Giants Spring Training report w/Susan Slusser + Mookie Betts works out with Yoshinobu Yamamoto

00:00:02
Speaker 1: We're joined now by splash Hit Territory regular guest and reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle covering the San Francisco Giants, Susan Slesser. Always great to see you, Susan. You recently wrote about the Giants send Bryce Eldreds down amid woeful offensive spring showing tell us more about that.

00:00:21
Speaker 2: Good to be with you, Hello, my friend, longtime no see.

00:00:26
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:00:26
Speaker 2: Bryce Eldridge was the most closely watched player in camp, absolutely no doubt about it. The Giant's top prospect and possibly a major consideration for their full time DH roll. Maybe fill in a little bit of first, he's still learning first. That's actually coming along pretty well. It was the bat this spring that strikeouts were high, nearly forty percent strikeout rate. He's young, he's twenty one. There is absolutely no downside to sending him down to get regular playing time and bring him up when he's hot. Teams like to do that, get the hot bat in the lineup when they bring somebody up. But as much as anything, this is about somebody like gerar In Karnacion, who's out of options, has played really well all spring, including defensively hit one of the longest home runs I've ever seen at Scottsdale Stadium for sixty three last week. This guy's having a great spring. Out of options, Luis Matos is out of options. You sent Bryce Eldridge down. There's the potential you can keep both guys a little more roster flexibility. Those are both players that I think other teams would jump on, you would have very little chance of keeping them. So I think there are a lot of things going on, But the main thing is this is not going to do anything but probably help Bryce Eldridge in the long run.

00:01:43
Speaker 3: But ultimately you need one hundred and sixty two games with the best players. The Giants feel like going into spring that Bryce Eldrig was going to be one of their best players to help them because of the fact that they didn't solidify the DH hole that they have in the offseason.

00:02:02
Speaker 2: Well, I think that they have numerous options at DH, and I don't necessarily think you have to have one designated designated hitter right Eldridge would have been fine swinging a hot bat. I don't think there's any doubt he'll be up and he will contribute to this team at some point. But if you're not quite ready, you're not quite ready if you want a hot bat. And there great the competition for sort of the last spot on the roster, last couple spots has been really heated. They've got some really good options there. So Gerari in Karnacion I think would be fine at DH. You can run Devers through there quite a bit. He'll mostly be at first where he's been quite good, and I think he under Ron Washington, I think he's going to be very good. Luisa Rise wants to play second base, He's going to start off there, but I would think at times he will be an option at DH. So many possibilities there, and that's I think with the buster posey front office and what Tony Vytelo, having flexibility and being able to use the right guys at the right time is really paramount. And I think bringing up Eldridge when he's ready and really swinging it well like look he has not. He's actually said he does not feel comfortable in the box right now. Tony Vytello said he walked past him the other night after a three strikeout game and he was talking to the hitting coaches about not quite feeling comfortable. You need it, especially a twenty one year old to feel comfortable when he's up.

00:03:32
Speaker 3: But is there any way that he can cut that down? I mean, I get it, you're not a swing coach, but when you look at his minor league stats he had last year, he had one hundred and twenty seven strikeouts in one hundred and two games. He had one hundred and thirty two strikeouts in one hundred and sixteen games the year before. And now you're looking at a guy that struck out, like you said, almost a forty percent clip in spring training, Like is that they brought him to this point? I know last year was kind of like, Okay, we have to kind of rush him because we need that spot. But he's having some success on some points. But you're always going to have that strikeout thing or evaluation of him looming.

00:04:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's gonna have some strikeout to his game. Absolutely, I don't think that's ever going to go away, but you certainly want to reduce the percentage. And when he's not striking out, you want to reach in base. You want him hitting homers, you want him you know he Tony Bright tell us it's something interesting yesterday, like he hasn't had enough reps base running because he wasn't getting on base. They're really trying to Now, look, right, Z, Eldridge is not going to be a big bas dealer or anything, but they're trying to push the action. See who can do what on the basis, who can handle the bat with guys on base in various situations. Eldridge was not quite there to do that because he wasn't on base enough. So, yeah, he needs to be performing if he's striking out and he wasn't. You know, he's so close. There's just no doubt he will be up this year and he will be very good. This is a big league player. The scouts all universally have said that. But the scouts have also said all spring there is no downside to leaving him in the minors for a month or two. Let him get into the flow, let him get going, be in a position to succeed when he's up, and then you hope he's up to stay.

00:05:20
Speaker 1: Logan Webb Susan said that he took offense. I'm paraphrasing here, there's not his words Forbatim, but took offense to folks saying that Team USA didn't care about the worlds of Baseball Classic, and I'm glad that he said it. I know they cared. They may not have showed their emotions in certain ways, but that's okay. Have you had a conversation with him by chance or just kind of what was he like when he came back to Giants camp regarding the WBC.

00:05:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, Logan web would take that very much to heart because a few people care as much about the game about competition. Like you've seen him on the mout. This is a bulldog. He wants to win. But he and I think everybody on team, all the WBC teams were so proud, so happy to be part of the national team. And I think criticism like, look, they're may be not as demonstrative as some of the other teams, but I don't think that's an indication of caring or not caring. Obviously, that cared, I mean, that's that's kind of silly. But you've got a game in Miami with a very pro Venezuela crowd, which was fun, like that was great, super loud. Any team they're playing is probably going to look a little maybe flatter in comparison because they don't have the entire crowd behind them, so I think that was all silly, Susan.

00:06:39
Speaker 3: One of our one of our blocks that we're gonna be talking about later is aces and not aces. So since we're on logan web is logan web an ace in this league?

00:06:49
Speaker 2: Oh are you kidding me? Leeds the league and innings and basically every year all Star. I think this will be his fifth Opening Night's start, wants the ball team leader. Absolutely, there's just no I think he is not talked about enough nationally. He's in the Cy Young race every year one hundred percent. I mean, he is a top five to six starter in the league. That's an ace.

00:07:18
Speaker 1: Love it, Love it, Susan. With Tony Vittello, let's talk a little bit about the change in guard there with the new skipper. I understand, obviously coming from the college ranks at Tennessee, he might be implementing a couple of new drills that these MLB players aren't quite used to. Tell us a little bit more about the giants sweating the details under his new implementation of some drills.

00:07:44
Speaker 2: Well, I think this is one of the main reasons that Tony Bytello is here. Buster Posey, I think felt like not that there was a lack of work eth ethnic ethic last year previous years, but I think he wanted to see more hence especially pre game drills, maybe more frequent drills. And Tony Vaitello, I mean, you talk about somebody who knows his drills and does them at gain speed, which I've never seen. I've never seen especially some of these infield drills done as quickly. And Ron Washington fits into that perfectly. He's the taskmaster, he says. If everybody does everything correctly, they can get through their drills in four minutes. If they don't do it perfectly, it's back to the You know, it's going to take as long as it takes until it's perfect. But it's boom boom boom. It's fun to watch. And then they do pop up priorities like college teams do it. They absolutely blare like the loudest possible newsic like it's ears liitting. The first time it happened, I was like, who in the is doing this?

00:08:47
Speaker 4: At the PA?

00:08:47
Speaker 2: You tell them to turn this down, but it was. It's absolutely to mimic the crowd noise. Right in college, they have to do that because they don't necessarily get the opportunity to have these big crowds, So at the even more important I think at the big league level, and that's the team loves it. Plus I think it gets them a little pumped up with the music.

00:09:09
Speaker 3: What is the player's reaction to not that what you were just saying, but the expectation that if it's four minutes, we're going to do it perfectly, Because sometimes big leaguers in spring training are like, I'm kind of not just going through the motions, but I'm getting my first steps down. What's their reaction been to the way he runs his drills.

00:09:30
Speaker 2: I think they love it. You know, they're all competitive people, and this makes it fun. It makes it a competition, you know, and you're competing against yourself when you're trying to do something like that. But the best part is especially for somebody like Bryce Eldridge. Eldridge told me, like I, when the game time comes, I don't have to think I've just been doing this and I did it perfectly the last time I did it, I know I did it perfectly and at game speed. So they're getting as close to game action as they possibly can, which, so you know, eric is very hard to do during the spring during any sort of drill. This is about as close as you can come. So for somebody like Bryce Eldridge, somebody like Louisa Rise who is really working hard to be a better second baseman, these things matter. They absolutely do. We'll see how it plays out when the actual regular season starts, but I mean, everybody is feeling really good about it. And I will say their defense has been good and aggressive. They are, absolutely especially with the outfield they had. The Giants had the worst outfield defense in the majors last year kind of by far and a little bit surprisingly that Harrison Vader, and then this spring they've been doing incredibly aggressive work in the outfield, both in drills and in games. They want everybody going for everything. It looks so much better. So I mean, we'll see, but that's so far very encouraging.

00:10:54
Speaker 1: Susan Eric and I had a conversation at the top of the show about the Miami Marlins and now most recently the New York Mets implementing kind of a relaying of signs, if you will, from the dugout to the catcher to call pitches. Do you think with a young manager in terms of MLB experience and Tony Botello would that be something that the San Francisco Giants would consider me doing that a little bit more, even if it was just a suggestion the catcher, And of course the pitcher has the final say, But is that something that they might move towards.

00:11:24
Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting Bytello has asked that early in the spring by another outlet and sort of said like, yeah, consider that. When I talk to him about it several weeks later, I think that idea had at least for now been put to the side. I talked to Buster Posey about it. He said like, yeah, you know, we would consider it, because we would consider anything, like we take everything under advisement, of course, But when you've got Patrick Bailey as your catcher, that's just not something you're going to do. I mean, he is any you know, he's a platinum glove catcher, right, He's tremendous. So, uh, they are not going to do that for now. And I talked to Bailey and I talked to Logan Webb and they both said, no, that's not something they're interested in. Like, if they had to, they would, but I don't know why you would do that with Patrick Bailey. Now, hey, if you have Daniel Susak, who's a Rule five catcher, probably going to make the team. If he's in there, maybe all bets are off maybe now and then you you know, call some pitches from the bench. But I don't think this is going to be part of the giants regular repertoire certainly most of the time. And I'd be a little surprised if they moved to it this year.

00:12:32
Speaker 3: Susan, make sure you remember how Buster reacted when you asked that, when you asked that to him, because he was lying to you. Because there is no way Buster, Posey Hall future Hall of Fame catcher, is going to sit on his ivory tower and go, you know what we need in a big league team, somebody else calling the pitches, you.

00:12:52
Speaker 2: Know what I I yes, I would say that, except for Buster has surprised us a little. We think he's very old school, and he is in many ways right and hard nos catcher, absolutely he is, but he goes very outside the box to hire Tony Vaytela for instance. You know, he went huge swing getting Raphael Devers, like he'll surprise you, so I do think. And he's got a front office with a lot of sort of you know people who like to push, like push the envelope, so maybe you know, somebody convinces him they might do it.

00:13:27
Speaker 3: Buster likes to win, and I think the other decisions that he made lean into winning. I think the pitch calling thing, I don't know. I would love to have the conversation with him when he's not on camera and he doesn't have a quarter zip on, when it's just the boys hanging out ex teammates hanging out, maybe at his maybe at his Wall of Fame induction. We'll talk about that. But I want to talk because we were talking about college a little bit, and you had Drew Gilbert on the show. Normally, a player like Drew Gilbert, somebody that's not an everyday starter, all star type of thing, doesn't get the type of fanfare or necessarily even the like, Hey, we talked to Drew Gilbert about what Tony Mattella was like, like, do you feel like his role is larger than what his playing role is going to be or do you feel like his playing role and what he's going to be able to do on the field will kind of be amped up a little bit now that he has a little bit more experience in the big things great question.

00:14:28
Speaker 2: I'm not sure he's on the opening day roster. He is somebody we will see, I think, quite a lot during the season, in part because what Drew Gilbert brings, along with great defense and the ability to get on base, is the energy. We saw that last year. He really drove a Giant's winning street late in the season with just his sheer exuberance. He's so fun to watch. He fires up teammates. It's kind of kind of a nut, especially in a dugout, in a very good way. Right. He's the kind of guy that other teams can't stand, that goes back to college. And obviously if I Tello knows him very well, you know he's a Tennessee guy, so there's already that familiarity. I think all of those are great things. The energy is a great thing. We will see him, But he brings a lot more than just you know, some pretty good play as a potential fourth outfielder type. He's a play with your hair on fire type of guy, and I think everybody needs one of those from time to time.

00:15:32
Speaker 1: Susan, I know that you came over to the Giants more recently and you've covered the Oakland Athletics now Sacramento Athletics for a very long time. But I am certain that you know about Barry Bonds and have talked to him and all of the things. So now he is going to serve as a guest analyst of course, on the coverage for Opening Night with Netflix, which is great. But it's funny to me how some of those that have been prickly with the media have joined the media. What do you think Bonds will bring because he's such a pilethora of knowledge, obviously, but he picks and chooses who he gives that knowledge to. What do you think his analysis will bring to something like that? Just knowing Barry as you do.

00:16:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, nobody talks about hitting as well as Barry Bonds. And of course, if the second Barry Bonds starts to talk, any hitter should listen to him. Any hitter, I mean, whatever age this is, I mean, he's just a genius when he comes to hitting. It's a pleasure to hear him talk. But you're right, he's priply he does not speak much to the media, particularly the local media and the Bay area writers. Anyway, I think he's a little bit more open sometimes. Two things like TV appearances. He did some last year. He's just so good. I wish he talked more. It can be frustrating for a writer when you want to talk to him about hitting and he's like, I'm not talking today, but I am really really looking forward to hearing what he has to say prehim postgame on Opening Night. He knows the giants. He's, you know, around a lot. He's often in the hitting cage, which I mean, how phenomenal for giants hitters, especially young hitters. It's it's a great development because he has a lot to share. I wish he would share it more, and I'm glad that he is. And it's funny that you talk about the prickly guys sometimes going into the media, you guys might have one there. He was a little prickly, and he and I kind of like talk about that sometimes.

00:17:26
Speaker 3: Are you talking about me? I was always so nice, Susan. Who you're talking about? You're talking about Kevin Polar, aren't you? Is that who you're talking about?

00:17:35
Speaker 2: It is a former giant.

00:17:37
Speaker 3: Sure, I don't know any other giants. I don't know any other giants that were now were prickly. I hope you're not talking about Aj, he was never pretty.

00:17:47
Speaker 2: He's an angel, but angel, he's never.

00:17:52
Speaker 3: You would never say that. But AJ did get on Barry Bonds last year on our show at the BBW A's and he was amazing. I was just as surprised. But it is kind of sad when the best player to ever wear a uniform in the major leagues you don't always get to hear. So I'm super I'll tune in just to hear him speak.

00:18:14
Speaker 1: Oh, he's an encyclopedia and he absolutely is must watch, must listen to TV. And if you didn't happen to see the interview when he was with guys last year at the Gala, please check it out on foul Territory. It's well worth your time. Susan. Always appreciate you taking the time to be with us. We look forward to catching up with you, obviously reading your stuff in the San Francisco Chronicle and as a regular guest on splash Territory. We'll talk to you soon.

00:18:37
Speaker 4: Have a good day, fantastic bas guys, my pleasure. Well, okay, back live to foul Territory. I've seen a lot of wacky things in my day, but what is this? This is Mookie Betts doing Yoshinobu Yama Moto's workouts.

00:18:57
Speaker 1: He's fully bought into it. Eric, it's this m Now he was throwing javelins and now he's carrying YadA sense on his shoulders. Again. Again there's javelin throwing. There's what looks to be like some sort of shot put throwing as well. Twenty twenty seven, sit in the ward goes to Mooki Bets because he got bored at short stuff. What do you make of this new I mean it's working for Yamamoto.

00:19:21
Speaker 2: He was the World.

00:19:22
Speaker 1: Series MVP, but now MVP Mooky Bets perhaps on the scene with YadA sense on his shoulders.

00:19:31
Speaker 2: What are we doing?

00:19:33
Speaker 3: I mean, we are trying to emulate the good things that elite people do. Is that Yaamoto. Yamamoto is definitely elite in what he does to train to get ready, how his body moves, and that's really all that is. Look if a kid go goes and builds a rocket and launches it like Yamamoto's throwing a javelin, you know what I think it You know it's not gonna work quite as well. But there's a lot that goes into that. There's there's a lot of thought process in Okay, what is he trying to feel? He's not like running up and throwing the javelin. It's not necessarily going as far as yamamotos is, but it's how his body is moving in sequence. We're watching it right now for the podcast crowd. He has YadA sense. Mooki has YadA sense on his shoulders and he's just stepping sideways. He's not going into a deep lunge. He's in a safe position. And it's really about how his body's moving. And ultimately, if your body moves correctly, you have enough strength, enough, enough physicality, enough flexibility, you can last in entire season plus the postseason and you'll be healthy. And that's really what that's really why you're doing these drills. And if anybody's gonna like like really master something, it's something like it's somebody like Moki muky. He picks it up any pretty much masters it compared to like the average folk. But then if he continues to work at it, this guy's a limit for a guy like this. He changed to shortstop. He changed a shortstop last year from right field. He was originally a second basement and he played shortstop for the world champion Dodgers. That is a crazy thing that I think people gloss over and I'm like, well, Mookie's just really good. He can bowl too, but it's everything and he wants to get better.

00:21:26
Speaker 1: He is a three hundred bowler. What do you think? And I'm not asking you to be a doctor or yata sense or a sense of any sort. What do you think though it does carrying somebody on your shoulders? Is that more for just alignment?

00:21:38
Speaker 2: Body alignment?

00:21:39
Speaker 4: Like?

00:21:39
Speaker 1: What balance? Okay, how does that translate as being a shortstop? How does that help him?

00:21:44
Speaker 3: Do you think everything in baseball, every position you play is all about balance, if you're leaning one side or the other. I'm sure we saw him moving to his right our left on the screen. I'm sure he did the same thing back. A big thing in Japanese. I don't know about other sports, but in Japanese baseball training, they really work on balance and the ability to do the same thing from both sides. I used to watch you Darvis after he would pitch. I never played with him, but I played against him. He'd throw. He'd come out the next day and he'd throw with his translator left handed he would throw the exact number of pitches that he threw right handed the day before in the game left handed, to the point where he would long toss left handed. And it was all about balance for each side of his body. And so yeah, I mean putting somebody on your back. People would be like, what if Muki hurt himself? You're right, That's why you do it with somebody who knows exactly what they're doing. He's not, you know, arching his bag, he's not. There's so many things that I think can help, and so many workout There's been so many workouts since I started in two thousand and two in professional baseball. Working house working out has changed completely from where we were. But the reality is, if you don't work hard at whatever you're doing, you're not going to get anything out of it.

00:23:08
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this because you had mentioned you Darvish, who would come out with his trainer his interpreter rather and throw left handed or from the left side. He is part Iranian and he is part Japanese. Obviously we know that Yoshinobu Yamamoto is Japanese. You think we should be tapping more into the Japanese style of body development and working out. I mean, there's something obviously to be learned from their style. That's my first question. Second question is you mentioned also that things have changed dramatically over the course of working out since you've been playing. What are some of the more unique things that you've seen in your time.

00:23:44
Speaker 3: I mean, well, the first question, yes, we should tap into it, but not as the end all be all. Just like anything heavy ball workouts, Olympic workouts, stretching, mobility, recovery, all that stuff. Learn more about it as a big ly player. All that stuff is doing. Yeah, you might hit the ball five feet farther, you might throw it one or two miles an hour harder, but ultimately all that stuff. If you're not willing to listen to what a Japanese trainer has to say, what a powerlifting trainer has to say, what your athletic trainer, your ats that are on the team has to say, your massage therapist. If you're not listening, you're going to miss something that could possibly keep you on the field, that could possibly help your team win a world championship. And your second question was what's the craziest thing that I ever saw? I always tell the story of the craziest thing that I did. When I first got drafted, the Blue Jays had the Blue Jays had strength coaches at every level. They were one of the first organizations to do it. We had a interim strength coach at Alberta up and up in Alberta Medicine Hat Alberta. We're the Medicine Hat blue Jays. At the end of the season, they gave us a pamphlet, a booklet that had each day of the off season and you could write out what you know your weight was in each of the workouts. Well, at the end of the one workout there was cuff exercises, rotator cuff exercises, so essentially your for your shoulders and to keep you healthy. Nobody explained any of it to me, So I went in just the way I went into anything, as hard as I could possibly go. And I got to the point where in the off season there's an exercise where you basically hold your hands here like this and you put your hands out. It's basically called no Money's and it's for stability of your shoulders. And by the end of the off season, I had ninety fives and I was doing I mean, I'm fifty fives. I was doing fifty fives at the end of my workout. These no moneies. Okay. We go into first day of spring training and the athletic trainer stands up front. He's like, okay, guys, we're gonna work on our shoulder cuff exercise, you know, so that we have shoulder stability. And all these exercises we're doing with five pounds or less, you can even do them. Just look at band and I'm like, and I'm doing fifty five. I was like, holy crap, that could have been mad. So I was an idiot.