Chapter 1: What insights does Terry Francona share about his return to managing?
on my podcast than the great Cincinnati Reds manager, Terry Francona. Terry, welcome back on the show. How are you?
Courtney, thanks so much. You can introduce me anytime you want. That's good for my ego, so thank you.
Well, you know, and it's good for my ego to have you on my show. You know that. I mean, it's not every day I can have someone of your ilk to talk to about baseball, and I love that. You know that.
Well, don't use words like ilk because I don't know what that means. So we've got to get that straight away right now.
You know, we're already on a good start. We're already on a good start here. That's tremendous. Well, it is officially the offseason. Finally, we've made it. And we're just going to jump right into it with the career. We already know about your career, certainly. But with the year that you've had with the Cincinnati Reds, your very, very first year with the Reds, you took them to the playoffs.
Congratulations on that.
Thank you. Thank you.
I mean, that is a hell of an accomplishment, right? I mean, I don't think a lot of the baseball experts expected that in this first year, right? I don't think, maybe.
I think we did. I don't know. And I didn't really care what people on the outside, because that doesn't really, you shouldn't base your feelings for your team. But I think our guys thought we could. And it wasn't easy, but it came down to the last day. But when you still get the pop champagne, for a lot of young guys that have never done that, it was really meaningful for us.
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Chapter 2: How did the Cincinnati Reds perform in the 2025 season?
I was amazed at the amount and the level of cooperation from every person there. And I mean, every player, when you tell a player something, they'd look you in the eye and they try to do it. Courtney, I'll give you another thing. And people may not think this was that big a deal. For me, it was.
On the first day of spring training, you know, I think every manager probably says pretty similar stuff. You know, hey, play the game hard. Don't be late. We never had somebody be late the entire year. And to me, that's so important because I think when you are late, I think you're announcing to the whole world, this is not a priority.
And it has to be a priority for us to get where we want to go. So those are little things that maybe don't show up in the win-loss column. But nonetheless, I was really proud of our guys for that.
Well, you have absolutely no idea how much that resonates with me. You know, the tardiness thing, you know, my background's in sales and I know, you know, spot on. You need to show up at least 15 minutes early or you're late in my book.
So it's so funny you say that every time we would head out to the ballpark, it'd be me. Freddie Benavides, who I've grown to love, Brad Mills, who I've known forever, and then a lot of times Brad Meador, our GM, would go with us. And if we'd set a time, say 1230, It would be like 1145 and I'd be texting those guys like, hey, we said 1230. Let's go.
You even did that to me today with the podcast link. You're like, okay, Courtney, I haven't received a link. What's going on here? And I'm like, I absolutely love that because A, It shows you're organized. It shows it's a priority, like you said. And that makes a difference. And you said it's a little thing. To me, that's not a little thing. That shows that you care. And I love that.
I think guys that will do that. It's the same thing with running balls out to first. It's not just how it looks. One, you want to run players into mistakes because I think that's the way you can win. But I really believe guys that will run the ball out when they're frustrated, they're the same guys. It's not going to be late. They're the same guys are going to back up bases.
They're going to play through frustration. So there's a lot more to it than just how it looks.
I could not agree more. And again, you said something that resonated with me once again. It seems like every podcast we do, you say something that resonates with me. And I absolutely love that. I'm glad that it's home.
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Chapter 3: What does Terry Francona believe is essential for wearing the Reds uniform?
Well, they were ultra aggressive, especially on the bases. And again, I get it. I mean, very athletic team, young, can run. I just felt like we needed to pick our spots. And there were times maybe where we didn't hit 3-0, where maybe they did in the past. And there were things that for the young players... They had never heard it different than that. And I needed to recognize that.
So it took me a little while because I'm like, hey, wait a minute. It's not fair to these guys. So I just needed to make sure I explained it to them. They weren't being punished. It's just stealing third base sometimes with two outs. It's not helping the ball club. And that's the thing I tried to drive home is everything you do during the game has got to be geared to helping us win.
And because sometimes I think, especially young players, they want to show their tool. You know, they can have something in their toolbox. They want to show it. Well, you know what? If you missed the cutoff, man, or if you're running, you know, aggressive without being intelligent, it doesn't help you win as much as you need it to.
And I, again, I completely agree with that. It's just, you know, like you said, it's almost like a teaching moment, right? Like it's a teaching moment that, okay, let's readjust your mindset here. You're not, you know, you're not getting in trouble, like you said, but you're readjusting that mindset to kind of mold into a winning ball club that we saw a lot from you guys this year.
So that's great. That's huge.
You know, and I would also say there were a lot of times where I'd say something to a player that it didn't go the way we wanted it to. And to their credit and to a person, it never happened again, which to me, that's what you're shooting for. You know, everybody's going to make mistakes, but you don't want guys making the same mistakes over and over again.
And our guys, they – and again, you know, the game goes fast. And I think the further you get away from the game, sometimes the easier it looks. And it can be a really challenging, really difficult game. So as long as the guys are preparing and they're trying to do the right thing, I kind of feel like, okay, we're a little ahead of the curve there.
I completely agree with that. And, you know, there's been a lot of talk about that third wildcard spot that you guys got in on.
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Chapter 4: How did the Reds players respond to Francona's coaching style?
You know, do you think that a team – and obviously it worked in the Reds' favor this year, so I don't want to throw cold water on that. But do you think a team that's won 83, 84, 85 wins should be considered a playoff team?
I think they actually have set it up pretty well.
Yeah.
You're right. 83 games is not our goal, you know, and, and, and again, when you win 83, you need a little cooperation from other teams. That's just the way it is. And then when you win 83 games, look who you play first. So, you know, we're going to get into that.
But, but I kind of like it because again, you, you get penalized for being that third wildcard team, you know, you go on the road and everything like that and you play the one seat or what, but I still think it's good for baseball. And again, In fact, I think we talked about this last year. I'd love to see more playoff games and less days off because I think you'd find...
less teams are having bullpen games. You know, you're not really finding out the best complete team because you can hide so many things now with all the days off. So, and again, I know they won't change it because I think it's right, but I think it's a better barometer for finding the best teams.
And one thing that I think we did talk about this last time, too, one thing, and we certainly saw this particularly in the National League, was so many more fan bases were right involved in literally the last game of the year, right? You had the Mets sweating every single thing going on in your game.
So it is good for baseball in that respect that there's so many other fan bases that are, you know, sweating these games now and more eyes on the product. And I think that's not a bad thing, obviously.
I think it's actually a really good thing because our game and I get it. You know, the NBA and the NFL, it's so much easier for them to divvy up the TV because, you know, our game is so regionalized and I get it. but it's hard to figure out the right way to divvy it up. So it's not necessarily always going to be a level playing field. We know that.
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Chapter 5: What are Terry Francona's thoughts on the third wildcard playoff spot?
I went back and watched that play probably 10 times. That ball could have eaten him up so easily. Yeah. And nobody would have thought a word because, you know, it was top spin. It was a second hop. He was off balance. They just have a way of kind of keep coming at you and finding a way to win.
They do. They definitely do. Now, one more final question about the World Series. How would you love to manage, and you've managed Game 7s, of course, with Cleveland against the Chicago Cubs, as we know. How would you have felt to do the in-game manager interview during Game 7 of the World Series? How would you have handled that?
Well, and probably not very well. Yeah. I'm trying not to be the old, you know, fuddy-duddy that's sucking his waist. But I think out of respect to the game, I'll talk to anybody during an exhibition game. But when it's our game... If something ever, it's like miking up a player. If a player ever made a mistake, I just don't think it's fair.
I think, you know, if you want to do it in between innings, okay, I'll give a little bit, but I can't talk during the game because, again, everything you're preaching, then you're not doing it. And so I just don't agree with it.
And it's just a distraction. I mean, you can even see when Schneider and even, you know, Doc, when they got the mic in their face, they were trying to manage. I mean, how do you?
Yeah. And I don't think that it's not an exhibition game. You know, if I'm doing the All-Star game, I get it. It's fun. Fans love it. But when you're playing for your livelihood and I just don't agree with it. But again, I'm not in charge. So you do what you're supposed to.
That's it. That is it. Well, one final question for you, Terry. And then, I mean, it's always a pleasure having you on. You know that. How is your health?
Well, it's interesting you ask. So I pulled my hamstring last spring training. Okay. This is now all the way back to in March. And I didn't think much of it. And about halfway through the year, kind of started barking at me a little bit. And the docs gave me cortisone and all this stuff. When the season was over, they had to go in and reattach it.
And I'm going to tell you something, that was not a fun surgery.
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