YouSaid · the spoken record

Theo Epstein

lines on the record: 104
first: 2020-07-20
most recent: 2020-07-20
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Yeah, that was the most wonderful part, or the two most wonderful parts, how it connected families, and everyone seemed to watch the last out and celebrate it with their families and connect around something. So wonderfully, and then it also connected the city in a lot of really important ways. And we are fighting critical life and death challenges as a city. But for really a whole month, and even since then, the city has been completely united behind this team and the wonderful accomplishment. And we've seen the best of Chicago since. I mean, people in great moods and smiling and working together and wading through the cold winter together for spring training to come.”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's another thing. Yeah, and I don't know how accurate the estimate was. But I'll tell you the rally was the parade was incredible in that we kept getting, we started in Wrigleyville and Lakeview and went down Lakeshore Drive and then onto Michigan Ave and made our way downtown. And we kept getting to a point where you could see nothing but people, nothing but blue and nothing but exaltation and people hugging each other and cheering the players. It was a sea of people. We felt like that was the pinnacle. That was where the parade, the end of the parade route was. And we must be at the end. And this is the moment and there must be a million people we can see right here. But we just kept turning corners and then on to Michigan Ave and then back onto Ontario and onto Chicago. There were probably 20 moments like that. It just was endless.”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. And five million people would make it, I guess, the seventh largest gathering of humankind in the history of civilization. So I don't know. So you could go for six.”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“and sit in better seats or sitting in the general manager's box or get autographs or have these experiences going to dinner with players or with general managers. And if you can use that and raise some money and redirect it to nonprofits, I think that's a great thing and really our responsibility in some ways. So yeah, my brother had this idea to start a foundation, which we started 11 years ago now. I think we've raised $8 million for nonprofits both in Boston and Chicago along the way. That's great. It's been a lot of fun.”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, my brother, my twin brother is a social worker. And so I try to view the world through his eyes, and he's always telling me about what's really going on in the trenches. And the reality is, you know, these days, so much of the most important work in society is done by these nonprofits, most of which don't get real government funding. And so it's really important to identify the most impactful nonprofits in your community, especially in a city like Chicago right now that is battling so many critical challenges and then support them. And again, baseball is just bread and circus, right? I mean, what we do, we just entertain the masses. And of course, at certain moments, it becomes really meaningful to people and transcends that. But by and large, it's bread and circus, but there are rich fans who are willing to spend money to get access to games.”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A team sometime? Sure. Yeah. I think you can do things as an owner that you can't necessarily do as an employee helping the team really get involved in the community and doing some great work using baseball as a vehicle to do some important work. And you do some stuff.”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think we have a lot more work to do at the Cubs, first of all. I mean, the last time the Cubs won a World Series in 1908, it was a back-to-back championship. They won in 1907 as well. So that's a great short-term goal for us. And we have the opportunity to win a lot. And I think our fans deserve that because they've been through a lot, both 108 years and then even the last five years, we've asked so much of them, patience and understanding. We'd love to win a lot, you know, especially over these next five years. We have our best players under control through 2021, basically the whole nucleus. And we'd love to go out and become one of those teams. I haven't thought much beyond that. I love baseball. I think I'll always have a passion for it and will always want to be connected with it in some way.”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“From time to time, they do some fundraising for conservative candidates. And when that happened and it becomes linked with the Cubs in the public sphere, I felt an obligation to maybe balance it. And so I asked Tom, I said, look, I feel like I need to do an event. Well, this isn't in 12, I said, I feel like I need to do an event for Obama. And he was fine with that. He said, yeah, that's totally fair. He said, just don't try not to make it all about the Cubs, but go and do it. We just did an event for a Republican. And then this year did an event for Hillary. So just keep an open mind and communicate. You don't have to agree about politics all the time to agree about baseball and about the Cubs.”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And around the country. A big leader of the progressive movement here in Chicago and nationally. And as you said, Pete is now the governor of Nebraska. Raised a lot of money both against Trump early in the primary and then forum later on is about to join the administration. And Tom usually focuses just on baseball. So I'm sure those calls would draw high ratings if you would ever put them on the air. But by and large, we stay away from that. And Tom, I told Tom, because the Rickets did some...”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Baseball gives us a lot to talk about besides politics, which is great. But, you know, I've never been one Who feels that if you disagree with someone about politics, you can't connect with them in other ways or be friends with them or work constructively with them. So their difference is I think it's probably more interesting when the four Rickett siblings get on their weekly conference calls to discuss the state of the family affairs”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And there's some tough questions after the game. He will just say we're fine. Did you see these four great things that happened? And I know this player made a key error in the eighth inning, but he did such a good job backing up a base in the second inning. That's what's going to win us games. He just needs to keep playing hard. He's completely on the right path. Just saying it to the media, but the players pick up on that and they feel supported by him.”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As much as politicians have to talk to the press, a major league manager has to talk to them much more. It's twice a day 162 times in 183 days, plus spring training plus the postseason. So you have to come up with something new and something newsworthy and something usable for them. Before the game and after the game that's really hard and can lead to a contentious relationship, but Joe was just born to do it and he's just naturally entertaining and interesting and genuine. And so he entertains them and he even communicates to his players through the press sometimes where if we play a bad game.”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, he came along at just the right time, so it was right at that moment when our young players were starting to come up to the Big League level and they had to start competing and winning some games. And all this scrutiny that would have gone to them really went to Joe instead because he's just masterful with the media.”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not just by telling them, but through his actions that all they have to do is be themselves and have fun and prioritize winning, and they'll be accepted. And that's really hard. You know, it sounds simple, right? It's kind of what we want all our teachers to do in some way. But in baseball, that's really noteworthy because there had been this sensibility in baseball where young players, when they came up, were to be seen and not heard and where they had to almost go through sort of a hazing of sorts from the veterans. They had to really cut their teeth for many years before they'd have the ability to let their personality out at all and to be heard in the clubhouse. And Joe really deconstructed that sensibility and said like, no, it doesn't matter how experienced you are. It doesn't matter how old you are. It doesn't matter what you've done in this game. All that matters is that you are genuine and that you're yourself and that we have fun together and play hard together.”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think what makes Joe unique is he has an incredible knack. He's about 62 now, I think. He's this incredible knack for connecting with players forty years his junior. And instantly putting them at ease, communicating to them.”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so it worked out well for Terry. Worked out well for the Red Sox. And then I think it worked out well for Joe because he ended up getting the job with the Rays who were essentially an expansion team. And he could operate in a small market in Tampa with all young players, with no expectations. And it was like a great petri dish for him where he could try out his unconventional style and he could be himself and he could do things that would have been Highly criticized in Boston and get away with it and Tampa and really be himself and figure out that, hey, I can do this at the Big Wig level. So I think it worked out great. Just as Terry Francona had to go through his philly years to get to Boston, I think Joe and what the outstanding job he did in Tampa helped set him up for greater success. Yeah, and he came here as a”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When I was hiring to replace Grady Little after the 03 season in Boston, the two finalists for the job were Terry Francona and Joe Madden. And we chose Terry. And Joe ended up a couple years ago. Not a bad.”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I don't know if it was, I mean, we did give him the silver medal. I mean, he was a bench coach for this. This isn't horrible.”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Great guys and they care about each other and they're proud of being cubs. That's Cub went from being sort of an insult or some sarcastic mocking term for when something would go wrong on the field in our minor leagues when someone would say that's cub, it became a great compliment. Like, hey, you had just made a great play or backed up a bass or helped out a teammate. So we felt like we were in on this great secret and we just couldn't wait until our fans got to see it play out in front of them here. And you added.”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Especially the minor league players and the minor league coordinators and coaches and the scouts, we all felt like we were in on a secret. So we were getting a lot of criticism, deservedly so because we were in last place and there was a lot of skepticism and we weren't spending money, but we all felt like we were in on this great secret. Look how talented our young players are. Look how good we're going to be when Bryant's a third and Baez and Russell are in the middle infield and Rizzo's at first and Schwarber's behind the plate or in left field and Almora is in center. Look how good we're going to be. And these are not only really talented players, but they're”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Have the postmortem from another loss and deal with some players that weren't happy and with the manager who was suffering through these long seasons. But it was exhilarating. I think all of us at the Cubs.”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We traded 40% of our starting rotation three years in a row. I mean, we put our fans through so much and our managers through so much and our major league players through so much just by depleting the team to acquire more young players. But the dichotomy was, you know, so we'd be in this great mood watching our minor league players play and maybe going out to see the AA team play or in an instruction league. And then we come back and then our big league team would lose and we'd have to literally wipe the smiles off our faces so going down into the clubhouse because then we had to”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We started to envision what this core might look like in a couple years when they'd be playing on the field together at Wrigley. But meanwhile, our Big League team, understandably, because we hadn't put a lot of resources in your trading.”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And there was a real dichotomy in the organization through those early years because we were having tremendous success in the draft and in the minor leagues and some trades that we pulled off went really well. And we had this really great group of talented players with high character in the minor leagues who were thriving. And we'd sit up in the box at Wrigley while we're watching our major league team play and we'd say, oh, Brian just hit another home or Schwarber just doubled in the gap.”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Interest I think baseball fans as a whole love to follow young players. They love to maybe go to a minor league game or read about a player when he's in the minor league and see him perform. And then they almost feel a connection to that player and then can track him through the levels of the minor leagues. And when he debuts and then maybe struggles but then goes on to become a good player and then an all-star, then part of a world champion, they can say, well, I saw that player when he was an A-baller. I knew that player was going to be good when they drafted him. And our fans really embraced that and dove into it.”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so every season is important, and if you have a chance to win, you have to take it. But planning for the long term is more important. And so were those two ideals collide, our short-term interest and our long-term interest, we are going to defer every time to our long-term interest. And you got everybody.”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so we were transparent about it. I feel like Maybe it wouldn't have worked in the big market to rebuild without just being completely open and honest and transparent about our plans. Kind of”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Albert Puhol, who were free agents that winter. We had a vacancy at first base. We traded for Anthony Rizzo, and that next year we drafted Chris Bryant, and the year after that, Kyle Schwarber and made some other trades to bring in young talent. So we were single-minded about bringing young talent.”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, there was tremendous collective baseball wisdom in the room, and we didn't know we were going to end up. And we talked through it together. We ended up with a hitting philosophy and a hitting program. Day two was pitching. Day three was defense and base running. And day four was about makeup and character, what type of individuals we wanted to attract to our organization as players. So we ended up with a Cubs way and we wrote it all down. It became our manual in our Bible. It's a living breathing document that changes each year, but it became this common vision we could all agree upon what we wanted to become, how we wanted to teach the game, what we'd looked like when we had gotten there. And so the hard work of turning around a franchise really started at that level where we got most talented and we had the best morale at the low minor leagues. Of course, at this time, we also, instead of going out and signing Princefield or...”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so we all got together. The first thing we did in player development, all of our scouts, all of our minor league coaches and managers and coordinators and major league staff, we all gathered at a hotel in Mesa, Arizona. And for four days, we talked about how we wanted to play the game, what we wanted to stand for as an organization. So the Dodgers had their way in the 50s and 60s and the Orioles had their way. in the 70s, what would the Cubs way of playing baseball be? What would it mean to be a Cub? So we spent a day on hitting and we didn't all agree, but we got to some common ground. We really borrowed quite a few things from the Red Sox and some of the bigger principles. I wasn't going to stray from controlling the strike zone was going to be a fundamental core of our hitting program.”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You can't in modern baseball succeed just by hiring a manager at each level, a coach at each level, and throwing the players out there and let the most talented players rise to the top. You have to treat the minor leagues like almost like a university. You're getting these 16-year-old kids from the Dominican, 17, 18-year-old kids from high school, 20, 21-year-old kids from college, and you have to help turn them into men and help turn them into professionals and help groom them so they can step into Wrigley Field in Chicago in the middle of a pennant race and play championship caliber baseball.”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The first winter, the most important thing we could do is not go out and sign a free agent. We weren't a player away. We weren't even six players away. We had to focus on building a robust baseball operation. So we started with our scouting department and hired some new scouts and then defined what was important to us in the currency of the draft is information. So we're going to go about changing the way we gather information and process information and use information. Equally as important, if not more important, player development, the minor leagues, and”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Bad combination. We're the most expensive team in the division. The least talented team in the division, the oldest team in the division. So it was clear we had to start anew. And so”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. So, when we got here, Tom Ricketts, the owner of the Cubs, who hired me, gave me a really clear mandate to quote unquote, do things the right way. Don't take any shortcuts. Build it the way you think a successful, healthy baseball operation needs to be built. And we didn't have much talent at the Big League level, and we didn't have much talent in the minor league. It's a bad combination.”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, by going out and convincing yourselves or convincing your fans, you're one player away and throwing money at a free agency and not taking time to really build something up, a robust farm system, a long-term plan. By and large, it was a great opportunity to start from the bottom. It was kind of a tear down.”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Some of your players now Yeah, it's interesting how each organization evolves independently. There are these 30 silos out there in the organization. They don't share a ton of information. So there's some common knowledge, but the Cubs are kind Galapagos almost, where they were really insular and they were owned by the Tribune Company. And in some ways just putting content on WGN was the most important thing, maybe more so than winning. And then there was the Not having won in almost a century, and there was this desire to almost make next year the year every year or make it appear at least that next year could be the year. By buying”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And the Cubs stood out as the one place that we can maybe recreate some of that wonderful elusive feeling of impacting people's lives that way.”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was probably the most important factor. I think once you experience what we experienced in 04 and you realize that all the hard work and the sacrifice and the all-nighters and the camaraderie and everything that you put into a team to help them maybe win, when you see that that can have an impact not just on your life and not just on the understandings and not just with a pennant, but it can really impact people's lives so many people and so positively you never really get away from that. So we went from talking about the Red Sox in 86 years to talking about the Cubs and what at the time was just about a century of waiting. And so it was always in the back of our minds that if we ever do leave the Red Sox, it'll be hard to just go to any team. It'd be hard to go to a team that maybe didn't have that passion in the fan base or that had had a lot of success recently in One World Championship.”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A day has gone by since that happened that some Red Sox fan hasn't come up to me and thanked me and shared his story and what it meant to him and his family. So it was just incredibly moving. And it was By far the most rewarding part, something I never thought I'd be able to feel in baseball that you helped make an impact on that”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We couldn't realize until we won, until we saw fans' reaction, how personal it was to them, how Being fans of the Red Sox and not winning and then ultimately having the team come through and win. Connected fans with their brothers and sisters, with their parents, with their grandparents who had also waited, you know, who had literally waited 86 years to see it. And with those family members who hadn't quite made it all the way there. And when we landed at Logan airport from St. Louis to drive back to Femway, a drive we'd all made hundreds, thousands of times before this one was special because there were businessmen and businesswomen stopping us on the freeway and hugging each other. He saw construction workers crying on the side of the road and we drove past a cemetery and already less than 12 hours after we had won you saw Red Sox Pennants and Red Sox hats draped on gravestones and people sharing this in the most intimate possible way with their family members. It really transformed the lives of a lot of our fans and probably not”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One strike away and one out away for about 40 minutes. I was on top of the couch in our den with my brother because when the final out went into a Red Sox Fielder's glove, we wanted to jump off the couch and be in midair when the curse ended. So we ended up standing up. We were on top of our couch for 40 minutes when the ball went through Buckner's legs. We just crumbled down to the ground. A really pathetic sight. Yeah, so that had been basically the experience of Red Sox fans for 86 years.”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, so many people contribute to building a healthy and thriving baseball operation. But as I look back at my time in Boston, by far the most meaningful part, the part that resonates with me. Is the reaction to winning the World Series in 2004 and ending 86 years of futility and fans who never thought they might see the Red Sox win the World Series and who had grew up going to games with their parents and with their grandparents? And you were one of those. I was one of them. Yeah. It was on when the ball went through Bill Buckner's legs in 1986 in game six of the World Series against the Mets, the Red Sox were...”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, that was seen a little bit as an overdraft because he's not poetry in motion. He's not there in the theater. Yeah, he's not a super gifted defensive player as well. I think the industry probably had him as a late first round pick, and we took him fourth overall. But we had complete conviction about his bat and about his character, and I guess about his brain as well”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, they could just finish second in the AL MVP voting this past year, and it's going to be a great player for years to come. Then here at the Cubs, Kyle Schwarber's great neurotesting scores were just one of the factors that we use to move them up in the 2014 draft when we took him fourth overall. And a lot of people think.”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One good example of the Red Sox is Mookie Betts, who our scouts did a great job identifying he was a high school kid from Tennessee who was actually a better bowler than he was a baseball player in high school, but extremely athletic, great kid, and he was just tough to evaluate because he didn't go to all the showcases, so you didn't see him against great pitching. And you really had to project on the bat, well, That was one of our first years doing neuroscouting. And he scored just about 100 on all the tests. He pinned the test. It was at an elite level. And so that, along with the encouragement of our scouts, allowed us to move them up the board from maybe the 12th or 10th round up to the fifth round.”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Improve the quality of the neural pathways in the hitter's brain a little bit and push them to new heights with reaction time, with inhibitory control, with hand eye coordination. So it's been a real useful evaluative and training tool.”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, when you see a pitch that starts to be a strike and then you recognize it's going to be ball, can you check your swing and stop or can you recognize spin on a ball and recognize it's not a fastball, it's a breaking ball and then change your mind about swinging. It tests all these things. And so we use it in the Minor Leagues to train our hitters because you can't go out there and face live pitching day after day except in a game. You might get four or five appats in a game, but you can sit there on your laptop and take hours and hours of this sort of simulated baseball training. And what we found is you can actually”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, like a video game, we'd ask them to play and we'd learn a little bit about how their brain worked. Did they have the type of neural pathways that were the markers of maybe a future great hitter or were they just more ordinary? And then we also used it to help develop some of the skills that hitters need to thrive in Major League Baseball because the games are based on these algorithms that you can program them to make the game more and more difficult the better that you do. So let's say a simple one is reaction time and it tests all kinds of things. Reaction time, dynamic hande coordination, inhibitory control, which is the ability.”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We would use these tests both for evaluative purposes. So we take our laptops with us when we'd meet with high school players or college players. We were thinking about drafting and give them the test so we could learn a video.”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Properly and accurately assessed the different neural pathways that a great hitter might have. And so these tests would identify the David Ortizes and Dustin Pedroas and rank them much higher than some of the lesser hitters and certainly higher than any layman who were totally on a different level if they were to test you or I. We would fail the test. And so we just use these”
2020-07-20 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Best of The Axe Files: Theo Epstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source