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Former Texas Rangers players Michael Young (left) and Ian Kinsler watch a Rangers spring training workout at the team's training facility on Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2025, in Surprise, Ariz. (Smiley N. Pool/Staff Photographer)
The SportsDay Rangers podcast continued its run of big-time baseball guests joining Evan Grant and John Blake this week when Texas Rangers Hall of Famer Michael Young joined the show.
The interview covered all the hottest topics in the sport right now, including takeaways from the World Baseball Classic, how the Rangers are shaping up this season to Young's opinions on the new ABS challenge system designed to get balls and strikes right. Young provides a unique perspective as someone with a lengthy and successful big league career and works both with the Rangers and on the United States' WBC staff.
Below are some highlights from the interview, edited lightly for clarity. You can listen to the full episode here.
You're a part of the United States' World Baseball Classic staff, how much more do you see players being engaged and interested in this?
Michael Young: Yeah, I think it just, it's slowly picked up momentum. And I think with the backdrop of the Olympics kind of looming, I think a lot of players, particularly the American players, have really gotten super excited about tournament baseball. And I think this year, [Mark DeRosa] did such an incredible job. The first thing that he did was got [Paul] Skenes on board. We never really had that before. So to have someone like Paul Skenes really, really be excited about it, be sort of the figurative and literal kind of flag bearer for this event, for the American side, was important. We never really had frontline pitching before. And I don't think there was any coincidence that [Tarik] Skubal responded right after that, and he got on board. So if the American side can continue to do this and get top level pitching, we've never had a problem with position players wanting to play. But if we can get our top level pitching involved, it really does make the event better.
One thing that kind of annoyed you is the U.S. got trashed in some media for not having enough fun. The Latin American teams were very demonstrative and joyous in how they played and I feel like the Americans are in a no-win situation, because if you don't win, we're going to find a reason to blame you for not winning. Did you feel like you were in a no-win situation, no matter what you guys did, it was win or else it's a failure?
Young: Yeah, 100% and that part of it's okay. Win or failure is okay. What I didn't like was them taking shots at our style of play and how much we cared. That is ridiculous and unfair. There's a lot of layers to this. I think the first thing I'll start with is, again, kind of like the WBC and World Series. There's no need to compare. You look at the players from the Dominican Republic and from Venezuela, they are loaded teams, right? And I think that it's a good opportunity for people to appreciate what they've done in their lives. These are guys that sign at 16 years old. They leave their country, they come to ours, they learn a new language. They have to do a lot of things to assimilate into our culture. And then if they get to the big leagues, they hear our anthem every day, or the Canadian one, and this is their opportunity now, for the first time, to hear their anthem in a big league ballpark, and in the case of us against the D.R. or Venezuela in front of a real home crowd, I can't imagine the feelings they have doing that. It has to be absolutely incredible for them. For us, yes, our players took a ton of pride in it. They took a ton of joy in representing their country. But we hear our anthem all the time in our ballparks in our country, so I think it's just different. You can compare, but I hate the comparison where one is better than the other or one is less than the other. I think it's just ridiculous. I think this should be a massive celebration. And to go even a step further regarding how we played during the game, our offense, I was with them every day, they grinded every day to get going. We never really started clicking offensively. But you look at every time we did hit a homer, our dugout cleared and they went crazy, because it was kind of just a weight off our shoulders, but otherwise, you're not going to have our team clearing the dugout for walks, and that's what we were doing. The Dominicans are clearing the dugout going crazy. Like they're going deep six times a game. Of course they're going crazy. They were on fire the whole tournament, and props to them for that. But again, if you're going to really be super critical, I wish that the criticism would at least be fair and rooted in some level of watching the game and understanding what our players are going through. So that was my only thing where I thought that was a little unnecessary to have us playing the villain.
What were your takeaways from the Rangers' first weekend of action against the Phillies?
Young:I think the resilience that we showed, it's a word that gets used a lot, but trying to understand what our club is going through maybe about an hour before game two, right? We lose Game 1 with Nathan Eovaldi on the mound, and now you're going to Game 2 thinking, alright, we really gotta get this one with Jacob deGrom pitching, and now he gets scratched, a little wind out of your sails, right? And then Jacob Latz comes in there, is just unbelievably good against a really, really great Philly team. Gives us an opportunity to win that game. It goes a little haywire and towards the end of the game, but again, they rebound. They absorb it, they rebound and make adjustments, win that game, and then come out in a game where I think that Phillies' record in home series last year was like 22-3, something ridiculous, where they played incredibly well at home, and for us to have an opportunity on a Sunday, to come out and win a series, even though it's just Game 3 of the season, to prove something to yourself that you can overcome a small injury, your back against the wall and certain things, then come out with a really, really convincing win on a Sunday out there, our guys should be super proud of it. I know our staff was, super pumped for Skip [Schumaker] to get this first series win under his belt, and now we push forward and really, really try and build some more momentum heading in through the first month of the season.
Have you seen the offensive approach change from last year?
Young: I think the biggest thing is, I don't think anyone ever questioned our talent offensively. We have guys who can hit, the biggest thing is making sure that we're doing things from an approach standpoint that allowed that talent to come out. And I think that the one obvious example is, you point to Andrew McCutchen's homer. That was obviously probably the biggest moment in the game, but gets behind in the count facing one of the top left handed starters in the game. He throws him a back foot slider in the 1-2 count that he takes. I mean, it was below the zone by that much. And a really, really tough pitch to lay off of. He lays off it, fouls off another off-speed pitch, and then puts himself into a situation where he's seen some pitches, fouled them off, and then puts a great swing on a ball and hits a huge home run for us. It just speaks to how important it is to be able to not chase, put yourself in better counts as the at-bat builds, and be able to get a good swing off when it really does matter. So that's the biggest thing. If our guys can really, really have a good, collective, consistent approach at the plate, that talent that we spoke of is going to get a chance to come out on a more consistent basis.
RELATED: SportsDay Rangers Episode 32: The one where Michael Young returns
How is the Rangers' bullpen going to function this year in your mind? There's been some bumpiness in the late innings during the early stages of the year.
Young: They're gonna try and go piece by piece and get outs. I can't give you a definitive answer on how it's exactly going to function. I think that Skip and the staff are going to be incredibly prepared in terms of matchups and do everything they can to rack up outs late in the game, simple as that. So to sit there and say that we [should have] went and signed a free agent closer to a big three-year deal. Yeah, we didn't do that. We spent our dollars in other in other spots, the dollars that were made available to us, we spent in different spots. Chris Young and Ross Fenstermaker and the rest of the guys in the front office deserve an incredible amount of credit for their creativity and their aggressiveness in spots where they knew they could do that, but regarding how it's going to work as the season goes on, I think that we're going to have to kind of have a wait and see moment to that. I think we're going to start seeing which players step up. I think even though that you don't have these roles clearly defined right now, the great thing about it, from a competition standpoint, is it creates opportunity for guys to really step up and grab roles. So we're gonna have to kind of wait and see on that one. But meanwhile, everyone has complete trust in how the front office and how Skip and his staff are going to to juggle this and put guys in good spots to succeed.
The Rangers' pitching development has been significantly better lately. What are your thoughts about that?
Young: A huge advantage. I think the organization deserves, again, Young to Fenstermaker to our player development folks, deserve tons of credit, especially when you talk about Jack [Leiter] and Kumar [Rocker]. Jack was supposed to, if we read every article when he got drafted, was going to spend about two months in the minor leagues and come in and win Cy Youngs, which is insanely unfair. I mean, there's one Paul Skenes, right? So you look at what Jack did, gets drafted, has some failure, gets hit a little bit, and he's got to make changes, and he completely buys in. Look at him now. He's a great example of a good young big league starter with an incredibly bright future, who's a centerpiece of a really talented rotation. And the same thing with Rocker. You look at some of the guys that were on the draft board when he got taken with the third pick, and you look back and it's a hell of a pick right now. So I think again, the team deserves a ton of credit for where these guys are in their careers, and it's all needled up for every single one of them. So yeah, developing your own pitching is such an important thing. You combine that with some really, really talented free agents that we have, and then one guy who's right smack in the middle as a big trade, and you have a chance for a really, really talented championship style rotation, and that's what's been built here. So it's going to be really, really a ton of fun to see how it develops as the season goes on. But the young guys are in a really, really good spot, great guys to learn from, and with an opportunity to go out and compete at a high level.
How has the organization changed in how it approaches pitching development and what gets done overall to create a better pitching-centric organization?
Young: Yeah, I think the biggest thing is patience. I think everyone loves to talk about it, but it's really difficult to have patience when you look in Jack's case, again, it's thought to get drafted and be in the big leagues almost immediately, doesn't work out that way. And all the while, the organization never lost faith in what this kid could ultimately become. So at the end of the day, you want them to be ready to be really good the second they get to the big leagues. And in Jack's case, it took not even a long time, but compared to what people thought, it took a little longer. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. So I think the biggest word is patience. I think that when you look at the draft process, both those guys were thought of to be, they had story careers at a very at an incredible program that was renowned for their pitching development. And now we get them. And now the thing is, the draft part was the easy part. Now we have to develop them and give them an opportunity to be good. So I think the biggest word is patience with our organization. They give guys some leeway to fail, to hit a couple speed bumps, and now they have to make good, solid adjustments in order to become the stars that they envision becoming.
What are your thoughts on the ABS challenge system?
Young:I actually do love it, and I do have some opinions regarding it. First of all, let me say that the majority of umpires are fantastic, right? They have a tough job, and they handle it with a lot of humility, but it's always one or two or three that always make the news, right? It's the same as players too. Most players are good, but there's always a couple that are always arguing over stupid things. So it goes the same way, but there was a quote from a former umpire recently, and he was talking about how the system now is going to be an embarrassment for umpires. No one wants to get humiliated in front of 30 or 40,000 people. What an absolutely stupid thing to say. I mean, give me a break. He also throws in the nugget of some computer nerd who doesn't know enough about the game? Yeah, I will take that person who invented a system over bad calls all day long. And the thing is, too is that if you talk to major league players, we all recognize that this game is hard man, and people are very forgiving on when you mess up, provided there's a little humility and accountability, because we've all screwed up in this game. It's just a hard sport, and it's amazing how far a little, "Hey, my fault. I messed up," how far that goes. It is immediate forgiveness. Hey, we've all been there. Don't sweat it. We're fine. But I think that when you look at that quote from that former umpire, it created this culture of no humility, no accountability, pointing the finger, ripping off your mask, getting in people's faces. And now you have some umpires that are clearly kind of getting perturbed over a system that is clearly just designed to get calls right. I think that that is for those particular umpires, this is karma in the most beautiful way possible. Because if you had a problem with that, getting embarrassed. Guess what? Now you're gonna get embarrassed. And the good umpires, they see it for what it is. They just want to get it right. Maybe now they can look at themselves as umpires and say, "Listen, I keep missing glove-side strikes from left hand side arm pitchers. I'm just not getting a good look. Maybe I got to position myself better to get a better look at that pitch." That's what you'd want a good umpire to do, look at their performance, see how they can make improvements, the same as any of us, right? The same as a writer or a ball player, to try and see how you can become better at it. But I really hope that not only is it improvement on balls and strikes, but just a general improvement of attitude from certain guys.
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