PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Kane County broadcaster Joe Brand talks D-backs top prospects and impact of COVID-19

Episode Date: April 7, 2020

Joe Brand, voice of the D-backs' Single-A affiliate Kane County Cougars, joins the show to discuss how the coronavirus will affect Minor League Baseball as a whole, MLB's new plan to play all games in AZ, and stories about D-backs top prospects from last summer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome back into the Rattle Podcast. As always, I'm your host, Jesse Friedman, and here in this episode, we are honored to be joined by a very special guest. His name is Joe Brand, and he is the voice of your Kane County Cougars. If you don't know off the top of your head, the Kane County Cougars, are the Diamondback Single A affiliate located out in Geneva, Illinois, kind of in the Chicago metro area. And Joe, speaking in all honesty, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the most talented minor broadcasters that I have heard across the league and we are once again just so excited to have

him with us here with us today. Joe, once again, thank you so much for taking the time today. We really appreciate it. No problem, Jesse. Thank you very much for the kind words. And hey, thank you for giving me something to do today. That's what we all need right now, I think, in a time like this. Joe, I'm curious from your standpoint, what does it look like right now for you to be living your life as a broadcaster. I know you have other jobs outside of the Kane County Cougars to keep you busy in a time like this, but I imagine you still have maybe a little bit more time on your hands than you normally would. Is that fair to say? Absolutely. Yeah, this past tax season, I think I had a total of six W-2s and three 1099s or maybe vice versa with that. So yeah,

All those jobs I have had and that I have are all part-time. So honestly, with everything that's gone down, my personal situation is okay because, I mean, I'm part-time. So I'm just, I'm not working, so I'm not getting paid. I'm okay with finances right now. I am still doing one shift a week over at WGN Radio. I do Saturday morning sports updates. Clearly, there's no sports to update right now. but there are still stories here and there.

We've found some creative ways, too, to keep listeners involved. But, yeah, it's definitely a whole new world for me, as it is everybody else. Just a lot of cooking, a lot of binging. I'm trying to read more. It's not going that well. I'm doing a lot more video games than anything else, I think. But, you know, just like everyone else, just trying to keep our sanity in check right now. Yeah, absolutely.

I feel you on that front. I'm curious from your standpoint, Joe, as a minor league broadcaster, what do you think is going to be the impact of this on minor league organizations? I know some minor league teams are owned by their parent clubs, but some teams are, I think most teams are independently owned. Do you think there will be any kind of fallback in terms of minor league baseball because of this whole issue? Is this something that you think major league teams will kind of come out and help out with if minor league baseball is not? not played at all this season? Not only do I think a fallback will happen, it's already happened with some teams. You mentioned it. A lot of major league teams own their minor league teams, but that's not the case with the Kane County Cougars, and I know they're taking a hit right now.

Again, I'm part-time there, so our opening day was supposed to be, you know, this upcoming Thursday on the 9th, so I would have been at the ballpark around this week, and I haven't stepped foot in there since, I want to say, February just to check in. But I know those people are hurting right now with just totally the unknown of when baseball is going to start and really if it's going to start. Like I said, King County Coopers don't have that luxury of being owned by a major league team. So it's definitely a struggle because, I mean, you make your sales on giving baseball to the local fans. and again, we just, we don't know when that's going to happen. So it is very unfortunate.

I guess the one thing you can look at it is every team is dealing with it right now in some capacity. Some teams are more well off than others, but it's definitely a trying and frustrating time right now. Yeah, and I imagine it's not only trying and frustrating to be, you know, the manager or owner of one of those minor league teams, but it's also got to be frustrating to be a player from one of those teams. I think we've seen in the last few days, we've seen some updates trickle out about major league baseball, potentially being able to return at some point here in the next month or two.

But I think minor league baseball, it might be even a little bit more difficult to justify bringing back all of the minor league teams that play across the nation. You want to talk about, you know, just each team having, you know, five or six different affiliated teams underneath them. You're talking about almost 200 baseball teams across the country that are all. drawing, you know, at least, you know, maybe a couple to, you know, up to maybe 10,000 fans per night. And so from that standpoint, it's frustrating from a business standpoint, but it's also frustrating

to be a player when you just don't really have any assurance of whether you're going to play or not this year. And I know for Diamondbacks fans, that's not particularly fun because there's a lot of big name prospects coming up through the system. Christian Robinson, I know, was a big name who just came through the Cane County Cougars this last season might have been starting there again this year. But those guys don't really have any guarantee of a season this year. And you have to wonder if maybe it kind of could potentially stunt their growth over time. You're right. I mean, no one knows what's going to happen. That's a very

good point. I mean, these are these are guys that are kind of in need of a full-length season just to help their growth as a player and help their growth as an athlete, too. I do kind of categorize all baseball players as one right now because no one's playing. Training and staying in shape is pretty much on your own terms. And, you know, all this talk about the major league season starting in Arizona and being only in Arizona, I only see that as benefiting the major leagues because there's no way that these minor league teams are going to be having games at their home ballparks that the major league games aren't doing that. And, you know, you just mentioned somewhat 200 minor league teams.

Think about it, there's 25 guys, if not more, including the staff, too. It's definitely more per team. So, I mean, that's like 200. I can't do the math in my head. I know we were talking about a math major before this. But, you know, that's a lot of people. That's a lot of players and a lot of people. So with this whole idea of having the major league season in Arizona,

I was just thinking, all right, well, they've got those backfields. They can do four minor league games at once if they need to. But now that's another five minor league teams with 25 to 30 people each that they've got to house. They've got to feed. And they've got to just pretty much have some place for them to be all day. So is Arizona the solution for that as well? I know that they were talking about, obviously, there's a lot of hotels open right now with a whole bunch of room, but it's, I mean, it's a lot of players. It's a lot of people.

And the thing is, Arizona is only, or rather, the Cactus League is only half of the major leagues. There's still another 14, 15, 16 teams that practice in the Grapefruit League over in Florida. You've got to, again, house, feed, and play all those teams and players too. So that's where it gets to be a really tricky situation. So I don't know if they just go ahead and cut off the minor league season. or at least delay it until they've got a plan of attack for later on. It's, again, it's, no one really knows anything. I also work covering some hockey games.

And I mean, a lot of people in that world are pretty much ready to just cut off the 2020 NHL playoffs. I mean, a lot of people are thinking there's no way that it's going to be finished. And in a way you think about it, it does make a lot of sense. The regular season would have ended already in the NHL world. and then the Stanley Cup final would end around early June, and then they start getting ready for next season. I mean, they start playing exhibition games in late September. So in order to not affect next season,

it really is hard to believe that they can resume the 2020 season at all. Again, it's optimistic thinking all around, but there's so many unknowns. It's really hard to make an educated guess. You mentioned that plan that has just come out from Major League Baseball or rather reports about Major League Baseball that said they were considering a move to Arizona where all 30 teams would be basically sequestered in the Phoenix metro area only traveling to and from ballparks apparently. So apparently they have people bringing them

food and all of the other necessities somehow. But this idea, from what I can tell, just from the Twitter universe, has certainly seen quite a lot of pushback so far. A lot of people are concerned and just about the state of Arizona and how the coronavirus is still very much present here at this time and certainly could still be present in May, which was the cited time that they were maybe thinking about having a potential opening day or potentially into June just a little bit. But I'm curious what your take is on this idea, Joe.

As an Arizona native, I can attest that the Arizona summer is a very, very brutal thing to endure. And the thought of having players out there, you know, day in, day out playing through the heat is certainly a bit of a daunting thought. Yes, indeed, it is a dry heat. But 115 degrees is 115 degrees, no matter what way you look at it. And I wonder if that could be an issue for players. There's also the issue that a lot of people have talked about with players not being able to visit their families, potentially for upwards of four or five months,

just because they would have to be sequestered with their teams and basically not go anywhere else outside of their organization and those people. What do you think of this plan that MLB has come up with? The last time I was in Arizona during the summer, it was a while ago, it was 2002, I was visiting family. And I remember it being like a Chicago winter. All you can do is stay inside and make plans to go do things that is also inside. We went to the movies. We swam every day.

do that in Chicago winter, but that was the only way it was bearable. That was the only way it was bearable to be outside. Yeah. I remember we went to a Diamondbacks game and on the way home from Chase Field, this was at night. The temperature red on the car, 115 degrees. And that just blew my world, that hot, that late at night. And I know what they all say, it's a dry heat, but you're right and clearly you know more about it than I do. That's going to be a factor. And I've been paying pretty close attention to what Jeff Passon has been reporting on all of this. He's mentioned how, I believe it was him that mentioned, you know,

major league baseball teams might have to expand rosters to maybe 30 players so that they can keep an entire ball club healthy during a major league season in the dead heat of Arizona weather. But, I mean, that's, again, that's more people that we're talking about in a clubhouse, eating, living somewhere. The other thing to keep in mind is that I'm losing my train of thud right now. But, yeah, I mean, every game would have to be at night. You would assume so. And I believe in the Arizona League that they play some games at 8 o'clock in the morning. You might see that happening too. So that's a totally bizarre thing to think about.

But what I think is happening is people are getting desperate, and that's players, that's fans, and that's major league baseball too. So desperate times call for desperate measures. And if we want to have a major league baseball season, this is what we're going to have to do. I think once it comes, once they figure it all out, if this is the route, I think fans are going to be super pumped to be able to watch their team because they're not going to have anything else to do.

I mean, who knows? This could be huge for baseball TV and radio ratings. We really don't know. But I do think it's very, very optimistic to think that we'll be having Major League Baseball in May. I think June 1st is definitely more of an ideal start time and maybe even later than that. I, me as a baseball fan and somebody that works in the sport, I'm trying not to get my hopes up that it will happen. And the other thing is we want to make sure that everyone's safe and this is the right thing to do. It does seem like Major League Baseball is being very communicative about the fact that they're not going to go through with this unless it's okay by, you know, whoever.

Doctors and in the United States seeming that playing a baseball game, even without any, fans, having two teams going against each other will be okay and not a way for the virus to spread. The other thing to keep in mind, I'm no doctor, but I've heard that, number one, this virus does not do well in sunlight and in heat. Clearly, Arizona's got a lot of that. Yeah. I could disappear real fast around here potentially. Yeah, exactly. And number two, I mean, baseball is not a contact sport. It's not. Yes, there are occasions where that happens, but you don't have to always touch somebody like you do in hockey, football or basketball. Yeah.

So I think that may be another reason why baseball is a little bit more optimistic than other sports right now. I want to transition into your position as broadcaster of the Kane County Cougars. I know this is something that you certainly enjoy doing, and it comes through just in your broadcast and hearing your voice. You do an excellent job last year. I know you had Connor Onion with you on broadcast. You guys formed a great team together. But one of the best parts of your job, I imagine, Joe,

is that you get the privilege of being able to observe top Diamondbacks prospects day in and day out. And in this particular moment of Diamondbacks history, there's really quite a few of them that are exciting a lot of people right now. And I know you got to see several of them last year. Christian Robinson, Alec Thomas was there for a little bit before transitioning to Visalia. Luis Frios finished the season. with the team Levi Kelly is another name. Those guys both potential starting pitchers.

What did you see last year, Joe? I'm curious just your overall thoughts on what you saw in terms of the talent that you observed at the single A level. And maybe what are some names that excited you from what you saw last year? Last year was a very exciting year. Cougars didn't do that well in the playoffs. They got swept right away. But in terms of prospects, it was a very exciting year. four All-Stars that ended up being with Alec Thomas, Blaise Alexander, Buddy Kennedy, and Blake Workman, who was one of our closers at the time before moving up.

I'll start with Alec Thomas. He ended up winning Midwest League, Player of the Year. Yeah. There's a soft spot in my heart for Alec Thomas because he is also from the south side of Chicago. He went to my rival high school or one of my rival high schools 10 years apart, granted. But Alec Thomas was just such an important. interesting specimen. I was very surprised when I heard that he was going to be joining the Cougars at the beginning of the year last season because the Diamondbacks hardly ever do that.

In my whole time there, this would be my seventh year with Kane County and it would be my sixth with the Diamondbacks organization. We've seen a total of two players come up to Kane County the same year they were drafted. And that happens because there are two short season teams with Missoula and Hillsborough. Not every major league team has two short season minor league teams. So we've somewhat been deprived of that being in Kane County. Another thing is the weather. Sometimes they won't bring guys up until the weather heats up. So I was pretty pleased when I heard Alec Thomas was going to be joining us opening day. And a lot goes into that. His talent level number one, Number two, his familiarity of playing in the cold, and number three, his familiarity playing in the Chicagoland area.

And he had a little bit of a slow April, but then he really started to heat up. Alec Thomas was just a five-tool player for the 2019 Cane County Cougars. He was so, so exciting to watch. I saw him make highlight real catches, I mean, catches where he resembled Jim Edmonds. He robbed a home run once in Burlington where it might be a tall tail, but I believe he started his leap with one foot on the outfield grass and the other foot on the warning track and then robbed a home run over the right center field wall. His athleticism is just so astounding. The coolest Alec Thomas story I have is we were in Peoria. It was a short two-game series.

It was July 2nd and July 3rd right before Independence Day. July 2nd, he goes 4 for 4, and he's a home run shy of the cycle. He's coming up to the plate in the 8th inning. He sizes up. You can tell he's going for that home run, and he strikes out swinging. The next day, he goes 5 for 5. He needs a double for the cycle, and he doubles in his last at bat off the right center field wall. He almost homered. He almost missed the cycle again by hitting two home runs. But that's just

kind of an example of what he's able to do and how much control he has at the plate when he's really clicking. I mean, the guy's got just unbelievable raw power. He's got an unbelievable eye. He's got fantastic reads off the ball. I mean, he's just like a gazelle out there in center field. such a fun player to watch. He really was. And I mean, he just checks all the boxes in terms of being a future major league player because obviously his father, Alan Thomas, the strength conditioning coach for the White Sox. I mean, he's grown up practicing on the south side. You know, Comiskey Park, U.S. Cellular Field, guaranteed rate field, whatever you want to call it.

I mean, he was in those outfields, shagging fly balls, hanging out with major leaguers, you know, talking with Ken Griffey Jr. A lot of people compare him to Adam. He learned a lot from Adam Eaton to just a very fun guy to watch and fun guy to just see his career progress. And then clearly he got moved up towards the end of the year and ended up capping off his season, winning the California League championship of the Visalia Rawhide. So very cool, fun year for him. But honestly, the team was chock full of prospects. We got Blaze Alexander and Buddy Kennedy about a month later mid-May, definitely shown some excellent. signs of being major league talent as well buddy kennedy had this unbelievable gap uh rather power to

the gaps blaze alexander so many great tools still has to deal with some youth issues but but who doesn't um but what a great kid i mean that was the other thing too is all these guys on this team were just so easy to talk to because when i first started doing this job with king county i was 23, 24. So there wasn't too much of an age difference with me and the players. And at that time, you just see, okay, good player and not so good player. Now getting older, you see the age differences. And you can tell who's 18 and who's 20. That was always kind of a problem for me. But these young kids just have a lot of good ad. They have a very good attitude. Very good perspective of the game, too. Nobody's ego is really too high. I'm sure some

of the coaches would disagree with that, but you can learn a lot from these players by how they deal with the media and particularly the lone radio guy on the road. And pretty much everybody was very easily accessible. You mentioned Christian Robinson and that kid, he never, if you never told me his age, I never would believe that he was 18 years old, number one by his size and number too by his ability just to hold a conversation and to not be immature. But, you know, there are plenty of others. Jackson Goddard, Matt Tabor, Levi Kelly was a very, very interesting guy to watch. You talk about a guy that is just so captivated by the science of baseball. He's definitely got that Trevor Bauer in him. And I know he's a big fan of Trevor Bauer, but just one of those silent leaders

and very inquisitive. He would talk with our pitching coach Mike Parrott all the time. He was working on pitches, change up and slider, and everything that was just basically an experiment for him as this season progressed. And he ended up by the end of the year throwing about eight different pitchers, or rather eight different pitches. I mentioned Jackson Goddard, I believe. Justin Lewis, tall right-hander out of Kentucky, had a great change up. I mean, just a lot of talent from this team. It was unfortunate not to see them make it further in the playoffs. Oh yeah, and Geraldo Podomo. I saw Jazz Chisholm for two years straight, and I thought he was the shortstop of the future for the Diamondbacks. And, you know, Geraldo Perdomo came up, and this is before

Jazz Chisholm was traded. And I saw Jazz Chisholm and Geraldo Perdom, but I saw a great arm, and I saw a lot more reliability defensively. Jazz Chisholm was one of those guys that can make a stellar, unbelievable web gem play and then might muff an easy ground ball roller. Again, youth has a factor with that, but Geraldo Pardomo just had great range defensively on the side. And another guy that you could tell was young, but only by how much he wanted to learn, not by his mistakes. and a guy that doesn't speak much English, but boy, is a great personality, even though he's not able to hold a fluent conversation in the English language. So it was long and short, it was a very exciting time to see all these prospects in 2019 with the Cougars.

Last question for you, Joe. I'm curious, just as the broadcaster of the Cain County Cougars, I know from what I can tell, at least as an outsider, you seem to really enjoy what you do and just talking about all these guys and getting to talk to them. on a daily basis. What is your favorite part of your job? Hmm. I mean, clearly the games. Clearly the games. But it's also kind of being the guy. I remember my first job as the number one broadcaster for a minor league team. I was up in Traverse City, Michigan doing independent baseball. And the broadcaster left getting a new job. So I filled in from middle of July to the end of the year. And that's when I first realized, like,

that difference between being the number two and the number one is just very, you're kind of a little bit more proud because you're the guy. When anything goes down with the team or anything, people come to you first. Three years ago, I called a perfect game. And I had people reaching out to me one to say, hey, you know, I didn't even hear the call. I just saw on Twitter that Connor, right through a perfect game for the Kane County Coopers, and I knew that was you. So how was that?

And I don't mean to make it so self-centered, but the whole point of being the broadcaster isn't about you. It's about the team, and it's about the players, and it's about being the bridge from the team to the fans. So in those instances, when it does get to be about you, it's just a proud moment because you really hope that you portrayed the message in the game in the right way for the people it matters to most. In fact, that perfect game I was talking about, me and that pitcher kind of had just a little bond. I haven't talked to him in a while because clearly in the minor leagues you move up through the system, but I told him after the game or the next day. Well, here, how about this?

When the game ended, people like MLB Network are reaching out to you asking for the call so they can use it and things like that. and I go down to talk to the pitcher because people want to talk to him clearly. And my hand is shaking because I've got adrenaline going from this perfect game. And he's way more calm than I am. I'm like, dude, you just threw the perfect game. All I did was talk about it. How are you not more nervous? I mean, I remember my leg shaking, my hand shaking.

And again, the next day I had a sit-down interview with him, you know, kind of as the dust had settled. And after the interview, I just said, hey, man, just so you know, I know this is a once-in-a-lifetime moment for you, but it's incredibly special for the broadcaster, too, because it's a once-in-a-lifetime moment for us. And we have nothing to do with it happening or not. All we can do is talk about it. Like, we can't control it whatsoever. So it's that much meaningful because it's total once-in-a-lifetime. being in the right place at the right time. It's nothing that you did made a perfect game happen. It's just so by happen chance. So that's what's kind of cool. And I mean, we had a no hitter

this past year. Same situation. People are calling, oh, that's so cool, so happy you got to call a no hitter. Because again, you're that person. You're the person that people think about when something basically when something about the team happens, I really am not trying to sound so narcissistic with this. But it is cool having that role. Because when I got that first job in Traverse City, I remember being on the team bus,

and I'm thinking, okay, I'm the only guy on this bus that can't affect the outcome of the game. It's kind of cool, though. It's kind of cool being part of the team, but not being part of the team. Now, those road trips, they can't get lonely because you're not a coach, you're not a player, it's hard to resonate with those guys, but it is still cool being that person. And again, it's our job, it's our

role, it's our duty to make sure the players, or rather to portray the games, portray the players in their best light and sometimes in their worst light, but being fair with it. So it's cool to be the mediator of how that happens, I guess. Joe, thank you so much for the time to do. we really appreciate it. No, absolutely. Jesse, again, thank you for having me.