Simon Mathews

And then, you know, living in the DR for six months in 2021 was what really...

took my Spanish to the next level from a baseball specific standpoint.

And then in terms of like approaching guys and creating relationships with players on the staff, right?

Like it's so impressive to me that Latin American players have made such an impact on this game.

in often a language that they speak very little or don't speak at all, or just make a tremendous effort to learn.

Learning a new language in adulthood is extremely difficult.

And living in a country where you don't have access to the kind of food you're accustomed to, all these different things.

To just create a little bit of a level of comfort and understanding with a player by speaking their language, I hope makes an impact.

But, man, they're doing the lion's share of the work still, and I give them so much credit.

Yeah, I think in my personal experience, working at a place like that in 2020 and 2021, which was kind of a hectic time for the industry,

guys didn't know where they stood with regards to roster decisions, right?

Minor league contraction.

Guys wanted an invite to the alt site in 2020, right?

And didn't know how to get one of those.

And providing the resources to guys who were

in full-blown compete mode to then share with their organizations and see what they valued was a massive learning opportunity for me as a young coach because the fact of the matter is if you

want to get an invite to the alt site or whatever it was at the time.

Being able to demonstrate readiness was a factor that teams were considering.

And so we were making videos of guys throwing bullpens or live BP with a radar gun in the background and just saying like, hey,

for your consideration, like this is how ready I am.