Clint Frazier on White Sox fake injuries, Yankees tension

00:00:00
Speaker 1: If you want to get the fans involved and see what's really going on in these locker rooms, you had to have been in.

00:00:07
Speaker 2: That twenty twenty.

00:00:08
Speaker 1: Three Chicago White Sox locker room.

00:00:14
Speaker 3: All right, we've got Clint Fraser, former big leaguer, joining us right now on FT. I'll let Kratz do a little more on the intro. Go ahead, Crats.

00:00:21
Speaker 4: Lightning in the thunder thunder? I mean, did you did you bring all those size nine shoes out so that we could see them too in your background?

00:00:30
Speaker 2: Is that?

00:00:30
Speaker 4: What is that what you got out there?

00:00:33
Speaker 1: I went emptied the bank account, bought every shoe I saw in the store and just put them on the shelves, just just the case.

00:00:39
Speaker 2: Man, one moment, you get one chance, so might as well.

00:00:42
Speaker 4: Uh flexo, man, you're you're done playing. You're officially done playing now. Did you quit or did you retire?

00:00:54
Speaker 2: I think it was a combination of both. Uh. You know, no one called the phone the hit stopped coming.

00:01:00
Speaker 1: I remember Brian Cashman told me one time, hey man, you if you get a lot of hits, you have a lot of friends. And started looking around and there wasn't a lot of friends.

00:01:11
Speaker 3: That's a good way to put it. Okay, So first off, when you look back at your big league career, what stands out? What are some of your best memories and some things maybe that you wish that you could have done differently.

00:01:25
Speaker 1: I mean, I think overall, like obviously, you know, getting drafted was obviously a big thing that I was trying to accomplish at a young age. So to just get that opportunity, you know, I think I had expectations that were a little bit higher than what I achieved, but things happened along the way. I got opportunities, and you know, I took the most of them as I could. And you know, I mean I had a crazy first week of my big leagues. I think that's the highlight of my career, which is kind of funny if you think about it, But I mean I came in. I think I homered and doubled in my first game. I hit a walk off in the first week on the guy that closed the All Star Game, Craig Cannabel. So for me, it was a cool first week. You know what came after that was ups and downs.

00:02:09
Speaker 2: All right.

00:02:09
Speaker 4: Well, first of all, you finished your big league career with less home runs than me. So I pretty much make sure I have to make sure everybody knows that I just looked it up. So there's that. But we were just talking about a guy named Dalton Rushing who just got called up to be a backup. He was a big time prospect. Do you feel like a prospect can get called up to the big leagues and not play every day and have success or you feel like it's setting you up for failure if you do that.

00:02:41
Speaker 1: I think it's tough, dude, you know, because like you go from especially if you're mentioning like top prospect guy that gets a lot of opportunities, a guy that knows every single day that he's going to be in that lineup regardless of you know, who gets called up around him in the minor leagues I'm speaking about. So when you get to the big leagues and you're used to playing every single day and you know, your numbers not being called upon as often, it I feel like it's like it's hard, dude. I mean, you know, you sit there for six seven innings and you get thrown into the eighth of the ninth and it's the best guys on the mound, and it's it's not easy. So I think it's one of those things where you're learning on the fly as you go, and obviously you know you're trying your hardest, but you know, some of these guys you have no chance again, so it's you know, they're kind of stacking you up against the eight ball.

00:03:28
Speaker 2: I think.

00:03:30
Speaker 4: So you're from small town Georgia, you went to small town Cleveland, and you're when you were drafted and you played small town minor league baseball, and then you get traded. You were you were. You were the throw in in the JP fire Eyes in trade and the Ben Keller trade for Andrew Miller. But you were the Marquis Peace coming back in that trade, which was tougher for you New York fans or New York media being twenty two years old, being the next next hope for the Indians because I can say the Indians there were the Indians at that time. So who was tougher, the media or the fans?

00:04:09
Speaker 2: I think the media.

00:04:11
Speaker 1: I think that, like, you know, there was a because like here's the thing, dude, Like I I came in not knowing anything about New York baseball, right, Like I genuinely did not watch baseball growing up as a kid, if I did it was like Ryan Howard was the only guy that I really focused on, and I really didn't know much beyond his years. So when I come in week one, you know, they're asking me if I asked Mickey Manno's number to be unretired so I could wear it. And I'm sitting there thinking like, I don't even know what number this guy wears, and I'm being told by people with the Yankees like you cannot say that. And the only people that were asking me the questions that backed me into a bad corner were the media. So for me, I felt like they saw that, you know, I was going to give an authentic answer. I was going to be honest, and I genuinely, at twenty two years old, had no idea that I was kind of being fleeced into, you know, some clickbait headlines until eventually I read a few of them and I was like, Okay, I kind of see what they're going with right now. So, you know, every now and then I would lean into the questions and give them what they wanted. But you know, there was obviously times when I was like I just I don't want to deal with this guy. Today, So I'm just gonna be I'm gonna be vanilla.

00:05:28
Speaker 5: Hey Clint, it's crazy what you're talking about and how they tried to get you to do this. But was there a veteran guy that grabbed you and said, Hey, you don't have.

00:05:37
Speaker 2: To do this.

00:05:37
Speaker 5: You don't have to speak about this, you don't have to answer this question. You can give the Derek Jeter say a bunch of words and don't really say anything, and they'll all love you no matter what. There was no veteran that grabbed you and said, hey, let's do this a little bit differently.

00:05:54
Speaker 1: Maybe they did, maybe they didn't, But I can't remember a specific moment where somebody came up to me and was like, hey, brother, you need to you need to go this direction instead of going that direction. And you know, ultimately I genuinely like and I say this with no like, no disdain, no nothing towards anyone like. I never really had somebody that actually took me under their wing and stuck with me the whole time. Maybe it was in short bits I had somebody that was trying to help me along the way, but it was never like if there was issues.

00:06:26
Speaker 2: With what Red Thunder was doing.

00:06:28
Speaker 1: It was all behind the scenes, and no one ever pulled me to the side to kind of like help me. I went through a lot of stuff that was silently going on behind the scenes that I would find out from, you know, just being around people and seeing how they were acting.

00:06:43
Speaker 4: All right. So one of the things that was behind the scenes and came out was what Delan Patance has said, the story of your Jordan contract. Can you tell your side of it? Because Dellan went on the ALT cast the other day and told his side of it, how Guardy Guardy pranked you a little bit.

00:07:04
Speaker 1: So just to clarify, when I saw that on my timeline, that was the first time that I had found out that Guardy was involved in this. I like, honestly, bro, I can say it with like all love. Guardy was probably my favorite teammate that I had in New York. He was the funniest guy. He was really he was good to me, he was good to everybody. So for Guardy to go that long and never bring it up to me, that's that's that's kind of messed up, dude. Because I was I hung out with him a lot, so it does feel like a Guardy prank, but it feels like it was executed by CC. So for me, like I'll just keep it straight, Like I look, man, I I was trying to wear Jordan cleats during the twenty nineteen season, and I.

00:07:54
Speaker 2: Don't really know what was going on that year.

00:07:56
Speaker 1: I had a lot going on, but I was I was putting cleats on the bottom of s. I was just I was spending a lot of money on stuff that was really just not needed to be spent on in the shoe world. So I started to do this and it got a lot of attention on social media. I did a really good job at like posting some pictures, posting some comments, like trying to engage with people to let them know that what I was going to be wearing that night. And I just happened to have three teammates who were signed by Jordan who thought that that was kind of corny on the other side. So for me, it was like, hey, like I'm I'm doing the best that I can. This is an attempt to try to get a Jordan deal. This is the best I've got. And so you know, I show up to Yankee Stadium one day there's this vanilla folder just sitting on my locker like thinking about it now, like it's super suspicious because I don't even know if there was like a postage note from it. But I opened it up and it's this white letter. And I actually spent hours looking for this letter. It's in my house. I know it's here because I kept it because I was like, I have to keep this, regard this if it's real or not. But the most convincing thing was that the letter, like the paper was so thick, like it was so it was so professional, the way they stamped the Jordan logoing to the top. I was like, I mean from the beginning, I was like, somebody, somebody of some.

00:09:18
Speaker 2: Good stature sent me this, and I did it.

00:09:20
Speaker 1: So I started going around, started asking some players like hey, like what do you got on this, and everyone's like, yeah, yeah, that's good. That's good. Like I think I talked to CC. I think I talked to Hicks. But the guy that sold me the most was Dylan. Like Dylan Dylan was good to me. We didn't have a lot of interactions. So when Delan was like, hey man, I got that letter too, like Dellan has no idea, but that sold me, Like That's when I was like, I'm a Jordan guy.

00:09:48
Speaker 2: That's it. I'm a Jordan guy.

00:09:49
Speaker 1: Dlan said he got the letter I'm in. He was the only one that I believed, right. So a few days go by, and I mean a few days, he said, it was twenty four hours. That is not what happened, because what followed was the Red Sox series where I had a bad game and I got Jessica Mendoza sitting in the booth holding a pair of my shoes saying like these are so sweet. But on the flip side, I'm in right field, just like a casualty out there dropping three fly balls. So she goes from like talking good about my cleats to talking bad about.

00:10:21
Speaker 2: How I'm playing. And so I single handley lose the.

00:10:26
Speaker 1: Red Sox game that night basically, and come back to my locker and change and there's like, I don't know, man, I mean, it was like a block party inside of Yankee Stadium locker room with the media, like a.

00:10:39
Speaker 2: Hundred of them there, like just feasting. So they're waiting for me. I go off.

00:10:44
Speaker 1: I took a phone call from somebody that I needed to talk to and ended up not talking to the media. So a few days go by, right, like the Red Sox series finishes.

00:10:54
Speaker 2: We go to Toronto. The next night, we have an off day.

00:10:57
Speaker 1: There's plenty of time to tell me that this letter is fake, and nobody tells me. I actually went to Guardi's room because he checked on me that night. And then the next damn sitting in the locker room and Seec comes up to me and.

00:11:09
Speaker 2: He's like, hey, cause that letter's fake, dude.

00:11:13
Speaker 1: And I had already made fifty phone calls dude, trying to confirm this was real. Like, my agents called the Jordan people and they're like, we did not send that letter.

00:11:22
Speaker 2: So you know, they got me.

00:11:25
Speaker 1: And I felt like it was it was a little too far because I didn't have a good relationship with a couple of the people involved, so for them to do that felt a little more cruel than a prank to me.

00:11:38
Speaker 4: All right, well was it cruel this year when you saw a Yankees game and dude started having a little bit longer hair and a little bit more beards, Like, dude, you tried to when you got traded over, when you got.

00:11:51
Speaker 5: Traded over from the Indians.

00:11:53
Speaker 4: Yeah, you had your red thunder hair and they said, what to you?

00:12:01
Speaker 1: You got to shop the locks kid immediately, I mean I did. I remember specifically Jenny Steinberner seeing me for the first time and coming up to me and like grabbing my hair and being like, I can't wait for this to be cut. And this was in the off season, so like I knew right then and there. I was like, this is this is not going to be good, because I'm not the type to want to do things the first time you asked me, and I tried to buck the system and certainly kept the hair above the shoulders. But man, it seemed like it was like all the way down my back, the way that it was being covered. I think it was because it was red hair. Dude, if it was blonde, I don't think anyone would have carred.

00:12:42
Speaker 3: So what did you think when they got rid of the beard policy.

00:12:46
Speaker 2: I was just highly offended. Man. I was highly offended because I felt like.

00:12:56
Speaker 1: I felt like I was one of the guys there that certainly was trying to like push the envelope, you know, like the whole twenty twenty season underneath my COVID mask, Like I had a.

00:13:05
Speaker 2: Full beard that year.

00:13:06
Speaker 1: So I was like I was already trying to like go certain routes and hide the stuff. And when they got rid of it, like one year after I'm gone, I was.

00:13:15
Speaker 2: Like, you got it. That felt personal.

00:13:17
Speaker 1: Now that I'm actually thinking about it, that one that feels personal a little bit.

00:13:24
Speaker 4: Well yeah, I get it.

00:13:26
Speaker 5: I get it all right. But I want to know if you can look back at your career now that you're done playing, you had good numbers of triple A every time you were down there, and then you got to the big leagues, you got some ups and downs. Obviously, what's the big as difference to triple A in the big leagues as far as hitting wise, pitching wise, what's the difference?

00:13:46
Speaker 1: I think that like one of the big things that I noticed in triple A versus the major leagues is that, like when you're in the minor leagues, it's like there's really not guys that you look at and you're like wow, like I haven't seen something like this before. And then another thing that stood out the most to me is when I'm standing in the outfield, like there's a whole other deck to these stadiums, Like the amount of people that filled these stadiums.

00:14:09
Speaker 2: In the eyes on you.

00:14:10
Speaker 1: It creates like this aura around the players when you got a roll to Chapman coming out of the bullpen and the whole stadiums lighting up with flames, and you're like, I didn't see that in Triple A, Like I didn't get that experience. So I think for me, it's just like you see these guys and you feel like you're you're supposed to be there, and once you get there, there's they're there. You know, you got one second to make an adjustment to hit off these guys. And it's a lot of established big leaguers that have faced people that are certainly more capable or have accomplished more in their careers than what I've done in my short careers. So I'm just like I'm David versus Goliath, you know. Like I think that's really what it comes down to, is that the older that I say this, the older that I got in baseball, the more I started to realize that, like there's levels to the preparation that these pitchers and players have.

00:15:03
Speaker 2: They're a little bit older, and there's there's.

00:15:05
Speaker 1: Tricks and things that they can do to get you to fall bait to the things that they want you to swing at, and I fell bait to plenty of things because of, you know, just being a younger guy, not being around the block, and not having a lot of experience compared to some of the guys that were in the major leagues for many years beyond whenever I got there, when you were in the.

00:15:26
Speaker 4: Minor leagues with the Yankees, did you feel like at one point coming over from the Indians, they were a little too analytical, a little too just in that in that direction for you.

00:15:41
Speaker 1: I mean I remember being told by a specific person in the analytics department that they didn't believe in like players getting hot, you know, and that was all analytically driven, and that was their way of saying, like, for instance, like I could be fifty five or fifty five and they would be like he's not hot, Like it's gonna cool, he's gonna cool down. Like they they believed you were what you were, And in my mind, I was like, but that's not using your eyes, you know what I mean, Like this guy's on a scorcher right now, and you know, like you got to run with that sometimes. And so yeah, like I do feel like they hired a few too Mini Rocket scientists to try to like make the lineup instead of just like letting a former player or a guy that has more experience write the lineup.

00:16:27
Speaker 5: That's funny. Yeah, analytics don't believe that you're a human being. Just always remember that. I mean, analytics are good for some things. But you're never hot, you're never cold. You're just a robot. You're never mad at your the person at home, your kids are never sick, your dog was never sick, and keep you up all night. You're just a robot. So always remember that. Always remember that you're a robot. Now you got to experience what I like to call the White Sox experience. Okay, after I was gone, please explain the difference between the Yankees and the White Sox experience. They would let you have long hair, but you had it's a little bit. Yeah, go ahead.

00:17:05
Speaker 1: I left my White Sox hat sitting upstairs, and I almost wore it for you, like the.

00:17:10
Speaker 2: Only it's the only baseball hat that I wear.

00:17:14
Speaker 1: I'm so proud to be able to say that I was a Chicago White Sox for so many reasons.

00:17:19
Speaker 2: So like that was I'll be honest, like a j that was.

00:17:23
Speaker 1: The most fun I've ever had in a baseball experience, but it was not like as a fan for what the reason I was having fun was like, you don't.

00:17:33
Speaker 2: Want me to have fun for those reasons. Like it was not the reasons brother.

00:17:44
Speaker 1: When I got there, I just specifically remember being told like I'm not going to throw people under the bus. But it was a staff member being like, we got a lot of superstars that don't want to act like superstars, and he's like, I need you to bring some energy because these guys do not hustle. They don't they don't try hard.

00:18:05
Speaker 2: Dude.

00:18:06
Speaker 1: I saw what looked to be like eight different season inning injuries to like the naked eye, all for them to go to the hospital get diagnosed and like not even a bruise, and it was just like these guys didn't want to play, like they didn't want to do stuff. I remember specifically, like one dude's laying on the ground in the batter's box like looked like he broke his back, and I looked at the trainer and was like, what's going on. He's like, Dude, that's just that's just normal. Man, Like we're not gonna go out there and check on that and I was like, this is crazy, Like this is this is crazy, and I mean got between being in hitters meetings and guys being on their phones while the managers trying to hide people up like just like straight like I mean, challenging people, challenging the people that were in charge was all I saw. Likes running the asylum, no doubt there was. There was no They put a group of guys together that was like, it's like a militia.

00:19:08
Speaker 2: Like they were not they were they were not gonna go down. It was great. The players, which which which should you rather have?

00:19:18
Speaker 4: It sounds like you're saying, no rules, White Sox to all the rules Yankees.

00:19:23
Speaker 2: Which would you.

00:19:24
Speaker 3: Rather have.

00:19:27
Speaker 2: White Sox all day? Dude?

00:19:29
Speaker 1: Like that was like like if the if the Red Sox got a documentary, the White Sox are so much more deserving of it from the like, if you want to get the fans involved and see what's really going on in these locker rooms, you had to have been in that twenty twenty three Chicago White Sox locker room like there was that was I can't even I don't want to do that to certain people, but that was the most fun I've ever had I'll just say that.

00:19:59
Speaker 3: Wait, can you give me anything else? You don't have to say any names at all, not asking for name Lance Lynn Well, Lances, Lances our buddy. But was there anything else that you observed there that was different from the rest of your experiences? As you mentioned, there were guys that didn't want to play anything else that you would be there and look at and be like, this is documentary worthy. This is not what I've seen anywhere else.

00:20:25
Speaker 1: I'll give you one thing because this is unlike any experience I've ever had. I'm not going to say his name. I don't want it because some people are still playing, right, I'll just beat around the bush. But there was there was a time where a player did not hustle down the line and in his eyes, he didn't know where the ball went. It's what he said, right, Like he didn't like he swung and didn't know where the ball went, had no idea that he went and play, and that's why he didn't run. But in the manager's eyes, like he was not gonna have that. So he went over to this certain individual and was like what the hell or sorry, you know, like what's going on? Like why aren't you why aren't you hustling? Like I'm gonna take you out the game. And this was like the first couple of days I was there.

00:21:15
Speaker 2: This guy looked back.

00:21:16
Speaker 1: At the manager and was just basically like, if you take me out this game, we're gonna have a serious problem.

00:21:21
Speaker 2: And the guy was like, are you threatening me? And he goes take me out this game, We're gonna have a serious problem. And like this guy did not come out the game, and I was.

00:21:30
Speaker 1: Like, holy, like this guy is He just threatened the menser like like you know, like I'm gonna like, we're gonna have a serious problem if you take me out this game.

00:21:38
Speaker 2: And like I had never any stayed in the game and was in the lineup every day.

00:21:41
Speaker 1: Moving forward, Like it was like, Wow, who's really running this team?

00:21:49
Speaker 3: That's good? Have you seen that before?

00:21:51
Speaker 5: Have I ever seen Well, listen, I'll tell you this story about the White Sox. This is and it's it's not even on this level. But Brian Anderson, who was a first round pick for the it sucks right. They were gonna send him to Triple A because he couldn't hit. And he goes, if you send me to Triple A, I'm going to become a pitcher and they're like, excuse me what he did later in his career. But he goes, if you send me to Triple A and become a pitcher and they goes, so you'd rather just never play in the big leagues or go to Triple A and be a picture and he's like, yeah, I'll stay in the big league. He's like, okay, fine, you can stay.

00:22:21
Speaker 2: Didn't send him down.

00:22:22
Speaker 5: Well, literally, they first they asked him, will you if you would you rather be in the big leagues or go to Triple A And he's like big leagu's like what if he never plays? Like, I'd still rather stay, and they go, okay, well, we're probably gonna send you down. He goes, if you send me down, I'm going to become a pitcher and they're like, okay, you can stay. Didn't send him down.

00:22:36
Speaker 3: It worked. It worked, The threat work, it worked.

00:22:39
Speaker 5: And then he became a picture later but still epic.

00:22:42
Speaker 3: All right, we're tight on time. I got one more for Clint. Back to the Yankees for a moment, because you talked about your experience has been really vocal about you know, how it's tough for young player and especially go through a system like that. Media like that somebody who's pretty quiet on the team now has him become a superstar. Was highly Anthony Bolpi seems to be the guy that Yankee fans are picking on right now. His defense is taking a step back. If that's okay, What would be your advice for someone like him to try and get through that?

00:23:11
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know Anthony beyond meeting him in the lobby at Yankee Stadium the day that he got drafted, right, I didn't have much interactions around him. But if I could give him any advice, it would be like, brother, we got to get off social media. Like, like I know that everyone says they're not affected by the things, Like you would have to get off of it. You'd have to just trust what got you there. Like, I know that Volpi's in a tough situation because, like you know, D. D. Gregorias was there, Jeter was obviously there. Like there's a lot of people that there's a lot of big shoes that he's having to fill, and you know, I know that he he's got it in him, But like I think he's just one of these guys bro that the media is just picking on him. Because they're running out of people to go after, and so so if he can find a way to silence that outside noise. You know, pressure does one of two things. It creates diamonds or it busts pipes. And so find a way to be that diamond in the rough that that the Yankees are hoping that you can be in and just no pressure, man, Like, I know that's tough to say, but like you're struggling right now, So what's the worst that can happen if you go out there and just try to like play as free as you can and and and just ultimately just be what Anthony Volpi wants to be. It's like, there's no better person to be than yourself, So don't try to fill the shoes of someone else.

00:24:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like it.

00:24:33
Speaker 3: I like it, especially that first part too. Just get off socials for a little bit. Don't look because the fans, I mean it's more the fans than the media on this one. Like we have our Yankee show Pinstripe Territory, and I listened last night and whoof they were bringing it. They're like, We're done that. He's not our short stub anymore. I'm like, relax, but but that's what you get here. The expectations are higher when you're with an organization that has a massive fan base that.

00:24:57
Speaker 5: And they're expected to win.

00:24:59
Speaker 3: That is expecting to win. And he was originally looked at as, Oh, he's going to be a superstar. He hasn't been a superstar yet for the first few seasons. Anyway, It's it's interesting. I'm just like, yeah, he does have a gold glove. Yeah, defense took a step back this year.

00:25:11
Speaker 5: Battle gloves are great, but what's that Fans don't really care, right, I mean, just tell me if I'm wrong. Right, gold gloves are great and all, but like, oh, cool, he plays great defense. Can he get me a hit? Like, especially in New York, Like they got a hit?

00:25:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I I came in I like COVID season came in second and the gold glove and everyone knew that was fake.

00:25:34
Speaker 2: So like for me, it's just like.

00:25:37
Speaker 1: I only got a gold glove because I could hit, you know, like and I fully believe that. So like, bro, like I said, I mean, if if Casman is looking at me in the face and say, hits bring you friends, like, then I don't really care about the glove.

00:25:50
Speaker 2: As much as I do about the bat. Yep.

00:25:52
Speaker 3: I love that he was wearing the beard under the mask too. I didn't even realize that that's good.

00:25:57
Speaker 2: That's whole year. Yeah, whole year.

00:26:01
Speaker 3: I like that.

00:26:02
Speaker 2: Clint.

00:26:02
Speaker 3: This was awesome and I hope you enjoyed it. You're really good. Great answers, We'll have you back. Appreciate the time, man.

00:26:08
Speaker 1: Good to see you all right, guys, thanks for thanks for having me and hey, aj go White songs.

00:26:14
Speaker 5: Baby put my captain on for it.

00:26:18
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly.

00:26:22
Speaker 3: Give plan to follow at Clint Fraser's really good follow on X and all that.

00:26:26
Speaker 2: Thank Clint.

00:26:27
Speaker 3: We'll catch you down the road.