- 1 day ago
Frustrating?? Greg: "How is your spirit?" Red Sox Interim Manager Chad Tracy joins LIVE! Does Tracy have an explanation for why this Red Sox team isn't as good at Fenway Park? Does any player have their "own hitting coach"?
Is there TOO MUCH analytics in baseball?? Founder of 'Driveline', Kyle Boddy, is no longer with the team as a special advisor to CBO Craig Breslow, did Tracy interact with him a lot?
NO SCOTLAND, NO PARTY! Greg: "No Breslow, no party"?
The Tartan Army invaded Fenway! What has the experience been like?
Is there TOO MUCH analytics in baseball?? Founder of 'Driveline', Kyle Boddy, is no longer with the team as a special advisor to CBO Craig Breslow, did Tracy interact with him a lot?
NO SCOTLAND, NO PARTY! Greg: "No Breslow, no party"?
The Tartan Army invaded Fenway! What has the experience been like?
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SportsTranscript
00:00And this week, it is Chad Tracy, the manager of the Boston Red Sox, who joins us.
00:05Hello, Chad.
00:07Good morning.
00:07Great to have you back.
00:09Great to be back.
00:11How is your spirit?
00:16It could be tough.
00:18I'm imagining night after night, you're in some of these games.
00:23You got guys that are getting on base and then just unable to get them all the way around, score
00:30some runs.
00:31Yeah.
00:32Spirits are good.
00:33Frustrated.
00:34You know, I won't shy away from that.
00:37The guys are, too.
00:38I mean, you're right in what you're saying as far as not in some of them.
00:45We're in most of them.
00:46We're in most of them at the tail end of the game with a chance to win.
00:50And we know that you look out there and you're giving yourselves a lot of opportunities and we're just not
00:54capitalizing.
00:54So, frustrated, but that's the beauty of baseball.
00:58There's another game today.
00:58So, you only get so long to be frustrated and you've got to get your mind right for the next
01:01one.
01:03You've been here for a while now.
01:05Do you have any explanation for why this team is so bad at Fenway Park?
01:11I don't.
01:12I don't really.
01:13I mean, I think, you know, the big thing is what you just mentioned is, you know, finding ways to
01:19get some big hits,
01:21whether it be a two-out hit with running in scoring position or, you know, first and second one out
01:26and drive a ball in a gap.
01:27And there's individual hits within games that can swing the momentum completely and change the course of a game
01:33and change the course of who they bring in out of the bullpen.
01:36And we're searching and searching for those hits and have been for a while.
01:41So, we've got to keep plugging away at it.
01:43But, yeah, it's been frustrating.
01:45Chad, fill me in on how this works.
01:47I obviously talk about it.
01:49I come from the world of football.
01:50But there are, you know, reports out there that a lot of these guys have their own hitting coach.
01:56And I don't know if that guy shows up, you know, a bat in practice before the games.
02:00How does that work when the team has a hitting coach, but then a guy has his own hitting coach?
02:06Do they work together, or is there, like, a conflict of interest there?
02:10No, no conflict of interest.
02:11There's not as much of that as you think.
02:13Most guys have their own hitting coach.
02:15Most guys spend an off-season somewhere, you know, and a baseball off-season last, you know,
02:22four and a half months where you're preparing for, you know, spring training, preparing for a season.
02:28And all these guys spread out all over the country.
02:30And you've got to have resources.
02:31People either go to a facility, they have their own place,
02:34and they're somebody that they hit with, you know,
02:36and spend a lot of time with to get themselves right leading into spring training.
02:41Naturally, like, if you had somebody you worked with for four and a half months every off-season,
02:45there's a lot of people that you're still going to talk to that person during the course of a season.
02:51That's no different than any ā when I was playing 15 years ago, you know,
02:55that guys had hitting coaches and people that they spend a lot of time with,
02:58they still communicate with them.
03:00So in the off-season, most of our hitting people are spending time connecting with each player,
03:07where you're going to be, who you're going to be working with,
03:08so we can stay in tune with that hitting coach and what you're doing.
03:11So not anything out of the ordinary in any way.
03:15So is it inaccurate then that when there's reporting that there are several guys who have their own hitting coach
03:24with them during BP, is that inaccurate reporting?
03:29There's nobody that's in this locker room hanging out with our hitters other than our hitting coaches, you know.
03:39So now if somebody ā if a player invites, you know, somebody they know to a BP
03:44and they're sitting in the stands, like, you know, that could ā
03:47but nobody is in this locker room other than our guys working hard with our guys.
03:51Okay, good.
03:53Chad?
03:53Yeah, that's not the case.
03:55What's going on with Roman Anthony?
03:57And in hindsight, what could you guys have done differently to maybe make this process a little bit less chaotic?
04:05Roman is improving, and I know it's, you know, obviously a funky injury between his finger and his wrist.
04:13They got scans recently that showed good healing,
04:17and it's just a matter of continuing to get to the point where he feels, you know, little discomfort in
04:21there,
04:22and we can continue to move forward.
04:24I don't know, Curtis, that there's much we could have done different.
04:27And the nature of the injury being as it was, and it's not something you see very often,
04:32and the initial period there we were on the road, the initial period there was, you know,
04:37hey, let's give this a few days to quiet down and see where we're at, and then you'll go from
04:43there, right?
04:44And it became apparent after those few days, and they tried the injection, the cortisone injection as well,
04:49that we were hopeful there.
04:50And then after that, still feeling discomfort, it's like, all right, this seems like, you know,
04:55at some point we're going to have to pivot here.
04:56It's going to take a little longer.
04:57So I don't feel like there's anything you could have done different.
05:01I know it's got a lot of attention out there.
05:05But every best effort was being made, like let's do this step by step and see if this, you know,
05:09for some people, I think you've heard Roman comment and all of us comment,
05:13some people that injury goes faster, some people it goes longer, like you just don't know.
05:19So every effort was being made to see can we get him back quick from this
05:23or is it going to tell us that that can't happen?
05:26And that's where we're at, and, you know, at least we're at the stage now where it's moving along
05:31and he feels like it's, you know, he's getting closer to turning a corner,
05:34but we just got to wait until he's feeling good.
05:37Garrett Cochet update also?
05:40Throw in plyos.
05:41They'll reevaluate him, you know, this week coming up, you know,
05:45as we get ready to leave here to go on the road.
05:47But he's throwing plyo balls, not hard, just plyo balls to move the joint,
05:52keep the shoulder joint moving.
05:54And as they reevaluate him on his testing and stuff,
05:57if the strength numbers are where they are, at some point he'll resume his throwing program.
06:01Do you have any read, Chad, on a kind of miscommunication that happened there last week
06:06with Garrett Crochet?
06:07I believe he, there was a report out that said that he had a lat setback,
06:14then afterwards it was corrected, saying that it was the shoulder.
06:18It's just, just because it seemed like another case of a possible miscommunication.
06:22From your perspective, what happened there?
06:24Yeah, he just was speaking broadly to the, you know, to the media.
06:28You know, media, people, media walks in, you know, through the locker room,
06:32and sometimes guys will say, yeah, and I think Garrett was talking broadly
06:35about the entire process, just kind of like, man, just taking longer than I'd hoped.
06:40You know, or it's, you know, it's just a little, or a little worse,
06:42it's a little worse than we thought or whatever.
06:44I think he was talking broadly all the way back to the shoulder strength stuff
06:48that originally landed him on the IL,
06:51and I think just got taken as he was referring to his lat.
06:55So we, it was not referring to his lat, but that's what it was taken as.
06:59So we had basically doubled back on everything the next day,
07:02saying this was not in reference to my lat is worse than we thought,
07:06or the, you know, the injury, the lat is worse than we thought,
07:08just broadly, you know, was hoping he'd be back quicker, you know,
07:12but we have to take our time and make sure that with that guy,
07:15especially that everything is in a really good spot.
07:18Chad, last time you were on, you and I went back and forth a little bit on driveline,
07:22and I know that Kyle Body is, has no longer with the club as a special advisor to Craig Breslow.
07:31Is he somebody that you interacted with since you've been here a lot?
07:36No, honestly, no, Greg, it's, no, it's, I mean, Kyle, I mean,
07:41there's a lot of people in our front office and different departments, you know,
07:44in our, you know, coordinator group or wherever that probably communicate with him way more than I do.
07:48Me, you know, up to this point, me being an affiliate manager,
07:52Kyle's not somebody that I talk to regularly.
07:54I've obviously talked to him before and met him, you know, on multiple occasions,
07:59but not in my previous role, not a, you know,
08:02somebody that I was communicating with on a daily basis by any means.
08:05Just in general, I would ask it, because you're a baseball guy, baseball family,
08:11dad, a baseball guy, do you feel like at times there's too much analytics that come into play
08:17in the game of baseball?
08:19I think there's, there's, there's enough analytics to go around if you, if you want them.
08:24I think the, the important thing is that how do you as a staff disseminate that information?
08:31You know, if you're just taking a bunch of analytical numbers and shoving it in front of guys' faces,
08:36like it's probably not the best course of action, I think it's probably up to us as a staff,
08:42front office, as a group, like what information do we have?
08:45How do you relay that to the players in the proper fashion?
08:48You know, so I, I've always been one to say like, I, you know,
08:53there is no piece of information that can't be helpful, you know,
08:56but it can be for players if it's too much, you know?
09:00So it's, I do think we do a good job of like, what do we have?
09:03What are we going to use? What's useful to the players, you know, for them,
09:07the guys that are going to go out there and tee it up and play a baseball game.
09:10And they, it's going to be moving very quickly and very fast.
09:13And you want to keep their mind as clear as possible.
09:15What's useful for them to get prepared for the game and what's useful just for us as a staff to
09:20use.
09:21Just real quick. Cause I reading up on driveline a little bit.
09:24Um, they, they suggest themselves that they're, uh, hitting strategy.
09:30Their philosophy works better with veteran players.
09:34Can, can you question when there's a lot of young players on this team can,
09:38in hindsight,
09:39can you question that that may not have been the best route to go when it comes to
09:45the younger guys here?
09:47Um, no, not necessarily. I, I didn't,
09:49I haven't read that or seen where they've said that. Cause I know, uh, in the, in the, um,
09:55during the course of the off season, like there's players of all ages that,
10:00you know, flock to that facility and, um, you know, veteran players, you know,
10:04you know, perennial all-stars and all kinds of people that'll spend it.
10:08Even if it's just for a couple of weeks to go spend time, um,
10:11um, and young players that are developing and, and learning. So like, um, no, I,
10:17I don't, you know, I, I can't speak on it more than that. I know that there's,
10:21uh, multiple players of ages, very varying ages that I know have gone and visited that place.
10:28Chad, when we, when we look at teams as fans, we have specific expectations on how a team
10:33potentially could do based on what the roster might look like. When you start to look at your
10:38struggles, how much comes down to execution versus maybe the way the roster is constructed in your
10:47opinion? I think we've been in plenty. Like we said at the, you know, one of the very first
10:52questions we talked about here was, you know, you guys are, you guys are in a lot of games.
10:56We're in almost every game, you know? Um, so when you look at it, uh, now you're not going to
11:01execute every single time. It's the nature of playing a baseball game every single day. And
11:05sometimes you're going to fan it's a game of failure. Um, but I think when you look at,
11:10um, broadly, like the amount of games that we have been in with a chance to win late that you're,
11:16you know, literally, maybe it's a two out base hit execution or, uh, you know, runner in from
11:22third or move like anything like that. Like we have, we have been put, put ourselves rather in,
11:28in games with an opportunity to win. So, um, you know, there, there's obvious,
11:32there's obvious things with us, you know, we don't hit for as much power. Right. So like
11:36those are all factors. Um, but it doesn't take away from the fact that, you know, we're going to,
11:42we're going to play in close games because of that. Like it's going to be close late and close
11:46tight. Um, and when you're in those games, like, you know, it's, it's oftentimes and at bad or two,
11:51uh, execution or a two out hit or something like that, that can be the difference maker.
11:55So to this point we've struggled with that and, and, um, you know, it doesn't mean that,
12:01you know, we can't get that turned and get on a heater, but, uh, we gotta, we gotta execute in
12:06those spots. So, uh, Sam last week, Chad joined us and said that the organization needs to pivot
12:11and that if this continues, they cannot pursue, uh, an assistant, a bat this year, they would be
12:18more realistic about selling off pieces to better the roster next year as a manager, how are you
12:25pivoting? If at all, like, is there a desire to just throw everything out the window? Just be like,
12:29you know, we're not going to, are there drastic, I know you said you can't make drastic decisions
12:33or changes, but yeah, what can you do? I mean, this is like, this team is not this bad. They
12:39one
12:40run in two games at Fenway park, another shutout yesterday, 12 and 24. You can't score as a park
12:45that has been one of the great hitting parks in the history of the sport. What can you do?
12:50Yeah. And they, uh, you know, to, to answer your question, like, no, like, you know, until,
12:55until that actually happens, Curtis, like what he's talking about, like, Hey, we may have to pivot,
13:00like until that happens, you know, like, no, I don't think about like, Oh, let's, you know,
13:05we're going to try this, try that. We have to continue to push forward and see if we can change
13:09that narrative. You know what I mean? That's our job is as players is if we're getting closer to that
13:14point,
13:15then our job is to have a stretch of games where we play very well and make them go, Whoa,
13:21like we're back to within three. Like that's our job is to try to do that. So, um, and I
13:26think you're
13:26maybe referencing what I said last night. Like there's my point is like, you know, we have,
13:31you only have 13, 13 position players on a major league roster. Um, I've tried various combinations
13:37of different things and change the lead off it. Like when you only have 13 players, the answer was a
13:41drastic change in the lineup. Like, well, how drastic can you get, you know, there's,
13:45there's only 13 guys on the roster. So, um, you know, I, there's, there's things I liked about the
13:51current construction. We've had periods where we started to swing the bat well for 10 days and then
13:55maybe it lulls, but, um, we're still looking for, you know, our guys to, to get going together and
14:02keep it going for a while. So, but, uh, yeah, I was more broadly referring to that. Like there's,
14:07you know, people, uh, you know, ask those questions or comment on that. It's like,
14:11my point is like, you can't get too drastic. Like we've tried a few things. We've moved the
14:15lead off hitter. We switched these guys down and, um, you only got so many combinations you can use,
14:20but we're going to keep, keep putting them out there and, and, um, keep supporting them and hope
14:24they turn. The studio is about to be invaded by the Tartan army. Um, what has, what has that been
14:31like for you? The experience of having them there at Fenway for the last, last bunch of games.
14:36Can they hit the Tartan army? Uh, the, the game, the one specific game where it was like,
14:44you know, advertising, it's like, here they come. That game was something, that game was
14:48something else. Interestingly enough, the last couple of games, you know, a little sex of them
14:53have, you know, different, you know, divisions of them have continued to show up. Um, so you still
14:58see the flags and then randomly the last couple of games, you'll just start hearing those chants
15:01out of nowhere again, which is cool. But the, the one game, uh, that they were all there
15:06obviously I've never actually been to a soccer game. Um, you know, in person, I've watched plenty
15:12of them on TV and you can hear it. And as I watched or sat there and managed that game,
15:16I felt
15:16like, man, it feels like you're at a soccer game. That's how loud and how loud the chants got in
15:21the stadium. So it was different, but I think, you know, the environment was pretty good. The
15:26players enjoyed it. Um, it was, it was different, but pretty cool. Lower scoring. Maybe just, maybe just
15:32to, uh, to get the, the, the team fired up. Have you ever considered a chant? Uh, like you
15:39guys are out there chanting, no Breslau, no party. Definitely have not considered that.
15:45Okay. I mean, that might be, that might be the way to go. Get everybody pumped up. All right.
15:53Listen, I appreciate you taking the time and it's one 35 today, weather, weather permitting.
15:59And, um, I, I, I like your enthusiasm, Chad, keep going. Appreciate it. All right.
16:06Thank you guys. There, that is Chad. That is Chad Tracy.
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