Grayson interview

[emmett16]

2 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

How's that academy coming along why is not built yet? No one has the answer but potential lack of fundubg could be an issue, right? 

Actions speak louder than words in a press release!

Have you been down to DR?  

1- Island time is a VERY real thing.

2- Skilled workers are incredibly hard to come by

3- Lot of shadiness going on and the lining of pockets

4- Permits = near impossible to get (without lining of the pockets)

5- Inspections = near impossible to get (without lining of the pockets)

6- Materials needed for a state of the art facility are hard to come by and get delivered

 

Not sticking up for the lack of news and progress, just putting some things in context.  By no means is this like building a project in the US (which can take a long time as well).  I'd be curious to see how long it took other folks to build their academies and how ambitious those academies are.  I'm pretty upset it's not done yet as I've been waiting to go visit!  

[Tony-OH]

5 minutes ago, emmett16 said:

Have you been down to DR?  

1- Island time is a VERY real thing.

2- Skilled workers are incredibly hard to come by

3- Lot of shadiness going on and the lining of pockets

4- Permits = near impossible to get (without lining of the pockets)

5- Inspections = near impossible to get (without lining of the pockets)

6- Materials needed for a state of the art facility are hard to come by and get delivered

 

Not sticking up for the lack of news and progress, just putting some things in context.  By no means is this like building a project in the US (which can take a long time as well).  I'd be curious to see how long it took other folks to build their academies and how ambitious those academies are.  I'm pretty upset it's not done yet as I've been waiting to go visit!  

Thanks for the info, but you point out a few things that could be money related like lining the pockets. Maybe Angelos won't do that? Maybe he doesn't have the money to do that? I have zero information on why the academy remains a work in progress, but with all his legal and financial problems, you have to wonder whether a lack of funds to get this complete is part of the problem.

Or at least not wanting to play the game down there to get things done.

[btdart20]

29 minutes ago, wildcard said:

First let's get the nickname right.   Since T-Ball he has been GRod.   No one calls him GrayRod.   And GRod is what Grayson prefers.

 

[btdart20]

31 minutes ago, wildcard said:

First let's get the nickname right.   Since T-Ball he has been GRod.   No one calls him GrayRod.   And GRod is what Grayson prefers.

Preach!

[emmett16]

1 minute ago, Tony-OH said:

Thanks for the info, but you point out a few things that could be money related like lining the pockets. Maybe Angelos won't do that? Maybe he doesn't have the money to do that? I have zero information on why the academy remains a work in progress, but with all his legal and financial problems, you have to wonder whether a lack of funds to get this complete is part of the problem.

Or at least not wanting to play the game down there to get things done.

That is absolutely a possibility.  I honestly hadn't really considered that before, but with all the shenanigans the last 6 months, I don't think I would be surprised.  I try to stay as optimistic as possible which I think is an impressive talent being a Os fan lol  

[btdart20]

17 minutes ago, emmett16 said:

To be fair, not many teams were taking advantage of this type of training and quite a bit are still not using it.  Many teams were against it at first.  A friend of mine who pitched in the Rangers organization was explicitly told he was not allowed to take advantage of some of the newer tech and trainings (this was ~2010) when this stuff was first coming out.  A lot of players did these things behind their teams backs (at the risk of repercussions) until they came into vogue around 2012-2014.  

Back then this type of innovation was seen as an injury risk.  And there's still a debate around balancing the injury risk and improved performance.  Most teams now are willing to maximize 100 arm, sacrifice 90 of them, and be left with 10 with 3-4 extra MPH.  I made up the numbers, but that's the general idea.

About 10 years ago, the Driveline guy pushed for more open-sourced data.  More data points = better trend analysis.  What biomechanics increases velo?  Spin?  Injury risks?  

[emmett16]

37 minutes ago, btdart20 said:

Back then this type of innovation was seen as an injury risk.  And there's still a debate around balancing the injury risk and improved performance.  Most teams now are willing to maximize 100 arm, sacrifice 90 of them, and be left with 10 with 3-4 extra MPH.  I made up the numbers, but that's the general idea.

About 10 years ago, the Driveline guy pushed for more open-sourced data.  More data points = better trend analysis.  What biomechanics increases velo?  Spin?  Injury risks?  

I think there is a little misnomer that the facilities are only trying to improve output (and they are, no doubt).  Most of the focus is on cleaning up mechanics and building up leg, core, and arm strength with the main goal to be avoiding injury.  Improved mechanics, flexibility, strength, and mobility will lead to improved velocity.  

Edited February 3, 2023 by emmett16

[btdart20]

7 minutes ago, emmett16 said:

I think there is a little misnomer that the facilities are trying to improve output (and they are, no doubt).  Most of the focus is on cleaning up mechanics and building up leg, core, and arm strength with the main goal to be avoiding injury.  Improved mechanics, flexibility, strength, and mobility will lead to improved velocity.  

Sure, it's holistically an improvement.  Formula 1 cars are finely tuned for efficiency, power, speed, etc...  And they replace engines, tires, etc. on the regular.  These programs are boring out the pitchers engine for max HP (building up legs, core, and other supporting musclular/soft tissue systems) and using biomechanics to make the most efficient use of everything they've got.  

[Frobby]

Just listened to the interview.   For those who want to listen but skip the hosts’ earlier discussions of the prospects lists, the interview begins at about the 29:30 mark and runs about 50 minutes.  It’s a very fun interview and Grayson was very relaxed talking with these guys.   

@wildcardcovered the highlights but there were three interesting tidbits he didn’t mention:

- Grayson has a younger brother who also pitches and is 6’7” as a 14-year old high school freshman.

- When Grayson was a high school sophomore, he was throwing around 95 mph.  Then early his junior year, he broke his hamate bone on his pitching hand while hitting a pitch that jammed him, but didn’t realize it was broken.  He pitched the rest of the season with tape on the wrist of his pitching hand, and was only throwing 90-92, so scouts weren’t very interested in him.  It was only after the season he found out he had a broken bone.   The next spring, he was throwing 98.

- For most of his senior year, he was expecting to get drafted 3rd/4th round.   It was only in the last week before the draft that he realized he might be a late first round/early second round pick.  He was completely surprised when the O’s picked him 11th.   

He sounds like a really fun guy and I’m looking forward to seeing him against big league competition.  

 

Edited February 3, 2023 by Frobby

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, Frobby said:

  

 

 

- When Grayson was a high school sophomore, he was throwing around 95 mph.  Then early his junior year, he broke his hamate bone on his pitching hand while hitting a pitch that jammed him, but didn’t realize it was broken.  He pitched the rest of the season with tape on the wrist of his pitching hand, and was only throwing 90-92, so scouts weren’t very interested in him.  It was only after the season he found out he had a broken bone.   The next spring, he was throwing 98.

-
 

So it was less about the O's helping him unlock velocity.

Good on Dan's team if they were aware of this issue, reminds me of Chen's velocity being down in Japan after dealing with some injuries and it going back up in the States.

[Just Regular]

"Little" brother's already in Perfect Game's 2026 tracking - look out Billy Ripken.

https://www.perfectgame.org/Players/Playerprofile.aspx?ID=772982

Only other detail from my listen others haven't already mentioned is he shared he got engaged New Year's Eve.

Unless...you are really into load management for deer herds (that bit actually made me think he could be understanding how a big chunk of his 20's are going to be handled) or into the country boy/redneck/hillbilly hierarchy he introduced me to.

People are gonna love him.

[Can_of_corn]

10 minutes ago, Just Regular said:

"Little" brother's already in Perfect Game's 2026 tracking - look out Billy Ripken.

https://www.perfectgame.org/Players/Playerprofile.aspx?ID=772982

Only other detail from my listen others haven't already mentioned is he shared he got engaged New Year's Eve.

Unless...you are really into load management for deer herds (that bit actually made me think he could be understanding how a big chunk of his 20's are going to be handled) or into the country boy/redneck/hillbilly hierarchy he introduced me to.

People are gonna love him.

He's going to Garner some interest at that size.

 

[baltfan]

15 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

Thanks for the info, but you point out a few things that could be money related like lining the pockets. Maybe Angelos won't do that? Maybe he doesn't have the money to do that? I have zero information on why the academy remains a work in progress, but with all his legal and financial problems, you have to wonder whether a lack of funds to get this complete is part of the problem.

Or at least not wanting to play the game down there to get things done.

This seems a bit of a harsh take.  JA hired Elias and gave him the go ahead on all of this.  Louie starts fighting bout money and direction with JA.  Surely this started behind the scenes vs in the open.  At that point, JA has to do what he can to keep the franchise moving in the right direction with the knowledge that there could be funds issues due to litigation.  This is going to lead to prioritizing which could put some other things on hold.  I don’t see how that is JA’s fault. 
 

If your theory is JA isn’t willing to spend versus not able to, why haven’t Elias or Sig even hinted at that?   Elias just built a great system.  He could gat another GM job pretty easily.  Sig also has plenty of places he could go.  If they thought they were being unfairly hamstrung there would be some sort of leak or comment from them indicating this was a issue.  Instead, there has been nothing which leads me to believe they know JA is doing what he can and are willing to wait for it to be sorted out. 

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, baltfan said:

This seems a bit of a harsh take.  JA hired Elias and gave him the go ahead on all of this.  Louie starts fighting bout money and direction with JA.  Surely this started behind the scenes vs in the open.  At that point, JA has to do what he can to keep the franchise moving in the right direction with the knowledge that there could be funds issues due to litigation.  This is going to lead to prioritizing which could put some other things on hold.  I don’t see how that is JA’s fault. 
 

 

If he can't reach an accord with his brother and it's effecting the operation of the team how is that not his fault? 

That's his job at this point, that's the part he's responsible for.

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, Can_of_corn said:

If he can't reach an accord with his brother and it's effecting the operation of the team how is that not his fault? 

That's his job at this point, that's the part he's responsible for.

Funny, I don’t remember the Grayson interview covering this topic.