Read: MetsBlog’s Q&A with Keith Hernandez

…last week i had the opportunity to talk baseball with Keith Hernandez, which was quite a thrill since he was among my favorite players while growing up a Mets fan in the 80s…i was quite nervous talking with him, though i don’t think it showed…at least i hope it didn’t show…anyway, he was very nice, and while he was quite serious at times, mostly because he is passionate about what he’s saying, he was also very funny and affable…

…in talking with him, my goal was to try and learn about how a young man must adjust to being a major-league baseball player, and then years later how that same guy will have to adjust to a diminishing skillset, whether he likes it or not…

…it’s a long 2500–word interview, but i hope you enjoy it…

Matthew Cerrone: What kind of advice would you give to a player coming up, having to adjust to a different physical game, more advanced pitchers, dealing with the media, and so on?

Keith Hernandez: I think the biggest adjustment is coming out of high school or college and learning to play everyday, because it’s your first years in organized ball. When you are used to hitting .400, if you are any kind of star in high school, you are hitting .500, in college you hit .390, and then all of sudden you haven’t played every day over a course of a season. That’s the biggest adjustment, the biggest hurdle and that’s the first hurdle.

Being able to take the slumps, the ups and downs, and you’ve got young kids that are temperamental, emotional and trying to get to the top. So that’s a big adjustment.

Getting to the big leagues, well particularly here in New York, was more media. If you break in in St. Louis, for me there was two papers when I broke in in St. Louis, and that was it…Here in New York adds a lot more pressure particularly if you are highly touted. Darryl Strawberry of course comes to mind, all the publicity and fanfare he had, and Dwight…They had instantly good careers from the get go and they kind of back slide later.

Matthew Cerrone: Right, and I see a guy like Derek Jeter, and there are reports him going out and he lives the life of a 28-year-old guy, as he should, but he balances it. He is able to perform month in and month out and never let it get to him. And there are some players that you hear about who do the same thing, but they just can’t make that balance. Maybe they are going through something in their personal lives, who knows, but that off field starts to creep in.

Keith Hernandez: You can look at Tony Romo from Cowboys, right? He’s going to eat all that because of Jessica Simpson. I just told my wife that he is adding an extra element there and it makes a better story for the media if he looses.

Matthew Cerrone: Exactly. So, how do you clear your head and just focus on the game?

Keith Hernandez: Well, what’s most important? I mean, you can’t sit home. I never felt that you could go home and walk the straight line. You will have a nervous breakdown when you are trying to break in to the league. You have got to have some sort of diversion outside the game. It doesn’t mean that you are just chasing women. I think it’s a natural thing for men to go out with gals – and vice versa. Most of these kids when they come up are in their twenties. They are not married. So, they are not going to stay home. For me, that’s the worst thing you can do. I am not saying, ‘Go out until 4:00 in the morning.’ But, the focus has always got to be on, it should be on, baseball…You know, ‘I’m not here to get in to a Met uniform so that I can go out with 1500 girls,’ you know. Instead, my objective is to have a twenty-year career, a fifteen-year career. That’s always got to be the focus.

Matthew Cerrone: And that’s the mental end? Right? On the physical end…Actually, Ron Darling was telling me how he thought Jose Reyes might have tried to steal too many bases, where his body was getting to a point where maybe it was breaking down…

Keith Hernandez: Umm, how old is Jose by the way?

Matthew Cerrone: 24 years old.

Keith Hernandez: Lou Brock was 35 when he pulled 118 bases.

Matthew Cerrone: So, I take it you disagree with Ronnie?

Keith Hernandez: I think I disagree with all the workouts that these guys do. I think that the workout programs have made them better players than we were. If we had done the same thing, I think I would have had better numbers. But, in the course of a season, I think they do too much. I think it’s a long year and a guy like Jose Reyes, who plays hard and plays everyday and steals bases, you cannot leave it in the trainer’s room. You cannot leave it in the weight room. I think it should be scaled back. I think it’s a big mistake they are making.

You’re 24 years old, you shouldn’t get tired. But I think they just do too much working out. This is not a criticism of Jose. It is a criticism of their work regimen. They can do all that stuff in the off-season and work hard all they want to get themselves bigger and stronger. But, when the season starts, you have got to have some gas in the tank when it comes August, September. And Jose was tired. We said it on the air the whole second half, ‘He looks tired and maybe this is a good day to give him a rest.’ Willie is that old-school guy, he would have played every day. I played every day.

I know what Willie is thinking: He’s 24 years old and you now start opening a door there, the door opens a little bit wider, you definitely want 152 games out of Jose Reyes a year.

Matthew Cerrone: Is that up to the player or the manager or the coaches to recognize that – and pull him back a little bit? The kid is going to go all out, you know, since clearly that is his personality. So, how do you pull back on the throttle, without limiting his game?

Keith Hernandez: It’s a hard thing. A player is less inclined to go up to a manager and say I am tired and I need a day off, because he might think that the manager is going to think that you don’t want to play every day. So, you are not going to get it from the player. Maybe it’s up to the manager to recognize that?

If Jose says it in passing to the trainer or to the strength coach, that should maybe be communicated to Willie. Particularly if he is saying, ‘My legs are dead,’ then that should get back to Willie. That should definitely be communicated to Willie.

Again, I think the root of the problem is that these guys work out year in, year out. This isn’t football, once a week or basketball or hockey, where you play three times a week, four max. You play everyday. And it’s hot in the summer and you are outdoors. And you have got to have gas in the tank down the stretch.

Matthew Cerrone: I deal with fans all of the time, and I am a fan, and I fear that we sometimes view the players just as stats. I don’t know that we consider all of these additional things that get involved, like you are talking about. The strength conditioning, nightlife and all that kind of stuff. Do you feel that the fans are a little disconnected in that sense or that they are maybe too quick to judge?

Keith Hernandez: The fans shouldn’t have any bearing on us. I never expected the fans to understand what it was like to play every day, so that never bothered me. That never even entered my mind. They are definitely stats oriented. It’s a stats oriented game. But there are other things in the game that don’t show up on the scoreboard or in the boxscore. The people who are evaluating you from a management point of view, they know. The fans should never really…the fans are fans, they’re great fans, and they’re there and that’s what you have to deal with, but that should never have any effect on you as a player.

Matthew Cerrone: I know that you are a Jets fan. When you are watching football, and since you never played football, you are suddenly just fan, like me, do you sort of feel like you react similarly to the way a Mets fan will react at Shea. Can you spot the difference between a fan and being a player?

Keith Hernandez: I always say to myself, even when I announce a game, that it looks easier up there on TV. Peyton Manning is down there and I’ve got this overview from my TV, but he’s got this view of linemen in front of him and everybody running around and he’s got to make rapid split-second decisions that I don’t see or understand. So, I always keep that in mind. So, if you haven’t played a professional sport, a lot of people can’t relate to that.

Matthew Cerrone: I asked about the young players, but, with a veteran a guy like Carlos Delgado, who, during a conference call he had with us a couple of weeks ago, he admitted that there were times when he probably should have made adjustments and he was just reluctant to do so. How difficult is it to accept that as a veteran player? You know, when you come to that realization of: I don’t have the skills that I once had. How hard is that?

Keith Hernandez: Well, it’s a misconception, that you are not getting the balls that you used to hit. Athletes are very stubborn. They have done it their whole life. They are the last ones to realize that maybe I have to do something – some more than others – and they start looking more, being more tactical when you are at bat then when you were younger and when you can hit anything most of the time. You lose that little bit of reflex and that makes a world of difference. That the difference of getting beat inside as opposed to getting in there.

The game is a constant adjustment. When I went to Cleveland and I wasn’t getting around on those balls anymore, you get worried. Those are just things that you never had to worry about ever in your career. Ever. And all of a sudden you panic and then you start worrying about it…Then you start worrying about that and then you can’t hit the outside ball, so you give up the whole plate. So, you have to start getting in the frame of mind where you look inside – or, if I am looking out over the plate, I am not going to swing at a ball inside.

Now for someone that doesn’t have that kind of discipline their whole career, that’s a tough adjustment. But, someone that has a good knowledge of the strike zone and hit that way, it’s a little bit easier for him. But, still in the back of your mind, it’s that pitch right there in your mind’s eye as it evolves, the ball is coming in there, it’s a pitch to hit and you’re not getting there. Yes, it’s the person that’s hitting that is probably the last person to realize that he can’t get there anymore.

Matthew Cerrone: So even with batting coaches and the manager, who I assume are working with you before the games and they are giving advice in the batting cage, it’s not until you realize it on your own that you can change? Thats what you are saying? Until then, it doesn’t really click?

Keith Hernandez: It’s different. Batting practice is easy, they are not throwing at you at 95 miles per hour. You can get in a nice groove there, there is no pressure. But, when you lose a little bit of confidence on a certain pitch, whether it’s a great curve ball or you start getting panicked up there and thinking you can’t hit and start worrying, then it spills over into the whole plate.

Matthew Cerrone: Lastly, I always hear you or Darling, or I’ll say it, I hear fans or talk shows, we all feel that starting pitchers should throw more pitches and more innings, which will help the bullpen as well, so why does it only get worse? Every year we all agree, except the people who are actually in the game?

Keith Hernandez: I think it’s the finances of the game. They are a premium now and they don’t want to hurt their arms. And in the minor leagues, they are not stretching their arms out. They are doing those kids a big disservice.

Matthew Cerrone: Is that on purpose?

Keith Hernandez: Yes, it’s a pitch count. It’s a precious commodity. And they are not stretching their arms out in the minor leagues. They are so stat oriented – and with Bill James now – the stats don’t tell you if someone has guts. When a pitcher is out there and it’s a 1–0 game in the eighth inning, bases loaded two outs and Miguel Cabrera is at the plate, then you get him out. That’s where you find out who can do what…

They even have these guys on 100–pitch counts in the minor leagues…sometimes they are lower. Frank Robinson once told me he was managing for Triple-A down in Baltimore, before he went over to Montreal to manage, and the GM and the farm director were there scouting the top pitching prospects and he got into his pitch count in the sixth inning, and he was in a jam and they left him in to finish it. The pitcher got out of it and then Frank caught flack from the GM and the farm director saying he went over his pitch count. And Frank said, “How we are going to find out if he’s got any guts. How is he going to feel good about himself, going in for an early Bud while someone else went in to clean up his mess as opposed to him going out there and feeling really good about himself and getting out of that jam.” If he does it, then let him go in and have a Budweiser.

That’s the difference and that’s where I think not having the baseball people in the game like they used to down on that level hurts, and a lot of that in fact is because…and I am guilty of this…is because I’ve made money enough where I don’t have to do be a minor league coach. When I was coming up, I played for Ken Boyer. There were all kinds of ex-major leaguers that were coaches in the minor leagues. The needed to make the money. It was a job to them. It was baseball and you had that kind of coaching down there…Some of my best coaches were minor league players that didn’t make it, they were some of my best coaches. You just can’t quantify having played for Ken Boyer as a manager in Triple-A. He’s been there and is a World Champion and a great player and a clutch hitter and being able to impart his knowledge. You don’t have that in the minor leagues anymore today. It’s too systematic. It’s just getting away. It’s too sterile and too stat-oriented and it’s about finding millions of great pitchers that just throw great stuff. That’s all I ever hear, “Oh, he’s got great stuff down in the bullpen.” You know, some guys pitch great when there is nobody out there, but you get him in a tight game and he can’t throw a strike.

Matthew Cerrone: Thank you so much, Keith. I really appreciate you taking time to talk with me.

Keith Hernandez: Okay, great.

Hernandez continued the discussion by speaking with SNY’s Ted Berg, which you can read more of by clicking here:

Tagged as: 1986 Mets, SNY