Matt Blood Interview on “Inside the Yard”

[Frobby]

https://art19.com/shows/baltimore-orioles-inside-the-yard-podcast

Fascinating interview, about 22 minutes.   A few takeaways:

O’s mantra has three elements: humility, growth mindset, collaboration.  

O’s minor leaguers had a book club and read stuff like Mindset, Legacy (about All-Blacks rugby team culture), Ego is the Enemy, a book about Nike, and It Takes What it Takes.

Thought Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson got tremendous benefit from Bowie and were leaders.    About Henderson he marveled that he was facing very experienced pitchers but “after a couple weeks he looked like he belonged and was right there with those guys.”

Had two Zoom calls a week with the new players.

Was very impressed with Kyle Bradish and talked him up a couple of times.    “Wow is he impressive.   He’s a guy who is a little under the radar for the industry but not for us...He’s pretty special.”

Said Rodriguez and Hall have major league caliber stuff but need to fine tune it and throw it where they want consistently.    Also said Diaz has major league talent and rises to level of competition.   Talent screams “major league producer” and it’s a matter of pushing the right buttons to find a level of consistency.    

Very happy with the depth the Orioles have built.    “It’s something to be excited about for Orioles fans.”

Really likes the collaboration with Hyde and his staff, and Sig.  Hyde spent a lot of time in minors and has been open to working with minor league side, even being on Zoom calls during the season.   Blood talks with Cossins and Sanders all the time.    Sig is a “brilliant impactful mind” and heavily involved.  “One of the most important people in this industry, especially for what we’re doing.”

Well worth a listen if you want some insight into our player development system and the guy who’s running it.   

[Can_of_corn]

8 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Also said Diaz has major league talent and rises to level of competition.   Talent screams “major league producer” and it’s a matter of pushing the right buttons to find a level of consistency.   

 

This isn't the first, or the second, time I've heard this about Diaz.  It's part of the reason I thought it would benefit him to be on a more aggressive promotion schedule.

[Frobby]

41 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

This isn't the first, or the second, time I've heard this about Diaz.  It's part of the reason I thought it would benefit him to be on a more aggressive promotion schedule.

I agree we’ve heard this before, including from Tony I believe.  

[ThomasTomasz]

We desperately needed people brought to fix things.  The "Oriole Way" and keeping so many guys in coaching and development positions from our past was causing stagnation for all of the time of the dark ages, and even during our success from 2012-2016.  

Look no further than our pitching development.  No TORP's since Mussina were developed unless you want to count Erik Bedard (and it's an argument I'm inclined to agree with.). But that's one guy, in 30 years, despite a lot of high draft picks spent on pitchers.  Something in the warehouse had to change, and it looks like that change finally happened. 

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, ThomasTomasz said:

We desperately needed people brought to fix things.  The "Oriole Way" and keeping so many guys in coaching and development positions from our past was causing stagnation for all of the time of the dark ages, and even during our success from 2012-2016.  

Look no further than our pitching development.  No TORP's since Mussina were developed unless you want to count Erik Bedard (and it's an argument I'm inclined to agree with.). But that's one guy, in 30 years, despite a lot of high draft picks spent on pitchers.  Something in the warehouse had to change, and it looks like that change finally happened. 

I’m impressed with the crew that Elias has brought in, and am very hopeful that they will have success.

I don’t completely agree, however, that there have been a lot of the same people running the organization before now.    Every GM we’ve had here over the last 20 years has brought in a lot of his own people and also kept some.   For example, a couple of years ago Duquette hired John Wasdin as minor league pitching director.   He reportedly had a lot of input into Duquette’s last couple of draft classes in which we picked up guys like Hall, Rodriguez,  Lowther, and Baumann, and was changing a lot of the teachings about pitching in our MiL system.    Elias came and brought in his own guy (Chris Holt), which is more than fine, as Holt appears to be doing an excellent job.   But it’s not as though the guy he replaced was some hidebound Orioles Way guy.   I could cite you other examples of guys Duquette brought in who had little or no Orioles connection.    

I do think our new staff is really on the cutting edge, though.    Hopefully it will yield good results.  
 

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, Frobby said:

I’m impressed with the crew that Elias has brought in, and am very hopeful that they will have success.

I don’t completely agree, however, that there have been a lot of the same people running the organization before now.    Every GM we’ve had here over the last 20 years has brought in a lot of his own people and also kept some.   For example, a couple of years ago Duquette hired John Wasdin as minor league pitching director.   He reportedly had a lot of input into Duquette’s last couple of draft classes in which we picked up guys like Hall, Rodriguez,  Lowther, and Baumann, and was changing a lot of the teachings about pitching in our MiL system.    Elias came and brought in his own guy (Chris Holt), which is more than fine, as Holt appears to be doing an excellent job.   But it’s not as though the guy he replaced was some hidebound Orioles Way guy.   I could cite you other examples of guys Duquette brought in who had little or no Orioles connection.    

I do think our new staff is really on the cutting edge, though.    Hopefully it will yield good results.  
 

I think they were cutting edge but everyone else caught up to what they were doing.  It remains to be seen if they will continue to innovate.  Hopefully they do, but the cutting edge in in a constant state of flux.

Sure beats being a decade behind.

[ThomasTomasz]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

I’m impressed with the crew that Elias has brought in, and am very hopeful that they will have success.

I don’t completely agree, however, that there have been a lot of the same people running the organization before now.    Every GM we’ve had here over the last 20 years has brought in a lot of his own people and also kept some.   For example, a couple of years ago Duquette hired John Wasdin as minor league pitching director.   He reportedly had a lot of input into Duquette’s last couple of draft classes in which we picked up guys like Hall, Rodriguez,  Lowther, and Baumann, and was changing a lot of the teachings about pitching in our MiL system.    Elias came and brought in his own guy (Chris Holt), which is more than fine, as Holt appears to be doing an excellent job.   But it’s not as though the guy he replaced was some hidebound Orioles Way guy.   I could cite you other examples of guys Duquette brought in who had little or no Orioles connection.    

I do think our new staff is really on the cutting edge, though.    Hopefully it will yield good results.  
 

I'm talking further down the organization.  Some of the coaches and development guys were there for forever, and a common theme were "former Orioles."  McGregor is one.  Surhoff as a scout is another.  There are plenty more examples.  

[ThomasTomasz]

I also wish we could have found a spot for Wasdin in the organization as well, his influence in those two draft classes was huge. 

[scOtt]

10 hours ago, Frobby said:

https://art19.com/shows/baltimore-orioles-inside-the-yard-podcast

 

Matt Blood aside... that's a GREAT link! Blood, Sig, HH's mullet... All kinds of good stuff.

 

Frobby STEALING scOtt's time!

[Obando]

I listened to the interview, which was great, and one of the most interesting takeaways I got was how high Matt Blood is on Kyle Bradish, who we got in the Bundy trade.  Geoff & Brett asked Blood who are some of the pitchers that impressed him a lot at the Bowie site, and he specifically mentioned Bradish unprompted.  He said that while guys like Hall, Rodriguez & Baumann (among others) are all very impressive and get a lot of attention on top prospect lists, Bradish is someone who is under the radar nationally, but not for them.  It’s clear that he was really impressed with Bradish when he saw him in Bowie, so that’s someone we should be keeping an eye on who might not be getting as much publicity as some of the other pitchers we typically think of as our top pitching prospects.  Then again, it’s understandable because this is Bradish’s first year in our system and none of us got a chance to see him pitch since the minor league season was cancelled.  He only has 1 year of minor league experience under his belt, and that was in the Angels system.

[Frobby]

2 hours ago, scOtt said:

Matt Blood aside... that's a GREAT link! Blood, Sig, HH's mullet... All kinds of good stuff.

 

Frobby STEALING scOtt's time!

Thank @wildcard, he put me onto it.