Jake Cronenworth on Dodgers-Padres heat, TV nicknames, Ball fam

00:00:00
Speaker 1: It's a rivalry, yes, but it's just two really good teams that just want to win and want to play good baseball and they just want to beat the other team.

00:00:13
Speaker 2: We're back, and so is Jake Cronin from the Patres training us on FT for the first time.

00:00:17
Speaker 3: Jake.

00:00:18
Speaker 2: Great to have you on man. Thanks for the time. As the season going for.

00:00:21
Speaker 1: You, it's been good. What's up you guys, No, it's been good, Man. I think we're in a good position right now. It's it's been a fun year.

00:00:30
Speaker 4: Aja. You just saw them, right.

00:00:32
Speaker 1: I did.

00:00:33
Speaker 5: I just saw them play the Royal Spits old team, so I saw him play the game that was there, the Padres on one. I believe they beat them, ceased Delta on the seventh.

00:00:45
Speaker 4: The chron Zone?

00:00:46
Speaker 5: Did the chron Zone have any hits it? By the way, I want to know who started the Chronzone?

00:00:49
Speaker 4: Was it that night?

00:00:56
Speaker 3: That's an all time nickname, probably one of the best thing names in the league.

00:00:58
Speaker 5: I love it. No, I don't want to.

00:01:00
Speaker 4: Where it came from. I want to say it was don Orsillo.

00:01:04
Speaker 1: Like you know, he's got nicknames for everybody, and you know how he is on the broadcast, He's just him and mud are crazy and they get on these tangents, and I think one day, like I want to say, in twenty twenty, he just like somehow came up with it just randomly.

00:01:20
Speaker 4: I love it.

00:01:21
Speaker 5: I love it. No, does it get your free jumbo jacks though, because still because at one time he got your free jumbo jacks. Get free umble getting free jumbo jacks. Oh, man, that's bad. That's a bad agent. That's a bad agent. You gotta I gotta get free jumbo jack. I think one year thing, Jake.

00:01:41
Speaker 3: We got to congratulate you newly married man. Congrats on that.

00:01:45
Speaker 4: Thank you, great great man, awesome career.

00:01:48
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you, man, I appreciate it. Great baseball family, by the way, A lot of a lot of great baseball players in that with you. Now, your father in law, Gordon Beckham, your brother in law, your other brother, Lar Brian Fletcher, who was my guy. That was my guy coming up in the minor league. So if you ever need any any b Fletch stories, I got you.

00:02:08
Speaker 4: Oh I'm definitely gonna need some.

00:02:11
Speaker 3: He did he did he DJ for you at your wedding.

00:02:15
Speaker 1: No, he did not DJ. He was he was probably busy dancing way too much.

00:02:21
Speaker 4: He's the best. He's the best.

00:02:22
Speaker 3: Congrats to you. Brook is awesome. Congrats to Brook as well, and I hope you guys have a wonderful long marriage.

00:02:29
Speaker 4: Thank you. Yeah, it's a that is a baseball family, that's for sure.

00:02:34
Speaker 5: Father does his father in law call him though and say like, hey, you need to work on this when you're hitting, or do you need to do this when you're playing defense, because he was a middle infielder, so now that you're in a second baseman, right, he probably calls you up and says, you know, Jake.

00:02:49
Speaker 4: The urn. No, he's awesome, man.

00:02:54
Speaker 1: I mean he's always during the holidays and just like random days in the off season, even during this he's in just like text messages or even during holidays. Man, it feels like, you know, the four of us, it's just baseball top you know, twenty four to seven.

00:03:08
Speaker 4: When we're at the house, it's it's pretty awesome.

00:03:10
Speaker 1: Him telling us old stories when he played, obviously, Gordon telling stories, Brian telling stories, and me, and it's just it's just an awesome, awesome environment.

00:03:20
Speaker 5: Hey, have you talked to Gordon yet and said that you're the best player in the family. Make sure that you tell him that. I said that you're a better player than he was, because I was there when he came up and he tried their he tricked third base. That skid didn't work, so we you know, then he had to become a utility guy. At least you've locked down first and second, you know, and plus your left handed better hit her, so you can pass that along from.

00:03:39
Speaker 4: Me, I'll say. I'll say Scott's probably the best player in the family.

00:03:44
Speaker 1: I mean, he played fifteen years in the big league, so he's kind of got the one up on everybody right now.

00:03:51
Speaker 3: Scotty, he's a legend. Hey, I got a question about about your about your skipper, so Shields, I mean, so me me. He and I go way back. He started a travel like baseball organization down to Charlotte, and so when I was playing coming up, we would play his team a lot. I got to Double A, he was in Springfield, Triple A in Memphis. I got to the big leagues. He was he was in Saint Louis. So we've never been together, but have always been kind of along the same path. And he as a guy that was on the other side. He always had this kind of reputation from guys that weren't on his team as man, he never he went in a player, you know, he's you know, what does he know? He never got to play. And then the more you talk to people that played for him, all you hear is just the most amazing things about Shield and you know, a lot happened recently and he sticks up for his players. So what's it. I want to know, what's it like to play for a guy like shild.

00:04:47
Speaker 4: Yeah. I think.

00:04:50
Speaker 1: The biggest thing, I think is like his emphasis of you know, togetherness of the group, you know, and he pairs that with the structure of our day is and you know it, I think it shows like the way we play, it's it's very the group is super close, and I think you can see that in the games that we're playing. You know, it's not like we haven't been blowing teams out a lot, but it's kind of like we're in these battles every night. We're winning one nothing like yesterday. We're winning these close games. And I think that's something from last year when he was first hired to now that's kind of stemmed into our play and you know, you see it with the rest of our coaching staff as well, and you know just how close the group is and.

00:05:34
Speaker 4: And how kind of in the same direction everybody is moving.

00:05:40
Speaker 3: Yeah. I love he's that success everywhere he's been.

00:05:48
Speaker 5: I love felt hilarious when I go to his office. No, we're going to his office and talk to him, and he doesn't even let us ask one question because he's like, all right, interview over, thanks, guys, appreciate it. So he's the he's the best. He'll get into a little bit. I want to go to your rivals a little bit, to Dodgers. We have Max Munci on here. We've had some Dodger guys on here and they all say, you know, oh, the Padres there, they're kind of not really our rival. But I was there in twenty two when you got a huge hit against them to win that series in San Diego and you guys beat them and sent them home. How do you feel about that rivalry because I feel like it's a great rivalry and I love I've done Dodger Padre games this year. I love it. It's like the best atmosphere, especially in San Diego. It's the best atmosphere. I mean, heck, I was there for the Royals on Saturday all had forty three thousand people. Every night. San Diego has got to be top three parks to watch, especially when Dodgers commit.

00:06:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we had it was sold out the other night against the Nationals on a Tuesday night. I mean, it's the fans there. I mean, obviously the weather in the stadium are amazing, but like I mean, they show up every night to cheer us on. And I think, you know, ever since I've been here, it just seems like every year it continues to just get better. And I mean I think you see the way we play on the field as well, like that them being there every night, and I mean it's forty two thousand just behind us. That's I mean, it's a huge advantage for us. But no, to the to the rivalry thing, I think, you know, it was funny. I saw the clip of Jackson was on Mookie's podcast to when we played them a few weeks ago, and I think they said it best man, It's it's a rivalry, yes, but it's it's just two really good teams that just want to win and want to play good baseball, and they just they just want to beat the other team.

00:07:37
Speaker 4: It's not like this.

00:07:39
Speaker 1: You know those old Red Sox Yankees rivalries where it's like a fist fight every night. You know, it's one of those rivalries. It's two really good teams with really good players on each side, and I think just the competitive competitiveness of each side and each guy on the teams, like, it's just we just want to go out there.

00:08:00
Speaker 2: If you're a card collector, even if you're not, and you just want to find a new way to collect. Arena Club is the spot. AJ just opened up a slab pack. He screen recorded on his phone so you can all see what he just experienced. Take us through it.

00:08:11
Speaker 4: And it was simple.

00:08:11
Speaker 5: I just clicked on which slab pack I wanted, clicked by now boom bought it card. Little pack starts spinning, you hit open, and then it goes all psychedelic on you.

00:08:21
Speaker 4: It's a little funky, and then the.

00:08:23
Speaker 5: Card appears and I got a Robin Yelt rookie card.

00:08:26
Speaker 4: Yeah, you did it awesome.

00:08:28
Speaker 2: And then right after that experience, I saw the little buy back and you said, na, hold on to this.

00:08:33
Speaker 4: Now hold on is Robbin meounts in the Hall of Fame.

00:08:36
Speaker 5: He's not getting any more rookie cards. So I'm gonna stick with it for a little bit so you have the price might start just going up a little bit.

00:08:43
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00:09:01
Speaker 5: All right, so I gotta asked. There's a couple of questions I have about this one. Do you hate the Dodgers? Do you hate the Dodgers as a player? Do you hate the I mean not saying you hate Mooky, but do you hate maybe do you hate the blue and the fans? Because I know as a white sock, I didn't hate the Cubs players, but I did, well, there was a couple I did, but I didn't. I hated more of like the thought of the Cubs. Right, so it was a padre. Do you hate the Dodgers not the players because MOOKI Freddie those guys are great, But I mean, do you hate the thought of the Dodgers versus the Padres.

00:09:32
Speaker 4: That's a tough one. Like I it's weird.

00:09:34
Speaker 1: I think if early in my career maybe, but like now, I think it's like I've come to like, you know, each place is each team in each stadium we play in with their fans is so unique and it's a different experience. Like I think everywhere we go is so cool, like seeing how fan bases have their own teams backs. You know, I think we've done a good job of like not saying, oh, we hate this team, we hate this team. We just want to go out there and win every night, Like depending no matter who we're playing. Obviously it's probably it is heightened more when we play them because they're in our division, and if we want to want to win the division, we gotta we gotta beat them.

00:10:19
Speaker 4: And I think that's just the hard truth. Okay.

00:10:23
Speaker 5: So then Joe Kelly came on here yesterday on the show and we asked him, I said, if you could play for the Astros who he hates, the Athletics, the White Sox, the Rockies, or the Padres. The Padres were the first team he eliminated. He's like Padre's out before, like even before we even got started. He's like Padre's out right. And he ended up picking the Rockies out of those five teams. He said, I'd rather pick than the other four. So I don't know. I mean, maybe that's how Dodger guys feel about the Padres, some of them at least.

00:10:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know that. I mean, I think it's a person by person basis, Like you know, do I want to beat them every night?

00:11:03
Speaker 4: Like I want to. I want to go out there and beat him ten nothing. I want to beat him one nothing. You know, A win's a win. I don't know. That's a hard question.

00:11:13
Speaker 3: M but you got that and then you got what months he said on here a couple of days ago about how the Dodgers only have one rival and is the it's the Giants, which I know, you know, you can you can be political on here and you know say that, but that's gotta that's gotta eat at you a little bit. It's got to be talked about in the clubhouse a little bit.

00:11:34
Speaker 1: No, I mean, I like you looked at you look at like history between those two teams, and yeah, it's way more significant probably in the course of you know, since they've been been around, Like, yeah, those teams have had some huge battles, you know, but I think for us, like there's a group.

00:11:54
Speaker 4: Like viewing, like you know, us versus the Dodgers.

00:11:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean over the last five years, like it's been a battle every single year against those guys. You know, we beat him in twenty two in the playoffs. They beat us last year in the playoffs and going to win the World Series. So yeah, I think you know, between us two within the last handful of years, like that's for sure a rivalry.

00:12:16
Speaker 3: Can I just say that you've been very politically correct throughout all these questions. No, no, no, Billboard material were great answers.

00:12:30
Speaker 5: True, true, But before you go now, also, I want to say this, Joe Kelly did say that he wishes the Padres and the Dodgers could play in the World Series because last year the two best teams were the Padres and the Dodgers, and he thought that was World Series worthy. So I know it won't happen because the way the playoffs are set up, but I kind of agree with him. You guys were the probably the second best team, and by the way, I hate to bring this up, But you guys.

00:12:51
Speaker 1: Had them, you had them.

00:12:52
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:12:52
Speaker 5: I know it's baseball and you never know, but gosh, I thought y'all had him.

00:12:57
Speaker 4: Yeah, that one hurt.

00:12:59
Speaker 1: I mean, that's you know, I think everybody in our clubhouse like the way we played in the second half. I mean, OSCO, I don't think I had never been around a group that was more confident going into the postseason than ours last year.

00:13:13
Speaker 4: And I think it was just the.

00:13:14
Speaker 1: Way we were playing, the way we matched up against teams that we were playing are potentially going to play in the playoffs. From a starting pitching standpoint, from a bullpen standpoint, which was, you know, our bullpen.

00:13:25
Speaker 4: In the second half is unstoppable. You know, they just they beat us in those last that's those last two games. That was it. Many They matched up.

00:13:35
Speaker 1: Really well and they they threw their guys out there and that was that was That was like the perfect example of like the old quote, it's just baseball like that that's.

00:13:44
Speaker 4: Going to happen.

00:13:46
Speaker 2: Oh man. I love the way that A. J. Prelor assembled the bullpen for that second half, the way it was trading for guys. I hope that more contenders kind of think about things that way. One more on the rivalry part, and I'm going to take you to a different rival that's not in top three. Probably the Washington Nationals were like they said something along the lines of like fleeced on the trade with obviously Soto. Moving over to you guys, you spent some time with Sodo. So your thoughts to that and how that era played out, And then I will actually point out the aftermath of how eventually the Pods trade Soto. One of the pieces that returned was Michael King, who's been a number one starter when he's on the mountain when he's healthy for you guys, So your thoughts on the little playful poke.

00:14:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean when you look at it in the moment, I think any team back in twenty twenty two, when you could have gotten any and you know, anybody was on the block for Juan Soto, Like, when you have a player of that caliber and you have the ability to get them as a GM, you it's hard to say no, you know. I mean, he'd been probably top three player in baseball, So you've been in the league at the point and it's like, man, we're getting a guy who's gonna change this lineup from the minute he gets there. And you're not only getting him for you know, just after the trade deadline and he's hitting free agency the next year, you're getting from the next year as well. So it's like, you know, you can say, now, you know a few years down the road, like oh yeah, you know that, you know the trade, you know this and that. But to your point, like we got Michael King, we got Randy Vasquez, who's been incredible for us this year.

00:15:32
Speaker 4: You know those.

00:15:34
Speaker 1: Pieces that we got, you know, you look down the line, like we end up getting Dylan Ceas, we end up getting these guys, and you know, yes, the Nationals.

00:15:42
Speaker 4: Got got five great players.

00:15:45
Speaker 1: And you know they're all probably gonna have really good careers, and you know, three of them are off to really great starts this year. You know, it's it's hard to say, but you know, I think the pieces we got in return are really really good and they've they've cotributed for us in an awesome.

00:16:01
Speaker 4: Awesome way.

00:16:03
Speaker 5: Jake is the NLS the best division in baseball.

00:16:09
Speaker 4: I mean this is my sixth year now and since I've been in.

00:16:14
Speaker 5: Well, take out, take out the Rockies, take out the Rockies. The other four teams the best sport take out the Rockies.

00:16:21
Speaker 4: I mean I I would say yes.

00:16:23
Speaker 1: I mean you look at the last you know, shoot five years, I would say yes. I mean, you know, we're in the NLCS and twenty two, the d Backs are in the World Series in twenty three. The Dodgers win the World Series last year, and you look at how competitive this division is. I mean, it's not just one team or two teams that are kind of just you know, taking over you know, those top three spots, you know, I.

00:16:51
Speaker 4: Mean, it's it's it's those four teams.

00:16:53
Speaker 1: Us the Dodgers, the d Backs and the Giants, Like you know, Giants had one hundred and whatever, one hundred and five wins in twenty one, you know, I mean I would say yeah. I mean the starting pitching in this division is just outrageous.

00:17:09
Speaker 2: Hey, I'm gonna mix in one fan question here. So in our chat, they said, why does Donnacillo call you the what is it? Adorable little second basement? Our adorable little second basement. No, it's it's mud grant. Why does he say that?

00:17:26
Speaker 1: I don't know, I know about it all the time, and he has no good answer about why it is and he.

00:17:34
Speaker 4: Comes in the clubhouse and he's wearing his bucket hat.

00:17:36
Speaker 1: He looks like he looks like he's on the TV show Gilligan's Island, So I call him.

00:17:40
Speaker 4: Gilligan, but I don't know that. He said that last year in spring training, and I was like, what does that even mean?

00:17:51
Speaker 5: Wow? Well, all right, So I got to ask before we have to let you go, was what was a better year for you personally? Michigan wins the National Championship in football or Ohio State wins last year, but Michigan beats them in the big game. So which one makes you happier? As a former Michigan Wolverine.

00:18:10
Speaker 1: I would say the National championship year, just we beat Michigan, or sorry, we beat Ohio State.

00:18:18
Speaker 4: I was at that game.

00:18:19
Speaker 1: That game was awesome, like freezing cold, and it's always a noon.

00:18:23
Speaker 4: Game in an arbor, freezing cold.

00:18:26
Speaker 1: You get up at seven am to tailgate, and they had interception with like fifty seconds left.

00:18:32
Speaker 4: Ohio State was driving down the field.

00:18:34
Speaker 1: They converted two plays for like thirty five yards and it was just like what just happened? And then interception and then I got to go to the National championship, which was awesome, and you know, I feel bad for Washington fans because at the stadium in Houston it was like seventy five percent Michigan fans. I mean it was it was a Michigan home game. And then last year was so frustrating because you like the quarterback situation. We're playing a new guy every week. We're throwing in guys on different downs depending on the situation. But every year is a great year.

00:19:16
Speaker 4: When we beat Ohio State, that's that.

00:19:19
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, they people can say Ohio State fans can say, yeah, they won the national championship, but you didn't beat Michigan. And you saw it after the game, like those like the huge fight on the field, guys are getting pepper sprayed, like that's that's the rivalry and that is the game, and it's the game for a reason.

00:19:38
Speaker 5: By the way, first of all, who planted it? Didn't you guys who planted the flag? There was someone that planted in one team planted a flag. Was a Michigan planning the flag state? And then second all know what wit Witt will never get to do celebrate a national championship in football. Sorry, sorry with big year Lenora Sellers.

00:19:54
Speaker 3: He's been front runner big year.

00:19:57
Speaker 1: You know what I will I will say I remember sitting on the couch and washing South Carolina play Michigan in the Outback Bowl in Tampa, and Jadeveon Clowney late the biggest that I've ever seen in my life.

00:20:10
Speaker 4: I was.

00:20:10
Speaker 1: I don't even I didn't even think I was at Michigan yet. Actually it was my I was my freshman year May and that was insane.

00:20:19
Speaker 3: I was there. Yeah, I was in the I was like the the end kind of by the by the end zone, and you couldn't really because we the defense was in front of us, the offense on the other side, and so you couldn't see the play. You just saw a helmet go flying.

00:20:33
Speaker 4: It was it was Yeah. The helmet went like twenty yards towards the end zone. Yeah.

00:20:39
Speaker 3: And the thing right before that play, there was a measuring and there Michigan was this this yeah, this much short and they gave him the first down anyway.

00:20:48
Speaker 4: And I'm gonna play.

00:20:50
Speaker 2: I'm gonna cut because they're coming right against break. But uh Aj is very happy. We got some football talk in at the buzzer.

00:20:57
Speaker 5: This great two thousand six Jarvis Moss block field goal too.

00:21:02
Speaker 1: By the way, step.

00:21:05
Speaker 4: We can go on out, Jake. Awesome to have you on.

00:21:08
Speaker 2: Really appreciate it. Man, thank you for joining us.

00:21:10
Speaker 4: We'll get you down the road. Absolutely appreciate you guys,