Latest / Dugout Dish Baseball Recruiting Podcast powered by EMD Baseball / What LSU's Jay Johnson Said About His Team's Struggles — A Masterclass in Coaching Accountability - Ep. 167

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What LSU's Jay Johnson Said About His Team's Struggles — A Masterclass in Coaching Accountability - Ep. 167 · Dugout Dish Baseball Recruiting Podcast powered by EMD Baseball

• 0:02
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• 1:10
  Speaker B: welcome to this week's edition of the Dugout Dish podcast. I'm Andy Kirikidis, joined by my Wonderful Co host, Mr. Keith Glasser. How we doing, sir? Great.
• 1:19
  Speaker C: How are you?
• 1:20
  Speaker B: Almost had to redo the intro there. Had a slight brain fart as I was trying to intro the podcast there, but I overcame it. So.
• 1:29
  Speaker C: Yeah, you thought we were doing the other one.
• 1:31
  Speaker B: I did, I did, but made the made the mid intro adjustment there today. For those of you who are on X formerly known as Twitter, Jay Johnson, the head coach at lsu, I mean, is he's, he's in the conversation for the best college baseball coach in the country right now. I'm sure people have their preferences, but two national championships in the last three years, obviously lsu, pretty prominent program, believe they have the second most national championships in NCAA history behind usc. He's given a couple interviews. That one interview in particular seems to have gotten some people out of the woodwork to talk about how kids don't know how to play the game anymore and everybody just tries to do launch angle and throw as hard as they can, which I think is funny because I think the interview itself is actually really, really poignant. He gave another interview about kind of the state of the program and then he had an interview about one of his players, Jake, who recently broke his handmaid bone and had some really awesome things to say about that young man. But I think the content of what he said is, is something that's worth talking about here. So we're gonna talk a little bit about those interviews and yeah, we'll kind of take it from there. But the first, the first interview he gave that seemed to have gotten some traction on, on Twitter was him talking about, set this table here. LSU's not having an LSU like season right now. They're struggling a little bit, especially by their standards. Anybody talked about, you know, coming off in a loss at A M and he had mentioned that, you know, some of the players are, they're coming up in an era where exit velocities and launch angles and, and distances are, are metrics that are used quite often to validate success. And he goes on to, to talk about being able to take professional at bats and how that's always been a staple at lsu. And then he goes and talks a little bit more about his, his roster construction and how the transfer portal has worked and how they might adjust some things moving forward, whatever. But I thought it was an awesome, just an awesome 90 second clip kind of pull the veil back about how some of these guys think and, and you know, for me it was actually really telling about what, what coaches value and what they need to do to be able to win at the level that they play at and when across college baseball. But I'll quit my, my yap in here for a second and, and kick it over to you for some, some initial thoughts on that one.
• 4:06
  Speaker C: You know, I thought that it was very candid. I thought that it was Twitter X users lost their mind to fit the narrative in which they have already made their minds up for it to be like and what, and what he was mean, what he meant and how they were kind of reading through the lines of what he said. But I thought it was very candid where what he was saying and I actually thought it was incredibly professional. I didn't think that he as a head coach and a very well respected, you know, he's won national championships. He's an unbelievable head baseball coach. But it wasn't, it wasn't negative. I think some people kind of took it negative, but it. Willie, he didn't attack anyone on the team. You know, he talked more from a team aspect of like, this is why we're struggling and this is what we need to do in order for us to get better. And these are the things that yes, we can do this but we need to have, you know, when he had mentioned like, yeah, we, you know, we, we hit home runs. Like we're fifth in the league or whatever it is. But you know, they do, they hit a lot of runs. He's like, but our, like we're, we're known for professional at bats and we're not taking enough professional at bats for us to be able to play winning baseball. And, you know, when you've coached this game long enough and you've played it at a high level, you understand what he's saying from the standpoint of, yeah, like, we're doing some things that are super unique because we're uber talented, but the things that matter to win baseball games, we're not very good at right now. And we're trying to figure out a way for us to be bet to be better at those things. And I think that, you know, a lot of people took it as, you know, you could just go flip on Twitter and search it and see everyone's response to it.
• 5:58
  Speaker B: And I.
• 6:00
  Speaker C: While it probably fits your narrative and your already preconceived notions for what you think about, whether it's LSU or the transfer portal or high school summer baseball or whatever it is, you can, you can take those comments and make it what it is that you want it to fit what you think. And I don't think that any of what he was really saying, what was an indictment on any of that stuff, I think it was more, this is what's going on inside my program. Like, there are probably some things that we've seen throughout the years that, you know, we might stay away from in the, in future years, but this is what's going on inside my program. This is what we need to do a better job at. Yes, we're super talented, but, you know, winning baseball and in the sec, let's face it, like, go up and down that, go up and down that, that conference, man, like, it's. It is the best conference in college baseball, hands down, bar none. Does not matter. Fight me if you think the SEC is not good. Like, it is a gauntlet of a schedule to get through that, that, that league, and the margins are so thin. You have to be good at all the things that matter in college, in baseball, not just college baseball, in baseball, in order to succeed there. And I think that that's what he was really trying to drive at that. You know, we've kind of gotten away from the basics. We've gotten away from professional at bats. We've gotten away from doing some things that, you know, we're known for, and we need to get back to doing those things if we want to have a chance to. To win these, you know, to win more series, to win more baseball games, to be able to play in the postseason, to do the things that is expected of us here at lsu. So I, I thought it was. It was very candid. I thought that it was. It was very. In my personal opinion, I thought it was very well said. And I thought he handled the question and his answer the great way that, you know, there was no, you know, I think it's an easy way to kind of attack your players. And he didn't, you know, and that I would be. I would be shocked if that's not a conversation that he's had with his team multiple times this year. You know what I mean? They've had that conversation in right or left field after a game or in the clubhouse after the game of like, hey, again, you know, our bats are. We're not stringing together good enough at bats back to back to back in order to put runners on to cash runners in and do the things it is that that makes us successful, you know. So I don't think, like, you know, my point is in saying this, I don't think that him saying that is a shock to anybody on that team or in that clubhouse to be like, can't believe he said that. Like, no, man, you've heard that all fall, you heard it all winter. You heard it all lead up to the season. You've heard it multiple times over the course of this season. Like, you know what it is like. And he's just. And I didn't take it as inventing. I just thought he was being very, very candid about where they're at in their season and. And where he. Where he sees their deficiencies as a head coach.
• 8:59
  Speaker B: Yeah, I thought it was kind of. I thought it was kind of refreshing for him to speak as candidly as he did. And I think for. For folks that haven't watched the interview, you need to go and watch it, because I think there's a lot of. There's a lot below the tip of that iceberg, right? And people grasp that. Like, yeah, I saw one retweet that was like, there's a difference between showcase players and ball players. And that's not what J. Talking about. At least that's not how I interpreted it. So I might be wrong, but make no boats about it. You have to do some stuff metrically in order to play at lsu. You don't just get there because you take quality of bats, right? Like, you got to do some stuff physically that's going to be able to translate at that level. But what he was driving at is that it's big. You got to do both, right? Like, yes, the home runs and the velocity and the speed. Like, we need that. But we also need to be able to take a really professional at bat that might lengthen an inning, that might get another guy in a bat that might help us get into the bullpen. Like, we need to be able to use the middle of the field more. Right. He specifically called out two strike hitting and two out rbi, right? And two out rbi. I mean, shoot, they're a back breaker and being able to chalk a couple of those up and get a couple good swings off in those at bats. And I think the thing that was for me, that I took away from it is that he's not done coaching those guys. He kept coming back to, like, it's my job to continue to coach these guys. And we need to find ways to continue to try to get this and, and, and continue to develop guys and make sure that we don't get away from the things that we do well, because that's what it's allowed us to win two national championships. Like, they focus on Paul Skeens and they focus on Tommy White and the Jones kid. I think the Jones kid was the big donkey first baseman who hit, who's just a fantastic player. We gravitate towards them, but you lose sight of the guys who do all the little stuff really well. And he kind of hit on that when he talked about how, you know, I think this is where people kind of misconstrued and got some tension around, maybe threw some guys under the bus, which I didn't. I agree with you. I didn't read it that way either, is that, hey, we did some stuff from a roster perspective this year that we have to learn from. And I think he kind of alluded to using the transfer portal a little bit differently, which most coaches aren't going to speak that candidly. And I thought it was awesome that he did. But there's a lot to unpack in that interview. And you know, we had a bunch of back and forth with, with guys that we know. And one of the things that I kind of was thinking about and I, I'd like to get your thoughts on this is I think that the transfer portal often is perceived as this place where these coaches go and they just, they just pick the best guys that they want. And I think that we lose sight of the fact that whether, whatever your stance of the transfer portal is, these guys have to use the transfer portal because they lose players to the transfer portal. And like, there's complexity and nuance to recruiting out of the transfer portal, right? Finding guys who are the right fit, that it's not. You don't just get Paul Skeens and Tommy White and build a national championship team. You need to go get pieces of the puzzle that are going to help elevate the roster as a whole and that there's different strategies and how to do that. And I thought that that's what he alluded to was that, hey, we need to re. We might need to rethink about how we. We operate in the transfer portal. Maybe we need to bring guys in who might not be guys who are going to play right away, but guys that we think we can develop. And you use it as a slightly different mechanism there. So that was kind of my takeaway of that first interview. I. I thought it was. I thought it highlighted what it takes to be a really good team and that it's not just about home runs and velocities, but it's about pitch execution and back quality and things that. If you're a high school player and you listen to that, he just gave you a ton of information about what you should be expected to execute and do. Because, yeah, Jay Johnson has his own principles, and I'm sure he has his own verbiage and how he tries to coach it, but the fundamentals of what he's talking about. There's not many college coaches in the country who are going to disagree with anything that he said about being able to use the middle of the field and taking really good at bats. So he just told you, hey, man, this is what's expected of you if you're a college player. Like, you need to run with that and understand that those are things that you're going to need to be capable of doing if you want to help a team win when you get to the college level.
• 13:34
  Speaker C: Yeah, I don't. I think that it was the transfer portal stuff. I think you can take in a multitude of different directions. I mean, I took it more as him kind of saying, like, hey, I'm the face of the program. I'm the one who makes these decisions ultimately. And, you know, we. I don't know if I would say that he went and said that, like, they missed. I don't. I don't think he was saying they missed on guys. From a talent perspective, I think maybe, like, you might be able to say they missed on guys from. From what it. It fits for what they. They want to do. At lsu, it was more like, hey, we're. We took these guys that were, you know, we're really good. Obviously, they have the talent, blah, blah, blah, blah. But like they don't fit necessarily what he wants them to do. Right. I took it more that that way from a. It wasn't a knock on the players, it was him being kind of self critical of I need, you know, which coaches do. Like I need to do a better job of recruiting this type of player moving forward. And I took it more that way of like, hey, we need to do
• 14:47
  Speaker B: a little bit of a better job
• 14:48
  Speaker C: of the guys we're going to bring in here who for a year or whatever it is that are going to be able to do what it is that we're known for, how I coach what we do xyz, you know, because he kind of alluded to it of like, you know, I should have replaced, you know, guy I tried to replace irreplaceable guys with from the portal. Would I probably should have tried to build guys up in our program and then replace those guys through the portal, which is just another tactic that you can use the portal for. You know, everyone lost their mind about the transfer portal. Ruins everything and blah. Like they have to recruit out of the transfer portal at that level. That's just a reality that is everybody has to. Because you're losing guys to the portal, you're losing high school guys to the draft. There's a lot of things that are. There's a lot of moving pieces coming in and out year to year, right. So you have to use it in order to try to plug some holes. Whether you like it or not, that's the reality of the situation in which we're in. I don't necessarily know how many coaches really love doing it this way, but it's the cost of doing business in 2026 with college athletics at that level. That's just what it is. So you can either get mad about it and yell at the clouds or you can say, you know what, guys being candid about what is going on inside his program and how he is going to attempt to try to fix this moving forward. And look, they're having a down year by their standards, but they've won a national championship. He's won multiple as a head coach. Like, they're good, they're going to be just fine. This is somebody at the highest level of college baseball being like, hey man, you know what? I might have got a couple of things wrong and I'm going to go ahead and change up our mode, our modality of how we do this. Second time I've used that in the podcast. Not this one, but another one. So if you're listening and go ahead and, and try to get us into a better spot. And I, you know, I, I don't think, you know, you can jump on it, and I know everyone did about the transfer portal and it sucks and
• 16:56
  Speaker B: blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 16:58
  Speaker C: But again, this is the cost of doing business in 2026. They're all going to recruit out of it, every single one of them. Like it or not, it's going to happen. And they got dudes out of the transfer portal this year who are having good years. But to his original point, it's not necessarily. It's not playing out on the field the way that I think they had envisioned, because maybe as a, as an entire offensive model, they're not able to do the things it is that he values that he wants them to do. And he needs to. He's saying he needs to do a better job of that. And that's. You want any good coach that you're going to go play for that thinks that way, right? Like, that dude clearly likes to compete. He wants to compete, he wants to win. He's one at the highest level. He's. He's looking at this objectively and being like, you know what? I, I may have made some mistakes along the way. I'm going to own it and I'm going to, you know, do our best as a coaching staff to, to not have this happen again. And we're going to change some things up and go about it a different way so that we can get guys in here that we can coach up and do the things it is that we value to be really good. And I'm not saying, again, they're obviously talented. All the guys on that team are talented. They're very good. They're having a down year by their standards. But for what he wants and how he wants to run his program, it's not working out this year for. By their standards. So, you know, I thought that it, like, again, it'll sound like a dead horse beating a dead horse, but, I mean, the guy was super candid about it. And I just think that, you know, the vast majority of it and this, you know, if you listen to this, it might ruffle some feathers. I, I think a lot of it comes from people who haven't really coached in college, who've never had to construct a roster, who've never had to make tough decisions, do those things. It's just, you know, I've been saying the transfer portal is terrible for years. I've known. I've been saying for years that high school travel baseball is going to ruin college baseball. And here it is like, man, you
• 18:55
  Speaker B: just use the guy with two national championships in the last three years, the example to validate your opinion. Do it right.
• 19:02
  Speaker C: And a guy being like, hey, man, like, we just got to do a better job. And I got to do a better job because it starts with me at the top. And, you know, I knew this was gonna happen for years. Like, yeah, because LSU is the number one team in the country at the start of the year and everyone thought they were going to go back to Omaha immediately. Everybody, if there's someone out there who's like, well, I, I knew, oh, LSU is going to be down this year. You know, hangover central, like, go kick rocks. There's not a person in the country who follows college baseball who legitimately thought that LSU was going to be in the spot they're in right now. Not one.
• 19:38
  Speaker B: No.
• 19:38
  Speaker C: And if you're saying it, you're a liar.
• 19:43
  Speaker B: The, the other fact is, is that, and this is where like this showcase stuff and like people using that as validation, is that what he's talking about from a development perspective and learn some of the things that he values offensively. You have to teach every high school kid that when you get to college, because none of them have been a part of a lineup where the whole unit is a part of how you score runs. Right. Most high school guys are the three hole dude and they get to go whack it. It's, you know, there's no restrictions on what they do. They don't have to play a role in a lineup. They don't have to do that kind of stuff. So to a certain extent, like he's talking about, they, they're playing a lot of young guys. Well, there's a learning curve. When you play a lot of young guys, you're going to have those moments where you have some really bad at bats because they're young guys who haven't had a lot of bats at that level. And that's all part of the coaching and the development process. So for me, that's never gone away. Like, I don't think that the changes that we've seen in travel ball, that, yeah, I'm critical of some of them too. And I do think that you can, you can make an argument that kids are a little bit less prepared to play the college game to a certain extent because of how travel ball is and the showcase nature of it. But the reality is, is that 20 years ago, you're still bringing freshmen on campus. And you have to teach them to do the things that help you win games at the college level, like two strike at bats, situational hitting, baserunning, managing the running game, defensive positioning. Like that stuff still has never gone away. So no, I think he was just highlighting more the things that he values less than it was being critical of the showcase circuit. I think he was just saying like, hey, we, we've got to coach this stuff up. Because these kids are in an era where the things that help us win games aren't necessarily the things that they were focused on before they got here.
• 21:31
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• 22:25
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• 22:26
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• 22:33
  Speaker C: Yeah, and I think the other thing this is not, this shouldn't come as a shock to anyone, but the college game is not Major League Baseball. It's a different game. Like, yeah, they do hit more home runs at the upper levels, but you still got a bun in certain situations. Just, you have to defend, you have to be able to throw strikes and get out in high leverage spots. You got to be able to get to, to add RBI as you, you have to be able to cash runners in when you have the opportunity to do so. It doesn't have to always be the home run. You know, you look over the course of 162 games, why analytics is, you know, in my opinion, so, so prevalent at the, at the major league levels? Because you're playing 162 games, you're only playing 56. At the Division One level. They're not gonna, it's not gonna extrapolate out over 56 games enough to where it's going to be that big of a difference. Am I wrong?
• 23:34
  Speaker B: No, I, I've, I've, I think I've done it on this podcast. I know I've talked to about it with you and I've talked to about it with other coaches is that I, I equate college baseball to the. It's major league playoffs. Especially when you get into conference play. Like.
• 23:46
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 23:47
  Speaker B: When you watch playoff baseball, Major league playoff baseball, it's a different game than they play at the end of July.
• 23:54
  Speaker C: Yes. 100 a different game.
• 23:56
  Speaker B: You, you have to. Situationally, you have to be better. You see guys actively trying to have really competitive two strike at bats. Guys who, guys who are strikeout victims whenever during the regular season become more competitive hitters because the, the margins are more thin that you don't have the luxury of 162 games playing out over time where basically, you know, that's part of the beauty of baseball is that after 162 games it's pretty clear who the six best teams in each league are.
• 24:29
  Speaker C: Yeah. But you can dump it at bat at the end of July.
• 24:34
  Speaker B: Yeah, you can't dump.
• 24:35
  Speaker C: It's really hard to dump it at bat at the end of October.
• 24:38
  Speaker B: Yep. It's why you see more bunting. It's why you see more stealing. It's why you see more matchup play. Right. In terms of the platooning and adjusting your lineup and defensive replacements. Like you don't see that stuff in the regular season because the regular season is to get you to the point where you can really start to manage. That's why playoff baseball is so awesome, is you get to see the chess game play out in a much more enjoyable fashion because you're starting to see how you manage a bullpen. You're starting to see quicker triggers with starters. You're starting to see different lineups put out there because they have better matchups of the platoons or the splits or whatever it might be. But that's college baseball in a nutshell, especially when you get into conference play, is that every one of those games holds a significantly higher value. And it's why you see more bunting. It's why there's more of an emphasis on two strike hitting. It's why there's more of an emphasis on roles and being able to do stuff offensively that helps you win games, whether it's the stolen bases or the dirt ball reads or hidden behind runners. Like that is more prevalent. It's more focused on at the college level because the, the magnitude of it is so much higher. When you know you're playing in the SEC you get 30 games to figure out where you stand amongst your. The competition. You Face within your conference. You don't have time to let a starter get through his, get to his pitch count on a Friday or get to his pitch count on a Saturday because you've got, he's got 30 more starts to make in the year. Like, you have to have a quick trigger. You have to go to your bullpen. Like it's a decision making process in a style of baseball that for me is more likened to, to MLB playoff baseball.
• 26:25
  Speaker C: Yes, I concur. Dr.
• 26:29
  Speaker B: You're talking about, you brought this up because I think it, it parlays into kind of the second interview that, that Jay gave around him being self critical. Right. And introspective in a way in terms of like looking at what they've done, how their season's gone. His second interview, he talks a lot about. All right, well, everything we do is always under construction. There's core values that he has taken with him from Nevada to Arizona to LSU that have helped him climb the coaching ranks, win a boatload of baseball games and have two national championships that are now flags flying at lsu. But he's still looking at, okay, well, maybe we need to look at how we handle guys in the summer. Maybe we need to look about at how we practice in the fall. Like, how do we make sure. Basically what he was getting at is like, how do we make sure that what's happening right now doesn't happen again in the future? He talked about that they're a little bit less physical than they've been in the past and how they might look to make some adjustments to the strength and conditioning program, how they made keep guys on campus for the summer and really focus on the physical component. You talked about looking at how they're handling their fall season. He's a West coast guy. A lot of the west coast is you play as much as you can possibly play. So I imagine they inter squad, they do a lot of like game stuff quite a bit, which I personally love because I think it's the best way to coach and teach and be able to kind of develop, develop a style and really hammer home the principles and the things that you really value. And then he also talked about how they need to look in the mirror and think about how do we make some adjustments to how we continue to develop guys, which obviously they've done a really good job at. But I think it speaks to how coaches think. And the really good coaches are always looking to make some adjustments. And once again, I thought he pulled back the veil and gave listeners some insight into probably the conversations he has with his coaching staff. And if you haven't been in one of those rooms and you haven't been lucky enough to be in a room where you talk about this kind of stuff, like, he gave you a pretty good preview into the conversations that happen in the locker room after games or happen in the locker room during the week between a coaching staff, where you go, hey, what if we tweak this? Like, what if we went about it a little bit differently? What if we tried to do this next year? I just. I thought it was awesome. I enjoyed it as a. As a former college coach, and I hope that people who listen to that interview didn't listen to it to have a reaction, but listen to it to go, oh, all right. That's what one. That's how one of the best coaches in college baseball thinks. That's how I looked at it.
• 29:19
  Speaker C: I felt that it's a. It's something that I think really good coaches do. Right. And I'm not saying that it takes a long time to get to that point, I think, as a. As a coach, but I think at the core, it's. It's you as a coach evaluating what it is that your program is doing and then trying to figure out how you can do a better job, which it sounds very easy to do. Right. But I also think that there's a lot of truth in the fact, and someone that I have a tremendous amount of respect for once told me from a coaching standpoint, but once told me that I do my best every year to try to better myself, because as a coach, if I'm asking my players to do it, I need to do it myself. Like, I don't know everything there is to know about baseball. I need to seek out people that are smarter than me to teach me more about this game so I can, in turn, make my players better. And I thought it was a very. It was a very poignant moment in my career as a young coach where it was like, yeah, I don't know everything there is to know about baseball and, you know, seeking out people who are smarter than you in other aspects of the game to teach you other things. And I think that seeing somebody at the highest level kind of reflect back and be like, there are things that we need to do different. There's things that we need to change up. I need to do a better job here. Like, you know, that's a dude who has two national championships, has won a lot of baseball games at the highest level legitimately saying, like, hey, like, we need to do a better job, we need to shift some things around, do some things a little bit differently in order to have more success. And I think it's very easy in this game and I think it's very ego driven in my own personal opinion, that there's a lot of people who say, you know, I have it all figured out. I know everything there is to know about baseball. Like you do. Not like, I'm 40 years old. I coach college baseball for 16 years. Like, I. There's guys out there that have forgotten more that about this game than, than I know. And I, I know that I coached for three of them, right? So, you know, I think that there's, there's always something that you can learn more about this game and, you know, watching it and seeing how other people do things and seeing how it relates and what it might be able to do to help your team and how you can go about doing that. You know, I just thought it was very, you know, honest of him to kind of like to come out and like you said, pull the veil back on like what coach, how coaches think and how they run their program and what they want to do and, and how it is a fluid, a fluid kind of situation year to year. Right. Like we talked about this with someone recently. I forget who it was, but it is, it's a different feel year to year with your team and being able to figure that out and how it's going to work and how we're going to win games. Because the year from, you know, last year to this year is not a completely. But in this area, it could be a completely different team. Right. Like, you might only have seven guys left over from the previous year. So this is a completely new team that we got to figure out. The cult, you know, not the culture. But we need to figure out how this team is going to be able to play and win games and what do we have to do in order to win. You know, last year we really hit a lot of home runs and doubles and driving runs. This year we don't have a lot of juice in our lineup. You know, we only have three guys who can leave the yard. So we're gonna have to figure out how to manufacture runs. Does that mean we're stealing bases? You know, because if we're just gonna sit back and try to launch balls, we're gonna hit a lot of flyouts and not win a lot of games, you know, so I, I just thought that it was, it was very honest about, of a guy at the highest level kind of saying like, hey, I like we do this all the time and it's a fluid situation where we're trying to figure out what the best move is forward so that we can get better and continue to play to the standard that is LSU baseball.
• 33:22
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• 33:24
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• 33:48
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• 33:50
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• 34:05
  Speaker B: yeah, it was awesome. I thought it was, it was an enjoyable three minutes of conversation. Like there's so much to unpack, so much to learn from him while I was watching these. Ended up stumbling on another interview that he gave. I believe it was yesterday, so it would have been Tuesday the 21st or something like that. But one of his, probably their best player this year, Jake Brown broke his handmade bone, is going to be out for the year. And Jay took some time to talk about Jake and his impact on the program and what he thought of him as a person. And he, he, he kind of opens up the interview and pretty bluntly states he's one of my favorite players I've ever coached. And the thing that was striking to me about the interview wasn't he didn't dive in on the fact that he's a 16 home run guy, that he's gonna play professional baseball and likely play for a long time and might end up making a ton of money doing it. He focused on four different things to describe this young man. He focused on his competitiveness, his character, his humility and his leadership ability. And you know, we, we started this conversation off talking about how metrics and, and that kind of stuff. And when Jay was talking about his best player, he focused on four things that have nothing to do with exit velocity and home runs and doubles to describe this young man. And the humility one was the one that stuck out to me the most because he had mentioned that Jake came in, he's pretty highly talented recruit. He found a way to get a role as a freshman and played a pretty big role on a 43 win team, on a national championship team as one of the better players. In their lineup. He was getting moved all over the field, all over the lineup. He was D and he was, he was putting a glove on and going out and playing the outfield, but he had the humility to embrace a role and be a part of something bigger than himself. When there's a lot of guys that, who are as talented as that kid that might be upset that, hey, I'm not starting in right field every day and I'm not hitting in the four hole every day when I'm probably good enough to do so. And that just stuck out to me because I think a lot of times in the recruiting process and me and you talk about this, but I think a lot of times in the recruiting process we get so fixated on the, the tangible things like exit velocity and velocity and spin rates and all that kind of stuff. And that's important. But when push comes to shove and J. Johnson's talking about one of his favorite players of all time, he doesn't mention a damn thing. He doesn't mention a baseball statistic. He talks about humility, competitiveness, character and leadership ability. And for me, it kind of made me smile at the end of it because I thought that was pretty cool.
• 37:14
  Speaker C: Yeah. I think that what he's done as a player speaks for itself. Right. But I think when, when coaches speak of players that they really enjoyed coaching and they really enjoyed being around and you know, the vast majority, if you've coached for a long enough time, you always love your players, but there's always going to be some players that you have a little bit of a higher pension of liking a little bit more for those reasons. And there could be a multitude of other ones too. Right. But you know, the kids that, you know. Yeah. What they did, and sometimes it might be guys that aren't good, aren't really good on the field, but are that have that character makeup that can still, you know, command a locker room and be able to lead guys and do things, you know, and maybe they're the eight hole guy who plays a super gritty shortstop and dives and comes off the field, he's, you know, covered in dirt all the time or takes that gritty at bat there. He's just going to stand on top of the plate and get smoked by a ball to get a run around base and try to steal a bag. Right. But not necessarily the type of player that Jay is talking about. But you know, I think that as a coach, like those are, those are values, that character traits, I should say, that you want in your program. You want a kid who is going to embrace a platoon role and just say, like, yeah, man, I don't care where you put me. I just want to be in the lineup and I want to win baseball games. It really doesn't matter to me. Right? And when your best player, and this is true of anything, when your best player is willing to do that, the majority of people are going to fall in line behind that and be like, well, I don't really have a leg to stand on because he's hitting like 390 with 15 bolts. Like, he doesn't care where he plays. I probably shouldn't either. I just want to be in a lineup and help this team win. Because at the end of the day, the ultimate goal is winning. No matter how, whichever way you want to cut it, the ultimate goal is winning. You want to go out there, you want to compete your butt off, and you want to be able to win. How we do it, it doesn't matter. I don't care if we get no hit and the other team made seven errors and walk 15 guys, we won. Awesome. Congratulations. Like that, that's. That's the ultimate goal. When you, when you put your uniform on and you go out there and compete. And I think that, you know, that highlighted some of the things that, you know, not only are phenomenal character value traits to have for if you want to be recruited, but also when you get to the program and if you want to be successful. And they're not just in. In baseball, it's in life, right? Like that. That kid's probably going to be successful in whatever the hell it is that he wants to do because he's. He's dialed in to do the things it is that. That matter to be able to succeed. And, you know, he probably pulls a lot of people with him from a leadership standpoint because he's. He's capable of being able to say, like, hey, I. I really just want to win however it is that we got to get there. And if you got to play me in left or you got to play me at center, like, if I got to throw the catcher's gear on and get behind the dish, like, just get me on the field. And I think that that's, you know, kind of lost when you're, you know, I think I'm the better second baseman. Like, well, you've made nine errors in practice. Like, the other guy's made zero. He's going to run it out there. And, you know, it's. You have a kid and who's a really good. So you don't necessarily have to speak to it, like I said. But, like, those character traits are phenomenal, phenomenal traits to have. If you aspire to be a leader, whether it's on your high school team or at the next level. Right. Like, you're going to have to figure out how to be humble and check your ego at the door and put in the work and. And be a guy that other people will look up to that can bring. That can lift people up instead of drag them down, you know, to quote Chris Farish, again, be a fountain, not a drain.
• 41:19
  Speaker B: The. The first question that Jake Brown asked Jay after he found out that he was going to be out for the season, had to get Hamade surgery, was, can I still travel?
• 41:31
  Speaker C: Yeah, it's awesome.
• 41:33
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 41:34
  Speaker C: Like, I want to be. I want to be around the guys. I want to lead. I want. I. I still want to be able to be here, to be able to show, like, to do what it is that I like. I can't play, but let me be in the dugout so I can continue to be able to be a part of this team to help them win and achieve the goals it is that we. We set out for at the beginning of the year. It's awesome.
• 41:53
  Speaker B: In a. In a year where they're not having the year that they want to have, he still wants to be there. It's way easier to ask that question if you feel like you got a chance to go in a national championship. But those aren't the vibes that are going on in LSU right now. Nobody would bat an eye if that kid say, I'm just going to. I'm just gonna get myself right because I'm gonna get drafted pretty high, and I want to make sure I'm ready
• 42:14
  Speaker C: to go pro ball.
• 42:15
  Speaker B: And his first question was like, can I still travel? And Jay's response was actually pretty funny. It made me laugh. He said, well, yeah, of course, man. You can coach third if you want. You know, so.
• 42:25
  Speaker C: But, yeah, just.
• 42:28
  Speaker B: And I enjoyed all three interviews. The last one is the most personal in terms of, you know, really starting to see, like, this is how a lot of these coaches view their players. Like, they care about these kids. Yeah, they really do. And, you know, we hear that sometimes that. That this business is super transactional, and to a certain level, it has to be because of the nature of the. The stakes and all that kind of stuff. But at the end of the day, coaches love their players and they want to do best by their players. And How Jay spoke about him, I think is more the common response that you'll see from coaches about, like, they really care about the guys that they get a chance to mentor and have in their program. And. Yeah, I thought it was cool. Thought it was awesome.
• 43:18
  Speaker C: Well, it matters to you. We spend so much time on this podcast talking about how much time you spend with your coaches, and you spend so much time with these kids, you don't have any choice. And you're asking them to do a lot of right. You're asking them to go to class, you're asking them to get good grades, you're asking them to show up on time, you're asking them to compete, you're asking to be in the weight room, get up early, practice, do all these, like, you're asking them to do a lot. And, you know, the. The bare minimum that you can do, I think, is to respect the fact that they're. They're doing that for you and the program that you're running. And, you know, you start to really get to know these kids and how they tick and where they come from and what they do, and you legitimately care about their success moving forward. I think that you'd be hard pressed to find a lot of coaches that aren't, that don't care about their guys upon graduation and what they do. Every single one of them that, you know, unless it's just the people I surround myself with, like, all of them legitimately care what guys do upon graduation, that they're. They're better people for having been coached by those people, and that you're going to go be successful, you know, upon your graduation, whatever it is that you do, whether it's professionally in baseball or just generally in life. And I think this game is a great way to be able to teach a lot of those things. I know I like certain things in my life. I never would have got through without this game, but, you know, I think that it's something that, like, you genuinely care about your kids.
• 44:53
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's the thing I miss the
• 44:54
  Speaker C: most,
• 44:58
  Speaker B: the relationships you build and the impact you can have on guys. And, you know, you get a chance to come across some pretty awesome, awesome people. And, I mean, I know you've got your collection of guys that have moved on to do some really awesome stuff. And yeah, it's a three really good interviews from Jay with three very different messages that were sent that I think are all valuable.
• 45:21
  Speaker C: So.
• 45:23
  Speaker B: Anything else you want to add?
• 45:25
  Speaker D: No, sir.
• 45:26
  Speaker B: Episode. All right, well, thank you, everybody, for listening. I hope you enjoyed our talk on Jay Johnson's interviews. We'll talk to you next time. Thanks everybody. Thank you for listening this week. If you're watching on YouTube, go ahead and hit that subscribe button and smash that like button for us. Check us out on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, as well as Spotify. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram MD Baseball.
• 45:55
  Speaker E: If you want to find out what
• 45:57
  Speaker B: me and Keith do to help families and players navigate the recruiting process, go ahead and check us out on emdbaseball.com take a few minutes to check out our new online academy. I promise you'll get some good information out of that. Thanks again for listening. Check in with you next week.