Latest / Coaches Corner / UConn BSB Pitching Coach Josh MacDonald on The Dibble Show
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Back on The Robbdeville Show with Ben Darnell in Your
- 0:01Speaker 1: Afternoon Driver live from Elliott Ballpark. Were joined in the
- 0:05Speaker 1: press box right now by Josh McDonald. He has done
- 0:08Speaker 1: a fabulous job with his pitching staff this year. As
- 0:10Speaker 1: Yukon Huskies are thirty three and eighteen. They take on
- 0:13Speaker 1: Northeastern tonight at six p'oh five, And just just tell
- 0:17Speaker 1: me about you know, because we had Jim on last
- 0:18Speaker 1: week and he talked about you guys were the last
- 0:22Speaker 1: program to have a home weekend you know, series against
- 0:28Speaker 1: the team in Division One Baseball and you start, but
- 0:31Speaker 1: you start in warmweather states like Porter, you know, places
- 0:34Speaker 1: like Puerto Rico, California, Florida, things like that, to help
- 0:37Speaker 1: out because you're a Northeastern squad. In your case, they
- 0:40Speaker 1: didn't start out as great as you might have liked.
- 0:43Speaker 1: What is that? What happens with you, Jim and the
- 0:45Speaker 1: staff to kind of retool and put some guys in
- 0:49Speaker 1: the bullpen and some guys in the rotation. How did
- 0:51Speaker 1: you come to that that assessment? Uh?
- 0:54Speaker 2: Probably because I had other choice at the time. We
- 0:57Speaker 2: just weren't pitching very well at all, you know, we
- 1:01Speaker 2: had it we had to just try some different things.
- 1:04Speaker 2: The good news was is a few of the guys
- 1:07Speaker 2: that we were pitching in relief early on looked pretty good,
- 1:11Speaker 2: and you know, we were just we were at a
- 1:13Speaker 2: point where, you know, when you're at I think we're
- 1:15Speaker 2: at thirteen seventeen, you kind of look at the mirror
- 1:18Speaker 2: and look in the mirror and go, Okay, this isn't working,
- 1:21Speaker 2: so we should try to do something a little bit different.
- 1:23Speaker 3: And you know, we did that with.
- 1:24Speaker 2: Uh, you know, with Charlie West jumped in. That was
- 1:26Speaker 2: huge for us. He pitches pretty well versus Hofstra, with
- 1:29Speaker 2: one of our better pitch games, and you know, at
- 1:32Speaker 2: that point of the season and we're like, all right,
- 1:34Speaker 2: screw it, We'll put him in on the on the weekend,
- 1:37Speaker 2: and sure enough, you know, he pitches well again. And
- 1:39Speaker 2: then you know, you know, so some of our relievers,
- 1:43Speaker 2: like Sean Finn, who was having a really hard time
- 1:45Speaker 2: finding the strike zone for whatever reason, kind of got over,
- 1:48Speaker 2: you know, the pitching fear. You know, you know, on
- 1:51Speaker 2: spring break it felt like we were down in North
- 1:53Speaker 2: Carolina and he's just kind of carried that. So we've
- 1:56Speaker 2: had like a few two or three different guys kind
- 1:59Speaker 2: of join, join the join the staff here, you know,
- 2:03Speaker 2: and helping us out. And it's just been really big.
- 2:05Speaker 2: But what's been really big is, you know, the real
- 2:07Speaker 2: stories that we've been hitting and when you're hitting. It
- 2:11Speaker 2: also allowed like a kid like Tommy Ellison whose numbers
- 2:14Speaker 2: aren't great, you know, I think as an Era round seven,
- 2:16Speaker 2: but it forced him to stay in games like, hey,
- 2:18Speaker 2: we got to you know, it's ten to three, you
- 2:20Speaker 2: had a bad first inning.
- 2:22Speaker 3: Figure it out.
- 2:23Speaker 2: And if you look at him the last month, he's
- 2:25Speaker 2: starting to figure out because you know, we're not yanking
- 2:27Speaker 2: him in the second inning because we're down for nothing
- 2:30Speaker 2: and we're not scoring. We're okay, it's eight to four,
- 2:32Speaker 2: you'll keep going. And all of a sudden, you know,
- 2:34Speaker 2: it's like anything else, like these guys get on the
- 2:37Speaker 2: mound enough, they're gonna get get better. And early on
- 2:40Speaker 2: the year, we weren't scoring, we weren't pitching, so you know,
- 2:42Speaker 2: it was like it was like a carousel ride, right,
- 2:44Speaker 2: like you know, you know who's up next type thing.
- 2:47Speaker 2: But but yeah, I would say like the last month,
- 2:49Speaker 2: because our office has been so good, we've been able
- 2:51Speaker 2: to really, okay, let's put this guy in. Let's see
- 2:54Speaker 2: what this guy looks like for two innings. Let's see
- 2:55Speaker 2: what this this relieve looks like versus Lefty, And all
- 2:58Speaker 2: of a sudden, roles are being a staffablished that when
- 3:01Speaker 2: we're going a tight game, like we were versus Villanova
- 3:05Speaker 2: a couple weeks ago, you know, we're okay, We're okay.
- 3:07Speaker 2: It's not like, all right, who can just throw a
- 3:09Speaker 2: ball over plate? It's much more. Hey, this guy's been
- 3:12Speaker 2: able to do this, this, and this. They have some confidence.
- 3:14Speaker 4: So another great thing that you have is Garbowski. I mean,
- 3:17Speaker 4: your catcher that's been here forever can really handle your staff.
- 3:20Speaker 4: And then you've got a great young protege and Connor Lane.
- 3:23Speaker 4: How does that work with you? As far as who's
- 3:24Speaker 4: calling pitches? What kind of trust you have in these guys?
- 3:27Speaker 4: How much how much rain I guess do you give
- 3:29Speaker 4: these catchers when it comes to calling pitches and stuff
- 3:32Speaker 4: like that, handling your staff?
- 3:33Speaker 2: Yeah, coach wants me to call the game. Ideally, you know,
- 3:37Speaker 2: if you can get somebody who can really start to
- 3:39Speaker 2: figure it out. But you know, you know, Rob can
- 3:41Speaker 2: probably test this too. You know, these guys don't really
- 3:43Speaker 2: call games from the age of fourteen, on so there,
- 3:46Speaker 2: we try to do it in the fall to see
- 3:48Speaker 2: if they're they're pretty good at it. Sometimes are, sometimes aren't.
- 3:51Speaker 2: But what's great is that Garbo's really good at giving
- 3:54Speaker 2: me feedback on what the guy is doing. And Connor Lane,
- 3:59Speaker 2: you know, you know, he's he's pretty special. We had
- 4:02Speaker 2: to catch you a couple years ago. Matt Donald and
- 4:04Speaker 2: got signed by the Red Sox. He he gives me
- 4:09Speaker 2: similar vibes to him in terms of just really understanding
- 4:12Speaker 2: some of the things that that I want understanding. You know,
- 4:15Speaker 2: he'll let me know, hey, I don't know how much
- 4:17Speaker 2: more he's got things like that. And for an eighteen
- 4:19Speaker 2: or nineteen years old kid to be able to start
- 4:22Speaker 2: to see.
- 4:22Speaker 3: That, it's it's really good.
- 4:23Speaker 2: I think I think next year or two, you know,
- 4:25Speaker 2: I'm gonna be able to, you know, really rely on
- 4:27Speaker 2: him even more in terms of, you know, just helping
- 4:29Speaker 2: me out in terms of, you know, what he thinks
- 4:31Speaker 2: of you know, this guy or that guy. But both
- 4:34Speaker 2: those guys are really have been really special to me,
- 4:36Speaker 2: and you know, I work I work well with both
- 4:38Speaker 2: of them, and you know, thank God, thank God, because
- 4:40Speaker 2: we need them.
- 4:41Speaker 1: Talking to Josh McDonald, the pitching coach at the University
- 4:43Speaker 1: of Connecticut. I coached out in LA on a similar
- 4:48Speaker 1: feel to this that that had the type of turf
- 4:51Speaker 1: mound and stuff like that. And I play a lot
- 4:53Speaker 1: of AAU tournaments with fifteen sixteen, seventeen weren't seventeen you
- 4:56Speaker 1: now and it's similar. Does that help that A lot
- 5:00Speaker 1: of these kids that you've coached and say the last
- 5:02Speaker 1: ten years have come through the AAU programs, have done
- 5:05Speaker 1: a lot of the tournament ball stuff like that. So
- 5:08Speaker 1: when you're getting on different you know, one might be turf,
- 5:10Speaker 1: one might be dirt and things like that that that's
- 5:13Speaker 1: not really freaking your pitching staff out that much.
- 5:15Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it is weird. I would say, when
- 5:18Speaker 2: we show up with a dirt mound, is when they're
- 5:20Speaker 2: like looking like, what the hell is it?
- 5:21Speaker 3: What do I do with this? Yeah? And I'm like, yeah,
- 5:24Speaker 3: there's a hole there. You know you're gonna have to
- 5:26Speaker 3: work around it. Yeah. Wild, it is. It is wild,
- 5:29Speaker 3: you know.
- 5:30Speaker 2: But you know, again, like if you think about summer
- 5:32Speaker 2: ball circuit and you know an a you know, if
- 5:35Speaker 2: AAU team's gonna have a tournament and they get rain,
- 5:39Speaker 2: you know, and these guys can't play. They have to
- 5:41Speaker 2: reimburse you know, the team. So you know, would it
- 5:44Speaker 2: would would a turf mound, nobody's getting reimbursed. Those lights
- 5:47Speaker 2: are going on. They'll be playing at midnight. So these guys.
- 5:49Speaker 2: None of these guys really pitch on dirt mounds really
- 5:52Speaker 2: unless we go into like the pro parks and you know,
- 5:55Speaker 2: they'll they'll they'll say, hey, it feels a little weird.
- 5:57Speaker 2: Things like that. I think the differences with the mounds.
- 6:00Speaker 2: Sometimes you get a mound that's a little bit more hollow,
- 6:02Speaker 2: and they say it bounces a little bit. Sometimes they
- 6:04Speaker 2: say there's not enough stand on it, a little bit
- 6:06Speaker 2: more sponge here.
- 6:07Speaker 3: I mean, that's kind of the thing you get.
- 6:08Speaker 2: But yeah, you don't you certainly don't have to worry
- 6:11Speaker 2: about you know, when I play with you're like, hey,
- 6:14Speaker 2: the lefty starter put a hole on the right side
- 6:17Speaker 2: of this thing, and I got you know, you know,
- 6:20Speaker 2: I'm getting a blister on the inside of my right foot.
- 6:22Speaker 2: I know there's blood all over, you know, inside this
- 6:25Speaker 2: sock right here. Like you don't have any of those
- 6:27Speaker 2: conversations anymore. I mean, you would go to some places
- 6:29Speaker 2: and you'd be like you'd be like, oh my god.
- 6:31Speaker 2: You know, you'd be actually telling, you know, the guys
- 6:33Speaker 2: that we're pitching in front of you, hey man, taking
- 6:35Speaker 2: ease on that hole man, because I'm coming in relief today,
- 6:37Speaker 2: you know. So, but those those days are over, and
- 6:40Speaker 2: you know they're just like I said, they're more freaked
- 6:42Speaker 2: out when they do see a dirt mount.
- 6:43Speaker 4: Speak on pitching to contact and your philosophy on this.
- 6:47Speaker 4: Walks has been an issue at the beginning of the season.
- 6:49Speaker 4: That's how we got a lot of the runs on
- 6:51Speaker 4: board against us. But what's your philosophy as far as that,
- 6:54Speaker 4: And how do you teach your kids to actually throw
- 6:56Speaker 4: it so they can't hit it?
- 6:57Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's it's it's it's weird. You know,
- 7:00Speaker 2: we're in a we're in an era of baseball where
- 7:04Speaker 2: you know, people want velocity and swing a miss and
- 7:07Speaker 2: kick chains and sweepers and cutters and bullet sliders and
- 7:11Speaker 2: all this garbage. I want out collectors, you know, That's
- 7:14Speaker 2: all I tell them. I want out collectors. You give
- 7:16Speaker 2: me a guy throwing eighty five to eighty eight. They
- 7:17Speaker 2: can move the fastball around and get one or two
- 7:21Speaker 2: other pitches that they can just command and they're going
- 7:24Speaker 2: to be really good. And especially nowadays, I feel like,
- 7:27Speaker 2: you know, these guys will see ninety five ninety six
- 7:30Speaker 2: and they'll turn on it. You know, this is not
- 7:32Speaker 2: this is not the baseball ten years ago. But when
- 7:36Speaker 2: you can get a guy out there, then you know
- 7:38Speaker 2: they can move the ball around.
- 7:40Speaker 3: You know.
- 7:40Speaker 2: They have a lot of trouble that the kid that
- 7:42Speaker 2: is pitching for Northeastern, they did that when we went
- 7:44Speaker 2: up there and we just had a really hard He
- 7:46Speaker 2: wasn't walking us, we weren't making hard contact. So it's
- 7:50Speaker 2: really hard. You've got to kind of you have to
- 7:53Speaker 2: try to teach these guys those those lessons right, like, hey,
- 7:57Speaker 2: freebies are going to kill you. As my dad would
- 7:59Speaker 2: be screening the stands. Walks will kill you. Walks will
- 8:01Speaker 2: kill you. And uh, you know, you know, pitching to contact,
- 8:05Speaker 2: like contact is not a bad thing. The problem is
- 8:08Speaker 2: is that when they when they're working in a lot
- 8:10Speaker 2: of these labs, a lot of these places at home,
- 8:12Speaker 2: sometimes all they're ever talking about is swinging miss percentage,
- 8:15Speaker 2: swinging miss percentage. And I tried to tell them, tell
- 8:18Speaker 2: these guys, it's like no, It's like you know, how
- 8:20Speaker 2: how much bad contact can you make. If you can
- 8:23Speaker 2: make bad contact, then you know, you know, swings and
- 8:25Speaker 2: misses are gonna we can we could set guys up.
- 8:28Speaker 2: We can get a swing and a miss, but you
- 8:30Speaker 2: know you want you want bad contact, you know, over
- 8:32Speaker 2: and over again. I just feel like, you know, again,
- 8:35Speaker 2: I don't know what's going on with you know, I
- 8:36Speaker 2: I understand the language of the Repsoona machine and the TrackMan,
- 8:40Speaker 2: and they'll tell you all these numbers and they'll tell
- 8:42Speaker 2: you that this is a great pitch. And I'll have
- 8:44Speaker 2: to like remind them that the hitter put it, you know,
- 8:47Speaker 2: over the fence over there.
- 8:48Speaker 3: He told you that it wasn't told me there's your
- 8:52Speaker 3: answer man.
- 8:52Speaker 2: For some reason, for some reason, my gray hair is
- 8:56Speaker 2: telling them that it's wrong, and that machine is telling
- 8:59Speaker 2: that's right. So that's that's probably the hardest thing, because
- 9:02Speaker 2: you know, these guys are getting this now at thirteen
- 9:03Speaker 2: years old again, Rob.
- 9:05Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, Rob took it out. Yeah, Robie a little bit.
- 9:07Speaker 3: You're a little bit oler than me.
- 9:09Speaker 2: But I remember, you know, when you were pitching high
- 9:10Speaker 2: school and stuff like that, and even when I like
- 9:12Speaker 2: I didn't know how hard I threw. I mean, I
- 9:14Speaker 2: knew I threw hard. I could tell kind of by
- 9:16Speaker 2: the oh I got you know whatever, I got good stuff.
- 9:18Speaker 2: Today they're laid on it, but you didn't really know,
- 9:21Speaker 2: you know, until like maybe me like an All Star
- 9:23Speaker 2: game and then everybody, hey hit ninety one today, or
- 9:25Speaker 2: hey hit eighty nine today, and everybody's be like, oh
- 9:27Speaker 2: my god, really and that would just kind of be like, hey,
- 9:29Speaker 2: this guy could touch eighty nine and seemed like a
- 9:31Speaker 2: thousand miles an hour. These guys, now will I mean
- 9:34Speaker 2: they could throw a pit. These guys probably don't remember
- 9:36Speaker 2: the last game they threw them where they didn't know
- 9:38Speaker 2: how hard they were throwing. So like that's a great boy,
- 9:41Speaker 2: That's that's a big difference. Yeah, you know, so like
- 9:44Speaker 2: you can have a guy go out there and let's
- 9:45Speaker 2: see it, goes out there and gets six.
- 9:47Speaker 3: Up, six down.
- 9:47Speaker 2: You say, hey, that's great, but his filo is down
- 9:49Speaker 2: to let's say eighty six and he's typically eighty eight.
- 9:51Speaker 2: He's walking out of there thinking that he didn't have
- 9:53Speaker 2: a good day. And that's a different that's all. That's
- 9:56Speaker 2: a completely different animal.
- 9:58Speaker 4: Like snow in the World series.
- 9:59Speaker 1: Absolutely, but I wanted to get to that is psychologically.
- 10:04Speaker 1: With the technology, they now instantaneously can go to an
- 10:08Speaker 1: iPad or can go you know, somebody's got the handheld
- 10:12Speaker 1: thing behind home plate and.
- 10:13Speaker 3: Stuff like it.
- 10:13Speaker 1: I think it's a problem, Yeah, because because like it's
- 10:16Speaker 1: negative reinforcement, whereas for us, the hitters, let you know
- 10:20Speaker 1: what you're throwing. I mean I never cared how hard
- 10:22Speaker 1: I was throwing. I was like trying to get guys
- 10:24Speaker 1: that make bad contact to my shortstop eye back contact
- 10:27Speaker 1: to my second basement. You know, pop it up, strike
- 10:29Speaker 1: them out.
- 10:30Speaker 3: You know that.
- 10:30Speaker 1: I wasn't worried about strikeouts.
- 10:31Speaker 3: They come.
- 10:32Speaker 1: But now if you tell them, well, that guy hit
- 10:34Speaker 1: it one hundred and fifteen off the bat, So what
- 10:36Speaker 1: was it an out?
- 10:37Speaker 3: Yeah?
- 10:38Speaker 1: Did you pop it? Did he pop it up to
- 10:39Speaker 1: the infield? I don't care how hard it comes off
- 10:41Speaker 1: the bat. Was it an out? And I love what
- 10:43Speaker 1: you're saying. I want guys that are freaking out getters
- 10:46Speaker 1: collect I'm out collectors. I'm going to steal that because
- 10:49Speaker 1: that's that's what you need. It's Baseball's a very still
- 10:52Speaker 1: a simplistic game. The technology has kind of rewired their brains.
- 10:58Speaker 3: How do you deal with that? Again?
- 10:59Speaker 2: I think I think you see some of the issues
- 11:02Speaker 2: that you're having. You're seeing walks up across the board
- 11:06Speaker 2: in college baseball. You see the walks up across the
- 11:08Speaker 2: board in minor league baseball. You know, for us, I
- 11:12Speaker 2: think we're really lucky in college baseball because in college
- 11:15Speaker 2: baseball this is you know, it is development, don't get
- 11:17Speaker 2: me wrong, but it's wins and losses first. You know,
- 11:20Speaker 2: a lot of a lot of other baseball right now
- 11:22Speaker 2: is all development and training, and development and training. For us,
- 11:24Speaker 2: it's you know, listen, you know it may be an
- 11:26Speaker 2: old statistic, but you know, era still counts for me.
- 11:30Speaker 2: You know, does the guy scoring out when you're on
- 11:32Speaker 2: the mound? Uh whip counts to me? Do you allow
- 11:36Speaker 2: hits and walks? You know, I don't care if, like
- 11:38Speaker 2: you said, I don't care if you're a guy where
- 11:40Speaker 2: they just keep hitting fly balls in the warning track.
- 11:42Speaker 2: Maybe at the next level those are home runs. You're
- 11:44Speaker 2: not a pro, but here those may be outs. You know,
- 11:47Speaker 2: So we have to kind of do both, you know,
- 11:49Speaker 2: we have to. Obviously, we want them for you know,
- 11:51Speaker 2: we want these guys to be pro. So we want
- 11:52Speaker 2: them to, you know, obviously, do the things that the
- 11:54Speaker 2: pro guys want them to do. But at the end
- 11:57Speaker 2: of the day, you know, if you're stepping on that field.
- 11:58Speaker 2: The same thing with batting average. I can't tell you how.
- 12:00Speaker 2: You know, about ten years ago, you were going to
- 12:02Speaker 2: these coaching conventions. You have guys like batting average that
- 12:06Speaker 2: that's not real, it is, and you'd be sitting there
- 12:09Speaker 2: and you're like, I don't know, man, I'm pretty sure
- 12:13Speaker 2: every three hundred hitter is pretty goddamn good.
- 12:17Speaker 1: You know, you have about eight or nine of them
- 12:19Speaker 1: on your team.
- 12:20Speaker 2: So it's like, so, yeah, we you know, we still
- 12:23Speaker 2: think banning average is real. We still think some base
- 12:25Speaker 2: percentage is real, you know, over whatever it is, exit average,
- 12:30Speaker 2: exit velocity and stuff like that. You know, obviously, the
- 12:33Speaker 2: guy that hits the ball hard most often probably is
- 12:35Speaker 2: a pretty good hitter. But you know, again, strikeouts are
- 12:38Speaker 2: Strikeouts still suck if you're a hitter. Strike ups are
- 12:40Speaker 2: still great if you're a pitcher, and h guys that,
- 12:42Speaker 2: for whatever reason keep the ball on the ground tend
- 12:44Speaker 2: to have more successing guys to keep it in the air.
- 12:47Speaker 3: So, you know, the one.
- 12:48Speaker 2: The other thing that has changed I think in the
- 12:50Speaker 2: past couple of years, I think this is where where
- 12:52Speaker 2: where you're starting to see this a little bit is
- 12:54Speaker 2: that guys have flattened out their swings, you know, launch angle.
- 12:57Speaker 2: For a while was like, I mean you'd be up here,
- 12:58Speaker 2: you be twelve strikeouts game? Is that this sauce And
- 13:02Speaker 2: all of a sudden they've been flatten them out. And
- 13:04Speaker 2: what you're seeing our line drives now because of the
- 13:06Speaker 2: velocity these guys started leave the yard. So you know
- 13:10Speaker 2: what I think you're going to see here the next
- 13:12Speaker 2: you guys will probably see it two three years from now.
- 13:15Speaker 2: Have me back on and say, hey, look at all
- 13:16Speaker 2: these sinker ballers that the big leaguers are starting to
- 13:18Speaker 2: get again, because I think that's going to be the
- 13:20Speaker 2: next in vogue thing like get the ball back on
- 13:22Speaker 2: the ground.
- 13:23Speaker 4: Talking to Ukon pitching coach Shash mcdown we got a
- 13:25Speaker 4: big game coming up midweek or Northeastern yukon six p
- 13:28Speaker 4: thirty five with the first pitch, just talking about recruiting
- 13:31Speaker 4: all the time, and we talked to coach Penders, we
- 13:33Speaker 4: talked to Gino, we talked to Hurly. All you guys
- 13:36Speaker 4: and just what you're looking for and some guys it's
- 13:38Speaker 4: a no brainer, like Frank Mazakato, You don't need to
- 13:40Speaker 4: see much. You know the numbers, You know what you're
- 13:42Speaker 4: going to see when you get out there. But the
- 13:43Speaker 4: guys that are the tweeners, the guys that are from
- 13:47Speaker 4: maybe a D two level to a D one level, Like,
- 13:51Speaker 4: what are you looking for? What kind of attributes of
- 13:53Speaker 4: a high school player or a guy that's looking to
- 13:55Speaker 4: step up levels in college do you want to see
- 13:57Speaker 4: as a pitching coach.
- 13:59Speaker 2: So the high schoo part is probably the one where
- 14:01Speaker 2: I'm having the hardest problem with it because a lot
- 14:04Speaker 2: of these guys aren't throwing a lot of innings anymore.
- 14:06Speaker 2: So like, you know, if I'm gonna go watch a guy,
- 14:08Speaker 2: he's probably the only only two or three innings where
- 14:10Speaker 2: you know, if you used to watch a kid again,
- 14:12Speaker 2: I'm gonna date myself about ten years ago. You go
- 14:14Speaker 2: watch the start, you'd get six innings of evaluation. Now
- 14:18Speaker 2: you're getting three innings would bat uh maybe one one
- 14:22Speaker 2: counts at times depending on the event that you're going to.
- 14:25Speaker 2: So it makes it a little bit more difficult. So
- 14:26Speaker 2: you got to really kind of do some dig in.
- 14:29Speaker 3: You know.
- 14:29Speaker 2: The other thing too, is that you know it's really
- 14:31Speaker 2: difficult for somebody to be completely honest with you, right, So,
- 14:35Speaker 2: like if it's a picture and you say, hey, man,
- 14:36Speaker 2: this guy's a really good arm. Oh man, he's great.
- 14:38Speaker 2: He's great worker, he's the hardest worker. He loves baseball,
- 14:40Speaker 2: Like I never get man, he doesn't really like baseball.
- 14:43Speaker 2: I mean so so again, like you got to kind
- 14:46Speaker 2: of the high school guys are different. But with the
- 14:48Speaker 2: pooral like the Juco kids, you know, it's a little
- 14:51Speaker 2: bit easier because you're gonna have numbers behind it. But
- 14:53Speaker 2: those a lot of times, those coaches can be a
- 14:56Speaker 2: little bit more up. Prod can give you a couple,
- 14:58Speaker 2: you know, like eight and Doherty, who's gonna pay I
- 15:01Speaker 2: think play right field day about three forty he was
- 15:02Speaker 2: the best hitter in the m whack. And I remember
- 15:04Speaker 2: when I reached out to his coach and I said, hey,
- 15:06Speaker 2: tell me something about Aden Dory. He's like, he gets
- 15:09Speaker 2: hits And I'm like, all right, what do you what
- 15:10Speaker 2: do you mean? He goes, he goes, He just he goes.
- 15:13Speaker 2: If he puts a beat on the ball, it ends
- 15:15Speaker 2: up on a green somewhere. And I was like, okay,
- 15:17Speaker 2: he's like he can hit ninety five, he can hit
- 15:20Speaker 2: eighty five. He just gets hits. So I'm like, okay,
- 15:22Speaker 2: like and he's like, you know, no problem. Then you
- 15:25Speaker 2: get a kid like Spur who's coming from Endicut and
- 15:29Speaker 2: I didn't ask their coach, but I asked another coach
- 15:31Speaker 2: in the league and he just said he plays like
- 15:33Speaker 2: his hair is on fire. And You're like, okay, so
- 15:35Speaker 2: you know, now you got numbers, you got places with
- 15:37Speaker 2: his hair on fire. So there's certain things like that,
- 15:39Speaker 2: you know that we want to hear too, you know,
- 15:41Speaker 2: because again, like we're not gonna you know, the kids
- 15:43Speaker 2: that end up at Tennessee and they're making whatever the
- 15:45Speaker 2: one hundred grand and when not getting that kid. So
- 15:48Speaker 2: I'm not getting a six with eight kid throwing ninety
- 15:50Speaker 2: six to ninety eight who should be pitching in Triple
- 15:52Speaker 2: A right now.
- 15:52Speaker 3: I'm not getting that kid.
- 15:54Speaker 2: But I have to get kids that are able to
- 15:56Speaker 2: maybe fight against them when they see them, and you know,
- 15:59Speaker 2: you got to kind of get kind of those personalities.
- 16:01Speaker 2: And that's that's probably something that we spend more time
- 16:04Speaker 2: than not on it. You know, if there's red flags
- 16:06Speaker 2: there in terms of the recruiting process where you know,
- 16:09Speaker 2: doesn't love the weight room.
- 16:10Speaker 3: Hey you know this or that? Like, you know, I
- 16:12Speaker 3: don't have time for that.
- 16:13Speaker 4: Sounds like you're talking personality Moore than anything.
- 16:15Speaker 3: Yeah, because you're gonna find talent, you know.
- 16:17Speaker 2: That's That's one the longer I've been doing this, I
- 16:20Speaker 2: tell every young coaches too, when you're recruiting, like, don't
- 16:24Speaker 2: don't lose sleep over losing the recruit. There's so many
- 16:26Speaker 2: good players out there now with the portal and that
- 16:29Speaker 2: and the time that you can get to get him. Like,
- 16:30Speaker 2: don't don't lose sleep over. If he doesn't want to pick,
- 16:33Speaker 2: he doesn't want to pick, you can find another one.
- 16:34Speaker 2: Just make sure that when you do start to move
- 16:36Speaker 2: in on these guys, these are the kind of guys
- 16:38Speaker 2: you want to be around.
- 16:39Speaker 4: Do you like guys reaching out to you?
- 16:42Speaker 3: Yeah?
- 16:42Speaker 2: I like guys reaching out to me, for sure. But
- 16:44Speaker 2: I'll also listen if you know, you know, I'll be
- 16:46Speaker 2: quite frank. I got a kid coming from an Arizonia
- 16:48Speaker 2: junior college this weekend, and I reach out to them.
- 16:51Speaker 2: I'm like, hey, I saw some video this guy told
- 16:54Speaker 2: me about him. And he's like, yeah, you know, we
- 16:56Speaker 2: think he plays gold club defense. He flies goes and
- 17:00Speaker 2: he's always at the field.
- 17:01Speaker 3: Okay, that's some good combinations, you know, you know what
- 17:04Speaker 3: I mean.
- 17:05Speaker 2: So a lot of it is you know, you know, recruiting,
- 17:07Speaker 2: you just had an open mind. But again, like in
- 17:10Speaker 2: terms of personality, you want to be around these guys.
- 17:12Speaker 2: You want guys again, like you want to have the
- 17:15Speaker 2: same kind of like minded guys because you know, you
- 17:17Speaker 2: need guys that can kind of push each other. They're
- 17:19Speaker 2: not afraid of competition. They're not afraid of competition and practice,
- 17:22Speaker 2: you know. And you know again you know they need
- 17:25Speaker 2: to go to school, but you want baseball be really
- 17:27Speaker 2: important to them because this is really hard and what
- 17:30Speaker 2: we asked them, like you said, we're on the road
- 17:31Speaker 2: the first eight weekends of the year. That's really hard, man,
- 17:34Speaker 2: That's really hard to do, you know, so you want
- 17:38Speaker 2: to hope that you're hitting those marks.
- 17:39Speaker 1: You've done an amazing job, you and Jim, the whole
- 17:42Speaker 1: coaching staff. You guys are amazing. Thanks for a few minutes.
- 17:44Speaker 3: Thanks lot, guys, appreciate it. Good luck tonight.
- 17:46Speaker 4: Thanks