Episode #15 Josh Reddick | What Youth Baseball Parents Get Wrong: Talent, Exposure & Development

Show Notes

Josh Reddick was cut from his middle-school baseball team two years in a row. He went on to play 13 seasons in Major League Baseball, win a Gold Glove, collect more than 1,100 hits, and win a World Series. 

 

So what should baseball parents take from a story like his? 

 

In this episode of the Chasing Baseball Dreams Podcast, Josh Reddick talks about youth baseball development, travel baseball, exposure, hitting, positional development, slumps, routines, and why parents shouldn't decide what a young player can become based on what he looks like at 10, 11, or 12 years old. 

 

Josh explains why reps matter more than where your son plays, when exposure actually begins to matter, and why talented players will eventually get found if they perform. 

 

We also get into one of the biggest problems in youth baseball today: trying to manufacture a mechanically perfect swing instead of teaching kids how to hit. Josh explains why there is no single perfect swing, using players like Ken Griffey Jr., Barry Bonds, Jose Altuve and others as examples. 

 

He also shares what he actually notices when evaluating talented young players, what Ron Washington taught him about keeping baseball simple, how he handled one of the worst stretches of his MLB career, and the one trait he'd choose in a 12-year-old player over everything except talent. 

 

If you're a baseball parent trying to figure out what actually matters for your son's development, this conversation is worth watching all the way through. 

 

TIMESTAMPS 

 

00:00 Josh Reddick joins Chasing Baseball Dreams 

00:36 Cut from his middle-school team twice 

03:03 What matters most for young baseball players 

04:20 When does baseball exposure actually matter? 

06:43 Being told he wasn't good enough 

08:11 Why kids shouldn't specialize at one position too early 

10:58 What Ron Washington did for Marcus Semien 

12:29 There is no blueprint for becoming a Major Leaguer 

14:42 Ron Washington and keeping baseball simple 

17:18 What parents get wrong when their son starts struggling 

20:18 The problem with chasing the "perfect" baseball swing 

22:42 What Josh notices when evaluating young players 

24:02 The sound of the bat and raw athletic ability 

25:18 Josh knew Junior Caminero was different 

26:17 Why you can't evaluate a player's future at 9U 

27:07 Josh's three favorite baseball memories 

28:04 Making his Major League debut with the Red Sox 

29:56 The one trait Josh wants in a 12-year-old player 

31:05 Final thoughts 

 

Josh Reddick played more than 1,300 Major League games during a 13-year MLB career with the Boston Red Sox, Oakland Athletics, Los Angeles Dodgers, Houston Astros and Arizona Diamondbacks. He won the 2012 American League Gold Glove in right field and was a member of Houston's 2017 World Series championship team. 

 

Chasing Baseball Dreams helps baseball parents cut through the noise surrounding travel baseball, youth baseball development, recruiting, exposure, showcases and the decisions that actually matter as their sons grow through the game. 

 

#JoshReddick #YouthBaseball #BaseballParents #TravelBaseball

What is Chasing Baseball Dreams?

You're spending thousands a year on travel baseball. A better team. A bigger showcase. More lessons. A higher ranking. And you still have no way to know if any of it is actually working.

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That's not an accident. That's the machine.

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Chasing Baseball Dreams is the only baseball parent podcast hosted by someone with no financial stake in where your money goes. I don't run a travel team. I don't sell lessons. I don't coach for an org. I have no reason to steer you in the wrong direction. I'm Bobby Minor... former Division 1 player, 35+ years coaching select baseball and high school, former travel organization director, over 1,000 college recruiting assessments, and a college baseball dad who almost lost 2 sons to this game for 2 very different reasons, with one currently playing college baseball.

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Every episode, I sit down with former Major League players, college coaches, scouts, and baseball dads who've lived through the same grind you're in right now. People who've been inside this industry long enough to tell you the truth about how it actually works.

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Here's what you can expect.

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Real conversations about what actually matters at each age from 8U to signing day. The questions you should be asking before you commit to a team, a coach, or a showcase. The stuff the industry doesn't want you to hear, from people who've been inside it long enough to say it out loud. And the truth about recruiting, development, and where your money is actually going.

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No hype. No recruiting promises. No "get your son seen" nonsense. Just the one voice in this space with full-stack credibility and no financial tie to the machine that's taking your money.

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New episodes weekly. Follow @chasingbaseballdreams on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook for daily content between episodes.

Bobby Minor: And welcome to Chasing Baseball Dreams. Today I'm joined by 13-year Major League Veteran Josh Reddick, 17th round draft pick. Josh went on to play more than 1,300 big league games, collected over 1,100 hits, 146 home runs, won a gold glove with the A's in 2012, and a World Series Championship with the Astros

Josh Reddick: Mm.

Bobby Minor: in 2017. So Josh, I really appreciate you jumping on with me today.

Josh Reddick: yeah man, looking forward to it. After watching you and PD go on and talk, man, I obviously commented and had to watch his whole thing. So happy to be on here and followed up by a great should-be Hall of Famer, Dustin Vajoya.

Bobby Minor: no doubt. No doubt. Well, I'm sure you're gonna bring bring a lot of gold just like Dustin did. So we'll kind of just jump right into it. So you got cut from your middle school baseball team two years in a row. You eventually played thirteen years in in the majors. What should a parent take from your story when their eleven or twelve year old gets cut, isn't one of the best players yet, or just looks like he's fallen behind?

Josh Reddick: Don't let anybody tell you you're not good enough. I mean, that's the story my dad and I preached. My dad preached that to me a lot because I was that under the radar guy, guy that didn't really have all the money in the county. I didn't have all the PR, all the good parents that sucked up to everybody. But I just didn't let that affect me. I love baseball. I played baseball, basketball, and soccer. So growing up, it was always about. Just playing and if I didn't get to play for the middle school, that's fine. I was gonna find a way to play where there would be recreationally and then my dad actually started our own travel ball team after all that happened. So we ended up having our own little traveling team of like misfits. We were called the renegades. So we had like, we called them the misfits that nobody wanted and we ended up going out there and just beating everybody anyway. So it was a fun little, I wouldn't say it was probably, I don't wanna call it like it's probably perfect it happened because like I was obviously young and. clearly was better than most on that team. I may not have been the best, but I definitely deserved to be on that team. But I think it ended up being the best thing for me is getting to have all kinds of new friends and teammates that I got to play with. I got to play with my dad who, you know, we won. We beat all these teams that were, know, parents were paying a ridiculous amount of money to send them to these facilities and form these teams. And then this band of misfits would come in and just out baseball them. We wouldn't out talent them. We'd out baseball, then we'd play the small game if we had to. We just found ways to win. And that's what made baseball fun for me, is we found ways to win. But my dad and his assistant coach, we had a great group of guys. But man, we made baseball fun. And you could tell, like, when we played teams of organized baseball, they didn't seem to be having as much fun as we

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Josh Reddick: were. They were just out there doing it because it felt like they had to do it. But we were out there playing the game because we wanted to have fun.

Bobby Minor: That's good. Do you think what would you say to the parent out there they let's say they have an eleven year old son, at eleven years old, what should be the single most important thing?

Josh Reddick: reps, play, just play. Like it doesn't matter where you play. It doesn't matter where you play at seven, eight, nine, 10 years old. It doesn't matter where you play at 18, 19 years old. If you're good enough and you want to play and you love the game, then you just play the game. I think that's the best part about it. It doesn't matter if you're on field four at your local rec department, or if you're on the cool stadium an hour and a half down the road playing in front of, you know, 4,000 people at that age. I think it's a matter of, you know, playing. Just go out there and play the game. And it doesn't have to be organized baseball. You know, wasn't Like I was just playing baseball whenever it was time for practice or if it was time for a game, you me and my buddies would go out there and if I didn't have anything to play with when I grew up, I was growing up, I had 48 acres and I would literally just go hit off of a tee. And that's what I needed to do. That's what I needed to do.

Bobby Minor: Yeah, that's good stuff. all right, so you went to Middle Georgia college, you're drafted in the seventeenth seventeenth round, and you talked a lot before about flying under the radar until scouts you know happen to see you perform. So parents spend a lot of money trying to get kids exposure. At what at in your opinion, at what point does exposure actually matter and what has to be there first for exposure to do any good?

Josh Reddick: I think the word exposure is a hard word to understand when you're talking about college kids and playing baseball because social media now can be your biggest advantage. It doesn't matter if you're at community college. I went to one year of junior college back in this is so five or six. So obviously times are way different than they are now. But I think social media now can get you outreach a lot more than what you could back in the day because I knew back then, back in the old school ways of scouting baseball, they'd still send the guys who'd been in baseball for 40 plus years to these small, podunk towns to watch little old Josh Reddick hit at Middle Georgia Junior College in Cochran, Georgia. And now it's about, well, we can send one person to have a video and they can upload it for us. We don't have to do anything and watch the swing. And I think that's probably where... Talent can kind of go unrecognized because you rely on video and analytics so much. could go on in a two hour episode about how analytics hurt baseball, I think more than they help, but that's neither here or there that we're talking about. But I just think it goes back to getting reps. If you can play and you can get reps and you're good enough and you want to get exposed and be seen by upper levels, then you just have to perform. And if you perform, you're going to get noticed. That doesn't matter where it is. Like I said, went, nobody even knows where I just said. you know, Cochran, Georgia, Middle Georgia, I think it's down Middle Georgia State, but it's like 45 minutes south of Macon, so that's about two hours south of Atlanta.

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Josh Reddick: So middle of nowhere in the Red Sox, Reds, I can't remember the other, Angels and one other team found me all the way down there. So if you're good enough, you're gonna be seen, I can promise you that. If you have the talent and you're putting up numbers, they're going to look at you 100%. Doesn't have

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Josh Reddick: to be at Georgia or Auburn or Florida. mean, perfect example. I got turned down by Georgia to my face at 19 years old. I told him I wasn't good enough to be on that team. And then look what happened. This is the Gordon Beckham era. And Gordon

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Josh Reddick: Beckham was the guy in college baseball. So like, I had the coach there. I won't even name him to save him face. Just tell me I wasn't good enough. So that's one thing that I can go back to what we first talked about. Don't let anybody tell you you're not good enough. If you know deep down that you want to do something, you can do anything. And that doesn't have to be sports. That can be anything you want to do in life. I try to tell all these kids that like here I am talking about baseball, but the same thing applies. Whether you want to go be the best accountant you can be in your firm or whatever it is. If you want to go be something and you want to be the best at it, you can apply yourself and you can make it happen.

Bobby Minor: Yeah, that's good stuff, man. Hope those parents out there are listening. it's funny, I get so many like with the with the Petroya interviews, so many like amazing comments from people. And then there's always, you know, a couple of those guys, they think that they're smarter than you know Dustin Petroya. Yeah. Yeah. MVP they shouldn't be in the home of fame.

Josh Reddick: An MVP, an MVP, a World Series champion.

Bobby Minor: Yeah. So and that's why I'm saying you're a thirteen year you know, major league veterans. So I'm gonna listen to people like you over people that have no idea what they're talking about. So

Josh Reddick: If they're listening right now, you don't know what you're talking about. I can

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Josh Reddick: promise you. You may know a little bit, but you don't know as much as a guy like Dustin Padroia. I promise you that.

Bobby Minor: yeah, for sure. Or Josh Reddick. I'll add that since I know you you would

Josh Reddick: or even me a little bit.

Bobby Minor: Yeah. all right. So like I tell people all the time, so you know, my son, he's told him I said, play shortstop as long as you can. Cause then, you know, you'll get recruited, you'll get scouted, they'll move you to second, third, center, wherever. But you know, they draft and scout shortstop. So you're a shortstop growing up. I would say reluctantly moved to the outfield as a junior in high school and you but you eventually won a gold glove. So how much how much do parents hurt younger players development when they decide too early, like, my son's only a shortstop or my son's only a center fielder? Instead of just letting him become a complete baseball player, they can play multiple positions.

Josh Reddick: Come man, way too early in life. Let them play wherever and whenever they can. mean, obviously I know at certain levels the outfield, mean, the outfield in the big leagues is boring. I get that it can be boring in kid ball too. I understand that, but you really don't know what potential your kid can have. I if you play shortstop his whole life, great. Shortstop was, I wish to this day I could have been a good enough shortstop to play in my career. It's where all the action is. I'm a talker. There's plenty of guys to talk to there just to chatter up. If I'm in right field. I have to yell at guys in center field, Coco, Springer, and then I can't really say a lot that I really want to say because it's too loud and other people might hear. And I'm closer to the fans so you get to hear everything yelled at you. But just don't restrict them to one spot. Get them over to third and third to first, you know, that's closer to the baseball. Helps your reaction time. It's not about just having that talent to play that one spot. know, playing those corner spots can help reaction time to get the second shortstop. those infield reaction times can help you be a better outfielder. And yeah, I'll tell this to my high school coach and mentor to this day. I'm still very good friends with him. My high school, Tony Kirkland. I still give him a hard time because I tell him, I'll never forgive you for moving me from shortstop to right field. Because he told me the first time he saw me play a baseball game live, he knew I was his right fielder. And this is at 17 in high school where, you know, outfield really wasn't a thing. You kind of just stuck a guy out there who could still hit and had a body out there. I mean, it's not like you're not my worst shortstop. You're still my best shortstop, but I still need you to be my best right fielder. So obviously very happy that he did. Very boring time out there, but I ended up being a big factor out there in that high school season. So it ended up being a really smart move by him. And to this day, he was still my hitting guy who I could call at 12 o'clock midnight in Oakland and three o'clock in the morning on the East coast. And he'd sit up for an hour and talk to me about my game that he had just watched. This guy knew what he was talking about, still does, still helps out the young kids at this day and age. And he could sit on this interview with me and tell you the exact same things I'm probably about to tell you.

Bobby Minor: Yeah, that's good stuff, man. So when you were with Oakland, was Ron Washington was he with was Wash with the A's when you were there?

Josh Reddick: I think we picked Wash up mid, mid 2015, I think. Something like

Bobby Minor: Yeah, see.

Josh Reddick: that, yeah, because he came in to help transition Marcus Simeon and

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Josh Reddick: turn him into what he is because boy, I tell you what, and we needed a spark too. I know we had just let Mike Gallego go, who was a fantastic guy, loved gags, having him there. Just didn't work out. And then they brought him in and that energy he brought into that clubhouse was what we needed. Just lighten things up. We weren't a good team. We just couldn't win, but having him there, things picked up, and obviously Marcus going from a guy who would throw three balls over the first baseman's head a game to a guy who you could really rely on. And that's not a knock to Simeon, that's just, and Marcus would you the same thing, he was just not good. He could not throw the ball, he could not put it where he wants to, and Walsh comes in there, and after about the first couple of weeks, you see this instant improvement of Marcus Simeon, which... And I'm gonna be a little selfish here because that helps me because if you remember in the Coliseum, there's a lot of foul ground and your

Bobby Minor: yeah.

Josh Reddick: boy plays right field and when Marcus would get a ground ball, was literally just put your head down and sprint towards the foul line because you just never knew you had to back up a throw. mean, tell you, I Wash was, and he brought the energy, man. He was energetic in the dugout. He was energetic in the clubhouse. He never really sat in the coach's room, just hung out with us in the clubhouse. And he was always out on the field and if we needed something, man. On top of all that, I just love listening to those guys talk. I would sit there and just listen to guys like him tell stories from his days. A guy like Dusty Baker, like we

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Josh Reddick: had Dusty Baker in 2020, man, that was some

Bobby Minor: Man.

Josh Reddick: fun just because he wouldn't, you wouldn't even have to ask him. He'd just walk up to you and go, Red, let me tell you something about this time back when I was playing, and me and Willie Mays, yeah, I know you play with Willie Mays, all right, cool. Hank Aaron too, yeah, yeah, me and Hank, we're boys. I love that, I love listening to that kind of stuff because I'm one, was a Braves fan.

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Josh Reddick: So just listen to those guys talk because you get to hear about guys dynamics being completely different in the way the game is played because I love telling stories about when I played as well. And I love listening to everybody's story because everybody's got that different path. So everybody's got their own different path. That's the one. That's another thing. I know I'm getting sidetracked here, but I'm to bring it back around to like different paths for everybody because everybody

Bobby Minor: No, I love it. Yeah.

Josh Reddick: does not. There's no script to becoming a baseball player. There's no mold that's put into a machine and says, is what you have to look like. You don't have to, know, here's Mike Trout. You gotta look like this guy to be successful big leaguer. No, you can look at Bartolo Colon. Bartolo

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Josh Reddick: Colon had a very successful long career and sloppy, one of the sloppiest bodies you'll ever see. And you go look at Hotea Otuve, 2,500 career hits as of last night. Hall of Famer without a doubt. This guy's

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Josh Reddick: tiny. Another guy who got told to go home because he couldn't just do it. And then you turn around and look at these guys that, you know, body sizes like it doesn't matter if you're listening doesn't matter if you're five foot three or seven foot two. You can find ways to be an athlete in this game because look at what guy Aaron Judge Aaron Judge is an athletic freak of a human being and an athlete and this guy's one of the better game

Bobby Minor: Sure.

Josh Reddick: one of the best better players in the game.

Bobby Minor: Yeah. No, that's good stuff, man. I l I love it too. So I love all I love all the stories. Now I'm I'm a huge fan of Wash. I mean, okay, I live in Fort Worth, so I'm obviously a Rangers fan, but I'm I'm an Astros fan too, because the Astros used to be my National League team and the Rangers were my American League team, and then MLB screwed it up and put both of y'all on the same division. But I still root for both

Josh Reddick: You

Bobby Minor: I still rooted for both. But back in I guess twenty twenty, right before COVID, my son got selected for the MLB Dream Series and Wash was one of the instructors. And I was so impressed he would be out there, I mean, seven thirty in the morning for early work with the infielders. And you would think he was out there on the field with, you know, with Marcus Semi and guys like that. He treated it same passion, same energy. he was the first one on the field, and it's just it's just impressive. And so I yeah.

Josh Reddick: He just loves, he loves baseball. That is a person who truly lives, breathes and eats baseball. He loves it so much that he's willing to pass it on. And another thing that I can add on about Wash is in the day and age we play today is, know, Wash keeps everything so simple. And that's

Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.

Josh Reddick: what you have to do in most sports anyway, because as you understand about baseball, everything's connected. Everything's connected. So when one thing falls off, if one bolt falls off your vehicle, about three other things go wrong. So if one thing goes wrong with you, everything else is gonna fall apart and then you're gonna be thinking for the rest of the day, man, why did I roll that pitch over that was right down the middle when you look over it, you your hip flew open, you cast it out and then all of a sudden you had no power to swing. Watch keeps everything simple in the defensive department. You know, you see me back there, get down on the knees, you know, getting your hands up, back hands, forehands, everything. Just keeping everything simple and going back to basics because the more reps you get in the basics of everything as opposed to. for me spending hours in front of an iPad. I can see, but can I do? Can I apply what I'm seeing instead of going out there and just constantly trying to figure it out? I'm gonna quote the legend of Bagger Vance for those who have seen that great golf movie with Matt Damon, Will Smith and Charlene, I can't pronounce her name. The Gorgeous Blonde. It's also filmed in Savannah, Georgia.

Bobby Minor: Charlie Charlie's Taren, Charlie Starin. Yeah, Charlie's Starin.

Josh Reddick: There's a moment where Will Smith, Baggers talking about Bobby Jones's golf swing, where he's in his moment, he's clearing the field and you have to find that one perfect swing. And until you do, you don't swing. You don't do what you need to do. And so think about that, right? That that's everything. That's fielding a ground ball, that's hitting the baseball and doing all this kind of stuff. just do everything right until you, or if you can't get it right, do it until you get it right, until you figure it out, until it becomes routinely right, where you don't have to think about it, it just happens.

Bobby Minor: Yeah, that's good stuff. And parents out there, if you have a younger infielder, maybe you're not you're not aware of the legend of Ron Washington when it comes to training infielders, go on YouTube. There's a lot of great videos on him, especially with Ozzie Albies doing his drills and everything. Great stuff. Go and check that out. So I Josh, so when you were traded to the Dodgers, you hit one thirty nine over your first twenty three games. And and yeah, I'm not not trying to drag up bad memories or anything, but

Josh Reddick: Yeah. No, you're good.

Bobby Minor: But instead of tearing everything apart mechanically, you talked about, you know, sticking with your routine, sticking with your approach and just working through it. Parents, they see, you know, they see little Timmy go, you know, one for eight on a weekend and they're freaking out. You know, they're booking more lessons, they're trying to, you know, change his swing. How do you know when a player really needs to make an adjustment or when he just needs to just trust, you know, just trust what he's been doing and just work through it?

Josh Reddick: When you see something seriously wrong, whatever it may be, then obviously there's some times to take, not necessarily a drastic measure to fix that, but maybe a time to step in. But I can tell you, go back to YouTube, Google or YouTube search Tony Gwynn talking about changing his routine. And I'm not comparing myself, I'm not comparing another kid down there to Tony Gwynn, but this guy is one of the greatest hitters in the history of this game. And he talks about everything. If he was struggling, which he says if he was in a slump, which I don't think ever Tony Gwynn was. in a slump, one for six might have been a slump for Tony. But he goes, why would I complicate things? Because I know when I'm going good, what am I doing? I'm not thinking, I'm going into the cage, I'm not doing less in the cage, I'm not doing less work when I'm going and doing good. I'm gonna sit there and I'm gonna do the same thing and I know, but everything feels good, right? I'm feeling good, I'm in the cage, I'm not thinking, I'm just whacking the baseball. I get in the box, I'm going good, I don't think about it, if he's gonna throw me a first pitch curve ball or a first pitch fastball. I'm just seeing that ball and hitting it. And that's the best thing you can do. just don't, I mean, if I'm going to go struggle, I'm not going to add more on top of that to make me overthink my process. I'm going to get back to what I know and what I do every day that gets me right. Because just three days ago, I was raking and doing this. So why would I add more to that? Unless there's something major. Like if I was doing something extremely wrong and I saw it, maybe add another little drill here and there just to get my hands going. I was all about getting my hands going. one-handed drills, maybe add a fungo here and there. But yeah, it was very simple and very short. And I really wasn't a cage rat. It wasn't like I was in there taking 200 swings a day. I may have took 50 to 60 swings in the cage before heading out for batting practice. So it wasn't like I overdid it. Earlier in my career, yeah, I did a little bit more, but just as you get older, those swings add up, it takes its toll on you. when it comes to routine, that's everything. And that's just not cage. That's the daily work you put in. When you get to the ballpark, or when you get to that field three on the back, what are you doing when you get there? Are you putting your bag down and then just lollygagging around? Are you going in there and hanging out with your teammates and talking about the upcoming game you have and focusing on what to do? Because the more you're prepared and the more you know what to do in the future, you're already preparing for that now. That way it just becomes muscle memory and you don't have to overthink. You don't have to be the shortstop going, okay, we got, we're down by one or we're up by one, man at first, ball to this, speedy runner, not a speedy runner. Do I have time to turn two? Do not. Like if I do this, I shouldn't have to look and then check it before it's too late. I gotta be able to be instantaneous with my movements and know exactly what's happening in the moment.

Bobby Minor: Yeah, that's good stuff. do you think okay, do you think this okay, I'll I'll say what I think and I'm gonna ask you what you think. I see a whole lot of kids and parents that are obsessed with a mechanically perfect swing in the cages, but they can't hit. You know, we're teaching kids how to swing but they're they don't know how to hit. Do you think Like there's a lot of kids out there. I think they just have you might have something, a uniqueness about your swing. You know, I'm not talking about Julio Franco or, you know, Kevin Eucalis, nothing like that. But but do you think parents should spend less time worrying about the mechanics of their kids swing, especially when they're younger, and just and more time on just getting them in the right mindset to just get up there and hit?

Josh Reddick: No, there's no one perfect swing because we can go back to there's no mold for this game. If you

Bobby Minor: Right.

Josh Reddick: look at all these swings around baseball from now and back then, yeah, they've changed from the velocities being a whole lot different, but you can even go back to, you know, the Griffey area, the Barry Bonds era. Those are two completely different left handed hitters who hit the ball completely different way. Barry was all about, you know, getting that top of the ball and cutting it, whereas like Junior was all about hitting gap to gap in the middle of the baseball. And then you go to, I remember Josh Donaldson one day on MLB Network went in and talked about the approach of how

Bobby Minor: Mm-hmm.

Josh Reddick: he did his MVPC. He's like, well, you gotta get under it. You gotta get under the ball if you wanna create elevation and lift, which is perfect for Josh Donaldson. It's

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Josh Reddick: not perfect for Josh Reddick or Jose Altuve or even Justin Maduro. I tell you if you talked to Petey about it, he's gonna tell you to get on top of that ball and cut it through and backspin it off that monster. There's no mold for it. It doesn't matter. You can go back to the Euclid and the Craig Councils or even, you know, the craziest batting stances in baseball. Like it doesn't matter where you start. You can start with your bat on the ground for all I care. But when you go and you get ready to make contact, if you look at every baseball player's swing who's been successful, it is the same plane, no matter where they started. Their head is on the baseball, their barrel is behind the baseball, their hips are locked. They have that triangle you talk about, right? You have your

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Josh Reddick: ankles to your hips and then your head. That's your triangle movement. All your hitters are gonna have that. It doesn't matter where they start because you're not looking at where they start. You're looking at point of contact and where everything is in sync whenever they make contact with the baseball.

Bobby Minor: Yeah, that's good stuff.

Josh Reddick: So no, no one perfect swing, no not Jose Altuve can't hit like Albert Pujols.

Bobby Minor: yeah.

Josh Reddick: So why would Timmy hit like Jimmy?

Bobby Minor: Yeah. And that's why you when you see guys online that are trying to teach, I'll just call it like a swing in a box, kind of like one swing for everybody, that's when you need to run. Because there is no one swing, one swing for everybody. So I know you you you you're still heavily connected to the Astros. I know you've worked in in camp, you know, with young with young outfielders. when you're when you're working with a young player, and I say young player, I mean, you know, l we'll say like a young, you know, a young professional player. When you're working with a young player, what are some things that tell you like, hey, this man, this kid really has a chance, you know, to keep playing the game for a while versus, you know, somebody else that you just see you and you know, you might wonder, but the what is what is something that you see that tells you like, hey, he does have a chance that most parents probably wouldn't even be paying attention to in their son?

Josh Reddick: I mean, I guess it depends on what age we're talking about.

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Josh Reddick: I mean, you start, you don't really see anything. don't think you see anything before the age of teenagers. mean, yeah, your kid can be elite at 10, 11 years old, but I played with some really dang good 10 and 11 year olds in my time who didn't even get drafted. So I think that's way too early to tell. I mean, you go to high school too, like guys can peak in high school and fall off. So. But you can notice probably around the high school market. And for me, it's always the sound of the bat. Like if you can tell who makes a different sound of the bat, because it's a sound you don't ever hear, especially at that age. You're like, ooh, the one that turns heads on you. And then you just watch it. Everybody's watching him. That's one for me, think, raw athletic ability, just watching him move and, excuse me, how he watching him move around the ballpark and how he handles himself too. You got to figure out how to handle yourself. You can't be just. And I know I might be a little hypocritical of this one because I was an attitude anger person a lot when I got out. But you have to be composed too. You have to understand composure. But the biggest thing for me is, I may have shown a lot of frustration, but when I went out to defense, I didn't let it carry over. And you can't let bats carry over like that and affect your defense. If I'm not gonna get the job done at the plate, I'm gonna make sure that I do everything I can without overdoing something. to change the game on defense because games are not just one on offense. They're one in the field as well. And even with the smart base running place, which is all around baseball player, I'm not looking for, you know, necessarily the tools there yet. Those can be, you know, tools can be sharpened, right? You know, that's what they're for. They're there to sharpen. And that's what the minor leagues and coaches are for there. But I think the biggest thing when you, when you hear something off a bat, you can just know and for one, and I'll use the perfect example. Excuse me. Perfect example for me. I was playing in Australia at the back end of my career when I was getting ready to retire. And I was fortunate enough to be teammates with Junior Caminero.

Bobby Minor: Mm.

Josh Reddick: And second day of batting practice down there. And these are, you know, Australian baseballs that aren't very good. I'd never heard of this kid. And I'm just watching this guy and the sound that came off his bat and how far he was launching his Australia. He was putting everybody out of the water. Like our biggest hitter on the Australian team couldn't come close to what this guy was doing in power wise. And I go and I looked at the coach and the manager and everybody else. go. It won't take him long.

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Josh Reddick: had a lot of stuff to figure out because he was still young. then I think we went back to the States. I think that was his year, the year he debuted. Because I think he debuted in 2023, something like that. So yeah,

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Josh Reddick: I knew right away that he was going to be a really good player because he hit some balls and he had some plays that were wow.

Bobby Minor: Yeah, that's good. That's good. And he's definitely tearing it up. Yeah, I posted a video yesterday where I was talking about a nine you team that that I coached and helped build with another guy. You know, we have four players from that nine you team. It was a nine U double A team. Four players that are still playing in college right now. one of them being my son, but two of them were the biggest and statistically best players on the team, and two of them were the smallest and statistically worst players, including my son. But I mean, so you look at them at nine, you're you know what I mean? But they're all they're all, you know, I mean they're all still playing, so there's no way that you can tell. all right, so we'll just a couple more questions and we'll we'll wrap everything up. I've this is a question I've started asking here recently that I love to hear what's your I mean you're obviously a fan of the game. What's your all time favorite baseball memory?

Josh Reddick: gosh, that's always tough because there's so many. mean, how can you turn down the World Series win?

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Josh Reddick: The day of making your debut, I think is one that kind of gets overlooked a lot because you can talk about a lot of firsts. Like I've been a part of a no hitter with Verlander. I've been a part

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Josh Reddick: of a World Series loss. I've been a part of a World Series win. That debut was pretty fantastic. Been traded up in baseball memories. I just do a top three. I can't pick one. no specific

Bobby Minor: All right. Give me a top thing.

Josh Reddick: order, no specific order. World Series wins gonna be up there. I think Oakland A's game 162 in 2012, we won the division on the last day of the year

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Josh Reddick: after not being in first place at all and

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Josh Reddick: being a team that was supposed to finish dead last. just a completely team of underdog and pre-arb players that came out and won and beat a Texas team. So that was pretty special. That last home stand was fun. Man, that last day was

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Josh Reddick: pretty special. And number three, I'm going to put my debut up there. I my debut was a whirlwind of emotions. It was in the deadline in 2009. I had just come off like an eight hour bus trip after a night game in AA. Phone rings. They say, hey, look, I need you in the lobby. Bring all your stuff. That's all I was knowing. He's like, I don't know what's happening. You might be getting traded. I don't know. Just hang out. Hour goes by. like, all right, go back to your room. Like, well, I'm gonna go get some breakfast, go back to my room, phone rings, all right, come back down, bring all your stuff. You're going to Baltimore, it's a three hour car ride. You don't know if you're get activated, so just go to the hotel, get checked in, and if Theo calls you, then you're gonna go to the ballpark. Cool, so I spent this whole three hour car ride calling everybody about what might happen. And if you don't know Baltimore, that was Fenway South back in those days, so it was pretty

Bobby Minor: Yeah.

Josh Reddick: much a home game. And the team hotel is always known. And so I walk in and it's just probably like 50 Red Sox fans just sitting there with me in my Boston bag. And I'm like, crap. Long story short, I get my room key and then I go up and as soon as I put my key in the door, Theo calls me. So I literally chuck my suitcase into the room and hop in a cab and I get a standing ovation going out the hotel. And then I go to the ballpark and show up just in time to hit batting practice. And I make my debut later that day as a pinch hitter.

Bobby Minor: So man, that's yeah, I can I can only imagine. So well no doubt, man, I appreciate you sharing that. All right, so and for me, my favorite memory, I was at Nolan Ryan, seventh no hitter. So that's kind of as a fan,

Josh Reddick: that's.

Bobby Minor: May 1st, 1991. it was

Josh Reddick: Yep.

Bobby Minor: it was pretty crazy. and Ryan's certainly a legend. So all right, so let's we'll we'll we'll end on this question. and this is for the parents out there. So you If you could choose one trait in a twelve year old player just besides talent, what would you what would you want to see most?

Josh Reddick: Mmm, heart. You gotta have heart to win ball games and help out your team, man. If you don't have heart for the game and love the game and show your passion because you can have all the talent in the world on a daily basis and you're not gonna be the reason your team wins every day. But you have to find heart and find a way to help your team win, like I said, whether it's that diving play that you make on defense or... the unnoticed first to third that you make, nobody really pays attention to that, that turns a fly out to left field into a sacrifice fly that gives you that one that you really needed. And I think heart determines a lot of that because if you can have a bad day and you can still be very relative and help the team win a ball game as opposed to just putting your head down and going and sitting in the corner and sulking about it. And cheering on your teammates. If you're having a bad day, that's even more incentive for you to go out there. and chew your teammates on because you're not the one getting the job done and you need them to pick you up. Just like they'll need you on days they can't get the job done.

Bobby Minor: It's good stuff. But Josh, man, I really appreciate your time. I know you got to run, got a golf lesson to go to with your son. So I appreciate you stopping

Josh Reddick: yeah.

Bobby Minor: by. I know the parents are gonna get a lot from it. So thanks a lot, Josh.

Josh Reddick: Yep, thanks for having me. It was a lot of fun.