Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 103 | Life of A Pro Baseball Player & Interview With Jake Odorizzi

Episode Date: March 5, 2020

What is the lifestyle of a pro baseball player really like? How do the hotels, plane rides and travel days really work? What was Trevor Plouffes alias. Do they really need alias'? why? Also we sat down with Twins pitcher Jake Odorizzi to talk about pitching and baseball. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices 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 to talking baseball. We've got special guest Jake Oterizzi on the show, and we're going to talk about the life of a pro ball player. What's going on, everybody? Thank you for joining us today and hanging out for a little bit. No, Jake, it is John Boy, myself, and Trevor Plouf. We are back in our respective homes. I'm in the Bronx.

Trev's in L.A. It's feel good to be back. It feels really nice. I do miss the RV, but it's nice to, like, shower. in a nice shower, sleep in a big bed. So, yeah, I'm happy. Yeah, it was, I didn't, I didn't get fully sick of the RV. Like, it was like, all right, we can say goodbye, but I'm not, I don't need to right now.

So it was good. How'd the, how'd the literally game go? Dude, I was dog tired. You know, I think I told you guys, but I missed my connector flight. I had to, you know, go late to Dallas, wake up at 6 a.m. in Dallas, fly home, hustle back. But it was good, man. the kids give you energy. Like they got energy in spades, man.

So I got there and it was fine. It was good. Is Teddy the ringer? He's small, you know, because he's young. So we have a couple guys that are bigger, like older that are pretty good. But he's working as well. He's good. For his like size and age, he's pretty good.

All right. There you go. There you go. We have a lot of patrons. We need to thank at the start of this show. We have. And hang with me because we were on the road and we weren't able to do this. We have one, two, three.

Kelly, Horace, Robert Lato, Roral Bob, Robbie Ferris, Bob. Holy shit. That four Roberts in a row? Robert Lato, Roral Bob, Robbie Ferris, and Bob. Four bobs in a row. Shout out to the bobs. Jess Hastings, Mitchell Brunner, Anne-Marie, Jamie Lopresti, Ari Zanger, Trevor Fafard. Wow, another Trev.

Sean McGuire, Christa Marie, Alex Anderson, Charles Murray, Eli, Simon, Kelby Lemons, Brian Renfro, Amy McAdam, Caden, Leuke, Tim, Scott Dahl, Eric Vanderpool, and Christian Rusich. I don't know. Thank you very much to those people. We appreciate it. Especially Kelby Lemons. That was my favorite name. That was your favorite name? Yeah.

Not the four bobs? No, no. And then the other one, Vanderpool, kind of like I was feeling that one too. Vanderpump Rules. Is that what that show is called? It is. It is. I've actually seen that show. Well, you're an L.A. guy. Is that an L.A. show?

It's more of like you're married and sometimes you have to watch what your wife watches. Just to be a good guy, you know. All right. So there was a conversation yesterday, Trev, when the Cubs were miced up. and Chris Bryant said that his name when he used to check into hotels was Hamilton Porter and then they asked Ross Rossi was like hey Skip

what was your alias when you checked into hotels and his was Jake Taylor which is the backup catcher the catcher from Major League which is so perfect perfect so that kind of goes with the theme of this show which is just like the life of a pro ball player so I'm going to open it up

Did you have an alias? I did. Mine was Jimmy Page, guitarist for Led Zeppelin. And that was an easy one for me to remember. Wait. Isn't it supposed to be someone not famous? Like, wouldn't you then maybe have people bothering you who thought you were Led Zeppelin guy? Well, I mean, I don't think Jimmy Page is going to be like in Kansas City.

You know, he's over there in London doing this thing. But there's some funny ones. Like, I think I could give some out the guys that aren't playing. anymore. Yeah. Delman Young, his was Dixie. Okay. Last name, Normis.

Nice. Dixie Normas. So, I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's fun. You have to do it because you, you'll get like strange calls from like agents, like random agents, which I have no idea, like how a cold calling a hotel could ever work in an agent's favor, but they do it. I was going to ask, like, do you. really need an alias, like who's coming?

I guess that's one answer. Agents, they'll just call hotels and be like, like if the twins are in Kansas City, they'll just call hotels and just start dropping like, hey, do you have Trevor Plufe staying there and hopes that? I guess. I don't really know what the protocol is for hotels to like not let people just call. But like I assume if you call a hotel and you ask for whoever, like don't they just connect you to the room?

Yeah. But most guys have aliases, so they don't. Seems like a terrible way to go about being an agent. I totally agree. You know, that's more like minor league stuff. You know, these guys are kind of on the ground floor trying to get in early. But yeah, just random stuff like that. I think that's the biggest reason why guys have.

And it's just like fun. Yeah, that seems like it's really fun. Bag tag, same way. Like, you don't want your name on the bag tag and all that stuff. So do you have your alias on the bag tag? Yes. Was anyone's alias so good that, like, did you just start calling Delman Dixie as a nickname? Yeah, he got called that a lot.

People loved this for sure. And then, you know, if you start to, like, get guys to tell you what their alias is, because you kind of have to guard it a little bit, then you can start doing some funny stuff, like charging room service to their room. And, you know, because you have the little itinerary that you get and have, like, the room list and stuff. So, you know, in 204, I know my buddy's there. Like, that's just charge a movie or charge, you know, this room service order to him.

And most of the time, the guys don't even know. And then you got to tell him. Is it their bill or is it the teams? No, it's there, Bill. You have to do, like, the incidentals and stuff. All right. Who was the biggest room service guy? Were you a big room service guy?

I kind of was, to be honest with you. More so, like, just if I, was over it and tired. Like, it's so easy just to do it. But man, I mean, anyone that goes to a hotel knows room service is crazy expensive, you know. So when you're in the show, it's like, yeah, whatever. And you have the public pressure to tip. You have the public pressure to tip more because otherwise they'll just tweet out.

MLB twins, Trevor Poof is a cheap state. I try the tip as, I try to tip well. I did. And I don't understand, like, whoever like designed like the system for hotels. in their room service, it's like service charge, delivery charge, automatic tip, and then they add like the additional tip line, which is so bullshit. But like you said, can't be out here on the streets having people think you're cheap. No.

Yeah. So my go to is like extra five bucks on the additional tip. You know, see you later. All right. Let's walk through a road trip then. So say you have a weekend series. and do we want to a fun city or a boring city? I think that's two different things.

Let's see fun. All right. Say you have a weekend series in New York City. And you have the Thursday beforehand off. So do you arrive, does the team arrive Thursday morning and then you have the day off or do you hang out wherever you were Thursday? It just depends. So like, say you played Wednesday day game and then you had Thursday off. It depends on your skipper and like kind of what you're,

team mentality is. I've done both where like you'll fly in Wednesday, you know, have Wednesday night in the entire off day in the city. That sounds ideal because then you can go after it Wednesday night if you want and have a full day of hangover recovery day. Guys love that. But sometimes like the it's like family guys would rather be at home because they don't want to yell that by their wife, stuff like that. So, if it's an off day between two away series, you could definitely do that. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's the best.

So, yeah, like, Wednesday, say we left Wednesday. Yeah. And we, and, like, kind of the reason we're doing this is because these are some of the questions that every ball player gets asked. Like, tell me about the travel, tell me about the hotels, tell me about just the lifestyle, whatever. So, Wednesday, you show up to the fields and you're kind of rocking your plane attire. Like, for me, it was, we, we had suits.

but that's kind of gone by the wayside now. It's more like casual on the planes and stuff. But you wear what you're going to wear on the plane. And you pull up to the park. Yep. And you, there's a big truck waiting for all your bags. So basically you pull up, put the thing in park. There's someone there.

You pop the trunk. They take the bag for you. You know, you throw them a little tip there. It's usually one of the clubhouse guys. And then you head into the ballpark. should even touch your bag. Like that bag's gone. It's like going to go on the plane.

See you later. Go play the game. Hopefully you do well. That's the best. Like you go have like a three for four game and then off day. And so you get to like just feel yourself. Yeah. For the next 24 hours before like you have to do it all over again.

So hopefully have a good game. And then again like your bags like your clubhouse guy's going to pack your bag. you. So all of your away clothes are packed, you know, essentially all you're doing at that point is your extra stuff. So if there's like any special shirt you want to bring or cleats you want to bring, like that's the stuff you pack. But everything else is already packed for you. Your hats are already packed. Your helmets, your bats, all that shit is. Your child with a great mother again. It's insane. You know, the more and more I look back on it, you know, you really didn't do shit. That's what they want. They want you to focus on the game. Yeah. All right, you talked about playing well before an off day.

I have a question for you. Since Boone took over the Yankees, he loves giving guys back-to-back off days. So say Thursdays and off-day, he would take two regulars like DED and Glaver and give them Wednesday off. They don't play in the game on Wednesday. how would you have liked that as a player how long does two off days go as far as like muscle recovery

and mental recovery yeah i think it's i think it's great and i think it kind of differs on players and like where you're at in your season like if you're hot like and you're seeing the ball while you're like fuck no like yeah put me in there like i'll get my day and then so i think those are i bet i bet if you looked like when he was doing that it was either like they had a ton of games in a row and it was like his way of just really making sure everyone got healed up or these guys were struggling a little bit yeah like I remember you know man like Doja before he went off and hit like a zillion homers that year um they gave him an entire series off like malle was like we're in Kansas city you're not playing these next three games and like just sit down shut up like be a fan

and he did that, had a little like readjust and boom, he went off. So like mentally I think it's really nice sometimes to know that. Like, hey, I got two days where I can just shut it off, man. Yeah. Or like if I want to go in the cage and like work on something, like I can just go bang it out and not have to worry about like the process into the game. So that's kind of good. But I think more so it's like get it away from the game.

Like, you know, just have a have a reset, mental reset. All right. But I do like that. Yeah. Yeah. It's, they do it every year now. So maybe other teams do that too. I don't follow the schedules as closely. Yeah. So if you get into a state, if you get into New York City for that weekend game and you get in Thursday night, right? And you arrive Thursday night because you played the getaway day Thursday. You fly after the game. You're arriving like nine at night. The Friday game's a night game. Are people going out that Thursday night with a night game the next day on Friday? You can. You can. It kind of just depends, you know, who they are. Especially starting pitchers.

Like if they're not pitching, sure. They're going to go out. The thing about, like, road games is you don't stretch until 4 o'clock. You know, maybe like 4.30. So you could essentially go out until 2 in the morning and then sleep until noon or 1 if you needed to. So, I mean, guys definitely do that. But as you get a little bit older, they're supposed to catch up to you and shit.

And my younger days, for sure, I was doing that 100%. It's probably not a good thing, though. C-C-2, said that the Yankees, whenever there was a team coming into New York City for the weekend series, and it was there, and they were from a city that, like, Kansas City or a city that didn't have a good nightlife or party scene, He's like, we would look around and be like, we better beat these fuckers, especially if they were young and you knew they were out partying.

Like, there was something that they looked at on the schedule to like put in their brain. Do you agree? I totally agree. And I think that I've like I've heard similar stories in other sports too. Like the like in hockey, the Vegas Golden Knights, like they get that advantage because guys come in and just like wild out. Yeah. It's Vegas and why not? LA and the Lakers kind of get that same effect

Like I got buddies that kind of Do a lot of the nightlife out here So like they know they know who's out So they'll build like name drop like guys they were out And like just watch this guy's gonna play terrible He was he was fucked up in my restaurant last night That's funny Yeah but but you mean you have to do stuff like that

Because you got to you got to break it up Like I said mentally I think it's the biggest thing Like sometimes you just need to go out have a night. Because you're just every day, you're just, you know, grinding, grinding, and grind and grind and grind and every once by need to release. Is there a release police on each team? Is it like an assistant coach? Is it an older player? Is it like the traveling, traveling secretary? Like is there someone doing curfew checks? Is there someone that gets on you? Like, hey, is there ever been a time where the manager has to be like, no going out tonight?

Like, you know, it's late August, it's September. Like nothing. You could get like a pull to the side and be like, hey man, like reel it up a little bit. Like reel it in, you know, but they're never going to be like, you can't go out. You know, they always say you're professional. And this is your career. So if you want to fuck your career by going out every night, I love Baker Mayfield or something, you know. Yeah.

I mean, Kobe used to say that he would like get on guys who were going out and not showing up early to work out and stuff like that. So there was no. Yeah. it starts affecting your like your work then yes that's 100% people are going to get on you because they know all right and you know a lot of the older guys love to hear the stories the young guys come in they like you know tell me what happened last night let's hear it oh live into the glory years you have to yeah and and those guys you know it's all great and then if they start playing shitty it's like hey well we know why yeah so you know how about like um

I'm trying to dodge a word here. Okay. People that show up at hotels when they know baseball players are there. So you have the card collectors that are probably there when you get off the bus and then there in the morning when you get on the bus. There's probably some girls that are going to hotel to hotel whenever players come in. Is there another group of people or those really the two that are like kind of hanging around? At the hotels?

You know, I think that's changed a little. bit too. Security, yeah, they don't just let people like hang around, you know, at least in my experience. You know, you'll have people in the lobbies, whatnot, but they try to keep it, I guess, safe for guys. Are there familiar faces, though? Like, do you guys get used to like, all right, we're going to Detroit? That damn autograph seeker is going to be there. That's annoying as fuck. We got to dodge them. I mean, I guess some you would recognize just because they're always there, but I'm going to sound really mean right now. Just I'm going to go for it. Okay.

I like didn't look a lot of the guys in the like in the eye. You didn't want to be on that level with them? You know, if like the way they get you is you're just like you're going to the bus. Like they just call your name and like you feel bad. So like every once in a while like you just go over there and it's just like you know what they're doing with them. If there's kids, man, you interact with the kids and you you do the whole thing. but these autographed guys, I mean, like, if you do decide to sign for them, I think most guys just go like... I don't think, I don't understand, like, you shouldn't feel bad saying that. Like, these guys are making money off your signature and the way they get your signature is by hounding you.

Hounding. Longoria was really good with these guys. He would just be like, he would just yell at them essentially and ask him like, what the F are they doing here? like go go to work you know like he was he was he was good with it like he didn't he didn't give a shit probably because he got hounded more than you know most guys because he's on the raise yeah but yeah um definitely stay away from that as much as you can and they've made it harder and harder i think they've started to understand like uh the potential risks there too like you don't know who what the freak is trebs video just went out i can hear you i can hear you yeah i'm still

going yeah you don't know the potential risk that happen, you know, that they can't happen. Yeah. I mean, I mean, the, the autograph guys, the autograph guys are just basically paparazzi. A lot of technical difficulties here on this episode, but we're persevering. We're just talking about how adult autograph seekers are basically paparazzi, and I don't think we should tiptoe around shaming them for what they do, because they're just making money off professional players' names by hounding them and gilting

them into signing. I'm anti-autographed sellers. Hard stance. I still feel bad, like talking negatively about them. I don't know why. A lot of ball players do. They're nice. They're always nice to you,

and then you kind of feel bad like you're just like, you know, it's basically telling them they go F themselves. I mean, if you go to spring training, if you don't know what we're talking about, and you go to a spring training game and just get there really early and then look around and see who your company is, and it's like sad.

Yeah, I'm curious that people actually make money off this. Like a guy that's asking Trevor Plou for his autograph, like, buddy, I don't think you're going to make a lot of money on that card, you know? So who knows? I guess the quantity thing, like you just got to get a bunch of them and throw them on eBay and see what happens. Oh, I mean, like, say the twins win the World Series, then you have like every twin signed this. I have every twins autograph.

So I guess like that's their game. I'd rather do that than like the binder full of like 12 cards. Yeah, that's weird. Yeah. Anyway, what about girls? You ever go to Detroit and they're like, oh, she's going to be here? Not really. No.

You know, that wasn't my world because I was, you know, I was always wiped up. There was a girl who in Chicago was known for doing that with baseball players. And she shot a baseball player. And then she went on to, um, hooker shoots, Cubs baseball player she went on to have her own

Broadway show Wow Yeah I've never heard that This happened recently This also happened in 2012 Damn Where was this at

Chicago? Yeah back It was like back in the 20s Because the guy got shot The guy got shot We did a whole thing on it last in the past Because the guy who got shot Then

Because the guy on the Cubs got shot. They had to trade for a player and they traded for this guy that was part of the 1927 Yankees was a teammate of George of Babe Ruth. And then he was part of the whole Babe Ruth pointed and called his shot thing. But like story starts with like his hooker. I forget. There's been a lot of cases of that. She meant to shoot one baseball player, couldn't find him, turned around shot the next. So that hasn't been your. Hasn't been your experience? I mean, look, like, am I going to sit here and say there's just, like, not girls, like, around?

Like, of course there is. But I can't, I, like, I, that's just wasn't my area, you know. You know, I, I knew there was a few hotels where you'd go to and you knew, like, there was going to be people there that are. Yeah. Looking. Detroit was one of them. Oh, yeah? Detroit was one of them, yeah.

Okay. And we still like outside. nothing else going on. We stay outside of the city. And so, like, you just show up and there'd be like, I remember a few times, like, three or four, like, girls, like, really just, like, dressed up, like, really nicely. Yeah. And then, like, one guy, just, like, there.

Ooh. And so, like, you kind of got the dynamic that was on right there. But again, like, maybe it's just my experience. I just never, uh, it was just like, what's going on here? Like, get these guys out of here. Yeah. All right. So just for anyone that's very interested, the girl's name was Violet Popovich, and she shot Cub shortstop Billy Jurgis in 1931. That's insane. Yeah. And then she... 20s and 30s were... That's a wild time.

She went on to, like, do a Broadway play, like, all about, like, the dame who shot the shortstop. That's hilarious. That kind of makes sense. It kind of, like, goes with what happens now. Like, you can get famous for doing a lot of stupid shit. Yeah. Yeah. And then... Turn it into something. And then because Billy Jurgis was out, they called up another shortstop. It's all this shit. It's a cool story. Did it on laughs from the past.

Babe Ruth's called shot. I'm going to check it out. Everything, we've been asking a lot of players this when we do the interviews, who's your plane buddy? Because it seems like that's a vital part of flying. Like the planes, as far as I know these days, there's the cards crew. Yep. And then there's the like just Netflix and doing your own thing crew. Yeah, that's a great dynamic, you know, on the plane.

You're absolutely right. There is always a cards table. And you'll have the cards. Like I was always at the card. The card table that was playing for money. And like, you know, we play dealer calls, a ton of poker games. And you're doing that on the plane. And that's a lot of fun.

Then you have the guys who are like to play cards to pass the time, but they're playing stuff like Spades or Pesoy. And it's just like for fun. Okay. Child's table. Yeah. Then you have the video games guys. And that's that's kind of a newer thing where like you have these consoles.

They guys bring like fucking screens onto the plane. And they have like their setup and like they'll like legitimately just like set it up. And like you can hook them up. They play like Mario card against each other or they're playing whatever the game is. I'm not a, I'm not a gamer. That sounds really fun. But also like a lot of a hassle. Are they having someone set that up for them?

Is this like the bag situation? You know like the only thing they'd have to do is just like, like bring that bag on a plane because it is like it's in like this collapsible case and you just like it's like a briefcase and they fucking open it up and there's a video game screen they do that so you have those guys then you have the guys that just want to sleep a lot of guys like whether it's they're nervous to fly or whatever they're just tired like there's always a sleepers bro yeah just get on the plane and they're gone I could never do that I wish I wish I could sleep on planes I can't.

I'm about to do, like, as people are listening to this, I'm doing two cross-country flights in one day. I'm flying to Arizona in the morning, taking the red eye back. Then Friday, Jake and I got to record in the morning, and I'm not going to be able to sleep. I might try to do a weed gummy on the plane for the first time. I'm always too scared. I don't want to, like, knock myself out.

I don't want to be too silly on the plane. You have any experience with that? I do. I didn't know what I was about. to just, no, it's okay. It's okay. Look at the hat I'm wearing. Okay. It's about to say, you just flew high. I did. I didn't help me out a ton, man. Okay. I don't think we should be ashamed about talking about that, Jim, you know. I just didn't know I didn't want to be the one to share that story of yours. I think it's pretty well known that, like, I partake. Okay. Well, it's funny. Like, when we,

when we talked with you the first time, you were saying how guys would get drunk every night and then they'd have like a hangover and they'd be like you know they'd get into trouble with girls or fights or whatever and they'd look at you or anyone that smoked weed and was like dude you can't do that and you're like all i do is get high and sit on the couch like the drinking's way worse it is way worse and that's a stigma in baseball it's like so ridiculous like you'll get guys that they'll crack like three or four beers right after the game and there's nothing wrong with that i get you know every once in a while but that catches up to you dude and you know we're both We're both in our 30s and, like, you can't recover the same way when you're, like, when I was 20,

I could crack three or four beers and be totally fun. When we were on the RV trip, like we drank a couple beers every night, but I never really got like drunk. Yeah, we know. We know, we know not to do that anymore. We're smart. Because I can't. I don't function the next day. Yeah, it's, uh, the weed gummies can definitely help.

And that's, okay. Something that's, uh, especially now, like, we're getting, we're getting more and more lenient, uh, in baseball with, with, with the can and, this. So I think it's going to help. Okay. Good. Sounds good to me. So I'll do that. That kind of brings me to, I want to talk about the food. Okay. People ask me all the time about that. And then my wife yells at me because she says I've been institutionalized. Okay. Once you're in baseball, I mean, there's a few things that happen. You have a schedule every day and they tell you what to do. All you got to do is just do your routine, do your schedule.

that's it, play the game. You don't have to think about anything because they don't want you to think about it. They just want you to think about baseball. So one of the reasons I, or one of the ways I'm institutionalized that I get yelled at all the time is I, or baseball players are grown, they get accustomed to like a big spread of food,

like an array of food. You show up to the ballpark, whether it's breakfast and you can have, make your own omelet station, you have donuts, you have, I mean, anything you can think of you're going to have. You just walk into buffets. everywhere you go you just walk in you're like oh i don't really feel like that can you make me this

or like oh this looks good oh but i'll have like some of this some of that and that's every damn meal at the stadium um and then so now i'm done playing and like my wife will make me like a couple eggs and i'll kind of look at her like you know that's all we got where's my fruit bowl of cut beautiful fruit that's presented beautifully and you know where's like my six choices of of proteins like you know let's go and I know now not to say anything because yeah a few times she's like you're an idiot like you stop being a spoiled baseball player like go make your own fucking bacon dude I mean sounds like the life Danesby swanson on the show was telling us the cook for the Braves and spring training at least like knows all of their personal

preferences and dietary restrictions so if she makes this meal also have this special plate just for Dan's me. It's insane. You guys are just fucking babied. Babyed after the game. Say we're talking getaway days now, right? So you play the game, you have your spread. And typically, like, on getaway days, they really try to, like, go and, like, go above

and beyond because that's tip day. Oh. Tips in, right? So you're going to get, like, the prime shit on your last day. So you have that food. And a lot of guys are like, fuck, I don't even want to eat because I was just, you. just up for a game, you know, like I'm not hungry right now. So you pass that over.

You're like, oh, maybe I'll grab something. Get on the plane. More fucking food. Here's the menu of food we have on the plane and do you want this? There's always like some specialty item from the city that you play in. So like if you're in Kansas City, they're going to have like some sort of barbecue, like pre takeoff food. Okay.

And then once you get up in the air, they have the other fucking food. Damn. A lot of guys don't like to eat on the plane. So then it's where are we going to dinner? Where's the show dinner at? We're in New York. Are we going someplace that's amazing? Are we ordering room service?

I would always go to Ray's pizza. Okay. Just crush it. So it's a big food, man. Now that I really think back on it, food is such a huge part of these days. You kind of, there's no shortage, man. They just want to stuff your face. Well, and your athlete.

So you like need all you can take all the calories and you're working out every day and stretching every day and doing all that shit. And you go from the minor leagues where you're literally slapping together a couple pieces of bread and PB&J to this beautiful spread. And then you'll see a ton of guys like as soon as they get called up. They'll probably gain three, four, five pounds. No doubt. Just because it's available. It's like the freshman 15 in college. It is there, Jim.

Like even if you're not, even if it's like not timed for like food. to be put out, they're still just like shit available everywhere. So I've heard you talk about it and heard every player talk about it, that Yankee Stadium away clubhouse is the best restaurant in New York City. Guys say, guys love the food at Yankee Stadium. Who's the worst? My guess is Oakland. I don't want to.

That's tough for me to say because these guys work their ass off. So like the guy in Oakland, Mikey, he does everything he can. with what he has at his disposal. Yeah, I'm sure. He just doesn't have the, the means to do something like the Yankees do, you know. Yeah. Like he's in there, he's got his electric stove and he's cranking out everything. And like, you're going to get the in and outs.

You're going to get the Mexican food. But, you know, you go to Yankee Stadium. They get a full professional kitchen back there. So you can get whatever you want. I would always get a pastrami sandwich. And it was delicious. That's what you get at the Yankee Stadium? Yeah.

Did you have certain, did you have, certain meals every, like, stadium? Like Kansas City, you're getting barbecue? Somewhat, yeah. We would try, like, Kansas City, there's a place called Oklahoma Joe's, I think. It's like a gas station place, like one of those. So we'd always, like, send a guy out, like, hey, get 50 sandwiches and then bring it back. So you'd always kind of do that, stuff like that.

What about Seattle? Fish? Seattle's really good. They have a good chef there that he'll, um, he'll cook you whatever you want. They also have a keg of manny's pale ale, which was my favorite. So after the gains, man,

and just go there, pour yourself a beer, and it was, that's a life for me. All right. Not bad. So you're just spoiled. They take your bags for you. They cook for you. Give you everything.

You pick you up. You know, the best thing, we always talk about like double your flap helmets and singular your flap helmets. Another great thing that as you climb up the ladder that happens for you is you get your cleats cleaned. I know it sounds like stupid, but low level minor leagues,

you don't really get that done. So, like, you'll see guys walking around with scrubbing bubbles in their bag. And, like, because you don't want to look like it. You want to look professional. You don't your cleats all fucked. I'm a big fan of dirty equipment.

So when I buy new shoes, I just walk through the grass right away. It's a self-conscious thing. I don't think I'm worthy of having anything new. Like, like, my hockey equipment, I bought the last set of, of hockey equipment I ball is when I was 15. And I used that up until two years ago in Men's League.

Like I hate, I know, I just hate new stuff. My brother's is the opposite. He loves new stuff. Like, do you remember John Wetland for the Yankees wore the same hat all season? It was disgusting. It's disgusting. I love that shit.

I think I'd be one of those people. I could see that. You know, sometimes I won't even allow you to do that. You know, I can understand why. You look gross. You look gross. I would pine tar like my helmet, like a logo, like really pine tar just because I thought it looked cool and I was trying to be show. And then it wasn't natural wear and tear?

Oh, no. You just get in there. Anybody, let me tell you this, dude, anybody that has like all the pine tar all over everything, that is on purpose. And like, it's just for show. It's not natural. No. What about like Robinson Canoe and some batters always have the pine tar in their back from resting their back? Are they doing that to look cool or is that natural?

No, that's on accident. But that is just because they want their bat to look cool. Okay. Like that's one of the more fun things you can do as a hitter. Like you get your bats in and all of a sudden it's like, all right, I've got to get them ready. So like I had a process. You know, I would do like the stick pint tar first, really lather it on there. I would even tape like the edges.

Oh, it would be perfect. Lined up. lined up, then you put the real pine tar on it, then you put the rosen on it, and you just get it needs to sit for a day, then it's perfect. But really, I mean, but it's just kind of like a mindset thing. It's like hockey players taping their sticks. Exactly.

It's just something to do to keep your mind. It's like therapeutic in a way and all that stuff. That's cool. Yeah, I would do like the helmet thing, do it all over my helmet. And then so I would get it perfect. Like it was just like gunked up. I look like a ball player, you know, whatever. And then you show up one day and they'd fucking clean it off.

Damn. It's like, dude, stop. you know, I don't stop cleaning. I'm trying to look, I'm trying to look show here. I'm trying to look show. I think that's a good, like, we always talk about like, you know, what, what can we do on our social and stuff? And we talked about a little bit on the trip, like, the glow up.

Yeah. Because you love dirty stuff. So, like, the minor leagues would be perfect for you. Yeah, no. I mean, it sounds the eating part and the sleeping on buses and living with five guys in one apartment or whatever. That sounds pretty shitty. Like, who's the showless guy for you?

Like, who's the guy? that you think like wow that guy looks like a big leaguer like and he's like uniform's good like he wears a good uniform on the yankees sure i mean that's where i'm naturally going to go i don't know there's like it's tough on the yankees because they like they all kind of do it so who's your guy it's more like so brandon drorie came over to the yankees oh yeah i know him and jake and i just watching a couple spring games because he he didn't stick for a while he went blind and then he got sent down the minors and all that. But we were just like, damn, he looks like a ballplayer.

Just his presence in the box and his presence at third base and the way he wore his uniform or like that dude looks like a pro ball player. I don't know why. I can't really explain it. I'm surprised that guy hasn't taken off because I thought the same thing when I saw him. Like he's got, he just looks the part. Yeah. It'll be funny to do the glow up.

Like show him in his minorly uniform because it's impossible, dude, to make your minorly uniform look cool. Especially when they have you dressing up in cartoon. characters and shit. It's never going to happen. Then you get to the show and it's like, bro, the difference. The difference is great. Dude, it's the double ear flap. It's the weird uniforms. Pants don't fit. Is that a thing? So how about uniforms? I think we got to wrap this up soon. But uniforms, like when you get up there and you get to the big leagues, do they just guesstimate your size? Is it exact measurements? Are they just giving you like medium large? 30, 32, 34, 36. Like,

what is it? They you get fitted in spring training so like they'll have you see the majestic people so I guess it's same it's Nike people now but they'll come and they just they measure you and they say do you want your pants tapered that means they can yeah do you want them tight as fuck like Verlander or do you want them show you can do whatever you want what did you do I would just kind of like have a measure me and just make sure they fit right but then you know the open bottom look was popular it's kind of going away now like people are getting more like trim pants but like the baggy open bottom look was really in so before you would have to cut the the rubber band on the bottom of your pants and then like stretch them out a lot to get that

open look but then they started like saying okay we'll just do it for guys so you could like get the open pant look and then if you wanted them to stay over your shoes they would cut like the side of your pants and like and do like this hemming process and just get it like super dialed in for you. So yeah, they have like specific pants for you. It's going to have your names stitched in the back all that crap. So it's going to, they want you to look nice. They want you to feel good. There was a like Rizzo

wears baggy pants. Did you wear and Verlander wears the tightest pants ever? So like those are like he's saying hey I like him real tight. Yeah. Okay. Have you seen the Harper pants? I feel like those are kind of like the next big thing how Harper's wearing his pants. Right now? It's almost like they're tight and then they're like on the ankles they're tapered. Yeah, they're like joggers.

They're like exactly. I think that's going to be the new trend because guys want to show their kicks off. Yeah, I'm looking at pictures of Harper right now and he's turned baseball pants into joggers. Yes. Interesting. Like I said, for a while it was like, give me the biggest baggiest pants you could find because that's cool. Yeah.

See Sabathia still wears, he was wearing parachute pants. What would you do? I wouldn't care about looks at all. I just care about comfort. So, like, I wouldn't do joggers. That seems uncomfortable. I think I'd do, like, I was looking at pictures of you, like, just kind of, like, tapered down, but not tight. Yeah.

I want to be up tight out there. People, you know, I guess I didn't have the best. Sometimes I felt like I looked good in the uniform and sometimes I felt like I didn't. That's life, man. It's life. I would go high socks. I don't think I'm good enough to go high socks, but I like, whenever. I played in high school, I won high socks.

It's the most comfortable thing. Another fashion, we saw this a little bit on our trip. The new fashion thing guys are doing. It's the, it's pregame short pants. So the high sock pants. Hold on, keep getting, getting called right here. Pregame short pants. And then it's like you don't even wear socks.

You wear leggings. And then over the leggings you put like crew socks. Okay. That's the new look. Weird. it's like yeah you have like cool looking socks like you know like stance the company stance

they do a bunch of like cool stuff for MLB so you have short pants your leggings that are usually like black or whatever and then you have like the crew socks and people are just like flexing dude like it's become such a flexing league it wasn't that well it's good they need that

they need to get the fashion going and all that what about what about a uniform after the game like is it just you just put it in the hamper and then when you show up the next day, it could be the same exact uniform, it could be a brand new one, you have no idea? Usually just the same one,

but yeah, that's another show thing. Minor leagues, you have a loop, and you, so you put your pants in your jersey, those go in just naked, you just throw them in, and then everything else you'd have to put on a loop. So, like, you get the loop back the next day, and the good clubbies would take the shit off the loop and hang for you,

but a lot of them aren't good clubbies, so they would just, like, hang the loop up, and all your stuff is just, like, wrinkled and gross and whatever. But in the show, everything's loose. Just throw it in there. And they like put your name on everything too so they know which is yours,

but it's just that much easier. They baby you that much more. So you're home. Take your shit and throw in that fucking hamper. Your home white jersey. Yes. How many different versions of that do you think you wear over 81 home games?

Say you wear it 70 of the 81 home games for the twins. Is it one jersey you're wearing all 70 games? Do you have any idea? I think it just depends. You know, if there's a rip or they want to take it, you did something good in it. But I'd assume it's mainly the same one. Can you request? Like if you have a rip by your seven for your last 10, can you be like, hey, don't change out my jersey?

I need that rip. Yeah, you can say that for sure. You'll see a lot of guys. Like, it's interesting. Now that we're talking about, I want everyone to kind of go look at everyone's uniform. Like the patchwork is strange how they do it. It kind of doesn't look that great. It's like all these like squiggly little lines.

Like if you bust your knee, like you slide, you bust your knee open. They like go in from behind and like I don't even know what they do, but it doesn't look clean. Okay. It sounds fired. No,

it's, I don't even, it's just how it happens. But you'll see a lot of guys, especially guys of steel bases. You go ahead and like look at their knees and like their butt. You're going to see like this weird squiggle patch work. Yeah.

All right. We'll do. All right. I think, I mean, you have anything else we didn't talk about? That was good. There's some more stuff we'll get to you next time. Maybe Jake has some questions for next time. I think it's fun to, like, get in and talk about some of the stuff because I do, these are questions that you get asked all the time.

So maybe we'll answer them. All right, cool. And then we do have an interview with Oda Rizzy coming up. We sat down with him in the club's, the twins clubhouse, the club's twin house and chat it a little bit. So here is that. On this episode of Two Jake's Talking, it's myself and Jake Oda Rizzi. Am I saying Oda Rizzi right? Correct.

Do people slaughter it? Yeah, but more so when I was younger than now. It's kind of, I guess, a little more commonly known now, but I've heard just about every pronunciation you can imagine. So when people trail off and don't commit to it, I know they're trying to get to me. That's my special time. Yes. Is Odo the nickname? Yes.

Yeah, it's short and simple, and I think everybody can get that one. I like that. I like that. So we chatted with you earlier today. Pitchers have camp pretty easy, huh? Yeah, I mean, if I just could have left after I was done playing catch, I would have been out of here to catch like a breakfast at some place still. But, no, there's a lot of work to be done after the fact.

Like, you know, got us get treatment, workout, that whole sort of thing. The unsexy stuff, the behind the scenes, that's the important stuff. So we got a lot of time to do that. So there's not a lot of, you know, we got to do it. That's kind of what it boils down to. Have things changed in camp from last year with a lot of the coaches have left and you have new coaches? Is it the same philosophy just guys bumped up or is it anything completely new?

Everything's pretty relatively the same with Rocco. Rocco kind of didn't shift anything, but we've had, you know, not too many times I've seen this many coaches leave and go different areas off of Major League staff. And good for them, though, that they get different opportunities. You know, I've been with Shelty for a long time and I see him get a manager job. It's really cool. and he'll do great to it. And he was a finalist for this job before Rocco got it.

So there's a lot of people over there that are really happy that he's got that job. And, yeah, I mean, I guess that's a good thing when your coaches kind of get poached a little bit. It means you're doing things the right way and happy for them all. Yeah, you said it right at the end there. If you're winning, then people start poaching you, and that's how it goes a little bit. I should mention John Boy and Trevor Plouffe are here. But besides the two Jake show. But we'll just keep running it anyways.

We talk some pitching stuff, and, dude, like, that's awesome. Like, we love that stuff because, you know, we talked like, I won't even say analytics light. It was like analytics light, and you were talking, you know, some spin rate stuff. How much do you get into that and how much do the Twins organization get into that? Or, you know, does it boil down to you or how's that work? Yeah, I think, I mean, we alluded to it a little bit earlier, but with Wes being in charge now, I think they've taken more of an analytical.

political side. And we have a lot of these cool toys that you, you know, you hear talking about force plates and Rapsotos, trackman, edutronich. So I think that's pretty generic with the last three in just about every camp now. But the problem with all the analytics, you have to have somebody to decipher it for you. Kind of what we had spoken about earlier, it's, you just can't buy it and you're automatically going to be better. You have to know what you're looking for as a player. And then B, you're going to have guys that have to be able to interpret it because there's so much information if you really take a deep dive into things, you can get lost really quickly and kind of transform yourself into a pitcher you can't be or you're not supposed to be. So there takes a little bit

of brain power from the pitcher as well to know I need maybe an improvement here. I can improve in these areas as opposed to, hey, this is all your data. Let's make it all better. Like that's just not a realistic aspect to it. But we got a lot of good people here that know how to make the little tweaks and get you, maybe a little bit more, you know, what you're looking for, as opposed to you trying to figure it out yourself. Who's doing that here for you? Because when I was in Philly, that was kind of where I saw analytics really being brought down to the clubhouse. A lot of times it used to stay in the front office, which didn't make any sense to me

because if you have these numbers, you want your players to improve these numbers, it makes sense that you'd have to go tell them the numbers, and that just wasn't a thing. So in Philly we had Sam Fold, and he was kind of like a player liaison. He was the perfect guy for that. Super Sam. Super Sam, smart dude, and relatable. So he'd bring the numbers down. He'd talk to us about it, what we should do to improve, you know, whatever.

Is there anybody that's doing that here? So we're all doing that in the locker room now. We have our analytics team that's on a daily base with us. They have a little room off to where Nate's at in his little video room across the hall. That's their little area. And with West being here in his background analytics, we have Colby and Frankie who do our, Frankie does like the infield of hitters and Colby does the pitching side. He and Wes were together at Arkansas.

So they kind of have that mash up of what they're looking for already. So it's a lot easier that he brought a guy that's up to speed with what he's looking for instead of training a new guy. So they're pretty good at interpreting all that data themselves and then bringing it to us, but giving it the more simple, the layman's terms to it as opposed to. hey, your vertical y axis is a negative two today. Usually we like it at that plus one, you know, it's like, hey, you're a little arm side today. We need you to be a little more glove side.

Like that's the way to do it. But they're pretty, I think they took that into account when they got like this, the group that they have together. Because like you said, if you don't have a guy like Sam and just like you, I was fortunate enough to play with Sam, just like I was you. Shout out to Trevor's playing days. my first year in Tampa, I got to talk with Sam, and you could already tell he was already in that mindset of

he's going to be a good front office weapon, essentially. He can do anything you need him to do. So having that guy is invaluable to a team when you can make your team better, and then he's a sought-after guy after that. Like he'll be a GM at some point. He'll do a lot of great things. But, yeah, we've got a few of those guys here that, you know, down the road, when you see him in a front office,

you'll be like, well, I'm not surprised at that because there's such a good mind that. you know what they were doing now they have a capacity for way more than that yeah you came from Tampa where all the coaches got poached including the one the manager here rocko he's done an amazing job and now it seems like twins are kind of turning the coaches over as shelty goes to to Pittsburgh what's the one thing that since you've come here you think they've helped you improve on like what is is there a statistic or something that you were doing that they've improved on or are you just trying to hone in on what you were already doing I think getting back to

what I was doing when I was at my best is what I've kind of learned here with Wes. He, there's another gentleman I work out within the offseason. His name is Randy Sullivan. He does the Florida Baseball Ranch, and he's got a PT background, but he's got the pitching side of it as well. So he can make these programs for guys help you with your mobility, get you back mechanically sound how, you know, you may have been and had an injury or whatever it is.

You get out of whack and break those habits. So I'd already started all this stuff. And then when Wes got hired on here, Wes and Randy used to work together at the Texas baseball ranch. So what Wes was wanting everybody to come in here and do, I was already three months into it. And so I kind of got an early crash course on how getting more out of your body is what Wes is all about. So your movement patterns, your mechanics, you can take yourself up by not doing anything differently. By not gaining arm strength, whatever it is, but the way your body moves can be tweaked.

And that's what I've been able to do is kind of get that separation, a little more flexibility. and now I'm creating just that little bit more of a rubber band effect, which has made my V-Lo go up, which helps everything else out. As we know, it's just kind of been one of those things where it lined up perfectly for me. Like, who would have thought the guy was working with is almost a clone of the pitching coach that just got hired on? So I'm very fortunate and right spot, right time. But I definitely feel like I'm back to better than where I was when I was at my best. all the preparation analytics and stuff that goes into projecting or changing or tweaking what's the result data that you judge your past seasons on is it still era i used to be wins kind of got away from that yeah is there something you look at that like the first stat you go to so first step that i had to go to now is the era plus stat just because it's one of those blanket ones but i like it a lot better than i like phip x-fip and i'll give you a good view of my thoughts on analytics and those kind of

numbers like it seems like there's whatever number is a positive there's going to be the next year is going to be the negative of that so they almost cancel each other out you know if you can't be good at everything and I think that's the way that you know whoever's making these stats or getting these formulas it's if one gets too high they have to rain you know rain it back in like it's almost like a betting system like oh this guy's plus 500 we need to bring him down a little bit we need to take some points away whatever it may be but I think ERA plus is one of those things with there's not an you know, there's an ERA minus, but it's a lot more confusing than whatever it is. So I like the positive side of computing everybody's stats, taking the ballparks and all that into effect.

And then you kind of know how you size up against the rest of the league where, you know, FIPP's kind of my view of that is like an imaginary stat. Like it's, oh, this should have happened. Yeah. This should, you know, maybe you got it was the basis loaded. You punch out the next three. You, you know, you worked your ass off. You got out of it. But statistically speaking, you should have given up one and a half.

runs so that counts against you even though you had a positive outcome but to each to each stat like said there seems like there's a counter stat now so what what's going to be important it's one of those things where players are going to go on the positive side but if you're using it against a player in a you know an arbitrary setting they're going to use the negative side of it so you know it's what's next who knows but that's the one I think is more of a tell-all than it factors in everything not just, you know, your wins, your ERA, your walks, your strikeouts, your hard contact. Like, there's just so many things you can look at it. What's important to each pitcher, I think, is the type of pitcher that you are.

If you're a strikeout guy, you want to look at, you know, your batting average against. Could be very low because that means you have great stuff, whatever it may be. If you're a contact guy, you want your ground ball rate to be really high. I'm a fly ball guy, so I want my home run rate to be down because that means that they're fly balls. They're not home runs. So that's the kind of things personally that I look at. Are you fingers crossed about the balls coming up? I mean, I don't want to even say what I'm thinking right now because I don't want to jinx anything.

But, you know, I'll leave it. I did pretty okay last year with without, you know, with a ball being a bouncy ball, a tidalist or whatever we're going to call it. So I don't know. I was pretty okay with it. So if they want to keep it that way, it did okay for me last year. I don't want to. Have you felt a difference this year in spring?

Spring's so weird. Like everything feels weird in spring. So I need that, like, season to roll around what actually says major league baseball, not Florida spring training logo because, you know, maybe they just put different stamps on different situations. But it's just one of those things. It's like, I'm trying to think of a good analogy for it. Like, what's the word I'm looking for?

for a like a conspiracy theory. So, you know, it's people believe it. Pitchard, we feel a difference, whatever it is. The outside world says different. So it's like, is there a bigger thing that you just don't want to admit to? And it's fine if it does. Our whole thing, too, of last year at baseballs was, if there's a change, just say it. It's not that big of a deal.

Everyone's got the same system, whatever it is. If there's a difference, great, whatever. You know, just go out and say it because it boils down to, affects a lot of things. You know, if you're going to work on an arbitration system, which I was, you know, very beneficial of when I went through it, but, you know, that stuff matters. So if a new ERA is a three is now a four,

but guys are in that four range and the balls are, you know, higher than it should have been a three. Like there needs to be tweaks to the pay scale, whatever. Maybe hitters same way. Now everybody's a 30 home run guy. And it's, you know, the market for power hitters is much lower, now like power hitters are getting paid less because there's more of them so you know there's there's real life aspects of those changes as well i think that doesn't get maybe brought up as much as just

the pure hey we hit 800 home runs last year that's really that's really good for baseball i think and power hitters you got a couple dudes here i got i got like part a part b if those dudes go out and they put up a five spot early are you same mentality or is it I feel like there used to be this old school approach. You think of like David Wells, and it's like, hey, you know, if we've got a big lead, I'm just going to throw fastballs and get through that. Has that kind of changed a little bit? Or with these dudes, is there a little bit of a mindset change?

And then who's the dude you look at on this team? And you're like, good thing we got that guy. Because we just sat next to Suno, and he was three of me. Yeah, he's a large human. He's a big man. And he's gotten smaller. That's nuts. That's a big thing.

thing too, but, you know, to answer the first part of your question, there's been games where I pitch it. It's four nothing before I even take the field. So, um, mindset wise, I don't know too many David Wells out there anymore. They're just going to have the groove heaters. And we've, we've seen, Trevor Pleasured. You can see five, five runs happen pretty quickly on a non-good offense. If you're just, you know, trying to pitch to contact. And a lot of guys, you know, the pitch to contact thing is almost like an, like an albatross anymore. Like, you know, you know, It's a rare thing that someone's just going to go out there with a 90 mile an hour pitch, just what we'll call it generic, and throw the ball over the plate because it gets beat around.

Now, you got guys just waking up and rolling out of bed, throwing 100. So that's, I think really now, like, pride plays into it because, you know, each day is such a, can be such a special day, and you want to go out there and make the most of each day. And now, especially, you know, the ugly terminology is, you know, people get paid a lot of money to do really well. So at what point is it, you know, all right, let's just speed this game up. Let's get through it. And then when it compares to, you know, maybe you go out and you punch out 12 that day

and you go eight. And it's like, all right, it's 14 to nothing. But our starters just having a career day along with our offense. So that's kind of my mind's on that. And then secondly, we have like Sino, Nelly. And then those two, I think, are the biggest when it comes to like a show to put on. The other day we had a BP group of Nellie, J.D., Rosie, Ansono, and I think that they honestly had to come in and get more baseballs

because they were just peppering balls off buildings out there and everything along those lines. So we got a pretty good power-hitting team, but we can probably put together a pretty good offensive line also. We've been talking a lot about the home runs and the offense, and then so you, as a team, set a record, a major league record, for home runs in a single season, and then you go out and you sign Josh Donaldson to add to that lineup. So you know you guys are going to score runs, but talk about what Josh brings on the defensive

side, because, you know, pitchers need that. You know, you kind of, you don't live and die by your defense, but it's a big part of what you do. Have you been able to see him, like, move around? He's, I think he's 34 years old, and we watched him today, and the way he moves, he's just, he's so athletic, and what does that do for you when you know you have a guy like that? that at third base, ready to just gobble up all the ground balls. Yeah, I mean, it shortens the game just by having a guy that you know that's going to be making the plays, but also making those tough plays too. Like the average major league is going to make all the plays that are to them.

You know, maybe an air here or there, but it's the guys that can do that little bit extra, but it's almost like a given that they get that little bit extra. So all the priming, you know, Aeronado, Chapman, those two especially. I mean, those are the platinum, you know, gold globe winners, year and you're out. you expect them to make those great plays. And it's almost like a, you know, it's a, if they don't make it, you're almost blindsided by like, all right, what do I do now?

But I think over the years watching him in Toronto, playing against him all those years, it's like his defense always stood out to me because he's one of those guys. He always made it look smooth, and he has a great arm to go along with it. So he just knows for a guy that has such a great bat like that, to have that good of a, you know, a glove on him,

that never gets talked about such a talented hitter is a rarity. And he's always in the top, like, three of third basemen. He's never, I don't think he's ever won a gold glove, but he's been, he should be right up there every single year. So, and I think Miggie deserves a lot of credit too for, you know, kind of vacating third base and saying in his pursuit, our pursuit of him is like, hey, I'm happy to move to first base.

So goes to show you that, you know, he's a team player and he's willing to adjust to a new position because he knows the type of player that J.D is. Yeah, as big as big he is, you guys saw him. I mean, he can move. He's one of those guys. It's very surprising how well he can move for his size. And a absolute halitzer, too. Yes, you got a great arm. So, yeah, Longoria, Plouf, and now Donaldson. I mean, you have been, you just have some great.

I've been very blessed at the hot corner, you might say. And how did your guy's friendship start? Was it in, was it when you went to Tampa? Yeah, Tampa. Did you hate him? You're like, L.A. No, there's not a lot. I'm the type of, I don't make any judgments until I meet somebody.

But you get along, you know, you're around long enough. You play against guys. And it's like the one guy that I had a mindset of, like a preemptive thought before I even met him, it was a positive way. It was Joe Mauer. Like, he was the only guy that I've ever not known that I was like, that dude's got to be the greatest dude in the world. And? And lo and behold, I meet him and play with him for a year. and he is like the man's man, the all-American guy,

and exactly has I had pictured him. So that's the only time that it's ever. I've ever been right on having a judgment before meeting somebody. It makes you mad how nice he is. Like he's got all the accolades in the world. I mean, he grew up in Minnesota, you know, then he's drafted, then he does everything,

wins an MVP, and he's just humble. and you sort of sometimes you're like is this fake and then you just realize it is not he's genuinely the nicest person that I've ever met my life yep shout out to joe shout out joe have you ever been ejected yeah once what happened so it was a game against the mariners I'm trying to think it was 16 maybe 16 or 17 I think it was 16 and gave up like four in the first so I was already pissed to start to right into the game. We're, I think I gave up one more. It was five, five nothing. We battled it back. It was five to fours. I was in the six and they made it to the six. So I was like on the up and up. It's a one nothing game again in my head. And there's guy, uh, bases are empty two outs. I, as you can see, I remember very, very clearly. I want to say it was Leonis Martine hitting when he was still with the mirrors, but I might be incorrect on that one. Through two splits back to back.

Two-two count. Should have been strike three on two-two. Run it back, three-two. Move it a little more over the plate. Kirk Casale, another name. Makes it look beautiful. It's inside to a left. The umpire sitting right there, staring right over the top of it.

I start walking off thinking, you know, we're out of it. Six innings. I feel okay with how it kind of... Exactly. He balls me on it. I'm at like 100 and some odd pitches. I know I'm done, so he just kind of had it out right there, and I just threw my hands up, but I'm like, Jerry Meals.

So, yeah, and I don't hold any grudges against umpires or anything like that. I just like I'll always remember that. I always remember the umpire that threw me out for the first time. And, um, you know, obviously I threw my hands and I was like, where is that? Like, where are both of those? And he stills me in there inside. And I just said, no, they're, they're not inside. They're, you know, they're right over the plate.

I'm looking at it right here. You know, trying. It's just a weird thing. I was like, I'm going to give it my best effort with still trying to be a little bit respectful in the fact. but yeah we disagreed and I was done and he gives you the hey that's enough type of thing and I think I said I was like well I'm already out of here anyway so might as well let's just get over and then you go inside you look at it you're like okay those were strikes I'm not crazy because if

they weren't I would have I would have you know saw it and I'm like hey I was wrong man I'm I can admit that but you look at it you're like okay I wasn't crazy I thought I saw what I saw and I did but that's just a matter of opinion when it comes in pitchers have a lot shorter of a leash with an umpire than uh than hitters do it turns out so especially when you kind of make a i made a walk from home from the mound to home hitters can sneak it in like yeah exactly so i have no hard feelings against him this day i think he's umpired a few my games since then it's just one of those things like oh i got one on the books and and that's it and hopefully it'll stay that way unless it's a fiery situation at some point how often are you

going and checking pitches in between innings if you think there you don't know where they are. I check pitches in betweennings every inning just because I want to see what, you know, catchers can make pitches look so good a lot of times that you almost get tricked by, you get a ball called, you're like, man, that looked really good. Am I, what's he saying? Is it off? Is he have it down, whatever it is? And then the ultimate check is to go inside and look at on the video and say, okay, well, that was more often when I thought he brought it back a little bit, brought it up a little bit. So I like to look at each thing. And then it also helps you remember what you did sequencing-wise to that hitter. So I kind of use that as a tool

of going forward to a face-in-the-nex guy the next time what I'd do it in the first time because they're checking the same stuff. They know what you did to them the first at bad. So it's that pitcher, catcher, hitter, cat-mouse game. Yeah, exactly. So you kind of have to stay one above it, but it's a good, a good check system of, am I seeing it correctly, or is it, you know, garb does a good job presenting pitches, so you might be tricked here and there. Last one. Nine of you versus nine of ploof. Prime ploof. And he was a pitcher in high school. I was a hitter in high school, too.

Okay. Give me this mic. I need to defend myself. You go first. I win. I haven't seen you swing, so this is going to be tough for me. I got a couple hits, a couple RBIs. Did we look up my stats?

Because they're probably not going to do. No, we didn't look up our stats again. We were talking about it, but we didn't look it up. Five seconds. What are we taking, like, are we all, like, my glory days of when I was a hitter in high school compared to my pitching now, or, like, do you get a pick and choose what player you are? I think, you know what I mean? Pete pitcher, peak hitter.

Okay. I think you probably. But what about Pete pitcher for you when you were in high school? Can you take your high school stuff and bring it out? No, just as a position player. Okay. Yeah. These questions we've kind of been asking guys, and I'm starting to decide on the side of the pitchers.

because how many runs am I going to put up against Jake Oteresey as a hitter? Four, five? That's not, I'm starting to be an average. The way I'm thinking about it is if we would play this out and you got nine at bats continuously off me, like you were the only hitter. That's true. You would start getting into that. You would start getting into that. Okay, I've seen him once, twice, three times, and now it's nine times later.

Oh, God. All right. You ready for your stats? Eight played appearances. seven at bats, so one walk. That was back in 14. Two hits. Okay.

286. 286. No extra base hits. I'm great slugging. Yeah. So a 661 OPS. 375 on base percentage there. Yeah, three for eight when it comes down to it.

How many strikeouts? Three. Okay. This is pretty even. Three for three. You get three, I get three. We can piece together the rest. So we're playing into 20 innings, apparently.

How's your defense, though? Oh, defense. Top match. What's your, if you had to play position for an inning or a game, what would you feel most confident in? Somewhere on the infield. We've talked about this. Gibby and I used to talk about this all the time,

who was just talking. He was always going to be the replacement outfielder. He was always shagging and running around, and he would be the first to tell you that he was going to be the outfielder. You know, he's heard it. I played shortstop when I was growing up, high school, whatever it is. So that I'm way more comfortable on the infield. And I think pitching to like ground balls, like we get ground balls a lot more than anything else.

Yeah. Back in the day, it used to really be. But that pitching is really hampered that. Oh, you're still doing all right in your day. You're still doing pretty good. I'd say back in the day, I mean like 17, 18, when we were all just at our peak physical form of, you could do anything when you're a high school kid. but no, I think

Let's say tie, we tie. Yeah, I'm fine with the push. Tie, yeah, Jake wins. Spring training, family and stuff is here. You got anything for us, or Trevor as part of the media now? If you have any questions, now's the time. No, Trevor, I've seen Treve. He makes of the appearances at the Hall of Fame for the Twins coming out,

and he makes his pit stops around, so I actually get to see him. He's so pretty popular. He was getting some big love today. Exactly. A little juice, he keeps calling it. Exactly. And I think that's honestly, like the way Minnesota treats their ex-players is pretty special compared to a lot of places that I've been.

And they do a really good job of even if, you know, it's been two years, three years, five years, ten years, whatever may be. Like, you come back and you're like, you're part of the group again. So they do a really nice job. And it's fun to see everybody like, you know, he comes back, more knows there all the time, Joe, Torrey, Hogg, like all these people, there's just a good, it's always fun to have, I hate, this is going to be another word, ex-players, come back and like, you get a hang out and talk, you know, because it's, when you're out of a locker room, it's like the off season, it's kind of weird to get your lingo back in order and be a normal person when it comes to, you get back in the locker room and there's so much, that dynamic is so much different. And when you come back, you just see everybody, like, light up and, and, you just see everybody, like, light up. It's like, man, this is fun again for a couple days. So they do a really good job here. Cool.

Yeah. Thanks for sitting down with us, man. For sure, guys. Thanks for having me. Let you get back to your family and your off day now. Yeah, right? Every day. And that was Jake Odarezi, a teammate of Plouf, fun conversation with him.

He was great beforehand. Afterwards, we chat with him quite a bit. He's a good buddy of yours. Smart guy. That's what I like talking baseball with him. Talking anything with him just because he's got good. inside. Yeah, cool. All right, we'll be back tomorrow with another mini episode and a mini episode after that. And then on Monday, Jake will be in studio with me to run down whatever's happening.

We had to take a deep look at everything that's happening across the league and all that and catch you up on some news. So with that, we're out. See you tomorrow.