Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 800: Kieran Powell on Converting from Cricket

Episode Date: January 19, 2016

Ben and Sam talk to former international cricketer Kieran Powell about his attempt to become a professional baseball player.

Now bring it on back, break it down, now switch, turn it over and hit it, turn it around now, switch, turn it over and hit it, ooh la la la, switch, turn it over and hit it, turn it around now,, the daily podcast from Baseball Prospectus, presented by The Play Index at BaseballReference.com. I am Ben Lindberg of FiveThirtyEight, joined by Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus. Hello, Sam. Yo. We have a guest today. Occasionally, there is overlap between cricket and baseball, both in the real world and on this podcast. And today is one of those times we're talking to Kieran Powell, who is a former international cricket player for the West Indies, and he's now trying to transition to baseball. Hey, Kieran.

Hi, guys. How are you? Good. So the obvious question that everyone asks you, that friends and family and teammates must ask you, is why? So I know in 2014, you were playing for the West Indies, and then there's some sort of dispute, and you took some time off from cricket, but instead of trying to play somewhere else, you decided to switch to baseball. So how come? you decided to switch to baseball. So how come? As you said, the dispute along with an opportunity where some of the Dodgers scouts saw some potential in me

arranged for me to go to California and do some work out there. And then we decided to come to Florida to go to the IMG Academy where we could have a more structured environment and get all the work done leading up to this crunch time that it is now. Did the scouts reach out to you first, or did you reach out to baseball teams first? We reached out to them. We just sent out some footage to see what they thought.

And this was not a lifelong dream, right? It wasn't like you grew up wanting to be a baseball player and you were trapped in a cricket player's body or something. You decided to make this change, but why? to be a baseball player and you were trapped in a cricket player's body or something, you decided to make this change. But why? I mean, had you been a fan? Had you always thought it looked like something you wanted to do?

Well, the similarities between the two, obviously, you said I used to watch baseball when I was growing up. Being a professional cricketer, I didn't have time to explore baseball. But with the timing of everything that's happened, it was the right time and the right opportunity, so we took it. And so you tweeted about Bob Engel, who was the former Dodgers VP of international scouting and a longtime scout. Was he one of the ones who initially saw that footage and thought you looked promising? Yeah, he was one of the first people that saw the footage.

He also got Mike Toza to have a look at me and he's the one that arranged for me to go out to California in the summer. What did you put in the footage? Were you playing baseball in the footage? Were you wearing baseball equipment or was this completely just athleticism footage?

It was just me playing cricket. I think they just saw a particular swing and the similarity and the athleticism footage? It was just me playing cricket. I think they just saw a particular swing and the similarity and the athleticism, and they probably just said, okay, with the right training, we could potentially be on to something. And were the Dodgers kind of hoping to keep you a secret and make you their own secret weapon initially? Was that the plan? Well, I'd like to think every team would want to keep it a secret

and make their own secret weapon of it if they could. So you did work out last week for a bunch of teams. So what did you do in that tryout? How did it go? We did the 60. We threw from the outfield. We did some hitting, and it was over really quickly. It went by really quickly, lots of preparation, and then it lasted about 20 minutes to throw it, so it was good. I want to go back to the Dodgers. I want to know what that was like, because you were a one-man experiment, right? It's not like they had an academy of 30 cricket players that they were working out together right no and so so like where did you stay and what did you do and like when you

woke up in the morning what was your day like uh so it's it's mike toza who had arranged for me to um train with two former dodger players out in california um so it was out in california um the day was pretty much i'd wake up and I'd head out to the field I had a private field we'd do pretty much what I'm doing at IMG but California style, more laid back I guess

more avocados? more avocados, yeah did you enjoy it? was it grueling or was it at all enjoyable? I mean, that sounds like possibly very monotonous and tedious. It was enjoyable. I did enjoy it because, I mean, obviously I'm doing something new. So obviously you're doing the same thing over and over in terms of trying to get repetition

and trying to get used to certain motions. But at the end of the day, it's still something new for me. So it's enjoyable. And had you ever caught a ball in a in a mitt before in a glove before well we actually use um baseball mitts to do um some of the warm-up drills in cricket so i've caught balls in a mitt before yeah okay and and like had you had you ever swung against uh you know i don't know had you ever tried to swing had you did you have i guess what i'm saying is did you have any baseball experience at all like any like even a game not beforehand no i didn't was there anything about your skills that made you think or made

the dodgers think that you would translate particularly well to baseball or is it just sort of you know any top cricket player would have a good chance to do that i guess the lettuce isn't more than anything um once once you're an athlete you're able to adapt and to change and and to learn quickly so i guess that's that's the main thing that stood out to them and is part of the decision to switch i mean you're from saint kitts and nevis so you played for the west indies which is kind of a composite team and i guess that team has had a lot of trouble keeping its players and paying its players well so is part of it just that it's hard to support yourself as a cricket player in that

part of the world not at all um contrary to those comments it's actually the opposite. Oh, okay. Guys are well paid. It's just a matter of certain little discrepancies that each individual would have. Obviously, I can't speak for others, but I can speak for myself. I know what others say, but I can only speak for myself in terms of that. I don't really want to go out and put something on record for another guy. It's just certain personal discrepancies that each individual would have uh-huh would you would you rather be playing cricket or would you rather be playing baseball i mean if there was no contract dispute or anything like that would

you rather be a cricket star for the next 10 years or would you rather be the first you know crossover baseball player i'd rather be the bo jackson of cricket and baseball so like you do like you like hop on a heli i guess that was deon sanders would hop on a helicopter and do both in the same day yeah both in the same day and probably probably a bit of nfl in the night how aware how aware are you of of other guys who have tried to be the first bo jackson in the the past and how successfully they've done it? Is this a common dream among cricketers? I don't know what the situation is there. As I said, I can't speak for others,

but I know I'd love to be the first Bo Jackson or Deion Sanders of cricket and baseball. So obviously the swing is different. What is it mechanically that has been the biggest hurdle for you to clear? Keeping the bat on the level playing, obviously, is that the swing is different. Cricket, the swings, Lotto, high, baseball, you want to stay on that level playing and go through the strike zone as long as you can to give yourself the best chance of hitting the ball so um that's that's just been the hardest thing if there's anything to say that stands out in that aspect do you grip the do you grip the bat the same way uh pretty much the same way there's no difference. You just hold it above your head in baseball.

And is there any difference in the pre-swing setup as far as like, are you, I mean, in baseball, you want to kind of be still and steady and wait for the pitch. Is it the same in cricket or is it a little bit more fluid and a still position in cricket before the ball gets to you as well. It's basically the same, that you just want to react to the ball. You want to have everything else done and everything else in place so that you just react to what's coming at you instead of having to try and do two, three different things while the ball is already thrown at you at 90 to 100 miles an hour. So when you were first doing this in front of the experts, the Dodgers guys, were they giving you feedback, good feedback, or was it like, oh my gosh, look at this guy, like he's never swung a bat before? Well, obviously they knew I've never swung a bat before,

but the feedback was good because I was able to make contact all the time. I think that's the next thing that I did. It's not as if I was swinging and missing or just contact all the time. I think that's the next thing that I learned. It's not as if I was swinging and missing or just all over the place. I'm able to put back the ball because it's pretty much what I've done throughout my cricket career is put back the ball. So I think I learned that. I don't know how much live pitching you've faced, but how does the velocity and movement compare to cricket?

It's similar. Basically, how I would describe it is a baseball pitcher does all the stuff a cricket bowler does, but he just does it before the ball hits the ground in terms of the velocity and the movement and the variations. And is it a difficult adjustment to go from a 360 degree field to to baseball where i mean in cricket i guess you know the equivalent of a foul ball in baseball is sometimes a good thing it's sometimes what you're going for is that just you know just automatic just flip the switch and now you're not trying to hit a ball to the side or behind you or is that something that still kind of comes to mind uh well i think it's it's easier in the sense that you don't have to worry about too many things now instead of having to worry about 360 you just you

just got to work with the diamond so you you're you're more focused in on on certain areas as opposed to trying to combat different types of balls and hitting an M360. And you bat left-handed, but you throw right-handed. Have you tried switch hitting ever? Is that something you could do? Well, that came about because when I was younger, when I used to play cricket in the little walkway with my brother, my older brother. He turned me left-handed because

he would be able to get me out with one ball and go back to bat quickly. But then I got used to batting left-handed and he tried to turn me back right-handed, but I told him, no, I'm going to stick with this side. So you're not a natural left-hander? Well, I am, no. Now you are, right. I'm not a left-hander. Right. So, I mean, baseball has the old cliche about hitting a round ball with a round bat being the hardest thing anyone does in sports. I mean, is it possible to say that one is easier or harder, you know, assuming that the level of competition is high in both cases? Lots of different variables go to play with both sports. You can't say one is harder than one or one is easier than one. Obviously, that's where they're both professional sports

and the guys that do it really well and the guys that are amateurs for certain reasons. Too many variables to compare which one is harder or not, but they're both difficult in their own sense. And has 2020 cricket and its increasing popularity kind of made the sport more similar to baseball? Has it made the transition easier? Has that kind of made cricket a more baseball-style sport? Again, lots of variables, but yes yes i think that has brought the um the boundaries between the two games a lot closer and do you think that's something that could catch on here

or is it too late for it to kind of make inroads against baseball in the u.s no i think 2020 cricket could definitely catch on here um i mean americans like to talk about games being shorter. So I think that's, in essence, that's why they came up with 2020 cricket, to have a shorter form of cricket instead of being there all day. So you've just got three hours of action packed nonstop. So I think it could catch on if given a chance. So you have faced some live pitching, but not a lot. Is that right?

Yes, that's correct. And when I say live pitching, have you faced anybody who was really trying to get you out? Or have you faced mostly guys who were trying to give you batting practice? No, I've faced guys that have tried to get me out. I've faced left-handers as well, different angles as well. So I've faced the mixture of stuff and so you've seen curveballs and sliders and like you kind of know what that's like now is it something that you feel like you can learn at this stage in your life to still hit definitely as I said I mean similar to variations in cricket it just is just so happens that in baseball all all of this stuff, all the variations happen

before the ball hits the ground as opposed to cricket where the ball hits the ground and then all the variations really take place. So I've never hit in cricket. How much different is it when it hits the ground? That seems like it would be much more challenging to me to hit it after it hits the ground, because that seems to me that the movement might be more predictable or more abrupt. And that in baseball, the movement is kind of maybe a little bit more predictable and you can kind of time it a little bit. Is that sort of your experience or is one not really much harder than the other? As I said, lots of lots of different variables come into play.

So you can't necessarily categorize and say, this one's harder than this because of the ball bouncing or the ball not bouncing or curveball or off-break or whatever you want to look at in terms of that. But at the end of the day, I um to take out the difficulty in in in both sports the the simplest thing you can do and anything with the ball sport you just have to watch the ball as possible and then that takes out most of the difficulty because once you're able to spot what's coming at you then that that's half the job done then you just have to hit it in cricket the ball degrades throughout the game? You don't change the ball nearly as often as you do in baseball. So that's another variable, I assume, that makes

things more difficult as the game goes on? Well, the ball, you don't change it as often depending on the conditions. If it gets wet, the umpires have to change it. But even though it degrades, when it gets older, you're able to shine it and one side scuffs up more, so it swings more. The slower ballers get it to spin more. The ball doesn't come off the bat as well because it's softer, so even though you hit it as hard, you won't get to hit it as far. Lots of different things like that. A big part of baseball or the pitcher's advantage in baseball is that the hitter is kind of in fear all the time. They see the fastball and they know it could hit them in the face and kill them.

And so then the curveball that kind of starts out at their head but then breaks down for a strike is a real weapon. Is there an equivalent to that in cricket where they're sort of starting it in a threatening position and then it moves into the strike zone? where they're sort of starting it in a threatening position and then it moves into the strike zone? Yes and no in the sense that in cricket, you've got to defend a wider area. In baseball, you know that you have to basically just look for the ball in the strike zone. As you said, guys try and start it in a threatening area

and then it shifts into the strike zone. I think the best example of that in cricket would be like a slower ball that looks like it's coming at your body but it just dips and just goes towards the stump which is the equivalent of like a curveball or breaking ball so what would you say is the area that your game needs the most development still or the most training or if you were to maybe design a training regimen for you for the next you know few months or the next year where would you want to focus most of your um attention to get up to speed game time the only way that you can actually do it is is by playing games the more

games you play the more you see the more you learn the more you get up to the speed of play um you could practice anything for from day to day You could spend a million hours just practicing, but if you don't actually get a chance to play games and improve in game situations and learn game situations, then you won't really actually improve. Yeah, I assume you haven't done a lot of base running. I've done some base running. I know how to get around the bases.

Yeah, counterclockwise, turn left. In baseball in recent years, it seems like pitchers have kind of had the upper hand, you know, scoring is down and pitchers are throwing harder and striking out batters more often. And it seems like scouting reports help defenders more than they do hitters. But in cricket, it doesn't seem like the same thing has happened, right? Scoring is not significantly down lately, is it? If anything, it's the opposite. I would look at that as just a period of time where both sports are at the moment.

As you said, pitching has the upper hand now. But obviously, like anything in life, hitting will find a way to combat that and hitting will come back strong. And in cricket, batting has the upper hand at the moment, mostly so to the rules and the restrictions placed on bowlers, especially in the shorter format of the game. in the shorter format of the game. But bowlers in cricket, as will hitters in baseball, find a way to adapt and to make themselves relevant and to be a force in the game again. And we got a question from a listener named Dean, who's originally from the UK. I've been saving it for a while, just in case we ever had a former pro cricket player who's switching to baseball.

He wants to know why there are no all-rounders in baseball, at least not at the level that you have in cricket, where certain players are good bowlers and also good batsmen. And in baseball, that sort of thing is very rare, almost non-existent at this point. Do you have any explanation for why that is? I don't. I've got Jap Void here with the Mets. Maybe he could answer that.

Maybe it's too much of a skill set thing where guys feel that they need to focus too much energy on one particular thing. I don't know. But in cricket, an all-arounder is a very valuable asset, and it really balances out a team if you could have one really good all-arounder. How is your arm? It's feeling good.

No, but I mean, is it a strong arm? I know what you mean. I think it's a good arm. Yeah, I think it's a good arm. It's a strong arm. I mean, it's much more common, for instance, for a hitter to become a pitcher later in his career than the other way around because it's sort of simpler to become a pitcher as long as you can throw hard and learn a couple of pitches you might have a shot so if if if this doesn't work out exactly as you're planning it have you put any thought into uh giving it a go as a pitcher i have not but you've just given me another idea myself relevant we'll have you on again when when you when you become a pitcher uh So one of the things that I think American fans like about cricket is some of the, which sounds very exotic to us. Is there any cricket term that you feel is a really good fit for baseball

that you've kind of, as you've been training, you've thought that it should be part of the baseball lexicon that hasn't really caught on here? I haven't really given it any thought, but I'll have to go home and really have a look at it and come up with something. Okay. So what's the plan for you in the short term?

You're still talking to teams? You're doing private workouts still? Or do you expect something to happen anytime soon? We're speaking to some teams at the moment. So it's just a matter of negotiation and to get the best deal possible for me and for the organizations. And you're willing to put in the time in the minor leagues

with the long bus rides and guys who are younger than you are and that kind of tough process. You're willing to do that for a few years if that's what it takes? Yeah, obviously I don't expect to walk in and be the star of the show from day one, but I just want to get an opportunity as i've said and once i get that fair opportunity i know i'll make it work and my last question is you've had a chance now

to spend some time with baseball players and of course you spend a lot of time with cricketers culturally speaking are they very different or are they are athletes pretty much athletes regardless of the sport uh i think athletes are pretty much athletes regardless of the sport? I think athletes are pretty much athletes regardless of the sport. Athletes know how to adapt, how to adjust. It's what we do for a living. I think that we just make it work. We just need an opportunity in whatever we do. Is there anything that you've observed about baseball players,

like as a sort of anthropologist, that has surprised you or amused you or that you find particularly American? Well, from looking at games, they seem to be very aggressive. But when you meet them one-on-one in person, they all seem to be just very quiet, calm, laid-back guys. So I'm not sure if there's something in the stadium that gets them angry. How does the level of in-game celebration vary because that's a big thing in baseball you know people will flip their bad or celebrate very showily and you know sort of old school fans don't like those kind of displays of exuberance is that sort of thing common in cricket or is it still a very dignified sport a bit of both you've got you've got flashy guys in cricket as well.

The West Indies team have got some very flashy guys, Chris Kane and that sort. So it varies. You've got flashy guys in both sports. I think cricket is more of a game that the team comes together and celebrates more, especially on the field, than in baseball. You don't find the entire team coming in and high-fives and that stuff when a batter gets out.

As in cricket, you'd find everyone coming in and congratulating the bowler that got the batter out. All right. Well, we appreciate your time and wish you luck. We'll be following your story and people can follow you on Twitter at OfficialKPowell to see how this turns out. And we wish you the best of luck. Thanks. Thanks, guys. Thanks for having me. All right. That's it for us. official k powell to see how this turns out and we wish you the best of luck thanks thanks guys

thanks for having me all right that's it for us you can email us at podcast at baseball prospectus.com you can join our facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild and you can rate and review and subscribe to the show on itunes please support our sponsor the play index at baseball reference.com use the coupon code P when you subscribe to get the discounted price of $30 on a one-year subscription. We'll be back tomorrow. that you've seen Well, not lonesome my cricket and me