Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 155 | Ian Happ Breaks Down Switch-Hitting and Playing Multiple Positions

Episode Date: June 8, 2020

Cubs super-utility man Ian Happ talked with Jomboy, Jake, and Plouffe about his time at the University of Cincinnati, learning to switch hit, his quarantine routine with his new podcast partners, playing for Joe Maddon, being sent back down to AAA in 2019, and what the Cubs could do with a DH slot this season. 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. Hope you had a fantastic weekend. We got a fun conversation with Cubs, super utility, super pinch hitter, super player, Ian Hap. What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to Talking to Baseball. My name's Jimmy.

I got Jake with me. Got Trevor Plouffe with me. What's your middle name? Peter. Trevor Patrick Plouf and Big Baby David producing. We just wrapped up a conversation with Ian Hap. which is really fun. I actually thought there's a lot of insight gained of actual his brain and baseball stuff, Trev.

And I like your question, which I'll let the audience know is coming of why the fuck were you in the minor leagues last year, which can be considered a weird question to ask a guy. But I think you went about it right way and his answer was pretty honest and awesome. Well, I mean, we know the Cubs have a history of doing things for, service time manipulation. But yeah, you know, like the big thing for me with him is, you know, you just look at his numbers and how consistent he was in the minor leagues, brought it to the big leagues, then all of a sudden he spends 100 games in 2019 at the

AAA level. That doesn't make any sense to me. So, you know, I just wanted to see what his thought process was, you know, they gave him a reason, which teams always do. But, you know, I wanted to see you like if it was legit. Yeah. And my, Trev, again, I told you this last episode with. with uh, Hearn, uh, just, fluff, a word you're going to hear in the interview a little bit.

When, when you tell Hap that his next, you know, three, four, five years are going to be, you know, the prime, just stretch it out a little more for them, you know, tell them the next seven. Let, let, let them dream a little bit. No, we don't want to. I'm not a liar. It's probably, I mean, look, once you get to 30, it's tough, bro. No, you're telling me, sister. Um, my back's still feeling it, but, uh, but, yeah, he was good. I, I'll say this. I'll say this. this. He's got a podcast, which we mentioned on there, The Compound. And I like kind of his delivery. Like, he's a little coy, a little real. He's looking to make a joke or two if it's there. But I'm, uh, I'm interested to see. He was cool.

Cool. All right. Well, here's the interview, and then we'll come back to you right afterwards. We are joined by former Cincinnati Bearcat, current Cub, the Happer, Ian Hap. How you doing, brother? Fantastic. Thanks for having me, boys. Thanks for coming on, man. Is that a real animal? It's a real animal. It exists. They bring it from the Cincinnati Zoo to the games.

Put it in a little cage. It's one of like the 50 fans that they get for Cincinnati baseball games when the team was winning 20 games when I was there. It's a scary looking thing though. It's not very big. It's just scary. Oh, it is. I've never even thought to Google it or ask if it was a real animal now that I'm looking at it. Not too hot.

It's pretty ugly. No. No, it's a freaky looking thing. They have like a really big staff. on campus that makes it look like like some sort of wildebeest it is not that it is just like a badger yeah some sort of like cat badger yeah did you did you guys enjoy that like when they bring the bear cat or some guys like hell yeah the bear cat's coming yeah nobody really got too hyped up about the bear cat maybe if it was if it was like a massive creature that was terrifying but it's not it's it's not very

intimidating. It kind of like they're just bringing a road it into the locker room. That's basically, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's something that you would shoe, you would shoe away. You wouldn't be scared of it. Just like, get out of here. Are you a proud Sinci guy? I ask this because I'm a giant Yukon fan. grew up in Connecticut and that's our pro sports team. And Yukon, Cincinnati, for any college basketball fans, I mean, those games go back years and just hard-nosed, well-coached, Calhoun, Huggins, McRonen. So did you, I guess did you just get looped into that culture when you went there a little bit? Yeah, definitely when you're there, when you're on campus.

The cool thing about SINC is all the sports fields are on campus. So like the baseball field, your right field wall pretty much right behind the fence is the basketball arena. And then past center field, left field is the football stadium. And so they're all right on campus, which is really cool when you become a huge UC Bearcat sports fan. Since leaving, I can't say that I'm like watching. every single game and like crying when they lose and breaking TVs. But I do like to see them do well and definitely like to support them. Oh, I go.

Do you hate them, Jake? Is that what you're getting at? No, no, no, no. I wasn't saying that. They genuinely have like a good, like friendly rivalry. Like if one team's up or the other team's down, they're still going to play a good game. The one thing I was going to mention as a quick jab, and I mean, I do have my Jake Sucks hat on.

Is it a huskies would kick a bear cat's ass? I think the year after, or maybe you can loop me in on this, or if you remember this one, I think it was the conference tournament 2015-2016. Jalen Adams hit like a fourth overtime 80-foot shot. That's one of the craziest shots I've ever seen on a basketball court. I was watching live in Dallas and a Cincinnati Bearcat guy was actually going down the street celebrating because he thought they won because they hit a buzzer beater and then Yukon hit one back. It was one of the more nuts college games I've ever talked about. So you don't have to talk about that. But if you'd like to, it's there. That's an example of Jake being a way bigger fan than me. And like, I don't even know

about that moment. We're used to that. We can go to baseball. That happens all the time with us. He starts talking about a game. And this sounds like a big game. So maybe, you know, we should know about it. But Jake is a good. He's very much the biggest sports fan on this on this pod. So thanks, Treve. Part for the course. Worst baseball player, biggest sports fan. Yes. Well, you're putting yourself worse than me?

That was nice of you. I got to fluff everyone up a little bit. Everybody needs a good fluff. How's life been without baseball for you? Do you have, you know, secondary hobbies that you're like, all right, great. Now I can go knock this out. I can up my fishing game or something, or are you just lost? We've been doing a lot.

So I actually am in a house with three other teammates. So it's a pretty incredible house. I am very fortunate. I have a family friend who lets me stay here during spring training. So I have the guest house, which is basically a house in itself. And the other three guys are in the main house. We have a tennis court. We have basketball hoops.

We have a putting green. We turn the garage into our weight room, stole a bunch of weights from the Cubs. We have a pool. So it's been a very easy quarantine for us. But we started a podcast. which has been a fun hobby, learn how to do that. And then a bunch of golf,

I've really gotten into tennis, like really taking up tennis as a sport. And it's a wonderful workout. Let me tell you something. What's the word I'm looking for, serendipity? Yeah, yeah, like a happy accident. Serendipity is like a happy accident.

My wife played high school tennis. She's always trying to get me to play tennis. I'm like, dude, like, I am sick of playing sports. I don't want to do anything. I want to watch football. I want to watch baseball. But she's got me out of the house to play tennis recently. Just the last two days, dude, and I love it.

Tennis is awesome. Are you any good? Like, can you give me some tips? I am just, I'm not. I'm not good. I can say, you know, I've been playing tennis for about eight weeks now, nine weeks. Okay. Got it a lot better since I started.

but I think the YouTube videos is just just go to YouTube just watch as many YouTube videos as you can technique is a huge like it's a huge part of tennis it's like I interesting is my backhand is good I do the two-handed backhand and I'm good at that for some reason yeah my forehand like I got to like do the thing where it's like you bring it up and like have your hand there yeah there's there's just so much that goes into the technique and like you have to feel like you're hitting it straight down like creating top spin is tough serving is very hard Isn't your back hand is just your swing, Trev, right? You were a righty.

So your backhand is your baseball swing? Doesn't that make a lot of sense? That's your opposite. The backhand will be my left-handed swing. Okay. So I, so my forehand's baseball swing, but like, you got a, it's just a different, it's a different thing. Because in baseball, you're like, you're pushing out and trying to keep your, this tennis, it's the opposite. You're trying to create top spin.

Unless you were, like, really good at hooking balls over the third baseman's head. Like, you're just, that's all you're trying to do. You're trying to hit it right into the ground. It's a much different concept, but I've really enjoyed it. Okay, look, I'm just saying maybe in the future, let me work on my game a little bit. You keep working on your game a little bit. I can see a match in the future. I like that.

Why don't you do, like Nadal, he was raised, like his dad made him play tennis the wrong way, right? Because he's a natural righty, so he's got a great backhand. So, Treb, just play tennis lefty. You'll have a fantastic backhand. It'll be your swing. Okay. A lot of weird tennis spins. A lot of weird tennis spins.

That's great strategy at me. I can loop this to baseball because a king of segues. Switch hitting. Do the switch hitting. You got it, Jim. And that's, we'll start working our way up your baseball path. We got tennis and bear cats out of the way. What, when does the switch hitting start?

Because that's every baseball person's question is, you know, did you have someone force it on you? Were you into it? Did it just happen one day? What's your switch hitting story? Yes. So I was a natural righty. My brother is six years older than me, and he played D-1 ball at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh.

So when he was 14, I was eight, he tried to switch it. Did not stick with it. It didn't work for him. But I was eight years old, so I could do it and just worked on it for a long time in the cage. And then, like, we were out big in the game. I would jump over, hit left-handed. And actually, freshman year of high school

was when I was like, all right, full time, I'm doing this, I'm committing to it, and I never look back from there. I had college coach my freshman year tell me my left-handed swing wouldn't work and try to make me hit right-handed into false scrimmage. Hated that, but besides that, haven't looked back. So don't you love the coaches that don't believe in you? I just love that. Those are the best coaches.

They recruit you to, like, come play for them, and they're like, but I don't think you're good enough. Unreal. Everyone's got one of those stories. As a switch hitter, like, do you ever have doubts or like, I know that there's been some switch hitters who were struggling from one side, but not the other. So then they just went and stayed with one. And to me, it's like the options that a switch hitter has there would kind of maybe maybe mentally cripple me if I was going through. Like, oh, my God, where's that?

Where if you're just a righty, hey, there's only one thing to focus on. And I know Mark Tashire said he lost his swing from both sides of the plate every off. season and had to find it. Sometimes you find one, the other. So like, do you have different mindsets depending on what side of the box you're in? Definitely. And I try to treat it as two different people. And you're going to get more left-handed bats and right-handed bats. Just how it's going to happen. And especially in the division that we've played in for the last three years, there hasn't been any left-handed starters in the central, like, at all. So you just get so many right-handed of bats. And like when you go play, when we would go play the West a couple of years ago,

and you had the Dodgers had four left-handed starters and the Rockies had two or three. And you would just be like, oh, my God, like these are lefties. I don't even know what they look like. So you hadn't taken a right-handed bat for three weeks and now you're thrown on the fire. And that's one of the things that, like, I've learned a lot since coming up is how to maintain that swing when you have to get on the machine. And it is a lot of extra work. But it's something that I've always thought whenever I start doubting it or going bad, I always think, you know what that bastard lefty that's coming in throwing from behind you like i'd rather not face him left-handed so that's i think that's one of the things that that keeps me going

are you one of the guys that um i think it was hicks who i played with that did this he's also a switch hitter um and he would against knuckleballers would bat right-handed i believe right-handed ball as he bat right hand did. Is that something that you do? And if you do, like, I never understood why. I've never tried it, but I have, you know, playing for Joe Madden, uh, he would suggest to Zobrist some guys to hit same side against. So I've seen Zoh go same side against some guys. Just because, knockaballers or just like, no, no, no, just normal pitchers because the splits were so, like, same side. The only guy that I've really considered it, and, I haven't faced them since I started considering it was Kershaw.

Because I'm 0 for 6 with six punchouts against Kershaw, so I think it can't get any worse. It can't get worse. I might just go left because his cutter to a righty is so devastating and lefties handle his, you know, his heater slider combo a little bit better. So I've thought about just like getting in their lefty and trying to pull it, just saying, you know, see what happens. Interesting. They said that about Mariano as well.

Lefties had a much tougher time with him than Rides did because of the cutter. So, yeah. I'd love to see it, man. I thought, I thought about it. It's a Kershaw for sure. Yeah. I don't know if I would have the guts to go in there. I'm just going to run up there left-handed.

I might, like, bail out of the bike. He'll be one curveball. I'd be in the fetal position. Yeah, it's almost maybe like a win for him. If he just sees you come up there left, he is like, ha, ha, got him. Well, the other thing is, you know, if he goes to his scouting report and he has the right-handed scouting report, maybe they burn a mound visit.

You know, maybe that helps the team. Okay, I like that. I like that. Is that something players are talking about these days? Like, hey, I bet I can get him to do a mound visit by that bat. I bet I can get him to burn one. I've never heard that one before, but that would be pretty good. Like team guy just goes up there to get him to burn a mountain visit.

Yeah, Doug Gap's just like, good shit. And then you flip around to the other side anyway. Got him. Yeah. I want to ask because Trev's a big Cali guy. and, you know, I'm sure you've probably asked about this or see this around, but, I mean, jumping into this baseball world, there's California guys, Arizona, Texas, Florida, you know, you're a Pennsylvania guy, you go to Sinci.

I mean, did you, I want to know a little bit about the recruiting process and maybe a little bit about before that. I mean, were you going to the AAU tournaments, going to Florida and Cali and getting whooped on because we get some of those stories? What was a little of that process like? Yeah. So you only, you know, Western PA, you play 20 games as your high school season, and then you play a couple months in the summer, and that's it.

So it's definitely tough to get recruited. It's tough to go play for some of those bigger schools. And that was always my goal. I wanted to play in the ACC. And, you know, Maryland, Wake Forest, and somewhere else that I can't remember. Virginia Tech, those were the three schools that, like, were looking at me and talking to me, and I was like, God, I'd love to play there. And I'm so happy I didn't because if I would have gone and played there, I would have sat on the bench for a year or two.

I would have been behind guys that were big money guys from in-state. And I got an opportunity to go to Cincinnati and play from day one. I started my first game of my freshman year. I started every single game that I was there for. And that was huge for me. So the recruiting process, I didn't play a bunch of AAU tournaments. We had a local team that traveled around kind of the, tri-state there and maybe into Michigan or Illinois, but I didn't make the East Coast Pro team,

I didn't make the Area Code team. Like, I didn't make Team USA. Even in college, I went to the Cape, which was my huge break because I got some exposure my senior year because I played really well in high school and was able to get a temp offer in the Cape. So it went up for two weeks before the big boys were supposed to come back, played well enough to stick. And that was kind of the difference maker for me where I was able to get that exposure. I hit a Homer left-handed and a double right-handed in the All-Star game, and I was a first-rounder. Like, it was like, bang, you're a first-rounder now. Like, awesome. That's just great.

So that was kind of my big break, and even going, I never got an invite to go play for Team USA my sophomore year. So I went back to the cave. And I wouldn't, I wouldn't have played for Team USA because I loved my Cape experience so much. We had such a great coaching staff. But, like, even as a guy who was established, who was just really needed to roll out of bed and just do what he had been doing to be a first rounder, I still still really didn't get that exposure and I think part of it was playing for a team at Cincinnati that we were really bad like we were really bad we lost a lot of games and the other part was you know being from Western PA and just not having the same

exposure what's the temp at the Cape like I never I didn't know that was a thing so they have guys come in for like the first couple games and if they're and then the big guys come later is that what you said yeah so with the College World Series and the playoffs the Cape starts early June and those guys are still either at the College World Series and they're super regionals. And if they take, if they take any time to, like, go home and pack and come, like, it's probably two weeks before the full cape is there. So you go up on a temp contract, which is basically a two-week audition. And let's say that each team has six temps, like maybe one, two guys stick around or none. And so I was lucky enough that

I went up there, played really well early, and was able to stick and be an all-stars as a freshman, which was, it was a huge difference maker for me. I mean, the exposure, and I was, you know, I was good Cincinnati. It was a freshman American in that. It was awesome. But that deal, that time contract comes through in the fall. So you know where you're going to play in the fall going into that spring.

So there's no way like I would have played well and gone from being in the Coastal Plains League or the Northwoods League and then say, like, go, come to the Cape. So to have that contract ready to go and then to be able to go up there and perform well, that was. kind of the exposure I needed and the big jolt to my career. Does the Cape League change so much? Like those first two weeks, everyone's just like on pins and needles and, like, fighting tooth and nail for a spot. And then,

then, like, then they come back from the World Series and it's just like summer, fun, relaxed ball. Yeah. It's such an interesting dynamic because you have guys from all over the country. You have guys from the huge schools. And you also have the best players from the smaller schools or from the small Northeastern schools.

And I think one of the funny things I've talked about with some people is when you would look at the lineup card in the cape, it would always have the way our coach would write it. It would have the pitcher and where he was from and the hit and where he's from. And so when you would look at the board and you'd see the pitcher that was from like a Texas or a Florida or you'd be like, all right, that's fine. When you would look at the pitcher who was from like Cal Poly State Tech, you'd be like, oh, fuck, why is that guy here? He must be nasty. Like, he had to do something crazy to get here. Awesome. So, like, those were always the dudes where you were like, I don't know who this guy is, but he's definitely good.

When in that summer did Jessica Beal get out of the swimming pool? You know, I never saw her, which is weird. When I think of the cape, that's exactly what I think about. Yeah, I don't know how I never ran into her. I was always looking, but I guess I wasn't mowing enough lawns including enough pools to find her. Oh, man. Sorry, I just thought it. That's all I think about when I hear about the cape, I didn't go to college, so.

That and Hall Pass does the Cape Cod League too, right? We're like they like hook up with the college kids. So yeah, that's what it's all about. Hall pass. I was the only one watching Freddie Prince, I guess. Yeah. Damn. A terrible pitcher.

I would have taken Freddie Prince up top. As a high school, I would just want to the Cape and took Freddie Prince up top. Dude, how stupid is he walks away from like a perfect game in front of scouts to just go tell a girl like see later? Yeah. He's not the right girl. Sorry. It's love. Yeah.

I want to hear about the podcast you started up. What do you guys have been doing? You started up a podcast and you already have, you know, big A-list actors joining. How's all this happened? Yeah, the power of the Cubs. It's been awesome. So we had been wanting to get into podcasting. I thought it would be a cool way to connect with fans.

And I had these guys in the house. And I was like, hey, we're going to start a podcast. And, you know, like, nobody's going to listen. This is going to be stupid. I was like, no, seriously. Let's just see how it goes. Like, we had nothing else to do. So we started and had a couple teammates on and you just kind of go through like people you've met through the Cubs.

So we had Jeff Garland on, Jake Johnson. We actually interviewed Jeremy Piven and that one will be coming out soon. So to have some of these people who are huge Cub fans who just love to talk baseball, I think one of the coolest experiences has been how interested those guys are in our stories and talking to us and asking us questions. Like, I think Jake Johnson might have actually asked us more questions than we asked him, which, like, for a dude who, you know, I've watched New Girl, I've watched Let's Speak Hops. Like, I love his comedy. I think he's great. And just to, like, hear how much how genuine of a Cub fan he is and how much he wanted to know about our stories.

That was awesome. That is awesome. Everyone says I sound like him on the breakdown videos, but really just on those. Like, that's the biggest thing. Is this Jake Johnson? But he's awesome. I love him. And the episode before that, you guys had your mom's on.

So you're just winning every. We did a Mother's Day special, a Mother's Day special featuring our moms. And like they came on and told stories about us and you kind of asked for like your favorite story as a kid. And that was pretty cool. It was cool just to, because we had been away for one for full long, you know, being out here, away from our families. And we really thought that people could relate to that because everybody's going through something similar. So it's called the compound for anyone who wants to check it out. You guys already got like 400 reviews.

Yeah. I mean, people are supporting. It's been awesome. Yeah, it's called the compound because that's what we call this crazy house that we live in. I love it. And me and one other guy that's doing it with me, Dakota Mechis, we're going to drive back to Chicago together. And so we're going to do the podcast from the road this week. We're going to see how that goes.

It's awesome. That's fun. What's been the biggest learning curve or the hardest part? I do all the editing of it on garage band, and I think that that has been like, it's time-consum. for sure and making sure everybody sounds good. You know, baseball players who are employed or sometimes employed by a team makes it so that you can't say anything too crazy. So making sure that everything's, you know, the way that you want it.

And it's just, it's time consuming. It really is. And putting interviews together. So the editing part has been a challenge. And it's cool to learn a new skill, though. And I feel like I've gotten a lot better at that since episode one. when I was like deleting the entire episode four times like what the fuck this isn't it working have you guys recorded and forgotten to record yet no the only recording issue we had

was actually during the mom's episode and I I had my mom on we did an interview uh and I went to put it into the piece and didn't exist the file was corrupt like didn't exist and so we also did an ESPN interview for mother's sake so kind of a cool story where I had Homer my debut, which was the day before Mother's Day, we were in a pink jersey. So we went on ESPN and did that story. And that got messed up too. So in two days, we had to redo two different interviews with her. And she's like a college professor.

She's like, what the, like, I can't be on TV anymore. Yeah. Like I got done. Well, in a way, maybe she's used to just repeating like, you know, a lecture a couple times a day. She's like, I'm good at this. I can do it. Yeah.

Yeah. As long as I've said it once, I could say it a million time. That's funny. Well, if you ever have any questions or need help with editing. Yeah. I'm the idiot. that always forgets my audio and it's no no you've just started trev we've done it we've recorded so many episodes and then we're like oh that didn't record at all yeah i think the nice the nice thing for

us is that we were we're all in the same place and so we're just we're i'm literally hitting record and we have one microphone we have a you know a microphone that gets everybody so i think as we go our separate ways and continue the podcast there's going to be more and more of that and i'll just be getting so angry at everybody else. Yep, that sounds about right. That's awesome, man. That's cool. Yeah, thank you.

You guys are the guess I'm jealous of. Send us Jake Johnson. That would be fun. Yeah, I should have a blast with him. I got something, but I don't know how to, like, approach it. Okay. I'm just bear with me here because I'm going to try to bring it all together. I'm looking at your stats.

I'm looking at your baseball reference. I'm looking at your minor league stats. You've been a stud. You're drafted in the first round. ninth overall. You're a stud. Get to the big leagues. Your numbers are essentially the same as they were in the minor leagues.

2017, your eighth in the rookie of the year, 842 OPS, 2018. Again, you played 142 games that year. 760 OPS, down a little bit, but still a good season at the plate. 2019 comes around, and I read up about this a little bit. You played, what was it, Jake, 99 games. in the minor leagues before you came back up to the big leagues. What, like, what happened? Like, why?

Trevor wants to fight someone on your behalf. I'm not happy about it because I, you earned your spot there. And then all the sudden, and I read the reason why, you know, they said that you needed to work on your contact. You were striking out a little bit too much. I just, I just don't buy it. You've been a study, you've been putting up numbers, and all of a sudden you're in AAA.

What, like, what was that? You had to be angry with that, right? Oh, yeah. It's hard. It's hard. I think any time that you spend that much time with one group, and the Cubs, we were a group that had been together for a long time. You know, the guys before me had been together since 15, 16, won the World Series together, and I came to be a part of that in 17 and really was a part of coming from the World Series hangover and being behind and then overtaking the division at 17, putting a really good run together in 18 to win 95 games, and then to be told to. days before we break that hey man you're not coming with the team it's like the worst part of that was was that you feel like your teammates and your friends are going to into battle without you and that's all you were expecting to do so that that was the hardest part for me um but yeah i didn't understand it uh it was difficult to swallow um and you're it's just out of your control i mean there's a lot of

factors that went into it i think that uh statistically i felt like i had performed well enough to to be on the team, at least be one of the 25 guys that gets to wear the Jersey. My OPS was not terrible. My on-base percentage was very good the year before. I had walked a ton. And the strikeouts were hot, 100%. And playing every day, I think it took me a month and a half for two months to stop being angry and start kind of figuring out what I need to do to get back.

And that's a tough part of it because you don't have a timeline. It's like just drowning. and so that part of it was difficult. I had a great year when I came back, which was super, super positive. So did you think it helped you? Like, do you like, okay, so you go down, they say, work on your swing, we want you to make more contact.

You go down there, obviously you're going to be mad. Like, no one's going to be happy about that. Did you do something mechanically, or was it just like you just focused on maybe when you got the two strikes, you put the ball and play more? Because that seems like that. I mean, you could easily fix your strikeout percentage. If you just said, I'm not going to 02, I'm just going to shorten up and just try to put the ball in play.

But is that what? I'm just so confused with the whole dang thing. I don't like it at all. But did you make a mechanical adjustment? And if you did, what was it? Yeah, there's a couple of things there. I think the first thing is when you don't get to play every day in the big leagues, hitting in the big leagues is so hard.

Oh, my gosh. So hard. So from a team standpoint with the Cubs and where we've been for the last few years, is you're coming in and out, of those 142 games, how many of those were defensive replacement roles in the 7th, 8th, 9th in 18. And there's a lot that goes into that. And so I made a, I was basically told in the off season of 18, like 8 need to strike out less. Okay.

And I said, okay, I hit 15 home runs. You know, I had 24 the year before. I had 15 home runs. you know i want to be i want to get back to the guy in 17 who was very very good and how do i how do i make that adjustment and and so i i overhauled my swing in the offseason of 18 going at 19 um doing stuff that i thought would help i thought would uh would make me better it made me very very bad i had an awful spring training um but i was but i was working on stuff in spring training. I was grounding out the second a lot because I was just swinging at high fastballs and putting

him in play and trying to say, here, look, I can put the ball in play. Like, this is what spring training is for, right? And then before I know what I'm in AAA, and then you're trying to make the adjustment in games in AAA and you're pissed and you're wearing a two flap and everything's wrong with the world. And then, uh, so when I got back to the big leagues, I'd had a really good in AAA. I had figured some things out and gotten back to some of the things that made me good in 17. You know, that weren't adjustments that I had made. They were, hey, remember in 17 when you were a good player? Just go be good again. And a lot of it has to do with confidence and being able to play every day. Because in AAA, what were they going to say? Like, you're down? Like, no,

it doesn't matter if you're hitting a buck 10. Like, you're hit, you're playing. So that was helpful. And then, even when I got back to the big leagues, I wasn't, it wasn't all perfect. I put the ball and play more. My strikeout rate was better. But I still wasn't getting enough hits and then when we got knocked out, Riz, like, destroyed his ankle and I got to play some first before we were knocked out. And then when we really were knocked out and guys who had played the whole season said, we've had enough, I got to play every day. And so those last 10 days, two weeks, I got to play every day. I raked. I dominated like three series in a row. I was the NL player of the week, reigning NL player of the week, by the way. Maybe longest ever.

Maybe longest ever. But no, but that was like, that was the turnaround. Like when I really got to play every day and kind of put some of the stuff into play that I knew I could do, that consistency was, I was like, look, I can do this. Like I just had a 900 OPS in the big leagues over 66 games or whatever, 50 games.

It's like, I'm good enough to do this. It's just got to go out there. You're also 24 in 2019. I mean, like, you're coming right into the age where you're just going to blow up. I mean, these next three, four years, they're going to be, you know, Ian Hap best of the best years.

I'm not going to say service time manipulation. I'm not going to say that. Well, I didn't say it either. I was, I would have been, if I would have been up the whole year, I would have been a super two. I'm not going to say it, but I'm going to say it. Yeah, I'm not going to say it.

Yeah, I didn't say it. Yeah, I didn't say it. Don't you're not saying it. But the, I think the tough part is, too, when you play for a good team and wins, you know, wins are really, really important. And when, you know, when the team thinks that you won't contribute to wins, that's tough pill to swallow.

And I think that part of it was like, like, man, they have 25 guys they think they could win with and not being a part of that group. Like that's a, that's a real gun punch. I don't think you can, I mean, you being in the big leagues, you know, as much as you were 17 and 18, and then having to take that step back, mentally that's just like, it's a blow. And I don't know. I mean, people will say, oh, dude.

you'll be okay it's it's just like you said you want to be there with the guys um that you've played with the last two years and anybody that plays professional baseball the only thing you want is to be in the big leagues like there's no happy medium it's like oh i'm in i'm in triple no dude it's big leagues are bust that's it i earn my spot and now you're telling me to go back and re-earn it again when you've been in the big leagues for two years too and like gotten accustomed to that lifestyle and like made Chicago your home. And I spent two off-season not in Chicago exclusively,

but kept my place. It really had become home for me. And then they're like, hey man, the Southwest flight leaves at 5 a.m. And you can check into the Marriott when you get home. And because we don't know how long you're going to be there, so don't get a place. And also, we're not going to pay for your place in Chicago.

And you're like, awesome. This is great. This is what I signed up for. So that's that, I mean, It's just an adjustment. It just, and everybody goes through some sort of version of that, I think, throughout their career. You know, even the guys on our team that are super established. Yes.

Riz got sent back. Havi got sent back. Schwab got sent back. KB is a legend. But, like, everybody goes through some sort of that process. And unfortunately, for me, it was a longer period of time. And it'll affect the way I get paid for the rest of my career. But, like, it's just what happens.

It's how it goes. Crazy. Well, you said you dominated the end of the season. and Trev, I'll read off the numbers for you because you're like this. Last 17 games, last 45 played appearances, 395 batting average, 907 slugging 1.329 OPS. Raining, Raining player of the week. Yeah, okay. Now let's say on how long.

Keep those at-bats going into this spring training. I mean, 27 at-bats this spring, 4-81 batting average, 1.315. OPS. You've been hot. Yeah. It's just going to keep going. As soon as we come back, same stats. I love it. You know what it was that they got you on this streak? It for sure was those 99 games in AAA. That's exactly what it was. Those are always the ones that help. I think coming back up and being able to say

that in that period of time, you know, I hit 11 home runs and had some of the production that I was looking for. That it was able to carry me through the off season. And it really put me in a place this spring where I was super confident coming in and can say, like, look, I feel like this is my job and I can go play. And it was definitely nice. It's awesome. Let's talk about the other side of the ball. You've played every position besides shortstop and catcher. You pitched for an inning.

Do you have a love? Do you have like your heart at one spot? Or do you like being all around? I think there's a balance. I think when you first come up, just getting on the first. field and being able to play anywhere. It's huge, especially when you're playing for Joe Madden, just like the, because he will literally put you anywhere. I had not, I had come up as a second basement. So I played at some outfield in college, but I came up as a second baseman. Basically,

them saying, like, hey, we want you to play second. And Hoppy wasn't established yet, and Addison was the shortstop. And it was kind of like, you know, there's going to be a spot on the field somewhere. So then I get up. And I'm playing right field in game one because because Hayward's hurt. And then I'm playing center field and I hadn't played center field since college. And so like I just got thrown into the fire. So for me, kind of the cool experience of being in AAA as, you know, everything else was not great, but playing center field for 99 games. I played like maybe a couple games at second. But for the most part, I played just a ton of center. So getting to play there every day and learn the position, I felt really confident. And it was something I hadn't gotten to do in my professional

career yet because I was really confident at second base when I called big leagues and then became an outdoor. So I think that that part of it, because you get labeled so quickly as like either bad at everything defensively or like really good at one thing. I don't think anyone's ever like, this guy's utility guy and he's awesome at all the positions. Like he should win a gold glove at nine. So I think even being good athlete and really, I played really a good second base my first year in the week. Like I played a lot of games. I made two errors and one of them was like on a diving play. Like I was like I'm a good second base man like I can do this and you get labeled as a bad defender and so for me to be able to lock down one position and like be able to do it consistently and

and kind of prove that I can I can play defensively somewhere that would be great. Do you so sometimes analysts, pundits or whatever like I think Jake and I've done it for some Yankees players before. Do you tie your batting statistics to the position you're playing that day at all? Like you know sometimes you were like well for you, you, Your best numbers actually come when you're a pinch hitter, which is bullshit. Like how the fuck are you so good at pinch hitting? Glaver had massive splits.

When Glaber played shortstop, his numbers were better than when he was playing second base. So people said that. He's more comfortable. Does that even, is that real at all? I'll touch on one thing about my pinch hitting. Might be the best pinchitter of all time.

Look those. Your pinch hitting numbers are bullshit. I am a nasty pin shitter. Treve, you see these? What does this trick? Dude, 296. I've better. Sucked at pinch shitting.

2.96 batting average 4. 09 OPS 1.057 OPS as a pinch hit. Like, that's bullshit, man. No one's supposed to be that good at pinch hit. Yeah, but you got to go, you got to get some more bats in AAA. You're not. Yeah. I'm not ready yet.

I think the most difficult part, I don't have one position I think I like rake at, but I do, I do think that not knowing where you're going to play and the preparation that goes into not knowing where you're going to play can affect. hitting and not knowing if you're going to be able to play one position for the entire game or, you know, I think that it's all part of it. And I had a great teacher in Ben Zobras was able to tell me like the way that he prepared and the way that he thought about it and he was back and

forth all over the place. And one of his mantras was to just be as vanilla and as safe as possible. You just, you play the ball off the wall, you hit the cut off me in the chest, like just whatever, because if you're playing more than one position, you just don't try to do too much because that's when you get yourself in trouble. And that was something that I really learned a lot from him and watching him was just the consistency that he was able to go out there and play the game. If the Cubs are up, you know, the division's locked up, you got 10 extra games. Are you going to go tap Rossi on the shoulder and be like, hey, man, I never caught her played short. Only two I haven't. I don't need to catch. I don't think I would love to play short stuff.

Just for like, just give me an inning it short. I think if I get an inning it's short, then maybe at some point I'll be like, hey, man, if there's a position player throwing, just let me sit behind the dish. Like, catching's terrifying. I don't really want to do it. But I think that playing shortstop, like to have eight of the nine would, like, how's shortstop the one that I don't have, you know? Well, only the creme de creme of athletes make it as a big league shortstop.

So it's like, you know, that's your last one. How quickly were you kicked from short? What? How quickly were you kicked from short? I'm just saying, like to be a big league shortstop, you got to be really super athletic and like pretty much the best athlete out there. That's why I just want one inning.

I don't claim to be the most athletic. I just want the one, I just went three out. I don't know what the twins were thinking. I don't know. I like what you're saying about a non-catcher catching when a position player pitches. Just make the whole battery, you know, first timers. That's the only way I would do it.

I would never catch an actual pitcher. couldn't pay me enough money to like sit back there and be like hey man you know call the game and then and then catch it i was like i'm just gonna get hit in the face mask 10 times like i'm not doing i just had a really good house though now trav i had a real good hypothetical on twitter i just tweeted out and it was would you rather catch an eraldus chapman fastball full catchers equipment but you have two cleats on your hands or no catchers equipment but a catcher's glove catcher's glove but do you don't have a face mask so what Or a cup.

Or a cup. Yeah. What if he spikes? You're going to go like this? But you got a mask on at least. You have to, I mean, you don't have to catch it. Can you get it out of the way? Like, you can't possibly catch it with spikes on your hands?

Can you just, like, dive out of the way? Do you think it's going to feel good to get hit with an Errol of Chapman fastball because you have a face mask on? No, but it's not going to kill me. Could be better than death. I don't know. I don't know. Wow.

It's easy question for me. How about when you got Tassman? into pitch when you took when you got on the mound was that uh were you eager to do that did you volunteer that was awesome i uh we were getting smoked by the cardinals and joe was trying to save some arms and so rizzo had always wanted to pitch like always wanted to pitch but we we were out like we needed somebody in the seventh eighth and nine so i believe carotini through the seventh um He threw the eighth. He threw the eighth?

Yeah. Did I throw the ninth? Yeah. Okay. So Riz got one out in the seventh because he got one out. And so Caratini came in, I think gave up a couple hits or homeowner or something. And then I got the nine. So when I wasn't on the game yet, so when I found out that I was maybe going to pitch,

I ran to the locker room. My brother was living in the city with me at the time. And I texted him. He wasn't at the game. So I wasn't starting. I texted him. I was like, you got to get down here. I think I might pitch.

And I was like in the sixth. So I come back down, I'm ready to go. I go out there and Joe's don't blow out, whatever you do. I'm like, okay. So first batter, Harrison Bader. I'm throwing four seams. I'm like, I'm going to sneak it above his barrel. I got this.

Like 1-0. And then first, like, first strike I threw. It was just a bang, like right center, 180 miles an hour double. Like, okay, that's not great. Then I get Jerko. I start throwing two seams. I'm like, I'm going to change it up. We're going to start just the gravity.

ball sink it in i get jerko jam sandwich pop up to short strand the guy at second i get uh colton wong to roll over to hovey at second okay so we got man on third two outs two o to dexter and i get another nice gravity ball down and away dexter rolls over to hobby out of the inning no runs i was like walking off the mound like i made keep the ball i don't know if i kept anything uh i think i was like I had a massive adrenaline. I was, like, so happy to get out of it and, like, not have my arm fall off. I think I was throwing, like, 75.

I don't know what to do that again. Was he putting down signs for you? Yeah. I think it was just once. We never even, I was like, I was like, dude, I'm only throwing fastballs. Because I never wanted to be the guy that came in and, like, was throwing 95, like, I can't throw 95, but, like,

was trying to throw hard or was spinning it. Because, like, I had face guys that, like, will do that or, like, throw in, side arm or something and I was like I'm just look if you're going to get hits you're going to get like I'm going to try to get you out and not throw right down the middle but like so we can get the fans out of here but like I'm not going to try to trick you because I know how hard it is up there would you have been insulted if a guy switched and and batted uh the other way like hobby batted lefty versus the position player pitching I don't think I would have been insulted but if the swing

was ugly and he had this like tapped one back I would have been like the fuck are you doing but like hop like hobby almost hit a fucking home or so it's kind of like it's a beautiful thing yeah yeah yeah

pretty cool all right I got this is one question I always like to ask guys especially hitters who's the guy that you face

that that dominates you like who's your who's your guy that you're like I can't so it's Kirshah I'm looking up numbers

right now I mean yeah I see I see that I have a few guys here that you don't like I've also looked at the guys you bangs that's going to be the next question oh love that um let's start with a good question guys

that i do not hit well and that i've actually faced a lot i would say trying to think in i mean trying to think in the division some of the brewers uh starters i don't i don't do that hot against uh that's the one guy i was looking at i don't think i've done very well against um davies but i have walked some that's my guy that i was looking at davy's You have the most at bats against him without a hit, I think. Yeah, I've walked against him. I've started a train of walking, but no, I don't hit him well. But I'm trying to think besides that, I do pretty well in the division.

That's kind of like I've been pretty successful in division. All right, let's go to the next question then. The guys that you bang. You mentioned in division. I can go to one team specifically, the Cardinals. I think I've hit Wayne Wright very well. I think Carlos Martinez very well. Um, walk up.

Wainwright. Yeah, it's big. Six for 11 with two homers and a doubles. Yeah. 5.83 on base percentage. I've got Yvonne Nova. Yes. I've hit a home run on each of his three pitches.

So when he got traded to the white, to the white socks, I was a little sad. Um, and the reds guys, like the reds have a whole new coaching staff now, which is unfortunate, but,

uh, I've hit some homers against the reds. So, you mean, say in division and a lot of your a lot of the guys you've hit home runs off of you've hit more than one home run off of like i think there's 11 guys so is it a comfort thing are you diligent with note taking and prepping and remembering what these guys how they faced you yeah i think like the i don't know this might sound weird but the way that i kind of visualize and see guys i see the

shapes of their pitches right before that's thrown like you see the shape in your head and so you kind of know like what two pitches look similar like so if it's if it's a guy that throws a fastball change up curveball like I can kind of say like all right if I eliminate the curveball the fastball and change up look similar so I can stay on those two pitches and I know where I'm trying to hit it and the more you face guys think that's the crazy thing about getting sent down to triple A if people think you stink is like well I don't get to see these guys I don't get to learn I don't get to get better so the like why that I think I have had a lot of success in

division is because I've just seen them so much more. And I get starts in the division because early in my career I did well in division. And so that breeds like, hey, when we're playing the division, you're going to get a start because you've done well. And when, you know, the first time around the NOS, when every team won 90 games and the Dodgers and the Rockies and, you know, Arizona and they were all good and you don't get hits. So then the next time you play them, you don't get a start. And then you don't get enough at bats to like, oh, I understand how this guy throws and what it looks like. And so I think that that that It's just a process to being a big league.

There's a reason Anthony Rizzo hits everybody because he's seen a pitcher who looks like that guy. Like when you come back in the dugout and he's like, this guy reminds me of Joe Schmoe from 2012. And you're like, no fuck. But like once you're in the league for three or four years, like you can kind of put it together like, all right, this guy is similar to Carlos Martinez.

And like Luis Castillo, the reason why it hit him well when he first came up is because his shit was very similar to Carlos Martinez. And like that's kind of some of the similarities. that you start to put together. Trevor was telling us how he had a batter, a kind of a mirror batter in the league, that if you wanted to see how a guy was going to pitch him,

he would go look at this guy and see how that guy got pitched. Do you have someone like that where you'll check to see how the pitcher face them because they'll probably face you the same? Good question. Around the league is, I don't have someone around the league. I think I watch a lot of the way that guys pitch Schwab before I hit from a lefty perspective. I think guys will pitch us pretty similar.

but around the league that's a great question it's tough because like you don't want to like i would like to think like i watch a lot of josh donaldson swing right-handed because i like his moves and i think you know mine's a one athletic different version of his but like i i i would think that guys would try to attack us in similar ways but like he also is an MVP so it's like guys aren't going to attack me the same way they would attack Josh Donaldson because they're terrified of his thumb. Like you have to find guys that you think you swing similar to and that also have like similar holes to you. So, um, yeah, that's a good question. What, um, let's let's go back and it's, it's funny that it's like, it's almost weird to talk

actual baseball because like for this year because A, we don't know what's going on. And B, before this, I mean, all the Corona stuff was crazy. But. We, and Trev, let me know if I, if I overstep my boundaries and I'm interested to see, but Jason Kipness, because he played in the AL Central a decade ago, knows Trevor. He was on to start this, and, you know, he's a guy that plays one of your positions. And I wonder how does that relationship go? I mean, is it day one shake hands? I know I click around a lot of internet websites and a lot of places have you penciled in for

outfield. but I guess the Cubs and you in some of your relationships with these new guys or what you mentally had yourself penciled in for this year? That's a great question. I'll tackle the last part of that first is that I think that for me it'll be more of an outfit role this year. But I think the Cubs have done a great job of bringing in guys that you would compete for a position with, like a John Jay or a Jason Kipness, who are incredible human beings and great teammates. And I think that that has made it very easy to root for your teammates, to make sure that you feel

like you're making each other better and that it's not a malicious competition. So I would applaud the Cubs on like the types of people they brought in for those roles. And, you know, John Jay and I split a lot of time my first year. actually I came up and ended up playing a lot of center field when he was a guy that was assigned to kind of take most of the right hand to bats. And he was nothing but like the best dude in the world. He was basically an extension of our coaching staff. And when we needed him in August, September, when they finally let him start to play a little bit more, he was huge impact for us and started in the playoffs and was able to help us beat the nationals of the playoffs at year. So like that's the type of dude that like when I, you know, for being a rookie and being able to.

able to see that selflessness in the way that he played and how positive he was. I will, I think for the rest of my career, I think he's one of the best teammates I have ever and will ever have. So I think that that made it a lot easier and kind of clear for me to see how the relationship should work. I'm a big John Jay guy. I mean, I've known him for a long time. We have mutual friends.

I'm a big Miami baseball player guy. I love all those guys. But yeah, Kip is the same way to me. Like you said, these two are just genuinely good human beings. and they want to compete, but they know how to do it in a way that's like, we're all, like a rising tide raises all ships. We're all going to be in this together and we're all going to get better. And then whatever happens happens.

And I think the guys that are the good veterans that don't try to demean younger players and make them feel like shit, those guys understand because they've been around long enough that you don't know what it's going to look like 20 games into the season, 30 games into the season. Like somebody can get hurt, somebody can get hot, anything can happen. and you know that whatever spring training is supposed to look like in pencil and it as, the one thing that you can be sure of is that's not what it'll look like at the end of the year. So the guys that are good vets and they understand that and they don't put too much pressure on what happens to the first 20 games of the season,

those are the dudes that I've always tried to stick with. Does the news of a DH excite you? Because as a super utility being able to play everywhere, I mean, that opens up a lot of options for Cubs guys to go get a day, DH, and you can replace them in the field no matter what the position. It's got to be exciting. Yeah. I think huge for us as a team, I think, because we have kind of the best NLDH ever in Kyle Schwerver,

but also because our catching situation with Victor Carrotini, who's fantastic and a switch hitterer, and also Wilson Contreras, who's, you know, the last two All-Star games started catching. So I think it gives them a chance to get more bats. It gives us a chance to spell Riz and like all that stuff for our team. It does wonders. So the DH is 400, 500 to 600 more plate appearances spread out between however many guys you want to give it to. And if you give me 100 of those 500 or 600 plate appearances

each of the last two years, or 17 and 18, I guess, when I was up for the full season, that's 550 and 550 at bats for two years. Like that's a huge, huge difference. So I think those at bats, just in general, being able to have any amount of them is huge. Yeah, but you know, what's funny is that'll bring, almost bring the end to pinch hitting. Like there will still be some pinch hitting.

I don't know what you guys are going to do specifically as a team, but my experience in the AL is. But they're changing it, Trev. Now with the four mandatory four bench spots, like that may help it because, you know, the last couple years, teams have only had three guys on the bench and one's the backup catcher. So pinch hitting's been dead in the AL for a while. But mandating that 26 guy being a bench. guy will help a little bit because I still want pinching to be part of the game. I don't know if it will.

I mean, maybe. But, you know, the biggest thing that it will happen is you'll get actual days off and in the National League. There's no such thing as like a real day off. Unless you're a guy. Unless you're a guy guy. And they say you've played 10 a row. I don't care what happens today.

You're not hitting. Like that's... Even then, dude, you have those games. It's like, you're in the 10th inning. Like, fuck. I got to put my spikes on or whatever. Yeah. The way that it's been talked about for us,

and I think for some of the other NL teams, is that the roster construction, because nobody knew this was coming, was constructed more for some of the platoon roles and some for guys that were specifically supposed to pinch it. And so I think there will be more in the NL, at least this year, probably next year, than you've seen in the AL.

But it's like over time, how will that develop? like teams are just teams love to have guys that they can swap in and out and play the video game with and say like this guy's supposed to get hits against this guy so i think that you know there's teams are constructed that way where you're not gonna you're not gonna see nine guys that go play every or eight guys to play every day and then just guys that are pinched runner or bench guys i got to ask about madden because i i want to know the inner workings of the dress-up days and the costumes and bringing a penguin into the clubhouse and a magician and all that shit. Like how do you find out that there's like a Joe Madden event in the clubhouse happening? You know, some of them come from Joe, or came from Joe.

And some some will come from players. I think he was really open, especially as the years went on, because 15 and 16, I'm sure they were more Joe-centric events. But as 17, 18, 19, like, he would ask players, like, what do you guys want to do?

And it would be like, Riz would have a day or Lester would have a day and like dress up his stroby day, like stuff like that where it was more coming from the players and less coming from Joe. And I think that what people never got to see kind of behind the scenes was our strength coach, Tim Bust, who was an absolute legend in the game. He was the strength coach for the Cubs for 19 years, probably the longest 10 years strength coach ever in baseball like this dude is an absolute legend and he coordinated a lot of some of that stuff he would he was the heart and soul of our team he would do everything um to keep guys up he was

like our mental skills and every part of it has the strength like he had so many different hats that he wore and so i think like that was an underrated part of of our team and joe took him to Anaheim so we we have missed him but but that that dude is is a special special human I love that love that he gets a shout out right here because like you said I never heard of that I've never heard of him but I'm sure that anybody that's coming to contact with him will share the same sentiment as you so I'm glad that he's getting some some air time right now man yeah his his stories because you know 19 years he was with Sammy and with ramos Ramirez and like Greg Matt like all these dudes and to hear his stories

and when Wrigley was before it was redone, there was only one wait room and the visitors would have to come over and work out in the tiny home weight room. And so he got to know all the dudes across the league and anybody who played the Central, you know, until up until 2017, like knew him well. And he's just the best dude ever. And I think that that, you know, Joe's coaching stuff, he's put together in Anaheim is really, really good. And I think one of the keys to that is Kim Bus. Boss is such a good name for a strength coach. It's two S's too. It's perfect.

Yeah. I was going to ask and go back to Madden a little bit because me and Jimmy have seen this for a while. We're naturally Yankees fans. That's how this all started. So we saw, you know, throughout the raise years and as it developed. And, you know, being a manager nowadays, a lot of it is taking the players mind off it in distractions. And Madden, you know, did that to big levels, whether it was the penguin or the magician. and I kind of like when Trevor was talking about pitchers you rake against and pitchers who got you

what's what's like the one highlight that jumps out that you're like damn there's a penguin in the locker room is pretty cool and what's the one low light that you're like all right i'm kind of in a slump right now get this magician out of my face oh man that was a good one um trying to think like the best joe thing that we did i think one of the coolest things and probably was the coolest for me because i i hadn't been in the big leagues yet and it was 17 coming off the World Series. We had that, like every spring training with Joe was awesome, but that spring training was like, nothing could go wrong.

You know, this team had just won the World Series. Everybody loved, loved every single player on the team. And so this has to do with Tim Bus, but they rented him a Ferrari. And Ferrari came, he drove it from the parking lot around the corner, it was white convertible. comes onto the agility field for stretch. And so he was literally driving it around as he was leading the stretch. And he always loved to talk about the playoff share that he got and how much the team had changed his life.

And so that was a really memorable one. And the other one would have been him leading stretch in a wrestling outfit like Nacho Libre. So just the mask and the. underwear which was fantastic those were the two and Joe just let him do his thing during spring training so like every spring training with Joe was was awesome I'm trying to think of like the one where I was like I have no desire to do this I can think I can think of one that it wasn't that bad but we we all got custom biker jackets for a road trip and so it had like happer on it and like like this big like bald eagle on the back and I decided to go no under

shirt under it and I got and so like we had would have to walk to the buses because there's no there was no under hang and wriggle you had to walk across the street to the parking out to get on the bus and so as I'm walking out and you're being photographed and you're in front of all the fans I looked down or actually I got to my phone like had seen the pictures get on social media and I realized how bad my farmer's tan was and like how and how tough it was for me to be sleeveless and at that point I was like wow that's a tough look those aren't going anywhere those are the internet forever. Yeah, forever.

And now I'm going to go Google and. It's right. I mean, you're going to have a farmer's tan playing baseball, right? Oh, it's a guarantee. And like baseball and golf are my two things. And like there's pants and a collared shirt. So there's no getting away from it. I have one more pressing question.

It would be my last. When you step in the box versus Jay Hap, is there pride on the line there? There was. There was. He punched my ticket. Oh, okay. He got you? He got me.

Yeah, we played Toronto in 17. You know, we're not related. I don't know them at all. Never spoken a word to him. But not even like a head nod, like a Jeep head nod. We're like, no. I know what's on the line here. I wish, you know, as a rookie, like, he was pretty, he was very established.

So, like, there was no way that I was going to, like, run up to him at Wrigley, like, as we're stretching him. Like, hi, Jay. Like, I'm also happy. How are you doing? So, yeah. So, uh, we ended up facing each other at 17. and he struck me out pretty quickly and maybe even got me out multiple times and I know that I didn't get a hit off him and he was a bad matchup for me with some high force numbers and big curveballs and I put way too much pressure on myself that day.

Hopefully we get another matchup because I would I would like some redemption. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's 0 for 3.3Ks. So he knew. So he knew. He knew. He knew.

He knew. They had a good report against me right. handed. I hit very well left-handed against them, but right-handed not so hot. I almost came out and said he's in the book, and then I looked at my stats against him, and he's not in the book. I am one for eight against him, so I am in his book more than anything. So I'm happy I didn't come out and say that. Always tough when you think he got somebody, and they dominate it. I'm trying to think who it would be that I thought. What's the equivalent? Like, How does a pitcher say that?

Like, you know, you're in my book. What's the pitcher? Do the terminology, is it just if they K you? Because it's kind of different. It is different. I don't know. I mean, like, if you pump someone once, they're in your book. So it's like, it's all you need.

It's all you need. The pitcher, I think, to, like, say, like, I own you or, like, you're an out. I think maybe they say that, like, he's an out. Yeah. Jay Hap could say, I'm an out. He would also say that he dominates me. Yeah. So they have.

that. But then with hitters, it's so cool. Like I said, all you have to do is pump him once. And then for them, you're like, dude, you're supposed to win. Like, you guys win all the time. That is funny. We have an out. Who am I thinking of? Lance Lynn. Keep digging for soft throwing lefties that you hit homers off. Who's, uh, Aaron Sanchez, Marco Estrada. I'm a golfer as well. Who, who are the golfers on the Cubs? Who's the Cubs golf squad? Yeah. Me and Lester are kind of the, the two that have,

I've been playing for a while. Rizzo just got pretty heavy into it in the last couple of years. He loves it. And Schwerber likes golf. That's kind of the group. Like John and I played a lot in 18. Kind of whatever the best course was in the city, we'd just go out and play.

And his role decks has pretty long. Been around for a while. So that was a nice one for me to piggyback. Good ally. Yeah. Treb, you still rocking your brain over there? I'm trying to look it up. I'm sorry.

I'm just whenever I get to talk about myself being a good baseball player I try to do it so everybody needs a fluff I got it I'm looking it up I'm gonna get it okay the other question that we'd like to ask sometimes is there a defensive highlight of yours

that you go back and watch every now and then you're like that's fucking awesome yeah I think when you play as many positions it's like but the one that does stick out to me and it's not even that cool It was just, I was playing second base in Miami my first year, and D. Gordon hit me a ground ball up the middle to my backhand, and I made a nasty play and got him out, and he's fast as hell. So that was like, and it's on one of the YouTube highlight reels that you can go on and taste yourself with.

So, like, I've seen that one before. Like our computer system that we, the Cubs have, where we can basically watch any play that's ever happened in the history of the world, usually. usually just use it for hitting, like going to find a defense. I wouldn't even know how to go about finding a defensive play that I've made. Yeah, it's more, hitting is way more cool to look at. Yeah, yeah. And I don't know if you know this. I have a show that we go over highlights.

And I've used this platform to get guys on that show. Maybe we'll exchange information. Just a taste yourself? It's a taste yourself session. Oh, that is wonderful. That's what we do. We're a pro-taster pod. We're pro-taster.

I did That sounds glorious Well we'll hook it up I did find the guys who I thought Was it up Well it was either Aaron Laffey Or Brett Cecil Because I knew it was Toronto

That makes sense I think Brett Seasles I was thinking That's mean Red Cecil Aaron Laffey He was an all-star dude Like whatever man

Yeah Seasel was nasty And there you have it I was excited to ask About the Battle of the Haps Because you know both guys know what's going on. Yeah.

You know. Absolutely. Like, Trave, imagine there's another ploof in the league, but he's not related to you, and he's a pitcher. When you step into that box, you know what's going on. Yeah, I mean, it's definitely a competition. I think for me, a ploof, I would just start laughing because, like, what a ridiculous name. Hap is kind of one of those names.

Like, oh, I could see how other people would have that last name. But he was pretty good. I had a J.A. Hap. I don't know a better word, but I had a J-A-hat brain fart on the episode we all heard. I thought I'd take him up top. I didn't. But yeah, this guy was great.

Like, Ian, I was kind of like not in a great mood before the interview, you know? And then this happened and I feel pretty good now. You know what? It's weird. His pinch hitting numbers are so good. Yeah. Scary thing to be good at in the NL, you know?

What if, like, that becomes a shitty thing? They're like, ah, we're not going to start you today because we want to just slide you in wherever we can at the right moment. That's where we talked about it in versatility and we danced about it, but I thought about asking and it sounds like a kind of too reportery, but like, do you ever feel like your versatility hurts you? Like, do you ever feel like if you just said, hey, I play second base that you'd get slotted in second base at some point? But we danced around that combo a little bit and I got enough out of that. Trev, do you get, I know we've talked about this a little bit. when guys start talking about like yeah you know i was i was on the all freshman team in college and i raked and i started every game do you get the little bit of the college college jealous like

that was probably a good time huh cape league i mean would i had fun in college absolutely treb just tells them about the wet t-shirt in the booty shaking contest yeah i mean to be honest with you it's i had a college experience my first few years of pro ball i tell people all the I was an idiot. I partied too much. I was doing extracurricular stuff too much, probably. But, you know, when you're that age, it kind of just comes to the territory. You're not smart enough to understand what's going on.

I wasn't. Maybe some guys are, maybe some guys are mature enough to just go about their business. But when you're 18, 19, 20 years old, they gave you some money. You're traveling. Like, you're going to be an idiot. So maybe I would have done better in college. No, who's mature enough? Cole Tucker.

Yeah. Gosh. Jesus. he's my guy, dude. Talking baseball legend, Cole Tucker, someone in the comments was saying, it was like some team,

like, when are you going to get a guy from this team on, which I love, I love listeners being like, when are you going to get someone from my team on? Was it Mariners?

Yeah. Okay. So producer BBD, just, I saw A's as well. And I was like, all right, let's get it.

I got A's ties. Through umpire out there? I got to say, you guys know who like my number one, number one guy is. your dad Matt Chapman oh Chapman um I'm getting like new guys like I haven't really been you know seeing him on the TV doing his thing and we're talking to other guys I feel like I'm kind of like in this I have mistresses or something like I'm getting new guys oh okay so Matt Chapman was your guy

like he's my main piece and now all the sudden he's not on my TV all the time I'm still texting him my bad but because I'm seeing these other guys my round these other guys like I'm kind of like getting that like am I having an affair with these other guys like Cole Tucker's like maybe my main guy oh shit okay well if anyone has a direct line than Matt Chapman can you just let him know that like we need to get him on the show otherwise Travis gonna feel like he's cheating on him Jack Flaherty is my main main guy but he's a patient so we need a big guy him He hit her. The other issue.

The other issue is that Chapman, you know, he's also 27 now. It's kind of aging out of Ploof's interest. Yeah. I'm a young, it's a young man's sport and the young men take my heart. But I'll tell you what, Chapman, I mean, he's got the soul and the body of a young player. He's in his prime. People say that shit about Jake a lot, too. Yeah.

Oh my God. Let me just say this. I'm going to try to get Chappian on here. He doesn't like doing this stuff. I have connected Chappie too. You want me to get Chappie? Yeah, reach out. Race.

Race is on official. Everyone get ready. Strep versus Jake Race. Okay. I mean, I'll text him right now. I just did an interview with NBC Bay Area. I got a connection too. It was cool.

Jake sucks. Hey, this would be a good fodder for the outro music. We got an email today at John Boy Media that was some 5'3 young-looking kid who said that I should do something about looking young and then like get it out to the people. So, yeah.