Trevor Rogers on his epic comeback, Unique delivery, Orioles lost season

00:00:02
Speaker 1: We have Trevor Rodgers joining us.

00:00:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for having me on. It's good to be with you guys for a little bit.

00:00:08
Speaker 1: Talk to some shop, dude, you are dealing. How fun has it been for you during these last couple of months.

00:00:15
Speaker 2: It's been been a lot of fun, you know, you know, just really just getting back to, you know, the way that I've always thought that I could throw the ball consistently and just you know, help my team and help this organization win every time I'm out there. So it's been a lot of fun here recently.

00:00:36
Speaker 3: Did you think it was gonna happen right away when you went over to the Orioles last year?

00:00:39
Speaker 4: When you get.

00:00:40
Speaker 3: Traded over, you're like, perfect, I'm the guy that's gonna take this Orioles team to the Promised Land. And it didn't happen right away. Did you think it was going to like make that change or was the transition from the Marlins to the Orioles tougher than what people think, Oh, you you're just traded, You just get different color cleats.

00:01:02
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was a lot tougher than what people realize. You know.

00:01:05
Speaker 2: With Miami, we kind of had a really really bad year from the previous year, and you know, they were going in a different direction, and you know, again traded to a first place team and the al least probably one of the best divisions in baseball, just put a bunch of unwanted pressure on myself. I just thought I had to go out there and throw a score of outing every single time out. And I kind of went the opposite direction, and you know, you know, got sent down. And I think, looking back now and where I'm at now, I think it was a blessing in disguise. Really really had to take kind of a good, long, hard look at myself and make some changes if I wanted to play this game. You know that I love for a long time, and I think it was the best decision at the time.

00:01:55
Speaker 5: Yeah, adversity, man, it's a tough pill to swallow, but at the same time, once you come out of it, you understand, you know why, and you know what the purpose was. But my question to you for this oriole team, now, what's going to get them back over the hump?

00:02:10
Speaker 2: Man?

00:02:11
Speaker 5: I mean, this is a really good organization, a really good team. I've I've talked about it all the time. I know the injuries are mounting up but what can get them back.

00:02:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good question. I I don't think it's the lack of talent. I'll put our lineup against every lineup in baseball and we'll have a really good chance avoiding that whatever day it is. I think probably the biggest thing is all of you guys have heard it. You can't lose or you can't win a division in April and May, but you can lose it. I think we just had such a slow start this year that you know, we got in such a big hole and.

00:02:55
Speaker 4: It was just really tough for us to climb out of.

00:02:57
Speaker 2: And you know, I think all of us, you know, we're pretty pretty young team, very talented team, but I think we're gonna have to make that next step as far as you know, putting our big boy pants on. You know, with a lot of the veterans we're trade away at the deadline this year, and we still have a really solid young course. I think we're all gonna have to make that next step going forward and just knowing that we don't want this to happen next year and really just putting in the work the rest of this year and going into the offseason and really just try to maintain the culture that they've built.

00:03:32
Speaker 4: Here the past two years going forward.

00:03:36
Speaker 3: Do you hear that from other guys? Do you hear that from other guys in the locker room? I know, pitchers and position players don't necessarily mix all the time, but you're all young guys who are pushing hopefully towards the same goal. But do you hear guys talk about that, like, screw this year, We're gonna go out and win. We're going to get back to what we were and the expectation that everybody had for us.

00:04:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, one hundred percent. I could definitely say some guys are, you know, say how it is pissed off the way this year is gone because it's not the standard of Orioles baseball. We expect a lot more. We expect to, you know, compete in the toughest division in baseball and and be up there where the you know, the Blue Jays, the Red Sox are at this year and even the Yankees. So, yeah, guys aren't happy about it, but you know, you got to accept where we are and make the best of the situation this year and really just play our asses off the rest of this year and going into next year, just to make sure this this feeling, you know, playing coming into September and not playing meaningful baseball doesn't happen again.

00:04:43
Speaker 3: Who gets the most pissed off? I feel like watching the watching the games, I feel like one guy has a little bit more of a temper than other guys. But who gets the most pissed off? And we'll call guys out? And I'm not saying call guys out in the sense that some people think like good constructive, like let's get it going boys.

00:05:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean if some guys are better at hiding it than others, but I mean everyone from top down. You know, Gunner's very passionate, Wes Westbrook's very passionate, Jackson, I mean addly Mounie. I mean, it keeps going on, even the starting rotation. You know, they're not happy the way this season has gone. The coaching staff isn't But you know, you can look at two ways. You can moan and groan about how the season is not gone the way we wanted, or we can make the best of the opportunity ahead of us and keep playing hard, meaningful baseball, playing for each other each and every day until the last game is said, and done. So you know, guys aren't happy, but you know they use that to their advantage. You know, we got a lot of intense guys that love playing the game, and you know, it's really just fun watching watching those guys compete every day.

00:05:56
Speaker 1: Hey, Trevor, let's go back to the trade for a moment. So you get moved from the Marlins, and they weren't really in contention. Of course, Oils are looking to do damage. They make the playoffs last year, and it was a battle for you to get back to where you are now, and now you're thriving. Did you look at the trade and then kind of put extra on yourself and be like, hey, they gave up some pretty good players here, they're starting caliber players. One has become an All Star and Kyle Sowers, Like, was anything like that on your mind? And also, just take me through the trade in general, moving over from Miami to Baltimore and what changed.

00:06:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't really think about it at the time, because you know, I was so worried, you know, I got to have results, got to do this, got to do that. And when I got traded over and I wasn't doing what I knew that I could do, for this organization. And I saw what Stours and Norby were doing. And you know, I've obviously played in Miami for four years. It's not a very hit or friendly park. And to see what those guys were doing this, like, holy cow, that's impressive. So it put a lot of unwanted pressure as far as like, oh, I got to make sure this this trade wasn't a bust, and and and just so on and so forth. You know, just a lot of outside noise that I was listening to that. You know, I've made a better adjustment this year just tossing all that out. My bubble is really small, so yeah, I saw that and really kind of just changed my mindset and outlook on this year, you know, just controlling what I can control and really just go out and execute pitches. And you know, just and I've said it again, I'll say it again, just showing what the organization, uh, just show them what I can do.

00:07:50
Speaker 4: Okay, KP.

00:07:51
Speaker 1: This is your first arena club experience. We're gonna open a slab pack together. So first off, we're gonna buy one of those twenty five dollars slab packs and we get to see what is in the past there. It is the grail, which is the best card in the pack and worth the most. There are some other cards that we're chasing, and you can see the entire lineup so that you know what you're in the running for. There's the Yamamoto signed card. Now let's open up our pack and see how we do. We have ourselves a really cool graphic and then a show. Hey o, Tani, fifty to fifty card from last year, what do you want to do? Should we sell it right back to them for sixteen or should we keep it?

00:08:32
Speaker 4: You should give it to me, I'll.

00:08:34
Speaker 1: Keep good answer, fine, I will give it to you. Since the Blue Jays didn't getto Tani, you can get this fifty to fifty card instead and use the code foul foul to get yourself twenty percent off your first slab pack or card purchase. Yes, you get to keep that card if you want it. They send it to you foul at Arena Club dot com slash foul.

00:08:53
Speaker 3: It's gotta be trust. It's got to be trust because you sound like your mindset is just completely different. Because if you look back at your triple A numbers from this year, nobody would have expected this take us through that, Take us through that because some people look, some people have never played. Look solely at oh yeah, look at his triple A numbers. There's no way he's gonna do well. Talk through that in a mental standpoint, but also in like the execution of it actually out on a big league mount.

00:09:26
Speaker 2: I think the biggest thing that people outside of the game don't know that you gotta be honest, it's really hard to be locked in and stay locked in for triple A starts because you know, you be in the big leagues for a couple of years and then you get sent down. I mean, win or lose in triple A, you don't really really care.

00:09:50
Speaker 4: You just want to get back to the big leagues.

00:09:52
Speaker 2: And I mean you want to perform, and you want to win because that's part of the performance.

00:09:56
Speaker 4: But it's just it's really hard to get.

00:10:00
Speaker 2: Locked in, and you know, the adrenaline isn't there. You know, there's a couple of thousand people in the stands instead of you know, forty thousand. It's just it doesn't mean as more as much as big league games do. But you also, you know, you can't let that be an excuse and for whatever reason, I've always I've always struggled, whether it's rehab outings or you know, getting options of pitching, because you know, it's just it's hard to see what the guy's approaches are down in Triple A because you know they're just they haven't really found their approach yet, and you know they're just swinging and it seems like every ball is falling. So you know, it's always been tough for me to kind of, you know, make that adjustment down there.

00:10:43
Speaker 4: But you know I was.

00:10:45
Speaker 2: I got called up for that double header in Boston in May and made the most of it.

00:10:50
Speaker 4: And the rest is history.

00:10:54
Speaker 3: All right, Well, what about moving forward? Is there something that you sit here and you go, Okay, you're thirteen starts right now in the big leagues are a freaking elite. Let alone August, You've only give it up a run each start. Like, moving forward, not just September, but moving forward to next year. Are there things that you did this past off season to get yourself ready that you're like, dang, if I get a whole off season of that, where can I get to what level? Can I truly get to back to another All Star Game? That level that you were when you first broke into the big leagues.

00:11:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it goes back to, you know, just the very basic stuff, you know, just lower body strength, a lot of low back injuries, and just stuff that was limiting my ability to you know, be as strong as I could. I mean, there are starts where my back hurts so bad that you know, I just had to hold my breath to make sure it didn't it didn't hurt when I released the ball, so that that happens, and you know, you just try to be smarter in the weight room.

00:11:56
Speaker 4: And my version of being smarter at.

00:11:58
Speaker 2: The time was, you know, just stop stop lifting and just try to be as healthy as I can. What's the downfall was is I kind of got I lost all my strength. So that was like the big thing when I went over the drive line is they showed me the graph of where my strength was compared to like the big league average, and I mean there's probably that big of a gap between where I was and where the big.

00:12:24
Speaker 4: League average was. So that was the big thing.

00:12:27
Speaker 2: Get my my lower body strength back, and then just fixing up a couple of mechanical cues that I've kind of built over the past.

00:12:37
Speaker 4: Couple of years.

00:12:38
Speaker 2: Just bad habits, and we really knocked those two things out and it's been it's been really good this year. So really just this coming off season, really focusing on that even more, and in a couple of small other details as well.

00:12:55
Speaker 3: Like can you go back to what you're saying about drive line, your your your strength was below oh big league average for your lower body? Is that what she said?

00:13:03
Speaker 4: Yeah?

00:13:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you played Was that your fifth big league season when you found this out?

00:13:11
Speaker 4: Yep? Yeah?

00:13:13
Speaker 3: How was this not found before? We're always I'm always taught. I'm always intrigued by organizations that that are ahead of the curve, behind the curve. You had to go to a third party outside of an organization to find this out. Do you feel like if you had been given this information before, you would have at least brought that back up. If not, Based on what like I'm hearing from you, it seems like you're super competitive, you probably would have gone twenty percent over the league average. But do you feel like this is like it was almost wasted time that you didn't know this before.

00:13:52
Speaker 2: That's that's a good question. I So when I first had my first back injury the end of twenty one, I came back in twenty two and the velocity was still there. I think it was the repetitive back injuries and the repetitive you know, my back just shows that crap. So it was like the slow regression of you know, let's just completely knock this out lower body wise, Let's do a couple of movements that feel good, because that's what matters. We just want to keep you on the field and go from there. I try not to have any regrets because that's part of the story, that's part of the you know, what my career is, and I've always taken it as you know, I've learned throughout the way, every step through this journey. But I do I do think sometimes, you know, if if I had to do it over again, I would have gone sooner. But everything works out for a reason. I think the stars aligned and I went at the perfect time. And I'm just happy that we found the issue and we were able to tackle it. You know, if there wasn't a problem and they couldn't find a problem, might be probably in a lot worse spot.

00:15:11
Speaker 4: Than than I was.

00:15:12
Speaker 2: So I'm just glad that there was a problem and we were able to attack it and resolve it.

00:15:19
Speaker 5: I want to talk a little bit about your arm angle too as well. You know, I'm not saying it's a problem. You kind of got that lower arm angle for a bigger picture. You know, bum Gardner did kind of the same thing, but he had that longer release. Can you talk a little bit about that. Did you develop that over time or was that just the natural way that you threw the ball?

00:15:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, just a natural way that I threw the ball before. This was when I was a lot younger, before I even saw video. I thought I was I was kershaw. I was way up here over the top, and they saw the video and I was way out here. I was like, oh crap, Okay, that's not exactly what I felt. But Phil versus real, right, So that's that's kind of always how I threw the baseball. So yeah, I don't know where it came from or it was just a natural way of throwing the baseball, but yeah, that's kind of always how. It's how it's been, all right, what do you do in your free time? What do you do when you're not dominating big league hitters?

00:16:18
Speaker 3: And you're like, I got I got I got two hours to kill, I got two hours of kill in this city or you know, we got an off day. What's what's Trevor going to besides hitting lower lower body?

00:16:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I've been My wife has been a lot better, trying to get me out and trying new restaurants.

00:16:39
Speaker 4: I'm I'm very playing James.

00:16:41
Speaker 2: Just give me your burger, give me, give me something, give me shoot, give me ramen noodles.

00:16:46
Speaker 4: I don't care.

00:16:48
Speaker 2: So I've been better at, you know, expanding my palate a little bit. Big, big lego guy, a big lego guy. I love legos. We'll build him in the off season all the time. And I love to go and read, so kind of just those four things. I don't really do a whole lot outside of that pretty boring guy, So I just try to keep it simple.

00:17:09
Speaker 3: Really wait wait, wait, wait, nuts, that's not boring. First of all, did you did you have you gotten sick eating anything that she's had you eat? And do you glue your legos together? Because he's not here today. Aj Prazinski is huge into legos and he's he is lord business. He Yeah, Aj is normally normally here where Todd is. Phil is my guy today, but he glues his together and I think that is like communist.

00:17:38
Speaker 4: I can't.

00:17:38
Speaker 3: I can't, I can't.

00:17:41
Speaker 2: That's that's that's a little crazy. I'd never even thought about that. That that's I don't think I have the patience to glue them. If they fall apart, then they fall apart. I think I need to do a better job of building them. But uh, but as far as the food food goes, I mean, shoot, I grew up on taco bell, So I don't think anything's gonna get this stomach get this stomach upset.

00:18:05
Speaker 1: So stomach is still wait. I totally just realized this as we're getting towards the end of the conversation. Do you know who we spoke to on this show yesterday? We had a guest on this show who you know pretty well, Like, I think you're related to him, Cody Ross. Yeah, dude, how crazy is this? We mostly have current players on, especially during the season. We're at a tournament in Alabama and I was just looking because I know you played ball in New Mexico. And we asked Cody best player ever out of New Mexico, and he brought up Alex Bregman, And then I'm like, oh, I should ask him this question. And then I look and it says his cousin Cody played for nine to one teams. I'm like, what, wait, so Cody's your cousin.

00:18:53
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, he's my cousin.

00:18:54
Speaker 2: So his dad and my mom's mom or brother and sister, so I think that second cousins or something like that. So yeah, he was. He was big for me growing up. You know, I wanted to be him, you know, coming from the same hometown and just seeing everything that he accomplished. So he was definitely big for me growing up.

00:19:17
Speaker 1: Dude, that is crazy.

00:19:18
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:19:19
Speaker 1: I mean we're on every single day and we've had Cody on one other time a few years ago. But that's crazy. So what's the new Mexico baseball scene?

00:19:26
Speaker 4: Like, let's finish with that.

00:19:27
Speaker 1: I mean, there haven't been many players that have come out and been stars like yourself and Bragman and obviously Cody when he was playing. So what's the scene like there.

00:19:37
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's very you know, underrated.

00:19:41
Speaker 2: There's some teams in Albuquerque, Le Cueva, El Dorado, Cleveland, especially Le Cueva. They were I mean I hated playing them because they were so good. I think at one point, maybe twenty years ago, they're national champions for all of high school baseball, so you know, they're just a powerhouse every year.

00:20:02
Speaker 4: And then you and him and NMSU.

00:20:05
Speaker 2: Kyle Bradish actually told me in spring training that he went to NMSU, so that was that was pretty cool. So you know, they're just pumping out really good college talent and definitely wouldn't be surprised if there's more high school talent coming up in the in the next couple of years.

00:20:25
Speaker 5: Very cool.

00:20:25
Speaker 1: We all have to do it what Cody does because I know Cody's big, you know, and tries to you know, mentor anybody that's coming from from New Mexico. And I know he was pretty tight with pregnant and obviously tight with you given the family ties. So that's really cool. Trevor, awesome conversation. Thanks thanks for joining us, Keep doing your thing. Appreciate the time.

00:20:44
Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks for having me, guys. I enjoyed it.