Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
D Ivor live from Elliott Ballpark. We're joined in the
press box right now by Josh McDonald. He's done a
fabulous job with his pitching staff this year. As Yukon
Huskies are thirty three and eighteen. They take on Northeastern
tonight at six oh five. And just just tell me
about you know, because we had Jim on last week
and he talked about you guys were the last program
(00:20):
to have a home weekend.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
You know, series against the team in Division one baseball
and you start, but you start in warmweather states like Porter,
you know, places like Puerto Rico, California, Florida, things like
that to help out because you're a Northeastern squad. In
your case, they didn't start out as great as you
might have liked. What is that? What happens with you,
Jim and the staff to kind of retool and put
(00:46):
some guys in the bullpen and some guys in the rotation.
How did you come to that that assessment?
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Uh?
Speaker 4 (00:52):
Probably because I had other other choice at the time.
We just weren't pitching very well at all, you know,
and we had we had to just try some different things.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
The good news was is a few of the guys that.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
We were pitching in relief early on looked pretty good,
and you know, we were just we were at a
point where, you know, when you're at I think we're
at thirteen seventeen, you kind of look at the mirror
and look in the mirror and go, Okay, this isn't working,
so we should try to do something a little bit different.
And you know, we did that with you know, with
Charlie West jumped in. That was huge for us. He
(01:25):
pitches pretty well versus Hofstra, with one of our better
pitch games, and you know, at that point of the season,
and we're like, all right, screw it, We'll put him
in on the on the weekend, and then sure enough,
you know, he pitches well again. And then you know,
you know, so some of our relievers, like Sean Finn,
who was having a really hard time finding the strike
zone for whatever reason, kind of got over, you know,
(01:46):
the pitching fear, you know, you know, on spring break
it felt like when we were down in North Carolina,
and he's just kind of carried that. So we've had
like a few two or three different guys kind of
joined joined the joined the staff here, you know, and
helping us out and it's just been really big. But
what's been really big is, you know, the real stories
that we've been hitting and when you're hitting. It also
(02:09):
allowed like a kid like Tommy Ellison whose numbers aren't great,
you know, I think as an era around seven, but
it forced him to stay in games, like, hey, we
got to you know, it's ten to three, you had
a bad first inning.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Figure it out.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
And if you look at him the last month, he's
starting to figure out because you know, we're not yanking
him in the second inning because we're down for nothing
and we're not scoring.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
We're okay, it's eight to four.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
You keep going and all of a sudden, you know,
it's like anything else, like these guys get on the
mound enough, they're gonna get get better. And early on
the year, we weren't scoring, we weren't pitching, so you know,
it was like it was like a carousel ride, right,
like you know, you know who's up next type thing.
But but yeah, I would say, like the last month,
because our office has been so good, we've been able
to really, Okay, let's put this guy in, Let's see
(02:51):
what this guy looks like for two innings. Let's see
what this relief looks like versus Lefty, and all of
a sudden, roles are being established that when we're gonna
tight game like we were versus Villanova a couple of
weeks ago, you know, we're okay, We're okay. It's not like,
all right, who can just throw a ball over plate?
It's much more. Hey, this guy's been able to do this, this,
and this. They have some confidence.
Speaker 5 (03:11):
So another great thing that you have is Garbowski. I mean,
your catcher that's been here forever can really handle your staff.
And then you've got a great young protege and Connor Lane.
How does that work with you? As far as who's
calling pitches? What kind of trust you have in these guys?
How much how much rain I guess do you give
these catchers when it comes to calling pitches and stuff
like that, handling your staff?
Speaker 4 (03:31):
Yeah, coach wants me to call the game. Ideally, you know,
if you can get somebody who can really start to
figure it out. But you know, you know, Rob can
probably test this too. You know, these guys don't really
call games from the age of fourteen on. So there
we try to do it in the fall to see
if they're they're pretty good at it. Sometimes are sometimes aren't.
But what's great is that Garbo's really good at giving
(03:52):
me feedback on what the guy is doing. And Connor Lane,
you know, you know, he's he's pretty special. Catch you
a couple of years ago, Matt Donald got signed by
the Red Sox. He he gives me similar vibes to
him in terms of just really understanding some of the
things that that I want understanding. You know, he'll let
(04:13):
me know, hey, I don't know how much more he's
got things like that. And for an eighteen or nineteen
years old kid to be able to start to see that,
it's it's really good.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
I think.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
I think next year or two, you know, I'm gonna
be able to, you know, really rely on him even
more in terms of, you know, just helping me out
in terms of, you know, what he thinks of you know,
this guy or that guy.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
But both those guys are really have been really special
to me.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
And you know, I work I work well with both
of them, and you know, thank God, thank God, because
we need them.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Talking to Josh McDonald, the pitching coach at the University
of Connecticut, I coached out in LA on a similar
feel to this that that had the type of turf
mound and stuff like that. And I play a lot
of AAU tournaments with fifteen sixteen, seventeen weren't seventeen, you know,
and it's similar. Does that help that A lot of
these kids that you've coached and say the last ten
(05:00):
years have come through the AAU programs, have done a
lot of the tournament ball stuff like that. So when
you're getting on different you know, one might be turf,
one might be dirt and things like that, that that's
not really freaking your pitching staff out that much.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Yeah, you know, it is weird.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
I would say when we show up with a dirt
mound is when they're like looking like, what the hell
is it?
Speaker 2 (05:19):
What do I do with this?
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (05:20):
And I'm like, yeah, there's a hole there. You know
you're gonna have to work around it. Yeah, it is.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
It is wild, you know.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
But you know, again, like if you think about summer
ball circuit and you know an a you know, if
an AAU team's gonna have a tournament and they get rain,
you know, and these guys can't play, they have to
reimburse you know, the team, So you know, it would
it would would a turf mound. Nobody's getting reimbursed. Those
lights are going on, they'll be playing at midnight. So
these guys, none of these guys really pitch on dirt
(05:49):
mounds really unless we go into like the pro parks
and you know, they'll they'll they'll say, hey, it feels
a little weird. Things like that. I think the differences
with the mounds. Sometimes you get a mound that's a
little bit more hollow, and they say it bounces a
little bit. Sometimes they say there's not enough stand on it.
A little bit more sponge here. I mean, that's kind
of the thing to get. But yeah, you don't you
certainly don't have to worry about you know, when I
(06:10):
play with you're like, hey, the lefty starter put a
hole on the right side of this thing, and I
got you. You know, I'm getting a blister on the
inside of my right foot. I know there's blood all over,
you know, inside this sock right here. Like, you don't
have any of those conversations anymore. I mean, you would
go to some places and you'd be like you'd be like,
oh my god, you know, you'd be actually telling you know,
(06:30):
the guys that we're pitching in front of you. Hey man,
take it easy on that hole man, because I'm coming
in relief today, you know, so, but those those days
are over, and you know they're just like I said,
they're more freaked out when they do see a dirt mount.
Speaker 5 (06:41):
Speak on pitching to contact and your philosophy on this.
Walks has been an issue at the beginning of the season.
That's how we got a lot of the runs on
board against us. But what's your philosophy as far as that,
And how do you teach your kids to actually throw
it so they can't hit it?
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Well?
Speaker 4 (06:55):
You know, it's it's it's it's weird. You know, we're
in a we're in an era of baseball where you know,
people want velocity and swing a miss and kick chains
and sweepers and cutters and bullet sliders and all this garbage.
I want out collectors, you know, That's all I tell them.
I want out collectors. You give me a guy throwing
eighty five to eighty eight. They can move the fastball
(07:16):
around and get one or two other pitches that they
can just command, and they're gonna be really good. And
especially nowadays, I feel like, you know, these guys will
see ninety five ninety six and they'll turn on it.
You know, this is not this is not the baseball
ten years ago. But when you can get a guy
out there, then you know they can move the ball around.
(07:37):
You know, they have a lot of trouble that the
kid that is pitching for Northeastern, they did that when
we went up there and we just had a really
hard He wasn't walking us, we weren't making hard contact.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
So it's really hard.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
You've got to kind of you have to try to
teach these guys those those lessons, right, like, hey, freebies
are going to kill you. As my dad would be
screaming the stands, walks will kill you. Walks will kill you.
And uh, you know, you know pitching to contact like
contact is not a bad thing. The problem is is
that when they when they're working in a lot of
(08:08):
these labs, a lot of these places at home, sometimes
all they're ever talking about is swinging miss percentage, swinging
miss percentage. And I tried tell them tell these guys
just like no, it's like, you know, how how much
bad contact can you make? If you can make bad contact,
then you know, you know, swings and misses are gonna.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
We can. We could set guys up.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
We can get a swing and a miss, but you
know you want you want bad contact, you know, over
and over again. I just feel like, you know, again,
I don't know what's going on with you know. I
I understand the language of the Repsoda machine and the TrackMan,
and they'll tell you all these numbers and they'll tell
you that this is a great pitch, and I'll have
to like remind them that the hitter put it, you know,
over the fence over there.
Speaker 5 (08:46):
He told you that it wasn't there's your answer.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
Man, And for some reason, for some reason, my gray
hair is telling them that it's wrong, and that machine
is telling that's right. So that's that's probably the hardest thing,
because you know, these guys are getting this now at
thirteen years old again.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Rob, oh yeah, Rob took it out.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
Yeah, Rob, Robie a little bit. You're a little bit
older than me. But I remember, you know, when you
were pitching high school and stuff like that. And even
when I like I didn't know how hard I threw.
I mean I knew I threw hard. I could tell
kind of by oh I got you know whatever, I
got good stuff today they're laid on it, but you
didn't really know, you know, until like maybe me like
an All Star game and then everybody, hey he hit
ninety one to day, or hey hit eighty nine today,
(09:24):
and everybody's like, oh my god, really, and that would
just kind of be like, hey, this guy could touch
eighty nine and seemed like a thousand miles an hour.
These guys, now, well, I mean they could throw a pit.
These guys probably don't remember the last game they threw
them where they didn't know how hard they were throwing.
So like that's a great that's that's a big difference,
you know. So like you can have a guy go
out there and let's see it, goes out there and
get six up, six down. You say, hey, that's great,
(09:46):
but his filo is down to let's say eighty six
and he's typically eighty eight. He's walking out of there
thinking that he didn't have a good day. And that's
a different that's all. That's a completely different animal like.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Snow in the World Series.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Absolutelyin right, But I wanted to get to that is
psychologically with the technology, they now instantaneously can go to
an iPad or can go you know, somebody's got the
handheld thing behind home plate and stuff like it. I
think it's a problem, Yeah, because because like it's negative reinforcement,
whereas for us, the hitters, let you know what you're throwing. Yeah,
(10:19):
I mean I never cared how hard I was throwing.
I was like trying to get guys that make bad
contact to my shortstop, may back contact to my second basement.
You know, pop it up, strike them out. You know that.
I wasn't worried about strikeouts. They come. But now if
you tell them, well, that guy hit it one hundred
and fifteen off the bat, So what was it an out?
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Did you pop it? Did he pop it up to
the infield? I don't care how hard it comes off
the bat. Was it an out? And I love what
you're saying. I want guys that are freaking out getters
collect I'm out collectors. I'm going to steal that because
that's that's what you need. It's Baseball's a very still
a simplistic game. The technology has kind of rewired their brains.
How do you deal with that?
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Again?
Speaker 4 (10:57):
Like, I think I think you see some of the
issues that you're having. You're seeing walks up across the board,
in college baseball, you see the walks up across the
board in minor league baseball. You know, for us, I
think we're really lucky in college baseball because in college
baseball this is you know, it is development. Don't get
me wrong, but it's wins and losses first. You know,
(11:17):
a lot of a lot of other baseball right now,
it's all development and training and development training. For us,
it's you know, listen, you know it may be an
old statistic, but you know, era still counts for me.
You know, does the guy scoring out when you're on
the mound? Uh, you know, whip counts to me. Do
you allow hits and walks? You know, I don't care
if like you said, I don't care if you're a
guy where they just keep hitting fly balls to the
(11:39):
warning track. Maybe at the next level those are home runs.
You're not a pro, but here those may be outs.
You know, So we have to kind of do both,
you know, we have to. Obviously, we want them for
you know, we want these guys to be pro. So
we want them to, you know, obviously do the things
that the pro guys want them to do. But at
the end of the day, you know, if you're stepping
on that field. The same thing with batting average. I
can't tell you how. You know, about ten years ago
(12:00):
you were going to these coaching conventions. You have guys
like batting average that that's not real, it is, and
you'd be sitting there and you're like, I don't know, man,
I'm pretty sure every three hundred.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Hitter is pretty goddamn good.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
You know, you have about eight or nine of them
on your team.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
So it's like, so, yeah, we you know, we still
think banning average is real. We still think some base
percentage is real, you know, over whatever it is, exit average,
exit velocity and stuff like that. You know, obviously, the
guy that hits the ball hard most often probably is
a pretty good hitter. But you know, again, strikeouts are
strikeouts still suck if you're a hitter. Strike ups are
still great if you're a pitcher. And uh, guys that,
(12:40):
for whatever reason keep the ball on the ground tend
to have more success and guys that keep it in
the air. So you know, the one. The other thing
that has changed, I think in the past couple of years.
I think this is where where where you're starting to
see this a little bit, is that guys have flattened
out their swings, you know, launch angle for a while
is like, I mean, you'd be up here, you beginning
twelve strikeouts a game? Is this saucy and all of
a sudden they've been flatten them out. And what you're
(13:02):
seeing our line drives now because of the velocity these
guys start leave the yard. So you know what I
think you're going to see here the next you guys
will probably see it two three years from now. Have
me back on and say, hey, look at all these
sinker ballers that the big leaguers are starting to get again,
because I think that's going to be the next in
vogue thing like get the ball back on the ground.
Speaker 5 (13:20):
Talking to Yukon pitching coach Josh mcdown we got a
big game coming up midweek or Northeastern Yukon six thirty
five with the first pitch, just talking about recruiting all
the time, and we talked to coach Panders, We talked
to Gino, we talked to Hurly. All you guys and
just what you're looking for and some guys it's a
no brainer, like Frank Mazakato, you don't need to see much.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
You know the numbers. You know what you're going to
see when you get out there.
Speaker 5 (13:41):
But the guys that are the tweeners, the guys that
are from maybe a D two level to a D
one level, Like, what are you looking for? What kind
of attributes of a high school player or a guy
that's looking to step up levels in college do you
want to see as a pitching coach.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
So the high school part is probably the one where
I'm having the hardest problem with it because a lot
of these guys aren't throwing a lot of innings anymore.
So like, you know, if I'm gonna go watch guy,
he's probably the only only two or three innings where
you know, if you used to watch a kid again,
I'm gonna date myself about ten years ago, you go
watch the start, you'd get six innings of evaluation. Now
you're getting three innings would bat uh maybe one one
(14:19):
counts at times depending on the event that you're going to.
So it makes it a little bit more difficult. So
you got to really kind of do some dig in.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
You know.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
The other thing too, is that you know, it's really
difficult for somebody to be completely honest with you, right,
So like if this is a picture and you say, hey, man,
this guy's a really good arm. Oh man, he's great.
He's great worker. He's the hardest worker. He loves baseball,
like I never get it. Doesn't really like baseball, you
know what I mean. So so again, like you got
to kind of the high school guys are different, but
with the poral link to Juco kids, you know, it's
(14:48):
a little bit easier because you're gonna have numbers behind it.
But those a lot of times those coaches can be
a little bit more up. Prob can give you a couple,
you know, like Aid and Doherty. Who's gonna play I
think play right field day about three he was the
best hitter.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
In the m whack.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
And I remember when I reached out to his coach
and I said, hey, tell me something about Aiden Dory.
He's like, he gets hits. And I'm like, all right,
what do you what do you mean? He goes, He goes,
He just he goes. If he puts a beat on
the ball, it ends up on a green somewhere. And
I was like, okay, He's like he can hit ninety five,
he can hit eighty five. He just gets hits. So
I'm like, okay. Like and he's like, you know, no problem.
(15:23):
Then you get a kid like Spur who's coming from
Endicut and I didn't ask their coach, but I asked
another coach in the league and he just said he
plays like his hair is on fire. And you're like, okay,
so you know, now you got numbers, you got place
with his hair on fire. So there's certain things like that,
you know that we want to hear too, you know,
because again, like we're not gonna you know, the kids
that end up at Tennessee and they're making whatever, the
(15:43):
one hundred grand and we're not getting that kid. So
I'm not getting a six with eight kid throwing ninety
six to ninety eight who should be pitching in Triple.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
A right now. I'm not getting that kid.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
But I have to get kids that are able to
maybe fight against them when they see them. And you know,
you got to kind of get kind of those personalities.
And that's the probably something that we spend more time
than not on it. You know, if there's red flags
there in terms of the recruiting process where it's you know,
doesn't love the weight room, Hey you know this or that,
like you know, I don't have time.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
For that sounds like you're talking personality more than anything.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
Yeah, because you're gonna find talent, you know.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
That's That's one that the longer I've been doing this,
I tell every young coaches too, and you're recruiting, like,
don't don't lose sleep over losing the recruit. There's so
many good players out there now with the portal and
that and the time that you can get to get
I'm like, don't don't lose sleep over. If he doesn't
want to pick, he doesn't want to pick, you can
find another one. Just make sure that when you do
start to move in on these guys, these are the
(16:35):
kind of guys you want to be around.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Do you like guys reaching out to you?
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
I like guys reaching out to me for sure. But
I'll also listen if you know, you know, I'll be
quite frank. I got a kid coming from an Arizonia
junior college this weekend, and I reach out to them.
I'm like, hey, I saw some video this guy told
me about him. And he's like, yeah, you know, we
think he plays gold club defense. He flies and he
goes and he's always at the field.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Okay, that's some good combinations, you know.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
You know what I mean, so a lot of it
is you know, you know, recruiting, you just have an
open mind. But again, like in terms of a personality,
you want to be around these guys. You want guys again,
like you know, you want to have the same kind
of like minded guys because you know, you need guys
that can kind of push each other. They're not afraid
of competition. They're not afraid of competition and practice, you know,
and you know again you know they need to go
(17:23):
to school, but you want baseball be really important to
them because this is really hard and what we asked them,
Like you said, we're on the road the first eight
weekends of the year. That's really hard, man, That's really
hard to do. You know, so you want to hope
that you're hitting those marks.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
You've done an amazing job, you and Jim, the whole
coaching staff. You guys are amazing. Thanks for a few minutes.
Thanks Lock, guys, appreciate it. Good luck tonight.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Thanks
D Ivor live from Elliott Ballpark. We're joined in the
press box right now by Josh McDonald. He's done a
fabulous job with his pitching staff this year. As Yukon
Huskies are thirty three and eighteen. They take on Northeastern
tonight at six oh five. And just just tell me
about you know, because we had Jim on last week
and he talked about you guys were the last program
(00:20):
to have a home weekend.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
You know, series against the team in Division one baseball
and you start, but you start in warmweather states like Porter,
you know, places like Puerto Rico, California, Florida, things like
that to help out because you're a Northeastern squad. In
your case, they didn't start out as great as you
might have liked. What is that? What happens with you,
Jim and the staff to kind of retool and put
(00:46):
some guys in the bullpen and some guys in the rotation.
How did you come to that that assessment?
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Uh?
Speaker 4 (00:52):
Probably because I had other other choice at the time.
We just weren't pitching very well at all, you know,
and we had we had to just try some different things.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
The good news was is a few of the guys that.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
We were pitching in relief early on looked pretty good,
and you know, we were just we were at a
point where, you know, when you're at I think we're
at thirteen seventeen, you kind of look at the mirror
and look in the mirror and go, Okay, this isn't working,
so we should try to do something a little bit different.
And you know, we did that with you know, with
Charlie West jumped in. That was huge for us. He
(01:25):
pitches pretty well versus Hofstra, with one of our better
pitch games, and you know, at that point of the season,
and we're like, all right, screw it, We'll put him
in on the on the weekend, and then sure enough,
you know, he pitches well again. And then you know,
you know, so some of our relievers, like Sean Finn,
who was having a really hard time finding the strike
zone for whatever reason, kind of got over, you know,
(01:46):
the pitching fear, you know, you know, on spring break
it felt like when we were down in North Carolina,
and he's just kind of carried that. So we've had
like a few two or three different guys kind of
joined joined the joined the staff here, you know, and
helping us out and it's just been really big. But
what's been really big is, you know, the real stories
that we've been hitting and when you're hitting. It also
(02:09):
allowed like a kid like Tommy Ellison whose numbers aren't great,
you know, I think as an era around seven, but
it forced him to stay in games, like, hey, we
got to you know, it's ten to three, you had
a bad first inning.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Figure it out.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
And if you look at him the last month, he's
starting to figure out because you know, we're not yanking
him in the second inning because we're down for nothing
and we're not scoring.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
We're okay, it's eight to four.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
You keep going and all of a sudden, you know,
it's like anything else, like these guys get on the
mound enough, they're gonna get get better. And early on
the year, we weren't scoring, we weren't pitching, so you know,
it was like it was like a carousel ride, right,
like you know, you know who's up next type thing.
But but yeah, I would say, like the last month,
because our office has been so good, we've been able
to really, Okay, let's put this guy in, Let's see
(02:51):
what this guy looks like for two innings. Let's see
what this relief looks like versus Lefty, and all of
a sudden, roles are being established that when we're gonna
tight game like we were versus Villanova a couple of
weeks ago, you know, we're okay, We're okay. It's not like,
all right, who can just throw a ball over plate?
It's much more. Hey, this guy's been able to do this, this,
and this. They have some confidence.
Speaker 5 (03:11):
So another great thing that you have is Garbowski. I mean,
your catcher that's been here forever can really handle your staff.
And then you've got a great young protege and Connor Lane.
How does that work with you? As far as who's
calling pitches? What kind of trust you have in these guys?
How much how much rain I guess do you give
these catchers when it comes to calling pitches and stuff
like that, handling your staff?
Speaker 4 (03:31):
Yeah, coach wants me to call the game. Ideally, you know,
if you can get somebody who can really start to
figure it out. But you know, you know, Rob can
probably test this too. You know, these guys don't really
call games from the age of fourteen on. So there
we try to do it in the fall to see
if they're they're pretty good at it. Sometimes are sometimes aren't.
But what's great is that Garbo's really good at giving
(03:52):
me feedback on what the guy is doing. And Connor Lane,
you know, you know, he's he's pretty special. Catch you
a couple of years ago, Matt Donald got signed by
the Red Sox. He he gives me similar vibes to
him in terms of just really understanding some of the
things that that I want understanding. You know, he'll let
(04:13):
me know, hey, I don't know how much more he's
got things like that. And for an eighteen or nineteen
years old kid to be able to start to see that,
it's it's really good.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
I think.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
I think next year or two, you know, I'm gonna
be able to, you know, really rely on him even
more in terms of, you know, just helping me out
in terms of, you know, what he thinks of you know,
this guy or that guy.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
But both those guys are really have been really special
to me.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
And you know, I work I work well with both
of them, and you know, thank God, thank God, because
we need them.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Talking to Josh McDonald, the pitching coach at the University
of Connecticut, I coached out in LA on a similar
feel to this that that had the type of turf
mound and stuff like that. And I play a lot
of AAU tournaments with fifteen sixteen, seventeen weren't seventeen, you know,
and it's similar. Does that help that A lot of
these kids that you've coached and say the last ten
(05:00):
years have come through the AAU programs, have done a
lot of the tournament ball stuff like that. So when
you're getting on different you know, one might be turf,
one might be dirt and things like that, that that's
not really freaking your pitching staff out that much.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Yeah, you know, it is weird.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
I would say when we show up with a dirt
mound is when they're like looking like, what the hell
is it?
Speaker 2 (05:19):
What do I do with this?
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (05:20):
And I'm like, yeah, there's a hole there. You know
you're gonna have to work around it. Yeah, it is.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
It is wild, you know.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
But you know, again, like if you think about summer
ball circuit and you know an a you know, if
an AAU team's gonna have a tournament and they get rain,
you know, and these guys can't play, they have to
reimburse you know, the team, So you know, it would
it would would a turf mound. Nobody's getting reimbursed. Those
lights are going on, they'll be playing at midnight. So
these guys, none of these guys really pitch on dirt
(05:49):
mounds really unless we go into like the pro parks
and you know, they'll they'll they'll say, hey, it feels
a little weird. Things like that. I think the differences
with the mounds. Sometimes you get a mound that's a
little bit more hollow, and they say it bounces a
little bit. Sometimes they say there's not enough stand on it.
A little bit more sponge here. I mean, that's kind
of the thing to get. But yeah, you don't you
certainly don't have to worry about you know, when I
(06:10):
play with you're like, hey, the lefty starter put a
hole on the right side of this thing, and I
got you. You know, I'm getting a blister on the
inside of my right foot. I know there's blood all over,
you know, inside this sock right here. Like, you don't
have any of those conversations anymore. I mean, you would
go to some places and you'd be like you'd be like,
oh my god, you know, you'd be actually telling you know,
(06:30):
the guys that we're pitching in front of you. Hey man,
take it easy on that hole man, because I'm coming
in relief today, you know, so, but those those days
are over, and you know they're just like I said,
they're more freaked out when they do see a dirt mount.
Speaker 5 (06:41):
Speak on pitching to contact and your philosophy on this.
Walks has been an issue at the beginning of the season.
That's how we got a lot of the runs on
board against us. But what's your philosophy as far as that,
And how do you teach your kids to actually throw
it so they can't hit it?
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Well?
Speaker 4 (06:55):
You know, it's it's it's it's weird. You know, we're
in a we're in an era of baseball where you know,
people want velocity and swing a miss and kick chains
and sweepers and cutters and bullet sliders and all this garbage.
I want out collectors, you know, That's all I tell them.
I want out collectors. You give me a guy throwing
eighty five to eighty eight. They can move the fastball
(07:16):
around and get one or two other pitches that they
can just command, and they're gonna be really good. And
especially nowadays, I feel like, you know, these guys will
see ninety five ninety six and they'll turn on it.
You know, this is not this is not the baseball
ten years ago. But when you can get a guy
out there, then you know they can move the ball around.
(07:37):
You know, they have a lot of trouble that the
kid that is pitching for Northeastern, they did that when
we went up there and we just had a really
hard He wasn't walking us, we weren't making hard contact.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
So it's really hard.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
You've got to kind of you have to try to
teach these guys those those lessons, right, like, hey, freebies
are going to kill you. As my dad would be
screaming the stands, walks will kill you. Walks will kill you.
And uh, you know, you know pitching to contact like
contact is not a bad thing. The problem is is
that when they when they're working in a lot of
(08:08):
these labs, a lot of these places at home, sometimes
all they're ever talking about is swinging miss percentage, swinging
miss percentage. And I tried tell them tell these guys
just like no, it's like, you know, how how much
bad contact can you make? If you can make bad contact,
then you know, you know, swings and misses are gonna.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
We can. We could set guys up.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
We can get a swing and a miss, but you
know you want you want bad contact, you know, over
and over again. I just feel like, you know, again,
I don't know what's going on with you know. I
I understand the language of the Repsoda machine and the TrackMan,
and they'll tell you all these numbers and they'll tell
you that this is a great pitch, and I'll have
to like remind them that the hitter put it, you know,
over the fence over there.
Speaker 5 (08:46):
He told you that it wasn't there's your answer.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
Man, And for some reason, for some reason, my gray
hair is telling them that it's wrong, and that machine
is telling that's right. So that's that's probably the hardest thing,
because you know, these guys are getting this now at
thirteen years old again.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Rob, oh yeah, Rob took it out.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
Yeah, Rob, Robie a little bit. You're a little bit
older than me. But I remember, you know, when you
were pitching high school and stuff like that. And even
when I like I didn't know how hard I threw.
I mean I knew I threw hard. I could tell
kind of by oh I got you know whatever, I
got good stuff today they're laid on it, but you
didn't really know, you know, until like maybe me like
an All Star game and then everybody, hey he hit
ninety one to day, or hey hit eighty nine today,
(09:24):
and everybody's like, oh my god, really, and that would
just kind of be like, hey, this guy could touch
eighty nine and seemed like a thousand miles an hour.
These guys, now, well, I mean they could throw a pit.
These guys probably don't remember the last game they threw
them where they didn't know how hard they were throwing.
So like that's a great that's that's a big difference,
you know. So like you can have a guy go
out there and let's see it, goes out there and
get six up, six down. You say, hey, that's great,
(09:46):
but his filo is down to let's say eighty six
and he's typically eighty eight. He's walking out of there
thinking that he didn't have a good day. And that's
a different that's all. That's a completely different animal like.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Snow in the World Series.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Absolutelyin right, But I wanted to get to that is
psychologically with the technology, they now instantaneously can go to
an iPad or can go you know, somebody's got the
handheld thing behind home plate and stuff like it. I
think it's a problem, Yeah, because because like it's negative reinforcement,
whereas for us, the hitters, let you know what you're throwing. Yeah,
(10:19):
I mean I never cared how hard I was throwing.
I was like trying to get guys that make bad
contact to my shortstop, may back contact to my second basement.
You know, pop it up, strike them out. You know that.
I wasn't worried about strikeouts. They come. But now if
you tell them, well, that guy hit it one hundred
and fifteen off the bat, So what was it an out?
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Did you pop it? Did he pop it up to
the infield? I don't care how hard it comes off
the bat. Was it an out? And I love what
you're saying. I want guys that are freaking out getters
collect I'm out collectors. I'm going to steal that because
that's that's what you need. It's Baseball's a very still
a simplistic game. The technology has kind of rewired their brains.
How do you deal with that?
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Again?
Speaker 4 (10:57):
Like, I think I think you see some of the
issues that you're having. You're seeing walks up across the board,
in college baseball, you see the walks up across the
board in minor league baseball. You know, for us, I
think we're really lucky in college baseball because in college
baseball this is you know, it is development. Don't get
me wrong, but it's wins and losses first. You know,
(11:17):
a lot of a lot of other baseball right now,
it's all development and training and development training. For us,
it's you know, listen, you know it may be an
old statistic, but you know, era still counts for me.
You know, does the guy scoring out when you're on
the mound? Uh, you know, whip counts to me. Do
you allow hits and walks? You know, I don't care
if like you said, I don't care if you're a
guy where they just keep hitting fly balls to the
(11:39):
warning track. Maybe at the next level those are home runs.
You're not a pro, but here those may be outs.
You know, So we have to kind of do both,
you know, we have to. Obviously, we want them for
you know, we want these guys to be pro. So
we want them to, you know, obviously do the things
that the pro guys want them to do. But at
the end of the day, you know, if you're stepping
on that field. The same thing with batting average. I
can't tell you how. You know, about ten years ago
(12:00):
you were going to these coaching conventions. You have guys
like batting average that that's not real, it is, and
you'd be sitting there and you're like, I don't know, man,
I'm pretty sure every three hundred.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Hitter is pretty goddamn good.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
You know, you have about eight or nine of them
on your team.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
So it's like, so, yeah, we you know, we still
think banning average is real. We still think some base
percentage is real, you know, over whatever it is, exit average,
exit velocity and stuff like that. You know, obviously, the
guy that hits the ball hard most often probably is
a pretty good hitter. But you know, again, strikeouts are
strikeouts still suck if you're a hitter. Strike ups are
still great if you're a pitcher. And uh, guys that,
(12:40):
for whatever reason keep the ball on the ground tend
to have more success and guys that keep it in
the air. So you know, the one. The other thing
that has changed, I think in the past couple of years.
I think this is where where where you're starting to
see this a little bit, is that guys have flattened
out their swings, you know, launch angle for a while
is like, I mean, you'd be up here, you beginning
twelve strikeouts a game? Is this saucy and all of
a sudden they've been flatten them out. And what you're
(13:02):
seeing our line drives now because of the velocity these
guys start leave the yard. So you know what I
think you're going to see here the next you guys
will probably see it two three years from now. Have
me back on and say, hey, look at all these
sinker ballers that the big leaguers are starting to get again,
because I think that's going to be the next in
vogue thing like get the ball back on the ground.
Speaker 5 (13:20):
Talking to Yukon pitching coach Josh mcdown we got a
big game coming up midweek or Northeastern Yukon six thirty
five with the first pitch, just talking about recruiting all
the time, and we talked to coach Panders, We talked
to Gino, we talked to Hurly. All you guys and
just what you're looking for and some guys it's a
no brainer, like Frank Mazakato, you don't need to see much.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
You know the numbers. You know what you're going to
see when you get out there.
Speaker 5 (13:41):
But the guys that are the tweeners, the guys that
are from maybe a D two level to a D
one level, Like, what are you looking for? What kind
of attributes of a high school player or a guy
that's looking to step up levels in college do you
want to see as a pitching coach.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
So the high school part is probably the one where
I'm having the hardest problem with it because a lot
of these guys aren't throwing a lot of innings anymore.
So like, you know, if I'm gonna go watch guy,
he's probably the only only two or three innings where
you know, if you used to watch a kid again,
I'm gonna date myself about ten years ago, you go
watch the start, you'd get six innings of evaluation. Now
you're getting three innings would bat uh maybe one one
(14:19):
counts at times depending on the event that you're going to.
So it makes it a little bit more difficult. So
you got to really kind of do some dig in.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
You know.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
The other thing too, is that you know, it's really
difficult for somebody to be completely honest with you, right,
So like if this is a picture and you say, hey, man,
this guy's a really good arm. Oh man, he's great.
He's great worker. He's the hardest worker. He loves baseball,
like I never get it. Doesn't really like baseball, you
know what I mean. So so again, like you got
to kind of the high school guys are different, but
with the poral link to Juco kids, you know, it's
(14:48):
a little bit easier because you're gonna have numbers behind it.
But those a lot of times those coaches can be
a little bit more up. Prob can give you a couple,
you know, like Aid and Doherty. Who's gonna play I
think play right field day about three he was the
best hitter.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
In the m whack.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
And I remember when I reached out to his coach
and I said, hey, tell me something about Aiden Dory.
He's like, he gets hits. And I'm like, all right,
what do you what do you mean? He goes, He goes,
He just he goes. If he puts a beat on
the ball, it ends up on a green somewhere. And
I was like, okay, He's like he can hit ninety five,
he can hit eighty five. He just gets hits. So
I'm like, okay. Like and he's like, you know, no problem.
(15:23):
Then you get a kid like Spur who's coming from
Endicut and I didn't ask their coach, but I asked
another coach in the league and he just said he
plays like his hair is on fire. And you're like, okay,
so you know, now you got numbers, you got place
with his hair on fire. So there's certain things like that,
you know that we want to hear too, you know,
because again, like we're not gonna you know, the kids
that end up at Tennessee and they're making whatever, the
(15:43):
one hundred grand and we're not getting that kid. So
I'm not getting a six with eight kid throwing ninety
six to ninety eight who should be pitching in Triple.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
A right now. I'm not getting that kid.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
But I have to get kids that are able to
maybe fight against them when they see them. And you know,
you got to kind of get kind of those personalities.
And that's the probably something that we spend more time
than not on it. You know, if there's red flags
there in terms of the recruiting process where it's you know,
doesn't love the weight room, Hey you know this or that,
like you know, I don't have time.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
For that sounds like you're talking personality more than anything.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
Yeah, because you're gonna find talent, you know.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
That's That's one that the longer I've been doing this,
I tell every young coaches too, and you're recruiting, like,
don't don't lose sleep over losing the recruit. There's so
many good players out there now with the portal and
that and the time that you can get to get
I'm like, don't don't lose sleep over. If he doesn't
want to pick, he doesn't want to pick, you can
find another one. Just make sure that when you do
start to move in on these guys, these are the
(16:35):
kind of guys you want to be around.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Do you like guys reaching out to you?
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
I like guys reaching out to me for sure. But
I'll also listen if you know, you know, I'll be
quite frank. I got a kid coming from an Arizonia
junior college this weekend, and I reach out to them.
I'm like, hey, I saw some video this guy told
me about him. And he's like, yeah, you know, we
think he plays gold club defense. He flies and he
goes and he's always at the field.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Okay, that's some good combinations, you know.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
You know what I mean, so a lot of it
is you know, you know, recruiting, you just have an
open mind. But again, like in terms of a personality,
you want to be around these guys. You want guys again,
like you know, you want to have the same kind
of like minded guys because you know, you need guys
that can kind of push each other. They're not afraid
of competition. They're not afraid of competition and practice, you know,
and you know again you know they need to go
(17:23):
to school, but you want baseball be really important to
them because this is really hard and what we asked them,
Like you said, we're on the road the first eight
weekends of the year. That's really hard, man, That's really
hard to do. You know, so you want to hope
that you're hitting those marks.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
You've done an amazing job, you and Jim, the whole
coaching staff. You guys are amazing. Thanks for a few minutes.
Thanks Lock, guys, appreciate it. Good luck tonight.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Thanks
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