00:00right now joining us former texas rangers opening day starter and all-star it is kyle gibson good
00:08morning sir good morning guys how are you doing man i was doing really well until just a minute
00:14ago and i hope you're gonna go with me on this we always hear about how pitchers need things
00:19a certain way my co-host knows that i like things a certain way and he just took a bite
00:26out of the
00:27side of his string cheese and it's driving me insane i you know i i uh having four kids you
00:37see
00:37different um ways to eat different foods uh i've never understood eating the string cheese just
00:45taking bites off the tube i've always uh just understood that you string off pieces and you
00:51eat the strings i don't understand why you would eat it any other way i i you know what kyle
00:56i i understand what you're saying here um but because i know it irritates him i will cut the
01:03middle of a cake out and eat it that way you know like whatever it takes to see him kind
01:07of just
01:08start going oh and the hair on the back of his neck stand up so that's really the goal you
01:12know that's
01:12what friends are for i was you know what i was just about to ask you that because surely every
01:18year
01:19whether it was you whether it was some of your teammates there were people that you were close
01:23with and you went out of your way to try to agitate them because this is a really long season
01:29oh yeah no doubt i mean those are the ins and outs you know we're all co-workers just like
01:33you guys
01:34and uh you know we try to uh have fun and we try to when you find something that that
01:39irritates
01:40somebody you try to maybe pick the right time to get their goat a little bit and get after them
01:45and
01:45then uh also learning them you kind of figure out when you don't do that you know maybe you figure
01:51out
01:51hey he's having a tough day you just have a little bit of feel and understand when to push and
01:56when
01:56not to push good point my co-host is very good at that so that's uh that's a good answer
02:01so i i wanted
02:02to go back it's it's a fascinating uh juxtaposition for me where you got to start on opening day in
02:102021
02:11for the rangers prior to the game is there i mean i know we're supposed to say every game is
02:17the same
02:18but what's that feeling knowing not only is it opening day but you're going to have the ball in
02:23your hand yeah um every every game is not the same uh that was the first game i ever not
02:31made it out
02:31at the first inning so i appreciate let's let's relive in that um i'm gonna turn it around i promise
02:37i'm gonna turn it around the first time i didn't get out of the first inning but uh you know
02:41it's it's
02:41one of those things that um every game is not the same um you know i think you have probably
02:47a couple
02:48of them that that vary one of them being opening day excuse me maybe one of them being when you
02:55know that you have the chance to clinch in the playoffs um and then you know any playoff game
03:01obviously but opening day for starters is a special one because only one of the five gets to go
03:07and you know i think i was opening day uh only twice in my career and um it's just something
03:16that
03:16that doesn't come around that often for too many guys i know every team has one but you know that's
03:21only 20 percent of the rotation and you know a lot of teams find guys that you know start five
03:26six
03:26opening days in a row and nobody else ever has a chance so um it's something that most starting
03:31pitchers don't take lightly and it's something that you know especially if you know there's a
03:36competition for it you're really competing for that spot because you want to be that guy you know
03:41i i know we were kind of having some fun with it but like you said it was not a
03:44good outing were you
03:45pissed off after that because after that you went on an insane run you had an era of 0.82
03:52over your
03:53next five starts had a tremendous start made the all-star team like did you come out of that opening
03:58game start and you were like how did you react to that uh funny story um probably not where you
04:06guys think this is going but you're i think you're gonna like this so uh opening day kind of fell
04:12on
04:12an awkward day of the week i believe that year i don't remember if it was a wednesday or thursday
04:16it probably was a thursday and we had a couple young guys asking uh every team does their pay
04:21structure different so this is gonna be a long story hopefully we don't run through the next segment
04:25all right we got time uh so every every team does pay structure different and some of the young guys
04:31were wondering hey do we get paid every other friday or is it twice a month because they wanted
04:37to know if that first friday was payday so i actually asked um our travel secretary i was like
04:43hey uh josh shelton he's still there by the way i hope shelty hears this he's gonna love this uh
04:48i said
04:49hey shelty uh some of the guys are wondering is payday this friday or next friday and he
04:55goes um i can't remember exactly but he's like it's gonna be payday this friday unless you don't
05:02make it out of the first inning the first day and then you're gonna have to skip this friday
05:06oh then that start happens but i think i responded to him with don't worry i don't think i've ever
05:14not made it out of the first inning so i i definitely piled on uh when i saw him uh
05:20because
05:20he's kind of in and out of the locker room sometimes he did not want to say hello to me
05:24after that start he was he was extremely um careful with saying hello and then when i gave him the
05:31smile and kind of like the nod of hey shelter this is not your fault and i'm okay because i
05:35don't think
05:36you jinxed it uh you know he was very apologetic but just uh you know what it was one of
05:41those days
05:42were like it didn't matter what i did um it just i threw up every pitch i could the the
05:47ground balls
05:48went through the infield they hit everything hard and really a team that i faced a lot you know i
05:52knew
05:52that team really well um and i don't know if it was just jitters and nerves or whatever but you
05:57know
05:57the pitches weren't going where i wanted them and um like you said thankfully uh somebody texted me
06:03after my next start and said that i think i had the the largest era drop in history from one
06:07start to
06:08the next so uh you know every now and then you got to start at the bottom and build your
06:12way up
06:13well your era after that first game was 135 so that's not great that's not great no it's uh it's
06:21not uh but did you still get paid that friday i yeah i think shelby made sure that i i
06:28was uh not
06:29left off the payroll that friday so i i appreciate that you're right that did not go in the direction
06:35that i expected it and that is freaking tremendous oh man yeah i you know he had my co-host
06:42does have
06:43a propensity to bring stuff like this up though uh the first interview we did with mckenzie gore he
06:48brought up that uh he gave up one run in high school mckenzie gore pointed out that was in the
06:52state championship and they lost the state championship by one run so pause so pause
07:01along with that one third of an inning uh we were sitting in the locker room probably like
07:05two months later and i was still kind of in the middle of that good run and i was sitting
07:10there
07:10with ian kennedy one of my just really good friends as we got to know each other and and they
07:14put up
07:15stats of like you know five of the pitchers in the first half and i was one of them and
07:19it said like
07:20you know uh 71 in a third innings or something and uh ian goes gibby i don't remember you ever
07:28being pulled out of the middle of the day what is it and he stops himself he goes oh
07:32open gate never mind i'm like come on are you kidding me i decided to check that one third of
07:39an inning hung with me the whole year so don't worry and i decided to check your era dropped 127
07:45.89
07:47after the second start so what that's a that's all that's pretty good i'll take that okay that is
07:53pretty good now it's we've been building up to this for a while but we're finally seeing at the
07:59major league level on a consistent basis whole new world with the abs challenge system given that it's
08:06been building for a while do you anticipate just pretty smooth sailing there or no uh i do think
08:14there's gonna be times where that system is you know down or struggling um i think it happened in
08:19the minor leagues every now and then you know it is technology and i think as we all know uh
08:24when
08:24you need technology the most uh it normally fails you so there's gonna be times where it's down um
08:29and it'll be interesting to see how they handle that because it's obviously going to inadvertently
08:33affect one team over the other um i still if i was still playing i would be fighting for each
08:41player
08:41to be in control of their own challenge and not the team having to share two challenges
08:48um a good example was from yesterday caballeros uses the challenge in the fourth inning and now
08:54for the next four or five innings nobody feels like they can use one and they showed on mlb there
09:00were six or seven pitches that would have easily been challenged um in my mind caballero should have
09:05lost his challenge and not be able to challenge the rest of the game and then each player is involved
09:11is in charge of how they know the strike zone um i just don't i don't i'm not in favor
09:16of rules
09:17that pit players against each other um and i think this one is going to cause some frustration
09:22and it's going to cause some rules to be made about hey you can't use it because you're over
09:26your last five or you know we can't use it in the first because then we need it in the
09:30sixth well
09:30what if you never need it in the sixth inning you know and i just think each player should have
09:35their
09:35own i actually agree with that it makes a lot of sense especially after we were at spring training
09:40watching the the catchers do their drills where they were trying to you know really understand what the
09:45strike zone is by looking at it over and over on the big board out there i kyle whenever we
09:50we get
09:51access whenever we get watch the games as fans we see those shots of the dugout and i'm presuming that
09:56evaldi's always talking to jack lighter about you know the strike zone and you know his pitches and i'm
10:02sure there's a lot more going on in that dugout than that but when when you guys are when you've
10:07been
10:07in the best dugouts the best teams that you've been on what is the the what is the mindset in
10:12that
10:13dugout is it all focused on what's on the field what what is that vibe oh man i you know
10:19what
10:20that's i uh if most of the situations can be mic'd up i think and it would be authentic right
10:26because
10:27a lot of times when you're mic'd up you kind of have to do things a little different so you
10:29know
10:30but uh man if we can have authentic microphone conversations just fly on the wall you guys would
10:36love it uh not on broadcast radio though we need to get some satellite radio going right
10:42no no it'd be fine actually i think you just would love how some of these conversations take
10:46deep dives or d or sharp left-hand turns i mean i would i'd be sitting in the minnesota dugout
10:52and
10:52trevor ploof would come up and he'd say hey uh it's my off day so uh which political topic are
10:58we going
10:58to talk about today and we sit there for seven innings and dive into politics or he'd you know he'd
11:03he'd
11:04have another uh deep conversation he wanted to go into until it was time for him to get ready for
11:08a
11:09pinch hit so um really i think there's definitely there's definitely a lot of baseball being talked
11:15uh a lot of a lot of questions being asked about you know especially when you have a situation like
11:21eovaldi and jack lighter right a lot of good conversations happen in there about baseball
11:25um but a lot of other conversations about hey uh where do our starts line up when we go to
11:32uh this
11:33next city uh i got an idea for golf you know there's a lot of that as well orange juice
11:40pulp or
11:41no pulp yeah like those guys yeah i mean we i sat there one time it was actually in texas
11:46i sat there
11:47and i had uh one guy fill out a lineup full of um heavy slug heavy swing and miss and
11:55then another
11:56guy fill out a lineup of not much slug not much swing and miss and then we asked the pitchers
12:01which
12:01lineup they'd rather face awesome what was i mean there's there's a lot of different conversations
12:06that happened what was the verdict on that one uh everybody it's even the hitting guy everybody
12:12wants slug right in your mind you want to have slug on your team and then when we got through
12:18the
12:19lineup and we're like oh man i really don't want to face a bunch of louisa rise and whit merrifields
12:24and no no offense to whit merrifield or luisa rise i like both those guys but man they are not
12:29fun
12:29at bats all the time and then you get to other guys that have heavy slugging high swing and miss
12:33sure you're going to give up your homers but you're going to get a lot of outs and just about
12:38every pitcher wanted to face the slugging lineup so um i'm not saying all of them did but it was
12:44it
12:44was probably not the verdict that some guys thought man that is fascinating we're talking with kyle
12:48gibson right here on 105.3 the fan do you get the sense or do you believe that a lot
12:54of players
12:54and maybe you were talking about this last year the potential that this could be the last full
13:00season we get for just a minute because i know everyone in baseball is at least kind of worried
13:06about the potential for work stoppage i you know what like i think uh i do i think there's a
13:14chance
13:14the next season is delayed sure i think there's a chance i think if everybody involved uh especially
13:21with this being a year at the wbc i think there's going to be a lot of momentum um going
13:26into the
13:27season i hope that you know good weather and teams playing well attendance keeps trending like it is
13:32i know there's a lot of confusion and and uncertainty around tv deals i get it um but there's only
13:39so many
13:40times that the owners owners and rob manfred can go around talking about how um how healthy and how
13:47strong the game is and then show up to cbas and want to change it and show up to cbas
13:52and talk about
13:53how oh man we're really struggling here really need you guys to you know give us this and give us
13:57that
13:57so we can make these changes like i just feel like if baseball's in a great spot why are we
14:03making such
14:04big changes why don't we tinker little things you know i understand they want a salary cap and and with
14:10that comes a salary floor i get it i don't know that we'll ever agree on what a fair floor
14:14is and a fair
14:15cap is i just i don't know that it'll ever happen and it'll take so much time to open everybody's
14:20books and to figure out which revenues to include i think it's almost a waste of time quite honestly
14:25because i don't know that's going to go anywhere instead why don't we figure out how to um shift
14:31around competitive balance dollars and then regulate how those dollars are used so the teams who are
14:38getting large chunks of competitive balance dollars are putting it directly on the field because that's
14:43what it's intended for um so i think if the conversation is around that then there'll be a
14:48full season and it's no problem if the owners are dead set on huge changes after they've talked about
14:54how good of a place this game is in then i think there's there's going to be an issue but
14:59um i am
15:00excited that i get to sit back uh on my couch and watch this develop in real time yeah and
15:07i'm not in
15:07the union meetings and i can just you know sit and watch it develop and and understand that i've been
15:12in these these meetings and been in these talks um and sometimes it's kind of wild what goes on
15:18man that was a great answer and this has just been a delightful discussion we appreciate your time and
15:23we would love to have you on again anytime yep sounds good guys appreciate it there you go
15:29kyle gibson right here on 105.3 the fan
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