Heady, Logue, Salow, White Video | Cat Scratches: Baseball Cats Investing in Mingione’s Vision
NICK MINGIONE (Media Day Transcript; Feb. 6, 2017)
Opening Statement …
“I appreciate everyone being here. I feel like I’m doing (a press conference) every month. It’s been a great eight months. Thank all of you again for being here.
“Three words that we talk about all the time in our program are family, winning, and development. Here’s what we’ve done just to kind of recap since I was hired eight months ago. We’ve created a family atmosphere. How have we done that? The first thing that we asked for was that we change our locker room. We had an equipment room in our locker room. With the blessing of our administration, we cleared it out. We basically have created an environment where our guys get to spend a ton of time together. Andrew Emery, Jason Thompson, and Donnie Medford have just done an awesome job with that piece.
“Winning is important. We want to win in life and one thing is what we did with our field was immediately we got a turf home plate and we did our baselines. As you guys all know, in order to win in this league, you have to strike people out. Strikeouts come from two different areas – elevated fastballs and buried breaking balls. We’ve given our catchers the best surface to block off of. Then, obviously, team speed so we turfed our baselines. Jerry Edmonds and Marcus Dean and his staff have done an awesome job with that part.
“Then development. I sat here eight months ago and we talked about how everything rises and falls on leadership. Mitch Barnhart was one of the main reasons of why I wanted to come here. Here’s what we’ve done: we’ve spent the last two semesters investing time in our players and how we have them become better leaders. Jason Cummins, who works for Horizon Performance, has basically taken our guys over the past eight months and (covered) what it means to be a leader and how important that is. We’ve done that and we’ve talked to our players about change and how difficult change is. We basically asked them to embrace it or if they fought it, then it would be a very difficult road for them. This group has totally embraced everything that we’ve done to this point and they’ve been a pleasure to be around.
“We talk about ‘student, person, player’ every day. I mentioned that in our press conference. Here’s what this group of men has done. From the student part this past semester, they had a 3.356 team GPA. I’m going to say that again – a 3.356 team GPA. That’s the second-highest in 15 years and couldn’t be more proud of our guys for that. We talked to them about what it means to be a good person. What we’ve done is invest in our community. We’ve spent time at the Miracle League and God’s Pantry. We’ve done the Walk a Child to School Program. We had breakfast with Santa at the children’s hospital. All of you know that we had our first-ever Fan Day, which we teamed up with softball. It was just an awesome experience to watch our guys. We had over 1,000 people in to watch the young women and men in our softball and baseball programs and that was awesome. To watch our players interact brought us great joy. Then, the player part. We’ve asked our guys to show up every day. This has been a group that has competed every day and have showed up wanting to learn. What does it mean to learn and have a teachable spirit? This group has done that. We’ve created individual development plans for them over the break. They’ve come back in great shape. They have embraced what we’re doing and we’re excited about the season.
“I do want to thank our assistant coaches. It’s been a busy eight months, as you guys can imagine. Todd Guilliams, Jimmy Belanger, and Roland Fanning have just poured their hearts and souls into our program. Our support staff as well – Reece Wallace in equipment and Coach Dean and our strength staff have done a phenomenal job. Phil DePase is our video coordinator. All of our student managers, trainers Bryan Wells and Angel (Lazu) – we’re very appreciative for them.
“Here’s what we did: we created standards. When we got here, we sat there and looked at our program and one of our goals is to win the Southeastern Conference. Well, how do you do that? We’ve basically decided that we have to get a run and a half better. That means either offensively or defensively. What we did was we created standards and we have accountability with those standards. We’ve taught them what it means to compete and how to win games. We have certain game goals that we’re trying to accomplish offensively. We have goals that we want to accomplish defensively. What we’ve done by doing that is educate them. They’ve gone out and poured their hearts and souls into our program and have done an awesome job so far. The word that I keep hearing is ‘energy.’ ‘Coach Minge, all of the things I see, whether it’s the umpires or the fans -‘ we had some fans at our scrimmage yesterday. We spent some time with them and a few of their kids in between one of the innings and they’re just like, ‘Coach, your guys have great energy.’ I want to make this really clear, and I told this to our team. To have great energy means that you have to communicate. Every championship team that I’ve been a part of has communicated. In order to communicate, you have to know what you’re looking at and what you’re looking for, and they’ve done that. What taught them that in order to be a good teammate, you have to communicate. When one of your teammates does something that you like, instead of just thinking it, how about you say it? They’ve done that. It’s been really neat.
“A couple of other things that I want to address real quick is our stadium. I can’t thank Kevin Saal enough for all the work that he’s done. Look, in the next couple of weeks, for the fence to start going up around the construction site. The bidding process is nearly complete. Of course, one of my favorite things that we’re going to be doing – there’s going to be an EarthCam setup so that the Big Blue Nation can actually watch the progression of our stadium.
“Marketing has been good. Greg Herbert over in marketing, Jack Hoehl, our Director of Baseball Operations, and Bryan Minrovic in our ticket office – what we have done is gone out and spoken to almost every single little league’s board, we’ve attended almost all of their board meetings, and encouraged them to bring their families out. How do we get those little league players involved with our team? For SEC games, every Friday night will be fireworks, Saturday the kids will run the bases, and then we’ll do autographs on Sundays. Another thing we’re doing this year where the national anthem has been a huge topic of discussion, we’re actually going to have the kids run out onto the field with our players and I’ll spend time with them before every game talking about the importance of the national anthem, how to stand, and how to do that.
“Offensively, we have eight of our ten starters returning. There’s eight, but the truth of that reality is if you have a family atmosphere, then you have to believe in brutal honesty. You guys probably know this, but we’ve addressed this with our team. Out of those eight guys coming back, we actually finished in the bottom half of our league – and this is just the brutal truth – in average, runs, doubles, total bases, slugging percentage, hits, plate appearances, on base percentage, RBI, steals, and walks. So if our goal is to win the league, then we have to get better and we have challenged our positional players with that. They’ve gotten better and they’ve responded. It’s really neat.
“A couple of the guys I do want to mention. (Preseason All-American) Evan White. I’m going to save you guys the question. He’s going to play first base for us. Can he play the outfield? Yes. This guy is gifted. When you start going through his tools – the five tools to run, hit, field, throw, and power – the guy can run a 4.0 from home plate to first base, steal a base at any time, and score from first base on any double. He can pressure our opponents in so many different ways. The hit tool – he hit over .370 – he possesses that. He’s one of the premier hitters in the entire country. The throwing part, although we don’t anticipate him pitching, I bet if we put him on the mound that he could throw a ball 90 miles per hour. The defense part – the guy has a Gold Glove from Rawlings last year sitting at his house right now. Obviously, the power just keeps getting better. He’s five-tool player. I’m extremely impressed with him and his leadership thus far.
“(Senior shortstop) Connor Heady is on a mission. He’s a senior, who has not maybe had the career that he has wanted, but he is a premier defender and has a knack for finding his way to first base. He’s done that this fall and continues to do that this spring.
“The last infielder I want to mention is (junior second baseman) Riley Mahan. As you all know, he hit over .300 for us last year. He had a great summer in the prestigious Cape Cod League, where he hit over .300 as well and was an All-Star there. We’re looking for big things to come from him.
“We’ve challenged our catchers. Last year, we were 13th in the league in passed balls and wild pitches. We just created and standard and told them that in order for us to be great, we’re going to have to improve in that area. Two guys that have emerged are (junior) Troy Squires and (sophomore) Kole Cottam. I’ve been so impressed with their ability to take on our challenges, command our pitching staff and, ultimately, run our defense.
“Our pitching staff. All of you know this: we lost all 30 SEC starts. We actually lost all 42 weekend starts. I couldn’t be more impressed with our pitching staff. When you have 18- to 22-year-olds and you present them with a challenge, then there’s tremendous opportunity and it’s like a carrot dangling in their face. They all want it. They’ve been awesome. I’m going to mention six guys on our pitching staff.
“Number one is (junior left-hander) Zach Logue. When we talk about student-person-player, the guy exemplifies it. He is the epitome of student-person-player. His slider has gotten better. His fastball command has improved.
“(Sophomore right-hander) Justin Lewis is another guy that we’re going to count on this year. He’s stronger. His slider has improved and his change-up is absolutely one of the best change-ups that I’ve been a part of in my coaching career. Sometimes it even acts like a screwball.
“(Sophomore right-hander) Sean Hjelle – I love to tease him every day, ‘Do you play basketball?’ He says, ‘Are you the baseball coach?’ His breaking ball is an above average SEC pitch. As all of you know, he’s 6-foot-11′. You start talking about Justin Lewis at 6-foot-7′ and Sean Hjelle at 6-foot-11′ – I think we’ve got some uniqueness – and maybe a left-handed starter in Zach Logue. But Hjelle, I’ve been so impressed with his competitive nature and his ability to attack hitters.
“(Freshman left-hander) Zack Thompson is the freshman from Indiana – huge draft pick. I’m so happy he’s here. He’s got a plus fastball. He’s beyond his years, as far as a freshman goes, when it comes to his poise and fastball command.
“The last two guys: (junior right-hander) Zach Pop, who has thrown out of the bullpen, out of all of the players on our team, he’s probably grown the most – especially mentally. He’s ready to make that jump. He’s got the look. He’s carrying himself in a different way. Coach Belanger has done an awesome job with him. We’re really counting on him.
“The last person you guys will talk to today is (senior left-hander) Logan Salow. Logan’s going to be a neat story because he’s a senior that, maybe a lot like Connor, hasn’t maybe had the career that he’s wanted to this point, but he’s going to do special things for us. He’s committed himself to the weight room. He’s committed himself to our team and may be one of the leaders of our pitching staff.
“Our schedule, it’s a challenging schedule. Nobody is going to accuse me of having a cupcake schedule in my first year. I want to say 26 games of our 56 are against teams in the top-25.
On getting the reserve players to maintain their level of energy as the season begins…
“At the very end of the fall we had our players fill out evaluations and we had the players rank themselves – where they stand offensively, defensively, who has the best fastball on the team, the best curveball, the best changeup. If they had to fill out a roster what would our 27-man SEC travel roster look like? Who would be you starters? You know else did the same thing? Our coaches. At the end of the fall we sat down with every single one of our players and told them where they stood and made it really clear but we also told them the season didn’t start in December, some things are going to change, but here’s how we see you (now). When you talk about honesty, we’ve been brutally honest with them. At any point in time if we ever feel like our players are being selfish, whether it be soft, lazy, making excuses, or any version of that, we’ve addressed it. This group has been very unselfish and open to anything so I anticipate that (continuing).”
On how closely the coaches and players grades matched up…
“It was neat. When we picked the (weekend starting pitchers) it was very similar. The weekday (starters) were very similar. It was really close. Any time you’re around 18- to 20-year-olds and you have coaches who are honest with them a lot of times there is nothing hidden and it all pretty much matches up the same. One of my favorite things we got from that was what pitcher was most difficult to face and it was fun to pick their brains on why some guys were hard to hit and some others maybe weren’t as hard to hit.”
On senior outfielder Storm Wilson…
“Storm, at the beginning of the fall, struggled as much as any player but by the time we got to the end of the fall he was one of our better players. That was really fun to see. He was recovering from an injury this summer but by the end of the fall he was very, very impressive. He’s a guy that has had a lot of at bats. We’re going to have to count on him in some role because our outfield is very mature and has a ton of experience. He’s a guy we’re going to be leaning on for sure.”
On how the team can get 1.5 runs better on offense…
“We’ve put an emphasis on commanding the strike zone. If you’ve got a group of hitters that just want to swing at everything you don’t put any pressure on the opponents – their pitchers, their defense – so we chart how many times in our scrimmages we chase pitches and who chases them. There are eight ways to get a quality at-bat and we’ve educated them on those eight ways. Hey, even though you may make an out you can have a quality at-bat. Connor Heady in our scrimmage had an 11-pitch at-bat, drew a walk and we ended up having a big inning. We’ve addressed the strike zone, what it looks like, how to get a quality at-bat and, of course, baserunning.”
On hitters working the count…
“Have you ever the marbles in a jar theory? If I had this huge glass jar of marbles and it was covered with a blanket and I pulled the towel off for 30 seconds and then I put the towel back on and asked you guys for a good, educated guess, ‘Hey, how many marbles are in there?’ Or then if I took that towel off and gave each of you 15 minutes to come up and inspect it your guess is going to be better with the more time you have. Depending on the pitcher, Mitch Barnhart has provided us with some awesome video equipment so we’ll be able to watch and have a really good feel for if a guy will be in the strike zone or not. Early on, it’s always great to see more pitches but if we face a team that’s attacking early in the count with fastballs we want our guys to be aggressive to that. We’re going to treat each pitcher we face differently.”
On which pitchers have really jumped out to him…
“Justin Lewis, Zach Logue, Sean Hjelle, Logan Salow and Zach Pop are the guys and then you start mixing in a Zack Thompson. No real surprises. The guy who the players mentioned as being much better than a year ago is Logan. They said it’s just so difficult to see his slider. It was interesting to hear because our players have seen our players more than we have as new coaches.”
On the projected starting weekend rotation…
“Still up for debate with five scrimmages left but we’ve prepped Zach Logue, Justin Lewis, Sean Hjelle and Zack Thompson in starting roles. One thing about our scrimmages, we’re building pitch counts so if we get to a point where a guy has pitched three or four innings (and is done for the day) our bullpen will be prepared to pitch three or four innings, especially early in the year. We’ve had a lot of scrimmages but I know that in the heat of competition guys can get 5-to-50 percent better or worse. We’ll find out where those guys are.”
On Sean Hjelle moving from closer to starter…
“He’s going to compete for the starting rotation. We return all 12 saves between him and Justin Lewis but we’re looking to move both of them into a starting role and then look at Pop and Salow, or some version of that, in the bullpen.”
On whether or not he has earned a UK hat instead of the plain blue one he wore during fall…
“This is crazy, I had the plain blue hat the whole fall. The guys, they love the gear. They call it swag and they love it, right? I couldn’t care less about it. So what we did was we made them earn their gear and then when the last guy earned his I got it so I had this plain cotton t-shirt forever. I was sweating. It was all faded. I probably need to keep it and frame it. The last week of the fall we got our last pitcher – and they had to throw 70 percent strikes in their bullpen or a game – and the last week he got it. Some of my buddies were teasing me, ‘Hey, you’re the head coach at Kentucky and you can’t get a UK on your hat?’ I finally got it. We’ll all have UK caps for the season.”
On sophomore outfielder Tristan Pompey…
“Evan White and Tristan Pompey were the top two players ranked by the coaches and the players this fall. Tristan is special. When you go through the five tools, the run tool is there, he’s physical. The hit tool, last year his average was down but he’s going to hit better. He possesses a feel for the (bat) barrel. The fielding part, our guys say he looks like a gazelle running balls down in the outfield. He’s really grown, especially as a person. We definitely need him to be a key piece for us to be great this year.”
Evan White (Junior, 1B)
On playing only first base instead of playing in the outfield as well …
“I’m willing to do whatever it takes for the team. I like to say that I’m not that bad in the outfield. I don’t think that’s the reason why (Coach Mingione) didn’t tell me that. I’ve practiced a lot (at first base) and that’s where I feel that I can help the team best. Like I said, I’m willing to do whatever it takes for the team to win, and if that’s first base, then so be it. I’m looking forward to it.”
On how the team can get better defensively …
“Baseball is a game of reps. That’s something that we got a lot of this fall and spring. It’s been good to get out there. We’ve had some decent weather. Even when the weather’s not decent, Coach likes to get us out there and take ground balls when it’s 30 degrees and snowing. It’s been good. We’ve been able to get a ton of reps on the field, which is going to help us. Coach (Todd) Guilliams and (graduate assistant coach Micheal Thomas) are always out there working with the catchers and they’ve improved a lot and it’s been really cool to see the improvements as a whole throughout the infield and outfield.
On what he’s doing to improve even more and make himself a tougher out …
“I’m just trying to be more consistent. Baseball is a game where you try to be as consistent as possible. That’s when you’re going to do your best. What I’m trying to do is stay off that low slider with two strikes because that’s gotten me out in the past. That’s been an Achilles heel a little bit. Just improving on that – Coach (Jim) Belanger has definitely given me plenty of opportunities to work on it and I still have to work hard and have that mindset to lay off it and see the ball deep and out. It’s been good to have and Coach Guilliams has been good with the whole two-strike approach. It’s been good.”
On how hungry the team is …
“We’re incredibly hungry. Coach Minge has had us do motivational speeches each day of the week. A different player gets up there and talks to us. Justin Lewis really challenged us and said that our class hadn’t accomplished anything. It was good to have him call us out because it fires us up. We want to do something. We want to leave Kentucky with a mark. It’s been good. We’re really hungry. It’s something we talk about on a daily basis and keep in mind. It’s been awesome.”
On the energy that the team has developed with Coach Mingione and the new staff …
“The energy is 180 degrees different. In year’s past, it’s kind of been low-key – just go about our business. This year the coaches are into it and got us into it and stuff like that. The energy has been awesome and huge from a practice standpoint because everyone has been invested every day. Something Coach Minge said from the very beginning is that we weren’t going to give any days away. I feel like that’s something we’ve bought into as a team. It’s been huge for us.”
Logan Salow (Senior, LHP)
On the team having to earn their gear this offseason …
“We loved it. It gives you a chance to perform. It was based solely on your performance, doing well, and getting better. The more gear that came out, the better you had to be. It wasn’t the same goal as the first piece of gear that you got. You had to meet a certain standard and the standard got higher and higher. It was just a way for the coaches to show that you can improve every day.”
On the energy brought in by new staff …
“The coaches came in and brought energy. From day one, it was, ‘We’re going to have high energy. We’re going to move around. We’re going to get a lot of things done in a short amount of time.’ As a new staff, you have everyone working for the same spot. Everything is new. Everything is fresh. The competitive environment that they brought to the locker room and field has been awesome.”
On what he brings to the team …
“Right now, I bring leadership and experience. We have a lot of younger guys that are looking up to the older guys right now. I feel like I did a really good job of opening myself up and saying, ‘If you have a question, come see me because I probably have an answer. If I don’t have an answer, then I have a pretty good idea of what to tell you.’ That’s what this season is all about – being able to develop everyone and everything. That’s what we’re worried about right now – getting better every single day.”
On how he is becoming more consistent …
“It’s a mental approach at that point. The performance is there. I’ve seen it once. I’ve seen it twice. Being able to develop that consistency over the summer really helped and I think that will show when it comes game time. The guys beside me did the same thing. Their consistency warrants you to be better in your area of expertise – guys like Evan (White) and Connor (Heady) that are getting better – you only want to do the same to help the team.
Connor Heady (Senior, SS)
On what his mission is this season …
“I think my mission is to help my teammates be the best players and people that they can be. By that, I’m holding myself to a higher standard, help get this team to where we want to go and bring a national championship back to the University of Kentucky. Coach Minge talks about being a run and a half better offensively and defensively, the things that we do in practice that the coaches help us with, and the things that the players are invested in, I think we’ll be a run and a half better on both sides of the ball this year. With that, we’ll be able to get where we want to go.”
On how much better he and the team are defensively …
“No doubt. Evan (White) is world class. He’s the best first baseman that I’ve ever played with and seen firsthand. He does a great job over there. All of the infielders – we’ve gotten a lot better. We practice at every different position, so you never know what’s going to happen in the spring. I think we’re going to be prepared for the season and have a very good year defensively.”
On the confidence level of the team …
“We had our ups and downs last year. Sometimes it was hard to go through, but this year Coach is just bringing a positive attitude every single day. It’s been great to be around. It’s really helped the team. We’ve all bought into the mindset that they want us to have. I think that’s going to prove to be one of our greatest strengths for this upcoming season.”
Zach Logue (Junior, LHP)
On losing three starting pitchers from last year and moving into starting role…
“The biggest thing that has helped me is, I’ve developed a slider. In the fall last year, I threw a curve ball and it really wasn’t that good. I wasn’t throwing many strikes. So, Coach Belanger helped me throw (the slider) and that has really become a difference-maker for me. I really think I have a good out pitch, a pitch that I can put hitters away with, and also the mental side of things. You know, attacking hitters, always staying focused, and not losing focus when there are two outs and nobody on and walking a guy. That is when things seem to go south.”
On a preference of starting or relieving…
“I would prefer to start. For me, I have had experience doing both and I am just more comfortable starting. You know, I like to know when I am pitching. I like to have that routine and doing the same thing when I go out there. ”
On when he earned his “UK” gear …
“I believe it was my second bullpen. You know, the first one I got out there and I believe I was one or two pitches short of earning my hat. My second bullpen I was able to go out there and get my UK.”
