Latest / Sports Avenue Twisted Podcast / SATP Ep.43 Part I feat. Jesse Goldberg-Strassler

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SATP Ep.43 Part I feat. Jesse Goldberg-Strassler · Sports Avenue Twisted Podcast

0:27
Welcome to another edition of the Sports Ave.
0:29
Twister podcast. We have a special, special guest
0:32
in here today and he is the play by play for the Lansing lug
0:36
nuts, Jesse Goldberg, Strassler. Welcome to the show.
0:40
This has been a long time coming and we're finally got it done.
0:44
So welcome. I really appreciate you having
0:46
me. Thank you.
0:50
Yeah, man, thanks for joining us today.
0:51
It's been it's it's really fun to have a guy your caliber come
0:55
join us today and just it's, it's awesome, man.
0:59
You know, being a long time Blue Jays fans, we've listened to you
1:02
for a long time. So we're just we're like kids in
1:04
candy store today, man, It's it's awesome.
1:07
I don't know about caliber, but I can't wait to chop it up.
1:09
Let's talk baseball. Let's let's do it up.
1:13
All right. So the first question we want to
1:15
ask you is so talk about the moment you were you were dear
1:21
the lug nuts was affiliated with the Blue Jays like even taught
1:24
prior to that. What would the transition?
1:27
When did you start doing the play by play and all and and
1:29
talk a bit about yourself. Yeah.
1:31
So I'm from Maryland, I was born in Washington, DC, and I went to
1:36
Ithaca College in Ithaca, NY to pursue sports broadcasting.
1:40
And while I was there, I interned at WBAL in Baltimore,
1:43
and I covered the Orioles. Well, after I graduated college,
1:47
I did not get any job working in broadcasting.
1:49
So I actually did play by play of theater around the DC area.
1:53
I did play by play of Jesus Christ Superstar for people who
1:56
are visually impaired. Here's the play by, you know,
1:58
Jesus enters, He's wearing a robe.
2:01
And from there, I continue to say, how do I work in baseball?
2:05
How do I get applications out there?
2:08
And I was given the advice to go to the baseball winter meetings.
2:11
So in December 2004, I went to the winter meetings and I sat
2:16
and I gave my resume in and I had my cassette tapes.
2:19
And that led to an internship in independent Brockton, MA, which
2:24
led to an internship with the Montgomery Biscuits for two
2:26
years, which led to my first lead role, 2008, with the Windy
2:30
City Thunderbolts in the Frontier League, which led to
2:34
the Lansing Lug nuts. Because when I was with the
2:37
Montgomery Biscuits, my first year with them, my assistant
2:40
general manager was a man named Pat Day.
2:42
I called him Saint Patrick Day. And then he went from the
2:46
Biscuits to getting the general manager role with the lug nuts.
2:50
And when their broadcaster left in 2008, following the 2008
2:55
season, well, at the winter meetings in December 2008 in Las
3:00
Vegas, they interviewed me. They hired me to be the new
3:03
voice of the Lug Nuts. And during 2009, and then I had
3:07
to get to know the Blue Jays organization because the Lug
3:10
Nuts had been affiliated with the Blue Jays since 2005.
3:13
Prior to that, 99 through 4 Cubs team.
3:16
Prior to that, 96 through 98 Kansas City Royals team.
3:21
The first year ever with the Lug Nuts, the first game ever with
3:24
the Lug Nuts. Teenager Carlos Beltran was in
3:26
the starting lineup when they re affiliated with the Blue Jays
3:30
entering 2005. Their very first Blue Jays top
3:33
prospect was Casey Janssen and then Travis Snyder came through
3:37
and then Mark Zipchinski and Brad Mills.
3:40
So when I arrived in 2009, our top prospect was Henderson
3:44
Alvarez, and then things got better from there.
3:50
So give us a little bit of insight on on a daily routine
3:54
for yourself, like how do you prepare for these games since
3:57
you've been there for so long? And, and, and tell us, just give
4:01
us a little bit of insight about how you like the day in the life
4:05
of Jesse Goldberg Strasser. The hard thing is because
4:09
there's so much that I do besides broadcasting.
4:13
A lot of what I do isn't necessarily broadcast game prep,
4:17
although I sneak some in when I wake up and I go out to the
4:20
ballpark in general, 10:00 AM, 10-30, maybe toward 11 or a 705
4:25
home game. Then the first thing I do is put
4:27
the stat packs together and I print out Sudoku's and I print
4:30
out crossword puzzles and I bring those to the each
4:33
clubhouse, print out the box scores from all around the
4:36
league from the day before. If the manager sent me his
4:39
lineup and the other team's lineup, then I've got lineups
4:42
that I bring around everywhere and I create the social media
4:44
lineup graphics, get on Photoshop this guy.
4:48
And then from there, I get into the game notes and with the game
4:52
notes, that's where I do my broadcast crap, where I get to
4:55
ask questions like, you know, we turned 4 double plays yesterday.
4:59
Where does that put us in minor League Baseball?
5:01
What are the things that have jumped out to me?
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What do I see around the organization?
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And because I'm constantly looking around the organization,
5:10
that and I want to take you back to 2009.
5:12
I did not have a good feel for the Blue Jays system.
5:14
I did not have a good feel for the depth of talent, and that's
5:18
something that the more I started to widen my lens and go,
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well, who's below, who's above, who's excelling?
5:25
Who are guys to watch for, who's rehabbing and coming back from
5:29
injury? And as we approach the draft,
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all right, who are the kind of guys that will be looking at
5:34
what is the team's draft philosophy?
5:36
Because that gets very exciting. So there's game notes and then
5:41
there's maybe a pregame interview, but I do a lot of
5:44
osmosis. I just like to hang around.
5:47
So if there's early work on the field and there's always early
5:50
work on the field, I might just hang around the cage and watch
5:53
some pointers be given to these hitters.
5:55
Watch the catchers put in some work or go watch a side session.
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Sit behind the pitchers as they get their work and just listen
6:02
to everyone. This is a privilege that I have
6:04
in the minor leagues that they don't have in the major leagues.
6:06
You can't go everywhere anytime that you want.
6:09
You can only go into the clubhouse when clubhouse is
6:12
open. You can't just wander back out
6:14
of the cages or wander around into the strength and
6:17
conditioning room. But because I'm Meteor
6:19
Relations, because I've got all of my different hats and I work
6:22
with everybody, I do have that privilege to be able to just
6:26
check things out. What are they watching on TV?
6:29
Who's winning the chess game? Who's winning the Catan game?
6:33
And then this all leads up to first pitch.
6:36
And then during the game I sing 7th inning stretch.
6:39
I sing Take Me Out to the Ball game, not doing a Hairy Carey
6:42
impression. After the game, I print off the
6:48
box scores for my assistant to run down to both clubhouses, and
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I do the postgame social media graphic.
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I'll cut highlights all throughout the game.
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I'm cutting highlights for us to post to social media, and I
6:59
write up the game story and update the website.
7:04
I think, I think that's pretty much everything, right?
7:09
That's incredible there. Incredible.
7:12
Yeah. So the first manager when the
7:17
Blue Jays were in their first year of the affiliates with the
7:20
lug notes was Clay McCullough. Now he's the manager of the
7:24
Miami Marlins. Did you see from afar that for
7:29
him, being a level manager at that time has become a manager
7:34
in the major leagues? He was the top prospect on the
7:37
team and Scott said this. They said your best Major League
7:41
prospect is your manager. He was young.
7:45
His dad was big time in the scouting world.
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Howard and Clayton brought energy.
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He was always in control. He was fiery.
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He would get guys up and because he was so young, just everything
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about him, you go, he's sharp and he's bringing it.
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So I've got to bring it too. I remember there was one day
8:05
where the guys had made a mess on the bus.
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So Clayton walked around the bus with a big trash bag and he
8:13
collected all everything in that trash bag.
8:15
And because the bus driver pointed this out to him and he,
8:19
when the guys all got on the bus, he said, you guys can make
8:22
a mess out there on the field and you're messing up your own
8:25
careers, but you do not mess this bus up because this bus
8:30
means more than that. And he took up a collection for
8:33
the bus driver and everybody got fined.
8:36
And he was like, we are going to conduct ourselves accordingly to
8:39
a higher standard. We're going to keep it clean.
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Paraphrasing everything from my memory because this is what, 16
8:46
years ago? And yet I just remember his
8:48
intensity and this feeling of he is holding these guys to a
8:52
standard. And that standard is not just on
8:55
the field. That standard is everywhere.
8:57
And I loved it. John Schneider was the manager
9:02
in 2016. He's currently the manager of
9:05
the Blue Jays. When you spoke to him and you
9:08
had your interactions with him, what were those like and did you
9:11
ever see him as being groomed for that potential manager with
9:16
the Blue Jays? Oh, yeah.
9:17
So Clayton got plucked, right? The Dodgers took Clayton right
9:21
out from the Blue Jays organization, and they put him
9:23
in charge of their whole farm system.
9:25
The Dodgers saw this talent, they took advantage, and then
9:28
they put him at first base coach.
9:30
And then the Marlins hired him away.
9:31
And the Blue Jays saw with John Schneider and they're going.
9:34
We can't let this guy get away. I I saw him as he was working
9:37
his way up. He was Vancouver, then he was up
9:40
with us. Big shoe guy, John Schneider, by
9:42
the way, big shoe guy, you could just tell with him, it's that
9:47
same kind of he relates to the players.
9:50
He knows how to get people fired up.
9:53
He can go up and down. He brings the intensity on a
9:56
daily basis while also having the feel for when to keep things
10:00
loose. So just that ability to manage a
10:03
clubhouse, to know when to light a fire and when to get a guys
10:06
back. He had that at my level.
10:09
And then he was constantly picking the brains of everyone
10:11
around him trying to get smarter.
10:13
But he and Clayton McCullough were both catchers, and these
10:16
were guys who both had been in baseball, and though they didn't
10:20
have the skill, you could tell that they cared and it was very
10:23
important to them to see the bigger picture of everything
10:26
that was going on. So yes, while Schneider was with
10:30
the lug nuts, it was very much that feel that the Blue Jays
10:32
were grooming him for something bigger.
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So the other managers that were there and I could be missing
10:41
some of them, there was a whole bunch of them and you could talk
10:43
about the current ones right now, but the other ones I'm
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talking about Cesar Martin, Dallas McPherson, Phil Pole,
10:49
Mike Redmond, talk about some of those guys.
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And if if I'm missing some names, you could talk about the
10:53
others as well. Mike Redmond went from playing
10:57
in the major leagues being Joe Mauer's backup to managing the
11:00
lug nuts to getting hired as Miami Marlins manager.
11:03
It was remarkable. He went Lansing to Dunedin.
11:07
He was manager of the year in our league and I believe the
11:10
Florida State League as well. And the Miami Marlins hired him.
11:14
And then it was a terrible franchise.
11:17
The outlook was not good. He was not put in a position to
11:20
succeed. But he resurfaced with the
11:22
Colorado Rockies, his bench coach, and now they've cleaned
11:25
house. But like, there was just this
11:27
feel that read understood, and it's that catcher who sees the
11:31
bigger picture. Again, S Pisano is a blessed to
11:35
have as our manager. Ken Huckabee was a blessed to
11:37
have as our manager all of these former Major League catchers.
11:42
Phil Pohl was a catcher himself, but he was an Athletics bullpen
11:46
catcher who then was put in charge of the lug nuts back in
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2022. And he left the lug nuts to join
11:52
the Clemson Tigers that he re entered the college ranks.
11:56
And Cesar Martin is one of my favorite people that I ever met
12:00
in baseball. But at the same time that he's
12:03
just this kind, caring, warm person, I would get into
12:08
wonderful baseball conversations where after a game, you'd say,
12:12
what was this play? And I felt comfortable enough
12:15
with him and his coaches to offer my opinion.
12:17
And the pitching coach would offer his opinion.
12:19
And we'd go back at it. And Cesar could be quiet and
12:22
he'd listen. And then he'd jump his voice in
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and he'd say, actually, here's what it should be.
12:28
I go, Cesar, man, you're right. I feel, I feel very silly, very
12:32
smart, kind baseball man. I appreciate him so much.
12:36
He's one of my favorite managers that I've ever worked with.
12:39
But I mean, the guys that you named, love all those guys.
12:43
Currently working with Daryl Kennedy, who's mentioned in the
12:46
minors for a long time. Let me tell you, a manager is so
12:51
important and I love asking the managers, what is your job?
12:56
What is your actual job? And the answer that I got this
13:00
year from Daryl Kennedy is that his job is to guide each player
13:04
individually to as high as the heights can be for that player
13:08
to really guide him in all the ways that that can mean.
13:13
And then I heard from a different manager, it might have
13:15
been Ken Huckabee, that his job was to make sure that each day
13:18
was different, that it never became a grind.
13:21
So whether it's the managers becoming creative, whether it's
13:25
them knowing how to fire people up, I mean, you guys know who I
13:28
mean when I say Philip Wellman, right?
13:31
Yeah. Philip Wellman the the hand
13:35
grenade ejection when I was in Tampa Bay's organization, Philip
13:40
Wellman managed against us when he was with the Braves.
13:43
And tremendous manager who knew when he should go vaudeville,
13:50
who knew exactly what days to pick out to give the most
13:54
ridiculous ejection possible. And I got a great show one day
13:58
because the team need breaking out of their doldrums.
14:01
Manager really has his finger on the pulse who knows how to wake
14:04
his guys up and get them fired up.
14:06
Valuable. In 2016 you had the pleasure of
14:11
watching as very special 3 pitches that were all drafted in
14:15
2010. They call them the Lansing three
14:17
at the time with Aaron Sanchez, Noah Syndergaard and Justin
14:21
Nicolino. That trio would eventually be
14:24
blown up when what Noah was traded away.
14:27
But what was it and that what was it like to to watch those
14:30
guys up close and what was the hype like at the time?
14:34
Let me expand the lens, because the fourth guy was Anthony
14:39
Discofire. Oh, right, Who's still in the
14:41
majors? And then Carlos Perez was the
14:43
catcher, and he's still knocking around baseball.
14:46
AAA to the majors, AAA to the majors.
14:48
And Kevin Pillar was playing center field and John Birdie was
14:51
playing second base. We had major leaguers all around
14:54
that lineup. But every scout who came
14:57
through, and not just scouts, Alex Anthopolis or Blue Jays,
15:03
people would come through and they'd all say, who do you like
15:06
better, Sanchez or Syndergaard? That was the constant question,
15:11
Sanchez or Syndergaard, Sanchez or Syndergaard because the
15:14
feeling was Nicoliano's 3D. Stefani is 4.
15:18
David Rollins was five. He got a cup of coffee in the
15:20
major leagues as well. But trying to figure out with
15:24
these youngsters, because they were so young, we first saw them
15:28
in 2011. That was the fun part is we made
15:32
the playoffs in 2011. Mike Redmond managed us all the
15:35
way to the Midwest League Championship Series.
15:38
And so it's the end of the season and suddenly I get told,
15:41
hey, we're TBA tomorrow. OK, Our new pitcher tomorrow is
15:44
Noah Syndergaard. Now we're in the playoffs
15:47
against Fort Wayne. Hold on, hold on.
15:49
OK, Our new pitcher for today's game in the playoffs against
15:52
Fort Wayne is Aaron Sanchez, and that's where he made his debut.
15:56
We're suddenly pulling this guy up from Vancouver, and I'm
15:58
going, who is he? I'm reading his draft resume and
16:01
I'm going, whoa, OK. And then they all came to join
16:05
us in 2012. Sanchez and Nicolino were put as
16:09
part of a piggyback tandem. We called them Sancholino.
16:13
And then it was Synergard and Anthony Discofani were put
16:16
together and they were Cinderfani.
16:20
Wow. I made, I made a mistake.
16:23
When I said 2016, I meant 20/12/2016 was when Syndergaard
16:27
was traded. So I just wanted to, I think it
16:31
was 2012 or it was, I don't know, I screwed up there.
16:34
But I. Apologize.
16:34
All good. It was so much fun because they
16:37
were better than the teams that we faced.
16:40
The only problem was we we blew a lot of saves that year.
16:43
Yeah, they would exit with the lead because with those guys
16:46
with the piggyback tandem, they would each go 3 and then next
16:49
month they would each go 4, and then they broke them up.
16:51
And now you get 5 and you get 5 and then you get 6 and you get
16:54
6. They were so worried.
16:56
How can we keep these young, talented arms healthy?
16:59
And as we've seen, D Stefani broke down, Synergard broke
17:03
down, Sanchez broke down. Justin Nicolino never truly
17:07
established himself. So it's it did go the way that
17:12
any of us would have wanted. But boy, that was a magical
17:16
summer. I want to talk about other
17:19
players that were in the organization for the lug nuts,
17:23
just the likes of Miguel Castro, the Matt Boyd's, the Kendall
17:27
Graveman, the Daniel Norris's, which it's crazy to think, or
17:32
the Danny Jansen's, the rowdy to Les's it's insane.
17:36
Patrick Murphy's like how how much did Anthropolis do in that
17:42
time to build something in that structure during that early 2000
17:47
tens to mid 2010, you know, with these young kids and you know,
17:51
they got called up and looking at them from the past, like how
17:55
did you observe all that? The drafting in the development
17:59
was so much fun, whether you had an international free agent
18:02
signee like Roberto Osuna or a Daniel Norris, who and the two
18:07
of them were on the same staff and you could see, OK, where's
18:11
this guy, where's this guy? Because Norris, when he first
18:13
joined us, he had a miserable time of it.
18:16
And I remember seeing the pitching coach taking him out to
18:18
the outfield and throwing around a football just trying to relax
18:21
him. The pitching coach told me you
18:22
didn't see that with the football.
18:24
That was not something you saw as they were just trying to get
18:26
him back to basics and get out of his own head.
18:29
He long boarded into the ballpark each day.
18:31
Miguel Castro showed up in 2016. It was really a weird season in
18:35
20/16/2014 when Anthony Alford showed up out of nowhere and but
18:43
Miguel Castro, everyone called him KD.
18:46
Everyone thought that he looked like Kevin Durant.
18:51
Here's this long lanky guy. I heard his dad is a boxer back
18:54
in the Dominican Republic. We're worried about his health,
18:57
but his arm is so great, so we're going to just shoot him
19:00
up. And you saw Roberto Osuna,
19:03
Miguel Castro jumped all the way up to the major leagues.
19:07
You could just tell that these arms were golden.
19:10
And how in the world do we take care of these wonderfully
19:13
talented arms? We're also taking care of
19:16
everything else and making sure that they understand pitching.
19:18
But that's how it was every single year.
19:21
We would see a prospect where you're going.
19:23
This is a blue chip prospect. Roddy Talez was drafted very
19:28
late and signed for a lot, signed away from his college
19:30
commitment. And there was just this feeling
19:32
of this guy can hit, he's going to be a Major League slugger.
19:37
Let's see how things go with him.
19:39
And he was paired up with Ryan Mcbroom at first base for us.
19:42
Dan. Jansen, a catcher, broke his
19:44
hand on the catcher's interference.
19:45
He was like, just like he's been hit by injuries at the major
19:49
leagues. He was hit by injuries with us,
19:52
but he was part of that same lineup with Rowdy Talez.
19:55
That 2015 lineup had major leaguer after major leaguer
19:58
after major leaguer. So that was the impressive thing
20:01
was every single year we were great because every year the
20:06
talent was getting replenished. If I can go back to 2012, was
20:10
the first year that Craig Durham, the voice of Dunedin?
20:14
And I started Blue Jays Aid Chat.
20:17
We had met in the winter meetings that past December.
20:20
And Craig said there's something that I figured out that we can
20:23
do. You know, there's a show, an
20:26
Internet show. And we didn't call it a podcast
20:29
or anything. We just call in and we would
20:31
host a show where you would tell everyone about Lansing and I
20:34
would tell everybody about Dunedin.
20:35
And so we did. And after a little bit I was
20:38
like, well, what if we asked a different broadcaster?
20:41
What if we got on The Voice of AA?
20:43
OK, let's get in the voice of AA.
20:45
What if we contacted Vancouver's guy, or Bluefields guy or
20:48
Buffalo's guy? Or what if we even took this all
20:51
the way up to the major leagues and it all started with Blue
20:54
Jays A talk. And that grew into Around the
20:56
Nest from 2012 that I've been very happy.
20:59
Even as my team has unaffiliated with Toronto and was
21:03
reaffiliated with the Athletics. It's been gratifying for me to
21:07
see that Around the Nest to still survived in some form.
21:12
So during that era, who are some guys that had that you thought
21:16
in your opinion that had the potential to be major leaguers
21:19
that really never panned out? Oh, man, by the way, am I
21:24
talking too much? Oh, no, you're perfect.
21:27
You're. Doing great.
21:29
We let it open. We're we're just vibing here so.
21:33
Yeah, just love the insight you have.
21:35
I mean, every single team you could look at a guy and be like,
21:39
is this guy going to work out? Well, that guy didn't work out
21:41
for, at the very least, didn't reach the heights that we
21:44
thought he was going to reach, Anthony offered.
21:47
I would argue was a gigantic disappointment because of lack
21:51
of health. Like if I went back to the very
21:54
first lug nuts team, 2009, it's Henderson Alvarez.
21:58
We were sure that Henderson Alvarez was going to be
22:00
brilliant or AJ Jimenez the catcher, or Tyler Pastor Nicki.
22:05
Before I got to the lug nuts, it was the JP Rashardy draft where
22:09
it was Kevin Aaron's and it was Justin Jackson and he had
22:13
drafted all of these great young stars.
22:15
Barry Early, who nobody really panned out.
22:19
Thought that Ryan Goins might be a better infielder.
22:22
Jake Marisnick looked like he was going to be a superstar in
22:25
2010. I'm looking at the 2010 roster.
22:28
You could have convinced me that our outfield entering 2011, the
22:33
2011 outfield of Marcus Connect, Jake Marisnick and Michael
22:36
Krauss was all going to do something in the major leagues
22:39
and they didn't. And Jake Marisnick is still hung
22:41
on now at AAA. But those guys felt like they
22:44
were going to be sensational. Jan Gomes just dropped by for a
22:48
cameo, and then he's created a Major League career for himself.
22:52
Here. I got a wild one for you, 2017.
22:56
We've got Vladimir Guerrero junior.
22:58
We've got Bo Bouchette. And I asked Vladi about his best
23:02
friends in the team and who really impressed him, expecting
23:04
him to be like, all right, let me give you my scattering report
23:06
on Bo. And it gave me instead full
23:09
scattering report on the guy who he thought was the superstar of
23:11
the team was named Bradley Jones.
23:17
Unbelievable. And from what I heard, so
23:21
Bradley was the 1st to get promoted.
23:23
He was promoted before Vladdy, promoted before Beau.
23:26
He went up to Dunedin. And then from what I heard, he
23:30
got married and he retired and now as best I can tell, he's one
23:34
of the great softball home run hitters in the country because
23:38
he could always hit bombs. You just, you just don't know.
23:42
Yeah, absolutely. I got another name for you that
23:46
was actually talked about as a catcher.
23:48
I think he was in. Pompeii.
23:50
Pompei is another one too. Kevin Pillar.
23:52
What about Kevin Pillar? It's another one.
23:54
Look at his journey. He probably had the log.
23:56
It's out of all the one right? What about what about AJ Jimenez
23:59
catcher? He was in the futures games.
24:02
I thought he was going to be, I, I even interacted with him a
24:05
little bit and he, he kind of was, you know, the next catcher
24:09
because of the whole thing with AJP, Aaron Sibia and now.
24:14
And you saw where that outcome was.
24:15
And he just never panned out as well.
24:18
It's such a great lesson to us to keep on building up prospect
24:21
death. Just keep on bringing prospects
24:24
and keep on bringing prospects. Because I remember there was a
24:27
time, and I'm not going to remember everybody, but when the
24:30
shortstop depth in the system looked unreal and you add, oh,
24:35
Franklin Barreto and Richard Rainier, and there was another
24:40
shortstop, Dawel Lugo. Dawel Lugo.
24:44
And you just thought Dawel Lugo, Franklin Beretta and Richard
24:48
Orania we. Got.
24:49
Three Major League shortstops at level to level to level, and
24:53
Beretta was traded and Lugo was, and it didn't work out for any
24:57
of them. That's crazy.
24:59
Wow. Wow.
25:00
So. Jay Jimenez, It's the story that
25:03
it is with a number of these players why Anthony Offord or
25:07
why Dalton Pompeii didn't hit fruition and that's injuries.
25:12
Injury kept on fighting AJ at the worst time.
25:16
Wow. Lane Thomas was also there in
25:18
2016 I believe. Yeah.
25:20
Oh, Lane Thomas was great and every time that he started to
25:23
get hot he got hurt. Lake County hit him with a hit
25:27
homeward in like 3-4 straight games and then Lake County hit
25:30
him with a pitch and broke his hand or wrist and that was it
25:32
for Lane. So it I'm gratified to see the
25:35
success that he has seen in the major leagues.
25:37
Please stay healthy, Lane. You know, you know the funny
25:40
part about Anthony Alford, I remember he was I believe a
25:43
third round pick and he was a two way player.
25:48
He was a football player I believe in.
25:50
Do you think with him being, you know, the fact that he went to
25:54
college to be a quarterback and then he came back to play
25:57
football, baseball, sorry, full time.
26:00
Do you think that kind of affected his career and not
26:02
focusing on one sport? No, because so he was sent to
26:06
Lansing and he was sent to Lansing for a one week cameo
26:12
day. Just just here's a taste of the
26:14
minor leagues. Just so you know, this is what
26:16
minor League Baseball is all about.
26:18
And they sent him to us on the 4th of July.
26:22
So each game that week, he would lead off the top, he'd lead off
26:26
in the first inning, he'd immediately base it and he'd
26:29
steal 2nd and he would score. And every single game he was
26:31
doing superstar things. And our manager is contacting
26:35
everyone above him going, you guys can't believe this.
26:38
This is one of the most talented players I've ever seen in my
26:40
life. And Anthony was dealing with
26:43
concussions and headaches in football.
26:46
Well, in football, it is very easy not to understand the
26:49
atmosphere of where you're playing because you're so locked
26:53
in and you're thinking and you just, you can't even hear
26:57
everything. You're just so into the game.
26:59
Baseball is not like that. Baseball gives you downtime.
27:02
So it's the Fourth of July, it's 2014, and Anthony looks around
27:08
and we have one of the biggest crowds in minor League Baseball
27:12
on the 4th of July. It's 1213 thousand.
27:15
And Anthony looks around and goes, yeah, this baseball
27:18
thing's all right. And then with the headache, so
27:22
Anthony goes, I'm doing baseball full time.
27:26
He just kept on getting hurt in the weirdest of ways and just
27:31
terribly freak injuries that kept on sabotaging his
27:35
development because he just needed reps because he hadn't
27:38
played that much baseball, but he had so much.
27:40
Ability. Yeah, absolutely.
27:44
I like to talk about the the three kids, the second
27:48
generational kids now with the Boba shits, Vladimir Guerrero
27:51
Junior and Cab and Vigio. And it's so funny to talk about
27:55
this because Cab and Vigio was kind of late because it was
27:58
always about Bo and Vlad being top trend to top 20 prospects
28:02
and MLB pipeline every year before they got called up.
28:06
But what was that experience like comparing to those times?
28:11
Because that now we're talking about the Mark Shapiro era now,
28:14
like all of a sudden, right? Like the Ross Atkins era.
28:16
So what was that transition like?
28:18
And talk about those three itself.
28:22
Some, I would argue that they really got LinkedIn, New
28:26
Hampshire in 2018, if I remember right, 2016, Kevin is drafted,
28:34
Bow is drafted, if my memory serves me right.
28:36
That's right. We get Kevin the very end of the
28:38
season and he's a professional, just a total professional.
28:41
Does no skills stand out? But Bo in 2016, he's down in the
28:48
Gulf Coast League and Vladimir Guerrero junior in 2016 is in
28:53
Bluefield. Well, Bo dominates the Gulf
28:58
Coast League and I don't think people saw it coming.
29:01
There were a lot of doubters about Bo because of his swing,
29:04
because he refused to change his swing.
29:07
He was seen as, look, this is my swing, this is how it's going to
29:09
be. And I just remember seeing tons
29:12
of doubts. He's got no defensive position
29:14
the very least. He's not a shortstop.
29:17
He can't run. He's got no arm.
29:18
It like here's all the different things that aren't going to
29:20
work. But specifically this swing is
29:23
not going to hit at the upper levels.
29:26
He dominates the the Gulf Coast League.
29:29
And then his appendix bursts. And as Beau explained it to me,
29:33
his body absorbed it. Things get very weird in terms
29:39
of medically that from what I heard, it was a medical
29:42
emergency and then it wasn't. But that ends his Gulf Coast
29:46
League season. It's done well and it's the end
29:49
of the 2016 Midwest League season.
29:51
We've got Cav and he's been promoted from Vancouver.
29:53
We're coming to the end of the year.
29:55
We've got an interesting team, Joshua Palacios and JB Woodman,
29:58
and there's a ton of these 2016 draft picks who look really
30:02
good. Woodman looks great, Palacios
30:04
looks great. Visio looks like a professional.
30:08
Well, we go to finish the year in Lake County before coming
30:10
back for our exhibition against Michigan State.
30:13
And just here we might have somebody join us.
30:17
Don't tell anyone. Like it doesn't matter.
30:19
This is not a roster move. And we show up in Lake County
30:23
and there's Vladi and Bo to take batting practice with us.
30:26
And I believe that this was the first time that the two of them
30:30
had ever met was when Bo was sent up from Florida and Vladi
30:34
was sent in from Bluefield. And they're just taking BP with
30:38
us. And they're with the team and
30:39
they're taking grounders. But they're not officially on
30:41
the roster. Vladi is 17.
30:43
Bo is 18. And then they come back to
30:46
Lansing, MI, and they sued up for the Crosstown Showdown
30:50
exhibition against Michigan State, which is the first
30:52
unofficial game they played with the lug nuts.
30:55
And Vlady's defense was absurd. And in the pregame Home Run
30:59
Derby, Vlady hit a ball off the video board.
31:01
But Beau would have, you know, because he corrected me later on
31:05
Twitter when I was like, eh, this happened.
31:07
Beau immediately sent me Adm to say, Jesse, remember, I beat
31:10
Vlady in that Home Run Derby. Yes, you did.
31:15
Vladi hit his homers and Beau hit Moore and Conor Panis, the
31:19
the Canadian, He topped them both.
31:23
Well, so that's 2016. As we end the year 2017, Kevin's
31:27
already been moved up. Kevin's wasn't eaten, but Beau
31:30
and Vladi open up the year with us and now they're no longer
31:32
1718. Now they're 18 and 19 and we got
31:36
to see more of them. But I still don't think that
31:38
people took Beau seriously as a prospect until he did what he
31:42
did in Lansing. He hit something like 392.
31:46
He was absurdly good as a hitter.
31:48
He's the best hitter that I've ever seen come through Lansing
31:53
as a hometown player for a visiting team.
31:55
We can say Mike Trout, we can say Oscar Tavares.
31:57
I just saw Kevin Mcgonigal and he's pretty darn good.
32:00
Yeah, oh man. But Bo?
32:04
Bo is next level as a hitter. Vladi wasn't.
32:08
But Vladi was doing things that Bo would tell me.
32:12
I know that I'm out hitting him, but you have to understand he's
32:16
doing this at 18. So what do you think he's going
32:19
to be like when he's 19? What do you think he's going to
32:22
be like when he's 20? And what we saw was they got
32:25
moved up to Dunedin halfway through the year after the MLB
32:29
Futures Game. And then I would argue in 2018
32:33
with AA New Hampshire. That was when Vladi went
32:37
bonkers, right? 2018 when he hit over 400,
32:41
that's when. So Beau established himself
32:44
first with Lansing 2017, and Vladi was with the New Hampshire
32:48
Fishergast and also Kavin with the New Hampshire Fishergast.
32:52
That's when things changed for all three of them.
32:56
Wow. So we've been talking about all
33:00
these players and stuff and you mentioned a lot of names.
33:03
Is there anyone else that you can think of that you maybe
33:06
haven't mentioned that really stood out to you as being a, you
33:09
know, a total professional and had the upside to be more but
33:13
really didn't pan out or just anybody?
33:15
You just want to mention that, that you thought that was
33:18
really, really good. I'm sure, I'm sure we could go
33:22
through the different years and go, oh, Ryan Borucki, I thought,
33:26
Ryan Borucki. Looked great.
33:27
Me too, yeah. What a great pitching prospect.
33:31
2019 was really a fascinating year because in 2019 we didn't
33:37
have the pitching prospects per SE, but what we did have as we
33:41
started the year was a 1-2 punch in the middle of the order of
33:45
Alejandro Kirk and Jordan Groshans.
33:47
Oh yeah. And we're like, oh, this
33:51
Grotians kid, the first rounder, this kid's great.
33:53
And Alejandro Kirk is exceptional.
33:56
I remember looking at his stats down in Bluefield and going he
34:01
did what? And then Kirk joins us and his
34:03
first hit is an infield single. And then he steals home later in
34:07
the series. And I'm going, oh, this guy's my
34:09
favorite guy in the league. Well, and he was like, call me
34:13
Alex, but not on the air. On the air, I'm Alejandro, but
34:16
I'm Alex in real life. I loved him.
34:20
Well, Jordan gets hurt and Alejandro Kirk gets moved.
34:25
I believe Riley Adams was the catcher at the upper level.
34:28
So Adams got promoted to AA New Hampshire if I remember right.
34:32
So Kirk had to go up to high A. Which means we now needed a new
34:36
middle of the order and our new middle of the order to replace
34:39
Grotians and Kirk was Griffin Conine coming back from
34:42
suspension and Gabrielle Moreno and play here.
34:47
Here are two more major leaguers.
34:49
We lose 2 and we getting two guys who are like, these are two
34:52
Major League bats and Gabby Morano homers immediately
34:56
Griffin Conan shows off great power.
34:58
Man, I wish Griffin could be healthy for the Marlins, but
35:01
Morano is exactly what the Diamondbacks have seen.
35:04
It's a it's a pleasure. Oh, I've got guys for you who
35:07
who missed so it didn't work out for and it's all the first round
35:10
pitchers. Unfortunately, it's Chad
35:12
Jenkins. It's John Harris.
35:17
Yeah. These the first round pitchers
35:20
where you go, oh man, I see why they drafted this guy in the
35:24
first round and then it just it just doesn't happen.
35:27
What about Nate Pearson? That's another one too.
35:30
Nate Pearson joined us in 2018, so Jordan groshans in his name
35:35
draft. They also drafted his high
35:36
school teammate King Clough and in 2018 Cross Down Showdown at
35:43
the end of the year we get Nate Ignate now we get King Cloth and
35:49
you see these two guys come in and it's just like, OK, here's
35:52
this young stud who looks like he has pretty good stuff.
35:56
Like you couldn't watch Adam Klopfenstein pitch after you
35:59
just watched Nate Pearson because I'm watching Nate
36:02
Pearson it. He just bullied the batters.
36:06
Everything about him was you weren't strong enough.
36:10
You couldn't keep the bat in your hands against the stuff
36:13
that he was bringing. So I'm glad that he's now carved
36:16
out a Major League role for himself.
36:17
But at that time, his ceiling looked gigantic.
36:22
You know what a nice guy, what a great guy.
36:25
You know, there's another name and, you know, I remember this.
36:28
This was during the time that Kevin Bijio and Kevin Smith used
36:32
to go back and forth that, you know, what's so funny about
36:35
that? I thought Kevin Smith was the
36:37
first guy to get called up before and they cabin in Buffalo
36:40
just went on some sort of tear and just ran away with it.
36:44
Like, do you remember that time when they were going on a
36:46
seesaw, like, you know, battle to the finish, up to the majors,
36:50
to the show? Well, you know who Kevin was
36:52
contrasted with was Logan Warmoth.
36:56
So I'm I'm a Washington Commanders fan and there was a
36:59
pretty famous draft where in the first round we took Robert
37:02
Griffin, the third and then a couple of rounds later we took
37:05
Kirk Cousins and then Cousins outplayed Rd. 3.
37:09
That's what happened in this draft.
37:11
They drafted first round shortstop at a North Carolina,
37:14
Logan Warmoth and then they took a fourth round shortstop out of
37:17
Maryland named Kevin Smith and they sent Logan up to Hi A and
37:20
they sent Kevin to us. And Kevin was better than him at
37:23
every turn. He was a better defender.
37:25
He was a better hitter. He was Kevin Smith look like a
37:28
superstar and dancing and it just did not work out for him
37:33
with the bat at the Major League level.
37:34
The glove is exceptional. You know, I remember, I remember
37:37
watching him and Jordan groshans for that.
37:41
They were, they looked incredible.
37:42
Like I thought those guys were going to be legit and.
37:45
Yeah, Ryan Noda was. Just.
37:48
A player to watch in the outfield.
37:49
It's so fun that you look at these guys and you go, well,
37:52
they're not a star, but can they contribute in the major leagues?
37:56
And seeing like a Leo Jimenez? Can this guy contribute?
37:59
Kenneth Stewart Baroa contribute.
38:01
I saw David Schneider when he was very young, just out of high
38:06
school with no facial hair, baby, and you're just going all
38:11
right, it's going to take some time, but is this a player that
38:14
they can develop? The next question I want to ask
38:19
you is wait, now I got. Another guy, I apologize.
38:22
No, no, go ahead. No, go ahead, go ahead.
38:25
Jordan Romano, My Romano. Of course of.
38:28
Course, of course, of course. I'm so sorry.
38:31
For interrupting. No, no, no, you're fine.
38:34
I thought you were done, that's all.
38:35
But you're open. So yeah, with Romano, it's
38:37
insane. Because you know, the funny part
38:39
about him was that he was a Rule 5 pick with Texas and then and
38:45
he comes in full circle and comes back to the Blue Jays and
38:48
becomes a full-fledged closer. He was one of the best closers
38:51
until they let him go. And I know he's establishing his
38:55
way back. But yeah, remodeled story is
38:56
incredible. He was a starting pitcher for
38:59
us. He was on our starting rotation.
39:01
And every now and then he'd put up big strikeout numbers.
39:04
But there was something off. And I remember asking our
39:07
pitching coach, does this guy have a chance?
39:09
Does he have any kind of chance? And the pitching coach was like,
39:11
Oh yeah, once we move him to the bullpen, he's going to have a
39:14
chance. And he did.