Chapter 1: What is the importance of leadership in a baseball clubhouse?
Yeah, there should be some passion.
This doesn't have to be boring, boring, boring. You don't get bored by baseball. Okay, one thing the game needs is more people like you, you, you. Still have grown men run around tight hands.
It's Mookie Betts. It's Daniel Bard. It's Steve Aoki. It's Sal Tlamacchia. This is Brock Holt. Hey, this is John Lester. Baseball isn't boring. Baseball isn't boring.
Welcome to Baseball Isn't Boring. Here's your host, Rob Ratt. Alright, there's absolutely no human being on the planet That I would want to talk to more than Cole Tucker. Fact. Stop it. Stop it. No, it's true. It's true. I woke up this morning. I said, there's only one person.
I mean, it was probably when I, when I actually texted you, I said that was morning for you afternoon for me, but I was just like, it was permeating in my head all day long. What is, what is the one thing when I woke up this morning that I thought first thing it was, yes, I have to talk to Cole. That's fact.
I'll take it. I'm honored. I'm honored. But there's something to that with the whole waking up on the East Coast texting someone on the West Coast thing. It's morning for them. You're like, he's sleeping, but I'm already thinking about what I'm going to say, what I got.
It's so weird because with this, in the baseball world, as you know, so many people are in Arizona. And everybody else is in California. And there's just few people in Florida. When I hear someone say they're on East Coast to Eastern time zone, I'm like, whoa, you are. Yeah, early bird. Early bird, yeah. But I have to be so cognizant of it.
So where was the most interesting place that you worked out in the offseason? Because that's sort of an interesting dynamic where you have – and I go back to the athletes' performance – Oh, yeah, API. Yeah, API, right? Yeah.
Yeah, I had like a very interesting offseason. It wasn't like an offseason set up, but it was an offseason because it was COVID. Remember in 2020 when everyone got sent home on March 11th and went home until spring 2.0? So me and a bunch of the other baseball guys that I lived with in this condo complex in Scottsdale in Arizona –
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Chapter 2: How did Cole Tucker adapt his offseason workouts during COVID?
So I said, okay, well, let's take this cliche, and Cora and I were going back. We always joke about it. Let's take this cliche and inspire people, both players and fans and everybody, to say, hey, by opening day, what is the one thing that you are actually going to be in the best shape of your life? So to give you an example, Cole, Joe Kelly, our CEO, he said he's going to bench 225 pounds once.
which, you know, one rep, one rep, he's a pitcher.
Like they don't, he's never, he's never done shoulders in his life.
No, no, no. He's wiry strong, but like benching is the equation. I'm going to show an app. Michael Kopech came on and said he's going to do a Yamamoto handstand for like a minute or something. And the great thing is we have a ton of people who – the great people at Awaken 180, they're powering us through this, who want to lose weight, who want to run faster, whatever it is.
So my first question is when were you legitimately on the best shape of your life?
That's a great question. I feel like – I feel like all of my 20s I was in like similar shape. I'm a guy who like I need to eat like four or five meals a day or I'm losing weight. If I do this podcast with you, I will be lighter than when I started. So I've always been like trying to beef up and eat up and get as big as I can.
If you look at me in a baseball uniform, like there was no doubt about how skinny I am. But I would say like 2020 –
one maybe if i had to guess okay all right i'm in pretty good shape right now i'm doing a lot of dad walks a lot of up and down incline you know it's like a sled push um but i feel like i'm in pretty good shape for a dad right now but i feel like best shape ever probably like around when i was doing those prison covid workouts so we have t-shirts to say best shape of my life scn season which is
Joe was like – I tried to explain. Joe, it says SDN. That means season. He's like, really? You sound like one of those commercials. Yeah, one of those Gen Z kids. Yeah. So I do think that the alternative T-shirt should be I'm in the best shape of my life for a dad.
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Chapter 3: What role does teamwork play in athletic training?
His role was to be a leader. Yeah, he wasn't playing. He wasn't playing, right? His role was to be a leader. When he was with the Red Sox before that, He was the guy who – I remember this. It wasn't like he had to do the Rudy in a stool speech. He understood like what it was to be a leader. Lead by example. Talk to guys when you need to talk to them.
Not say, hey, everybody, come on, gather around. I'm the leader.
that's what i'm talking about a guy who understands it what it takes to be a leader without proclaiming i am the leader you know is that a dynamic 100 100 like if anyone who's been in a clubhouse knows who the true real leader is and oftentimes it's not the loudest guy in there it's it's usually the guy who's going about his business that people follow like leadership is all about influence and when i think of good leaders on teams it's not necessarily the guy who's
who has 18 wins on the bump or the guy who's hitting three 15. It's who has influence, positive influence that helps the team be better. That helps all the players individually be better. That helps people be better people. Like you, you don't get to see all of the time that a baseball team spends around each other, but it's hours and hours a day, even before the first pitch is thrown.
Like you can, Alex Bregman is going to sit in the locker room and my locker is next to him. And he's going to make a difference in me from the time that, I show up at 1230 to the time 705 when the first pitch is thrown. You can't put a price tag on that type of influence and that type of player, in my opinion.
So who is the guy for you? Maybe a guy or a couple guys that jump out for you that you played with or like that.
Gerard Dyson was an unbelievable leader, and he was never the best player on any team he ever played on. Francisco Cervelli was a great leader. I was lucky when I got called up in 2019. My locker was next to him, so I just got to – soak in all that he was saying, which was a lot. Uh, Fran's got a lot on his mind, but he, he's a great leader and he's played on some unbelievable teams.
And you talk about like the bridge of time through baseball. Like he was playing with Derek Jeter, who I was idolizing when I was a child. And now I'm sitting in the locker room next to him. Like, it's a wealth of experience and knowledge and information that can be passed on to the next generation of players.
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Chapter 4: What does it mean to be in the 'best shape of your life'?
And that's what it's all about. Chris Archer, one of the best leaders I've ever been around. I wish we got to spend more time around each other. Joe Musgrove is one of the best leaders in the league. The San Diego Padres will be better off this year now that he's healthy and not rehabbing TJ. He's phenomenal. There's a lot of them all over the place, and they're never the guy.
It's often not the guy. The guy is putting the team on his back and figuring out how he's going to hit these 30 home runs.
Well, it's interesting. You mentioned two pitchers. Sometimes that's a difficult thing. One of the things, and again, I want you to correct me if I'm wrong, but I always had a huge problem with... putting a C on somebody's jersey in baseball. I could talk for two hours about captains, and I get it. There are outliers. Aaron Judge is an outlier.
And there are some guys, I remember Ortiz covering him, and Mookie said this to me after Ortiz retired. He said, we are having a hard time figuring out because everything was passed through Ortiz. It wasn't like Ortiz was – fire and brimstone, but everything is passed through Ortiz.
Everything ran through him. Everything ran through him.
So I get it. I get that. But for a baseball clubhouse, because this comes back to the pitcher thing, there are so many elements of a clubhouse. You almost need like three, four. So you have pitchers. You have maybe utility players. Maybe you have a guy who's bilingual. Maybe it's relief pitchers. It almost feels like you have to have more than just one, right?
Yeah, definitely. And it changes. And if your leader is the starting pitcher that day, he's busy. He's locked in. It needs to be someone else. It might be the catcher who's back there with him. It might be the guy who's going to come pinch hit in the seventh inning. I've never had a real conversation with Travis Jankowski, but I know that he's been a leader on a lot of the teams that he's been on.
So like no one would ever look at the back of Travis Jankowski's baseball card or watch him run around the field and be like, that guy's the dude. But word gets around like you know that he is.
So this comes back to building the team. And like you talked about stats, it's a dangerous thing if you don't prioritize it. And every front office will say, I'm prioritizing it. Like every front office will say that. But that's only half of them are truthful. But it's – and I do think this. I think that it's a lot of teams or front offices don't do it because it's not a tangible thing.
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Chapter 5: How can players influence each other's performance?
He's just good enough to be serviceable, but the most important thing is that we need that adult in the room, right? And we need that message. And, again, you can speak to this better than I can, but it's like your parent – the parent is saying the same thing as your parent's friend.
Yes. Right? But it sounds better when it's not your parent. It sounds better, right? Totally, totally. And, like, look at Evan Longoria. Like, he – He came onto that team with a bunch of young guys. I didn't mean to cut you off. No, no. I want you to go. It makes such a big difference. Look at the impact that he's had on Corbin Carroll in the beginning of his career, the end of Longo's career.
He was able to pour all of that into Corbin and all those other young guys, Alec Thomas, Blaze Alexander. Geraldo Perdomo, those guys are all so much better off just from being friends with Evan Longoria. Take out the production or him playing third base for him for a year or two. It's just about what he can give to them as a teammate and as a person.
It's so true, and there's a lot of examples that are jumping to mind. One of them, which is Hosmer was perceived like, for instance, Hosmer, I was around Hosmer only for a couple months, but everyone was talking about Hosmer, Hosmer, Hosmer. He's a great leader. He's a great leader. And so I asked him about like – he said, well, Raul Banez was the guy who I learned that from.
And think about that. Raul Banez was at the tail end of his career. But the impact that Raul Banez had on Eric Hosmer, the impact that Eric Hosmer had on – let's see, that would have been like 2000, whatever, 2022 or something like that. The impact that he had on, I don't know, a Jaron Duran, you know, something like that. Right.
So, yeah, I mean, it's just, I just think it's, it's such an important thing. And I'm glad that you're able to sort of give me that perspective.
Yeah, no, happy to happy to. And like it, everybody, I mean, I would, I would love it for Willie Mays to have been able to just pass down his, 600-something home runs that he hit or whatever and, like, give that to me. But you can't pass down your accolades or your statistics or, like, what you won or lost, but you can pass down your experience, and you can give that to everybody.
I feel like that's what the great leaders in the game, players, coaches, front office people, that's what the best do the best.
When you do the – so we talk about media – It's funny because you talk about guys that you're next to, lockers and guys in the clubhouse. One of the great things I love about doing this is that I learn something all the time because we're having conversations. In your time doing media on MLB Network Radio or anything else, is there something like, do you get that?
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Chapter 6: How does the clubhouse dynamic affect team success?
That was an excellent answer. And I was going to end on asking you about who had the best offseason, but I don't care about this because this is much more important. Just give me one word. Give me one word. Who had the best offseason?
It's still going, but it's hard to not like what the Chicago Cubs are doing right now. Okay. All right. Chicago Cubs. It's not important. What's important now? But the Yankees could change that tomorrow. The Red Sox could change it tomorrow, too. Exactly.
Who knows? So we have plenty of time to talk about this, but I want the last thing I want to ask you about or talk to you about. You mentioned something about you and your wife about how you both came out and said you wanted to do something that people said you can't do that. I mean, it's and we professional baseball player.
entertainer like it's it's a tough business we all understood stand that totally but I think that's the best lesson right that's the bet that's one of the best things that you can pass not the notoriety but what that you hey listen it might not work out but you never know unless you try like yeah never know unless you try
Yeah, totally. And there's like, there's a great lesson in that, you know, and it's, it's, there's a lot of people who shot for the stars and, you know, didn't make it, but like, there's something to believing that you can and having parents that like me and my wife were lucky enough to have good parents who supported us and didn't shy us away from that.
You know, I've always been a big proponent of like, if you can see it, you can believe it. And my parents, did a great job of having me around other good influences and baseball people and take me to games. Like my dad used to take me out of school to go ditch and go to watch spring training games. And like, it changed my life.
I'm a five-year-old and my dad's taking me out of school and we get to go to the baseball field. And like, I'm so glad that he did. Um, and I will definitely parent my kid like that too. Like I, I won't take them out of school to go see baseball games all the time, but I want them to know that there's more out there than just like this system of life that you see in front of your face every day.
Like there's more to life than your, your math homework. We'll get to that, but like, let's have fun and enjoy this thing too.
Well, I am going to make sure that he gets that clip and play it over and over and over because you guys are good parents. And, again, it's such a good perspective, and I think that's the most important thing. Thank you. And so I think that you batted 1,000 when it came to giving perspective. Your OPS is a million when it comes to perspective.
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