Latest / The Layback Podcast / Chloe Walker, Director of Pitching Development - Gardner Webb (Ep. 99)

Transcript

Chloe Walker, Director of Pitching Development - Gardner Webb (Ep. 99) · The Layback Podcast

0:00
Hey everyone, welcome back to the Lay Back podcast.
0:02
Joining us today is Chloe Walker.
0:04
Chloe Walker is a brand new grad assistant at Gardner Webb
0:09
University. Calling her a grad assistant
0:11
really doesn't seem right, but I know that was kind of the pole
0:13
to get her in. She is the director of Pitching
0:16
Development and Baseball operations with the Running
0:20
Bulldogs over in Boiling Spring. But prior to that, she had
0:24
multiple stops and professional ball.
0:26
She worked at Ole Miss for a bit and really got started on this
0:30
whole journey back in high school.
0:32
So the baseball analytics thing is not a new stop for her on
0:38
this timeline or this journey that she's on.
0:41
But with that, I don't want to butcher anything else.
0:44
That's already been hard enough for me to get through this
0:46
intro. So I'm going to kick it over to
0:48
Chloe and let her run through the high level bio.
0:51
So, Chloe, thanks for joining us today.
0:53
Thanks for having me. Yeah, So got my start
0:56
accidentally in high school, tore my IT band, couldn't run
0:59
track, could do a game book. And that was kind of selling
1:03
point was all of my friends played baseball and I needed
1:07
something to do. So I wasn't just sitting around
1:09
all spring. We got a rap Sodo this.
1:12
So this is going back when it was just pitching.
1:14
Coaches were getting a little frustrated because it wasn't
1:16
working. Became my job to then figure out
1:19
how to set it up and how to then translate the numbers into words
1:23
that they could actually understand.
1:25
Did that all four years of high school and junior year COVID
1:29
hit. So going back 2020, had actually
1:33
planned on joining the Marine Corps and that year got
1:37
diagnosed with celiacs disease, which basically means that bread
1:39
will kill me. The Marines said they weren't
1:42
going to send a gluten free MRE to one of the stands.
1:45
I said fair enough. Realized that I really liked
1:48
baseball. Started seeing at that point
1:50
Alyssa Knockin, Kim Aang, really making strides and showing that
1:55
women do exist in baseball. And I was like, hey, I could
1:57
make this a career or at least do it through college, see how I
1:59
like it. And started emailing college
2:01
ball teams, Hey, if I came to your university, would you have
2:04
a job for me doing analytics? I was so blessed that Ole Miss
2:07
said yes. Worked for them for the 22 and
2:10
23 seasons. Freshman year got to win the
2:12
national championship. Spent the 23 season and fall of
2:16
20 was that fall of 23, fall of 23 with them.
2:19
Finished my degree online. Will I work for the Mets?
2:22
Got to them the 24th season up in High A as the Player
2:27
Development Associate, so running all the tech, all the
2:30
cameras and helping the pitching staff quite a bit.
2:34
Spent this past season with the Orioles down in Sarasota as the
2:37
Pitching Technology coordinator, where I was super blessed to
2:41
kind of spearhead the Orioles first implementation of Flex Pro
2:44
Grip. Got to again run all the in game
2:48
video tech and working really hand in hand with the pitching
2:52
department and SNC departments. And then yes, got to Boiling
2:56
Springs January 5th. So I guess coming up on a month.
3:00
Been serving here as the director of Pitching Development
3:03
and Baseball operations. A lot of hats, bullpen coach,
3:07
GA, all the all the things. So excited to be here.
3:10
Thanks for having me. Hotel Booker Oh yeah, exactly.
3:15
Operations always sounds cool, but then when you boil down
3:19
operations and you realize that you're the team administrative
3:23
assistant for everything, it's, it's crazy how much you have
3:28
your hand in. I had to do some of that stuff
3:30
myself when I was a volunteer at the D2 level and I was like,
3:35
this is not the stuff I signed up for in college baseball.
3:38
Doing laundry. I actually just sent out a
3:40
Teamworks forum to get guys walk up, walk out music, organize all
3:47
the things. Yeah, and of course that aligns
3:51
super directly with helping guys throw nastier pitches.
3:54
Correct. Yep, it's just.
3:56
It's right there. Look good, feel good, play good,
3:59
right? No, you know.
4:01
Yeah, there's a connect. There is.
4:03
I mean, we can, we can make it and we can find it.
4:06
But so let's let's stick to the serious.
4:09
Of course we can joke I will try to throw out some crappy puns in
4:13
the process throughout this interview I'm sure.
4:16
But you getting started back in high school with a rap soda with
4:21
your high school team at that time.
4:23
I, I know you, you mentioned seeing women in baseball in
4:27
doing something down the line, like maybe, maybe this could
4:30
work once you got slapped with the Celiacs diagnosis.
4:34
But did you have any interest in baseball getting started?
4:39
OK, so it was literally just your friends and you needed to
4:42
get out of the house. Yep, let me put it to you this
4:45
way, my dad didn't know what a change up was until the NLCS in
4:49
2024. All right, so not a baseball
4:51
household either. No, dad does not like neither of
4:55
my parents like sports. My dad, my dad still doesn't
5:00
know who's in the playoffs right now in the NFL.
5:02
Not a big sports household, very supportive of me but have no
5:06
idea what I actually do on a on a daily basis so.
5:10
All right, so I I assume that means most of the education in
5:14
the space has come on your own. So maybe, maybe that's a good
5:18
road to go down from the jump. Here is where did you turn to
5:24
learn in the process? Yeah, I was reading anything and
5:29
everything. I mean, I had a lot of time,
5:32
especially during COVID. I was reading fan graphs.
5:35
I was on Sabre, I was on trade rumors.
5:39
Anything that I could get my hands on, I was deep diving into
5:43
it, coaching philosophies, different things on LinkedIn.
5:46
It was definitely a labor of love and not the easiest route I
5:50
could have gone with, but it was it was a lot of fun.
5:53
Bobby Miller is is from my from my hometown, went to my high
5:56
school. So got to chat with him a little
5:58
bit, learn about college ball and kind of the I'm Louisville
6:03
learned about the D1 level. So that was that was definitely
6:05
a blessing and definitely led to me wanting to pursue this
6:07
through college. Ultimately, when you were
6:09
reaching out to schools landing on Ole Miss, did they already
6:14
have a structure in place for student assistance or analysts
6:18
at that time, or were you kind of part of the group at Ole Miss
6:22
that paved the way for what they have now?
6:24
So they did, kind of. They had student managers who
6:30
caught bullpens generally that seemed like the the key thing
6:34
was the on field aspect. Caught bullpens through BP, hit
6:38
fungos, all that kind of stuff. But as far as analytics go, it
6:41
was me and one other. He's actually at Georgia State
6:43
now as their pitching coach. Small world saw him at ABCA,
6:47
hadn't seen him since 2023. Yeah, it was.
6:50
It was really just the two of us and kind of, yeah, I guess kind
6:54
of paving the way when you think about it.
6:55
Now they've got the stadium track man.
6:57
They got that in 2023, so 2220. 3.
7:02
Years ago I've I've had 1 1/2 cups of coffee, so bear with me
7:05
here. Yeah, I guess.
7:06
I guess we kind of paved the way, but unintentionally.
7:09
Right more you walk so the current staff could run.
7:12
It might not have been a completely unpaved path when you
7:16
got there, but there's no question you guys set it up for
7:19
the success that they have now and the amazing things that
7:22
they're able to do. We you're fortunate enough with
7:25
Flexpro Grip to work with oldness at this time.
7:28
And just knowing that they are in a position where they can
7:32
take on something like Flexpro Grip and they have not just a
7:36
medical staff that is excited about it and can implement it,
7:40
but then analysts that are on board as well that can help
7:43
interpret the data much is what it sounds like you got started
7:48
doing. So yes, that is one of my crappy
7:50
segues to go into data interpretation.
7:54
So you got started in this in this space where there's
7:58
hundreds of numbers, but what do these numbers mean if there
8:02
isn't actually a story behind them, if people can't understand
8:05
them? So what was that like for you?
8:08
Being able to I guess provide animation or life to date on a
8:14
page or numbers on a sheet to actually help someone get
8:18
better? Yeah.
8:20
So like for my high school coaching staff, it was that
8:23
fastball looks like a cannonball.
8:25
Well, yeah, that's, you know, IVB and this impacts this and go
8:30
from there. Just kind of there's some guys
8:33
who, you know, who love data, want to know everything about
8:37
every pitch. Nolan McLean was like that.
8:39
There's some guys who really could not careless and as long
8:43
as everything is in X range, they're perfectly happy.
8:46
Brandon's Brook was like that. And guys who really do not care
8:50
about metrics at all. And most of the time it's
8:53
because they don't understand it.
8:54
They're coming from AD2AD3 that didn't have access to attract
8:58
mentor episode of yak or tech or anything else.
9:00
Or they're coming from AD one program who just never took the
9:03
time to explain it to them. So like right now I'm creating.
9:07
Not that Gardner Webb doesn't care, hasn't cared about about
9:12
analytics, but we got some new guys with a new semester.
9:15
I'm creating like a pitching one O 1A metrics, one O 1 and just
9:19
really breaking it down for the guys like this is what we value.
9:22
Here's what's important and this is what these numbers mean.
9:25
And yet just try to make it more digestible.
9:27
I mean, obviously these guys, these guys aren't like my dad
9:29
who doesn't know what a change up is.
9:30
They understand the basics of break in a command and all of
9:34
those things. But now it's just showing like,
9:36
hey, these numbers are what you are seeing, are what you already
9:41
know, and this is what like the numbers mean in that aspect.
9:45
Right. Actually, just providing context
9:48
to what you see. It's one thing to visualize and
9:52
it's another to actually take that information, be able to
9:56
explain why this thing is happening.
9:58
Or I guess the, to an extent, the blueprint, I know it's kind
10:02
of coming after the fact. Usually a blueprint would come
10:04
before a pitch's throne, but you get the flight path, you get
10:09
everything that's kicked back to you to actually present like,
10:12
OK, well, This is why you got the result.
10:15
You did mention these players that maybe don't have a current
10:20
appetite for the analytics. How often are you seeing now in
10:24
the college game or even at your couple stops in pro ball where
10:28
guys weren't into the data or the analytics because they felt
10:33
it was being used against them? Or.
10:37
They were being told they aren't good because they don't have a
10:40
certain metric. Yeah.
10:43
I mean, you certainly see that more than you would expect.
10:45
Guys that are just stuck at different levels or keep getting
10:49
hurt, It's it's because of this that I like can't move up.
10:52
It's because of this that they won't let me out of rehab.
10:55
I'm not hitting this number. That's obviously not the case,
10:59
at least in the rehab aspect. You know, there's a lot of
11:01
things that go into you're on the IL for a reason.
11:03
It's not because you're not hitting X number that you're on
11:05
the IL. Yeah, it's not because you only
11:07
have 11 inches of horizontal brake on your sinker and we
11:10
needed to be 16. Right.
11:12
Yeah, that's, you know, I think when you're in rehab, when
11:15
you're hurt, there's a lot of things that go into that
11:17
mentally and you're you're looking for anything, anything
11:21
to get you out of it. Nobody wants to be hurt.
11:22
Everybody wants to be on the field.
11:24
It's the whole point of playing baseball.
11:26
But yeah, I mean, you see that more than you would expect.
11:29
I think for those guys, it's really just like a, it's not
11:33
necessarily stuff that we're always looking at.
11:36
It's pitch ability, it's command.
11:39
Are you a specialist guy? And do we have room for that on
11:43
our AA or AAA rosters? The needs of the org over what
11:48
the individual thinks, that they're the level the individual
11:51
thinks that they're at. I don't know if that really
11:53
answers the question. No, no, it's not so much about
11:57
the specifics, it's it's more just, I feel like that is still,
12:02
it's still a thing. And it's weird to me that
12:05
analytics or data are being demonized not just by old heads
12:10
on Twitter who are complaining that the game has changed, but
12:14
even players that should be leaning into a superpower.
12:18
And maybe this is something you could speak on even more than I
12:21
could because you're working with a daily often feel given
12:24
the fact that a track man report shows you how your ball is
12:30
moving, what you can do, it's not telling you necessarily what
12:35
you're bad at or it's not going to map out like, oh, this guy is
12:39
amazing just because of his track man report.
12:42
But it can often leave clues to where your success is coming
12:46
from. And that probably goes back to
12:49
the education piece of what you were talking about earlier.
12:52
Just because you don't have the 18 IBB fastball at 94 mph, it
12:57
doesn't mean you can't be successful.
12:59
But maybe we can look at a plot, and not just a plot of a single
13:02
pitch, but your arsenal as a whole and figure out how things
13:06
pair together and actually identify where your superpower
13:10
is. So now turning this into the
13:12
question for you, how do you even go about, I guess, picking
13:16
apart these plots or these graphs with an athlete who maybe
13:22
is skeptical or maybe is at a crossroads and doesn't know
13:25
where to go. But now it falls on you, as the
13:28
director of pitching development, to help this
13:31
individual be as good as they can possibly be.
13:34
I'm going to use Josh Haska as an example because I know he
13:36
won't mind. Josh got to hi A when camp
13:39
broke. I'd work with him through spring
13:40
training. He's like, hey, I have these 4
13:42
pitches, I want to get better at all of them.
13:45
Like great. I tell my guys this all the
13:48
time. If we're working on Velo, we're
13:50
not working on command. If we're working on command,
13:53
we're not worried. Like we're focusing on one thing
13:55
at a time. So with Josh, he's got this
13:58
rising slider, He's got the weirdest shapes because he's got
14:01
a weird slot, you know? And he really leans into that.
14:04
You know, he's got the stirrups, he's got the rec specs.
14:06
He leans into that persona of I'm weird and I'm proud of it.
14:10
You know, I'm sure you've seen on Twitter his his new his
14:14
average release height was like 1.8 or something like that and
14:18
has the most recent bullpen. Or he's chasing 1.8 because I
14:21
think that's where Tyler Rogers is.
14:23
I think Hedge can now is between 2 two and 26.
14:26
I actually just talked to him yesterday, I think.
14:29
Hold on. Do you have his pro day data or
14:30
are we just going to break his pro day data news on here?
14:34
That would be awesome. Yeah, I'll take it.
14:37
I don't think he texted me. I think he was like 2123
14:41
yesterday, something like that. We were just on the phone
14:44
yesterday. I don't think he texted me.
14:46
But yeah, no, he's he's chasing weird.
14:48
He's chasing low slot. Low slot.
14:51
I love it when when I got him his I need a pen.
14:57
I don't have a pen. Hold on.
15:00
Pause for dramatic effect. His plot looked something like
15:03
this where like his two seam was here but also kind of blending.
15:08
His four seam was here, but also kind of blending.
15:10
And this was the cutter slider situation.
15:12
I said cool, those are the same pitch.
15:15
So we're going to change that. We're going to separate those to
15:18
give you options against both hands.
15:20
And that was our mission. We did eventually do it.
15:23
We got it. Really just came down to finding
15:26
the right grip for the sinker and just he knows how his body
15:29
moves, so put the grip in his hand and tell him to RIP it.
15:32
He's going to do it. Little bit of offset, little
15:35
little funky to work with his slot, but we got it.
15:37
And then having him just really lean into that weird rising
15:41
slider that guys have never seen before.
15:43
Got a lot of whiffs on that, lot of weak contact on his two seam,
15:47
on his four seam. So for each guy, it's really
15:49
just leaning into their individuality.
15:51
Like, yeah, you might not have that, like you said that
15:54
fastball with 18 inches of hop at 94, but you've got this
15:58
really cool change up and you've got this wicked, wicked sweeper
16:02
that's going to get you a lot of Swiss and leaning into that
16:05
individuality and like, hey, you're really good at this.
16:08
Let's lean in here. Yeah, we're going to keep
16:11
working on your fastball. We're going to keep trying to
16:12
get it better because everybody needs a fastball.
16:15
But yeah, you know, you might be a specialist to one hand because
16:18
you have this really cool thing and leaning into the
16:20
individuality there. So then what is the hardest part
16:24
of actually translating that information?
16:26
Like Hedge is a guy that he's going to buy in if you just give
16:29
him the numbers. But I know not every guy is as
16:32
easy as Hedge could. Granted you, if you're going to
16:34
come to Hedge code, you got to come correct because he knows
16:37
more than 99% of the people on the planet, if not more.
16:41
But he's not he's not your average bear.
16:44
Your average bear is going to be the coaches you had at McHenry.
16:49
And they're like, we don't know how to turn on this rap Soto,
16:52
right? Or I mean, I know that's kind of
16:54
like the more drastic example now because that's dating back
16:57
to 2017 or whatever when you're in that situation for the first
17:01
time. But how are you approaching this
17:03
then with the average bear and getting them to, I guess, buy
17:07
in? And what is the hurdle that
17:09
you're having to overcome? Players want to know that you
17:11
care before they care what you know.
17:14
So getting into that, I mean, you're so right.
17:16
Josh is not the average bear. He is like he's going to listen
17:20
to me. His ego is going to get so
17:22
inflated. So I had to be careful with what
17:24
I say. He knows a lot about baseball
17:26
and that's all he's going to get from me.
17:28
But you know, for those normal guys, you have the opportunity
17:33
to throw in bullpens to work on those things.
17:36
But you also like right now we're in the preseason, we're
17:38
doing a ton of inner squads. We're we're getting the guys
17:41
ready to face other teams. You have the opportunity to face
17:45
guys that know you and have known you for six months or four
17:50
years. They know what your stuff is
17:51
like. They can tell you and they can
17:52
give you live feedback. This actually worked.
17:55
It changed your change up grip and now you're really getting
17:58
that, that tail. I could I could give a
18:02
ridiculous number of examples, but we all know what what's
18:05
happening here. So facing live hitters and
18:08
saying, oh, hey, this worked. It gives you live feedback.
18:11
I can give you a number of models I could give you, you
18:14
know, Oh well, you know your stuff score is that your dots
18:18
are all green. So it's going to play well
18:20
according to the model. But what's a model worth if a
18:24
guy who doesn't care about numbers isn't actually seeing it
18:26
live? So once you get that like live
18:30
hitter feedback, I found it's a lot easier to say, hey, this is
18:34
your strike three swinging against X player on this pitch
18:39
since we've changed your grip, since we worked on your load,
18:42
since we worked on your hinge, whatever it's it's dark green.
18:45
We projected to continue playing.
18:47
Well, if it looks like this, if it has these metrics, what do
18:50
you think about that? Oh yeah.
18:51
You know, I thought it was great because I got that swing in this
18:54
because I got that weak contact, I got that ground ball,
18:56
whatever. So for me, in my experience,
18:59
it's been a lot easier to get guys who don't believe in
19:02
metrics to buy in once they see that the metrics line up with in
19:07
game or like live hitter feedback.
19:10
Right. How do you give them something
19:12
real? Because the computer game of a
19:15
track man doesn't feel real to them.
19:18
They need the result. I mean that that makes a ton of
19:20
sense. And I guess maybe that's one of
19:22
those beautiful little take away moments for someone listening
19:27
that's trying to apply this. If you are trying to actually
19:31
get someone better that doesn't believe in a metric, but you
19:34
believe in it wholeheartedly, like this thing is going to be
19:38
The X Factor that sets them apart.
19:41
Figure out how you can get the individual to see the result
19:45
with their own eyes. And that's going to be crappy
19:47
swing decisions from a hitter. It's going to be a catcher that
19:50
goes, what the hell was that? When he tries to catch the ball,
19:54
there's little ways you can do it.
19:56
Even putting a batting dummy in there so you can see a slider
19:59
that started at the dummy's hip and flies across the zone.
20:03
That stuff starts to make a difference besides just what
20:06
you're seeing on an iPad. Absolutely.
20:08
Now, given the situation that you're in currently with Gardner
20:12
Webb, you're in a very interesting spot where you have
20:16
a ton of guys on a roster. Your job is to win games because
20:20
you're in the college setting. The only way that you can have a
20:23
role at your school is to win games and get these guys to
20:27
graduate. Those are basically the two
20:29
things that matter in your current setting.
20:31
The struggle with going all in on winning is sometimes you're
20:36
not optimizing the development of the individual for their own
20:41
career. So if you have to rank A-Team
20:44
result over an individual's journey, how do you juggle that
20:50
knowing that an individual might have to make a sacrifice in the
20:55
short term or a sacrifice in their career to help the team
20:59
win or get the result? But they might be best served
21:03
for going all in on pitch design for the next month or so.
21:09
But the problem is, if they go all in on pitch design, it means
21:12
you can't use them out of the bullpen.
21:15
Their current 88 to 90 stock, whatever is plenty good, good
21:22
enough to win in the conference. But that guy needs to throw 90
21:27
to 93 and become a starter and develop a banging pitch to
21:32
somehow get out of Gardner Webb. So I guess now boiling this back
21:36
down, how do you juggle in the team environment, whether you're
21:42
going to prioritize an individual's development journey
21:46
or ask that individual to lean into team success?
21:52
Great question. I've been here for 21 days.
21:56
So you have all the answers. Yeah, I've spent the last three
21:59
of them stuck inside guys haven't been able to throw the
22:01
whole like Snowmageddon thing and you know all that.
22:05
That's something that I have been juggling since making the
22:08
move back to college ball from pro ball.
22:10
I wasn't the one making those decisions at Ole Miss.
22:12
That was the Chris Ghidorah's who's the director of analytics.
22:15
That was Coach Lafferty, Coach Bianco.
22:17
And now being in a role where I'm actually having to make
22:19
those decisions with our pitching coach is certainly
22:22
interesting because in pro ball it is development.
22:26
It's it's all about development until you're in the big leagues,
22:30
then people actually care if you're winning games.
22:32
It's always nice to, it's always a nice box to take off, you
22:34
know? Oh yeah, we won, you know, But
22:36
the the goal in minor League Baseball is individual
22:39
development. So it's been an interesting
22:42
switch back to college ball, where Gardner Webb won 16 or 17
22:47
games last year. We're ranked second to last in
22:50
the conference and we know what we have.
22:52
We've got some arms that I'm really excited about and we're
22:55
ready to talk the world, but definitely challenging making
22:59
that that mental switch where, yeah, maybe we don't want to
23:03
implement this right now because we're less than three weeks out
23:07
from the season. But if we get this guy to really
23:10
focus on his sweeper, which he might not think is his best
23:13
pitch, he might really like his change up because we think that
23:16
it could be it could work better for him.
23:20
You know, it's getting that buy in, getting that that buy in
23:22
from him from the catcher. I mean, our our pitching coach
23:24
calls all of our pitches, which is great in terms of that.
23:27
But I'm at a little bit of an advantage where I can lean on my
23:30
pro ball experience and say like, Hey, I really think this
23:34
that this could help you. This is what worked for us with
23:36
the Orioles, with the Mets, whatever.
23:38
And guys say, great, I want to, I want to be a big wigger.
23:41
I want to do this. I will do whatever you say.
23:43
You know, you can tell me to throw with my left hand and I'm
23:46
96 from the right side and I'll do that.
23:49
There are guys like that. And there are guys who are like,
23:51
absolutely not. I know what I'm good at and I'm
23:54
going to do what I think is best for me.
23:56
And it's really just managing those personalities and managing
23:59
like you've got the the team guy and you've got the I'm here for
24:04
me guy. And that's great.
24:06
Certainly have seen both of those through illness and
24:10
through pro ball mid majors. It's a little bit of higher
24:13
discrepancy. I guess it's it's a little more
24:16
obvious who's here for them and who's here for the team, but
24:19
generally have not found many guys yet who aren't willing to
24:23
help the team win. I'd imagine that's really
24:25
difficult transition wise for you, where an optimization for
24:32
an individual's success benefits the club no matter what.
24:37
And it doesn't matter how selfish the journey is for that
24:40
individual knowing that if they get better or they optimize
24:45
their own career, they're getting better results.
24:47
That either gets them close to the big leagues or it gets them
24:50
higher trade value, which is good for the club, and then gets
24:54
the player greater opportunity going elsewhere.
24:57
So no matter what, having that selfish approach in pro ball
25:01
generally is going to result in something positive versus in the
25:07
college setting. It can alienate you from your
25:09
teammates, it can prevent you from getting innings, it can
25:13
prevent the team from actually getting the result they want,
25:16
which is a win. I I know you are new to this for
25:21
kind of the first time in a few years, but I'd imagine that just
25:27
as you outlined will be a little bit of a struggle.
25:30
Just knowing that your hat that you wore for so long was how do
25:34
we get this one individual as good as they can possibly be,
25:38
knowing that no matter what, it's just going to fit in the
25:40
organizational model at the end of the day versus now you are
25:45
tasked with chasing down how does this individual fit into
25:50
our team's system or our team's plan?
25:54
And optimizing for their own results might not be the thing
25:59
that helps the team get victories this coming spring.
26:02
You worded that so eloquently. I call this, I call this
26:07
coordinator ease. You know, it's like a, it's like
26:10
a whole different language that that I don't speak yet.
26:14
You'll get there. You have to be in the room for
26:18
so long with these people. I serious, I would tell Corey
26:22
Popham all the time you're speaking coordinator ease you're
26:25
here. I need you to dumb it down to
26:27
here so, you know, bring it back to English, please.
26:30
Yeah. I mean, it's definitely been
26:32
been a challenge because you're right.
26:33
I mean, any, anything that you do for an individual benefit in
26:38
pro ball is helping the organization in college ball.
26:41
Now there's the portal, now there's all these different
26:43
things. So there's there's a lot of
26:45
things that you can't control in college ball the way that you
26:50
can. And pro ball, I'm really blessed
26:53
that like we opted out of the settlement.
26:55
So I have 53 players on my roster, which is such a headache
27:00
from the outside, but from like a development standpoint, it
27:03
helps in a way harder because the roster is bigger, there's
27:06
more guys, there's more things to worry about, but definitely
27:09
more of a blessing because, you know, I get the opportunity to
27:12
maybe pull this guy aside, really focus heavily on him.
27:15
We'll lean on another guy to kind of take his role for the
27:18
weekend. But yeah, it's definitely a
27:20
strange trading of hats where like moving from the the pro
27:24
ball mindset to college ball. It's been, it's been
27:27
interesting, it's rewarding and like I'm really getting to make
27:30
a difference for these guys and hopefully bring in Gardner Webb
27:33
some more, more victories, but definitely interesting for sure.
27:38
I guess having that many guys on the roster right now does lend a
27:43
few more similarities to pro ball in the sense that you can
27:47
still take a guy aside and give him individual attention or work
27:52
on a specific project. But maybe what is a little bit
27:56
different now is just throwing guys out there and letting
28:00
competition to an extent, create the, I guess, ultimate
28:05
determining factor at the end of the day of who's going to play.
28:10
And now in college ball, you're you're not quote UN quote,
28:13
making promotions in any capacity.
28:16
But oftentimes in pro ball, you're making promotions based
28:20
on what a not even what a stat sheet is saying, but what
28:25
projection models are saying, right?
28:26
It doesn't matter how good someone's stats are sometimes in
28:30
AA, if none of the actual metrics project to the big
28:35
leagues, you're going to keep them at that level until they do
28:37
something that actually projects and can get big league results.
28:41
Unless the statistics or the bottom line is so undeniable
28:45
that you just can't hold them back.
28:47
But that is few and far between. People are getting promoted less
28:51
and less for that these days. Now in the college setting.
28:55
You were in a place where especially given how little kind
28:59
of hard technology you have at your disposal, where statistics
29:04
are going to be the bottom line. So it doesn't matter if the
29:07
fastball is dead zone and the slider is icky in the change up
29:12
doesn't look cool or like doesn't have negative induced
29:15
vertical break. If that individual doesn't allow
29:17
baserunners he's throwing every single weekend.
29:20
I am sure that is a weird on off switch.
29:23
Now for your brain to go from the optimization for projection
29:29
versus the optimization for wins.
29:32
So now I guess let's throw this back on you.
29:35
Not even, not even experience. This is no longer an experience
29:39
question. This is now just a current Chloe
29:41
Walker mental state question. How are you dealing with this?
29:46
Like how? How have you worked through
29:49
internalizing the shift that you now have to make?
29:53
Yeah, so that was a big thing that I had to really wrap my
29:58
head around when I got the offer.
30:01
You you hear the title, you hear director of pitching
30:04
development, you hear free master's degree.
30:07
Those are big boons. But I I really enjoy finding the
30:12
one thing that's going to make this guy a big leaguer, that's
30:17
going to help the org, that's going to help him.
30:19
Yeah, like, I mean, like you said, get him to the big leagues
30:21
or higher trade value or whatever it ends up being.
30:24
Get him promoted while here. Whoever gets out, whatever it
30:28
is, you know, we, we have Yoker tech.
30:30
That's been a big change going from portable Trackman on every
30:34
guy. You've got an electronic on
30:35
every guy to I have a slow MO phone camera and gap protect and
30:40
we're making it work. And sometimes gap protect
30:42
doesn't work. Sometimes Trackman doesn't work.
30:44
You know, all of those things to now like we're inner squatting
30:49
three days a week, we're throwing pens.
30:50
We're seeing how everybody's looking.
30:52
The first week after we got back from break and from ABCA, it was
30:56
did guys actually get their work done over break?
30:59
Where are they? Are they where that we need them
31:01
to be to cover innings to get out And now it's OK, they've
31:07
been facing these guys all fall. Now we're back to facing while
31:10
spring they able to adjust to keep getting out or not and how
31:15
is this going to play against opposing teams?
31:17
So that's been a big mindset shift and I've been definitely
31:21
leaning on our pitching coach here who's been in college ball
31:24
his his whole career. But it's been a lot of fun.
31:26
It's definitely a challenge that like I'm enjoying as as much as
31:31
I love player development and I love those little things that
31:33
one thing I like winning baseball games.
31:37
It's a lot of fun. It's a lot easier to explain to
31:39
my parents. Yeah, I worked 16 hours today,
31:43
but we won a baseball game then. Yeah, I worked 16 hours today
31:47
during spring training. But this kid really figured out
31:51
a sweeper by the end of the bullpen.
31:52
Mom's like, are you OK? Like, yeah, no, I'm doing great.
31:57
There's some there's some questions.
31:59
They're not coming from a sports family.
32:00
They worry a little bit about my my sanity.
32:03
Yeah, when it's tied to the the ability of an individual to
32:06
sweep a slider. Right.
32:08
Yep. So yeah, it's definitely been
32:10
interesting. It's definitely been a
32:11
challenge, but it's been a lot of fun.
32:13
I'm I'm really looking forward to hopefully winning some some
32:16
ball games this spring. We've got I think it's 27 days
32:20
to opening day, something less than that maybe.
32:24
I really didn't know what day it was until I woke up this morning
32:26
because I've just been staring at the four walls of my
32:29
apartment the last three days. But.
32:32
It's good for the mentals. You'll love getting back out to
32:34
the field though, and that's what matters at the end of the
32:36
day. I'm not gonna lie, I walked out.
32:40
I was going to go to the field today and get some work done.
32:43
Walked out to my car and there was 2 inches of ice all over my
32:46
car. Could not get into the car.
32:49
And frankly, it's like 12°. I'm not built for this.
32:53
I went right back inside. Work from home deck.
32:55
Nice little. Yeah, that's right.
32:56
But yeah, no, cannot wait to get back to to the field tomorrow.
32:59
Yeah. So it's been nice.
33:02
So along the lines of some of these constraints that you're
33:06
outlining, because now you're faced with a very different
33:11
budgetary problem as you've gone the mid major route coming from
33:15
some high-powered big league organizations.
33:19
If you're stripping away the spending, what still needs to be
33:23
there in your opinion to run a true analytics department?
33:28
Because I know you don't need all the bells and whistles, they
33:30
certainly help. But what to you still needs to
33:34
exist at the core? Coaches that are bought in, I, I
33:37
think that makes up a whole lot of it because if the coaches
33:40
aren't bought in, the players aren't going to be bought in.
33:41
Players are not going to give a care in the world about what you
33:46
have to say about their launch angle or anything else if you
33:49
know if coaches don't care. So having coaches that bought in
33:52
and players that are bought into their coaches and trust there is
33:56
the biggest thing when you strip away everything else in my
33:59
opinion. So coaches being bought in I I
34:02
guess in what regard? Like coaches that want to lean
34:05
on the data that's being provided, that's simply.
34:10
And coaches that are yes, and you know, coaches that are
34:13
curious, coaches that are asking questions and like, how is this
34:17
going to help me win ball games? How is this going to help my
34:19
guys when ball games get better, make it to the next level?
34:21
Like I said, we've got some arms that that I'm really excited
34:24
about. What can we do?
34:25
How can this data help him get better?
34:28
How can it help him get outs, get his stuff nastier and
34:31
everything else to get to get him there?
34:34
He might not necessarily necessarily care about his data,
34:36
but if I care if coach, if our pitching coach cares, if our
34:40
head coach cares, OK, well, you know, how can this actually help
34:43
me? And because the coaches care
34:45
about analytics and have asked the questions, can answer that
34:48
for him and hopefully get him there, get him bought in and
34:53
progressing further along that path.
34:55
That makes sense. I, I appreciate you giving me
34:58
basically the same answer reworded because my, my simple
35:01
brain was was struggling to grasp it.
35:03
Know that that that makes complete sense though, right?
35:06
You, you need a group that's on the same page.
35:09
You need a group that's excited and I guess this is something
35:13
your perfect example from earlier hedge cut.
35:17
He talks about this regularly behind the scenes, the coaches
35:21
in the development team. Whoever's on that needs to be
35:24
knowledgeable. They don't necessarily have to
35:27
show everything to the player, but they need to have that
35:30
information available that if the time ever comes, they can
35:34
present it and actually make a difference in the player's
35:38
career. They can entertain the player
35:40
for what they are searching for. Right.
35:42
And from there need to be able to say, I don't know, but I'll
35:47
find out. Players can sniff, for lack of a
35:50
better word, they can sniff bullshit from my way.
35:52
And that was, that was the biggest thing with hedge cut
35:54
too, was, you know, he came to me and asked my opinion about
35:57
how to fix his arsenal. It's like back up.
36:02
I've never worked with us with a guy with your arm slapped
36:06
before. Let me do some research and I'll
36:08
get back to you. Let me talk to some people.
36:10
I'll get back to you. And I think that ended, that
36:13
ended up gaining me some respect in his eyes.
36:15
Like I said earlier, you know, players don't necessarily care
36:18
what you know until they know that you care.
36:20
But once they know that you care, they want to know what you
36:22
know and not necessarily everything all like word vomited
36:25
at them like I've been doing here.
36:27
But you know, they, yeah, you need to have that information
36:31
readily accessible for them. I'm gonna shift gears a little
36:34
bit here and now maybe this is a selfish question.
36:38
Early on in your intro, you talked about being a part of the
36:40
team with the Orioles that ultimately implemented Flexpro
36:44
Grip, and now we're in a great position with the OS.
36:48
They're spreading usage of the devices across the organization.
36:51
It should be a much larger part of what they're doing.
36:54
So I'd love if you could just kind of detail your experiences
36:58
there, what you've seen growth within the organization, growth
37:02
with the devices and Flexpro Grip and maybe even what you're
37:06
excited about. I, I know you currently don't
37:09
have the devices, fingers crossed we get them to you
37:12
sometime soon here. But I, I guess more what you're
37:16
excited about learning along the way.
37:18
Yeah. You know, we were talking about
37:20
those budgetary constraints earlier.
37:21
Let's let's see what we can kind of come up with here.
37:26
Get them out to the screens. Yeah.
37:28
I mean, Flex Pro was kind of my baby.
37:30
That was even before I got hired, when I was on the phone
37:34
talking with Forrest, talking with a shot.
37:35
OK. You know, we've been interested
37:37
in this product. We haven't had anybody that can
37:40
implement it. Can you do that?
37:43
Hell, yeah. If I, if I don't know something,
37:45
I'm going to find out. I'm not afraid to ask questions,
37:48
not afraid to go to different people.
37:50
I'm really blessed that that I have the mentors that I have the
37:54
strength coach. I think he's in AA now with the
37:57
Mets. Who's with me?
37:58
And hi, a had heard about Flexprogrip.
38:00
We had briefly talked about it during the season, just like saw
38:03
this on Twitter. That was cool.
38:04
Reached out to him and you know, hey, what do you have on this?
38:07
We had a pretty good dialogue about it.
38:09
Twitter was very helpful. Just getting a good background
38:12
knowledge about the device. Before I got there.
38:16
The OS started implementing it with the FCL pitchers,
38:20
predominantly Latin group young group and it was a this looks
38:25
weird why are we doing it and being able to explain like hey,
38:29
if this works the way that we think that it's going to this is
38:32
going to keep you on the field longer it's going to keep you
38:34
healthy and ultimately strengthen everything here like
38:40
great so then keeping them interested keeping keeping high
38:46
surrounding it. You know, we, we called it like
38:49
the Thanos glove, whatever we could do to get them like, oh,
38:55
you know, as the year went on, have rehab guys come down, have
39:00
big leaguers, have AAA guys. Hey, what's that?
39:02
What does it do? And once those guys start
39:05
showing interest, then the younger guys are oh, yeah, no,
39:07
I'm super bought it. Because if this big leaguer
39:10
wants to do it, then yeah, no, I definitely need to do it because
39:12
I want to be him. Our strength staff was really
39:15
bought in. We had Nick White, who was a
39:17
huge he. He really pushed it.
39:19
Big proponent from the job. Yes, you know, John Medici was
39:24
great. I think the biggest thing is
39:27
cohesion throughout the departments, pitching strength,
39:31
medical, you know, and getting clearances there and there's
39:33
always going to be pushed back in one area.
39:36
It's not not always going to medical.
39:39
Sometimes it's pitching, sometimes it's strength and like
39:41
figuring out the best way to make everybody happy while still
39:44
getting use out of the device and making it actually worth our
39:47
time. It worth our players time
39:49
getting the data and showing like this is what we're seeing.
39:52
This is why we want to keep using it.
39:53
This is why it's worth the investment.
39:55
Time, money, personnel getting more devices.
39:58
I think we we started the year with what 2 And by the time I
40:01
left in beginning of November we were up to what 10?
40:06
That sounds right to me. Like that, you know, we are
40:09
shipping them out to guys for the offseason.
40:12
We are doing other programming. Newcomer had written out with
40:16
bands for guys who couldn't get their hands on devices.
40:18
And it's really, I think, become an integral part of programming
40:22
for the organization through the offseason.
40:24
And now as they're transitioning back into getting guys down to
40:27
Sarasota, hopefully it continues that way.
40:29
I'm excited to see where it goes for them.
40:31
I've, I've gotten a couple texts since I left, you know, hey,
40:34
what is this? A lot of it was written in
40:36
Chloe's speak that really only made sense to, to me and the
40:42
people that were there because it was my baby.
40:45
But I'm, I'm really excited to, to see where it goes for them.
40:49
So yeah, hopefully we can get some some down here in the
40:52
spring sometime soon. Fingers crossed.
40:55
I, I don't know how much of that is going to be me or you making
41:01
that final decision. I I think we know who that
41:04
ultimately goes to and I have no doubt you are going to be
41:09
talking the right people's ears off of hopefully getting flex
41:13
pro grip on the hands of the running Bulldogs.
41:16
You know me. Well, so Chloe, before I do let
41:22
you go, I, I do have another question for you that hopefully
41:27
isn't too tough. I know I've been asking you to
41:29
really dig deep on on a few of these, but at risk of making
41:34
someone look bad, I do apologize so we can pump this and change
41:37
it if we need to. But have you been in a place
41:41
where you felt you had all the tools, you had everything
41:45
necessary at your disposal, but at the end of the day, the
41:49
curiosity wasn't there. Like you had the budget, you had
41:54
the opportunities, but nobody wanted to work to solve the
41:58
problems or see what's next. It it was just like being OK in
42:01
your own little box. You know, I don't think that I
42:04
have. That's good.
42:06
That would, that would really suck if you were in that
42:08
position. So, but then again, I I suppose
42:11
like, why would someone who works in analytics and player
42:14
development be in a situation where people aren't trying to
42:17
actively solve problems? Right.
42:20
I mean, I think it really shows, I think how do I want a word?
42:26
You know, it's a whole coordinatories thing.
42:28
Organizations really show how much they care by how much they
42:32
invest. And I've been really blessed to
42:34
be in organizations that are very curious and do invest quite
42:39
a bit of, you know, time, manpower, money into solving
42:43
these problems between the Mets and the OS.
42:46
I mean, we just got done talking about flex Pro and the OS and
42:50
implementing that. And now they've got this whole
42:52
strength training program instead of just the the rapid
42:54
flexion test and getting and getting numbers there.
42:57
They're trying to solve problems.
42:59
The Mets are trying to solve problems.
43:00
And they've they've got a really good team behind them.
43:03
The roles I was in, we're very unique with the OS.
43:06
I had my hands in a lot of different buckets between tech
43:11
video coaching, flex pro, all of the different things.
43:16
They let me show that curiosity in allowing me to have my hands
43:19
in that many different things. I've been really blessed where
43:22
like I've I've had the opportunity to explore my
43:25
curiosity with different organizations and been part of
43:28
organizations that are groundbreaking and really trying
43:31
to to solve problems, get guys better, keep them healthy and
43:35
all of all of those problems. Now, what about the other way
43:38
around where you felt the curiosity was there but maybe
43:41
didn't have the financial backing?
43:43
Obviously you might be, it might feel like you're in that
43:48
situation now coming from the Orioles.
43:51
But other than being at the mid major D1 level, which obviously
43:55
has some hurdles that you might not experience in pro ball, have
44:00
there been other spots and maybe how did you personally overcome
44:04
that? Like how?
44:05
How creative did you have to be? Yeah, I think for me,
44:09
recognizing like I had, I thought that I kind of knew what
44:13
I was getting into. You know, I got my, if we're not
44:18
counting high school, I got my started Ole Miss, didn't realize
44:22
the SEC bias there. Then I got to the Mets, which
44:28
the budget is astronomical. I came to the OS, which is very
44:31
similar and now I'm, yeah, I'm at the mid major level and it is
44:36
gritty, you know, but we have a lot of tools here.
44:39
We've got core velocity belts, we've got the plyos, we've got,
44:43
we've got yakker tech. Like I said, I DIY my phone as
44:47
as an edger camera. You know, it's just it's finding
44:50
those little things where, yeah, I might not have an edger, I
44:53
might not have yakker tech working in the bullpen, but
44:56
that's leaning on pitch ability. It's leaning on how is this
45:00
going to play? How does this play against live
45:03
headers? And for me, that's been a big
45:04
jump. A lot of my career thus far has
45:08
been very technical, has been here's what's on the iPad,
45:12
here's how it translates or how it's projected to translate.
45:15
Now I'm actually having to look with my eyes and say, OK, well,
45:18
I don't have numbers here telling me what the projection
45:21
is, how it's going to play. Let's, you know, do some mental
45:24
math and let's lean on my understanding of the game and of
45:28
pitching and figure it out and get this guy better get and
45:31
ultimately win some ball games. So it's definitely been an
45:34
interesting transition. I don't think we're, we are not
45:38
as bad off as I first thought that we were when I got here.
45:43
I was actually really impressed. There's a whole like our field
45:46
is entirely turf, turf mound, really nice bullpen set up with
45:49
a covering. We've got a nice indoor practice
45:51
facility with four cages. The netting all comes up so you
45:55
can turn it into one big infield.
45:57
Got our own weight room and then we also have like a a dirt
46:02
infield, practice infield for when we play the teams with
46:06
those facilities. So we're doing well and I think
46:10
for me it was just making the mental switch, leaning on my own
46:13
understanding of the game and not necessarily a technical
46:15
side, which has been the biggest change, biggest challenge, and
46:20
I'm really excited to see where this goes so.
46:23
I'm sure to an extent it opens up your eyes to new gaps that
46:28
you maybe didn't pay attention to before because you aren't
46:33
stuck looking at the iPad. It's almost like removing the
46:36
curtains and you have to go out in the world and problem solve
46:38
an entirely new way. You mentioned, for example,
46:42
looking out into the outfield the other day and seeing guys
46:46
maybe maybe not butchering their acute to chronic workload ratios
46:50
because they didn't have an understanding.
46:52
Now, if you're always in a bullpen or always behind a
46:55
computer looking at data and crunchy numbers, that might not
46:59
be something that you see. So because of the different
47:02
restrictions or constraints that you have to deal with on the
47:05
daily, now you have new opportunities to educate in new
47:09
places and maybe make a difference elsewhere.
47:11
So yes, this is also your runway to talk about these problems
47:16
that you're solving. Yeah, so I appreciate that.
47:20
I was telling my dad earlier like the Rose colored glasses
47:23
are gone. The days of saying I want to
47:26
coach, I'm going to coach, I want to coach and I'm stuck
47:28
looking at this iPad are gone. I, I am now coaching, coaching,
47:33
coaching and wishing for my iPad.
47:36
They're not necessarily, not necessarily wishing for my iPad.
47:39
There's definitely problems that I could solve that an iPad, you
47:42
know, yeah, I look like I, I shared earlier, we had a guy
47:47
come come out, two guys come out.
47:49
They, they threw 2 innings and in a squad game the next day
47:53
they come out and they're, oh, you know, I didn't execute this
47:55
yesterday, so I'm going to fix it on a flat ground today.
47:59
And yeah, acute, chronic workload ratios and set them
48:02
down is like, hey, what you doing?
48:05
You know, watch them chug an energy drink and PB and J and
48:10
it's like, gentlemen, you know, what's the situation here?
48:14
There's a big education piece in college ball that you know, I'm
48:18
now blessed to have the opportunity to fill in
48:21
explaining acute, chronic workload and the impact that it
48:25
has on your arm, on your health, on your performance recovery,
48:29
and what that actually means. It's a Piggy Bank.
48:32
You know, you show up to the field, $100, you throw that's
48:35
-40 you lift -20 and then you go home, you eat a bag of chips and
48:41
pass out because you're tired. You're showing up to the field
48:44
basically with $10. When you, when we need to get
48:46
100, you know, we need you to feel your body, right?
48:49
We need you to sleep well and not do too much.
48:52
And I think especially in college ball, there's a big
48:55
emphasis on you need to do everything all the time to get
49:00
to your best. There's no, there's really no
49:02
concept of rest days. So explaining like, Hey, we
49:05
don't want you to blow out. Here's here's what acute chronic
49:09
workload ratios are. Here's this handy dandy little
49:12
print, little print out that I made stick on our board outside
49:16
and here's what recovery means. This is all really important and
49:20
we need you guys to hammer this so that we can hammer the
49:23
development we can handle. You know, we can hammer the
49:25
execution and hammer everything else that's going to get you
49:29
guys to the next level. And hopefully we have another
49:32
Mason Miller. We just retired.
49:33
We retired his number on on Friday.
49:36
Got to watch him throw a pen, which was so cool.
49:40
I've been blessed to work with big leaguers before.
49:43
None quite as humble as Nathan Miller.
49:45
All around really great dude and just kind of pick his brain.
49:49
He's like, we didn't have this stuff when I was in college, did
49:52
not look like this. And solving problems without the
49:55
technology and doing those things.
49:57
It is a really cool experience, you know, and definitely
49:59
something that I'm looking forward to growing in without my
50:02
iPad, rose colored glasses, training wheels, whatever you
50:04
want to call it. The guys seem really bought in
50:06
and doing definitely the education on metrics and
50:10
everything else that filling in those gaps that coming from pro
50:14
ball. I kind of assumed that everyone
50:15
had some kind of background in once.
50:19
Once you're in pro ball like you, you know how your body
50:21
works. Obviously like you're putting
50:23
stock into what the team wants you to do and how to get better
50:26
and how the team thinks you're going to get better, develop
50:28
yourself and get you to the big leagues because obviously that's
50:31
the goal. But you've gotten that far doing
50:33
what you've been doing. So it's a little bit more
50:36
challenging now. I've got guys that are super
50:38
pliable. I've got 18 to 22 year old dudes
50:41
who will do anything that they can to get to the next level,
50:44
and that's been a lot of fun too.
50:47
Chloe, this is the time of the podcast where I ask potentially,
50:52
depending on how you feel about it, either the easiest or most
50:55
difficult question. And that is what might we have
50:59
missed, if anything? We've been going at this for a
51:02
little over an hour now. We've covered a lot, but I hate
51:07
to send anyone off thinking that they left something on the
51:10
table. So at this time, do you think
51:12
there's anything that we have forgotten?
51:14
A great question. And this was not on the the pre
51:19
approved list that you texted me ahead of time.
51:23
No, you know, I think you've done a really great job.
51:26
I mean, I, I've listened to an episode before this and Josh is
51:31
just probably a horrible example because he's him and knows
51:36
everything about pitching over or he thinks that he does and
51:38
he's going to listen to this and he's going to send this exact
51:41
quote back to me. No, I mean, I, I think we
51:44
covered a lot between Pro Bowl analytics and the difference in
51:49
college ball, which is a lot bigger of a gap than than I was
51:54
anticipating and something that I'm looking forward to closing
51:56
during my time here at Gardner Webb.
51:58
Heck yeah. Yeah.
51:59
Well, Chloe, I really appreciate it.
52:01
I know I said that was going to be the last question.
52:05
So here's an easy one for you to leave us on.
52:09
Can you tell us? No, I promise you it'll be easy
52:12
because this will be the most exciting question you've gotten
52:14
to answer today. Can you please tell us a little
52:17
bit about your dog? Lucy is my 1 1/2 year old
52:22
Doberman mix. She is the world's biggest
52:25
goofball. 70 lbs of love and lap dogness that's not actually a
52:30
lap dog. She's not here with me right
52:32
now. School has yet to approve her
52:34
paperwork, we're working on that.
52:36
But yes she's AI know people listening aren't actually going
52:40
to be able to hear this but it's worth use.
52:43
YouTube episode. I Oh, there you go.
52:46
I This was a picture that I got yesterday of her tucked into
52:50
bed. All ready for the snowstorm?
52:53
She she's ready to go. But yeah, that's that's my girl.
52:57
She's she's a shoe wearing, coat wearing shelter dog who's who's
53:04
now being raised by a 20 something year old.
53:06
It's a It's wonderful. Hey, that's what we love.
53:10
We're we're a shelter dog podcast.
53:12
We we adopt on here. So we are we are fully
53:17
supportive needed to make sure that Lucy got her time to shine.
53:21
So that actually brings us to an end, Chloe.
53:24
So thank you so much for your time today.
53:26
I appreciate you making making time in your snowed out schedule
53:31
because I, I know you, it was just so difficult for you to
53:34
find it today. But no seriously, this was
53:37
awesome. I really appreciate it and I
53:39
look forward to growing together in this game.
53:42
And of course, to all the listeners out there, thanks for
53:45
laying back with us.