Season 1 Episode 11

Jays Talk, JP Ricciardi Interview, Roasting the idea of calling pitches  from the bench..Rockies Marlins

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

This is Walk Off Slams with Greg's on on AM 1150.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Welcome back to episode 11 of Walk Off Slams. I cannot believe how fast time is flying. We are headed into our well, we're in our third, third month of this show. Yeah, my producer Calvin Hector's shaking his head at me and he's saying, yes, we are. Absolutely unbelievable. And uh just want to thank the listeners for all the comments and the compliments. We're happy to be here with you every Sunday on AM 1150 here from the beautiful downtown studios in Kelowna, British Columbia. Well, we want to get right into some Jays stuff, and I'm gonna ruffle some feathers today because that's what I do. Um we're gonna do a little something called the good, the bad, and the ugly. Um, because I'm a Clint Eastwood fan and I've been watching a lot of Westerns. The Blue Jays, the good, the bad, the ugly. There's a little bit of good, a little bit of bad, and a little bit of ugly in all these little sections. We're gonna start with Dylan Cease, the good. There's a little bit of bad. But, you know, in my opinion, Cease, he's on the cusp of being more than just that guy who has great stuff and you're scratching your head going, when's this guy gonna turn into an ace? Well, let's back up a little bit. He's had a year where his ERA was under 2.5. He won 14 games for the White Sox and had an ERA under 2.5 for the full season. He's led the league in strikeouts a couple of times, but unfortunately, he has yet to put the Jays on his back and carry them. And so you're waiting for this guy to become the dude that starts winning streaks and stops the losers. On the surface, his numbers are awesome. Nine starts, 2.4 ERA, leading the league in strikeouts again. He's got less than a hit per inning, and you think, wow, this is amazing. You know, what's going on? Why are you so unsatisfied, Zonny? Well, you know, then I take a deeper dive into the numbers, and he's walking 3.6 guys per game with electric stuff. To me, if I'm that guy and I have that kind of stuff, I'm basically standing on the mound laughing at hitters, saying, I dare you to hit this, and I'm throwing it over the white of the plate. I'm not nitpicking, I'm not trimming, I'm not skimming corners. I'm literally saying I'm better than you. You can't stop me. Get ready to take your bat back to the dugout and put it in the rack because you're not getting me today. I don't get that vibe from this dude. Now I don't know him from Adam, but I'm here to tell you, it it I don't feel like this guy's a dog. And that's a that's a compliment in the baseball industry. He doesn't feel like a dog to me. I played with a bunch of dogs. Roy Halliday was a dog. Roy Halliday was the guy who, if we needed to smoke somebody in the ribs, he didn't care what the score was. He smoked the leadoff guy in the ribs just to prove a point and then roll up a double play and you know stick the proverbial digits up at the other dugout. Never did that, actually, because he's too too classy a guy. But I don't see Dylan Sees as a dog. And you know, he always seems to have that one inning where it's a difference maker. You you expect a guy whose ERA is you know below three to be doing better than three and one after nine starts. But when you look at Dylan Sees's career, he's led the league in starts multiple times, but he's yet to go 200 innings. 33 starts, 32 starts. Never been 200 innings. So you can do the math, divide 200 by 33, and that'll tell you how many innings on average you you're gonna have to go in order to get to that 200 mark. Well, if one inning is the difference maker in his whether or not he wins, loses, or gets a no-no, or excuse me, no decision, then at some point you gotta say to yourself, when's this guy gonna get it figured out? Because if he does, holy smokes, he's he's a a number one. Like you put him in the classification with Skeens, with a Roy Halliday, with you know Terek Scubel. I mean, he's got Cy Young Hall of Fame type stuff. So I'm looking at him, and as a teammate, as a guy on the outside looking in, uh what are the what whatever I am, I'm frustrated because I'm sitting there look jealous. I'm like, man, I wish I had as much talent as you with my mentality. You look at what he's got and you're sitting there waiting for this guy to figure it out. I know I'm nitpicking. I'm nitpicking because you the the the stats don't lie. But I look at stats a different way. Just like I look at you know Ernie Clement. Love Ernie Clement. Um, we're gonna talk about him later in the program. But, you know, it's a hollow 300 when he when he's swinging it back because he doesn't drive in any runs. To me, I look at you know, Dylan Case and I'm like, yep, he is nice to look at. It's really sexy. Uh I want to I want to know more about him. Like, when's it gonna all just come together? Because there are guys that show up big in big moments, and then there are guys who don't show up in big moments. And a big moment could mean I'm in a nothing-nothing ballgame and I'm going into the sixth inning. And that's when you're sniffing it. That's when you're saying to yourself, Yep, got to throw up another zero. Not, oh, I'm frustrated because I don't get run support, and I have a moment where I lose concentration, I walk two guys and give up a hit, like he did in his last start against Tampa. And then all of a sudden, you're sitting there, you're staring at the line, and you're going, oh, you know what? I went five and two-thirds, I punched out ten, I only gave up, you know, one earned run, two earned runs, but that one extra earned run is the difference maker in whether I get a no decision and my ball club wins or loses the game. Now we we can't help the fact that Dylan Sees has notoriously low run support. It's there are guys like that. But I'm here to tell you, as a former player, there are dudes that we look at and we sit there and we go, yeah, it's it's it's really good looking. Um he's gonna keep us in the ball game, you know, for five or six innings, but then the other shoe's gonna drop and he's gonna have a meltdown inning where he walks a couple of guys, gives up a hit, gives up a big home run in a bad situation, makes the wrong pitch, gets a little cute with all the weapons that he has, and then all of a sudden, now you're staring at a situation where you're not winning the ballgame. Walks are a killer. They put he they put they put defenses on their heels. And if you look at guys who don't get run support, it's one of two things. Either the the offense is complacent and they sit sit there and they say, Oh, you know what? Cece's on the mound today. We don't need to be our best. Uh and then there's other dudes that, you know, go out there and they get it done and they inspire their teammates. Um, you know, and and I I have to be this guy. Um, I've been hyper-focused on watching him since the Jays forked over number one starter ace-type coin for this dude. You know, and maybe his contract is the price of doing business in the big leagues today, but if you ask me, the Jays should expect more than what they're getting right now from this guy. And that's unbelievable for me to say. He's in a 2-4 ERA and a 3-1, 3-in-1 record. But with those numbers and his dominant stuff after nine starts, he should be 7-2, in my opinion. Um, maybe 6-1. You know, I go back to the facts. The dude strikes everybody out until he walks them in bunches. And why is there always this moment where he opens the door to the opposition? They don't take it from him. I've not watched one single game this this season where Dylan Sees took them out, and I thought the other team had a chance. You know, and as my my former teammate and current pitching coach for the Kelowna Falcons, Josh Towers, said, you can tell whether this guy is going to be lights out from the get-go. If he's up early, it's probably going to be not so good. But I mean, he's he's he's just electric and it's just frustrating. You know, make no mistake. I mean, there's there's this guy's stuff is likely better than a bunch of guys whose plaques are hanging in Cooperstown. But he needs to be able to seize the moment a little bit more and slam the door shut when he needs to. Um, sorry about it. Sorry about the luck. Sorry about the run support, but the true number one, the true ace, this is a guy who you know pitches to contact. He doesn't run through a hundred pitches in five innings because he's striking everybody out. Strikeouts mean absolutely nothing to me. They mean absolutely nothing to me in the first six innings of a game. I want them to put the ball in play. I want them to put the ball in play weekly. And when you got stuff like Dylan C's, challenge hitters more. Challenge them. Stop running so deep in counts, maybe get to the seventh so that your bullpen doesn't have to cover three three plus innings every night. When you got that kind of stuff, you should be able to get deeper into a ball game than somewhere into the the fives and sixes. You know, I'm sorry, it's a lot of pressure. Uh it's the show. And the big boy pants are required when you come at that kind of a price tag. You know, moving on, I'm not gonna beat a guy with a 2-4 ERA up too much, but you know, I'm sure if I was his teammate, I'd be kind of poking at him and I'd be like, come on, bro, let's go. Let's talk about the defense. The defense of the Blue Jays. Shaky. 26th ranked defense in the game. This was a part of the game that I thought was gonna be one of their strengths. But so far this year, 27 airs, six more than the league average. Uh Ernie Clement, as I promised, he's off to a shaky start. He's already got as many airs as he had all of last year after 40-something games. Uh not good. Um He needs to tighten up that defense quite a bit. So this is a guy, this is a guy who, on the surface, he tricks people into thinking he's a good hitter. But the truth of it is, he's not a productive hitter. He swings at everything. Again, I beat the dead horse. Swings at everything, and we don't get a whole lot of run production out of that spot wherever he is. And whoever's hitting behind him, they're they're they're taking first pitch strikes down the middle because he makes a lot of one-pitch outs. Um, so if he doesn't tighten up his defense, I look at him as a really nice backup. He's a great utility guy. I can play him all over the infield. Uh, but without the defense, he's not an everyday player on a championship caliber team in my mind. Brandon Valenzuela defensively, interesting study. Took a deep dive into the numbers the other day. He's done a nice job throwing throwing out runners. He's hit a couple of bombs, he's done some sexy things. But uh he struggles to control the baseball gang. And when I when I mean control it, I mean catch it, block it. You know, he's got three errors already. Three errors already in 130 innings caught. Six wild pitches have been charged to the Blue Jays when he's been behind the plate. That's awful. I'm not gonna lie. That's that's awful. Now, blame it on the one knee thing, whatever. You want to use that as an illustration of not good enough? Well, I agree. Um, but I'm not so sure. I've never seen him catch from a traditional stance, but he's definitely not blocking it the right way. And I can't really tell you, because I look at it and then I wonder sometimes if the scorekeepers are, you know, struggling with their calls because I see catchable balls, if you're in a traditional stance, being called wild pitches now. So they're struggling, in my opinion, to get the calls right. So we got Brandon Vonzuela who struggles to keep it in front of him, and we got scorekeepers who struggle, struggle to make the right call. Um, they really have no idea the difference between a wild pitch and a pass ball. And I'm sorry, but the old rule of thumb is if the ball bounces, it's a wild pitch. But when it bounces six is six inches in front of a catcher, right in the center of his body, and he can't control that. To me, that should be a pass ball. That's a that's an auto block. Like you'd have to be really bad not to get that one. The Jays obviously missing Alejandro Kirk, but that doesn't mean that they can't get better back there. They need to get better behind the dish because that good team defense starts with your catcher. Uh, and the Jays are struggling team defensively. Now, Akamoto, he started the year off impressing me defensively, but he's racked up three errors. And I'm was really, really surprised to discover that Dylan Sees and Gossman both have a couple of errors already. Um, so you know, we always talk about pitchers being non-athletes. Uh well, I I don't want to say it, but you know, you get what you deserve when you're a pitcher and you can't field your position. Two errors after nine starts, that's not good. Um that's a lot of errors from the from the pitching position. Uh defensively, the struggles, you know, they become killers. The the defensive struggles become killers when you don't hit a ball out of the ballpark on a regular basis. You have got to play airtight defense and pitch well when you don't hit jacks. Right now, the Blue Jays, and they're playing in a bandbox. I'm telling you, the the the Rogers Center is now a joke of a ballpark. It flies there. Uh they're 21st in the league in home runs. So you look no further than Vladdy Jr. He doesn't hit a whole lot of home runs early in the season, and we can talk about that in a minute. Uh, but they're not hitting the ball out of the ballpark. So if you're not hitting the ball out of the ballpark, you can't give the other team more than 27 outs. I'm sorry. It's got to clean up. Um, they need to get out of the basement and run scored, and they need to play better defense. I'd prefer both. Now, on to the ugly. And this is gonna revel some feathers, but whatever. The Jays have got the injury bug, and we know that that's the case. Barger uh was on the DL with probably a preventable situation. Uh he comes off the DL for one day. Now I have questions. I'm not making accusations, I have questions. How many times has Barger thrown to the bases or cranked it up max effort long toss since the first day of spring training? That's my question. Because he comes off the DL and in his first game back, he throws a ball 100 miles an hour, hoses a dude at the plate, and immediately goes on the shelf. That doesn't happen if you're playing proper catch on a regular basis. I'm not saying the Jays have to go do cutoffs and relays on a regular basis. I'm guessing they probably did it once during spring training. Once. And I can almost guarantee that every outfielder in the drill, other than the kids that were trying to impress the Major League coaching staff, were lollygagging the ball in, you know, from one place to another. They just don't do it. Because again, Major League teams are afraid that their kids are going to get hurt. Not kids, men. They're going to get hurt in drills and then they don't get use out of them. Seems like all they care about is how hard they can throw it and how far they can hit it. Well, you know what? I'm sorry. Uh you got to practice Major League activities in order to not kill yourself doing Major League activities. The guys just simply don't go hard enough anymore in practice. They don't uh they they don't practice full game speed, not even a couple of times. I'm not saying go wear yourself out, but a couple of times a day, no big deal. Luke's on the disabled list with a hamstring injury, likely avoidable. He's an outfielder, running down balls is his job. He's a hitter, running down the bases is his job. How often is he sprinting max effort to prepare? Literally. Are you getting your four sprints? Four. Four sprints for a professional athlete making seven figures a day. Guaranteed, he's taken a hundred swings to prepare for four at bats. How many sprints is he taken each day to prepare for running down the baseline or fetching a fly ball in the outfield? I don't know. I just know the reality of it. Most guys don't. They don't. I'm again asking questions. How many times a day are we doing this? Now, here's the head scratcher for me Bieber and Barrios, both with elbow injuries. I'm not I'm not an orthopedic guy, but I'm going to ask you this. How on earth do both of them finish the season in 2025 healthy and then come into camp unable to go? If they started their preparation properly on time, and they did it right, why are they on the shelf? You would seemingly be able to assume that if you finish the 2025 season healthy and pitching, what happens short of a car crash in the offseason that causes you to not be ready to go in 2026? If you start on time and and ramp up properly, that's a question I have, because that to me just doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Ponce, the blown out knee, preventable if he spent any time on his feet doing athletic things as part of his preseason preparation to be an athlete. It was a routine play that should not have resulted in a catastrophic injury. I'm sorry. The guy clearly doesn't move like an athlete, didn't move like an athlete on beating dead horses, but we are talking about the Blue Jays, and we are talking about money. Money. The amount of money that's on the DL right now is probably bigger than some of the whole payrolls of some of the minor league, some not minor league, but some of the lower rung teams in this in the in the league. They're spending more money on the disabled list than some teams are spending on their entire roster. And some of these injuries, if not all of the ones I'm mentioning, were preventable. Alejandro Kirk. Now this one's a little bit different. This is more about technique than preparation. Okay? I can't say that this was a preventable injury unless you train the guy to do it differently. Okay? Alejandro Kirk was doing what catchers trained to do now, which is work through the ball. His thumb got broken. I'm on the record as saying it's a bad technique and it was an unnecessary use of a bad technique, given the fact that the ball's right down the middle. Why are we trying to manipulate a ball right down the middle? It didn't need to be framed, didn't need to be moved. So instead of funneling or absorbing the pitch as we were taught, he's working through it, aka slapping it, and you get a collision between a ball and a thumb that results in a broken thumb and time lost and a bunch of money sitting on the DL. Here we go. Two cars traveling at each other. They crash head on at 50 miles an hour. The total impact of the crash, 100 miles an hour. Here's another scenario, my scenario. Two cars traveling in the same direction, the one going 60, aka the ball, rear ends the other one going 50, aka my thumb, and the impact is what? 10 miles an hour. Both survive barely without a sc probably without a scratch if the bumpers line up and we carry on to fight another day. So you see, uh, yeah, this technique caused the broken thumb. All right? So in my mind, preventable. Because we're not, we don't need to move through a ball that's actually right down the middle that a trained monkey could call strike. And you've got ABS. So it's not like the umpire could screw it up and we can't challenge, assuming we haven't wasted them already. These are the situations that I'm talking about. And that's why I say really, really ugly. Baseball players need to get back to being in baseball shape, as I've said a hundred times. It's just a pet peeve of mine. Get ready to play the season. When we come back on Walk Off Slams, I got a chance to sit down with my old pal JP Rischardi, and we're going to talk about money ball and the advent of the new coaching and the new front office philosophies.

SPEAKER_01 21:33

You're listening to Walk Off Slams with Greg Zahn on AM 1150.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

Well, I'll reiterate what the sexy voice of Walk Off Slams just told you. Uh, this is Walk Off Slams. Welcome back. I am your host, Greg Zahn. And recently I had a chance to sit down with an old pal of mine. Here's the interview with J.P. Ricciardi, as promised. And this week's guest is a veteran of 45. Years in professional baseball as a player, a coach, baseball executive. You know him as the former general manager of your Toronto Blue Jays. Welcome, JP Rishardi. How are you doing, JP? Good, Zonny.

SPEAKER_02 22:14

Good to be on with you.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

Yeah, glad to have you. I mean, I'm just fascinated by your career. I know we worked together with the Blue Jays and have, you know, remained friends afterwards. I just love the fact that you know you were a part of the Oakland A's organization at the advent of the whole Billy Bean era, the money ball. And I'm wondering your particular take on it. Uh anything that people may have misunderstood, uh not know about the whole thing, and and and how did it change baseball and and the way uh front offices are looking at players?

SPEAKER_02 22:53

Well, it's a good question, Zonny. I think the bottom line is we had no money in Oakland, so we had to find players, and the way we found them was through scouting. Um the analytical breakdown wasn't what it is today. Uh basically, we looked for guys who could hit, guys who had power, guys who walked, guys who controlled the strike zone. And, you know, Billy was in the office doing that, and I was out in the field finding guys. And um, you know, that's how we put our teams together. And there's a litany of names I could give you of guys that went on to play in Oakland uh because of the opportunities that we were able to give them. And it was just basically that. We had no money, we needed uh players, we had opportunity, which a lot of players weren't given in other places, and a lot of guys were really good minor league players, but just needed a chance to do it at the big league level. And we were able to give them that opportunity, and because of it, you know, Moneyball was built. Uh, it took on a life of its own as it continued to grow. But the cold hard fact was it was good scouting and good evaluation that built Moneyball.

SPEAKER_00 23:51

Do you think that your perspective, I mean, given the fact that you had no money in Oakland, that you had to find value in players and places that they just weren't looking for it? Uh, because I I just remember um, you know, hearing from other people, you know, when I was with Kansas City, they used to joke with me, they're like, Oh, Billy Bean called again today trying to trade for you because you you're a you're a moneyball guy, and I'm like, what are you talking about? And I they're like, Well, you walk a lot. And I'm like, uh, yeah, I get on base because I'm selective, because I know what I can and can't hit. But what was it about the philosophy? What what made you guys look other than the lack of money? But what did you discover was really important as far as how to put together a winning roster on a slim budget?

SPEAKER_02 24:44

Well, we were looking for baseball players. We were looking for guys that could do what they did at the triple A level and still do it at the major league level. And we just thought there was a lot of guys that were poo-pooed in baseball. And I could give you a list of guys. I mean, there's a million of them. Um, you know, I think you fall in that category. We got you in Toronto, and you had five great years in Toronto. We got Josh Towers off the scrap heat because I scouted Josh Towers in double A. We gave him an opportunity, and Josh had a great career in Toronto. God, there was one year he could throw his glove on the mound to beat the Yankees. So, you know, we were we were getting our we were giving opportunities to guys that just weren't getting opportunities. And because of it, all of a sudden guys were saying, wow, this guy's a pretty good player. Well, all we did was we had the the avenue to give them opportunity, and they took it. It's all about the players. We just created an opportunity for them and believed in what they could do, and they went out and and really did well with it.

SPEAKER_00 25:36

Well, you can you can tell, I mean, there the the baseball people are all intertwined. I mean, you came up in the Mets organization. Um, you know, you you worked with John Gibbons there. Um, you know, Billy Bean and you were teammates as well in the Mets organization. You know, Billy was a teammate of mine, or not mine, my uncle Pat's in AAA in Toledo. Um, you know, and that's where I met him when I was you know 15 years old. Uh so you you look at all the intertwined uh people, you know, you typically you hire who you're comfortable with, who who share vision uh in a in a certain way. You know, Jay uh Josh Tower, you mentioned Josh Towers. He's my pitching coach here in Kelowna. Um, because you know he and I worked together in that year where you say he could have thrown his mitt on the mound and beaten the Yankees. And it was, you know, 05 when you know he went 200 innings for us and won 13 games when when I used to describe the AL East as prison rules baseball. I mean, we're playing against Boston, New York with the deep pockets and you know, the Jeters and the Poppies and the Manny's and uh, you know, Mike Lowell's and all those wrecking crew lineups. Um, you had to look for value, and and and that's ultimately how you ended up in Toronto uh when they moved on from Gordash. Give us a little background on your move from Oakland and what the Blue Jays were looking for when they hired you as the general manager.

SPEAKER_02 27:01

Well, what happened was um I never really wanted to be a GM. I never even had any any inclination to do it. It just kind of spawned off of our success in Oakland. And when I got the opportunity, I said, you know, my wife is really the one who said, you got to do it because if you don't do it, you'll never know if you, you know, you never know if you get the opportunity again. And but for me, it was just nothing changed. I was still as competitive as I was as a player, still as competitive as we were in Oakland, still as competitive when you're an area scout. Um, you know, there's a lot of stuff that you don't lose your competitiveness, you just funnel it into different things. And we wanted to be good in in Toronto. We only had a $53 million payroll. So how are we gonna be good unless we were creative? And, you know, I remember one year, there's a great Greg Zarn story in here somewhere, but I won't, I don't know if we have enough time to tell it. But you know, you were playing great for us, and you got so pissed off at me that I signed uh Benji Molina and I said, Zonny, listen, this is only gonna help you. You're gonna end up, we're gonna have a two-headed monster here. You're gonna have a great year, he's gonna have a great year. And I look up, I think between you we had 25 home runs, I think we had close to 100 RBIs. You both were fresh, you both you both played well, and um it was just an opportunity to give guys chances, and and I think we did the same thing with so many players. Uh, you know, you know, look at Jose Batista. It was a better story than Jose Batista. We traded for Jose Batista for nothing. He became one of he's he's on the ring of honor. So I think it comes down to just having a feel for what plays, what doesn't play, be having a baseball background, you know, having that scouting background, never losing your competitiveness. You know, look, I knew $53 million, we're gonna have a hard time competing with the Yankees and the Red Sox. But, you know, we can we might get a ham dinner, but we're gonna give him a ham sandwich every once in a while. And we did. We competed.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

Yeah, I was pretty pissed at you when you signed Benji, and it was like two or three weeks before spring tourning. But you predicted what was gonna happen. And I tell people all the time, you know, I I had just come off a career year and I went out just like just like you said, had a better year, actually hit more jacks and drove in a bunch of runs. Like Benji and I were a two-headed monster. In fact, you combine our numbers, I believe it's probably one of the top five seasons if you were to put all of our stats together by a catcher catching tandem in the history of baseball, uh, the two of us. I mean, it was, yeah, like 30 home runs and 100 ribbies. It was crazy. So, you know, obviously both of us together were able to do something that, you know, Mike Piazza could do all by himself, but you know, he was a different animal. Um, you know, you know, speaking of, you know, different animals, you you look at the the way that these organizations are being run now. I mean, the the the pendulum, uh, as you say, is is swung so far to one side with regards to the analytics. And and I I don't think a lot of people understand how this all came to be. Like, when did and how did the game moves away from actual baseball people making baseball decisions and running baseball clubs?

SPEAKER_02 30:10

I think when Theo Epstein had success, a lot of owners thought that they could tap into the next Theo Epstein. But I think the thing they always miss with Theo is Theo was broken in by Kevin Towers. And Kevin Towers was a hardcore scouting player development guy, and Theo never lost sight of the fact that that was going to be important. And you look wherever Theo went, he had money every place he went, but he never lost the scouting and player development touch and kept the value of scouting and player development. The next wave of guys has no connection to scouting and player development, and they don't understand what a scout's telling them on certain things. Listen, you don't have to listen to everything a scout says, you don't have to listen to everything a player development guy says, but sometimes they're bringing up questions to you that should make you sit and reflect as a general manager. But today we've pushed those guys so far out that they have no say. And I think that's one of the things that's missing with our game today is the the scouts have very little say. They're being told where to go, who to scout, who to look at. God forbid they find a guy on their own. God forbid they dig up a guy that no one else knows about. And I think we have such a cookie-cutter baseball business now. Everybody's looking for the same stuff, everybody's looking for the same player, and our game is boring. Our game is absolutely boring right now. It's strikeouts out the wazoo, it's guys that uh are moved out of position when they shouldn't be moved out of position. Um, and it's just a whole different way of looking at the game where you know, I've never seen a the game where a guy wins 13 games in the big leagues, and they're talking about a guy in double-A with uh with a five ERA that's got plus stuff that has more value than the big leaguer. It's it's bizarre world. I don't get it.

SPEAKER_00 31:49

Yeah. What do you think is the I mean, obviously, you know, the Ivy Leaguers, the the analytics dudes, you know, uh it seems to me like they're afraid to have baseball people around them. Um in your experience.

SPEAKER_02 32:10

I think that's 100% it. And it's not just Ivy League guys. You know, I don't want to I don't wanna, you know, Chris Young's an Ivy League guy. I love Chris Young. We had him in New York, he's a great guy. Theo's a great guy. I mean, there's a lot of good Ivy League people, but I think what's happened is um because people are getting in the game with no baseball background, whether it's being a scout, whether it's being a player development, whether it's being a minor league player, whatever it is, they look at the baseball guy like he's a threat to them. And we've all been in locker rooms, we've all been in clubhouses, everybody gets their balls busted. These guys have never had their balls busted, and they don't understand when someone's making fun of you or zinging you or this and that, it doesn't mean they don't care about you. It means they they like you, they're accepting you. It's baseball's way. And they don't get any pushback and they don't welcome any pushback because if they are being questioned in their mind, that's belittling to them. And they feel like, who are you to question me? And why should you instead of looking at it like we have a great dialogue? Listen, I remember begging Billy Bean to sign uh Miguel Batista. I said, Billy, get Miguel Batista. No, no, we had a knockdown drag out argument over Miguel Batista. I don't know. I signed Miguel Batista for three years in Toronto. He was outstanding. He won 13 games one year, he had 31 saves one year, he was a multifaceted guy for us, but you know, Billy didn't want to sign him. That doesn't mean Billy's wrong. It's just we had a baseball discussion. So I just think today it's lacking. There's this the baseball people, so to speak, are looked down upon because the the analytics people are basing everything on numbers. And the numbers said this, the numbers said that. Well, it didn't work out, but the numbers said this would happen. But if a scout says I think he's gonna do this and it doesn't happen, they say the scout's just reaching its stars.

SPEAKER_00 34:02

I've been pretty vocal lately about uh the coaching. Uh the guys that they're they're hiring now. And it's it seems to me like when you look at an organization like the Mets with as deep a pocket as they have, it seems disappointing to me um, you know, when they're sitting there saying that a guy like P. Alonso isn't a good enough fit for um the Mets. And I and I and I and I wonder, you know, you know as well as I do, and and we talked about this before, um, you got to be a special kind of guy to survive in New York. And you got a guy like Pete Alonzo hitting 40 jacks, he's clearly thriving in a place like New York. The the city loves him. You know, they they they get rid of him and they bring in whatever they bring in, and then surround him by a bunch of coaches who are, in my opinion, not the best resources that uh an organization like the Mets with the second highest payroll in baseball could surround their players with. If I'm one of those players, I'm livid because I can't have a conversation with a guy in a batting cage based on his experience. What's he going to tell me that he's been through that's gonna make me feel any better about the situation that the New York Mets are in?

SPEAKER_02 35:25

Well, one of the problems with all of this, too, is the player today is being brought up in this environment, so they don't know any better. They very seldom have access to ex-major league players or ex-minor league players who have had success and can make them a better player. Uh so the minor leagues are filled with guys with academia resumes and not baseball resumes. I mean, think of Tom Kochman. He managed in the minor leagues for 30 something years. He had all those players that came to the Angels, started off with Tom Kotchman. He taught them how to be a minor league player, how to be a professional, how to show up at the park, all the little things that go into making you a complete player. Forget about what's on the field. So we don't have that history and that lineage. And when you start getting rid of your history, your lineage, the guys who are ab have the ability to Johnny Padres taught Kurt Schilling, you know, a certain pitch, and it changed his career. I mean, I don't know. I mean, Johnny Padres pitched in the World Series, he got a great career. You mean to tell me that that value isn't isn't warranted anymore? So it's it's really the cart is definitely in front of the horse. And when I look up and see 26-year-old guys being hired to be hitting coaches at the major league level, I just shake my head. If you want to hide those guys, put them in double A. I don't, you know, but you can't put them in the big leagues.

SPEAKER_00 36:51

So what what do you I mean, you and I both know that, I mean, there are guys that never played pro ball that are valuable members of organizations. I mean, Carlos Tosca, when you guys brought me in to play in Toronto, he was my manager. Um, and I love playing for Carlos because he basically, I'd be dragging my ass into the clubhouse after playing seven in a row, and he'd be like, Can you go? And I'm like, I've been waiting for this my whole life. Uh Carlos, let's go. Um, you know, Jimmy.

SPEAKER_02 37:18

Carlos managed in the minor leagues a long time. Yep. That's the other thing that's missing. Guys who got to the big leagues like Carlos Tosca, they spent 10, 12, 15 years in the minor leagues paying their dues. So Joe Madden paid his dues. You know, how about the Giants? They hire a guy right out of college. What do they expect? Embarrassing.

SPEAKER_00 37:41

Absolutely embarrassing. Extremely embarrassing. Yeah. Well, you and I could could go on about this ad nauseum, and and and I, but I I gotta uh wrap this one up. I just need to tell you thank you for being here. Um sorry I was such a pain in your ass in Toronto. Um, you're one of my favorites. And you may catch some shade about this one, JP, but you're the reason why um you know I was in Toronto and and I got a TV career after out of it. So I'm gonna say thank you for that. It's been a pleasure, and I hope you'll uh come back and talk to us again. Anytime, Zonny, all the best, buddy. I really enjoyed that interview with JP. He and I go a long way back, and it's always nice to catch up with old familiar teammates and coworkers. Uh JP, he's got an unbelievable career that spanned the advent of Moneyball, and that was a great interview. I'm looking forward to talking to him again. When we come back on Walk Off Slams, your favorite segment and mine. The Sunday roast. And now the Sunday roast with greys on. The Colorado Rockies are calling pitches from the dugout instead of letting major league catchers do their job. Who's calling the pitches, you ask? A guy named Alone Leichmann, the pitching coach. Here we go again. Another dude who never played in a position to have a huge impact on the team's fortunes. According to his baseball reference page, Leichman pitched, not caught, pitched at UC San Diego when he was twenty-six and twenty-seven years old. First of all, I had no idea they allowed senior citizens to play college baseball. And second of all, are the Rockies actually serious? With all the former Rockies players that could have assumed the role of pitching coach, they choose this guy and they let him call pitches? He's clearly not making a difference. The Rockies are ranked 29 out of 30 in the team ERA category. They finished dead last in the league in 2025. Not much improvement. Here's an idea. There has to be trust in what the catcher is seeing, and he has to have the freedom to pair that with his preparation and his experience in order to make the right choices. Wins and losses aren't the only thing to consider here. There's money at stake. Players get paid on personal stats, not team ones. Calling the pitches for them is like forcing them to play the game with someone else's equipment. I can't believe anyone's going along with this farce. In my day, it was faux pas to shake off a veteran catcher, especially in the midst of a shutout or a no-no. A pitching coach could never know what it's like in that very moment to be the catcher and see what he sees. A catcher's computer is in between his ears and he's got to think four pitches ahead and recalibrate pitch to pitch. Perspective, vantage point, and here comes that word again, experience are everything. They are telling Rockies and Marlin's catchers that they simply aren't smart enough to handle the biggest part of their job. What makes them think players are gonna stay invested in the outcome when they have no control over their own fate? They won't. And that's gonna lead to a whole generation of catchers who can't catch it, can't throw it, can't block it, and can't call it. To me, that's a bigger crime than the one already being perpetrated on today's players. The game is being played out there on a laptop. I wish these guys running baseball would just get it over with and put on the uniform and assume the roles they've been dying to assume. The roles of Major League player, coach, and manager. I've known for years the only reason they never did it is because they'd get laughed out of the building by the entirety of the roster. In my mind, calling pitches from the dugout just evaporated the last bit of credibility this game had left. So go on. Turn it into a video game. These kids are robots and don't know any better. Most of them were never coached by anyone legitimate and they aren't now. So what difference will it make if everyone in the game with actual baseball experience is replaced by the Dorkdom? I wonder if they're worried that players will look at their tiny little baseball reference pages or worse, find out they don't have one. People always lament the old boys' club. But aren't most front offices and coaching staffs exactly that? The only difference now is that they're made up of the Stratomatic All-Stars instead of ex-baseball guys with crows' feet and leather necks. There are certain things in the game that should remain sacred, like calling the game not wannabes playing God with spreadsheets, the use of real baseballs, not titleists wrapped in rawhide, blocking the plate, and the takeout slide on a double play. I'm all for change if it improves the game. Sending pitches in from the dugout in a major league game is like sending a small band-aid to a guy with a broken leg. This is not even close to an improvement when you consider who's sending the pitch selections. I have nothing against a lone lifeman. I have everything against what he represents to me, and that's a guy who lacks the necessary experience and the point of view that's required to call pitches in a big league game. He represents a job, in my opinion, that should have gone to a more qualified ex player. I'm adamantly against calling all the pitches from the dugout, but maybe I'd be okay with it if an ex-major league catcher was doing it. I could rationalize that that guy being there for a young catcher was necessary to look for help when he was unsure or scared in a big moment. It's part of the learning process, and sometimes it's better not to wait too long for the teaching moment to happen. It's not the young catcher's fault that he's in a position without necessary tools to do the job properly. It's also not alone Leichmann's fault the Rockies are asking him to call pitches. What's he gonna say? No. It's a bad idea from the get go, but if that's what they want, a guy like Leichman, who has no real resume, can't Say no. I blame the Rockies and anyone else that thinks this is a good idea. If you want to hear a good one, here's one. Hire gristled old pros to train your kids in the minors, teach them to do it properly, and then let them learn from their mistakes along the way. That's what the minor leagues are for. But if all you're gonna do is hire unqualified guys who never done it properly and don't understand it, then just carry on undermining the legitimacy of the big league game. It won't be long until anyone and everyone who's ever played or coached will be turning it off. What's next? Earpieces for hitters so the coach can call and talk to him during at bats? It's Sunday. Can you smell that roast?