, I think that's a great evaluation. And I
cannot agree with you more. If the organization wants that,
you've got to purchase that normally, whether it's out of
the draft, a high school kid, college kid, or just
by free agent signing or somebody from another organization. Once
you've identified somebody like that and that's what you want,
you got to go get it, Go get it, bring
that into the organization. Because you're right, and I've gone
(42:45):
through this, I've gone through this. As a hitting coach,
one of my biggest things was it was the attempt to,
like I said earlier, increase walks and diminish the strikeout.
So I had something called the b hack, my two
strike approach. All this stuff. The thing that I found
as a hitting coach it is somewhat easier to give
a hitter tools to not strike out than it is
(43:08):
to give them tools to accept the walk. That was
my opinion. There's just different things like again, you could
it's a mental adaptation to cut down in your swing,
maybe choke up, maybe look away first. These are things
that they can do without really trying to change their
DNA as a hitter, but to get them to actually
walk more while their proclivity is to swing. I'm a
(43:31):
swing man. I want to swing, go ahead, And so
if you could get them just to maybe be a
little bit more disciplined with the two strike, A bigcount
is the full count. The full count's a bigcount where
guys just want to swing. You might have to have
these kinds of conversations. And what I would do, I
would take them out to the cage and set up
a pitching machine, more than likely a breaking ball that
(43:51):
would start out as a strike and become a ball.
And I literally practice taking pitches and not swing at it.
I want you to watch where this pitch begins, how
it concludes, go through your whole process, shut it down,
accept the ball, except your walk harder to do so
you're right on the money. I love it. And if
I have a bunch of dudes that make pitchers pitch
(44:13):
and throw and force them, like I said, to get
you out in the strike zone. Wow, that's what That's
how good offensive team is created.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
Well think about this too, Joe. I think this is
just the opening of a window for the Texas Rangers.
Evan Carter is still qualified as a rookie next year.
They also have Wyatt Langford prospect you're going to see
an outfielder going to see next year. Both those guys
are going to be raided if they're not already in
(44:42):
the top five prospects for Major League Baseball in twenty
twenty four. You still have Leody Taveres in center field,
who I think just has a ton of talent. He's
still young and he's just scratching the surface. And of
course you've got a Doley Garcia. I mean, they're just
loaded in the outfield, They're loaded across the diamond. We
know that they're going to spend money. I look at
(45:04):
the Texas Rangers and Evan Carter is certainly a big
part of this. Joe that this window is just only opening.
This was not a one off world series, Fluke, folks.
This is looking like the team that is going to
take the mantle from the Houston Astros as the team
to beat in the American League West.
Speaker 4 (45:23):
Yeah, all great points. Again, as I'm a fan this
this Evan absolutely convinced me even before you got on
the podcast, was just talking to him back and forth briefly.
Just it's incredible poise about him, incredible ability to process
the moment what's important to me. And this is what
I'm this is what I'm going after. I'm not just
(45:44):
gonna be worried about all this so perfluous nonsense. I'm
very focused in both on the field and off the field.
Wow again, and if I'm see why Chris Younger boach
of those dudes, my goodness, to know that this young
man is going to influence other young men walking in
the door, I feel pretty pretty darn good about that.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
Yep, we got a good thing going and a good
one in Evan Carter Joe for us, as I do
every time we meet, I ask you to to take
care of the final inning here, give us a closing
statement here and your choice.
Speaker 4 (46:19):
Yeah, and again it's just it's just happened again. When
did the psycho cyburnetix a little bit today? And you
know it's like that's almost like a it's kind of
a positive thinking and a peace of mind kind of
a thing. But this is a this is like dovetails
into what I just heard with Evan. Man maintains his balance,
poise and sense of security only as he's moving forward. Wow,
(46:44):
it's true. And and this kid here is all about balance.
He's all about poise, he's all about a sense of
security man, and he's going to continue to move forward,
there's no doubt. I was, Yeah, a big fan, big
fan already. And like I said, he's going to be
there to nurture their young players in the future. Good
for the Rangers.
Speaker 1 (47:02):
By That was very fitting because that is literally and
figuratively who having Carter is. It's all about the balance.
Speaker 4 (47:08):
I'm always I'm always curious, like I write this stuff
down before we start. People almost think like you know
you've tipped me off. I had no clue. This is
an incredible fit that.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
Was a lot of fun. Really enjoyed it. Joe, We'll
see you next time.
Speaker 4 (47:21):
Sit in here. Tell me thanks, Buddy.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
The Book of Joe podcast is a production of iHeartRadio.
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or wherever you get your podcasts.
The Book of Joe podcast is a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey Daron, Welcome back to the latest episode of the
Book of Joe Podcasts with Tom Berducci and my good
buddy Joe Madden. And Joe we got a special guest today,
(00:25):
and I mean special. We're talking about Evan Carter of
the World Series champion Texas Rangers. How does that sound, Evan?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
That's awesome. This has been This has been a ton
of fun.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Yeah, I got to start with this, Evan. What has
the last month or so been like for you, not
just playing in the postseason, but obviously winning the World
Series the parade. I mean, what a world win for you?
Just try to describe what the emotions have been like.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Yeah, you know, I feel a little bit spoiled just
because I kind of you know, you stepped in at
the end of the season and then get to experience
something that people don't get to experience for their whole careers,
and it's been really cool to see have people on
the team that have gotten to experience that and that
also have the perspective of, Hey, I've played for ten
years and not gotten to be in this spot before,
(01:13):
So it's really cool to get to experience that with
this group of guys.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
I mean, that's truer words have never been spoken. You know,
guys wait forever to get to that juncture. And it's
obviously I followed everything, and Tommy was with you there
on the ground and he spoke so glowingly of you
as a person also, But yeah, you handled yourself so
extremely well. I could just you're just dripping with poison
confidence right now as you're speaking to us and anything.
(01:37):
That's great and it's going to benefit as you move
forward to Again, congratulations on a wonderful first salvo into
the postseason, with many more to come. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Yeah, just so people kind of get the thumbnail of
how impressive Evan played throughout the postseason. Yeah, you think
about it. Just a couple of months before October, Evan,
you're playing in El Paso, and I'm not sure what
you saw the rest of your season playing out as,
but my goodness, you get promoted to Triple A before
you know it, Adultice Garcio is on the IL and
(02:07):
you get the call up to the big leagues and
then before you know it, you're playing in the postseason.
Started out hitting ninth for Bruce Boci wound up hitting
third in World Series Game one. Only Mickey Mantle was younger.
And it comes to starting the three hole in Game
one of a World Series, just amazing. In a postseason
(02:27):
in which you twenty three games, you hit over three
hundred on base over four hundred, slugging almost five hundred.
Just a remarkable run for you. So I gotta ask you, Evan,
I mean, you weren't on the radar of a lot
of people when you're playing at Alpasso midway through the summer.
What is on your radar? What are you looking forward
(02:48):
to as far as playing out the year.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Yeah, you know, obviously, nobody wants to be a career
minor league so when you're in the minor leagues, you're
just kind of, you know, you're preparing yourself to be
able to get to the big leagues and help them win.
So that's the goal, and that's what you're always looking
forward to. And you know, I think once you get
to double A and triple A, you kind of feel like,
you know, you're right there, you're kind of right on
the cusp of being able to do that. And so yeah,
(03:11):
whenever I got moved from double A to Triple A.
That was just kind of like one step closer to
like your in goal of being able to make it
to the big leagues. And then you know, it was
it was crazy this year I got you know, you
get to debut and then next thing you know, you're
in the playoffs, and then each each series is kind
of like you don't really have time to slow down
and step back and be like, oh, wow, you know
you're in the big leagues. Now, next thing you know,
(03:32):
you're in you know, every game matters, and you're in.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
The World Series.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
So it was a ton of fun though it was
it was it was awesome.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
Yeah, that's one of the things, like you that's what
you just said is so true. It's been true for
one hundred years. You're in the minor leagues wondering will
I ever get this opportunity, When is that opportunity going
to occur? And and you could be in the Middleville
Passo this summer, then at the end of the year
in the parade. It's just the nature of this game.
You just can't predict what's going to happen from when
(04:00):
you're to the next and that's why it's so important.
And I know you're at all the time, and it
seems like you're of that ilk too. Really appreciate the day,
seize the day, as they say, and take care of
your business today because you just don't know. But yeah,
I think that's spectacular. Just quickly though, L Passo. Did
you ever hear the ballpark the Dudley Dome there? Did
(04:20):
anyboy ever talk about the old Dudley domon in L Paso? Now,
that was the original ballpark there, which is right next
to the border with Mexico, and they'd have twenty five
cent beer night. I've seen some of the best fights
of my life in the stands at the Dudley Dome.
I want to even included Chris Bosio thrown at my
shortstop where both benches emptied. I had a shortstop going
(04:43):
to stands after a game. I had first baseman go
outfield of going with them afterwards. I had to run
back out out of the clubhouse to break this fight
in the stands on twenty five cent beer night at
the Dudley Dome. When I hear El Paso, L Paso
was like the epicenter of the fun part about minor
league baseball, and I loved it there that's awesome, Evan.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
You don't have those kind of stories from El Paso.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
No, no, I don't have any stories on that.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Yeah, it sounds like it.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
I think they've tamed down. I think they moved. They
moved all.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
I gotta tell you, Evan, I know you were on
the road in Double A called up the Triple A
on the road. I went back and looked at this,
and I know you probably maybe not aware of the numbers,
but all the time you've been in hotels, starting the
middle of August, for the next ninety three days, you
played fifteen home games. I mean, it's just a remarkable.
(05:38):
And of course this Texas team is going to be
known all time for going eleven and oh on the
road in the postseason, which is crazy. So I we
spoke about your whirlwind and how fast things happened, but
it's amazing to me how much of it was on
the road. So give us an idea of what life
is like. Literally, I would imagine living out of your
(06:00):
suitcase for that long from I understand you were living
at a hotel in across from the ballpark in Arlington.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Yeah, I mean it was it was definitely you know,
you can't complain about the big league hotels at all.
You know, I'm not gonna sit here and complain about that.
But you know, my wife and I we got really
good at living out of a suitcase. And like you said,
we were living out of a hotel in Arlington too,
so it was no different whenever we got whenever we
got home. But I mean, just you know, you have
(06:26):
your little I probably had seven outfits or so, the
seven collared shirts and seven pairs of pants that I
was just running through, you know, doing laundry at the
field and stuff. But it was I wouldn't trade it
for the world though. I mean, it was a ton
of fun.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
I also heard you were running your laundry over to
the Jenkowski's house. Is that true?
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Yeah, yeah, yeah they were.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
They were nice enough to let us come over there
and do some laundry too.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
It was It's crazy.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
The hotels were charging by the shirt to do laundry,
so I wasn't about to do that.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
That's awesome. Just buy a new shirt.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
It's cheaper, brother, yeahs is gosh. I mean think about
it now.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
I guess we really did spend our whole fall kind
of living out of a hotel.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
But I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
That's amazing. Hey, I've talked to Joe about this. Your
approach at the plate. We really need to dive into that.
I know, I guess it was in the minor leagues
you got the nickname full Count Carter because it seemed
like every time you got up there, the count was
getting full. Your plate discipline is just really amazing for
any player of any age, but to see that someone
(07:28):
at twenty one, to me, is remarkable. I'm wondering, Evan,
where that developed. Is there something that you can do
growing up as a hitter to really imprint upon your mind,
you know what the strike zone is, where the boundaries are,
or is that something that just came to you naturally?
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Oh, you know, I think that it came.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
It's never something that I've really worked on as far
as like the way I've always thought about the strike
zone is just kind of like I want to know
what I can hit and what I can't hit.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
So for me, it's just always been one of those things.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
If a picture makes a good pitch on the edge
of the zone, what am I really going to be
able to do with that? You know, the majority of
the time anyways, So just being really stubborn and picky
to kind of the heart of the zone for me
and what I want to be able to hit well.
And if a picture makes you know, three really good pitches,
good for him. But the chances are that you know
(08:24):
they will miss in the heart of the zone, and
when they do, you know you can't.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
You can't miss whenever he does.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
So, uh, that's just kind of been the way I've
always approached it, especially when stuff kind of starts is
on the edge, is just just let it go. Uh,
he's trying to fool me. So I don't wanna. I
don't wanna, you know, all.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
For that, I guess those type of things I was
Tommy asked the question. I already had that written down
plique discipline. I mean, okay, you just said is a
wonderful explanation. But was there anybody that really, uh suggested
this to you at a young age or is this
something that you just figured out. I got to do this.
If I do this, I'm going to become more popular
as a hitter. I'm going to be a better hitter
(09:00):
because they do have a more finite strike zone. Because
to me, you just that's such a mature answer. I'm
just curious that you had There had to be one
mentor I would imagine that helped you organize that thought
or is just all on your own.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
I you know, I grew up pitching.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
I didn't necessarily really grow up hitting, so I kind
of always that my mindset kind of comes from the
pitching side of things, I guess more so than the
hitting side of things. Okay, I don't necessarily think that
I've ever had somebody as far as just my mindset
about that. I've had a ton of people in my
life helped me with my swinging and you know.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
But as far as like approach and stuff, that's just
kind of been how I've always approached it.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
I guess, well, you know, for me, that's that's something
that normally, I mean, I think every organization wants that.
They want hitters that normally have really good plate discipline,
that are willing to accept their walks, that are not
going to expand their strike zone for me, and you're
always trying to nurture that among your minor league players.
It's hard to do unless you come with it, unless
you come equipped with that, unless you purchase that, which
(10:01):
they did with you when they saw you. I'm sure
this got report had something about your ability to organize
a strike zone except the walk. Whatever the method of
describing it was, but it is. I mean, it's something
I was hitting coach of the Angels for many years
in the minor leagues, and I was always about that.
It was always about attempting to balance walks to strikeouts.
(10:23):
Whatever the number of times you struck out, I'd like
to see it walk a similar number of times. Now.
Of course, a power hitter, a really legit guy, I
could take more strikeouts overwalks, no question, but less than
power hitter, a guy that needs to move the ball
gap hitter, kind of like yourself. I always wanted the
numbers to be balanced, and I thought if they were,
(10:44):
then you're going to see the greatest potential of this
particular player. This is what he's capable of doing. This
is the batting average he should have pretty much annually.
This is the on base percentage it should pretty much
have annually. Long, long, not even a question, but I
respect all that. If I look at your numbers before
we did this, and the fact that you created these
(11:05):
own thoughts just from pitching, it's pretty impressive. But beyond that, man,
what you do is sought after by many organizations almost all.
It was something that was really big in the American
League East when I managed in Tampa. You had to
get hitters out in the strike zone. Pitchers have to
get you out in the strike zone, and that makes
it very difficult to get you out.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Well, I appreciate that. Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
I mean, you know, I definitely think that on base
percentage is something that I've always kind of if I
had a goal or something that I wanted to strive
for as a hitter, on base percentage would be something
that I would put up there. Just as far as
like I want to feel like I see a lot
of pitches. I want to feel like I get on
base more so more often than most people. And then
(11:50):
I also want to feel like once I get on
base that I can you know, turn a walk into
a double or you know, with a stolen base, or
make the picture in the back of his head. You know, Hey,
now the guy coming up behind me, you know, is
gonna maybe see some better pitches as a picture on
the mountains thinking about a base runner on base, you know,
And it's just kind of in the back of his head,
so always trying to, I guess, get on base and
(12:11):
cause a little bit of a little bit of hecticness
for the picture.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
I guess I'll leave it alone. But I mean, like drill,
do you do when you take batting practice? Do you
refuse to swing at certain pitches?
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (12:23):
I think that in batting practice, you know, it can
That's a great way to practice is just you know,
be stubborn to I'm not just going to be swinging
at everything. You know, hey, if it's not a pitch
that I can drive in the game, I'm not going
to try and swing at it. And batting practice and
just be swinging at everything. You know, have have some
intent behind your practice as well.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
For sure. I used to throw a lot of VP
for the Angels in the early eighties in Major league camp,
and Rod crew is among that group, And I could
just see it in my mind's eye right now, throwing
a VP and you're throwing you know, you got to
throw a lot of strikes with these guys hate you
so but he would take one pitch kind of like
belt tie a little bit more than bell tieh and
(13:03):
I thought it was just right on the outside edge
but it was there and he took it every time.
And that always impressed me with Rodney thrown to him
is that he was so structured, and you know, you're
kind of describing him as you're describing yourself. He was
so disciplined, and he would he would be very big
on that too, as he was the hitting coach there
(13:23):
eventually too, But to really maintain your strike zone even
during batting practice and not just go up there haphazardly
swinging at everything. So I guess I'm comparing you to
Rodney a little bit based on what you're describing to me,
because that's how he would approach his batting practices. And again,
it was amazing, same pitch, never swung at it.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Well, Joe, as long as we're talking about comps, you know,
as I'm watching Evan throughout the postseason, the guy who
came to my mind and Evan, this is going back
before your time, I know, But Don Mattingly, I mean,
I just saw the body type, very similar, command of
the strike zone, more power than what you would think
as someone steps in the box. You know, Evan's not
(14:03):
an imposing guy in terms of weight or muscular muscularity.
But Donni Manningly was the same way. And listen that
you're talking about a former MVP, a guy who won
batting titles, you know before he hurt his back at
one of the best hitters young hitters I ever saw.
And I know that Don Manningly went to winter Ball
one year after his brief cameo in the big leagues, Evan,
(14:26):
and he specifically went there to see more left handed pitching.
And I know next year, I expect expect that Bruce
Bochi will allow you to get more run against left
handed pitching. We started to see that as the postseason
went on. But not sure if you know or heard
anything about Don Manningley, Evan, but you know this game,
we'd love to do our comps that stuck out for me.
(14:47):
And I'm just wondering for you if there were any
swings that you watched, either growing up transitioning from pitching
to hitting or even now in the big leagues left
handed hitters that you like to watch.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Yeah, I think the I think that growing up for me,
somebody that I always watched and kind of wanted to
be kind of like would be Christian Yelich. For me,
I loved his swing in high school and in middle school. Gosh,
I just loved watching him hit still do. And you
know that's somebody that I would probably kind of say
that I tried to emulate.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
A little bit.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
That's a great COMPI they're.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
Talking about the power Tommy too, and again I'm looking
at his numbers. That's going to come. You're going to
hit for more power consistently as you get older. I
believe the fact that you get the ball in the
gaps at a young age is most exciting to me.
I had Garrett Anderson and Jimmy Edmonds at very young
age and they were like that. They didn't hit for
power necessarily young, but there were always any gap, And
(15:45):
when they came up to the big leagues, all of
a sudden, the Holmans home runs started to become more plentiful.
Because what you do is you understand what you're doing,
and like you alluded to earlier, you get into that
good count and you see your pitch, you don't take it,
you don't fail it off, you hit it hard to
keep it fair. And when you get to that point
maturity wise, as a hitter, I think that's where the
power comes. You're going to bigger and stronger too. If
you saw pictures of Ga when he was a baby
(16:07):
compared to what he was like when he was twenty
seven to twenty eight years of age, completely different bodies.
So again, I'm totally confident. I don't even know it's
important to you or not, but I believe as you
go through this thing, and as you understand this even more,
the power is going to show up.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Well, Evan was a guy I think for a lot
of people. Joe first heard about him in the postseason,
with obviously the national exposure. But if you go back
to high school, you wonder where were all the scouts.
Baseball America would pick the top five hundred prospects in
the country, and Evan Carter was not on that list.
(16:44):
I want to ask him about that. What the scouts missed?
Right after we take a quick break, all right, Evan,
I mentioned that back in high school, an exactly a
(17:05):
known quantity among the scouting circle. Of course, it was
the COVID year, and I think you played only about
three games before your high school season was canceled in Tennessee.
But from I understand, you also were not one of
these guys out on the showcase circuit where a lot
of these names bubble up to the surface and it'd
become well known to scouts. So tell me about your
(17:25):
approach and whether you were playing travel ball and doing
the whole perfect game and showcase circuit thing.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
Yeah, I did play travel ball.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
I was never on a big team.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
I would say, I didn't pay a lot of money
to go down to Florida or Georgia or stuff like
that to be on these big teams and play you know,
the entire summer and fall. I never really did any
of the showcases or anything like that. I just kind
of I just played games. That's all I did. And
I would also say too that I was probably a
little bit more of a late bloomer. I was kind
of a baby giraffe in high school, just really tall,
(17:59):
really fast, and then hadn't really grown into myself, I guess,
but I would say probably my junior year of high
school was whenever I started to get a little bit
more serious about baseball. That was the first time that
I played fall ball and tried to you know, get
on a little bit maybe better teams and kind of
get in front of some more people and just you know,
(18:21):
it was it worked out the way it was supposed to.
You know, this was mine and my parents, obviously, our
first experience with kind of the whole how do we
get in front of who we're supposed to and we
ended up we ended up being able to do that.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
That's refreshing. I love hearing that, man, you did it.
I mean, for me, you did it absolutely correctly to
pay large sums of money to go and travel ball.
And I guess some guys do increase their market in
a sense. But if you're good, you're gonna be you're
gonna be found. You're good, you were really good, and
that you were found. I love what you did. I
(18:54):
love you. I just played games. I just played baseball. Man,
I wish more would adopt that method right there. I
think it's great. Too many times I can't bothers me
that parents spent all this money for special lessons, in
sending kids to different states, and they don't even represent
their cities anymore. Whether it's Little League, American Legion ball, whatever,
it might be good a good old fashioned summer league team.
(19:16):
And I'm not trying to date myself. I just think
there's a lot to be gained from that, and so listen,
I really respect and appreciate what you did. I think
it's great. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
So Evan, you got to tell the story then of
how the Texas Rangers did find you in a COVID
year in a shortened draft, and what happened on draft day.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
So, like I said, my junior year, that was the
first time that I'd really played fall ball. I did
the I went down to Jupiter, Florida and played in
a tournament there and ended up, I guess getting There
were some scouts there that ended up I built a
relationship with them there, and then there was a small
(19:57):
I guess camp that the Rangers actually organized themselves at
a hitting facility. So it was just kind of, hey,
we're gonna have a bunch of their scouts and a
bunch of people kind of in the area at the
same time. Let's have some guys come in and just
you know, take VP, hit, work out whatever. So I
ended up getting invited to that through the relationship that
I have built. So I went and did that, and
(20:18):
that's kind of the first time I got around, you know,
the scouting directors and a little bit more of the
front office people.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
But then obviously we.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Got shut down for covid H, so that was kind
of you know, hey, I don't know what's gonna happen
after this, Like you know, you can't talk to anybody
in person anymore. Your relationships are just kind of cut off.
You don't get to you know. I played I don't
remember how many, either one or two high school games,
and it was just over, like you know, hey, we'll
be back in two weeks. And then next thing you know,
they're like, actually school years shut down. Everything's done, like
(20:47):
we're not coming back. It was a crazy time, but
the draft ended up eventually showing up, and we had
no idea what to expect, just because I mean, there's
like it was just so I don't know, we didn't
have any whole senior season was completely cut out, so
you know, we had talked to some people and kind
of had an idea, Hey, this might happen, but you know,
(21:09):
you can't you can't count on that until you know,
you get the phone call and then we end up. Well,
I was fortunate enough to get the phone call that
they were going to be picking me, so that was
kind of the dramatic. I guess mysterious circumstances that I
got to go through there.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
It was a lot of fun though, Evan, did you
have colleges offering you scholarships? What was the decision like
to sign with Texas?
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Yeah, so I actually I was committed to go to
Duke University. School was kind of first on my radar,
and that's what was important to me at the time.
I was kind of using baseball as a means to
get an education, so that was what was really important
to me. Pro Ball wasn't really on my mind until,
you know, until it was a possibility, you know, late
(21:55):
in my high school career. But they Duke was actually
the only school that offered me. They were the first
and only school to get offer me a scholarship. So
that's where I committed. That's where I had signed to
go play baseball. But I when the Rangers called and
we kind of discussed with them, school will always be there,
the opportunity to play pro ball will not always be there.
(22:15):
So that was kind of my mindset going forward as
if you know, pro ball ended up not working out,
I would be able to go back to school and
you know, have the opportunity.
Speaker 4 (22:24):
To do that. Just quick question, do they cover school?
Is that part of the contract these days, because we
had a college scholarship plan when I was scouting, so
you could get to go to Duke or any school
if in fact you're done playing. How does that work?
Speaker 3 (22:37):
So they they cover, however much, four years of tuition
at the school that you were that you would sign
your letter of intent to go to.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
That's how much they cover.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
For your college. Got it.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
It's pretty amazing you think about it and how quickly
Evan you developed because I think in that first year
when you did play pro ball in twenty twenty one,
you had a back injury, struggled, you know, to get
on the field as much as you want. I'm sure
talk about the adjustment when you got into pro ball.
I know the batting average wasn't what you would love,
(23:10):
but the on base percentage was still high. What did
you find to be the biggest adjustment, especially after losing
your high school season in twenty to pro ball in
twenty one.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Yeah, I think the biggest adjustment for me was just
I had never played that much baseball before. I mean,
you know, you play a couple games a week in
high school, but it's you know, seven innings of baseball.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
It's not nine innings. You know, those extra two innings
are a big deal.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
And then all of a sudden you're playing every single day.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Of the week.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
It was just you know, obviously you're away from home,
but I would just I would say that playing that
much baseball was the biggest adjustment for me. And then
not only are you playing that much baseball, but it's
also against the best competition for your age that you
can find anywhere. So it's mentally and physically just a
lot more taxing than anything that I had.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Ever experienced before.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
And I didn't necessarily know how to deal with that
at the time, But that's what the minor leagues are for,
you knowigure out how to deal with that and how
to manage yourself physically and mentally, and how to be
able to show up every single day and compete to
the best of your ability. And that's you know, that
was my first experience with learning how to do that.
And then you know, got to take my experiences from that,
(24:19):
even though they were shortened, and learned from it and
make a plan and figure out how it was going
to be better at that and you know, kind of
apply that going forward.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
And Evan, I'm sure there was another adjustment to major
League Baseball. Were there certain guys in the team that
were I'm sure everybody in that clubhouse and it is
a fantastic clubhouse, that group of guys. There anybody that
you especially connected with in terms of just telling you
what major League baseball is.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
About as far as on the on the big league team.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Yeah, on the big league team, because I know, you know,
it's it's a little bit different than minor leagues and
in terms of just your work day and preparation and
information and all that.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Yeah, you know, I think that.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
I think what makes or what made our team special
this year was just the lot of people that whenever
I did first get there, it wasn't just one guy
that kind of like took me under his wing and
was like, hey, this is what it's all about. Like,
it was the whole team.
Speaker 4 (25:13):
You know.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
There was a bunch of guys on there that took
me under that were like, hey, this is this is
what it's all about.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Everybody had their own unique perspective.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
You know, You've got people that are you got the
Max Scherzers who are eighteen years older than me, and
then you've got people that are kind of similar to
my age that this is their first year too. So
it was it was a really really cool experience that
I got to learn from, just with so many different perspectives,
and you know, nobody was there wasn't a bad personality
on the team. You know, I felt like I could
(25:41):
talk to anybody and they talked to me.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
So But if I had to.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
Name one person, I think Brad Miller would definitely be
the person that I would throw out there. That was
that was definitely above and beyond as far as showed
me the ropes.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
And I should have asked you this. But when you
did come up to the big leagues, your first game
single and you're first at bat, I think you also
had a stolen base just from the outfield. Walk me
through that first game and what you felt just being
there putting the uniform on, and then what it was
like for that first at bad first hit.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Yeah, I mean, I gosh, I think I was more
nervous for my debut game than I was Game one
of the World Series. It's all the emotions at once,
you know, it's so much It's so much fun. I mean,
you get to go out there and this is what
you've dreamed of and worked for your entire life. You know,
it's just this is it's kind of all built up
to that one moment, and uh, you know, whether it
(26:36):
goes good or it goes bad, you want to remember
it that you had fun and that you went out
there and you just, you know, soak it in. And
you know, I don't want to. I don't want to
remember it as a negative moment by any means. So
it was you never gonna go out there and try
and help the team win. But you know, selfishly, you
want to soak it all in and just enjoy that
moment for sure.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
I just want to I'm listening to you, man, I'm
listening to you intently, and my my thought is that
when this when we're done with this podcast today, we
should send you a copy so that the Rangers can
play this back for all their minor league players and
how to do this thing properly. Listen. I don't know you.
I'm just meeting you for the very first time, but
(27:18):
I can't tell you how exactly everything you're talking about.
I would agree with how you've done it, your full
personal philosophy, your work ethic, how you approach that day,
the fact that you wanted to enjoy this really special moment. Yeah,
you've got to be nervous as heck, your first major
league moment at bat. But then you come to the
(27:38):
World Series and you treated it almost like a regular game,
which is why you were so successful. But yeah, man,
just might be jumping the gun, but just stay on
the path that you're on. This is really interesting for
me to listen to, and I think this is something
that a lot more young players, not only professionally, but
(27:59):
guys coming up through the amateur rights trying to become
a professional. What you're describing and how you're describing to
me right on the money, Thank you.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Yeah, I mean you think about what Evan did in
the postseason especially. First of all, the regular season was fantastic.
In twenty three games, the number is very similar to
the first twenty three games of Juan Soto. It's that
kind of combination of power and walks on base percentage.
But in the postseason, you know, at the age of
twenty one, with thirty total bases, there's only been two
(28:29):
other players who have done that that young in the postseason,
Jan Soto being one of those. In twenty nineteen and
Miguel Cabrera going back to two thousand and three. I mean,
a pretty darn good company. So you've got to ring Evan.
You've got this World Series experience, You've got your foothold
(28:51):
established in the big leagues. I got to ask you,
what's your off season going to be like? Because I
know you're a guy that's always striving to be better,
certainly not satisfied with where you're at right now moving forward.
So give me an idea of what your off season
is going to be like, what you want to accomplish,
what your training's like, what's ahead for Evan Carter.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
I think as far as the off season goes, obviously
it got cut short by quite a bit with the postseason,
but that's that's a really really good problem to have.
But it's right now, I'm just kind of taking it,
taking it easy. I'm taking a break for a couple
of weeks. I'll start getting back in the weight room,
just moving the body around and trying to eat a
(29:33):
whole lot and gain the weight back that I've lost
from this season. Just trying to get back in a
little bit heavier like I was to start the season
last year and then probably middle of December, I'll start
swinging the bat again.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
I don't have any huge.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
Mechanical changes that I want to work on or change
this offseason. I just kind of want to get in
there work on some certain pitch shapes attacking those. I
definitely want to work on, you know, left handed shapes
and things like that, and just I really really want
to get more consistent with what I've already got. I
just kind of, I know, that was one of the
biggest things for me, was not necessarily changing anything, but
(30:09):
just hey, with what I have, how can I be
way more consistent with my load and my you know,
kind of how I approach my bat. So that's that's
some of the things that I want to work on.
I'm very loose when it comes to the off season.
I don't I'm not somebody that's going to be like,
I've got to do this, this and this to get everything,
(30:30):
you know, the way I want it to do. It
just kind of kind of always is going to work
out the way that it's supposed to is the way
I approach it.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
That's interesting. You mentioned your weight, Evan, because you're listed
at one ninety. What's your preferred weight? And how much
weight did you lose by the time you got to
the World Series? How much did you weigh?
Speaker 3 (30:47):
Yeah, so I gosh one ninety. I wish I weighed
one ninety still right now, honestly, I probably weigh about
one hundred and eighty pounds.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
And for me, the weight has been one of those.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Tricky things that it's like everybody around me and outside
of the organization says, oh, I can't wait for you
to gain weight so you can get stronger and hit
the ball harder. For me, I don't necessarily think weight
has as obviously it would make me. You know, I
would like to weigh more, But at the end of
(31:21):
the day, if I don't, I just need to rotate
faster to hit the ball harder, so I can get
stronger without, you know, weighing two hundred and twenty pounds.
But for me, I think weight gain is going to
help me feel better throughout thought and the entirety of
the season. Obviously, I don't want to weigh one hundred
and seventy five pounds because one hundred and you know,
sixty games throughout an entire season is going to weigh
(31:44):
even more on you than it would be if I
had a little bit of a cushion, I guess so, yeah,
that's kind of the big thing for me, is just
to have a little bit of wiggle room and cushion
to help the body feel better at the end of
the year.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
I think I know the answer to this already, but
just curiously, I'm just based on everything you've been talking about,
will you at some point this winter already have you
already done it, like sit down and try to establish
some specific goals for yourself for next season or is
that another thing that you just like to almost organically
permit to happen.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
I don't necessarily like to.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
Set a certain goal of like, all right, this is
what I want to happen, because if that doesn't happen.
I mean, baseball is such a hard sport. It's hard
to set goals and be like, well, if I don't
reach that goal, then what. So for me, it's just
something that's like, all right, I want to put an
emphasis on this to be better at this, and whatever
(32:41):
happens from that is going to happen, you know. If
it's for me, all right, I want to be better
at hitting left handed pitching. Okay, I'm not going to
set a goal for what that's going to look like,
but I know that I'm going to put the effort
forward to be better at that. So that's just that's
kind of how I organize myself for things.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Joe, I think you can see why this guy is
so impressive. I mean, if you just didn't look at
the back his baseball card, you'd think he'd have five
six years already into the big leagues. Just a mature
approach at the plate, and obviously off the field as well.
I know obviously your family too, Evan is a big
part of your success, and your wife traveling around I'm
(33:19):
sure throughout this last couple of months. So how important
has family been for you?
Speaker 4 (33:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (33:25):
I mean, gosh, I wouldn't be at the physician i'm
at without the support of my wife. I mean, how
much she did for me, making my life so much
easier on the road and at home either one. I mean,
it's so vital for me to have something to come
home too at the end of the day and just
get my mind off of baseball, and for her to
be able to provide that for me, it was invaluable.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
That's so impressive. So happy to hear all about your success. Evan,
your story is really amazing. I think it proves that,
like Joe said, if you've got the talent, baseball will
find you. And I'm sure there's better things even ahead
for you after what's been just an amazing year. I'm
sure you're able to soak it up or hopefully you
are now looking back on it. Just an amazing year
(34:10):
and we really look forward to even better things in
the future for you. So thanks so much for joining us.
Really love this chat.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
Thank you, I appreciate you all this This is a
ton of fun.
Speaker 4 (34:20):
Yeah, just again, really, congratulations on your season, Happy holidays,
enjoy Europe. I love your perspective. Man, just stay right there.
It's going to serve you well for many years to come.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
It means a lot.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
We'll have some closing thoughts right after this. Well, Joe,
hopefully you and I and anybody listening to this podcast
understands even more about why Evan Carter is so special.
(34:54):
I mean, it was just watching him play in the
postseason you had to keep reminding yourself this kid's only
twenty one years old. But now to listen to him
and to think about his process and his story of
how he got there in the first place. I'm even
more blown away, and I'm reminded there was an old
scout you probably knew him, Joe Buddy Kerr, and he
(35:17):
talked about John Oliroud and a very young point in
John's career where he called him a repeater, and what
he meant by that was Oliroud had such a balanced approach,
such a sweet swing at the plate, and such kind
of an easy going disposition that there weren't going to
be ups and downs to his career. And listening to Evan,
(35:39):
that's who I thought about, was John Olerud, and Evan Carter,
to me, looks like a repeater. He's a guy if
you're the Texas Rangers, you do not worry about You
don't worry about success going to his head. You don't
worry about him whether he's going to hit for power.
You don't worry about him being ready to play on
a night in, night out. Basis that I know you
(36:02):
know this, Joe, That is a manager's dream. And again
at twenty one years old, amazing.
Speaker 4 (36:08):
What a great description. The repeater makes all the sense
in the world. We were just talking a little bit
before we got back on but I you know you
oftentimes compare you. I meet this twenty one year old
today for the very first time, World Series kind of hero,
came up meteoric rise to get to the big leagues,
and I think to myself, Man, I just the conversation
(36:29):
he just had with us that wasn't even in my
near my playbook at that particular juncture in my life.
It's so impressive to just hear him put a sentence together, explain,
like you said, his process, what's in store, how he's
going to go about his business, what it means regarding
his family and what his wife had done. Everything. Everything
he talked about right down to was plate discipline, and
(36:52):
he describes that as like as a pitcher, I recognized
that it's important to have. So I will out there
and I create plate discipline for myself as a hitter.
The Rangers have something special here, man, There's no question
they know that. But I think we mentioned it in
the podcast. I would have this guy talk to my
minor league players at some point. Maybe you don't want
(37:14):
to put too much on him too soon. Going back
to camp this year, however, I think he can handle
almost anything when it comes to being out front being
an elite singer or whatever he is. He does it
in a very poison balanced way. But that is the
Rangers having him at such a young age. They got
(37:35):
to feel wonderful about all of this moving forward. Like
he said, he's not going to change if anything's just
going to get better. He's not going to fall backward
as a person. I don't think ever, So there's a
lot to bet on right there. And I was over
the top impressed.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
Yeah, I was even impressed when he talked about his
weight Joe, because I think there is, you know, almost
a type of peer pressure in the game to continue
to get big. And I think most fans be amazed
if they see these players up close, how big they
actually are. But sort of like the guy he mentioned,
Christian Yelich, I think he's got a great baseball body
(38:14):
that does not need to get bigger. Now. One to
seventy five is probably too thin, right, just to hold
up to the riggers of a season. But he should
not feel like he needs to add muscles just for
the sake of being bigger. I think that's not his game. Listen,
you're talking about a guy last year in twenty three games.
I know It's a small sample, but he slugged six
(38:35):
forty five. I've seen him absolutely destroy pitches. I mean,
this guy on fastballs is just light out. I mentioned
he does have to work on hitting against left handed
pitching just because he hasn't seen much of it yet.
But I don't want to see him get bigger. To
be honest with you, I think where he's at right now,
(38:56):
it's a great baseball body. He's extremely fast. I mentioned
Don Mattingly. Just think if Don Mattingly had plus wheels,
that's having carter to me. So even that was a
mature approach or or at least a perspective that he
gave us in terms of his weight.
Speaker 4 (39:12):
Here's what my I mean For me, my scouting background
helps because I did scout. I did Scott in nineteen
eighty one, and then I would go ahead and manage
rookie ball. Then I eventually went ahead and managed a ball, etc.
But you see these guys that come in at eighteen,
nineteen twenty years of age, great athletes, really thin, lacked
(39:32):
strength or muscle, whatever you want to call it. But
over just the next couple of years, and I'm not
talking about eating a lot, we didn't have the weight
training program or the methods at our disposal then as
we do now, and eventually they became bigger, stronger dudes
without a whole lot of effort. I just it's a
natural progression. And the way he described that, I get
(39:54):
that he doesn't want to overly emphasize that because he's
just going to create more torque centers or batspeed. And
I get that. But I from my own eyes, almost
every player that I had that turned into really good
Major League baseball players started out somewhat thin. As I mean.
I saw Jose Canseco in Medford, Oregon, when he was
(40:16):
I don't know, right out of Miami, whatever it was.
The guy was real thin. I saw Mark McGuire and
I know, talking about two guys from the Stairway ere.
I get that. But I saw Mark McGuire at the
Geodatry Park when he was just right out of USC
and my god, he was thin, and then all of
a sudden he did get bigger. I get that, But overall,
there's a lot of guys that I had had that
(40:37):
naturally just got to that moment. He's gonna he's gonna
get bigger, he's gonna get stronger, and like I said,
the fact that he's a gap guy and he goes
the other guy, he knows the apple gap. To me,
that is so attractive and regarding regarding developing power as
he moves forward, and then with that's gonna come more
runs in RBIs, et cetera. He's got it right. He's
(40:57):
just gonna go and he's gonna the goals are going
to be just to to do the right thing and
set up the right process and eventually the result is
going to be exactly what he's looking for. And I
love that.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
Yeah. And speaking of you know, kind of putting on
your scouts, hatch, I'm curious your take on this. When
you see a young player like this who does have
an extraordinary command of the strike zone, not just good,
it's extraordinary. That guy's going to be a star. I
don't know about you, but I think there's only so
far you can go with hitters in terms of plate discipline.
(41:31):
Can it be improved? Absolutely? Can you go from a
guy who chases wildly to a guy who's an Evan Carter? No,
I don't think that can happen. I think it's sort
of like change ups with pitchers. You have a feel
for it or you don't. There's only incremental movements that
you can make. So I feel that way about plate discipline.
(41:52):
It's sort of like the idol of a car engine.
It is what it is, and maybe you can tweak
it a little bit, but you're not going to take
a guy who's undisciplined and tournament to Evan Carter. And
I think when you have Evan Carter, he's not going
to regress into a guy who's going to swing wildly.
So I think when we see this base of plate
discipline at twenty one, my goodness, that this guy is
(42:16):
going to put up just amazing numbers. I'm talking about
on base percentage and batting average.
Speaker 4 (42:22):
Tell me, I think that's a great evaluation. And I
cannot agree with you more. If the organization wants that,
you've got to purchase that normally, whether it's out of
the draft, a high school kid, college kid, or just
by free agent signing or somebody from another organization. Once
you've identified somebody like that and that's what you want,
you got to go get it, Go get it, bring
that into the organization. Because you're right, and I've gone
(42:45):
through this, I've gone through this. As a hitting coach,
one of my biggest things was it was the attempt to,
like I said earlier, increase walks and diminish the strikeout.
So I had something called the b hack, my two
strike approach. All this stuff. The thing that I found
as a hitting coach it is somewhat easier to give
a hitter tools to not strike out than it is
(43:08):
to give them tools to accept the walk. That was
my opinion. There's just different things like again, you could
it's a mental adaptation to cut down in your swing,
maybe choke up, maybe look away first. These are things
that they can do without really trying to change their
DNA as a hitter, but to get them to actually
walk more while their proclivity is to swing. I'm a
(43:31):
swing man. I want to swing, go ahead, And so
if you could get them just to maybe be a
little bit more disciplined with the two strike, A bigcount
is the full count. The full count's a bigcount where
guys just want to swing. You might have to have
these kinds of conversations. And what I would do, I
would take them out to the cage and set up
a pitching machine, more than likely a breaking ball that
(43:51):
would start out as a strike and become a ball.
And I literally practice taking pitches and not swing at it.
I want you to watch where this pitch begins, how
it concludes, go through your whole process, shut it down,
accept the ball, except your walk harder to do so
you're right on the money. I love it. And if
I have a bunch of dudes that make pitchers pitch
(44:13):
and throw and force them, like I said, to get
you out in the strike zone. Wow, that's what That's
how good offensive team is created.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
Well think about this too, Joe. I think this is
just the opening of a window for the Texas Rangers.
Evan Carter is still qualified as a rookie next year.
They also have Wyatt Langford prospect you're going to see
an outfielder going to see next year. Both those guys
are going to be raided if they're not already in
(44:42):
the top five prospects for Major League Baseball in twenty
twenty four. You still have Leody Taveres in center field,
who I think just has a ton of talent. He's
still young and he's just scratching the surface. And of
course you've got a Doley Garcia. I mean, they're just
loaded in the outfield, They're loaded across the diamond. We
know that they're going to spend money. I look at
(45:04):
the Texas Rangers and Evan Carter is certainly a big
part of this. Joe that this window is just only opening.
This was not a one off world series, Fluke, folks.
This is looking like the team that is going to
take the mantle from the Houston Astros as the team
to beat in the American League West.
Speaker 4 (45:23):
Yeah, all great points. Again, as I'm a fan this
this Evan absolutely convinced me even before you got on
the podcast, was just talking to him back and forth briefly.
Just it's incredible poise about him, incredible ability to process
the moment what's important to me. And this is what
I'm this is what I'm going after. I'm not just
(45:44):
gonna be worried about all this so perfluous nonsense. I'm
very focused in both on the field and off the field.
Wow again, and if I'm see why Chris Younger boach
of those dudes, my goodness, to know that this young
man is going to influence other young men walking in
the door, I feel pretty pretty darn good about that.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
Yep, we got a good thing going and a good
one in Evan Carter Joe for us, as I do
every time we meet, I ask you to to take
care of the final inning here, give us a closing
statement here and your choice.
Speaker 4 (46:19):
Yeah, and again it's just it's just happened again. When
did the psycho cyburnetix a little bit today? And you
know it's like that's almost like a it's kind of
a positive thinking and a peace of mind kind of
a thing. But this is a this is like dovetails
into what I just heard with Evan. Man maintains his balance,
poise and sense of security only as he's moving forward. Wow,
(46:44):
it's true. And and this kid here is all about balance.
He's all about poise, he's all about a sense of
security man, and he's going to continue to move forward,
there's no doubt. I was, Yeah, a big fan, big
fan already. And like I said, he's going to be
there to nurture their young players in the future. Good
for the Rangers.
Speaker 1 (47:02):
By That was very fitting because that is literally and
figuratively who having Carter is. It's all about the balance.
Speaker 4 (47:08):
I'm always I'm always curious, like I write this stuff
down before we start. People almost think like you know
you've tipped me off. I had no clue. This is
an incredible fit that.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
Was a lot of fun. Really enjoyed it. Joe, We'll
see you next time.
Speaker 4 (47:21):
Sit in here. Tell me thanks, Buddy.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
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