Ben & Woods On Demand Podcast

Nick Hundley On Working With Chris Young, Scouting Ethan Salas, And More!

Ben & Woods chat with former Padres catcher and current Rangers Special Assistant to the GM Nick Hundley! Listen here as Nick talks about last night's game between the Padres and Rangers, what it's like to work alongside Chris Young and Bruce Bochy, his thoughts on Padres top prospect Ethan Salas, and MUCH more!

Duration:: 21m
Broadcast on:: 03 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

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Everything you'd ever want to know about a neighborhood, including the number of homes for sale, transportation, local amenities, cultural attractions, unique qualities, and even things like median lot size and a noise score. Homes.com We've done your homework. Hey, Fantasy Football fans. This is Zach from Upper Hand Fantasy. You don't want an embarrassing tattoo just because you lost a bet in your Fantasy Football League, right? If you do, I suggest I'm remade holding a football, but let's avoid that altogether. Bros and I are here to get you ready for your Fantasy Football Drafts with insights and advice from sleepers to busts we've got you covered to give you the Upper Hand on your friends. Start your Fantasy Football prep now. Join us and stay ahead of the competition. Follow and listen to Upper Hand Fantasy on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. Yeah, I've told you woods that in my now what 25, almost 30 years covering the Padres. There have been certain players that have always been kind of nervous about approaching per interviews and in the clubhouse. Our next guest is not one of them. I always enjoyed conversations with Nick Conley. He just was really friendly. He was he's just more approachable than most. And I want to say thank you to Nick. I appreciated that when he was a player. And now he's joining us right now here on Ben in once a 97 three to fan. Hi, Nick. How are you? Hey, what's up guys? I hope I don't blow that, blow that credit with this interview. Oh, wait, I have no worries. He's going to, you're going to be just fine. How about when you were playing Nick, what was the worst thing that media did? Like, what was the worst question that they asked you? Was it the, Hey, what were you looking for on that pitch or was it the tell us about your approach there? Because I, I, I watched those and it still happens like on, on a regular basis and, and I'm just like, well, obviously he's looking for a pitch to hit something to drive, you know, out of the ballpark and for a pitch to hit and drive something out of the ballpark. I guess, right? Yeah. Yeah. It'd be tough because there was times when you'd played, you know, early in the series, you'd be playing the Dodgers and you're playing the Dodgers next week. And then you're playing them 18 more times and like, Hey, what were you looking at for against Chad Billingsley? Like, well, I'm going to take Chad Billingsley for four or five more times this year. So I'm not going to answer that truth. I'm not going to tell you anything. No, Ben, certainly we, we have gone through the, the people that Ben was scared of. Andy Ashby was probably at the top of the list for some reason. He's like the nicest, like dude ever, but Ben was terrified of him, but he always said, yeah, you, you were really really sneer after the games. It just kind of was off-putting. I don't know. He's, he's great. Look, man, some guys get it, some guys don't, some guys get the, get the, the, the job and some guys don't want to be bothered by, you know, slappies like us in there. And it's part, it's definitely part of the job for sure. So you, you know what you're signing up for. So tell me about the job right now with the Texas Rangers and working with, with CY as general manager, obviously last year was just an unbelievably magical season. But what would you say? What are you kind of doing and what's your role right now with the Rangers? Yeah, right now it's a lot of draft stuff. I'll be with the team in Anaheim and then go back to Dallas for the draft and, you know, just work through some of the catchers that we're looking at. Some of the amateur guys have probably seen about eight to 10 guys live and just kind of in our, in our little pocket and, you know, I really enjoy that side of it now with, with how important the draft is. You look at, you know, you can look at what the, what the Padres are doing with Jackson Merrill and then that same draft class, they, they draft James Wood and now, and Gasser and all of a sudden you look up and you've, you know, got a guy's potentially rookie of the year and, and two guys he traded for, for generational talent. So it's pretty, it's pretty fun, fun month of, month of July, so with the draft and, and the trade deadline. It's really, really busy for me and then just give my opinion and then, and then, then head back to San Diego. Yeah. It's kind of the best of both worlds. I would imagine for, for an ex player with a family talking to Nick Hundley here on Ben Woods this morning. You know, I ran into you over at the play structure and we were, we were talking about that and, you know, I, I can't imagine like for Boach, I know it was hard for him. He wanted, he was like, I don't know if I'm ready to go back and, and do this every day grind. I can't imagine having to like be with the team every day when you got a, a young family at home. And I think this feels like for you a really, really good fit. Yeah, I'm fortunate, you know what, and even, even the guys in Dallas do Chris does a really good job of fostering community and fostering the importance of family. I mean, he has three awesome kids. He loves his family, loves to be around them, um, you know, hires guys like Boach and Will Venable and, and things like that, that, that foster, um, so love that they have for their families to, and, uh, and build that community that way. So to be able to, to be a dad and still be involved and, and have a voice, um, and be able to, to give my opinion and connect with CY and the rest of our front office group. Um, that's been amazing. So I'm very thankful the last two years to be able to do this for sure. Do you think this is, uh, Chris Young's calling as general manager? I always thought that he might be the next commissioner of baseball. Yeah, we all did. Some days well, after working in the office, he, he may be, he may be too, um, you know, even minded and for that job at this, this role, but tell me just a little more about CY and what you think of him and what, what his futures is in store. So I think if I can do whatever he wants to do, you know, I think he's, he's proven that in the short time, um, going from the league office to running a team to, you know, um, to win a World Series in the short time and obviously he's not the only one involved. There's a lot of foundation late by, by John Danielson and the group, um, of one of him, but, but Chris is just, uh, a different type of leader. You can connect with, with people in a ball, you can connect with ownership, you can connect with, with, um, people doing ticket sales, uh, security guards. He just has a real respect for people and serves people really well and has high standards. So, I mean, I can tell you stories for days about playing with Chris and, and the standards we had and, and get himself ready, um, and the standards that he had for his teammates and getting them ready and, uh, and what he needed out of people around him, what he needed out of me catching him, I learned a lot, um, I was really, really fortunate coming up with guys like Trevor Hoffman and Greg Maddox and CY and David Eckstein and those types of guys that, that showed me how to prepare and actually be a big leader on what, what an actual day looked like in the big leagues before the game and after the game. Um, and he was, he was the top of that, top of that list. So I learned more about preparing to play a major league baseball game from Chris Young than anybody, which is pretty, pretty interesting to say because as a starting pitcher, that's not usually the case. That's pretty incredible stuff talking to Nick Conley here on Ben and Woods this morning. And you know, the, the, I kind of, at the beginning of the year, we do the normal sports radio thing. What do you think everybody's going to finish? And I, I had the Rangers, uh, you know, the hangover, the World Series hangover, certainly real and Ben was going over some of the numbers, uh, yesterday before the series started and said, I really can't put my finger, uh, on why they haven't played as well as maybe they should. I get non base. It's not getting on base right now, but man, you got some good young talent. Wyatt Langford's one of my favorite players to watch him. I watched him hit for the cycle. The other night, I'm like, what an absolute beast he is. And, uh, Corey Seager, of course, I mean, gold standard type player, world series MVP, uh, an absolute force at Elise Garcia. I love my kids love him. Like what a good team that you guys have put together just hasn't materialized yet. And there, I think there's still plenty of time to turn it around, but what have you kind of seen? Yeah. I think, I think all of those things are true. I think, um, you know, we've been banged up. I think Josh Young has played three games for us, four games worth. And the way that he was, I mean, starting the, starting the All-Star game last year, he would have, would have probably been, I would say probably one of the, one, the rookie of the year, if he didn't break his thumb last year, obviously Gunnar Henderson is an amazing player too. So nothing, uh, take away from him, but, um, I would have voted for him if he was able to stay healthy. So he's, uh, an absolute All-Star, um, star in this game, having, not having him, not having Evan Carter, um, who burst on the scene. Another talking about draft coming up, the second round pick from the, from, uh, from the Rangers a couple of years ago, um, and then, you know, having a little bit of under performance at times, guys fluctuating a little bit. There's, there's about a month, month period where kind of everybody wasn't hitting on all cylinders, which, you know, it happens sporadically through the year, but when it's a concentrated point where a lot of guys aren't, um, makes it a little tougher to win. But, you know, the way that we've been taking a bat for the last couple of weeks has been a lot more in line with, with who we are. And that's really encouraging. Like you look at the, the game last night, you know, Dylan C throwing 98 with, with two really good breaking balls and we're able to, to not expand and take pitches at the margins and win those pitches and getting good counts and, and, uh, you know, thankfully we, we did some damage on some, on two mistakes. But the only do that if you take those, take those marginal pitches and for a guy who strikes out 200 guys a year to take those marginal pitches against is really, really tough. So that was an encouraging zone. Yeah. It was a lot of fun for us too. The first, that first marginal pitch to Nathaniel was strike three marginal pitch, whatever. It's fine. You still got to score to win the whole way through him. That changed up after that. That's all right. We don't need to relitigate yesterday's game. We're talking about currently a Ranger special assistant, former pottery and you mentioned doing some scouting now of good young catchers. You were obviously a top young catching prospect to second round draft pick when you came out. And I, I don't know how much film you've seen, but I was wondering if you had any perspective from outside the pottery's organization, an Ethan Salas, someone who we keep hearing about and you know, they, they just talk about what amazing skills he's got for a 17 year old kid, you know, playing in high, high A went to double A for a little while last year, but kind of struggling offensively, maybe expected. What's the talk around the league about Ethan Salas? Yeah. He's, he's impressive. You know, actually one of our, uh, Brett Bocey is, uh, is working with the Rangers. Now the scout, um, and he covers a lot of, uh, the West Coast. So I talked to him a lot and then, um, you know, I know, I know Riley Westman for, for a long time, a couple of years now, um, talking to him about Ethan too, um, he can really, really catch and really throw. And the thing that I love, you know, the, the thing that I love about catcher's, I love watching their pace and their heart rate. And when there's big situations, I was fortunate to play with Buster Posey for two years. I feel like I saw the game speed up him up on him one time in two years. Like he's just heart rate and he just plays with his pace where he just dominated the game because it's, it's such a tough game and it'll speed up on everybody. But when you have a catcher who's in a leadership position, who, uh, who's in big spots and they have their heart rate is low, it's such a, such an incredible trait to have. And I think that's what Jonah Heim has are catcher in Texas, gold, Glover and, you know, started the all star game last year. His pace and his heart rate is so good that when you're in the world series and the bases are loaded and the role this Chapman's doing too, they're like, if I'm catching that situation, my heart rate is really high and I might be chasing it back to the back stop. But Jonah's not, Buster's not, and it looks like the pace that Ethan Salas plays at, it looks like for me is watching him, like he's not going to be chasing that ball either. Like he's going to control that game. So all the skills and all that stuff, aside, all the youth, playing at the high, higher level above his, above his age, all that stuff aside, I just really like the pace that he plays with. Nice. Today's episode is sponsored by Nerd Wallet Smart Money Podcast. Get your head in the financial game with smart investing and budgeting tips straight from the nerds. Nerd Wallet's experts will set future you up for success. With dependable, fact-based insights, no financial misinformation allowed. Learn how to save on your summer vacation, find your next credit card, or loan for a big purchase, and invest in your next index fund. Make smarter decisions in 2024. Follow Nerd Wallet's Smart Money Podcast on your favorite podcast app. What kind of programs does this school have? 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Today is the day to start getting ready for the draft, so join us and stay ahead of the competition. Follow and listen to Upper Hand Fantasy on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. That's such good information. Doug and Nick Conley here. Last one for me. I mean, you see it a lot on Twitter and you hear it a lot and people are, "I don't understand why these catchers now." The catching position has changed, certainly, and there's a new way that's being taught. The glove down, the kind of steel one. We watched Ethan do it brilliantly when we were at spring training. I could have watched him do catching drills all day, but the position has changed, Nick. It changed from when I was a kid. You know what I mean? How have you as a catcher, former catcher adapted to maybe teaching a little bit different way to do it? Yeah. How much time do you have? We've got about five minutes left. Yeah. I mean, so we'll start out when umpires weren't graded as hard. Now with the Z system, these umpires are graded so difficultly. They get every single pitch. A lot of them, I mean, we can go into a tangent on ABS and all that stuff too, but umpires have gotten so good at calling balls and strikes with the system that they're graded. Some guys are shooting 98, 99, 100%. They can't when I came up, if you would move the ball, umpires would ding you like crazies. Like, "Hey, don't do that. It makes me look bad. Catch the ball. Hold it so I can see it." If you would move the ball at all, you'd get crushed by umpires. When I came up, Greg Maddox told me when I came up, don't move. If you set the target up and you move it, it's like me standing over a ball ready on a tee and ready to tee off, and in my backswing, you yelling at me, so literally don't move. So I was like a statue, I was like, "Oh my gosh, can I even breathe?" This is a Hall of Famer, but I don't want to get sent down tomorrow. Please like throwing to me. Now that the umpires are graded so heavily, you can move the ball. As much as you want, and they can't hold that against you, right? So your goal as a catcher is to make the ball that's two inches below the zone, look exactly the same as the ball that's one inch above the zone, so I'm going to catch it the exact same way. I'm going to try to pull it up the exact same way. So these small margins, when Dylan Cece is throwing 89 mile on our sliders and 98 mile on our fastballs, like these small, marginal pitches, I want to make those look exactly the same. And then probably talking through one knee down, stances like that, guys are throwing so hard now that the sliders, the splits, like Evo, made of all the last night, was throwing 89 mile on our splits, 93 mile on our cutters. If I'm in a traditional stance where I don't have one knee down, I'm playing higher. The level that I play at is a lot higher than if I have one knee down. So it's a lot easier to block all the blocking metrics. When it first came out, it was like, well, how are you going to block in a one knee down stance? And all the blocking metrics and pass ball metrics are so much better now than they were when most guys want traditional stances. Just because you're playing lower to the ground, you don't have to exert as much effort to block that ball, to receive the low pitch, things like that. And we have an amazing catching coach, and Bobby Wilson, who is one of the leaders at that, teaching the one knee down stance. So one, I'm firing two, velocity, and then three, just longevity and health. I think it's a lot easier on your body to be in that position, as opposed to being in a traditional squat for such a long period of time throughout the season. So there's a lot of positive things about it. Like any revolution that takes place, there's going to be a lot of pushback and a lot of traditional lifts will say, oh, that doesn't look right, that's not the way to do it. But at the end of the day, I like flat screen TVs, I like replay, I like planes, I like all those things. Let's continue to advance. Yeah, I like advancements as well. That was amazing. Great stuff. We could probably continue on if we had more time. We don't. I promise you'll come and do this again with this real soon, maybe in studio at some point if you're when you're in town. Yeah, I'll think we were all popped in there with the guy. That'd be awesome, man. Thank you so much. Yeah. Thanks guys. All right, Nick Conley. I got some stuff to react to on that when we come back. Final hour of Ben and Woods, get around the report ahead as well. Don't go away. More on the way here on San Diego's number one sports station, 97.3, the fan. Nice. Today's episode is sponsored by Nerd Wallet Smart Money Podcast. Find your head in the financial game with smart investing and budgeting tips straight from the nerds. Nerd wallets experts will set future you up for success with dependable, fact-based insights. No financial misinformation allowed. Learn how to save on your summer vacation. Find your next credit card or loan for a big purchase and invest in your next index fund. Make smarter decisions in 2024. Follow Nerd Wallet Smart Money Podcast on your favorite podcast ad. You don't just live in your home. You live in your neighborhood as well. So when you're shopping for a home, you want to know as much about the area around it as possible. Luckily, Homes.com has got you covered. Each listing features a comprehensive neighborhood guide from local experts. Everything you'd ever want to know about a neighborhood, including the number of homes for sale, transportation, local amenities, cultural attractions, unique qualities, and even things like median lot size and a noise score. Homes.com. We've done your homework. Trying to figure out what to eat for dinner yet again? 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