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Hi everyone, Welcome to Guardian's Weekly. Jim Rosenhause joining you still in Northeast Ohio, the frozen tundra of Cleveland and areas beyond as it's our final show from Northeast Ohio before we head to spring training. Our show next week we'll em and eight from the Guardian Spring training complex in Goodyear, Arizona, on the morning of the first Cactus League game for the Guardians. So some great stuff coming up. The pitchers and catchers have reported officially workouts are underway.
Basically the entire team is there, even though position players don't have to report until Monday. So some great stuff going on and finally some hard baseball talk to get with you about, and that'll start next week. This week's show, good show lined up for you. We're going to meet the new Vice president of player Development for the Guardians. His name is Stephen Oasterer. They used to call it the Farm Director. And we'll hear from Stephen in our
next segment. The second half of our show reason it's important though, what a lineage of farm directors that Cleveland has had over the years, and player development is such a vital part of everything they do to keep them relevant and successful. And we will visit with the latest man who's going to take over that position and oversee the minor league department, which is such a key to everything the Guardians do. So that's the second half of
our show today. When we take a break here and come back from the break, we'll continue with our look around the American League Central Division. Yes, there are heavy contenders like the Tigers, the Royals, and maybe the Twins to knock off the Guardians and overtake them after Cleveland won the division a year ago. One team that really struggled historically, so the Chicago White Sox, who set a new Major League record for losses in a single season
with one hundred and twenty one a year ago. Where do they go from there? We'll find out when we visit with Lenn Casper, the radio voice for the Chicago White Sox, when we come back after this time out.
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Socks down to their last strength clause as ready, here's the two pitch a slang.
In a miss ball game. He got him on a wicked slider. Any manual class where there's forty fourth, Say Cleveland pitching strikes out eighteen White Sox today and they get the sweep six to four. Welcome back to Guardians Weekly and we continue our look around the American League Central Division Guardians rivals for the season to come. And this week we're joined by the fine broadcaster for the Chicago White Sox, Len Casper. As we talked White Sox
baseball and Len, let's get out of the way. Obviously, just a tough, tough season a year ago, a record breaking season for the wrong reasons for the White Sox. And you know we were talking earlier. When you're in it, it probably doesn't seem quite as bad as maybe it seems from the outside. But just how tough was that for everybody involved with a ball club that's trying to win games.
Well, first of all, happy new year, Rosie. Good to hear your voice and looking forward to seeing you coming up in spring training. But yeah, twenty four was not a ton of fun. Losing is never fun, and when you finish eighty games under five hundred, it's tough on everybody. It cost a good manager and a good man, Pedro Griffol's job in August after a twenty one game losing streak.
But you know, if you kind of dig under the hood a little bit, the White Sox actually were pretty competitive, and it felt like you could count the games that were blowouts and over early. Probably on one hand, it felt like a lot of the games ended up getting out of hand, maybe late when you're not using your you know, your eight bullpen guys.
So if they would be down three to.
Two in the seventh, all of a sudden, they give up three and they're down six to two. And you know, maybe a couple more in the eighth and it's not you know, eight to two, and it looks like a blowout, but the game felt pretty close. Certainly, as broadcasters, our jobs to inform and entertain, and we just took it one day at a time, one game at a time, to use the old cliche, and I thought Darren Jackson was terrific, and you know, we did what we could
to keep the listeners entertained. But I think when the season ended, everybody was happy to look forward to twenty five. And I know we'll get into kind of the bigger picture stuff here in a second, but there's a lot of turnover and a lot of new faces, and a lot of the guys who were part of this windows so to speak, for the last few years have moved on. So you're going to see a lot of new people. I think with the Whites when the Guardians play.
Them, to your point about sometimes it maybe the record is worse than what it actually should be or could be. Don't tell the Guardians that the White Sox were a pushover, because that season series was extremely competitive, and certainly Chicago gave Cleveland all it could handle. Most of the season, and I thought a really neat thing toward the end of the year. Grady Sizemore took over and managed the ball club toward the end, and we talked about a
little bit during those games. Of all the people who have come through here as a player, I don't think Grady would be near the top of the list for someone you thought would be a major league manager. But visiting with him, it sounded like he enjoyed the heck out of it. And what were your impressions of the
job that Grady Sizemore did in a limited role? Yeah, I agree, I agree, And again the record wasn't great, but the White Sox won five of six to end the season, and I thought Grady did a terrific job. As you know, he's pretty quiet and reserved and has always been a gamer, but he realized when he became a manager that he would have to open up a little bit. And I know he joked that his wife told him, like, where's this guy been all those years? You know at the ballpark?
But there's a lot of passion inside, and you know, he didn't get the full time managerial job, but I think he'll manage again at some point.
And when Will Vennable, who.
Did get the job, talked to Chris Getz, it was imperative that Grady is part of this thing. So I'm really happy that he's still on the coaching staff and that experience he got in the last six weeks or so of last season.
I think we're very.
Valuable for him and his reputation in the organization and in that clubhouse. Is Sterling White Sox broadcaster Len Casper joining us as we continue our previews of American League Central Division rivals for the Guardians with spring training close at hand. You mentioned Will Vennable the manager. What have you learned about him in a short period of time before spring training begins as he takes over a major rebuilding job. Well, I was fortunate to be with Will
on the other side of Chicago. He was on Joe Madden's staff for a couple of years, and I was immediately impressed with Will. He kind of got out of the playing mode and went into the front office situation and then wanted to be back in uniform. So he's kind of a lifer. His dad, Max, was an outfielder in the Big League, so he grew up around the game. He was a two sports star in high school and actually wanted to play basketball, and he was really good
basketball player at Princeton. And you know, he and Chris Young, who's now running the baseball operations in Texas, those two guys paths were very similar. They both were at Princeton, they both played basketball, they both played baseball, So really smart guys. And Will had a nice major league career as a player. And you think about the managers he's been around as a coach, Madden, Cora, and.
Bochie, that's not bad.
He was right next to Bruce Bochie in twenty three when they won the World Series. So not only did he play for some really good managers, but he has been on the staffs of some really good ones as well. And as I said, he's just incredibly bright. I think he understands coming in that patients will be required. But again, a really competitive guy who I'm sure we'll want to win sooner than later, for sure.
It seems like the challenge for any team that's trying to get back to relevance, how young do you go, how many established veterans do you keep around? And I know the White Sox have made some moves in the off season. How young will this team be and how much of a concern is that.
I think pitching wise, it'll be really young. Martin Perez will likely be the de facto number one, the veteran left hander who actually was a teammate of Will Venables at one point in Texas. But pitching is kind of the thing right now, and some teams, you know, go the position player route, right They graft a lot of position players they trade for pitching. The White Sox have kind of turned course a little bit and have decided they're going to go with power arms, particularly left These
the names Noah Schultz, Hagen Smith. Keep those in mind as we move forward. I don't know if you'll see either of those guys. Probably not Schultz. Smith's, you know, it was a first round pick last year out of college. I think he could be on the pretty fast track. I don't know, And that's a good question for Chris Getz and Will in the front office in terms of how much they want to push or how hard they
want to push that young pitching. I think position player wise, the key guy is going to be Colson Montgomery, who had been their top prospect, had a tough year triple A last year, but I would anticipate that he'll be the White Sox shortstop at some point this season. There's another Montgomery, Braydon Montgomery, an outfielder they got from Boston and the Garrett Crochet trade. So, as I said before, you're gonna hear a lot of names that maybe aren't
too familiar. But Luis Robert Jr. Still here the center fielder. There have been there's been a lot of talk that he could be on the trading block at some point, and it wouldn't surprise me if that happens. But you know, uh, that's a tough guy to give up if if in fact that ever came to pass, because he's got superstar potential. He's shown flashes of it coming off a down year last year. I would anticipate he'll be really good this year.
And you mentioned his name and he was part of that. Gosh, it doesn't seem like that long ago that it was a good young core of some really athletic players who were kind of scratching the surface. And is there a feeling sometimes that it had never quite hit the way they maybe they thought it would.
For sure.
Twenty one was my first year with the White Sox that was the ninety three win team that got bounced by Houston in the postseason. But that team was loaded, and you know, you think of Joann Mancata, Tim Anderson. Obviously Jose Abray was older but was kind of the leader of the bunch, and then on the pitching side, Lucas Giolito, and they signed Liam Hendrix, and they had Kendall Graveman and at one point Joe Kelly and I mentioned Crochet and Michael Kopek. You know, they've all moved on.
They've all moved on, and it kind of makes your head spin at times to realize that it wasn't that long ago that they had arguably the most talented team, certainly in the division, if not the American League. But things change quickly, and I think I go back to the old adage, when you're really good, you never kind of contemplate that you'll have a downswing. And when you're struggling like the Socks have the last two years, it's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
But I do think that there's a chance that the White Sox can be really competitive sooner than later, and it's going to be a very young looking team. I guess the cop would be the Royals, right. I think that's kind of what the White Sox are trying to do if you had to make another comparison in the division. And I think that every team in this division always looks up to the Guardians in terms of the way
they play the game, especially defensively. That's been a problem for the White Sox, and I think they want to get better defensively, want to have a little more team speed, and that's where the youth comes.
In Lenn Gasper joining US broadcaster for the White Sox, and Len it the fan dynamic and you touched on it before we get started about their and fan fest. And here it's a one team town. It's the Cleveland Guardians during baseball season, but obviously in Chicago it's a two team city and it always seems like an uphill battle.
Anyway for the White Sox. How are they doing trying to build that relationship with their fans again and and get them excited about a team that that had a tough year a year ago.
Yeah, you know, I've found here. You know, the fans are really smart, They're incredibly passionate, they're they're they're not afraid to boo, as you've experienced here, and yet they'll cheer, uh, you know, the next breath if you do something really well. So I was impressed that the fans continue to come back last year when it was obvious that this season
was headed south pretty pretty fast. We just had a socks fest in Bridgeport, a few blocks from the ballpark a couple of weeks ago, and the turnout was great and the fans were really into it. And yeah, of course everybody's ticked off at how things have gone here, and it's a little bit of a stop talking. Let's go play and let's show people that we've changed and that, you know, the future is very bright. So I have no doubt that there are some fans who tuned out
this team last year. But you know, when you get young and you start feeling like you're looking towards something as opposed to looking in your rear view mirror of what might have been, that that is really exciting. And even though this team, you know, went through this six or seven years ago, this is the state of the game right now. And instead of you know, trying to band aid this thing organizationally they have really dug in on resupplying the system with as many top prospects as possible.
And you know, the one thing you don't ever really want to hang your hat on as well, we have the third best farm system in baseball like that. At the end of the day, it matters, I guess to a degree, but it's all about what are you doing at the big league level. But having said that, I think the idea is to graduate these prospects and get them to the big league sooner than later, and you know, get them helping this team win games.
Yeah, sometimes you feel like you'll have a good farm system because you haven't had success at the major league level, so it leads to some good draft picks and there you go. But it'll be exciting and I know we're looking forward to We train not too far from the White Sox out in the Phoenix area, so we'll have a chance to see you and the team a couple of times in spring training and that always good to catch up. Thank you for coming.
By, absolutely, Rosie. And for the second straight year, the White Sox will be The Guardian's opponent for the home opener in Cleveland. I don't believe there's an eclipse this year. I have to tell you, especially when you have a forty one and one twenty one season, that was one of the big highlights for me. That was really an incredible day and I know you and I were standing near each other when when it all happened.
That's Lenn Casper, radio voice for the Chicago White Sox, and thanks so much for him and his time. Today. We'll take a break. While we come back, we'll talk farm system for the Guardians. Their new vice president of player Development, Stephen Oaster, joins us next. Welcome back to Guardians Weekly. Jim Rosenhouse back with you in northeast Ohio. Our last show here before we head out to Goodyear,
Arizona and Guardian Spring training. That's where our shows will be for the next month and a half before the regular season begins. Also part of spring training. The minor league system such a big key for the Guardians over the years. And the new vice president of player development is Stephen Oaster. The farm director and over the years Man oh Man has Cleveland had some tremendous farm directors. You can go back to the days of Mark Shapiro back in the early nineties, John Farrell, who became a
major league manager after his time as farm director. He has moved on to some great things and had a fine career. He was a farm director at one point in time. Neil Huntington, farm director in Cleveland, eventually a major league general manager with Pittsburgh, and the list goes on and on. Ross Atkins, who's now the GM in Toronto.
He was a farm director here in Cleveland. More recently anyway, James Harris, who is now an assistant general manager for the Guardians, and Rob sorfolio the most recent and Rob took a position, a high level position with the Saint Louis Cardinals this offseason, opening the door for Steven Osterer,
who is absolutely excited for the opportunity. This will be his sixth season in the organization, as he has been on that pitching side, starting as the pitching Resource coordinator and then the director of pitching Development the last three seasons. Now he oversees the entire minor league department. He knows the history of the position he's in and he's excited to get started.
Yeah, thanks, Jim.
Certainly exciting to step into the role, but also acknowledge that there's some pretty heavy hitters, you know, leading up to me taking it on. So yeah, just trying to trying to continue on with a lot of the great process and culture that you know, we're said and have been set by the organization, uh, you know before doing this, and you know, again like leaning on a lot of the people that are also still here and have served in this role that you have already been really helpful
in the transitions. So excited overall, you know about the job, Excited about the state of the farm system and the organization and you know what twenty twenty five as for us.
And certainly you have a great background in the organization in terms of player development, and explain where you've been in such a key area that has been really the backbone of Cleveland and that's pitching.
Yeah.
Yeah, So I came into the organization in twenty twenty in that pandemic year as a pitching resource coordinator or effectively effectively trying to just support process and you know, support some of the things that we were already doing at a really high level. And you know, I think at that time we were trying to integrate a little bit more of the biomechanical information and set process and you know, try to move forward with everything that comes,
you know from that. Vein So started there, served in that role for a couple of years and then transitioned into the director of Pitching role ahead of the twenty two story season.
Yeah, and I've been doing that since.
Effectively helping lead the process, culture and people in that department and you know, supporting proader domains to you effectively continue to carry on this tradition of the pitching development that you know obviously has been a huge role, you know, and piece of pride I think for the organization for a long time.
It's interesting you mentioned processes and technologies in there too, and and all the things that are different than maybe ten years ago when when developing pitchers in How much do you find players want that now and really embrace it and almost feel if they don't have it they're falling behind.
Yeah, the amount of information has exploded, you know, and I think the players obviously, uh, you know, understand that that that that has happened.
Yeah.
I think our organization does an incredible job of you know, partnering with the player to you know, not just tell them what to do, but be an active participant.
Uh.
You know, with them in their journey and support them.
So you know, the players are you know, being fed information not just internally with the organization, and uh, you know, there's a lot of the public sphere that again like they are pumping out information, pumping out you know a lot of content around some of the things that are becoming more online in the pitching world, and I think there there's a huge appetite for players to to use that.
And you know, our goal as an organization is to be able to understand as much as we possibly can to support them and use that information to our advantage. So you know, we've built out a lot of our structure internally and our processes to kind of match that, and you know a lot of that again is being
by the questions that the players are asking. So you know, it's been a very interesting last five years I think, or six years specifically, Uh, you know, along this path here and I think you know, broadly across baseball you're starting to see a lot of that become more public too.
So I'm sure it's going to be different five years from now. How do you find that the next thing that that's going to help pitchers or or hitters in your current role that that could be helpful for them.
Yeah, it's a great question, you know.
I think again it's it's usually driven by by questions and you know, curiosities, and yeah, I think there's uh, you know, there's a lot of conversation at times around like old school versus new school and and how people think about the game.
And I think it's all kind of the same thing. You know.
The people who have the experience in baseball have a ton of ideas and questions that we can now access information to to test out and and you know see if we can learn any thing from that. But you know, another strength to I think how we approach things too, is just you know, being tightly integrated across you know, hitting and pitching and strength conditioning and our scouting department. You know, everyone is kind of you know, integrated really
well in these conversations about baseball. Typically great questions that we can then deploy the rest of the organization's resources to try to understand better, you know, and you know, build off of off of, you know, a lot of the knowledge I think we already have and to test it.
Steve Oster joining us. He's the new farm director for the Cleveland Guardians heading into the twenty twenty five season. Uh, as you look towards spring training, there'll be some some young players who we haven't seen in major league camp before. Can you give us maybe one or two that might be fun to keep an eye on, especially on that pitching side, that that would bear watching in spring training, even if they might not be on the radar quite yet.
Yeah.
Great, Uh, that's a great question.
I mean, I think there's a lot of interesting storylines, you know, and you know pieces on the pitching side, both on the major league level and then the minor league level. I think there's you know, maybe not a name that is unknown but got a taste of it last year that I think everyone is excited to see Joey Cantillo you know approach this year.
You know, we've obviously.
Been tracking him for a long time on the minor league side. You know, he got an opportunity last year to to you know, showcase the things that we were so excited about. You some inconsistency and some growing pains that are to be expected when you make your major league debut and you you know, carry out some innings at the beginning, but really excited to see him, uh, you know, coming to spring training and where he is and try to build off of some of the things
that he was showing last year. On top of that, we have some forty man editions you know that may or may not get the opportunity this year.
To make their major league debut.
But you know Doug mccasey, uh, being one of them, you know, left handed starting.
You're in the minor league side that you know.
We acquired in the twenty twenty one draft to uh, you know, put up some really good numbers last year in Triple A. You know, diligent worker and a guy that we know is going to show up ready to compete and ready to showcase some of the things that you know, he's shown us on the minor league side for the last few years. On top of that, another name that will be interesting the track, you know, throughout the year and potentially in spring trading and and you
know how he shows up is Franco Alamann. You know, he's put up some pretty hilariously impressive numbers in the minor.
League side as a reliever for the last couple of years.
Uh, you know, has battled a little bit of you know optimal health. Yeah, for for you know, the bulk of twenty twenty four and you know, it feels really good now and coming into Campbell hopefully showcase again some of the things that you know, he were on display for us in the last couple of years of the minor league side. So you know, those are just two examples or sorry, three examples of guys that were excited
to kind of at and see how they're coming. But there are a lot of a lot of different names and guys that have put in a ton of work. You know, it would be interesting to see, you know, them compete and show up in a short few weeks.
And when you mentioned those three and the many others who will be a part of spring training and at various levels of the minor league system, patience seems to be the biggest key in player development. And how important is it just to be patient and let players have those moments where it doesn't go as well as they had hoped and then learned from that.
Yeah, I think you just said that extremely well.
Uh, you know, patience is incredibly important. You know, I think everyone obviously wants to be in the big leagues, and you know, it's really hard to battle at times, the fact that you're in the minor leagues and potentially even particularly at the level that you're at. But yeah, I think our viewpoint of it is, you know, we want our players to be prepared to not only you know, get to the major league level, but stick.
When they get there, you know, and and there are.
Lots of experiences that come with playing baseball that you prepare you best to handle some of the failures and you know, maybe getting punched in the mouth a little bit that you know, I think at the minor league level, uh.
You know, or or good testing grounds to kind of work through that and.
To continue to refine, you know, not just your skill set, but you know, how you approach the day to day to allow you to hopefully be a successful impact major league player that contributes not just for a short period
of time, but for the length of a career. So, you know, as much as as players you know, eye that major league level, and you know, at times it's it can be difficult to be where your feet are, you know, I think our orders perspective is to to try to highlight some of those positives and things that there's always things you can work on whether you're in you're in Lynchburg, you know they're low affiliate, or you're
in the big leagues. It's it's just a continuous process of trying to get better and you know, being patient with it. The game will teach you and give you opportunities to get better regardless of where you are.
So I think you hit the nail on the head on that.
It's patients is really important at times, and it's something that we try to, you know, instill in our players as we kind of you know, go through that journey with them from starting out with our organization to impacting the big club.
Steve Oster joining us. He's the new farm director for the Cleveland Guardians. And just in closing, Steve Cleveland seems to do a tremendous job of finding coaching talent and development talent in different places. And you mentioned you moved here back during the COVID year of twenty twenty and you came from a baseball development group in the Toronto area.
How did you.
What was the connection with Cleveland and then how did they find you?
Yeah, so I think the connection point started when I presented at a pitching special of a conference a few years prior to coming on board. Uh, you met a few of of the pitching uh you know, I guess the pitching leadership group with with the guardians you know, who are now some of them are here with us, another a couple of the other ones are gone. Like you said, we're developed and or with other organizations in
major league capacity jobs. But you started started just a relationship there, you know, and and continue to stay in contact and gauge opportunities you have an interview for different positions as.
They kind of came up. But yeah, I think that one of.
The things that, like you said, we we do a really good job of is trying to you know, find talent and not just find yeah, you know now talent, but try to develop it over time. So you know, having people at conferences and having a network and always on the look for people that fill fit our culture and we project along long term impact from a coaching lens or just a broad organizational lens is something at the forefront of how we think about player development. You know,
it's developing staff on top of players. So yeah, thankfully I you know, as a benefactor of that back in twenty twenty and now it is something that you know, we're consistently and constantly Actually just kind of got through this a little bit too with you know a number of promotions and people getting opportunities outside of the organization the last couple of months. So always top of mind
with the organ Uh. Yeah, again, like very thankful to be here and you know, was a benefactor of the organizational values in that sense.
There are very few downtimes in the baseball calendar year anymore. What's late January like for a farm director in Big League Baseball? What are you working on?
Yeah, a lot of things.
So, I mean, we've we've got a pretty significant camp underway in Arizona, and you know, this is something that we put a lot of time and priority into, you know, over the last well since I've been here, and it's continued to grow and grow. So we've got about almost one hundred players down in our Arizona complex, uh, you know, working on their goals and getting prepared for this season.
So it's a huge chunk of you know, ensuring that we're we're doing the things that we need to do and and supporting the group on the ground as much as we can.
That's definitely a big part of it.
And then as you can imagine, planning for spring training and everything that.
Goes into it takes up you know, a good chunk of the day.
There's a lot of conversations around you know, how are we preparing our players? You know, how are we going to set up our game schedule, how are we out you know, working through the day to day of the logistics and the things that need to happen, you know, on top of things that we do organizationally as a priority like staff development and you know, getting our group together. So there's a lot, there's a lot going on. You know, there's there's a lot of excitement around what twenty twenty
five can bring. Right now, I'm just trying to make sure I got my head on straight and just support the great things that I've already been put in place before my time coming to this. So again like super excited abou where we are super excited about, you know, the talent level and coming off of you know, a lot of the success.
Of the major league and minor league level from.
Last year, so we are full steam ahead into trying to prepare our players and our staff for having another successful year in twenty twenty five.
It has been a development machine the Guardian's farm system, for sure, and congratulations on the promotion and enjoy it. It's certainly a fun place to be at this particular time, for sure.
Yeah, I appreciate that.
That is Steve Oster, the new farm director for the Cleveland Guardians. Stay tuned a lot more to come after this.
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It's our final segment here on Guardians Weekly, and our location will change where we conduct the show from. As we're done in Ohio for a while, we're going to head the Goodyear Arizona over the weekend and bring you our shows from Goodyear starting next Saturday. You can hear our shows on the Guardians Radio Network seven am on Saturday mornings on our flagship WTAM, Wman and Mansfield and
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