Speaker 1: Welcome to Guardians Weekly on the Cleveland Guardians Radio Network.
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Speaker 2: Welcome to Guardians Weekly. Jim Rosanaus along with you with
Speaker 2: another one of our off season hot stove shows. As
Speaker 2: we get closer and closer to the beginning of spring
Speaker 2: training and our shows emanating from Goodyear and the Guardian
Speaker 2: Spring Training Complex. There but a good show lined up
Speaker 2: for you today. As always, we will visit with the
Speaker 2: brand new hitting coach for the Cleveland Guardians, Grant Fink,
Speaker 2: who has been in the organization for quite some time
Speaker 2: but gets his first chance at coaching at the major
Speaker 2: league level. We'll talk to him about that and the
Speaker 2: challenges associated with that coming up shortly in the second
Speaker 2: half of our show. Hope you can stay with us
Speaker 2: as we continue our look around the American League's Central
Speaker 2: Division and some of the rivals for the Guardians. And
Speaker 2: this week we'll preview the Minnesota Twins with their fine
Speaker 2: radio voice, Chris Addabury, so we'll get to that in
Speaker 2: the second half of our show. On the transaction front
Speaker 2: for the guard Guardians, they continue to bolster their depth
Speaker 2: in terms of pitching by signing veteran free agent left
Speaker 2: hander Colby Allard to a minor league contract and non
Speaker 2: roster invite to major league camp. He's twenty seven pitched
Speaker 2: last season with the Phillies, and in fact, he appeared
Speaker 2: in seven games for Philadelphia, including four starts, one of
Speaker 2: which came against Cleveland, but for the most part last
Speaker 2: season spent the year at the Triple A level. He's
Speaker 2: pitched in the Major leagues with Atlanta and Texas in
Speaker 2: previous seasons, so the Guardian's hoping that he can provide
Speaker 2: some starting pitching depth heading into spring training. So that's
Speaker 2: on the transaction front. As promised, we will visit after
Speaker 2: our break with the new hitting coach for the Cleveland Guardians,
Speaker 2: Grant Fink. Grant had spent the last three seasons in
Speaker 2: the Guardians minor league organization as their minor league hitting coordinators,
Speaker 2: so that means he really had a chance to work
Speaker 2: with and oversee most of the young players who have
Speaker 2: moved through the system and then now have made their
Speaker 2: way to the major leagues. He began his professional coaching
Speaker 2: career with Cleveland back in twenty seventeen. He had been
Speaker 2: in the organization as a player for three seasons following
Speaker 2: his draft in the twenty third round in twenty thirteen
Speaker 2: out of Missouri Western State University, and he'll be part
Speaker 2: of that hitting group that still features Dan Puente. He'll
Speaker 2: return for his second season on the staff, and Jason
Speaker 2: Esposito is back as well. He had spent the twenty
Speaker 2: twenty three and twenty four seasons as the Major League
Speaker 2: club's run production coordinator. But it is Fink who takes
Speaker 2: over as the major league hitting coach, and obviously that's
Speaker 2: something that he's very much looking forward to, and we'll
Speaker 2: talk to him about that when we return after this
Speaker 2: time out. I'm a Cleveland Clinic Guardians Radio Network.
Speaker 3: We're going to be here a while today, folks, switching
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Speaker 1: The wind up and delivery of swinging another line, drive
Speaker 1: base hip to the gap in left center. Another three
Speaker 1: hit game for Stephen kwond He is something else now.
Speaker 1: The set in the one swung and ripped the first
Speaker 1: over the head of the league, bring whistle down the
Speaker 1: right fair line, kicks into the corner, put on a
Speaker 1: sweat to third man. Sarto went standing with a two bagger.
Speaker 1: The bitch swung on light right pace, hit coleft center.
Speaker 1: Sand Tanna does it again. O Naylor tamped to the
Speaker 1: mound his first time up and the Guardians catcher sends
Speaker 1: a liner toward the gamp and right center on the runners.
Speaker 1: Robert he drops of acent. This will score two runs.
Speaker 1: You know all of our roster plays, we use everybody
Speaker 1: and so many different steps up. That's what good teams do.
Speaker 1: That's what that's what a good team does.
Speaker 4: Is it doesn't have to be one or two guys
Speaker 4: every night.
Speaker 5: The Pitts swung in and rip deep bright there she
Speaker 5: goes another two iron for Jose Ramirez. Not even Jack
Speaker 5: Nicholas could hit a two iron like that, and the
Speaker 5: Guardians have a seven to two lead, and Ramirez has.
Speaker 1: Four home runs in his last three games. Jose Ramire
Speaker 1: with three more army eyes tonight twenty eight homers, ninety
Speaker 1: army eyes and yes, Virginia, he very much is an
Speaker 1: American League MVP candidate.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Guardians Weekly. We are joined now by
Speaker 2: the new Guardians hitting coach Grant Fink, who takes over
Speaker 2: for Chris Bleaka who moved on to the Cincinnati Reetz
Speaker 2: in the off season, and granted first off, congratulations, thanks
Speaker 2: for joining the show. This has to be a really
Speaker 2: special time for you as you were named major league
Speaker 2: hitting coach.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, I appreciate it. It definitely is an exciting
Speaker 6: time for me and my family and we're just excited to,
Speaker 6: you know, be a part of the organization at this
Speaker 6: level where I kind of came up in so really
Speaker 6: looking forward to going.
Speaker 2: And when you look at that, for a lot of fans,
Speaker 2: your name might be new to them, but you are
Speaker 2: are certainly not new to the organization. And explain some
Speaker 2: of your background and how far that goes even back
Speaker 2: to your playing days.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So I was draft in twenty thirteen, played a
Speaker 6: few years here in our minor leagues, and when I
Speaker 6: finished playing, they asked me to be a coach, and
Speaker 6: I wasn't ready to do it at first, so I
Speaker 6: went and played a year of independent ball after that
Speaker 6: and realized quickly that I wanted to get back into coaching,
Speaker 6: and thankfully there was an opportunity here, which was amazing
Speaker 6: because this is the place I really wanted to be,
Speaker 6: the people here, and then I spent about three years
Speaker 6: as a hitting coach, and then three years as a
Speaker 6: hitting coordinator, and then most recently this opportunity to come
Speaker 6: up to the major league staff.
Speaker 2: And we were talking earlier. Obviously, relationships are huge when
Speaker 2: you're coaching, whether it's pitching or hitting, and the majority
Speaker 2: of this team you've worked with in the past, and
Speaker 2: explain how much of an advantage that can be, especially
Speaker 2: in this spot.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Well, I've had other friends that have gone to
Speaker 6: be major league hitting coaches and they have to spend
Speaker 6: their first you know, a few months getting to know
Speaker 6: everyone at a deeper level.
Speaker 4: And I've been.
Speaker 6: Around this team pretty much ninety five percent of it
Speaker 6: for majority of their careers, and that's going to be
Speaker 6: awesome to just kind of hop in and start right
Speaker 6: off with their relationship and not that awkward beginning of
Speaker 6: getting to know each other's personalities and styles. There's a
Speaker 6: few players that I'll probably need to build a little
Speaker 6: deeper relationship with early, but overall, I mean long background
Speaker 6: with a lot of players on our squad.
Speaker 2: Grant Fink is joining us. He's a Guardian's new hitting
Speaker 2: coach for the upcoming season. And Grant you mentioned that
Speaker 2: that transition from playing to coaching. You weren't quite ready
Speaker 2: when the initial thought was put out there by the organization.
Speaker 2: But while you were still playing, were you thinking long
Speaker 2: term that maybe when your playing career was done, that
Speaker 2: coaching would be something that you'd enjoy.
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 6: Why, Yeah, absolutely. I knew before I even went into
Speaker 6: pro ball that at some point, when my cleats were off,
Speaker 6: that I would definitely move into the coaching ranks. I
Speaker 6: just I've always enjoyed impacting other people and helping other
Speaker 6: people achieve their goals, and I felt like coaching would
Speaker 6: give you a chance to, you know, stay in the
Speaker 6: game and do something you love, but also put you
Speaker 6: right on that platform to help others, and that's something
Speaker 6: that I've always been passionate about, and especially within the
Speaker 6: game of hitting. So I remember, even my last year
Speaker 6: playing in our organization, I didn't get much playing time,
Speaker 6: so I just dove into the people around me and
Speaker 6: tried to help in any way I can. And that's
Speaker 6: really when I knew like my passion was going to
Speaker 6: be in coaching and developing.
Speaker 2: And obviously we see the work that the hitting team
Speaker 2: puts in at the major league level last three years,
Speaker 2: though you've been a coordinator, so you're throughout the minor
Speaker 2: league system. How much of a similarity is there to
Speaker 2: the things that you're trying to teach the younger hitters
Speaker 2: so that when they get here it might not be
Speaker 2: all that foreign to them continuity wise. How important can
Speaker 2: that be for an organization?
Speaker 6: So I think it's massively important, and us as an organization,
Speaker 6: we pride ourselves in alignment from the major leagues all
Speaker 6: the way to our dr academy, So ultimately being in
Speaker 6: a coordinator role last year, I spent a lot of
Speaker 6: time in person and on the phone with our major
Speaker 6: league staff and then every level down from there, and
Speaker 6: it just it helps with messaging, It helps with the
Speaker 6: continuity of not just messaging, but ideas and systems and processes.
Speaker 6: So that's something that makes it going to be a
Speaker 6: little less new for me because I was so involved
Speaker 6: in the process last year that I understand exactly where
Speaker 6: they're coming from and what if the steps are to
Speaker 6: continue to building on that vision.
Speaker 2: One of the themes a year ago, especially early on,
Speaker 2: was I don't know if trying to hit for more
Speaker 2: powers is the right way to say it, but certainly
Speaker 2: taking some chances early in the account, which was different
Speaker 2: from the year before to some extent from that contact approach.
Speaker 2: How about heading into this season, as you take a
Speaker 2: dive into to what went well, what needs to be
Speaker 2: worked on for the coming year among the hitting group,
Speaker 2: any changes in that approach or do you try and
Speaker 2: just refine what worked well a year ago.
Speaker 6: I think we're just going to continue to build on it.
Speaker 6: We have an incredibly athletic team and a lot of
Speaker 6: our players can get the bat to the ball, and
Speaker 6: I would think this year we're going to put a
Speaker 6: lot more emphasis on decision making and continue to learn
Speaker 6: how to take chances and you know, maximize our power
Speaker 6: when it's the right time, but also continue to play
Speaker 6: that gritty baseball that we've been playing in the last
Speaker 6: couple of years. There's no reason why we can't do
Speaker 6: both of those things. And I think we've set a
Speaker 6: foundation in our minor leagues the last few years and
Speaker 6: it's moved its way up into the big leagues. And
Speaker 6: when Val was here, we worked hard together to you know,
Speaker 6: work on those transitions. So just continuing with moving the
Speaker 6: needle there. We saw some progress last year and we're
Speaker 6: going to continue to push that a little bit as
Speaker 6: we go in the next few years.
Speaker 2: Grant Fink, the Guardian's new hitting coach, joining us here
Speaker 2: on Guardian's Weekly, and Grant wanted to touch on a
Speaker 2: couple of players that you may have worked with quite
Speaker 2: a bit the last several seasons, and one who made
Speaker 2: an immediate impact and then had one of the biggest
Speaker 2: blows in the postseason, as John Kenzie. Noel explain what
Speaker 2: you saw from him and what allowed him to take
Speaker 2: that next step and not only get to the major
Speaker 2: leagues but contribute in some key spots.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you got to give John Kenzie a ton of credit.
Speaker 6: He made a decision last year to spend the majority
Speaker 6: of his offseason I think probably ninety percent of his
Speaker 6: off season in Arizona in the building with us, other
Speaker 6: than a short stint and winter ball, and he was
Speaker 6: dedicated to changing his body, working on his decision making,
Speaker 6: and just becoming a more complete hitter. And he accomplished that.
Speaker 6: And we saw what he did in Triple A and
Speaker 6: in the role that he had in the big leagues,
Speaker 6: what he did in the postseason. This is just the
Speaker 6: first year of him getting exposed to that game at
Speaker 6: that level. So we're really excited for this offseason again,
Speaker 6: he's going to be in a building with us a
Speaker 6: lot here in Arizona, continuing to build on the things
Speaker 6: that he worked on last year. Super proud of him
Speaker 6: in the effort and then getting to see him get
Speaker 6: rewarded for some of that and help the team win
Speaker 6: some ballgames was really cool to see.
Speaker 2: And another young player who made really nice strides from
Speaker 2: day one to the end of the season was Brian Rokio.
Speaker 2: And you may have sounds like you may have worked
Speaker 2: with him more than anybody else in a variety of roles.
Speaker 2: How has he come along from a really young player
Speaker 2: just getting his feet wet and pro ball to where
Speaker 2: he is now.
Speaker 6: He was a funny one. I've spent a ton of
Speaker 6: time with him, from this first time coming over to
Speaker 6: the States to his first two years in affiliate baseball.
Speaker 6: I was his hitting coach. We've had an awesome relationship,
Speaker 6: and his growth through his time in the minor leagues
Speaker 6: and into the big leagues has been incredible, not just
Speaker 6: as a hitter, but as a defender and as a person.
Speaker 6: Just continuing to build himself up as a hitter, I
Speaker 6: think will be an important piece. We watched the way
Speaker 6: he played defense this year. It was outstanding, and he's
Speaker 6: got a lot of talent in there at the plate.
Speaker 6: And as he starts to become more confident and more
Speaker 6: confident and more confident, I think you'll see that playing
Speaker 6: on the field and.
Speaker 2: On the other end of the spectrum. One of the
Speaker 2: great hitters in the game as Jose Ramirez as a
Speaker 2: new hitting coach number one, how do you handle one
Speaker 2: of the best hitters in baseball to get the most
Speaker 2: out of him? And then also you go back a
Speaker 2: little ways with him, don't you?
Speaker 6: Yeah? I mean I was a player at the same
Speaker 6: time Hosey was a player. In our minor league system,
Speaker 6: so I've spent some time around him. I've actually been
Speaker 6: asked that question, like, Hey, what what are you going
Speaker 6: to do with Hosey? And I just think it's a funny.
Speaker 6: It's a funny question because the person Hosey is and
Speaker 6: the way he approaches the game, it's a It makes
Speaker 6: coaches jobs really easy because he's always pushing to get better,
Speaker 6: and he's not afraid to try new things, and he's
Speaker 6: not afraid to, you know, push the limits. So ultimately
Speaker 6: my job is just going there and support him and
Speaker 6: give him some avenues to continue to grow in the game.
Speaker 6: He's already shown that he can do that really quickly,
Speaker 6: and I'm excited to just be around him and learn
Speaker 6: from him and help him develop and continue to develop
Speaker 6: into a leader in our clubhouse and help us win
Speaker 6: some ball games.
Speaker 2: Late in the season, Grant Fink joining us the new
Speaker 2: hitting coach for the Guardians, and Grant will end on
Speaker 2: this see obviously a tremendous season for the team reaching
Speaker 2: the American League Championship Series. You spend your off season
Speaker 2: in Arizona and head into the complex on a regular basis.
Speaker 2: It used to be players that show up a couple
Speaker 2: of weeks before maybe or right at the report date
Speaker 2: for spring training. But how active is that building throughout
Speaker 2: the off season now with players just trying to get
Speaker 2: better and be ready to go for twenty twenty five.
Speaker 6: Oh, it's incredible. We have players here year round, and
Speaker 6: you know, I've been here in this complex for the
Speaker 6: entire year for about seven years now, and every year
Speaker 6: it's growing. The amount of staff and resources that our
Speaker 6: organization is putting in play here for players is amazing.
Speaker 6: And when you do that, all of a sudden, players
Speaker 6: want to come. So we have everyone from multiple major
Speaker 6: league players to first year players straight out of the
Speaker 6: draft that you know, spend time in this building in
Speaker 6: the offseason, and it's just a testament to the organization
Speaker 6: and you know the impact they want to have on
Speaker 6: not only player development, but continuous development at the major
Speaker 6: league level. So it's been a blast to be down
Speaker 6: here and experience that in the growth of this building
Speaker 6: and just what it means to this organization and our
Speaker 6: future success.
Speaker 2: Well, you will be a big part of that, to
Speaker 2: be sure. Grant, thanks a lot for coming by. Congratulations again,
Speaker 2: and we'll catch up with you soon.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 1: So much.
Speaker 6: I appreciate you having me.
Speaker 2: At is major league hitting coach Grant Fink, starting his
Speaker 2: first season in that role for Cleveland after spending the
Speaker 2: last three and the organization is the minor league hitting coordinator,
Speaker 2: taking over for Chris Fleka, who moves down the road
Speaker 2: to Cincinnati. He'll be the hitting coach for Terry Francona's
Speaker 2: Reds in twenty twenty five, and Fink will be joined
Speaker 2: once again by Dan Puente his second season as an
Speaker 2: assistant hitting coach, and Jason Esposito is back for a
Speaker 2: third season as part of the hitting team as well.
Speaker 2: So a good group there to get the offense going
Speaker 2: in the right direction. In twenty twenty five. Stay with
Speaker 2: us when we come back. Chris Addabury will join us.
Speaker 2: He's the radio voice for the Minnesota Twins. We continue
Speaker 2: our look around the American League Central Division with a
Speaker 2: Twins preview for you that's coming your way shortly on
Speaker 2: the Cleveland Clinic Guardians Radio Network.
Speaker 1: Durand's ready and the pitch to Will Brennan, a swing and.
Speaker 4: A drive, Hi date to ride this ball.
Speaker 7: And a walk up three run home run for Will
Speaker 7: Brennan and a mop seen at home and through it all,
Speaker 7: the Guardians have beaten the Twins and sweep them out
Speaker 7: of Cleveland today five to two on a two out,
Speaker 7: game winning three run home run to right by Will Brennan.
Speaker 1: And some way, somehow, this ball club continues to find
Speaker 1: ways to win games, and they do it today in
Speaker 1: dramatic fashion.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the Guardians Weekly. We continue with our
Speaker 2: look around the American League's Central Division, at the Guardian's
Speaker 2: rivals and certainly a team that they have battled with
Speaker 2: the past several seasons, the Minnesota Twins. That's our subject
Speaker 2: this week, and they're fine. Radio voice Chris Addabury has
Speaker 2: joined us from points up north before he heads the
Speaker 2: spring training and gets out of the cold of Minneapolis.
Speaker 2: And Chris, always great to have you on. How's your
Speaker 2: winter going.
Speaker 4: Rosie going great, I will say, and I think most
Speaker 4: Guards fans would agree with me. The high point of
Speaker 4: my winner was when Tommy got the call for the
Speaker 4: Freck Award. That was probably the high point.
Speaker 2: And yes, very much so. And it will be a
Speaker 2: fun summer, to be sure, as Tom Hamilton will be
Speaker 2: heading into the Hall of Fame in late July. And
Speaker 2: as we look around the division. Obviously, everybody trying to
Speaker 2: make some improvements. But boy, with Minnesota, it just seems
Speaker 2: like the prevailing news content is about some uncertainty about
Speaker 2: ownership and what's going on there sale of the team potentially,
Speaker 2: and and how is that impacting what they're trying to
Speaker 2: do to get ready for the season.
Speaker 4: Well, the for sale sign is definitely up, and the
Speaker 4: team came out in the poll that family, who's like
Speaker 4: the third or fourth longest ownership group in place in
Speaker 4: the league right now, which is amazing, has said let's
Speaker 4: let's it's it's it's for sale, and so the you know,
Speaker 4: they're they're working through. Obviously that's a very complicated process.
Speaker 4: It's a pretty limited group of buyers. There's been very
Speaker 4: little said publicly. I know, the ishbas from the Suns
Speaker 4: have been mentioned publicly. You know, I've always been told
Speaker 4: by people like it's always the people you don't read
Speaker 4: about the paper that are probably closer than others. I know.
Speaker 4: There's been a lot of interest, nothing permanent, nothing finite.
Speaker 4: So in the wake of that, our long standing team
Speaker 4: president is retiring. Derek Falvey, who Cleveland fans will remember,
Speaker 4: is going to go from being just the baseball ops
Speaker 4: guy to being the president of everything, the business side
Speaker 4: and the baseball side, while Dave as he retires, kind
Speaker 4: of facilitates the sale. So we got a new GM
Speaker 4: and Jeremy zol who I really like. All that being said,
Speaker 4: because that's a ton of chaos. Business is usual in
Speaker 4: terms of kind of the putting the team together. We've
Speaker 4: got new hitting coaches, which is I think kind of
Speaker 4: a big deal. We've got a lot of the same players,
Speaker 4: and I think our fan base is so burned by
Speaker 4: what happened at the end of last year with our
Speaker 4: massive historical collapse, that they're pretty negative right now. They're like,
Speaker 4: you're not doing anything. You know, we don't even you're
Speaker 4: not spend any money. It didn't sign any big free agents.
Speaker 4: And that being said, I think we're going to be
Speaker 4: pretty good. I think we've got a lot of good
Speaker 4: players coming back. So it's a weird spot to be
Speaker 4: in because there's chaos, but there's also stability at certain points.
Speaker 4: And I think that you'd be nuts not to think
Speaker 4: that the Twins in Cleveland, they are again going to
Speaker 4: be battling through the top of the division this summer.
Speaker 2: And you look back at last year, and Minnesota certainly
Speaker 2: at various points in the season right there up among
Speaker 2: the division leaders and what turned out to be a
Speaker 2: great division. But injury wise, is it fair to say
Speaker 2: it just was the injuries at a certain point in
Speaker 2: time became too much to overcome because of who was
Speaker 2: unavailable down the stretch.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think Karrea Buxton obviously not being able to play,
Speaker 4: and then Joe Ryan's injury in Chicago was huge because
Speaker 4: we were running out a lot of rookie arms down
Speaker 4: the stretch. Pablo was really good, Bailey over was really good. Also,
Speaker 4: the Brock Stewart injury and the bullpen kind of sapped
Speaker 4: us there and we ended up just getting really young
Speaker 4: and just not very deep pitching wise. And that's not
Speaker 4: a fair excuse, because look what the Tigers did. They
Speaker 4: were calling guys up from Triple A and starting them
Speaker 4: as openers and playing at a seventy five win percentage
Speaker 4: base down to the stretch. So they were able to
Speaker 4: pull it off, and we just didn't perform well enough
Speaker 4: to do that. But the injuries were a big deal.
Speaker 4: I think the other thing about our club was we
Speaker 4: had a lot of young guys that maybe seemed older
Speaker 4: than they were, Royce Lewis, Trevor Larnick, Matt Waalner, even
Speaker 4: a rookie like brooks Lee, Eddie Julian. I mean, the
Speaker 4: list goes on and on and includes Ryan Jeffers, probably
Speaker 4: Jose Miranda. These are guys who have played in the
Speaker 4: big leagues. You're familiar with them. They've had high points,
Speaker 4: but aren't like solidified, been through the trenches. Guys that
Speaker 4: maybe have the consistency that you get with the older,
Speaker 4: more veteran player. We need those guys to make the
Speaker 4: jump that say Nailor made for you guys last year,
Speaker 4: right like where they go from being a guy who's
Speaker 4: really talented, who's occasionally really really good, to being really
Speaker 4: good every day. And that's the jump that those guys
Speaker 4: need to make this year. We haven't added a whole
Speaker 4: lot of new faces because we do have faith in
Speaker 4: the players that we have here, but they need to
Speaker 4: make that next step in there in their professional careers.
Speaker 2: Chris Adabury joining us. He's the radio voice for the
Speaker 2: Minnesota Twins and certainly expected to be again a contender
Speaker 2: in the Al Central along with the Guardians, the Royals
Speaker 2: and the Tigers. And you know, Chris, you look at
Speaker 2: you mentioned Derek Balby's name, and he's now the president
Speaker 2: of the entire operation. But I know, it seems like
Speaker 2: since he got there, one of the things that made
Speaker 2: him attractive was what he was able to do with
Speaker 2: some of the young pitching here in Cleveland. And is
Speaker 2: that starting to finally make its way to the major
Speaker 2: leagues where they feel they have some more death both
Speaker 2: starting pitching wise and relief wise.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, it took a while, right. I think everybody wanted
Speaker 4: a Cleveland pipeline right away, but development and the infrastructure
Speaker 4: for development takes a while. And what Derek has created
Speaker 4: and Jeremy Zola do GM was kind of the PD guy,
Speaker 4: you know, first as the farm director and then as
Speaker 4: an assistant GM. They've started to churn those guys out
Speaker 4: and Bailey over is homegrown in the rotation. They had
Speaker 4: the Acimuny to go get Pablo Lopez, to go get
Speaker 4: Joe Ryan and turn him into a really good big leaguer.
Speaker 4: But now we're starting to see the other pieces fall
Speaker 4: into place. We saw David Festa, Zebi Matthews last year.
Speaker 4: Griffin Jack's a homegrown guy who became a wipeout reliever
Speaker 4: for US Lewis Varland he was Louis now wants to
Speaker 4: be Lewis. He'll be a big part of the bullpen
Speaker 4: this coming year. I believe we've got more guys coming.
Speaker 4: They're able to do what Cleveland did and still does
Speaker 4: so well. Draft guys in the round like grounds maybe
Speaker 4: three to eight, three to nine, add velocity, add a wipeout,
Speaker 4: pitch smooth out, you know, maybe sequencing, tunneling how you
Speaker 4: want to use your mix and turn these guys into
Speaker 4: really good starters. And I think that's where we are now.
Speaker 4: I think right now that if you said, what's the
Speaker 4: strength of our organization, it's it's the pitching pipeline that
Speaker 4: is currently underway. And now it's one thing to have
Speaker 4: the pipeline and then to turn them all into winners
Speaker 4: at the big leagues. But if you get, you know,
Speaker 4: a handful of guys and one or two of them hit,
Speaker 4: you know, and they don't all have to be Shane
Speaker 4: Bieber's because they'ren't very many of those guys. But if
Speaker 4: you get some quality guys that you can throw into
Speaker 4: your rotation, you can stay competitive for a long time.
Speaker 4: As Cleveland has proven.
Speaker 2: All right, So feeding back to last year and then
Speaker 2: looking ahead of this year, two names that have got
Speaker 2: to stay healthy. Spring training has not begun yet, so
Speaker 2: obviously there's a long look into this. But Carlos Korea
Speaker 2: and Byron Buxton, what is their hell status heading into
Speaker 2: spring training? And can they give you a decent amount
Speaker 2: of games? Maybe one hundred and thirty to one hundred
Speaker 2: and forty games this season?
Speaker 4: Well, boy, I think that number is high, but we
Speaker 4: need them right, we need him to play. Carlos was
Speaker 4: having his best year as a twin. Last year he's
Speaker 4: he had the planet positis, and again it's been in
Speaker 4: a different foot each year. He looks great. You know,
Speaker 4: he talks all the right things in terms of his
Speaker 4: diet's impeccable. His workout routine is amazing. He puts in
Speaker 4: all the work. What does that mean because you can't predict,
Speaker 4: you know, the types of injuries that he's had the
Speaker 4: last two years. They aren't tied to anything previous. They're
Speaker 4: not tied to the previous ankle injury or anything like that.
Speaker 4: They're kind of fluky, weird things. He's wearing different shoes,
Speaker 4: he's doing running in different ways. Staying off cement any
Speaker 4: rock you can overturn Carlos's overturn. I saw him a
Speaker 4: Twins Fest, spoke with him at length. He looks great.
Speaker 4: He's had a full off season. It's not like he's
Speaker 4: had a rehab off season. And Byron's the same way.
Speaker 4: This is the first offseason a while where Buck hasn't
Speaker 4: had a major surgery of some sort that he then
Speaker 4: had to rehab from, and he's as healthy as he's
Speaker 4: ever been in an off season. He played one hundred
Speaker 4: games last year and he played well, which was big.
Speaker 4: I think if you get one hundred from him, you're happy.
Speaker 4: If you get one hundred and twenty from him, you're
Speaker 4: doing cartwheels. And we need those two guys in addition
Speaker 4: to Royce. We need Royce to grow into the superstar
Speaker 4: we think he can become because one thing you mentioned
Speaker 4: around the league, they're stars right in our division. Bobby
Speaker 4: wit Junior is a superstar, Jose Ramirez is a superstar.
Speaker 4: When all else fails for those two offenses, those two
Speaker 4: guys can literally carry your entire club for long stretches
Speaker 4: of time. Detroit has a different look, but they're superstar.
Speaker 4: Oursteric school so you know, once every four or five
Speaker 4: days they're going to win. We don't have that guy necessarily.
Speaker 4: We've got really good players, but Carlos at this point
Speaker 4: of his career, I don't know if he ever really was.
Speaker 4: Isn't a Bobby whit like guy numerically in terms of
Speaker 4: how he changes the whole game. You know, Buck isn't
Speaker 4: a Jose Ramirez guy in terms of consistently posting super
Speaker 4: new for star numbers. They're really really good game changing players,
Speaker 4: but they have to both be on the field and
Speaker 4: productive because we don't have that one guy that Cleveland
Speaker 4: has or that Kansas City has. We don't have that luxury.
Speaker 2: When you look at the manager's office at rock Obaldell
Speaker 2: a couple of division titles, but last year a really
Speaker 2: tough ending to it was he on the hot seat
Speaker 2: at the end of the year. He's back this year,
Speaker 2: but was their discussions that that maybe it was time
Speaker 2: for a change, or because of all the injuries that
Speaker 2: did he hold it together as best he could and
Speaker 2: get as much out of that club as he could.
Speaker 4: I don't think his seat ever even got luke warm.
Speaker 4: He and Darre Falvey or it's like a three legged race.
Speaker 4: And that's the way Derek built the baseball side of
Speaker 4: the operation. And it's the word you always hear anytime
Speaker 4: you interview one of our front office guys or field staff. Collaboration, collaboration, collaboration,
Speaker 4: rolling it together. So to blame Rocco would be to
Speaker 4: blame yourself, right, And so last day of the year,
Speaker 4: Derek said, Rocco is my guy. Joe paul Ed says,
Speaker 4: Derek's my guy, And I don't think there was ever
Speaker 4: a threat that those guys were in trouble. I do
Speaker 4: think that during that And again, as you know, you
Speaker 4: spend time with the manager a lot during the course
Speaker 4: of a season, and as you're in there daily and
Speaker 4: the things slipping away, you could see it wearing on Rocco.
Speaker 4: You could see him trying everything. He tried the tough
Speaker 4: guy act with players, He tried the nice guy stuff
Speaker 4: with players. But you have to be yourself and Rock
Speaker 4: knows that. So you can't get too far out of
Speaker 4: who you are, or you're being inconsistent and you lose
Speaker 4: players long term, which he never did. He was always
Speaker 4: acting within the bounds of kind of his authentic self,
Speaker 4: which you have to be as a manager. It wore
Speaker 4: on him, and I think that looking around the room,
Speaker 4: they realized they needed to make some changes. The biggest
Speaker 4: changes they made were were with the hitting coaches and
Speaker 4: hitting coach man. It's a tough job, right because if
Speaker 4: the guys hit, then it's because they're really good hitters.
Speaker 4: But if the guys don't, it's because the hitting coach sun.
Speaker 4: That's kind of the nature of how our league works.
Speaker 4: The two guys we had were not how would I
Speaker 4: say it, communicative. I said three words to the Derek
Speaker 4: Schollan and David Bodkins over the course at their time here,
Speaker 4: because they weren't around. They were in the cage, they
Speaker 4: were deep in the tunnel. They were in the bowels
Speaker 4: of the stadium. They had a lot of technology down there,
Speaker 4: and they worked and they grinded and they worked on hitting.
Speaker 4: But it was all very single focused. It was all
Speaker 4: very siloed, and I think we saw that that approach
Speaker 4: maybe didn't work for everybody. And Matt Berkshoalter, the guy
Speaker 4: who we had a triple A. He's good with the Oriols,
Speaker 4: his twin Fest. The stuff he's seying publicly and Oco
Speaker 4: saying the same thing is hey, you know what, the
Speaker 4: idea that you can just work with technology in the
Speaker 4: battles of the stadium NonStop, never be on the field,
Speaker 4: and then the game happens and it translates and we're
Speaker 4: not into that we're going to hit on the field.
Speaker 4: Hitting is more than just isolating each pitch. Every bat
Speaker 4: does not exist in a silo. Situational hitting is a
Speaker 4: real thing. We need to have different approaches for different
Speaker 4: times and different situations, and that's true of every hitter.
Speaker 4: We still want to do a ton of damage, but
Speaker 4: you can't just try to hit a home run and
Speaker 4: if you strike out, o home And so I think
Speaker 4: we're going to see a change there because I think
Speaker 4: our players feel that way, and I think borg Chalti
Speaker 4: also has been through it with young guys, all the
Speaker 4: young wave we saw in Baltimore. You know, it wasn't
Speaker 4: all roses for everybody. They can Jackson Holliday struggled the
Speaker 4: first time up or Jordan Westburg up and down, and
Speaker 4: not everybody was gunner understand And so I think that
Speaker 4: experience will come in handy going to see us th Rosie,
Speaker 4: this is gonna blow your mind. You're gonna see us
Speaker 4: taking VP on the field next year, you know. But
Speaker 4: the Twins, it was kind of you and I would
Speaker 4: joke about it. Other radio guys would tease me, Oh, hey,
Speaker 4: one guy's out for early hitting you is your team
Speaker 4: even here? You know, because so much of the work
Speaker 4: the Twins did was in the cage, in top secret,
Speaker 4: you know, cloak of cloak of darkness. No one ever
Speaker 4: saw our guys on the field that that's going to
Speaker 4: change this here, and Roco's enthused about it, Porkschoalti's enthused
Speaker 4: about it, and I think the players are too.
Speaker 6: All right.
Speaker 2: We're joined by Chris Addambury, the radio voice for the Twins,
Speaker 2: and we'll touch on this before we let you go. Chris,
Speaker 2: it's been winter again here in northeast Ohio after a
Speaker 2: couple of winters where it didn't seem like the normal thing.
Speaker 2: But we've had some cold ones here. How about you, guys,
Speaker 2: how far below zero when winter was really hitting at
Speaker 2: it at its peak did we get in the in
Speaker 2: the Twin Cities.
Speaker 4: We've had a little bit of extremes. Right, it didn't
Speaker 4: snow much, It hasn't snowed much, and it's by and
Speaker 4: large been warm. It was forty eight degrees here last weekend.
Speaker 4: Come on, Yes, but it's two degrees right now. And
Speaker 4: we had one week where it never got above zero,
Speaker 4: and that was the one awful week. But I will
Speaker 4: say this, one week where it doesn't get above zero
Speaker 4: is better when there's no snow in big piles of
Speaker 4: snow on the ground outside, so we had that benefit
Speaker 4: this year. It's by and large been a pretty mild winter. Now.
Speaker 4: I can say that because I'm leaving for Florida in
Speaker 4: a couple of weeks. But right now there's only a
Speaker 4: little snow on the ground. I've only shoveled probably four
Speaker 4: or five times all winter long, so I don't want
Speaker 4: to I don't want to jinx anything. And I know
Speaker 4: the ice fishermen are upset, but I am not, and
Speaker 4: I'm okay with with milder winters.
Speaker 2: Listen, you enjoy the remainder of high school basketball season.
Speaker 2: I know you have a daughter who's playing and that's
Speaker 2: always a lot of fun. And enjoy spring training down
Speaker 2: in Fort Myers.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I'm gonna keep my eyes out. I hear
Speaker 4: that they might be roaming around down in Florida with
Speaker 4: this Cleveland State crew, so I might keep my eyes peeled.
Speaker 2: Somebody's got to keep an eye on them. Thank you, Bye, Rose.
Speaker 4: You can't wait to see you guys.
Speaker 2: Great to see you. We'll see the Twins in Minneapolis
Speaker 2: for the first time in mid May, and they come
Speaker 2: to Cleveland for the first time at the end of April.
Speaker 2: And always good games when the Guardians and Twins meet.
Speaker 2: That's Chris Addabury, the radio voice for the Minnesota Twins.
Speaker 2: Stay tuned will wrap up this week's edition of Guardians
Speaker 2: Weekly after this time.
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Speaker 1: From Goodyear Ballpark in Goodyear, Arizona. It's Cleveland Guardians Cactus
Speaker 1: League Baseball, ready to bring you another night of thrilling
Speaker 1: spring training baseball. We are done, folks, We're toast stick
Speaker 1: a fork in us.
Speaker 2: Welcome back. It's our final segment of Guardians Weekly. Jim
Speaker 2: Rosenhaus back with you, and this one of the few
Speaker 2: remaining hot stove shows for you this season, as we'll
Speaker 2: have one more for you next weekend and then we
Speaker 2: will join you from Goodyear, Arizona for our shows from
Speaker 2: spring training, throughout the spring and leading into the regular season,
Speaker 2: so it's winding down. You can hear our show each
Speaker 2: weekend on the radio on the Cleveland Clinic Guardians Radio Network.
Speaker 2: WTAM and Cleveland airs the show at seven am on
Speaker 2: Saturday mornings, as does WMAN in Mansfield and WMRN and Marion,
Speaker 2: and the show airs at eleven o'clock on Saturday mornings
Speaker 2: on WKBN in Youngstown. And of course if you don't
Speaker 2: catch it on the radio when it airs, you can
Speaker 2: pick it up whenever you like as a podcast wherever
Speaker 2: you download your favorite podcast. Well, I's always want to
Speaker 2: thank Brian Matsee for all of his help on our show,
Speaker 2: putting it Together each and every week. We will join
Speaker 2: you once again next week from right here in Cleveland
Speaker 2: one more time another Hot Stove show, and then head
Speaker 2: out to Arizona after that. But until then, this is
Speaker 2: Jim Rosenhouse reminding you that you've been listening to Guardians
Speaker 2: Weekly on the Cleveland Clinic Guardians Radio Network.
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