Speaker 1: And now an exclusive interview with David Bassey for Dodger Talk.
Speaker 1: All right, the Dodgers and Giants are getting set for
Speaker 1: Game three of this series.
Speaker 2: Otani's pitching all that.
Speaker 1: But I'm joined right now by the newest Dodger employe.
Speaker 1: He's part of the Dodgers' front office staff now with
Speaker 1: Andrew Freeman as his special assistant. And that is sixteen
Speaker 1: year veteran World Series Champion, All Star and great guy
Speaker 1: Jason Hayward back in the Dodgers family. Great to have
Speaker 1: you out here, and man, I'm not afraid to talk
Speaker 1: to you. I'm not afraid to hug you. People might
Speaker 1: give me a lot of crap about it, but I'm
Speaker 1: a hugger.
Speaker 3: Oh. First off, David, I appreciate it. Man.
Speaker 4: It's so good to be back here, back around family,
Speaker 4: back around very familiar faces. And you know, we talk
Speaker 4: about being a part of the Dodgers organization. It's amazing
Speaker 4: to just know everyone's working together as the team. As
Speaker 4: our good friend Chris Archer here was just saying, but
Speaker 4: now it's good to be back and good to have
Speaker 4: an opportunity. Much appreciation on behalf of Andrew Gomes of
Speaker 4: Carving out some space for me. Dave Roberts as well.
Speaker 4: I told him, I'm curious. I want to learn this
Speaker 4: side of the game. I like to work towards being
Speaker 4: in a front office member one day and contributing to
Speaker 4: a franchise. And here's an opportunity to get the ball rolling.
Speaker 4: So super grateful some.
Speaker 1: Of the best started from the ground up. As far
Speaker 1: as this part of the life. What will you be doing.
Speaker 1: Will you be going to the minor leagues? Will you
Speaker 1: be just canvas seeing the entire organization.
Speaker 4: I will be going to the minor leagues. I'm talking
Speaker 4: about visiting every affiliate. The unfortunate thing for me in
Speaker 4: my mind is that then I'm starting now and the
Speaker 4: season's already be gone. But I will be doing my
Speaker 4: best to catch up. I'll be traveling around with the
Speaker 4: lights of David Finley, Chris Archer, Tyson, Ross rabul lebon Is,
Speaker 4: of course, communicating with Rock Oball Delhi, some of the
Speaker 4: outfeel people. Just do whatever I can right now, present day,
Speaker 4: right like putting sixteen years of experience as an outfielder,
Speaker 4: as a defender, as a world champion, and all those things.
Speaker 4: And when I say that, it's you know, the sacrifice
Speaker 4: and contributing to the player development side, and at the
Speaker 4: same time going to affiliates, learning the scouting area, learning
Speaker 4: how to evaluate players and be a support system. You know,
Speaker 4: while I can right now present.
Speaker 1: Day, did you have this vision the last few years
Speaker 1: of playing or did you ever have this vision while
Speaker 1: you were in the thick of it.
Speaker 4: I don't want to say I had the vision because
Speaker 4: I don't think that's fair to say. I feel like
Speaker 4: I was heavily invested in doing whatever my role was,
Speaker 4: especially a latter part of the career.
Speaker 3: Though maybe that's a start.
Speaker 4: Maybe that's coming off the bench, Maybe that's being a
Speaker 4: guy who's evaluating my teammates and doing my best to
Speaker 4: get the best out of them, to support them in
Speaker 4: a sense. But the more I looked at it, coming
Speaker 4: down to like the last couple of years, it's like, man,
Speaker 4: don't turn the page on the game yet, you know, like,
Speaker 4: see what else you can get out of it? And
Speaker 4: what I know is I enjoy having conversations about baseball.
Speaker 4: I enjoy having competitive conversations about how can we win,
Speaker 4: how can we do do the best to put the
Speaker 4: right people in the right situation. And I know that
Speaker 4: sounds a lot like front office. It sounds a lot
Speaker 4: like building culture. Building ors is organization, excuse me, and
Speaker 4: getting the best out of the players that are a
Speaker 4: part of the system. So that's that was my curious issue,
Speaker 4: and I appreciate them.
Speaker 3: Let me have a stab at it.
Speaker 1: Since you're not that far removed from playing, you just retired,
Speaker 1: I bet you have the appreciation or I should ask you,
Speaker 1: do you have the appreciation of the blend of the
Speaker 1: analytics and what makes a player tick and what their
Speaker 1: character and their makeup is.
Speaker 4: Oh, one percent, one hundred percent. And I think that's
Speaker 4: a unique thing that I have as well. Starting in
Speaker 4: twenty ten, seeing the game change rapidly, going into that
Speaker 4: heavy analytic phase, and now we're starting to see it
Speaker 4: come out of it a bit. You know, it's still there,
Speaker 4: It's still a part of the DNA. It's still the
Speaker 4: terminology and how front offices, how coaching staffs, and how
Speaker 4: players now are learning to communicate every day. But you
Speaker 4: understand it, there needs to be the field right to
Speaker 4: be those conversations of having someone who's had the experience,
Speaker 4: how do you handle this situation as a rookie, how
Speaker 4: do you handle this situation facing a closer right, how
Speaker 4: do you handle a situation like maybe a guy needs
Speaker 4: a day off, needs a breathe it. And I think
Speaker 4: that is very very cool that the game is going
Speaker 4: to more of a collab between the field and analytics.
Speaker 3: For sure.
Speaker 2: Jason Heyward is our guest.
Speaker 1: He's now part of the Dodgers front office as a
Speaker 1: special assistant. When you started to explore this opportunity with
Speaker 1: the Dodgers, what was Andrew Friedman's reaction when you made
Speaker 1: that first phone call.
Speaker 4: The reaction was, well, first, honestly, it was a lot
Speaker 4: of texting, and I'll give you know, Gohmer and Andrew
Speaker 4: credit because the season that are started, like I said,
Speaker 4: and you know, they're on pace for you know, trying
Speaker 4: to have another championship season and that's that's winning three
Speaker 4: in a row. So a lot of responsibility on their end.
Speaker 4: But no, we did a lot of texting back and forth.
Speaker 4: Andrew said, look like we're going to pull up our
Speaker 4: sleeves here and see what we can do to find
Speaker 4: find a space for you to come on and for one,
Speaker 4: contribute in ways we think you can help today, but
Speaker 4: also give you that opportunity you're asking for and that's
Speaker 4: to learn, and that's to see what this side of
Speaker 4: the game looks like. So again like super grateful for
Speaker 4: the opportunity and then the rest of the way with
Speaker 4: Brandon Gomes, you know, doing what he's done. Of course,
Speaker 4: former player, so he has that perspective, he's been in
Speaker 4: my shoes and he's been a great sounding board to
Speaker 4: talk to on like what this may look like, how
Speaker 4: this feels right, And and again like Tyson Ross, Chris
Speaker 4: Archer's you know same guys as well that have that
Speaker 4: have done the same thing on sharing perspective. But you know,
Speaker 4: our our two front office guys, like our head Honchos
Speaker 4: so to speak, they've been absolutely instrumental and just you know,
Speaker 4: creating an opportunity for me this year to do so.
Speaker 1: Since your shoes are on the ground now, not the spikes,
Speaker 1: you have a different kind of view of how the
Speaker 1: team is playing and what you've been seeing. Obviously they're
Speaker 1: not swinging the bats as well as we saw in
Speaker 1: the first few weeks of the season. What do you
Speaker 1: see and what do you remember as a player when
Speaker 1: you're kind of in this group types, how do you
Speaker 1: get out of it?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 4: I think there are always going to be different ways
Speaker 4: to get out of things, right out of those slumps.
Speaker 3: David, because every year's a different year. Every year is
Speaker 3: a new year.
Speaker 4: Get twenty twenty four, Amazing twenty twenty five, amazing photo,
Speaker 4: finish twenty twenty six. They're gonna be different variables along
Speaker 4: the way, and you've got to figure out how to
Speaker 4: get through those. And I think it's just this group
Speaker 4: being creative. They're going to have fun with it. You
Speaker 4: see it with some changes in the celebration. And I
Speaker 4: was listening to you on Dodger Talk one of the
Speaker 4: other days saying, please get rid of that and the kick,
Speaker 4: you know, kick the bad vibes out of there, which
Speaker 4: I completely understand. But I think it's just the fact
Speaker 4: that they're forward thinking, right, They're realizing, all right, we
Speaker 4: know things aren't going how we want them to go.
Speaker 4: Let's get creative on ways to stay in the moment.
Speaker 4: Let's do our best to have fun. But I think
Speaker 4: most importantly, to be honest, it's call a spade has
Speaker 4: paid and they realize things aren't going how they want
Speaker 4: them to go right now. But every day we see
Speaker 4: the work they put in out here on the field,
Speaker 4: We see the work in the clubhouse and in the
Speaker 4: cage in the weight room. So no doubt in my
Speaker 4: mind the process will rise over the results and.
Speaker 3: There'll be where they need to be. Just need to
Speaker 3: get a few people healthy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no doubt, and maybe do the Freddie Freeman, not
Speaker 1: the dance, but maybe simplify things.
Speaker 2: Seaball hit ball one hundred.
Speaker 4: Seaball hit ball helps. But no, the game is hard.
Speaker 4: The game is hard, and there's something to be said
Speaker 4: about being that last team standing back to back years,
Speaker 4: playing the most games, managing pitching staffs and innings and
Speaker 4: all these things. Like again, there's so many variables of
Speaker 4: being that team that wins it. The first variable is
Speaker 4: nobody feels sorry for you at all.
Speaker 3: Right, so every.
Speaker 4: Day teams are gettingenough to play against you, and that's
Speaker 4: what you want to have happen. But again, you just
Speaker 4: got to be creative, got to be open minded and
Speaker 4: realize that it's not always going to be how we
Speaker 4: got here, how we won. The first one might be
Speaker 4: a little different in the second one. How we win
Speaker 4: that third one might look a little different, But you
Speaker 4: just find a way to do it and trust the
Speaker 4: people you have in the room.
Speaker 1: Well, the Dodgers trust, Jason Hayward. Great to have you back,
Speaker 1: and I know it was a breath of fresh air
Speaker 1: for all your former teammates to see you. Because you
Speaker 1: built your reputation by living your life as a baseball
Speaker 1: player and away from the field as a genuine person.
Speaker 1: And that's why everybody gravitates towards you. That's why I
Speaker 1: can't stop giving you hugs. Even though Chris Archer wants
Speaker 1: to shame me for those hugs, I'm not gonna stop.
Speaker 4: No, I appreciate it, bro, I'll take a hug. It's
Speaker 4: great to see everyone again. I mean that, you know, genuinely. No,
Speaker 4: I don't take it for granted. It's good to be seeing,
Speaker 4: good to be around the game, good to have an
Speaker 4: opportunity to learn. And you know, people say, hey, Jay, like,
Speaker 4: happy retirement. Thank you very much to everyone who's told
Speaker 4: me that. But I have a lot of work to
Speaker 4: do and I'm gonna get get to work on that.
Speaker 3: So I appreciate you guys.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're too young and too swoll to retire.
Speaker 4: Hey, I'm just glad there's more opportunities in baseball, more
Speaker 4: opportunities around the game because it's a very good games.
Speaker 4: We're in a good spot right now with it, and
Speaker 4: you just happy to be a part of it with
Speaker 4: an organization like LA And you know you heard Art
Speaker 4: say it.
Speaker 3: You know you talk about him.
Speaker 4: I know you're giving him a heart time and saying, hey,
Speaker 4: you're now Jay Hayes mentor and I'm like, no, that's right,
Speaker 4: he very much is. But his first response is though,
Speaker 4: it's a team and that's how we move here.
Speaker 3: So it's it's again good to be a part of
Speaker 3: the GOP.
Speaker 1: Love it team player. Jason Hayward, Thanks a lot and congratulations.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much. F good to be with you.