This is the third in a series of articles looking back on the Knights’ season by Charlotte beat writer Jeff Cohen. This installment is a post-season Q&A with manager Wes Helms, pitching coach Matt Zaleski and hitting coach Chris Johnson.
What will you do differently next year? What did you learn this year?
Helms: I came into this year naïve about how these guys should play the game because it is Triple-A. I know how I played the game at Triple-A and I know how I approached the game every day. And I think I was naïve that these guys are going do it like that, too. And I started realizing, wow, they don’t.
So I think next year, the biggest thing for me coming into the season out of spring training is (to establish that) this is the way it’s going to be. This is the standard, and they are going to know there are non-negotiables, this is exactly what to expect every single day out of me and the other coaches on certain things. This year, I think we were just a little naïve.
Johnson: I think for the most part, I’ve just learned that everybody’s different. Everybody is going to go off different cues. Everybody’s going to have their own issues going on and I’m not always going to have everybody firing on all cylinders. At some point, somebody is going to be struggling.
Zaleski: That’s something that I usually process in the offseason. I talk it over with the guys in the front office to see if maybe they have something for me. Maybe there is something that I’m not seeing on the field. The amount of pitchers that we had this year was challenging for me. But having had that this year, I feel like that’s not going to be that big of a deal for me (going forward).
Players are different than when you played. Did that create any challenges?
Helms: Sometimes I kind of asked the question: do they get upset if we lose? Are they really into it?
When I lost, I was absolutely so mad after the game. And then when I left the clubhouse, it was over with. But I know players are different and especially this generation. I wanted to see what it would be like with these younger players. How do they act when they lose, when they win, are they going to grind when you have a losing streak, stuff like that. And for the most part, I think they did. I’m not knocking (minor-league players today).
It’s just different than when I played. And it’s tough. It really is sometimes…when you only know one way and you played the game a certain way, and then you have maybe a handful (of players) that don’t do it that way, you kind of question why they don’t do it. But then you sit back and see, wow, they’re actually putting up really good numbers.
So what was team chemistry like? Were the players supportive of each other?
Helms: It was a close clubhouse. We didn’t have one negative thing with players butting heads with each other. That’s huge when it comes to a full season.
How do you build good team chemistry?
Helms: I think it all comes down to positivity. The environment that the players are in is how they’re going to act. If it’s a bad environment, they’re going to revert to being bad. If it’s a good, positive environment, they’re going to eventually jump on board, even though they might not be the most positive person. We’re always positive. Every day, we’re talking to every player the same way.
I don’t care what you did last night. I think once they see that the staff cares about them, then they care about each other. And that’s what we have going on here. They know that we don’t hold grudges. If we get our tail kicked in or we have a pitcher who had a bad game or a hitter that strikes out to lose the game, yeah, that night they feel bad about it and we’re mad.
But we get to the field the next day and it’s like it never happened. And I think that goes a long way in the clubhouse, when they see that culture of nothing’s going to carry over to the next day, then they’re going to always come to the field upbeat and be close and know that they can get here and have some fun and get ready of work.
It seemed like there were games this year when a pitcher was struggling but you left him in, or you had a good hitter on the bench late in the game but you didn’t pinch hit.
Helms: I’ll never take away from (the focus) on player development, but coming out of spring training next year, we’ll put more emphasis on winning. You’ve got to teach the kids how to win and put them in a winning atmosphere, because if kids aren’t in a winning atmosphere, they can really never learn how to win.
And learn to lose?
Helms: Those are teaching moments for me. You don’t want losses to wear on players so much that it keeps affecting them because in baseball you’ve got to have a short memory. So you want to teach them that when you lose, hey, let’s have a certain way we handle it so that if they are playing for a playoff or something (important in the majors in the future), and they lose a big game down the stretch, you want them to already know how to act when that happens.
It sounds like the players weren’t as fundamentally sound as you expected.
Helms: Yes and no. We’d show signs of doing things really well and then we’d go in spurts where weren’t getting good dirt ball reads at first base where we could have gotten to second. There were times that we could have taken an extra base and we didn’t because somebody might not have come out of the box as hard as they should have. Those are just the little things that we stress to them. I always tell them that the things that don’t show up in the box score are the things that win World Series.
There’s times that we were really good. But, I’ll be honest, there were times that we were really bad. At this level, you hope it is more good than bad. There’s been times this year that it has been frustrating that guys could have busted it harder out of the box to get that double or busted it harder at first to get to third. At this level, they should know that. It is part of coaching, sometimes you sound like a broken record but I’m always a believer that you tell them and tell them and tell them.”
Were there any player development surprises?
Helms: I think for me the biggest surprises were Gavin Sheets and Jake Burger because Burger hadn’t played in three years and then he got called up had a good year. And, of course, Gavin Sheets wasn’t even a part of the Alternate Site last year, and for him to be a big part of the White Sox right now (is a big surprise). And I would add to that mix Romy Gonzalez. He was slated to go to High-A ball out of spring training and they took a chance and sent him to Double-A and he tore it up. Then he comes here and absolutely tears it up. And then he did well up there (in Chicago).
Johnson: I think you’ve got to look at Jake Burger and what he did this year, not being able to play for a while before this year. I think the strides he has made have been pretty incredible. He’s very mentally tough when it comes to hitting and I think that’s really paid off for him. You’ve also got guys like Gavin Sheets and Seby Zavala, who went up and did a great job up there.
Zaleski: Tanner Banks jumped out at me quite a bit, the work that he did last off-season. His velocity is up, his off-speed stuff is playing up. He’s done a nice job. I thought Kyle Kubat also did a very good job up here. He’s got some some pitchability. It’s good to see a guy like that be able to perform almost every night out here. We’ve had a couple injuries and a couple of starters go up, and the guys coming in for those guys have done a fairly good job. I know it’s pretty big jump from Double-A to here, but they’ve come up and have done very well.
Were there any player development disappointments?
Johnson: I don’t really have many disappointments this year. I feel like everybody’s really worked hard. Everybody’s made big strides. Even though the numbers may not show where they’re supposed to be at, that’s just because of maybe early struggles and then, you know, not enough time or, or just too big of a hole to really get out of it. But, I think everybody kind of came out and did what they were supposed to do and played hard.
I think Blake Rutherford worked really, really hard and he’s made some really big strides offensively. I think he’s learned a lot about his swing and I think his numbers probably don’t show what they should. Mikie Mahtook obviously put together a pretty good year, but he had some unfortunate luck this year and his numbers could have been way better.
Because of Covid, you ended up playing a handful of geographically close teams quite a bit. You played Norfolk 35 times and Durham 30 times out of 130 games. Was that a problem for the staff?
Zaleski: Yes. I think the biggest challenge this year was seeing the same team, seeing Gwinnett, Norfolk, Jacksonville and Durham, over and over and over again, and then trying to make adjustments to what your pitching staff is doing, and you try and make adjustments to what (the opponent is) doing and see who can get ahead and make the quickest adjustment. We try and line up bullpen match-ups that fit (our relievers), and hopefully the other team already hasn’t seen him in the series.
Photo credit: Laura Wolff/Charlotte Knights
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