Catching up with PD Director Joe Sclafani

I had a lengthy conversation with Blue Jays Farm Director Joe Sclafani last week. I thought I would break it up into three segments for your reading enjoyment. Here is the first instalment:

   I had a chance to catch up with Blue Jays Director of Player Development in Florida earlier this month.  Florida Development League play was coming to a close, and Sclafani had just returned from watching the Blue Jays get knocked out by the Mariners (we both agreed the less we said about that, the better).  As always, Joe was his informative and entertaining self, as we talked at length about the past season in the Blue Jays farm system.  We hadn’t talked since last January (just before Sclafani was promoted from the assistant PD director position)

What follows is pretty much the transcript of our conversation, with the usual umms, ahhs, and other dialogue placeholders eliminated.

DF:  Joe, it’s great to catch up with you once again.  Congratulations on being promoted to your new position.

JS:  Thanks.  Even though (with his boss Gil Kim having been elevated to the big league coaching staff) I was kind of doing it last season anyway, it was definitely a learning opportunity, especially without Gil there as a safety net.  So it was a challenging year, but I learned along the way.

DF:  The organization was obviously pleased with the job you were doing prior, and they trusted you enough to have you slide into that role:

JS:  I was humbled and honoured for the opportunity just to continue the work that has been done here, and now the next challenge for me is we’ve had some spots to fill because we’ve had some movement with our guys, which is super exciting for them that they got opportunities up there.

DF:  I found this season a lot of fun, because it's our first full season under the the new minor league world, and I had my doubts, but now kind of seeing how things functioned this year, I can see the logic behind it. How did you guys find the first full year with this new organizational structure?

JS:  It was interesting.  We definitely felt some spots this year where we missed the short season levels.  Some guys we pushed, and that was  a good opportunity for them to show what they could do, and it definitely was a challenge.  Some stepped up and had massive years….you know how we operate - we’re not afraid to push younger guys that have shown they can handle it.  With all the new rule changes, it was hard at times to keep up with them at the different levels, but some of them were pretty interesting And others a little less so, but it was good. The best part of my job is the stories that come out of each year and that’s what I talk to the players about at spring training - you get to write your own story line.

DF:  Speaking of those rule changes, as somebody who watches far more minor league games and I do the big league version, I love the pitch clock. It took a week or two for everybody to fully get adjusted to it but man, the game is really moved after that, and I don’t have a problem with that.

JS:  for somebody who has to watch a lot of games every single night, I can tell you that I thoroughly enjoyed it, and you know what? Guys adapt. That’s the biggest piece. There might be some grapes and complaints early on, but after a while it just becomes a part of the game. You adjust the way your internal clock goes and what you do in between pictures. Once you find out rhythm, the games move more quickly. I was at some games this year when there were like 20+ runs scored, and the game still roughly took only three hours and 10 minutes. That would’ve easily been a four hour and 20 minute game the previous year.

DF:  Tell me about accommodations for the players. How did that work out? I understand the Vancouver players were staying on the UBC campus which is a beautiful place to stay. How did things go in that regard across the system?

JS:  We think we think it went pretty well. I mean, Charlie Wilson, our director of Minor League Operations, he did bear the brunt of the work there. And it was definitely challenging at times to figure that out and make sure we were in compliance and with guys moving up and down, and availability of places and just are different so it presented its own set of challenges, but I think by and large, we found good accommodations for all of our guys. Our staff were pleased, our players were pleased…..it was good. I mean, you can't complain when we're raising the bar for our players who are our most important assets.

DF:  I've done a lot of research about Branch Rickey for my second book which I’m hoping will be published next spring working on the second one….Rickey is kind of a minor minor figure in the story, but when he was the general manager of the Cardinals, they had the worst travel schedule of anybody in baseball. So, he made sure everything was first class for the players like the train the train accommodations, the hotel accommodations all that kind of thing that people really don't see when they watch a game, but that's really important - they say an army marches on its stomach and I think the same could be said for a ballclub.

JS:  Well said, and as somebody who didn't necessarily get that when he played, these guys have it pretty good, and I don't know that they always recognize that, but it's definitely a massive, massive piece that people don't understand…..the actual grind that players go through all the time and how to get your body ready day in day out. It's just a unique beast that these guys go through and this is a small part of it, but I think it's bigger than most people realize.

DF:  Tell me: now that the Minor League complex in the pitching lab and all of those new facilities in Dunedin have been up and running for a year what kind of impact that has on the organization?

JS:  It’s been great to have. Obviously, we’ll see we’re still learning as we go. We’re trying things and we have hypotheses and we think certain things are going to help, but at the very least it’s given us a baseline of things to work off of and we can compare and contrast and it gives us different ideas to try to work with. With the players, the guys have bought into it. They love being able to see what they’re doing (in the lab environment).  We’ve had the hitting lab up now - since January - and while we’re maybe still a bit behind, we’re learning every day with it, and we’re trying different things, and trying to figure out the best way to help our guys utilizing it, and I think our staff is doing a good job of being open minded and trying different things, and again - I think the players have maybe bought into it more than we had originally anticipated, and that’s a credit to our staff.

DF:  I’m sure as a player you were the same way. If there’s something that can give you an edge than you were all for it.

JS:  That’s the name of the game: the margin. The margin of difference for a lot of these guys is so small, if you can find a little bit to give you that competitive edge, you’re going to take it. Some are more stubborn than others just naturally that’s who they are. But as long as we're able to explain why and help them fully grasp that the players seem to understand the importance of this kind of feedback.

DF:  OK, before we get into talking about some of the guys that I know my readers will be interested in hearing about, I had seen Nate Pearson signed to play winter ball in the Dominican [he’s actually pitched in a couple of games since we had this conversation].  With his health issues and everything, obviously the organization is on board with this.

JS:  For winter ball, it’s a process - like everything we do, we talked it through and we have a big group this year, so any name or request that comes through we discuss what’s best for the player……is he medically in a good place to do it?  Is he physically?  What’s the most important thing for him this offseason?  How does it benefit?

   We weigh the pros and cons, and for Nate there was pretty strong support overall - just to get him down there…he missed so much time, and in that type of environment, it’s intense.  Every game matters, I think every game takes like four hours on average because they just play matchups, and for him to get an opportunity to do down there and pitch in such a high leverage situation - we felt like that was great for him, just to go out there and compete…..get some innings in there, play against some top end competition, and just give him little bit of a foundation to work off of going into next year.

DF:  How will you handle things medically for him? I know clubs have always had a bit of a hesitation from the training and medical standpoint of sending their players to play in Latin America, so I was just wondering how that conversation went.

JS:  Number one, Nate is just a tremendous worker, and he stays on top of his routine, so we trust him to take care of himself.  We also have a few staff members in that league mixed around, so we feel pretty good about the fact he’ll be in good hands…….So we don't have any major concerns on that problem. We will obviously be checking in with him pretty regularly, just to make sure and he's going probably do some of our monitoring pieces,  and we're going to stay on top of that,  because obviously we just want to get him a decent opportunity to get in there and show what he can do for a little bit, and kind of springboard him towards spring training.

DF:  So, let’s top about the top prospects, then.  And we’ll start with Tiedemann.  What else can you say about the season he had other than, “wow”?  What’s the plan for him next year?

JS;  That will be a continuous conversation as we move forward next year. But we couldn’t have asked for much more from him in his first full season - everything we put out there, goal-wise, and how we’re going to track and monitor things.  He just checked every box, and it’s a credit to who he is as a person and a professional.  He bought into everything we’ve given him since he first came into the organization.  And he has a great attitude.  You got a chance to see how competitive he is.  It was hard to hold back - everyone was yelling out on social media, people just wanted him to move quicker.  But we stuck to our plan, and Ricky understood the plan and was all in on it, and we really couldn’t have drawn it up any better.  

DF:  I saw just about every pitch he threw about Low A this year, and I couldn’t agree more.

JS:  What was your favourite aspect of him?

DF:  I just liked that he fills up the strike zone. Hitters were very uncomfortable against him, and you could almost see it in their body language as they went up there to hit against him…. he is completely in command out there.  

JS:  Always….good mound presence, good heartbeat, he knows he has good stuff, just doesn’t care who’s in the box.  He’s just going to go out there and get right after you……He knows he needs to still work on his slider a bit, and he’s cognizant of the things he needs to keep working on things, and that’s why he’s so easy to root for.

TO BE CONTINUED…..

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