Kyle Gibson on retirement decision

00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey, congratulations to Kyle Gibson, who just announced his retirement from the game and joins us right now in FT Kyle, good to see you.

00:00:09
Speaker 2: Congratulations man. How does it feel?

00:00:11
Speaker 3: Thank you guys, appreciate it. It feels awesome. You know, I've missed out on a lot of family time, as these guys know, and I mean you've traveled around called a lot of baseball games and you know as well. So it's been good to jump right in and be a dad to our four kids. I'm out visiting my parents right now in Indiana, so seeing them and seeing a couple of grandparents and doing things that I haven't been able to do for a long time. So it's been a lot of fun.

00:00:36
Speaker 2: Was the decision tough when you made it?

00:00:39
Speaker 1: Did you want to try and come back again for this season and even next or were you, like am thinking about it? Because I know you started up ramping up late with the Orioles and then they three right into the fire.

00:00:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the whole late spring training was kind of weird, honestly, you know, I think that was that was a tough decision for me to leave home at that point because I had missed all spring training basically, and you know, was getting more acclimated to being home in March and what that looks like. So you know, I wanted to go play when when I ended up signing with the Oarls and talking to the Orioles, and you know, it's hard to go to the Rays. You know, that was a place that I'd looked at probably the last four or five years that possibly play in there, and just really loving what they do with pitching. So I kind of decided, you know, let's let's go there, spend three weeks with with them in the minor league system, see if there's a few things I can adjust and work on, and see what happens at the end of it. And I threw the ball really well, felt awesome physically, and they're just for whatever reason, timing age, whatever it is, there really wasn't the opportunity that that I thought was going to be there when when I had thrown the ball well, So came home just so happened to my opt out date lined up with the family lake trip that my wife and kids have gone by themselves on with their family every year. So I drove down to Arkansas, went to the lake trip and started thinking over the next couple of weeks what it was going to look like.

00:01:59
Speaker 4: Has there been a moment, Has there been a moment when you've looked at Elizabeth and gone.

00:02:04
Speaker 3: You still like me being here?

00:02:07
Speaker 4: Or is it like, you know where she's like taking care of the kids and then you hop in You're like, I want to be helpful and you're not as helpful.

00:02:15
Speaker 3: Yes, gratty. That happens every year and this this is no different. You know, I normally disrupt timing, disrupt schedules, and I did it in the middle of the year two or three times now. So yeah, I sat down, probably I don't know, a week and a half ago and started, you know, writing some thank yous and stuff that I want to post and you guys, wait, are you sure you want to do this? So yeah, I mean there's I think those questions are always gonna come up, you know it. Everybody asked you know about you know, when to retire, and you know, she kept saying, well, if you want to keep pitching, you know, you know, keep playing. I said, I'm always gonna want to pitch. So this has a lot more to do with wanting to be around you and the kids more and wanting to be around my parents and grandparents and and her family more because I'm always gonna want to play baseball, you know how that is, competing and doing that. There's just nothing like it.

00:03:04
Speaker 4: I don't know. I don't ever want to have to see another slider again. So maybe maybe it's different, Maybe you're built different. But you said, you said the Oriols, you said, you said, you know, the opportunity wasn't quite what I thought it would be. Can you explain that a little bit more?

00:03:19
Speaker 3: Uh, the Orioles was that opportunity was was a good one, you know. There there was a little bit of me that was we had talked to him probably ten or twelve days prior to me signing, and I don't know why. There was just something about it that, you know, at the time ten days prior that I wasn't, you know, as comfortable with it. Could have been that everybody in our family was sick and we were going through the middle of a tough time just trying to get healthy. But and then we talked two weeks later, you know, towards the end of the march, I felt a lot better about it and really enjoyed my time back there. I love those guys, you know, a great organization. You enjoyed being you know with both the minor league tams that I was with, and sure the four starts didn't work out, but you know, that's a really good group of guys, you know it kind of then going to Tampa, you know, that was an awesome situation, the one that I just wasn't really sure about to have too. It was just after, you know, I had a couple of chances after I opted out of Durham and then just the opportunities didn't seem like they were quite what I was looking for. Whether it was you know, only a bullpen kind of a short term you know, inning situation maybe like you guys are talking with the Braves, just wasn't really one that seemed like a long term. Hey, you're going to be one of the guys here for the next four months and let's go after.

00:04:28
Speaker 4: This, Kyle.

00:04:31
Speaker 5: Was there a moment. Was there a moment when you were like, Okay, I'm done. I know you said that you're at your opt out date coincided with your family's late trip. Was was there a moment when you're in Durham or in Baltimore wherever you were when you're just like, I don't want to do this anymore because listen, I mean I had to retire.

00:04:48
Speaker 3: Crafts had to retire.

00:04:50
Speaker 5: You know, there is there a moment when you just said, ah, man, you know, whether it was at the lake, maybe you're at the lake with the family and you're like, this is kind of cool. I don't have to work, I don't have to go to pitch every days from now right. I don't know, because I think we all kind of have that moment now, you know, not all of us get to Hardly anybody gets to go out on their own terms and have the tour and do all that stuff. But was there a moment when you said I'm okay without playing baseball.

00:05:14
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:05:14
Speaker 3: I think going into last year, I was actually fine if last year was my last year playing, you know, being you know, living in Saint Louis, playing with Saint Louis. You know, I had the option for this year, but we were as a family, we were good if that was our last year, and I really was until I got, you know, the opportunity with the Orioles, even as the fake spring training and not being in spring training kind of drug on I was okay if that was it, you know, But once I started playing, I never had that moment where, oh, a bad start, you know, I just need to retire, or I'm a little bit more sword day, Oh I just need to retire. Probably didn't actually happen until probably after that lake trip, when I got home and I had to decide am I gonna play catch? Or am I gonna go throw a bullpen? Or what am I gonna do here? And I still felt good, and every every time the kids went to bed and it was my time to go work out, I was like, you know what, I don't know that I really want to go do this anymore right now. So I think it was probably more, you know, a week or ten days after that opt out, I kind of had, you know, come to the point before I called my agent. I talked to Elizabeth and the family and I was like, you know, I don't think I want to do that anymore. I don't want to sit and search and jump in and out of the house and go to this team and you know, maybe get defaided and then go find another team. And I felt really good about how the results matched up in Durham, and that's really what I was looking for. Just get back to feeling how I knew I could feel. And if there's not an opportunity, you know, there's not an opportunity. And I was good with that.

00:06:41
Speaker 4: Maybe if it was rainy at the lake, maybe you would have been like, maybe come back. But I'm sure it was nice, the water was clean, everything. But your track record speaks for itself. Like people don't understand health, longevity, pitching every day. Did you feel like the Orioles could have given you a litle bit longer of a leash than I think four starts because of the fact that you are a thirty to thirty two starts. However many starts you're allowed to get, you get at the end of every year. It comes kind of comes out in the wash, like you just that's what you do. Do you feel like four starts was just not enough or was it a chaotic time on a team that wanted to, you know, make the playoffs and you were kind of caught in a wash on that one.

00:07:27
Speaker 3: I think everything you just said is probably the case, right, Yeah, I mean I think if I look back in my career, every year, I probably had four of the thirty two starts that I really wish didn't happen, and it just so happened that, you know, three of those were right there in the first four starts of the year. You know, I still felt really confident that I could get guys out, still felt really good that I could go pitch and be successful. And I think, like you said, that the Orioles were at a spot where they needed to make a decision. You know, they needed a bullpen guy for that next stay after my last rough one, and I just happened to be the guy in the crosshairs that they needed to make the move. So I think they would have liked to have given me more starts. I think they probably thought to themselves, it's going to even out, and I feel like I probably would have looked just like the guy that's been there the last ten or eleven twelve seasons. But you know, it's the decision that they had to make at the time. So that's just kind of how it goes.

00:08:23
Speaker 2: Krats.

00:08:24
Speaker 1: If I'm new to card collecting and I'm looking for the safest, most trusted way in the game to acquire cards or to buy a card, but not go through a ton of work where I'm going to the shows.

00:08:36
Speaker 2: I'm going online doing auctions. I want it all in one place. I'm going to Arina Club.

00:08:42
Speaker 4: It's all one place. You know you're getting a good price, whether you're buying it or you're selling cards. If you're new to it, you don't want all the other crappy cards. You can get the ones that you want. You can start your collection and if you get them on to Rita Club, your collection will look a bouse.

00:08:58
Speaker 2: That's right, and may I mention.

00:09:00
Speaker 1: And they also have Pokemon cards and those slab packs that we talk about every week. You can rip a pack for as low as twenty five dollars and hit on a card that's worth tens of thousands of dollars because every pack has grails that are at least twenty x the price of the pack. So get involved at arenaclub dot com slash foul use the code foul to get twenty percent off your first slab pack or card purchase.

00:09:23
Speaker 5: All right, I'm always fascinated by this question. Now, what what do you do all day? Because people ask me all the time, Oh, you're retired, you must have all the time in the world. I'm like, I'm way more busy now than when I played. So, now, what what do you do all day? Just sit around right, feed up, eating bond bonds, do nothing right.

00:09:39
Speaker 3: Sit at the pool, like, so what do you do all day?

00:09:42
Speaker 2: So?

00:09:43
Speaker 3: You know, anybody that has kids and works a lot, right, I mean you come home, your kids have a schedule. And that's been one thing that's been really cool for me is you know, we've got an eleven year old, eight year old and a five year old and two year old, and the eleven year old eight year old are deep into sports, deep into their activities and I miss a lot of it, right, So the cool thing for me is I've just been able to jump in and be a part of it. So I haven't had to figure out what to do, you know, for the last month, you know, I haven't had to figure anything out. So I'm just gonna enjoy jumping right in and being a dad and being a husband. And then I'm sure there's gonna come a time here in a couple of weeks when they go to school and now I'm like, okay, uh, three of the four here are gone. Uh what am I gonna do today? I did end up getting a new tractor right after we opt I opt that out. So that's gonna be something I'm gonna run around. There's a tree that needs to be cut up, but that's only gonna take a day.

00:10:35
Speaker 4: Uh.

00:10:36
Speaker 3: You know, there's gonna be things that that are gonna need to be done. But we'll see when the kids go back to school, you know what that's gonna look like.

00:10:43
Speaker 4: I can see gibbee as the kids are going back to school, like, you guys wanna stay home and like play, stay home and play with me because that's that's home. And they're like, no, we want to go to school see our friends.

00:10:53
Speaker 2: What are you?

00:10:55
Speaker 3: What are you good at?

00:10:57
Speaker 4: Man? Because because as a player, everybody, your entire family, your friends, everything revolves around your schedule. I have to go get my workouts in. I gotta hey, I'm going to the field. Hey it's my start day. Are you guys getting tickets? It's all about you. You you, and that's the one thing that you do. What are you good at that? You're like yeah, and don't say pickleball because that's that's weak. That's a week week.

00:11:19
Speaker 3: No, I know nothing to sit there and hang my hat on and be like, oh man, I'm gonna go do this five days a week and feel really good about it. You know, one thing I'm trying to do is I'm trying to learn how to work on some engines and do some car work. Our kids are older to race a little side by side you TV's in the summer. My father in law is the mechanic on all of those, and they're, you know, at times, are fairly easy to work on. I am not mechanically inclined, but I need to be able to be able to wrench a few things here. So for the next rest of this summer, I think I'm gonna try and see if you can give me a little bit of a crash course on what it looks like to work on these a little bit more, fix a few things so then next year he didn't have to do as much. But our five year old is going to be in it here soon hopefully, and they have a lot of fun doing that. So if I can take a little pressure off Randy and having to wrench all these little razors, that's gonna be something I'm gonna try to get good out here over the next four or five months. It's gonna take longer than four or five months, whom I can't, but I'm gonna try and work on that a little bit.

00:12:19
Speaker 4: Nice little grease under your fingernails, all right, Yeah, to thank it after it. Two things, favorite teammate and everyone else is gonna be pissed at you because you said this person and craziest teammate.

00:12:33
Speaker 3: Oh man, I'm gonna go position player and pitcher for favorite teammate because I can't. You know, I wouldn't have had the career I had without you know, Kurt Suzuki behind the dish for the first few years in Minnesota. That guy showed me the ropes on you know, how to be a pro. You know how to make adjustments on the mound, how to take a plan that you created and adjust to that plan. You know. He told me one time in twenty fourteen against the Tigers when they're trying to clinch the division. In the third ding, he goes, Hey, we're gonna throw fastballs until they start respecting your fastball. I'm like, are you kidding me? We're gonna throw Meggie and Victor and all these guys just heaters. Well, I look up in the fifth inning and I haven't thrown her off speed pitch for the last three eating so he was a special one. And as a pitcher, oh man. Uh, Mike Pelfrey was that guy in in Minnesota for me that kind of showed me the ropes. And if it's not him, it's Lance Lynn. You know, he's another Indiana guy that really got to enjoy getting to know and being teammates with a few different times. And you know, I would say as a pitcher, he's he's the guy who's the craziest. Was Lance was Lance the craziest? Oh man? Uh No, I feel like had I been teammates with him, you know, pre children, uh and and pre that maybe I've heard that, you know, from his his own words, he settled down a little bit, so he might have been craziest teammate. Oh man. Shoot, I don't know I've ever been asked that question. Chratsey, Quite honestly, you know, I don't know that anybody really wants their name out there as the craziest teammate. Had quite a few guys who are pretty damaging to equipment when they make outs. You know, I feel like that's that's the crazy part to me. That's I don't know how you position players did it, quite honestly, but man, I don't know. I'll have to do some I'll have to answer that question next time I'm on here. If you guys have me back on, you put me on a spot with a crazy teammate. Maybe I'll think about it here before we're done.

00:14:34
Speaker 1: Fine, Yes, homework, homework and then and then we'll talk about it again at some point.

00:14:38
Speaker 2: My last one. You pitched for the Oriols in twenty twenty three. They were awesome. They won one hundred one games.

00:14:42
Speaker 1: I know the playoffs didn't work out the way you guys wanted to ran into a hot Rangers team. Then you were just on this Oriols team I know for a shorter period of time. How difficult was that when you were that I don't remember. I think you were still there when they made the manager change too, and almost everyone I've spoken to just loves Brandon Hyde or How tough was that to navigate the you know a couple months that you were there when this team was supposed to be good again and it was probably the biggest disappointment of a team in baseball this year.

00:15:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, you want to talk about a wild day, you know, we had a it's a wild twenty four hours we had a team meeting at Friday night. I actually pitched the day he got fired, So I got a message about thirty minutes before I was heading to the parque. We got a team meeting at the park. You know, he got relieved that day. I went on, pitched, pitched terrible. I got relieved of my duties later that day. So what a twenty four hours that was. Everybody loves Brandon Hyde man, He's he was so much fun to play for. I'm sure that was a tough decision for a lot of people in that organization because he was beloved by a lot of the front office, community, people, players, everybody, and it was it was kind of a tumultuous season there, you know, I think between some injuries, between some players struggling and starting off cold. I think Anthony Santander was somebody who did a lot for that locker room. So that was something that was a jolt to the system. And it was just kind of the perfect storm in a negative way, quite honestly. And then how it how it is in other places I've been unfortunately. You know, when they make changes, you know, they normally start at the top, and Hyder was kind of the guy to go and see what that does. But you know, it was it was a wild couple months. Obviously, it wasn't what I thought, you know, March twenty fifth, whenever I signed with him, was gonna happen. Because they still have a really good roster, still have a lot of great players. We'll see what this deadline brings. But you know, it's it's still a really good group of guys that that was just really going through. You know, I heard you guys talking about the Braves before I came on here. They're a team that's kind of going through it, a really good team going through it, and the Oora was the same way. You know, Baseball is so funny because nothing is guaranteed. And that's why, you know when you guys talk about the Royals making trades and kind of quote going for it. When you have a chance to make the playoffs as a player, you want to go for it every time. I understand front offices have their ideas and their plans, but you just don't know when it's going to work out, and sometimes injuries derail what you think is going to be your chance, and then you don't have a chance. So I feel like you always need to take advantage of when you have a chance to make the playoffs. Go try man, Go make the playoffs and see if you can do something special.

00:17:19
Speaker 1: Well said, the winning window always closes sooner than almost everyone expects it to.

00:17:24
Speaker 2: Kyle, Thank you so much, great stuff man. Great to have you on. Obviously we would love to have you back and congratulations. Enjoy the fan time.

00:17:31
Speaker 3: Appreciate you guys.