00:00Chris Young's show is brought to you by Medical City Health Care and by Lexus. Visit your local Dallas-Fort
00:04Worth Lexus dealership today.
00:07And here he is, your Rangers president of baseball operations, Chris Young. I'm a fan. Good afternoon, sir. How are
00:12you?
00:13Hey, guys. I'm all right. Thank you.
00:14Well, can we just start by saying happy birthday? Was that at least good for you?
00:18I mean, I'll admittedly say I wasn't very happy, but nonetheless, I appreciate you saying that.
00:23But, yeah, my birthday is live and die with the team's success. And as you know, yesterday was a pretty
00:30rough day for our franchise and certainly wasn't thrilled with it.
00:35So, I mean, I don't want to make excuses for anybody. And obviously, this is up to the players to
00:39do their job.
00:39But how much of a factor is the injuries with Lankford and Seager being out, just the struggles the last
00:44four games?
00:44Yeah, look, I genuinely appreciate you prefacing the question with the injuries.
00:50And there is no doubt. You take the two best players out of any lineup in the big leagues, their
00:54team is going to suffer.
00:55And I can't deny that it hasn't had an impact on our group.
00:59What I will say is we have very good major league players and players that are coveted by other teams,
01:04players that had opportunities as free agents to sign with other teams, players who we've been asked about by other
01:11teams in trades.
01:13We have very good major league players.
01:15And so our expectation is that we are able to get the best out of our major league players and
01:19that they live up to their potential.
01:21And, you know, when the guys don't do that, it's on all of us collectively to figure out why, to
01:26help them solve for that,
01:28to give them answers, to find ways to help them perform at the best of their ability.
01:33And then it's also on the players to go out and get the job done.
01:36And so we're all in this, you know, together.
01:39And I do say this with confidence that I do believe in our players.
01:43I really do.
01:44I believe we've got a great group of guys.
01:46I believe we've got a group that wants to win.
01:49They are pressing.
01:50There's no doubt about it.
01:51There's no doubt that missing Corey and Wyatt has put added pressure on these guys.
01:56Some of them are looking up at the scoreboard, seeing their respective numbers,
01:59and realizing they're not having the seasons that they had hoped yet.
02:03And it adds pressure to what they're doing.
02:06But that doesn't matter in competition.
02:08What matters is finding a way to get the job done one pitch at a time.
02:13And that's what we have to get back to.
02:15As a unit, we have to go up there with a collective approach that we are going to focus on
02:20beating the other team's pitcher in that moment.
02:23And everything else is irrelevant.
02:24And, you know, I believe this group is capable.
02:28I believe they're very good major league players.
02:29But they have to get the job done, and we have to help, you know, prepare them for that and
02:34put them in the best positions to succeed.
02:37But collectively, I, you know, I do believe that we can get this done.
02:40But yesterday was rough.
02:43Yeah, no question.
02:44I mean, it certainly was.
02:45I think you illustrated a lot there.
02:47When you look at the road trip as a whole and then coming back and then what happened yesterday, I
02:51mean,
02:52how are you just evaluating this four-game stretch right now?
02:54And as you look internally, what are maybe some of the answers that you found moving forward?
02:59Well, we've met all day on some of the answers.
03:01And the road trip is what it is.
03:03I mean, we've looked at the schedule.
03:05We've, you know, we made, I'm not going to say excuses about the schedule to start the year when it
03:08was a rough schedule.
03:10But this was, you know, in the back of my mind, this was a little bit of a fear of
03:13mine that we were going to hit this patch in the schedule,
03:15that we should start winning games.
03:18And similar, I think it was last year, maybe the year before, where something similar happened.
03:22And we didn't really take advantage of the schedule at that point.
03:25And you can say what you want about injuries, but I still believe that we are capable of going out
03:30and playing better than we've played.
03:32And so here we are, you know, the last, you know, five, six games, you know,
03:38falling back in the standings against teams that we feel like we should be able to compete with and beat.
03:43That's not a great feeling for the group.
03:45So we need to turn it on.
03:47We need to get it going.
03:48We need to start playing better baseball and dig ourselves out of this hole.
03:52You know, the, the, I guess the positive side is that the American league is wide open.
03:57The division is wide open, but I also think that we can't let that cloud our judgment too much on
04:03what this team is capable of accomplishing without actually seeing it at some point.
04:07So we need to see the team start playing better here.
04:10And I believe they will, you know, when we get Corey and Wyatt back, it will have an immense impact
04:14on the entire unit.
04:16I do believe with our pitching that we will have a stretch where we can run off, you know, seven,
04:21eight, nine wins in a row.
04:23But, you know, I can say that till I'm blue in the face at some point, we've got to go
04:28get that done.
04:29And, and we have not to this point in the season.
04:32When these teams are calling about your players, do you, do you have to tell them basically just check back
04:36in like six weeks or how you handle that?
04:38Yeah, we're, we're, we're not having conversations with teams right now.
04:41I mean, I'm talking, I'm referencing sort of calls in the off season about, you know, that you have with
04:45other teams and teams checking in on players they like with our group.
04:48So we have a good feel league wide as to, you know, how our players are viewed and how they're
04:53coveted by other teams.
04:55You know, that may change based on performance to start the season, but going into the season, we know that
05:00the group we ran out there is certainly, they're all desired by other teams.
05:05And they're, they're, you know, capable major league players.
05:09How important is it to get Josh Young back in the lineup?
05:11How's he doing after that shoulder issue?
05:13Yeah, JJ, he's back today.
05:15We're very grateful and fortunate that he did not sustain a significant, a significant injury by diving on that shoulder.
05:23It's a shoulder that he has subluxed in the past.
05:25And we, we dodged a bullet.
05:28It was sore for a couple of days.
05:29It's probably still sore, but he's pushing through it.
05:32He knows how important it is to have him back at third base that allows us to slide to ran
05:36back to, to, to shortstop.
05:39You know, when you lose your entire left side of your infield, your second baseman, I mean, I was looking
05:45out at our field in Anaheim this weekend and we had really kind of two starters from our opening day
05:51lineup out there.
05:52It's a tough thing.
05:53And so we had Michael Hellman filling in a short and, you know, we saw what yesterday, he's not a
05:59full-time shortstop.
06:00He's probably more of a center fielder than a shortstop.
06:03It really put us in a bind.
06:05And, you know, it's on us to come up with solutions and to make sure that we have the backfill
06:09options.
06:10But you, you really don't ever really consider getting to your fourth shortstop on the depth chart.
06:15CY, you, you take this really personally and hard.
06:19And I wonder if, if you could tell us, does everybody in the organization feel the exact same way that
06:26you do about this?
06:29Well, I can't speak for everybody.
06:31I can speak for those of us that work day in, day out with the major league team and have
06:36poured our, you know, our lives into the performance of this team.
06:40From our coaching staff to our front office, many of our scouts.
06:45I mean, yes, everybody wears it.
06:46The morale upstairs is not great right now.
06:48We all know that, you know, this is a tough time right now.
06:53We're going through it, but we've got to find a way to dig out.
06:56This is, to me, as a competitor, you know, these are the challenges that you sort of, you look at
07:01and say, okay, we can do one of two things.
07:03We can feel sorry for ourselves or we can start fighting our way out of this.
07:06And my hope is that tonight this team comes out and they show a fight and a passion that really
07:12bounces back.
07:12And it invigorates them and it inspires them to continue to climb out of the hole that we've dug ourselves
07:19in because that's the only way you can do it.
07:23If you don't have that fight and you don't have that passion and this doesn't hurt, then you know what?
07:28You're probably not in the right business, in my opinion.
07:30So I want to see that from our staff.
07:32I want to see that from our players.
07:33Certainly, I expect it from our front office.
07:35And I believe collectively, if we have that mentality, we embrace this challenge that we will come out and play
07:42better baseball.
07:42Our fans deserve it.
07:43That probably is what hurts me the most when I see us underperform or underachieve is that I, you know,
07:49my goal is that our fans have a team that they are proud of day in, day out.
07:53And right now it's, you know, when we get no hit, it's a little bit, it's tough to swallow.
07:58You know, it's national news for the wrong reason.
08:00And I don't like that.
08:01It's not what I want our team to be known for.
08:03And frankly, I expect more of us than that.
08:06And my hope is that today we come out and play with a passion and a grit and determination that
08:11is going to show that's not who we are.
08:13And we're not happy with it.
08:14And we're going to fight our way out of it.
08:17Jerry West famously cared so much about the Lakers that when he was their GM, he had to leave and
08:21go manage the Grizzlies, Chris.
08:23So I just wanted to ask you, you know, your thoughts on that whole dynamic.
08:27And if you ever worry that you care so much that you would have to step away in that way.
08:34I'm not worried about that.
08:35I think the care factor is a good thing.
08:37You know, there's a care level that I think is required for these jobs.
08:42I talk to my colleagues.
08:43They feel the same.
08:44They wear it hard.
08:45But there's also an emotional control component that certainly, you know, I have perspective on life.
08:51And, you know, I'm grateful that I have a wonderful family that supports me.
08:56I've got a tremendous friendship with our front office.
09:00And, you know, this isn't ruining me as a person.
09:03I certainly see the perspective with this.
09:06But, no, I don't have worries of having to step away because of the care factor.
09:11How's Corey Seager doing?
09:13Are we just waiting until he feels right before progressing?
09:16Yeah, we're – yeah, Corey's making progress.
09:19It's not been as fast as we would have liked.
09:21We were hoping that by the beginning of this week he would be, you know, making some progress in terms
09:27of returning to baseball activity.
09:29But he's – you know, it's a little bit slower.
09:32And with backs, they can be tricky.
09:33It's something that our doctors are very confident he's going to be fine.
09:36But we need to let the symptoms subside completely before we really start ramping up.
09:41And the hope is that in the next several days those symptoms will subside.
09:44They have progressed and gotten better.
09:46But we're not at a point where we've cleared him for full baseball activity yet.
09:50So – and with every day he misses, we've got an extra day on the back end that we kind
09:54of have to build him back up.
09:56So, you know, this has been slower than we had hoped.
09:59But nonetheless, it's going the right way.
10:01And our doctors are confident that he'll be back here soon.
10:03Saw Cody Freeman's getting a start tonight in AAA.
10:07How's he coming along?
10:08And same thing with Wyatt Langford and anybody else that's dealing with some rehab stuff.
10:12Yeah, Wyatt is making progress as well.
10:15He's resumed baseball activity again.
10:17He's missed a significant period of time here.
10:19So we have to carefully ramp him back up.
10:22We can't have any more setbacks with Wyatt because if we do, it's going to be an extended absence beyond
10:27what we've already experienced.
10:28So we do have to make sure that we do this in a responsible manner.
10:33But Wyatt's making real progress.
10:35Cody is doing great.
10:37I'd say he's sort of wrapping up his spring training at this point.
10:40And my hope is that he gets to AAA this week and has some success there.
10:44He may be an option for us very soon.
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