Latest / Cardinal Territory: A St. Louis Cardinals Podcast / Interview: Cardinals assistant general manager Rob Cerfolio

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Interview: Cardinals assistant general manager Rob Cerfolio · Cardinal Territory: A St. Louis Cardinals Podcast

0:05
Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Cardinal Territory. We are
0:08
Speaker 1: recording this on Friday, September nineteenth, but you will watch
0:11
Speaker 1: it on Sunday, September twenty first, which is coincidentally the
0:15
Speaker 1: final home game of the twenty twenty five regular season.
0:18
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Katie will Hear with a very special guest.
0:20
Speaker 1: Super excited about this episode. It's something I've been wanting
0:22
Speaker 1: to do for a while. Cardinals Assistant general manager Rob
0:26
Speaker 1: Sortfolio joins the show. Surf Welcome, longtime listener, hopefully first
0:32
Speaker 1: time partaker.
0:33
Speaker 2: Welcome to the show.
0:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like the old FRANCESSA Collins first, first time,
0:38
Speaker 3: long time. Yes, I appreciate you having me. It'll be
0:41
Speaker 3: it'll be fun. I'm glad to talk with you and
0:45
Speaker 3: then all the listeners.
0:45
Speaker 4: It'll be good, I hope.
0:47
Speaker 2: So pressures on me to deliver some good questions here.
0:51
Speaker 1: I think when we look at this twenty twenty five
0:53
Speaker 1: transition season, the main focus was on player development, and
0:58
Speaker 1: while you were brought in at the twenty twenty four
1:00
Speaker 1: season to kind of oversee what Hi and Bloom would
1:03
Speaker 1: like to do with the minor league system, I mean,
1:05
Speaker 1: this is something that's going to impact both the minor
1:07
Speaker 1: league and major league teams and levels for multiple seasons.
1:11
Speaker 1: That's just kind of the nature of where the organization
1:12
Speaker 1: is trending. I think we'll just go right into it.
1:16
Speaker 1: For Cardinals fans, who most of them, the wide majority,
1:19
Speaker 1: have not had to experience an era like this, or
1:22
Speaker 1: a transition season or a revamping of a player development system,
1:27
Speaker 1: what can you tell fans about what the minor league
1:28
Speaker 1: system currently looks like so that they can understand the
1:31
Speaker 1: changes that have been made over the last year.
1:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's there's a lot of layers to that question, right,
1:37
Speaker 3: you know, I think one of the big things is
1:42
Speaker 3: is it takes time and patience. And you know, I
1:46
Speaker 3: think one of the things for me as a as
1:48
Speaker 3: a new guy coming over here, going all the way
1:50
Speaker 3: back to my own interview, is that there's a lot
1:53
Speaker 3: of pieces of this organization that's worked well for a
1:56
Speaker 3: long time, and all those banners flying around Bush Stadium
2:01
Speaker 3: like that's not by luck. And so I think as
2:05
Speaker 3: a new person and with all the new people that
2:07
Speaker 3: came in here, it was like really trying to understand
2:10
Speaker 3: what are those things that have worked really well for
2:14
Speaker 3: a long time, and that's not just performance, right, that
2:17
Speaker 3: can be values, that can be ways in which the
2:20
Speaker 3: game has been taught being great at base running, defense, offense,
2:24
Speaker 3: not really taking concessions in any one area. The Cardinal way,
2:29
Speaker 3: which as a new guy has been really fun to
2:32
Speaker 3: just try and learn what that actually means to every
2:34
Speaker 3: person that's here. And so it takes patience because you
2:38
Speaker 3: need to uncover what those things are. You have a
2:41
Speaker 3: lot of new people bringing other ideas into the organization,
2:46
Speaker 3: and now like the whole system is learning, both players
2:49
Speaker 3: and staff. Okay, like, what's the new version of this,
2:53
Speaker 3: of this Cardinal's way? Call it that we want to
2:56
Speaker 3: really scale and hopefully produce a lot of great outcomes
3:01
Speaker 3: over time. And you know it kind of goes to like,
3:03
Speaker 3: especially with young players, just developments not linear. You don't
3:07
Speaker 3: always see immediate results of what you did yesterday. You're
3:11
Speaker 3: kind of like a farmer that's planting water and crops
3:15
Speaker 3: and doing that well over a long period of time
3:18
Speaker 3: and always asking yourself, like, in the middle of that,
3:22
Speaker 3: is this process working? Are there things we need to adjust?
3:24
Speaker 3: Are there holes that we're missing? Who from the outside
3:27
Speaker 3: can come in and help us think about this problem better?
3:31
Speaker 3: But it does take a little bit of time, and
3:33
Speaker 3: that's not because things were so far away from being good. Like,
3:37
Speaker 3: there's a lot of players that were products of this
3:41
Speaker 3: minor league system that have impacted the major leagues this year,
3:44
Speaker 3: which is awesome, And now it's just trying to continue
3:46
Speaker 3: to make those guys even better that have debuted and
3:50
Speaker 3: put other great pieces around that, both with staff and
3:53
Speaker 3: player acquisition streams.
3:55
Speaker 1: So that was the main focal focus point of when
3:58
Speaker 1: you were first hired, and you worked with him about
4:00
Speaker 1: expanding the staff first of the entire farm system as
4:04
Speaker 1: a whole, added more coordinators, added more positions, and then
4:07
Speaker 1: you both work to modernize technology. And both of those
4:11
Speaker 1: phrases sound a little vague, especially to a fan base
4:14
Speaker 1: that hasn't really had to really see the modernization.
4:17
Speaker 2: Of a farm system.
4:18
Speaker 1: Can you expand on why adding both staff and technology
4:22
Speaker 1: was important before you even started the twenty twenty five season.
4:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean we can start with the staff. I
4:27
Speaker 3: mean I think, like, really, you're only as good as
4:31
Speaker 3: your team. And the analogy I like to make is
4:36
Speaker 3: because you know, this resonates I think with a lot
4:38
Speaker 3: of people, especially anybody that has kids, is every person.
4:42
Speaker 4: Wants to put their kids in the best school possible.
4:45
Speaker 3: So how do you know if a school's great, Well,
4:47
Speaker 3: you look at well, if it's a high school, what
4:50
Speaker 3: college do they send people to? What average sat at
4:54
Speaker 3: act scores the does the school produce? And so there's
4:59
Speaker 3: measurables right for that with a minor league baseball system
5:02
Speaker 3: of how well is this group continuously producing major league
5:05
Speaker 3: players that are winning major league players, not just guys
5:09
Speaker 3: that get there, but stay there and help a team
5:11
Speaker 3: actually achieve results of the big league level. And so
5:14
Speaker 3: in order to have really good outputs, like the best
5:17
Speaker 3: schools on Earth hire the best teachers and they have
5:21
Speaker 3: the best curriculum, and that's how they scale their product
5:25
Speaker 3: to every student. And it's really no different for a
5:29
Speaker 3: baseball organizations. You have to have a math chair, you
5:32
Speaker 3: have to have an English chair, you have to have
5:34
Speaker 3: multiple people in all of the spaces that impact players
5:38
Speaker 3: getting to the big leagues and then staying there and
5:40
Speaker 3: hopefully being winning players for a long time. You need
5:44
Speaker 3: that same approach in the minor league so that there's
5:47
Speaker 3: great communication between the big leagues and the minor leagues
5:50
Speaker 3: and everybody's kind of reading off the same sheet of music,
5:52
Speaker 3: they're solving for the same outcomes they're aligned towards. When
5:56
Speaker 3: that TRIAA player walks into the major leagues for the
5:59
Speaker 3: first time, that coaching staff knows that and had input
6:04
Speaker 3: on the things that that player was coached towards, so
6:07
Speaker 3: that it's a seamless transition, or as seamless as it
6:10
Speaker 3: can be given some of the factors that these guys
6:13
Speaker 3: go through, you know, emotionally and just being in a
6:16
Speaker 3: new physical location. So we really tried to attack that
6:20
Speaker 3: off of you know, that's a really broad analogy, but
6:23
Speaker 3: I think it's maybe something that the average person can
6:25
Speaker 3: can resonate with because it's the same way that you
6:28
Speaker 3: would try and in place your child in the best
6:31
Speaker 3: school possible, and you just want those those curriculums to
6:36
Speaker 3: be really good and the people that are leading them
6:39
Speaker 3: to be really skilled in great leaders and influencers of
6:43
Speaker 3: both players and staff that when that coordinator is not there,
6:49
Speaker 3: the actual programming and the curriculum is really sound, and
6:53
Speaker 3: the players understand it, and the coaches of the affiliate
6:55
Speaker 3: understand it, and they know exactly what they need to
6:58
Speaker 3: do to carry that action out. And if we do that,
7:01
Speaker 3: every frigging day. It's monotonous, but if we win the
7:04
Speaker 3: one to five o'clock period with our process and how
7:07
Speaker 3: we're working on those skills, then the game is just
7:10
Speaker 3: a barometer of how well our work is translating. And
7:12
Speaker 3: so you know, that was really the whole thought. And
7:17
Speaker 3: I'd spent a lot of years in Cleveland kind of
7:20
Speaker 3: helping lead like the hiring process over there. So for me,
7:23
Speaker 3: it was a cool opportunity to really action a lot
7:25
Speaker 3: of the names that I had either hired in the
7:28
Speaker 3: or interviewed in the past and not hired in Cleveland
7:31
Speaker 3: and had an opportunity to bring over here to Saint Louis.
7:34
Speaker 3: So I'm pretty excited about the group that we've got.
7:37
Speaker 3: We've got more to come in the upcoming offseason, which
7:40
Speaker 3: would be really fun. Even though it's a lot of
7:42
Speaker 3: laborious work, but it's it's really important to get those
7:45
Speaker 3: people in programs right.
7:47
Speaker 1: And I think something that you have talked about saying
7:50
Speaker 1: that Himus talked about or alluded to in his end
7:52
Speaker 1: of season press conference last year is the ability where
7:55
Speaker 1: you're not necessarily losing the cardinal way. There's many, many
7:59
Speaker 1: things that this weization has done well, I mean they
8:01
Speaker 1: were pioneers in player development. When you're adding new coordinators,
8:05
Speaker 1: you're adding new staff members, you're adding new technology. The
8:07
Speaker 1: goal isn't to just replace the what was already here
8:11
Speaker 1: in the cardinal system, it's to expand.
8:14
Speaker 2: It, right, And when you're looking at how.
8:17
Speaker 1: To do that with bringing in a new group of
8:18
Speaker 1: people but keeping a majority of the same because it
8:21
Speaker 1: really hasn't been that much turnover in terms of people
8:24
Speaker 1: leading positions, why is that important to have a balance
8:27
Speaker 1: of the tradition of this organization and also modernizing it
8:31
Speaker 1: so you're not completely losing the identity of the franchise.
8:33
Speaker 2: You're just kind of making it better.
8:35
Speaker 4: That's it.
8:36
Speaker 3: And you nailed the dynamic right there. And the first
8:40
Speaker 3: thing we challenged myself any new person is like to
8:45
Speaker 3: really spend time on, like what are the parts of
8:50
Speaker 3: this organization that people that have been here for a
8:53
Speaker 3: long time would take a bullet for and things that
8:56
Speaker 3: are producing results, like really have an actual understanding of
8:59
Speaker 3: what those things are. Those were some, honestly the most
9:02
Speaker 3: fun conversations during the off season was really once we
9:06
Speaker 3: kind of finished that first wave of hiring, was then
9:09
Speaker 3: getting all those new people with the people that have
9:12
Speaker 3: been here for a long time, including the major league staff,
9:14
Speaker 3: into We did a lot of it virtually but in
9:17
Speaker 3: the same virtual room to like ask the hard questions
9:20
Speaker 3: of who do we want to be about, like what
9:22
Speaker 3: are the values that have been here for forever that
9:25
Speaker 3: we feel really strongly about, and then how have other
9:29
Speaker 3: people from new places thought about that same challenge, whether
9:33
Speaker 3: it's infield development or hitting development, Like what are some
9:35
Speaker 3: other like the diversity of thought piece of that to
9:39
Speaker 3: then ultimately just and we'll continue to stress test what
9:44
Speaker 3: we believe in and make sure that it's producing results.
9:48
Speaker 3: And we feel really good about that process. So that
9:51
Speaker 3: that was the way that we started that. I'm sure
9:53
Speaker 3: there's probably one hundred ways that we could do that
9:55
Speaker 3: better and hopefully, you know, this time of years is
9:58
Speaker 3: always a great time year where we're asking staff or
10:00
Speaker 3: feedback and like what does year two's worth of growth
10:03
Speaker 3: look like for all of us? And that'll be a
10:06
Speaker 3: huge part of it. But you're exactly right, it's the
10:08
Speaker 3: what are the parts of this organization. I spoke to
10:11
Speaker 3: the banners that are flying around Bush Stadium, like that's
10:14
Speaker 3: not by luck, that's because this order, like the word
10:17
Speaker 3: you said was a pioneer in a lot of different
10:19
Speaker 3: ways with the way they thought about the draft player development,
10:23
Speaker 3: having a minor league system of great teaching, and let's
10:28
Speaker 3: never lose track of any of that, and let's find
10:30
Speaker 3: new ways on the margins to even make that better.
10:34
Speaker 1: Good stuff with cards agm Rob's sorfolio here on Cardinal Territory,
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11:51
Speaker 2: All right.
11:52
Speaker 1: So, player development around baseball is a vague term, and
11:56
Speaker 1: it's most it's usually kind of relegated to the minor
12:00
Speaker 1: league system or prospects because that is where you're essentially
12:03
Speaker 1: developing players. But for the case of the Cardinals, at
12:07
Speaker 1: least this season and probably for the next couple of
12:08
Speaker 1: years going forward, player development is going to take place
12:11
Speaker 1: across the board at both the minor league levels and
12:14
Speaker 1: the major league level. We spent an entire season this
12:16
Speaker 1: year talking about transition, runway, use your favorite buzzword, and
12:21
Speaker 1: the primary emphasis of these buzzwords were to emphasize that
12:24
Speaker 1: players are going to develop at the major league level
12:27
Speaker 1: this year. For years, that was not the case. In
12:29
Speaker 1: Saint Louis. You were either a major league player and
12:31
Speaker 1: you are ready to contribute to a postseason run, or
12:33
Speaker 1: you were back to Triple A. But this is not
12:36
Speaker 1: a phenom that's necessarily specific to just the Cardinals. You're
12:39
Speaker 1: seeing this across major League Baseball, depending on team, market
12:42
Speaker 1: size and payroll. Your specialty surf is player development. Why
12:47
Speaker 1: is this important across the board?
12:49
Speaker 3: Well, first off, specialty is probably a strong word, but
12:52
Speaker 3: I'll take it.
12:54
Speaker 4: Yeah.
12:55
Speaker 3: I think the first part's mindset, and I think that's
13:00
Speaker 3: one of the things that I've really enjoyed working with
13:02
Speaker 3: Ali and his staff, Like goes all the way back
13:05
Speaker 3: to the second I showed up and had you know,
13:07
Speaker 3: he was part of my own interview process and we
13:09
Speaker 3: got into the weeds, the weeds on this and whether
13:12
Speaker 3: it's player combos right, whether it's like Nado or Donnie
13:15
Speaker 3: or really any of our players guys that have had
13:18
Speaker 3: success at the major league level, the second you stop
13:22
Speaker 3: getting better, whether it's baseball, whether it's sudoku puzzles, whether
13:27
Speaker 3: it's ping pong in the basement, Like, it really just
13:29
Speaker 3: doesn't matter when you stop getting better at a thing, like,
13:34
Speaker 3: especially in our world of sports where we're we're performing
13:39
Speaker 3: at the highest level in high competitive environments, like when
13:44
Speaker 3: you stop developing, you're in trouble. And I think that
13:47
Speaker 3: just mindset wise, is like we have a lot of
13:50
Speaker 3: players that already think that way, which is phenomenal, and
13:54
Speaker 3: now like scaling that across the entire organization, I think
13:58
Speaker 3: is hopefully something that can be competitive advantage for us
14:01
Speaker 3: and especially you know, if you spoke to like the
14:05
Speaker 3: market right of there are teams that the bigger market
14:08
Speaker 3: teams like they'll go out and pay for players that
14:11
Speaker 3: the entire industry knows is really good, and that's certainly
14:15
Speaker 3: a way of doing it. And the other way for
14:17
Speaker 3: teams that maybe don't have that same luxury is what
14:20
Speaker 3: are you doing with your own players every year to
14:23
Speaker 3: not necessarily reinvent who they are, but really ensure that
14:27
Speaker 3: their superpowers are never lost and the things on the
14:31
Speaker 3: margins that will help them take the next step forward,
14:34
Speaker 3: are intentionally getting better, not just hoping by luck, but
14:38
Speaker 3: having a real process. Whether it's a guy that has
14:41
Speaker 3: won five MVPs in the big leagues or a guy
14:44
Speaker 3: that's played five games in rookie ball, kind of the
14:47
Speaker 3: overall framework of the ideology is the same. It's just
14:50
Speaker 3: a different strategy and set of tactics on how you
14:53
Speaker 3: bring that to life and the types of things that
14:56
Speaker 3: you're focusing on for each player.
14:58
Speaker 4: But I do think they're this.
15:01
Speaker 3: Mindset is really important for just this organization, especially the
15:05
Speaker 3: types of players, and kind of we've seen this with
15:08
Speaker 3: some of the younger guys this year and making sure
15:11
Speaker 3: that we're never wasting a day for those guys that
15:14
Speaker 3: continuously get better. When your best players own that mindset,
15:18
Speaker 3: it really just becomes the fabric of how your organization
15:21
Speaker 3: goes about its business.
15:23
Speaker 2: And you can see that. Even I thought Nolan arnot
15:25
Speaker 2: I was a great example here.
15:26
Speaker 1: He's one of the best defensive third basemen of all time,
15:28
Speaker 1: and he's out there every day trying to take extra
15:30
Speaker 1: reps and get better. Brendan Donovan has really emerged as
15:33
Speaker 1: a winning kind of player, has that kind of grittiness
15:36
Speaker 1: that fans saw in the twenty tens when the Cardinals
15:39
Speaker 1: were in their last legitimate true run. You can kind
15:43
Speaker 1: of see this now with the way that players have
15:45
Speaker 1: stepped forward, whether it's Mason Win solidifying himself defensively as shortstop,
15:49
Speaker 1: Alec Burlison.
15:50
Speaker 2: As an all around hitter, of Von Herrera as a
15:53
Speaker 2: true bat.
15:54
Speaker 1: These are going to take times for some of these
15:55
Speaker 1: young players to really develop into their careers, but you
15:59
Speaker 1: do see this, and I think Burleson is a great
16:01
Speaker 1: example here in terms of someone who was challenged to
16:04
Speaker 1: become better defensively because they needed him to. You know,
16:07
Speaker 1: what you have in Burlson is a bad high contact rate.
16:09
Speaker 1: He can put a lot of balls in play. He
16:11
Speaker 1: needed to refine his approach a little bit so he
16:13
Speaker 1: wasn't getting out as much, and he did. But in
16:15
Speaker 1: order for him to stick, he had to be better
16:18
Speaker 1: defensively and he did that and it took some time,
16:20
Speaker 1: but he was able to develop in games and now
16:23
Speaker 1: he's an all around better player. Is that kind of
16:25
Speaker 1: the example that you're looking at when you evaluate these
16:28
Speaker 1: guys at the major league level?
16:29
Speaker 4: That's it?
16:30
Speaker 3: And then you ask yourself that question year over year,
16:32
Speaker 3: and it's like, Okay, Burley, what.
16:34
Speaker 4: A great season this was for you.
16:36
Speaker 3: You talked about the approach stuff, you digging into some
16:39
Speaker 3: of the behind the scenes numbers there and his chase
16:42
Speaker 3: rates and just the amount of times that he's getting
16:44
Speaker 3: himself in more favorable, more favorable counts to do it
16:49
Speaker 3: to do what he does best with me hitting the
16:51
Speaker 3: ball hard frequently. That's there, and that is directly tied
16:56
Speaker 3: to some of the ways that he challenged him himself
17:00
Speaker 3: to train. And you know, Burley and Brownie and all
17:03
Speaker 3: those guys like his teammates that helped that process deserve
17:06
Speaker 3: a ton of credit for being willing to get their
17:09
Speaker 3: hands dirty in season. And just like you know, we
17:11
Speaker 3: talked about that mindset and mentality of just the whole
17:14
Speaker 3: organization always thinking that way is is really important. But
17:18
Speaker 3: he's such a great example, like the work that he's
17:20
Speaker 3: done with JJ and the outfield to really elevate his
17:24
Speaker 3: game to be like not just a guy that has
17:27
Speaker 3: to play the corner outfield, but somebody that you're excited
17:29
Speaker 3: about playing the corner outfield.
17:31
Speaker 4: And now, like, what's the next step for that of.
17:34
Speaker 3: Being you know, wherever he is in terms of the
17:37
Speaker 3: excuse me, the metrics of a corner outfielder, Like, what's
17:40
Speaker 3: the even better version of that?
17:41
Speaker 4: How can we tie that to how he prepares.
17:44
Speaker 3: In the senc nutrition space, Like all those things matter,
17:48
Speaker 3: and I think his willingness to attack those things in
17:52
Speaker 3: season in like a very interesting transition year speaks a
17:56
Speaker 3: lot to the type of mindset that you want your
18:00
Speaker 3: best players to have.
18:02
Speaker 1: And I think when you're looking at the Cardinals fan base,
18:05
Speaker 1: I mean, they're a very loyal fan base, as you know,
18:07
Speaker 1: and they really know their baseball. So when you're able
18:09
Speaker 1: to see a player in real time, like Burleston adjust
18:12
Speaker 1: and adapt, like that's tangible evidence that they can see.
18:16
Speaker 1: They may not realize it in real time. I know
18:18
Speaker 1: sometimes I don't either. Where you look up and after
18:20
Speaker 1: a month you say, wow, this player has really expedited
18:23
Speaker 1: his growth or has really made these adjustments, because when
18:26
Speaker 1: you're playing every like a game a day for almost
18:29
Speaker 1: two hundred days, including spring training, it can be hard
18:32
Speaker 1: to really see that on a day to day basis.
18:34
Speaker 1: But Girlsten to your point as an example, Herrera offensively
18:37
Speaker 1: as an example. We can go down the list. Kyle Lahey,
18:40
Speaker 1: Mike McGreevey in terms of the minor league system though,
18:43
Speaker 1: something that isn't as a parent or easy to access
18:46
Speaker 1: as the major league team on TV every day. What
18:50
Speaker 1: changes can fans expect to see because we have made
18:52
Speaker 1: whether it's the organization or media, we made such a
18:55
Speaker 1: big idea about the revamping of the Cardinals minor league system,
19:00
Speaker 1: and there hasn't really been a lot of clarity as
19:01
Speaker 1: to what exactly these fans can look like other than
19:04
Speaker 1: adding staff members and adding technology. What can you point
19:08
Speaker 1: to fans where they can look and identify and see, Okay,
19:10
Speaker 1: this is different and here's why it's being done.
19:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great question, and it's in some ways
19:18
Speaker 3: it's a hard question to have like a real black
19:21
Speaker 3: and white answer to because you know, I said this
19:24
Speaker 3: comment earlier of like, developments never linear, and there's no
19:28
Speaker 3: better example of that than minor league baseball, where you're
19:31
Speaker 3: working with a bunch of eighteen to twenty one year
19:34
Speaker 3: olds and not only are they developing as human beings
19:37
Speaker 3: and adults, but you're asking them to develop skills and
19:41
Speaker 3: knowing that those skills take time to see real change towards.
19:47
Speaker 3: But I think there's a whole bunch of things behind
19:49
Speaker 3: the scenes, right of process.
19:51
Speaker 4: You talked about technology, right, like that's such.
19:54
Speaker 3: A broad thing, but there's real specificity to like exam
20:00
Speaker 3: samples of that. So I think everybody knows, like major
20:03
Speaker 3: league stadiums they have hawkeye technology, and that allows you
20:07
Speaker 3: to do so many things in terms of performance. Can
20:11
Speaker 3: be a lagging indicator, like you talked about sometimes you
20:14
Speaker 3: have to actually wait a month for to have a
20:17
Speaker 3: big enough sample size or just enough confidence that okay,
20:21
Speaker 3: this change was real. And some of this technology allows
20:25
Speaker 3: you to really like shrink the amount of time that
20:28
Speaker 3: you need to feel confident that a change is happening,
20:32
Speaker 3: and a change is happen there's guesswork there, right, It's
20:34
Speaker 3: it's a hypothesis. We think if this player does this
20:38
Speaker 3: movement differently, that it'll allow them to perform better in
20:42
Speaker 3: this way. But if you do that for a long
20:45
Speaker 3: enough time and you mess up a lot of them
20:48
Speaker 3: like I have, you can figure out which ones have
20:50
Speaker 3: some proof of the putting to it. And so you know,
20:53
Speaker 3: I think hawkeye is like an example of something that
20:55
Speaker 3: we are expanding to all levels of our minor leagues,
21:00
Speaker 3: and you kind of work backwards from here are things
21:03
Speaker 3: that we know, like evidence based approach. We know that
21:06
Speaker 3: these things work at the highest level in the big leagues,
21:09
Speaker 3: and now how do we bring that to a player
21:11
Speaker 3: that's in a ball And you might not see that
21:14
Speaker 3: player in a ball necessarily throw harder that next month,
21:19
Speaker 3: but we are then able to connect things about how
21:22
Speaker 3: they move and their delivery, how we build a great
21:25
Speaker 3: like throwing program and plyocare routine. Same thing for a
21:28
Speaker 3: hit or we can see the speeds that they create
21:31
Speaker 3: with their bat and the angles at which their bat
21:34
Speaker 3: like by way of how their body moves works through
21:37
Speaker 3: the zone, and we can see if that's what great
21:40
Speaker 3: major league hitters do or don't do, and then we
21:43
Speaker 3: can help that player in the immediacy. So it really
21:46
Speaker 3: allows you to shrink the amount of time that you
21:50
Speaker 3: need to wait for performance to stabilize or you don't
21:53
Speaker 3: get tripped up by Okay, well this guy was an
21:56
Speaker 3: a ball All Star. Is that actually mean he's going
21:58
Speaker 3: to be a major league All Star? Definitely not. There's
22:01
Speaker 3: players that are really good in the minor leagues that
22:03
Speaker 3: just don't have the skills to even get to the
22:05
Speaker 3: big league. So it really allows you to like isolate
22:09
Speaker 3: the skills that major leaguers have, and then there's a
22:12
Speaker 3: bunch of things around that of like being winning baseball
22:15
Speaker 3: mentality and running the bases and knowing game awareness and
22:18
Speaker 3: all those things like on the margins, Yes, but it
22:21
Speaker 3: allows us to have it allows us to miss less
22:25
Speaker 3: of those big rock skills that major leaguers just have
22:29
Speaker 3: more times than minor leaguers have. So that hopefully is
22:33
Speaker 3: a little bit of like a window into that answer,
22:36
Speaker 3: but it's really complicated, and ultimately you're just trying to
22:41
Speaker 3: have the most evidence based process that you possibly can
22:44
Speaker 3: have and use a bunch of people that are experts
22:47
Speaker 3: and information that give you as much data as possible
22:50
Speaker 3: to just make great decisions to help our players.
22:53
Speaker 1: And I think that makes a ton of sense when
22:55
Speaker 1: you think about what the organization is doing currently, there's
22:57
Speaker 1: going to be a reliance on the young core, some
23:00
Speaker 1: youth players, some guys coming up, so being able to
23:04
Speaker 1: identify these skills early and really analyze what they could
23:07
Speaker 1: project to be outside of just gained performance, because you're
23:10
Speaker 1: absolutely correct, obviously, development is so much more than what
23:14
Speaker 1: you did in the box score in double A that day.
23:17
Speaker 1: And with the I think him said it best last year.
23:22
Speaker 1: This is probably the most dramatically changing and quickly changing
23:25
Speaker 1: aspect of professional baseball, just in terms of how teams
23:29
Speaker 1: evaluate development, the technology available, and the resources available. So
23:32
Speaker 1: being able to give fans some sort of insight as
23:35
Speaker 1: to why this is important and why more money is being.
23:37
Speaker 2: Directed to these things should, in theory.
23:40
Speaker 1: Help maybe the kind of confusion or lack of clarity
23:45
Speaker 1: as the Cardinals embark on their first true rebuild in
23:48
Speaker 1: a very long time. But speaking of young players coming
23:51
Speaker 1: up in the pipeline, we are going to check in
23:53
Speaker 1: in our final segment about the some top prospects coming up.
23:56
Speaker 1: A lot of different names that Cardinals fans are excited about. Well,
23:59
Speaker 1: here for our sponsored me Undy's first, and then we'll
24:01
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about JJ weatherhol Quinn Matthews, Liam Joyle,
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Speaker 1: you know the drill. We'll be right back, Crats.
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Speaker 6: took a line that I feel like you would enjoy,
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Speaker 5: What do you have there.
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25:07
Speaker 3: I'm having a hard time holding composure after that, but
25:10
Speaker 3: I will say I am a Meundies fan, so that
25:13
Speaker 3: wow worked pretty well with the with that ad right there, a.
25:18
Speaker 2: Double sponsor, amazing.
25:20
Speaker 1: I need to start actually watching these videos before I
25:22
Speaker 1: press play, so I should so I'd like prepared because
25:25
Speaker 1: I was not prepared for that one.
25:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, but at least I didn't have to read that
25:29
Speaker 2: ad read so Weston.
25:30
Speaker 1: Now I've learned my Lesson actually watched the videos before
25:33
Speaker 1: you press play perfect.
25:35
Speaker 2: All right, it's a good humor. It's great humor.
25:39
Speaker 1: I mean we're like at the end of the season basically,
25:41
Speaker 1: I think we're all kind of just trying to anything can.
25:43
Speaker 2: Make me laugh. These days. I have such a hard
25:45
Speaker 2: time like.
25:46
Speaker 1: Paying attention in all these pregames scrums sometimes because like
25:49
Speaker 1: someone will say an off hand comment and then I
25:51
Speaker 1: just lost it and he'll be like can you can
25:53
Speaker 1: you walk back?
25:54
Speaker 2: And I'm like, no, I really can't. Posure I'm trying,
25:56
Speaker 2: but I really can't.
25:58
Speaker 1: All right, No, we have just a couple of minutes
25:59
Speaker 1: left because you are a very busy man and have
26:01
Speaker 1: lots of things to do. We've had a lot of
26:04
Speaker 1: discourse about JJ Wetherholt this season, obviously for rifle reasons.
26:08
Speaker 1: He just I think has really seized an opportunity this year,
26:12
Speaker 1: and we'll come in the spring training next year as
26:14
Speaker 1: someone with a lot of eyes on him. And then
26:17
Speaker 1: you look at someone like Quinn Matthews, who came into
26:19
Speaker 1: spring this year with a lot of eyes on him
26:21
Speaker 1: after a stellar season in twenty twenty four. As fans,
26:26
Speaker 1: all they really want to know is like one of
26:28
Speaker 1: these guys going to be at the majors and one
26:29
Speaker 1: of they can to impact this club and just how well.
26:31
Speaker 1: And that I understand because I want to know that too,
26:35
Speaker 1: But the priority for these guys especially you'll throw in
26:38
Speaker 1: someone like a Liam Doyle and I know to Coo
26:40
Speaker 1: Robe had Tommy John but up until that he was
26:42
Speaker 1: very much a part of this group. For a young
26:45
Speaker 1: core that should impact the major league level, how important
26:49
Speaker 1: is it serve to really make sure that they are
26:52
Speaker 1: ready to be promoted to the majors and ready to contribute,
26:55
Speaker 1: rather than just rush them up out of need or
26:57
Speaker 1: maybe a desire to see them at the big league level.
27:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a it's a great question, and it's this
27:04
Speaker 3: is a hard question when, like people ask all the time,
27:07
Speaker 3: it's like, well, why isn't this player were promoted. It's
27:09
Speaker 3: there's so much that goes into it. It's always not
27:12
Speaker 3: just the well what's their box score, what's their stat line?
27:16
Speaker 3: Like I think, first off, the gap between the major
27:21
Speaker 3: leagues in Triple A has probably never been wider. And
27:26
Speaker 3: some of that's just like straight out of the player's control, right,
27:28
Speaker 3: Like there's over the last couple of years, like the
27:31
Speaker 3: minor league shrunk. You know, there's less total players that
27:34
Speaker 3: you have, so as a result of that, players have
27:38
Speaker 3: really moved faster. And so when you have the opportunities
27:43
Speaker 3: to expose these guys to to just do everything that
27:48
Speaker 3: they would be asked to do in the big leagues
27:50
Speaker 3: before they get there. I've always thought of it as like,
27:53
Speaker 3: you know, you're the farm director's job is to ensure
27:56
Speaker 3: that we're not asking a player to do something for
27:59
Speaker 3: the first time in the big leagues, and we spend
28:02
Speaker 3: so much time like Larry Day and his crew that's
28:05
Speaker 3: really managing the day to day. They're spending hours trying
28:09
Speaker 3: to answer that question, and that's one of the fun
28:12
Speaker 3: parts of it. But it you know, makes it less
28:14
Speaker 3: black and white. But if you have that mentality to everything, right,
28:18
Speaker 3: it's like how they go about their pregame routine, how
28:22
Speaker 3: they're studying film. You look at like a guy like
28:25
Speaker 3: Jimmy Crooks that comes up to the big leagues. And
28:27
Speaker 3: by the way, catching is really hard to do, much
28:30
Speaker 3: less harder to do when you're a rookie and you
28:32
Speaker 3: don't have relationships with all of the pitchers that you're
28:35
Speaker 3: catching orth And so how we really tried to use
28:39
Speaker 3: the clock with him this year in the mind and
28:41
Speaker 3: in his time in TRIAA to here's exactly what they're
28:45
Speaker 3: going to ask from you in a pregame meeting with
28:48
Speaker 3: your staff, and let's really make sure that not only
28:51
Speaker 3: can you run that play well, but that you understand
28:54
Speaker 3: the why behind that.
28:56
Speaker 4: And we coach Jimmy.
28:58
Speaker 3: Pretty hard on that, and it goes all the way
28:59
Speaker 3: back to April May, and to his credit, he leaned
29:02
Speaker 3: into that even though when he probably thought we weren't
29:05
Speaker 3: very nice about coaching him pretty directly, but hopefully he
29:09
Speaker 3: now feels like, you know what, those guys were kind
29:11
Speaker 3: of a holes back then, but they set me up
29:13
Speaker 3: for walking into that first pregame meeting and having the
29:16
Speaker 3: skills that I need to excel. And so it's a
29:20
Speaker 3: hard question to answer, like when is a player ready,
29:24
Speaker 3: But ultimately the performance on field matters and the process
29:29
Speaker 3: around that, who they are as a teammate, how they
29:31
Speaker 3: go about their business from a preparation standpoint, how they
29:35
Speaker 3: go about reflecting the next day from whether they had
29:38
Speaker 3: good results or not, and how well are they learning
29:41
Speaker 3: and responding to that. All of those things really matter,
29:45
Speaker 3: And you know, there's not a it's not a math equation.
29:49
Speaker 3: There's not one right answer if when a player is
29:51
Speaker 3: right or ready or when he is not ready.
29:53
Speaker 4: But if you really have a way to try and
29:56
Speaker 4: uncover the.
29:56
Speaker 3: Answers to those series of items, at least in my experience,
30:00
Speaker 3: you feel more confident about when that answer is is yes.
30:05
Speaker 1: That's such a good point about Jimmy Crooks in his
30:07
Speaker 1: short time in the majors. Ollie Marvel has praised his professionalism, how.
30:11
Speaker 2: He comes in and he leads the meetings.
30:13
Speaker 1: To your point, he has less than thirty days of
30:15
Speaker 1: major league service time, and here he is with a
30:18
Speaker 1: couple veterans on that pitching staff, and he's able to
30:21
Speaker 1: identify exactly what the game plan should be, and he's
30:23
Speaker 1: able to say something that really impressed Ben Johnson down
30:26
Speaker 1: in Triple A was you know, they'd come up with
30:28
Speaker 1: the scouting report and Jimmy would say, I, actually I disagree,
30:31
Speaker 1: and here's why.
30:32
Speaker 2: And he's not afraid to have that discourse.
30:34
Speaker 1: That's the kind of player that you need at the
30:36
Speaker 1: major league level, because, yeah, he's coming up, he's young,
30:39
Speaker 1: he's a rookie. There are things he's going to learn
30:40
Speaker 1: on his own. But being able to have that skill
30:43
Speaker 1: set for preparation and that confidence to know, hey, this
30:45
Speaker 1: is a different level. I still have things to learn,
30:47
Speaker 1: but this is my job and I know this that
30:50
Speaker 1: is going to be key in bringing winning players and
30:53
Speaker 1: sparking them.
30:53
Speaker 2: Through this rebuild.
30:54
Speaker 3: Yep.
30:55
Speaker 1: Well, so all right, Surf, I know you've got a
30:58
Speaker 1: ton of things going on. I want to thank you
30:59
Speaker 1: so much for making time time to do this. I
31:00
Speaker 1: think hopefully fans can take a lot away from this.
31:03
Speaker 1: We'll be seeing you and hearing you a lot more
31:06
Speaker 1: once this season comes to an end.
31:07
Speaker 2: Just nine more.
31:08
Speaker 1: Well, I guess when this episode airs, a week of
31:12
Speaker 1: games left, anything that you want to communicy to fans
31:15
Speaker 1: that they don't know, or where they can become more
31:16
Speaker 1: familiar with your work and what you guys are doing
31:18
Speaker 1: down in the minor leagues.
31:20
Speaker 3: Well, I appreciate you having me on first off, and
31:22
Speaker 3: maybe apologies in advance if it's true you said about
31:25
Speaker 3: people having to hear my voice more frequently.
31:28
Speaker 4: So, but no, I.
31:29
Speaker 3: Appreciate you you having me on anytime we can speak
31:34
Speaker 3: to just the the work that you don't see the
31:38
Speaker 3: necessarily immediate results of tomorrow is always really fun. To
31:43
Speaker 3: top through and that's why I enjoyed doing these is
31:46
Speaker 3: as much as I can not tell yourself, But you
31:49
Speaker 3: know the rest of the group that's really doing a
31:52
Speaker 3: great job covering all the things, major league development, minor
31:55
Speaker 3: league development. It's all in an effort to try and
31:58
Speaker 3: help us have future success. So appreciaking of what you
32:01
Speaker 3: do to cover all.
32:02
Speaker 1: That, and hopefully that success comes sooner than later. We
32:05
Speaker 1: will see all right for Rob Sifolio, I'm Katie with
32:08
Speaker 1: this is Cardinal Territory. We'll be back with you for
32:10
Speaker 1: the final week of the regular season. Thanks as always
32:12
Speaker 1: for watching.
32:13
Speaker 2: Talk soon