The Sweet Spot- Texas Rangers Manager Skip Schumaker

0:00Every day, excessive delays and denials from big insurers keep patients from accessing the care they need. And when care is urgent, these delays can be disastrous. These practices cost billions in wasteful spending, driving up costs for American families. But while big insurers put up barriers, America's hospitals and health systems are in your corner, navigating endless reviews and appeals to get you the care you need when you need it most. It's time to curb these harmful practices and put the focus back on patients. Brought to you by the Coalition to Strength in America's Healthcare. When you really need care, you need 24-7 access to a care team, not a maze of paperwork from a third party. Every day, America's hospitals and health systems show up for you, navigating healthcare can feel overwhelming. But you can count on real doctors, real nurses, real people, providing quality around the clock care when you need it most. They're in your corner. In communities across America, your neighbors, your lifelines, right beside you holding your hand and helping find answers. That's what putting patients first actually means. Learn more at strengthinhealthcare.org. Brought to you by the Coalition to Strength in America's Healthcare.

1:26Hi, I'm Adam Devine, Chief Fundraiser for Children's Miracle Network. No, no, no, no, I said more fun! When I was a kid, a Children's Miracle Network Hospital helped me get back on my feet, literally. So trust me when I say that these places aren't just hospitals, they are oop factories. Children's Miracle Network is hospitals, programs, partners, and donors like you. Join us in making big change for all kids. Visit us online at cmn.org. Clear skies, hot air balloons overhead, beautiful surprise Arizona, the sweet spot at Spring Training, Rangers Spring Training 2026, where this is it by Skipper, skips you on first. Good morning, guys. Good to talk to you. We talked to you right after you got hired. Appreciate you taking the time to sit down with us today. So I guess we're over halfway through. It feels like every day is kind of the same out here, but how are you handling things

2:27as far as one of your first camp with a new team and just the grind every day? I mean, you said you could get here at 5 a.m. every day. Yeah, I think the middle of Spring Training is kind of the dog days, and you're trying to just, I don't want to say get to the finish line, but people can start sniffing opening day, which is exciting, but also trying to motivate these guys to keep going, keep working, and then you're also trying to make sure that these guys feel good going into opening day. And it's not just a, you know, they're not feeling something in their back or their legs or whatever it is. So, you know, we have a team that is really good when they're healthy. So we need to make sure we get to the finish line, come against Philly and ready to roll. So yeah, you getting here at 5 a.m. every morning, and we usually get here around 8 or so when the room opens and got here a little early for you today. So what's your morning routine when you get here early? Yeah, I get here pretty early. I mean, I'm not even the first one here. We have a few guys that get here even earlier than that, and my brain only works if I sweat.

3:27So I have to sweat in the morning, and then for about an hour, and then we get into the office, I review the game in the morning, the previous game, so yesterday's game. Look at all the pitchers, the hitters, the base running, all of that, got a cup of coffee, and then usually have a staff meeting at 7.30. So we want to prep for the overview the day before in our staff meeting and then prep for the day and what we need to do, and I just don't want to be proactive and not reactive and so I want to get out in front of some things, but I also have, there's always teaching moments from the previous game that I want to address during our really our team meeting, which is at 9 o'clock. This is an English skip shoe locker here at Surprise, and I'm curious about, everybody talks about the players, we worry about the roster. How's your staff? It's a new staff, and we've got Luis Jaretta here, we've got Alex and Trone, a new face, Justin Ville, yet Tiggs, who's been elevated to pitch and coach house, everything coming

4:28together on that side. Staff's been great, I got no issues at all, very grateful for CY and Ross for allowing me to kind of drive the hiring, obviously I value their opinion, but they were very open to suggestions and trying to get this thing right. I did want to promote from within, which happened on the pitching side and hitting side with, we have Dort as the third hitting coach, he was a coordinator, and then we have obviously Tiggs, who was promoted to the number one pitching in the pitching department, and then I brought some outside, you know, a couple guys from the outside, I guess, kind of with Travis Jenkowski at that first base now, you made fans at the 23 champion, I'll say that. Yeah, I know, he's awesome, I had him as a player for a number of years, and then Rod Brahoss is like, kind of my security blanket, you know, during the game, he sees the game differently, being a former catcher of World Series champion himself, coverage of my blind spots is good as anybody, so that was a big hire for me as well, but the staff has gone along great.

5:29Yeah, it was pretty wild yesterday watching the game and looking by first base and seeing Jenkowski standing there, and we figured if he needed to swipe a bag, he could just take off and grab a couple. How's the hair? Yeah, he looks great. How's his transition going from being a fan favorite major leagueer to being a, being a first base coach? I think he'd tell you the first game he was drinking out of a firehouse, I mean, it was, you know, it was sped up, it was a lot of things were going quicker than he thought. You know, as a player, you're preparing to win the game, and a lot of things are told to you just do X, Y, and Z, and good things will happen, especially on the bases. And then when you're the coach, you have to prepare every single guy for every single situation. And I think it sped up initially, but I got to tell you, man, he is, he dove right in, he's been outstanding with the outfield group, with Carter and Nemo and Wyatt and the younger crew as well, the base running, he's dialed in, he's opening up and leading meetings as far as with the base running and outfield in front of the whole group.

6:30So it's been, it's been really, really good. And I think he's built for this, you know, that sometimes the worst hitters are the best coaches. I felt like I was a decent coach and that's why I told Travis jokingly, you're a really good coach. So it's all working out. I'm curious. I mean, obviously you're pressed for time, you got a lot to do out here. I just kind of want to do some lightning around roster stuff because, you know, we're at that point in camp. Like you said, they're sniffing opening day. We saw Smitty make a great defensive play yesterday, also hit a home run. It feels like he's seizing that job. Who else is going to probably see some time in second base in your mind? So Haggerty's going to start today, you know, maybe the right handed compliment to, you know, potentially give Smitty some days off, you know, no one plays 162. Right. And he got to protect him, you know, against some like ace lefties, you know, and there's some pretty good lefties out there, I don't know if you've noticed. So we're going to make sure that, you know, we have right handed compliments. So is that Iran? Is that Haggerty still trying to figure that part out? And so, but I do feel like you'll see a few guys there the next couple days.

7:31What do you think about what you've seen from Evan Carter? He hit a grand slam yesterday, you know, I still want to see him hit lefties and everything. And of course, stay healthy. What do you think of his development just from, you know, the past couple of years, are we going to see him in the lineup against left handed pitchers this year? Well, I think people forget how fast he got to the big leagues because of out of necessity. And then he was really successful. And then you guys won a World Series with him. So, but it hindered the development a little bit because usually guys get a couple thousand at bats or at least a thousand in the minor leagues to help develop. And you know, he just didn't get that then he had injuries. So, you know, getting some left handed left on left was challenging for him at the big league level because he didn't get a ton of it in the minor league level. And so it's hard. I do think you're going to see him a lot. I think he's going to get an opportunity to face righties, lefties, the whole deal because he's really good in the outfield. He can run the bases. So there's value for him to play other than just the bat. And if he gets on base like one time with a walk steals a base scores run makes a good

8:33defensive play. That's a really good day against a lefty. So I think there's having him healthy the whole year is going to make us a lot better. Rangers managers get shoemaker with us here on the ticket. It's been, it's kind of nice as a Ranger fan I'll say going into a camp where you're like, oh, we have two really good guys vying for the number five job. I mean, there's been years past where we're like, my God, he's going to be three here. And you've got Jacob Blatz and Kumar and I'm just curious your take on how they've handled things so far out here in that battle. It's a real competition. And that's what you want. You want competition everywhere. You want to create depth at every position because you have really good competition just in case anything happens. You can go to AAA and feel really good about it. But Jacob Blatz has done everything he can to become a starter. And he's showcasing it right now. He's, he had a last game in San Francisco. He had two really good innings. The last one kind of got away from him after the 50 kind of pitch mark.

9:34But before that outstanding, Kumar Rocker is doing, I think he's still working on things, but very much in the mix. The guy that was 97 miles an hour with turbo stinkers and he's developing a cutter with the real split kind of, it's not a split to change up. He calls it. And then he's got that death slider, or the death ball slider that he calls it. So if he gets it, the whole arsenal inside the strike zone and goes strike one and they go strike to ball, after that, he's going to pitch in the big leagues for a long time. And I think that's what we're trying to get him at. How is the change of developing for him? Yeah, I think so that's the tricky part in the competition of the fifth spot, right? Because you want to throw your best pitches all the time to win the spot. So it's hard for a young guy, it's hard for a young guy to develop a pitch, but also try to win a spot. So I do feel it for him, right? It's like you got to throw it more, but if it gets hit, you don't make the rotation, right?

10:34So there's a fine line with that. He worked really hard in his last slide session with the development of the change up. It looked really good, but he needs that to develop to develop because he needs to complement something to get the lefties to stop just kind of leaning over so he can throw the cutter inside as well. We talked to Andrew McCutchen yesterday, and one of the greatest dudes we've ever talked to. Like a great personality, great overall person now. He's been here less than a week, but what have you seen from McCutchen? I mean, former MVP, he's still got something left in him. If you watch his BP, the twitch is still there, he's still a year, he's a fantastic dude. He killed us when I was in St. Louis for a number of years. So I'm grateful that he's in the same uniform right now. He's been really successful against left-handers throughout his career, got him into camp early enough. We feel like to get him into games. He's hit in third today and see what it looks like, and he's going to have an opportunity. There's no guarantees, but he's going to have an opportunity to break camp with us.

11:34But it's kind of up to him, and we're going to give him a chance to see what he's got. We're pretty excited about the rotation. The bullpen has been patched together again by CY this year, and there's names you like, but I'm just curious your take on, and get, look, I can't throw 95, but there's so much out there. It's like, man, you've got to have premium velocity. Are you seeing any of that in camp from any of the potential back in guys right now? Well, in my opinion, the fastball is the easiest pitch to hit, so I think there are different ways to get guys out, changing speeds, location, it change ups, curveballs, as you know, everything. There's a lot of different ways to get guys out. The Velo does play in high leverage spots. There's no question, because if you don't strike him out, you want to have a mishit on the barrel, right? And so you want to just soft contact somewhere. As far as the young guys standing out, I will say that the young crew that, unfortunately, we just sent down a couple of them, have been the most impressive as far as Lopez Santos and David Leo have been like, they are going to be real options this year, but two guys

12:38were throwing 100 miles an hour, and then they have real off-speed pitches. Those are tough send-outs, so I anticipate you're going to see them very quick, but Collier has been throwing, you know, 97 and 99, 100 miles an hour, and that's been, you know, really impressive to see with a 93-month-hour slider inside the strike zone. That was the question mark he's proved that he can throw a strike so far in spring. Do you think he can have a closer roll by a committee or just kind of figure that out through the season because we hear that, to be a closer, you have to have that mindset. Just the, you know, go in there into game, it's going to be high pressure situations. Do you think that's difficult if you have multiple guys trying to get that roll as the season goes through? Potentially, but I think it all works on the end. It also depends who wins that fifth starter spot because the bullpen changes dramatically on what happens there, but I do feel like my year, Miami in 2023, Flora was our closer than Tanner Scott, and it'd be in the All-Star Closer.

13:38And I don't want to bring up 2011, I apologize, but Ryan Franklin was the closer at All-Star Break. Jason Mutt ended up being our closer at the end. So, yeah. So, I mean, all these things are, and you've been, you guys have seen this game a number of years, like, not everybody has, you know, the true back end closer, that's just, this is the ninth inning. Sometimes it just plays itself out, and then some guy surprises you, and here's the job. So, we're hoping somebody takes a hold of that eventually. Well, Skip, we're excited, man. I know you guys still have a ton of work to do out here before we get to Arlington, but we can't thank you enough for the time today. Of course, yeah, thanks for having me on the way. There it goes. Ranger Skipper Skipper Schumacher joining us here on the tip. The sun shining, birds are singing, and all feels right in the world. Until the season changes, and suddenly you lose your motivation to get out of bed. In fact, one in five people experience some form of depression no matter the season or time of year. At the American Psychiatric Association Foundation, our vision is to build a mentally healthy nation for all, because we want you to live your best life and be your best you all year

14:42round. Please visit mentallyhealthination.org to learn more.