Well, there's only a few people that when they tell me something when it
comes to baseball, I say, yes, sir, and I'm with one
of them right now. One of the best and one of the assistants to
Andrew Friedman, that is the great Ron Rennicky. Ron. Thanks a lot
for the time. Oh, no problem. I hope you don't feel that
way that I'm going to get on you. No, no, okay,
you're like one of my Jiminy crickets to steer me in the right direction.
That sounds good. Not only are you one of the best baseball men that
we know around here, but also you were a great third base coach and
dealing with bas runners guys that were a little bit more headier than others.
There was a lot of debate about last night, Andy Pajes keeping his head
down. What did you see on that last play last night? Well,
I came in today and I talked to Dino a little bit. He asked
me if I saw the playing. And the thing about putting your head down
is the fastest you run is when your head is up. I mean,
if you watch a track runner, they don't run with their heads down.
Yeah, they roam with their heads up. So that's one thing we need
correct is when you run, the fastest you're gonna be is when your head
is up. So if your head's up all the time, which it should
be, you should be able to see a lot more. I know Albert
pool Holds, for instance. I know sometimes he would come around third and
when he had his head down he was going home, and you had to
try to convince him that, look, just make sure you picked me up
before he dropped that head down. But there really isn't a reason to put
your head down other than to see the bass. You drop it quickly to
see the base, and then you're back up again because that's the fastest you
run, So that probably was the most important thing. When he's halfway over,
you know, towards third, you should pick up Dino, and then
once he hits the bag, you should you should get your head back up
because you're gonna run faster, and then pick up Dino again because it could
be a late hold. He's halfway down the line. We want to do
that to give ourselves more time to see what the throw is going to be
into the relay and and and gives him the opportunity if he sees something he
doesn't like to be able to put on the brakes fast. Ron Rennicky as
our guest already teaching us something that you run faster with your head up then
your head down. That's not something we all realize. But as far as
Paez goes and the teaching lesson last night, when do you approach a player
on a play like that that ends the game? Well, Dino actually told
me that that Andy came up to him last night after the play and said
something to him. So I think it's better to let a player do that
in game. If you think it's a situation where it may come up again
in the game, you can go talk to a guy, but most of
the time you just you let it go until after the game, maybe the
next day, and that's that's usually works out to be better. But it's
really nice when a player does what Andy did, came up right away to
Dino and said, hey, you know, I ran with my head down,
and you know Dino's I mean, he's the best over there, so
he's going to stop him plenty of time, and he certainly knows what he's
doing, so you can trust him. And it's just a matter of when
you look and then how once you see that, how you pick up that
guy again? And as a third base coach ron when you have a player
like Marcus Simeon who has a shortstop arm being the relay thrower, is that
part of the equation for Dino to hold him up and to understand, Hey,
this guy. A lot of guys are not very accurate, as you
know, but he's pretty accurate. No, he's really good. And I'm
sure that's why Dino put on the brakes there. He saw him get be
in good position to take the throw and didn't like what he saw, and
that's why he put up that stop sign. But you're right, it does
depend on the arm strength. So a lot of times we look and some
of these infielders are going out too far on cutoff and relays, and once
that happens, if they're out of their comfort zone, then you're more aggressive.
Once in a while you get burned on it, but most of the
time it's really difficult for them to throw accurately when they get past that point
where you know they should be. Do you believe that it's easier now to
be more aggressive when you're trying to go first to third or first to home
because not a lot of players throw to bases before games. You're correct,
the infield isn't taken as much. I know Clayton has the outfielders out here
and when I come in, I'm catching throws at third. I'm catching throws
at home before we do our batting practice and stuff. So he brings them
out early to make sure they're thrown, probably a couple times a homestand so
that certainly helps. But you're correct, they don't throw as accurate as they
used to, and it's simply because we took infield almost every day, and
I don't think that was probably very smart. I know, because my arm
was sore a lot. So I think we do it. I think we're
smarter now in the workload that we do, but also it probably causes some
inaccuracy. All right, Ron Renicky, Speaking of workload, you've been out
here when the Dodgers are at home playing first base for Mookie Betts, who
is making the throws from shortstop three or four hours before first pitch. What
have you seen from him as far as being better at shortstop? Certainly I've
seen the improvement, no doubt. I was there all spring training, same
thing, catching throws from him. You know, he's very accurate. We
all know he's a great athlete, but we also know that it takes a
long time to get really good at shortstop. And I think he's done a
great job. And nobody is, nobody in this game is going to outwork
Moki to get better at what he thinks he needs to. He's out here
every single day, he's throwing extra, he's on his legs. He never
gets tired, which I just talked about it a couple of days ago.
You know, when we hit ground balls of people and they're by themselves,
they usually take a break. Mookie never does, and you're waiting for him
to like, hey, look you need to take a break, and it
never happens. So he's in unbelievable shape. He can keep going and keep
working. But he's going to do this until he gets it right in his
mind. And when he feels like that, he's good enough. You were
with Mooki and Boston when the Red Sucks won the World Series. In your
wildest imaginations, did you ever believe you would see Mooki Betts at shortstop?
Uh? No, I did not. Are you amazed that He's able to
do it, not amazed, probably because I know him so well. You
know second base. I could see him going back to second because he did
that before. They moved him the outfield, and he can get by it
second just because he's so darn athletic. But short, Sup, it takes
time, it takes games, it takes usually years, so for him to
do what he's doing, I think is outstanding. Ron, thanks a lot
for the time. Like I said, you always teach, and the guys
that don't talk a lot, they've got the most knowledge. And Ron Rennicky
a World Series champion player with the Dodgers, a multiple time World Series champion
as a coach. The Dodgers are very lucky to have you back, and
you still play pretty good for a space. Thank you, David,