Mike Destremsky of the Kansas City roy is joining us right now. Yeah, it's great to have you on the show. Thank you for the time. How's life with the Royals your first week and a half?
Yeah, thanks for having me. It's it's been good so far. I mean, you know, it's it's the show man, doesn't Uh. There's no bad place to be.
And you're in a playoff race, right you could be traded to worse situations, So exactly, First off, what do you notice when you when you step foot there and you've been a week and a half there, give me one thing that stands out as a difference could be positive, negative, or neutral about Casey versus San Francisco.
Uh, I mean, these guys are into it, like these guys care. These are this is a group of ballplayers.
It's not a crazy star studded roster, but it's it's a lot of quality of bats. The guys play the game the right way, they play hard, and the pitching is electric.
So it's it's everything you could ask for.
Hey, Mike, I know, I know Salve is the you know, the the vent in the clubhouse and he's the guy, but I just want to know a guy that you know has bounce, who bounced around throughout his career. Now you are traded. Who's the funniest guy in the clubhouse so far that you've noticed?
Just from the jump, I would say, I mean, Salvey's up there, man, He's he's always laughing, he's smiling. Uh, and he has such a big presence it's it's hard to miss him. So we'll go with Salvey for now until I till I dig a little deeper, and then I'll get back to you guys.
All right, Yeah, that's fair. Catchers are always the best personalities, players, athletes, everything on the field, so it doesn't surprise the debatable.
But we'll we'll figure.
That out, you know, listen as as the second best player from bridge Hampton. Okay, guys, stand down for a second. Okay, stand down? All right? All right, now you got traded from the Giants to the Royals. How did you find out you were traded? Can you tell that story for us?
Yeah?
So, uh, you want you want the full story? Yeah?
I want the full story?
All right?
So I uh, my brother in law sets sets me up with a mutual friend between me and Dave Fleming and my brother in law to him too, and he says, Hey, why don't you guys come out and play shinnecock.
On on the off day.
And I'm like, yeah, sure, sounds like a great time. Go out, have a great day. You know, a couple of beers, we're we're hitting fairways, we're making putts, we're we're doing the whole thing.
And and it was supposed to surround and we escape that. So I'm like, I'm on cloud nine.
And I get into the clubhouse and I'm about to shower, and this is a it's like a strict no phones place, right, so it's like very respectful, like you're on this historic property.
We're we're not touching our phones.
And I'm about to hop into the shower and my phone starts ringing and it says buster posey. And I show it to my brother in law, who walks out of the shower button naked, and he just looks at the phone and he goes, is this real?
And I'm like, oh yeah, buddy, I gotta go. And so I shoot right over to the.
Uh to the little phone booth that they have and it's a glass window and so I'm sitting there and there's like ten or twelve people just walking by, and the same people keep walking by and like they keep poking their heads in, and I'm.
Like, oh boy, this is this is it.
And so Buster Busterer gave me the call and told me I was going to Kansas City. And I went back in and told the guys and they're like, all right, let's figure out how to get you there.
Did you okay? So now, because as a as a Hampton's guy, and for people that don't know, if Shinnacock is in Southampton right next to National and Sabonic and you know, and your grandfather was from Bridgehampton, which is right there too. When you checked into golf at Shinnecock, did people say are you related to Carl? Did people how many people there were like wait, I know because there's a lot of old timers that work at Chinnacock.
And then once you got traded, did you just walk out and be like I'm gone see you guys and you got on your helicopter and put.
It so uh, nobody said anything. Actually, I think it was just assumed, you know, when you're when you're out in the Hamptons and you have that last name. I think it's just an assumption. They don't even need to ask. But uh, it was it was wild. I went in there and I actually knew a couple of the the uh, like the assistant pro there. I'd met him a couple of times at some other places, and so it was nice to to see those guys and they're all fired
up how everything was going. And then all of a sudden I was leaving and they're like, all right, I guess for Royals fans now, So it happened quick.
Hey, hey, Mike, I want to know, how do you go phoneless at a time like that? Right? Like were you? Were you? Just like you know what, there could be a chance or I don't even want to know, Like I won't. I wanted to find me the hardest way possible to find me, Like how do you.
Get how do you do that?
I'm off the grid if you if you can't, if you can't find me, you can't make the transaction, you know.
No. But it actually it was just peaceful. It was like, uh, it just brought a a lot of like.
Calmness to that day where you know, you're out on the golf course, you're overlooking the water, we're bouncing over to to Nationals halfway house to grab some drinks. You know, it's just like it's one of those things that it was just a it was a day that was meant to happen.
Right. So, So with that said, on all the history that you know that last your last name carries the moment that you that you've created yourself in that Giants uniform, how was that personally though? Like you know, to think, I mean, did you ever I'm sure you know the business of it, you thought that day could come, but did you ever think, hey, it could be coming this soon? And how does it feel to be in this new clubhouse? And how do you feel that your you know, your role is now?
Yeah?
I felt like.
One of the cool things was I felt really like I completed my my journey in San Francisco. Other than obviously I wanted to win the World Series there, it would have been super cool.
But in terms of the personal.
Things, I you know, I lasted seven years longer than I thought I would, so it was it was super cool. The hardest thing was to leave the guys in the clubhouse. You know, the relationships that you've cultivated over seven years, you know, they were they were my family, and so that's that's the hard thing. And then the fun thing is you're you're stepping into somebody else's.
World, and I was I was eager to learn.
I want to learn about the Royal Way and how these guys do things over here, you know, meet some new teammates, play some new card games, you know, the whole deal.
So it was it was fun.
Hey, we love ripping flap packs on Arena Club. I just ripped one in a ruby pack. Those are fancy schmancy kip and I pulled a matt Shaw twenty twenty three Bowman Draft Aqua Lunar Creater Refractor card and I guess what. Guess what? I got a little offer. You get the instant offer right away. Okay, so they're offering me one hundred and twenty one bucks, sell it back and then I can get a new slab pack.
What do I do?
I want to see this thing? Hold on, look at that. That's a beautiful car, right, you know what. I think that's a safe bet. I think it's gonna make you a little bit money. I think the more more big league time he gets, I'd almost take the deal, though I'm in it for the chase.
I like opening more packs.
I think that one hundred and twenty one can buy you a couple more slabs to open. And uh, I think you keep chasing until you get someone you really like. But that's the best part about it for me.
That's right.
You can sell it back one hundred and twenty one bucks and then open up another slab pack. Use the code foul to receive twenty percent off your first slab pack or card purchase at arenaclub dot com slash foul.
All right, I gotta go back before we get more into the trade. I gotta go back here for a second. You said you bet. Okay, For people that don't know, Shinnecock Hills as hosted US opens. The course next to it is called National, and then there's another course called Sabanic. They're within you can literally throw a baseball from all three. Okay, they're they're literally right there. Okay, So there are three of the top twenty courses in the world USA for sure,
and they're within baseball. Hit a baseball. You can hit a baseball from one to the next. They're cross the street. It's like now four, But how how did you get from Shinnacock and then you said you.
Went to the National halfway house.
I mean, I know there's no fence or anything, but they just let you walk because your name is just stremp Skiek. So next time I go to out East, I'm calling you because you know I can get on them, but I have probably a little more difficult time than you. So I'm calling you next time for the hookup. If you can just walk from Shinnecock to go to.
Nashville, come on.
Yeah, you know, the the Southsiders at National hit a little different. And when you got when you're playing is a foursome, you got a twosome behind you. You got to make a little way. And so we let them play through on the third home and we're just like, let's you know, we'll just go grab a drink, you know, no problem.
So yeah, so jeal Scott has no idea what we're talking about. But I'm so jealous. I'm so jealous.
No, respectfully, I don't care about respectfully, I don't care. I gave for a golfer and I'm sure I am into the story though. This is this is fascinating. So yeah, for me, were you anxious leading up to that point, I know you mentioned, and I agree. I mean, you want to have a day where you don't have to worry about looking at your phone seeing Ken Rosenthal just rip breaking news left and right. We're on for like
eight hours that day. So did you have a feeling going into that process that you could be moved based on you know, contract status, being free agent, and also where the giants were that they had indicated they were going to make a deal, and I think the night before is when they did the Rogers trade, so that kind of let everyone know, hey, they were going to do a mini cell.
I mean, I knew there was ultimately a possibility, but I wasn't positive, you know, And I'm glad I didn't have my phone, that I wasn't on Twitter all day checking everything out, because if I somehow found out that I was traded before Buster got a chance to call me, I would have been pretty bummed out. You know, that would have felt like a like a weird way to go.
But they handled it unbelievably professionally. You know, Buster was a good friend of mine, good tate, and that that whole conversation you would think was super strange, but it was It was really smooth.
You know.
It was like he was incredibly respectful and you know, had a great talk. And it's not the end of a relationship. It's just, you know, we'll see in a year or two.
Right exactly.
Hey, you played with Buster and then now you you know, played on a team where Buster was running the front office. What was your reaction when you heard that news initially that Buster Posey was going to lead the front office of the Giants? And how did he do? I mean, you went from QUI anxiety. Who he's been on our show, both of them have. He is a very different human being than Buster Posey is, so kind of give me the lay of the land here of how things went.
I heard he had like some amazing spring training speech about hustling and just the way they were going to do things, and that even went into roster decisions. So I want to hear it from someone like you that's been with this team a while.
Yeah, I was fired up. You know.
One of the one of the things that's you know, hard as a player is when the front office is making decisions and not to take any you know, power decision making process away from anyone, but when you hear it from someone who's doing things on a computer and crunching numbers and not having the flow of the clubhouse and knowing what it's like to be moved, knowing what
it's like to be in it with the guys. There's a different aspect and Busters obviously respected on the playing level, on a human level, on the.
Front office level.
So to have a guy like that who was leading the charge was like empowering as a player. You know, you felt like you could go talk to him about anything. You could talk to him about game planning, you could talk to him about positioning, you could talk to him about rules in the clubhouse, travel, what you want to wear when you fly, all these things that end up creating a culture.
And that's what he wanted to do.
He wanted to create a winning culture, and you know, he did everything he could.
I think he made the right moves and we just played.
Horrible down that stretch where we needed to play well to give him confidence to keep the band together.
But sometimes that's how it goes.
I got one more for you on you personally, a couple homers early here with the Royals and some nice pops so far this year.
I read it was a while ago about how you were working with Pat Burrell? Is that true right this year? Okay? So what's that like?
Is he like, hey, biceps all day and you know, ripped the gym? Like what did you talk about with Pat? That led to some more pop man?
A lot of things, A lot of it is.
The best thing about him is he remembers how hard the game is and he doesn't look at you and think you should hit every pitch or hit every pitch for a homer or walk every time. Like sometimes you walk back to the dugout and he'll laugh and look at you and just be like, yeah, you had no chance, and you'll not You'll be like, yeah, you were absolutely right.
Uh.
And so there's a there's a realistic expectation with him where you understand the type of player you are and he helps you understand the type of player you are and the best pathway that you can have to becoming the best version of yourself to fit the role that you have on the team.
Okay, ask Paper about the machine. That's all I'm gonna say. Ask him about the machine.
I'm sure there's plenty of talk about it.
Okay, good, Good, because Pats that's one of my all time favorite dudes I was ever around in my life, so I'm glad he's doing well. I want to know, though, there was the big trade you guys made in San Francisco with Raffie Devers. Can you explain, because Raffie Devers has taking a lot of heat, what was he like being Raffie Devers teammate? Because all I ever do is see him smiling, So I've never played with him, so can you talk about your short experience with him as a teammate.
He was the best man like, awesome teammate, willing to do whatever he had to. I think he just got thrown into a weird circumstance. And you know, I think sometimes as players, you have to stick up for yourself and I think that's what he tried to do. And I think the wording of it was delivered poorly. Because
he's an awesome teammate. He works his tail off. He tries to help everybody, like if you face the guy that he if you're facing a guy that he's faced and you haven't faced him, full scouting report, where you want to look for the ball, what pitch you want to hit, How he's going to pitch you. He's really smart and he cares about winning so much so I don't understand where all the heat came from.
That tracks.
That tracks with some of the onework that was done there, the disrespect behind the scenes leading to a broken relationship, and hey, benefit for the Giants now who have one of the best hitters in the game for a while. Yeah, this was awesome, Thanks for checking in. Trade story was great. Good luck here. We're rooting for you. See if the Royals can make a little run here down the stretch. We like that they bought instead of many in their spot that would have sold.
So do your thing man, all right, boys, appreciate it. Good to see you