The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Tom Verducci Discusses His Exclusive Interview With AJ Hinch

Episode Date: February 10, 2020

Tom Verducci joins Matt to discuss the AJ Hinch Interview and his thoughts on the organization as more continues to come to light regarding the Sign Stealing Scandal

All right, as promised, I'll say hi to a gentleman who is very well respected in the world of baseball. You see him on Fox. You see him on the MLB Network. And I know 99.9% of you saw the conversation that Tom Verduci had with AJ Hinch. He's with us here on the Matt Thomas show. Tom, it's Matt and Ross. Thank you for spending some time with us today. I think I said this is just a second ago.

I think our audience obviously saw it and is repeated over and over again. Can you give me a little bit of the pregame, if you will, how this was set up as much as you can, about did you reach out to AJ? AJ, you reach out to you. Some of the backstory, if you don't mind, on this conversation.

Well, he was, obviously he was comfortable with me. I know he wanted to tell his story at some point. I think the timing of it was really with spring training approaching, knowing the players were coming back onto the field. And, you know,

I know they had a few questions at the fan festival, but, you know, the full-on national media questioning was going to happen in spring training. And I think the interesting part for me is that, AJ, by his own admission, has failed in terms of a leadership position, not jumping on and

stopping the sign-sealing scheme as soon as he knew about it. But now here he is, no longer the manager of the team, taking a real leadership role here, and I think handing the players a roadmap on how to handle this. Now, obviously, part of his desire to return to baseball, he needed to do something like this to not just release a statement, but answer questions, show real authenticity with his contrition. I think he did that. But to me, it's interesting again that I think all the players need to do is look at the job their manager did or former manager did in terms of saying, yes, this happened. We did it. It was wrong. And now let's do whatever we can to make sure it doesn't happen again. My partner and I are going down to spring training next week. And it is always a great assignment for me because it's so much fun because it's a relaxed atmosphere.

Guys are just getting their swings in. There's no games yet. It's the kind of calm before the the spring training game storm. And I was telling Ross here that it might be the most unfriendly, tense mid-February a trip that we'll ever make to Florida. And I've even suggested, I wonder if the Astros will go beyond just talking to their own PR department and going with maybe an outside consulting firm. If you've been around a lot of spring trainings in your life and you know how relaxed it can be, help me with them.

What do you think they'll be like? What would you recommend them do when every day for a better part of 30 days? and in the regular season, especially in road cities, they're going to be peppered with this type of conversation. Yeah, I mean, the only thing I can remotely compare to me because I agree with you, spring training is normally such a great time of year, very relaxed and optimistic time of year.

The only thing that stands up to me is even remotely similar is what Barry Barnes and the Giants went through where there was so much tension in the air and people didn't want to address the elephant in the room. And that's why I really believe it's important for the players here to get out in front of this early. listen, it's not going to get easier once the season starts because, you know, fans will be laying in wait. You'll know on the road, you'll hear lots of trash can't bang meet everywhere they go.

Questions will still pop up. That's going to come. They need to know that and not fight it. You've signed up for it now. It's coming your way. Understand it and accept it. But I think really, again, from the beginning of spring training, first day, they really need to answer questions directly about it. We know what happened.

You know, it's not a case that there are allegations out there. That nine-page report from the commissioner's office was very transparent. So it's not as if we're still in an era or a time of discovery here. It's not newsbreaking any longer in terms of what happened. What's news is how players now respond to this. And there's one real easy way to make sure that doesn't linger. And let's get out there first day of spring training. You don't have to answer every question, chapter, verse,

and what dates and what pitches and things like that, but taking ownership, absolutely, that needs to be done. I always used this analogy. Back in the day when umpires and managers used to argue before replay, if a manager went out there to argue with an umpire, say the close call on the base, and the umpire said, you know what? I missed it. That was the end of the argument.

It diffused everything. The manager went back at the dugout. It's kind of what the players need to do here, just defused the situation by admitting it. It was wrong, and it's time to move on. And Tom, what do you think is the best way for them to do that? I mean, we were kind of speculating. I mean, do you get 20 guys in front of a panel or a microphone,

or do you have somebody else speak or Jim Crane? And then they have to be available for questions, or you do it in a clubhouse setting? I'm just wondering and trying to wrap my head around because we haven't seen anything like this. How would they go about doing this the best way? Yeah, to me, it has to be as authentic as possible. And that means each player will, you know, do as he sees.

fits in terms of, you know, whatever phrasing that they use, how much time they give. So I would definitely argue against any kind of a formal setting. The more informal, the better. I mean, no, we don't want to see guys who are coached up. That's the last thing we need to see. We need guys just handle it on their own on a one-on-one basis. Now, that means guys will handle it in their own way. Some guys just are better or more comfortable talking to the media and other guy's less so. But, you know, I do think sort of, you know, I like what Charlie Morton did, and the answers that he gave about it, you know, he wished he would have stopped it.

I think anybody in that room probably, in retrospect, should be able to say that. But again, less corporate the better right here. You know, this is where you have to be person and not, you know, not marching to a company beat. Tom Perucci from MLB Network with us here on the Matt Thomas show, conducted the interview with A.J. Hinch, as you saw Friday on the MLB network. So Tom, you are asking these questions and I'm like, yeah, good question. He gives a response. Because, you know, AJ and I did a weekly show together. We, it's a good relationship,

really, really good relationship, and very forthcoming, very honest, very thoughtful. And he gave you thoughtful answers in return. The only one that I think to my audience, to myself, to people that I've talked with in my business that kind of struck everybody kind of weird was you asked about the buzzers and he deferred to the commissioner statement. Did that throw you off at all or did you expect him to go to that? Well, I wouldn't throw me off, but I would agree with you that it probably was, maybe I guess the way to put it, less thoughtful answer that he gave because he is a thoughtful guy. Now, I think you have to look at this in a couple of different ways.

I think there's some sort of scandal fatigue, if you will, with AJ. Let's face it, when the sign-stealing scheme began, he didn't know about it, right? until they were, what, a month, two months into the season. The memo that went out from the commissioner's office, September 15th, 2017, to the front office, in this case, Jeff Luna, he didn't know about it. That was not circulated. He found out that week about this report about the code breaker system that the Astros were using, which, by the way, is completely separate from stealing signs. That's part of the band scouting that every team does in terms of breaking down videos and trying to pick up signs through technology, not. in real time. That's very different from the scheme players had going. But that he knew nothing

about and found out that week. So it's a case where, you know, I think it was just some scandal fatigue on his part that it was difficult for him to just jump out there emphatically and say it never happened when there were a lot of things that happened that he didn't know about. Now, I will tell you this, if you want to be a conspiracy theorist and believe that buzzers happened, here's what you'd have to believe, that he didn't know about it, which is possible. that the commissioner's office, which did investigate this whole idea. In fact, they investigated the whole 2019 season, chose to look the other way, or they didn't find out about it.

Now, this is an investigation around for three months. They talked to more than 60 people, including more than 20 players, all of them granted immunity as long as they were truthful. MLB does when they investigate it, whoever they talk to, they say, listen, you're not in trouble here, but if we find out that you're lying, your place in the game is in jeopardy. And by every account, these players went in there and were extremely honest about the sign-sealing scheme. So you're telling me that they then decided to lie about the buzzers?

I just don't think that, you know, believing in a conspiracy like that, the facts don't show it, especially since the commissioner's office did investigate that. So I understand that we know what happened in 17. A lot of things come into suspicion. But me, I'd rather be naive than be a conspiracy. theory there is working off a non-answer or an answer that I didn't like. What is your take on all of these players, general managers, front office executives, asking for more punishment for the players directly?

And my easy answer to people when they call my show is that if they weren't forthcoming, Major League Baseball had to give them a mistake because they wanted the answers. So this is a moot conversation. But we are hearing now player lawsuits. We are hearing of class action lawsuits. It is it's kind of growing now with the you didn't go out of. for the players, so now we're coming after you. Yeah, I can't say I'm in love with it, but I understand it.

You know, it's very hard to start parceling out who used what for how much, how many pitches. What do you do with players who are on other teams? A lot of players from that 17 team are either retired or elsewhere. He then penalize those other teams or something that happened with the 2017 Astros. And again, did some guy get the pitches all the time? Did somebody get them once? in the world do you ever really begin to really parse that through? I don't think you can.

So I also believe that this all goes back to a challenge-based replay system when Major League Baseball put this technology essentially at field level in real time. They didn't understand the unintended consequences. So the concept of technology, you know, being that close to the field, came directly from MLB. So the stewards of the game, meaning the manager, the coaches the front office, are the ones in charge. with making sure that system is not misused. And the commissioner made that clear in September of 2017. So the rules were spelled out in 17 that general managers especially,

but coaches and managers as well, are going to be held accountable and there will be harsh punishments. That memo was not sent to players. So you can't then change the rules of a system and retroactively now start punishing players. Now, I will agree with a lot of people, and I'm one of them that say, the onus now going forward is entirely on that manager down there.

I mean, you're running a game now. You're trying to learn how to set up your pitching, who you're going to use off the bench, what double switches are coming up. At the same time, your responsibility is to know, say, what your analysts are doing in the back room, what the players are doing in the computer room, what the replay monitor guy is doing. Your job now is to understand everything that's going on behind you

while you're running a game, while the player can go ahead and steal signs, and now knows he has immunity from being punished in any way. You know, the face of it, yeah, that doesn't strike me as something that's fair, but again, the rules were set two years ago, three years ago. Tom, final question, what was your takeaway from the Jared Diamond report on the Wall Street Journal? Well, I think, again, a lot of things that's happening now are conflating what happened at 17 with some other issues. I mean, you know, I've been writing and wrote years ago about what teams do now as advanced scouting includes more technology.

There are cameras all over the ballpark that can zoom in on pitchers from many different angles to pick up that they're tipping their pitches, there moves to first base. If a base runner is leaning one way, any stealing bases, all this is being done. So there's literally nothing illegal in the game about that. Now, doing things, using misusing technology during games in real time to steal signs, yes, that's what happens to the Astros in 17. but there's a team out there that hasn't used technology and trying to code break signs to use the phrase as part of their advanced scouting. So it's a different, I know it all falls under the umbrella

of technology and sign stealing, but it's a very different issue than what the Astros were punished for. Tom, we thank you for the conversation. We really appreciate it, and we look forward to visiting with you a couple times during the course of the season, and again, great job with the AJ conversation on Friday.

You got it. so much. All right. Take care now. Tom Bermerucci from MLB Network.