Ben & Woods On Demand Podcast
Talking July Front Office Chaos With Padres Assistant GM Josh Stein | 'Baseball Isn't Boring'
From 'Baseball Isn't Boring' (subscribe here): Rob Bradford sits down for a conversation with Padres Assistant GM Josh Stein, who explains how crazy July can be for front offices with the Draft and Trade Deadline so close to each other, along with how the Padres managed to pick up Jackson Merrill and James Wood in the same draft class in 2021 To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
- Duration:
- 8m
- Broadcast on:
- 01 Jul 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
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of big decisions to be made how has it changed since they moved to draft to the middle of month obviously baseball wanted to make it sort of an event you know what the all-star game but it also has condensed a lot of stuff for front offices yeah I mean it's changed you know quite a bit I think it's one thing front offices are pretty aligned with not loving you know the time frame of the kind of a compressed decision-making process especially as it relates to the deadline you know you're gonna you're gonna focus on the draft because that's the first order of business but you have to juggle obviously what's going on with with your big league team and the needs and what you need to need to support that that group with so it's a unique time of year it's all I can say and and obviously that one stretch whereas an executive used to take at least a couple days take a deep breath that's no longer there so we like a little chaos we like like give me example of K give you an example of the chaos of maybe it's like I have to get here and then I had to get there and then I had a phone call here I had a phone call there yeah it's a lot of red-eye flights this time here yeah being a West Coast team so it's bouncing around and doing that but it's but it is you know it's it's being in the draft room lining up boards of amateur players and at the same time excuse me going out and and having conference calls and working with your pro scouting group so it is a unique unique stretch and run but again you know we all love baseball this is why we're doing it and no real complaints you know I started HA about the Merrill Wood draft yeah congratulations on that by the way as an outstanding outstanding team effort and a lot of a lot of great evaluators you know put their heads together but that was maybe they obviously worked out but also but that's like the the different bits of stories that went into that into like those two players like that's the example where we're talking about whether it's scouting it whether it's hoping that the team doesn't see it the same way whether it's looking at a player a little bit differently like what do you remember about that trial you know I remember a lot I remember you know here initially about Jackson Merrill you know kind of you know being a little bit of a pop-up a later name you know in that in that spring in that process and us you know wanting to get in there obviously evaluated them quite a bit but but also not necessarily wanting to tip our hand and send in you know every evaluator you know over and over so you know he was he was a name that was kind of moving up our board you know throughout the spring and honestly James was kind of going in the opposite direction you know James had come off he had a rough he did he had a rough rough spring and you know we had liked him coming off the summer circuit and he had been in our mix but he was going the other direction I think we we got around him we you know we were able to work him out you know privately which I think was important in our in our decision-making process what I do remember is in that draft room having kind of different courses that we could kind of go through and and one was really you know consolidating all of our you know resources into into trying to get James to our next pick James Wood we decided to go that way and obviously it's paid off it paid off very well which which is a you know it looks good now but like in hindsight like back then you're having a guy who was struggling like his senior last year of high school uh yeah a lot of tools and everything else but it is interesting where like how the draft changes leading up to it like you mentioned Merrill like how the week's leading up to a change how the week's leading up to a change for James I mean it's we're sitting here what three weeks out yeah two in another week we could be having a different conversation having things are going to change you got to remember these are these are 17 18 year old you know young men things are going to change a lot in a in a year in six months that's that's a big part of their baseball career at that point so yeah the the chapters of the book the the scouting evaluations they do change um and they can change in short order I think you know the biggest thing is to have a strong process and a good communication and and be to be able to go out and get those scouting looks to be able to um you know get into a draft room where you're pulling a lot of different information from a lot of different you know areas of the organization you're making the best decision you know you possibly can you know it's paid out in those instances for the Padres and other instances we've had good processes and we haven't had good results so but that's what you're really looking to do as much as possible and understanding yeah it may be a small sample but really when you're 17 18 year old years old everything's kind of a small sample at that point welcome 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