Ron Coomer likes how Craig Counsell is managing the Cubs

0:00Rod, good morning, buddy. How are you? My key, David. I am doing great. How are you, boys? Doing well. So, didn't you tell us you were going out for a big meal in LA? Did that happen? How was that? Oh, that's awfully personal, Mike. Oh, boy. Thanks, Pat. How much did it cost, Ron? It's hard, I would say. Yes, exactly. Who picked up the tab? Well, I was writing solo. So, and I was not going that good. We're the place picked it up. That's for sure. But I picked it up for a nice big meal. I had a nice big steak. And a nice glass of red wine. I did not finish it off with a cigar. But I did have a really nice meal. And it was, yeah, it was good. A little time, you know, some day games, you know, in the game run. Right. So we had some time to go around. So it was good. Yeah, a good West Coast trip. 500 on the West Coast.

1:00That's a good trip place. Well, welcome home. Come because Big Weekend series against the Diamondbacks. And certainly the best thing about the Padres series, besides obviously winning two out of three, I think was just seeing PCA look like Pete Krohramstrong again. You look at his slash lines from the first 15 games and then the second 16 games since. They're two different hitters, come. I just wondered what you see from the eye test, from the booth, maybe during batting practice. What is different about Pete Krohramstrong the last two weeks or so that he wasn't doing in the first two? Well, I did not see it in batting practice, I'll be honest, but I did see it in the games. There was a there's a slight transformation of his swing, allowing the ball to get a little deeper. And what I mean by that is deeper towards home plate, where he's not going out and trying to get the ball so much. And you know, that's where you're seeing.

2:00You know, he turned around the fastball in San Diego the first day and hit it behind him in the Cubs dugout. 98, he turned and hit it in the Cubs dugout. That's being out and front. I don't know any other way to describe that. And that's almost impossible to do, but he did it. But his last bat in Los Angeles, he flew out to Lutz Center Field and most people say, oh, man, that's no big deal. But that shows progress of him letting the ball get deep. And he had some good swings that didn't, in fact, they didn't get hit. They didn't put the ball in play, but he let the ball get deeper. And as he was doing that, you know, that's a good thing. And now all of a sudden, as we get into the San Diego series, he's on time more. His barrel is clicking with the ball. And he hits a couple of home runs, but the swings in the at-bats are better. And the other thing too, not just the two home runs, which we're happy to see.

3:01And I was happy for him. You could just see the weight coming off his shoulders as he's around in the bases. But, you know, it's the tapes. It's the not swinging at pitches out of the zone, you know, because for my vantage point, and just experience in the lead, you can read kind of what they're going to try to do to him if he's swinging on the zone. And he did not chase. He did not fall into their traps at times in San Diego. So it was good. Ron, kind of a crazy April for the Cubs. If you think about it, a couple of big time contracts, big injury going on, big performance from Nico Horner throughout the month, just a lot of different moments to really a big winning streak. What stood out to you about that month? Um, excuse me, I think a lot of things,

4:03just what you're saying too. The biggest thing to me was attending winning streak first. I thought that was really, you know, to win 10 games in the way they did it with some of the wins, you know, come from behind. And so, you know, some games where you just, you know, just crushed the other team, where you just played great from first pitch to the last pitch. So that stuck out probably the most. Because you're going to have injuries, and that ain't important to that. That's another one that was really, if you look at it on the, you know, on the pessimistic side of, you know, things being not good, I felt terrible for him and then a bullpen getting beat up. But, you know, there's a lot of plus this, man, when you look at the Cubs organization, to have the guys that they've signed, to long-term deals, and then who they have in long-term deals, you know, this is a core group that could be very good for a very long time. So that's really positive. I was extremely happy for both guys.

5:04But Nico, that was, it was, what was fun to watch about Nico is he signs the deal, and then comes out and lights it up the first month right after signing the deal. So that was, that was really cool. You know, you, you see a guy do that, and he's just one of the best players in the game. So that's fun to watch. So in a lot of pluses and, you know, some things that, you know, were kicks in the shin too, when you start talking about some of the injuries. So, Kuhm, I thought the biggest moment in the road trip, you could pick out several, but first, and maybe going back to Friday night was the biggest win of the year against the Dodgers. But then you fast forward to Padres, bases loaded, nobody out, and they're walked, and here comes Ben Brown in, facing Tatees, and he drops the knuckle curve, and then he uses five pitches, and then get three outs, and the Cubs escape a jam. Ben Brown looks like the guy that Cubs need him to be with all of these injuries in the bullpen.

6:05How impressed were you and how important is he? Right now he is extremely important to all say that. Brownie is, Brownie is one of those guys, David. He's really a talented kid. I mean, he's got a great army. He's got the stuff to be a very good, big league pitcher. High fastball that's, you know, mid to high upper 90s knuckle curve. He's the, he's experiencing the norm of what most young players experience. You know, he's experiencing the highs when he's throwing strikes, and then he's experiencing the lows when the game gets fast form, and he starts, you know, he can't find the strike zone. So he's doing what most guys do. But I thought he turned, turned the corner, and that's going to be a huge confidence boost for him, facing San Diego. That was a big, big moment to when he came into the game.

7:07I mean, you're looking at, you know, something that could get really ugly, really fast. And he, and he went right through the heart of their lineup. That was, that was impressive. It really was. And I was happy for him that he was able to throw his fastball for strikes. And then what that does is it allows some swing and miss on pitches that are in the zone with the knuckle curve, because that's a very good pitch. Yeah, we, we were talking about two things. One, the way that Craig Council is sort of hit the right button on a lot of what he's doing, especially when it comes to pinch hitters and the way he's lining things up. And then the idea that despite very few pitch pitchers getting it done, this, the cubs have gone seven innings with three different pitchers, with James and Tyon, with Shoda, and of course, Edward Cabrera. And that's not something that's happening a ton,

8:09but that's something that you need when you're going through the kind of bullpen injuries they've been going through. Yeah, they're so doubtful. You know, and it's the situation is you have to ride your starter longer when you're going through this issue with the bullpen, with just injuries. And a guy who have stepped up, there's a reason why guys like Tyon are, everybody looks at them and you know, you just, there's a calm, a calmness to him in the clubhouse and and a leadership quality that he carries around the clubhouse. And when he stepped out on the mom when you really needed that seven innings start, he came through with the seven innings start. Cabrera, he's another one, I think that, you know, what a pickup for the cubs that is. I mean, he's just, he lights out and I mean, you talk about number one stuff. He's got the, you know, number one stuff. So he is, he's really impressive.

9:12The more I see him on a, you know, weekly basis starting, he's a good reason why you wouldn't want to be hitting and you'd want to be in a broadcast booth. I wouldn't want to face him. He'd be carved up pretty good. And he was, and then showed you, you know, I saw it in spring. And I think a lot of people did. I'm not, you know, the, the only one, but you could see shoulder was someone back to the guy we saw in 24 ball coming out of his hand. Good life on his fastball. The split had good action to it. And his body had life again. He wasn't hurt. And he's given the cubs some big, big innings too. So I was happy for all of those guys. And for county, he leaned on him and they, they, they gave him exactly what he needed. You know, Kuhn, we were talking earlier in the program about Craig Council's first month. Cubs are 19 and 12 and I cited three examples of pinch hitting moves and decisions that really paid off. Carson Kelly, Conforto, Michael Bush. And you can look at specific things in the bullpen as

10:13well. This week, he celebrated his 900th victory. You played for manager Tom Kelly who had over 11 hundred. You know what a good manager does and why it works in Craig Council's case. What would you say is his biggest strength? Why is he, why is he as successful as he has been throughout the course of his career? That's a great question. For county, the council's got a bunch of strengths. I, you know, in the current game now, you know, having the understanding of both sides of the way the game is run, I think is a huge asset. You know, being a guy that played for a long time and understanding our game from the standpoint of the highs and lows that a player goes through. Council's not a superstar player, but he was on great teams that one world series and he was a big part of that. So he has that understanding of what it takes and what a winning team looks like

11:17at a championship level from the player perspective. And then he also is smart enough to understand and realize and use the analytical side being a for an office guy before he became a manager and understanding some of that and how to use it to the best of the best of the managers' capabilities to help run a team and run the game. So and he's got a feel for that, you know, and when to use it, when not when to step in with a player and, you know, pat him on the back or help him in the cage or be involved and then when to let his coaching staff do some of that. So I think having an understanding of both worlds, I think all the managers that can do that have been successful in our league. There's a few of them. Fred Kona stands out as one for share too. You know, that, you know, Tito wins everywhere, counts as one everywhere. Well, there's a reason. They understand both sides of how this this thing is running now.

12:19You know, Ron, we were talking earlier about PCA and the fact that he played in the world baseball classic and he missed kind of the normal buildup that you would have. He was playing in kind of a much more stressful situation and he wasn't getting as much regularity and he wasn't having spring training the way you normally have it and he seems like he's coming around now. You could argue that Alex Breggman maybe hasn't come around yet and he went through the same kind of thing. We know what happened with Palencia. We know Matthew Boyd. Sayah is another guy. Like, the Cubs, it's almost like a little cautionary tale about that WBC. Do you think that this will dissipate as we're moving forward here and maybe Breggman joins PCA is kind of stepping up a bit more. Sayah, I mean, it feels like maybe better times are ahead because of maybe the delay

13:20that the WBC caused. Yeah, I'm not going to be popular with my answer to your question, Michael. I think that whole term for the experience is awesome. I think it's great for players to be able to put their countries jersey on baseball. We just don't get to do that as much as the other sports. So I think some of the other sports football obviously doesn't do it either, but I think it's important for guys to be able to have some experiences because they're going to remember those for the rest of their life. They're not going to remember to go for 12 or, you know, one for or the whole hammy or something like that. But I think when you look at it seriously, you think about that. These games, you know, and the the importance of the camaraderie and that to have team USAID and your jersey or team Canada or something like that and team Japan, I thought was it's really a big deal to all the players and it would have been to me. Is it good for the player

14:23and his big league team? No, it is not. I don't think so. I think we're seeing that in the cubs of experience that, you know, with with guys missing spring. I don't necessarily know if guys are quite prepared, especially guys that live here in the United States. So they prepared to play games that are that intense with one week of spring training. You know, yeah, I'm not I'm not sold on that part. But I will say this, I don't know if there's any other time you can really play that turn. I just don't see where it would work. Certainly don't want to do it at the end of the year when pitchers arms and everybody's pitched all year. So it's here to stay. I do believe but it's not the best thing. It's not the best situation in the world for the players in their ball clubs in the big leagues. That's for sure. Well, put cool. Great job. Welcome back. Boys, we're going to have a nice weekend here in Chicago with Riggly. I know that. It's freezing.

15:26Teams on a little. It's cold. Cool. No, but it's he's talking about winning. I'm about freezing. I brought bomb the San Diego weathered and like that. He's hanging and looking forward to that.