Welcome to Memory Lane! For those who aren't fans of our podcasts, I've been sitting down each week with a former Pittsburgh athlete for a long form interview that comes out every weekend. Recently, I've been adding a transcription of the interview to the podcast post on our website.
After seeing that some of our subscribers really enjoyed reading through the Q&A, the boss and I decided it would be best to post a written version separately on the site. So without further ado, here is my interview with this week's guest, former Pirates pitcher Ross Ohlendorf:
Noah: Ross, there's a lot to get into here. While you had an interesting baseball career, I think that you would agree that baseball is just one of many things that defines you. So I kind of want to cover a wide range of topics. I guess we'll start with your college background. There are a lot of guys who just skipped college all together in the baseball world, they get drafted out of high school or they come from Latin America or wherever. You on the other hand, took a different path. You were a Princeton graduate. Take me through recruitment. Were you considering or getting recruited by other Ivy League schools? How did you end up choosing to play baseball at Princeton?
Ross: Well, I guess it’s kind of a long story., I was more of a basketball player in high school. I was recruited for basketball. One of the first recruiting letters I got was from Harvard for basketball. I didn't play much baseball in high school, so I wasn't good enough to sign out of high school, so that's part of it, too. If I’d been Andrew McCutchen, maybe it would have been a little different. But that was more of a basketball player. I didn't really focus on baseball till the summer after my junior year, Keith Moreland, who played in the majors for a long time came to my high school as our coach and convinced me that I should focus on baseball. That I had a chance to play professionally. In basketball, I think I would have been a marginal college basketball player and wouldn't have been able to play beyond that. So thanks to him coming and both improving me as a player, but also giving me the confidence that I could play not only in college, but also professionally, if things went well I started focusing on baseball. So I was late to the party in terms of playing summer baseball getting recruited. I went with my mom my spring break of junior year to look at Ivy League schools. I knew I had always enjoyed school and done well in school. And I knew that I'd probably want to go to an Ivy League school, or maybe Stanford, so my mom took me to look at them. I really liked Princeton, and I ended up reaching out to the Princeton baseball coach, Scott Bradley, and trying to tell him that I was interested in playing. I also reached out to the basketball coach, but I didn't hear back from him initially. Then the summer after my junior year, I had some tournaments where I threw really hard and I hit some pretty far home runs. So there started to be a little bit of buzz about me and then coach Bradley reached out to me after that, but he had ignored my note I left for him when I was there. It really was such a blessing for me to be able to go to Princeton, not only from the academic side of it, and the network side from having gone there, but because Bradley really helped me a lot while I was there to develop as a, as a pitcher. I was really raw coming out of high school and my freshman year of college, all of a sudden, I went from someone who threw hard to actually being a fairly good pitcher. He had worked so much with me that first, I guess for the first six months, I was on campus to get me ready for that first season.
Noah: So at Princeton you had a 3.75 grade point average and you had a very interesting senior thesis that I wanted to ask you about. I don't have the exact name but to paraphrase, it was basically a study on the return of investment on signing bonuses in the MLB draft, is that right?
Ross: That’s right. So the way I got interested in it was I I took off my senior spring to play baseball. I was drafted by the Diamondbacks and played in short season in South Bend. Throughout that season, I knew that I wanted to do something with baseball. I was reading a bunch of books trying to come up with ideas that might be kind of unique, and everybody on the team was talking about me, the draft was such a big topic, especially when that June draft came up in the class behind us was getting drafted. People often would say that first rounders got paid too much and that they should spread the money out more evenly and things like that. So it was a very relevant topic. So what I looked at was when a team drafts a player, when a team has a young player on their major league roster, the first typically three years, it's sometimes less than three years, that player makes the league minimum regardless of how good they are. Then they go through the arbitration process where they will make less than a comparable free agent. So the team by drafting a player hopes that that player will develop into a major league quality player that's getting paid at this lower salary. So I looked at the top hundred draft picks over five years, I looked at their signing bonus. And then I looked at how well they performed in their first six years in the majors, and how their depressed salaries compared to the salaries teams would have had to pay free agents for similar performance. So that was seen as the savings that the teams got from having drafted though, and I compared that amount to the signing bonuses. There were some draft picks where it was just tremendous for the team. I mean, there were a lot of recent players when I was with the Pirates, Andrew McCutchen and Neil Walker, were both really good, especially Andrew, really, really good. Early in his career. He was making the league minimum or at least close to it and he was playing as well as most high dollar free agents. That was a huge savings for the pirates. They got a lot of talent and a lot of production at a low salary. The reason they were able to do that was because they had drafted him and paid him a signing bonus. He was a great return to the Pirates. There have been other players where they're signing bonus exceeded the amount the team ended up getting from him later on. But in general, the signing on average, teams do very well in the draft system. What you would expect is the players only have one team to sign with.
Noah: Were you a big sabermetrics guy? Did you read any Bill James stuff in college?
Ross: Just when I was trying to figure out what to do on the thesis and in what I used for my thesis was win shares. There are now much more advanced metrics but that was when win shares were kind of the one and only thing at the time. And I modified them in a way to what I ended up doing with them is probably similar to the wins above replacement. I didn't just use win shares. I treated players with a small number of win shares differently than the better players. So it wasn't just a straight linear. Everyone shares worth the same amount. It depended on if they were getting just a few or if they were getting a bunch. But I did not. I guess I don't keep up with the high level stats as much anymore as much. When I played I didn't spend a lot of time worrying about my stats. It works for some people, and it can be distracting for others. And I was one where I felt like it could be distracting.
Noah: So you won't have an interest working in maybe like a front office as an analytics guy at all?
Ross: I would but not today, not today. It is something I'm interested in. When I first retired from playing, I did some consulting with a high tech company in Austin. We worked with an MLB team and an NFL team, helping them on the draft, helping them evaluate player makeup and personalities and seeing if we could add to what they were already doing. Because that's one thing, it's really hard to evaluate. And especially evaluate in a way that you can kind of plug it into an outlet where you can quantify it and plug it into an algorithm. But player makeup is so important. It's something where you can develop it in your system. It can be related to the culture that you create. It's just something that's so important. I know I already mentioned Andrew McCutchen but he, in addition to being really talented physically, had just such good makeup. I felt like he wanted to be great. He was willing to put in the work. He also I felt was a really good leader and fit in well with the team and enhanced the team and kind of enhanced the culture of the team. Not all great players do that and I felt like he did. Those qualities are really important, but they're really hard to evaluate. So we were working with some teams to help them evaluate that. I felt like we did an okay job. It's something the way we were doing it. We need a lot of data. And the company that I was working with had other things. They work in other industries. So we did work with these teams but we just all in the end had, I guess had other uses of our time. But it is something I do have an interest in doing. Something in baseball at some point. Right now the main thing I do is I do color commentary for the Round Rock Express about once a month.
Noah: Are you still helping out on your family's ranch?
Ross: Yes. So it's mainly my dad and I do it. My brother was involved early on, he's working in Dallas now, my wife helps. Now I have two little kids, I have a two year old three year old so they have started assisting where they can which is they'll help call the cattle. They just yell when we call the cows up. But I really enjoy that. Especially right now with the pandemic, I was doing some other things in Austin part of the week and then going out to the ranch three or four days a week typically. But now I've been going out more like five or six because there aren't a lot of other things going on out there.
Noah: For those who don't know your family has a ranch that has about 300 longhorns. Is that number right?
Ross: If you include calves, it's more like 450 or so. We raise the Longhorns like the Texas Longhorns. They're all registered Texas Longhorns. We actually just got nominated for breeder of the year which is exciting. We found that out last week. And we won an award a couple years ago called the movers and shakers award for registering and selling the most. I mean, it's bigger in Texas than other parts of the country but we've sold to Mexico and Colombia, we sold to over 20 states. We have kind of an international presence but more people raise Longhorns in Texas and Oklahoma than other places. Within the Longhorn industry, we're one of the bigger, I guess, bigger players or just bigger operations. We also do a lot of marketing and people tend to like our cows. There's plenty to keep me busy with that. My dad is 75 and is still doing it. So it's something that he and I can do together. And it's fun for the kids right now to get to go out there.
Noah: So let's get into your MLB career now. You made your big league debut in 2007 with the Yankees and there are some big names on that team when a guy that was my favorite player growing up, Derek Jeter was on that team. Obviously Alex Rodriguez, I think was the American League MVP that season. What was it like making starting your big league career on a team full of stars?
Ross: I mean, it was pretty incredible. And it was, I'd say, it was intimidating. I think anytime you make your debut, it's intimidating. But, that probably was more so. However, everybody was, all the older guys on that team, were very good about making young guys feel welcome. Very good about it. They really encouraged me. So it was intimidating. I also felt I felt probably as comfortable as I could have. But, I mean, when I look back on my career, it's just it's kind of, it's amazing that I got that opportunity to play with those guys. Mariano Rivera was just an unbelievable pitcher and just such a great person to spend so much time with me trying to help me work on my sinker. The second season when I was there, about two months in I started struggling. He would get down and catch flat grounds with me. He really wanted me to get better. And I mean, I saw people trying to help their teammates, often throughout my career, but never to the extent that he tried to help. There was such a culture of winning there. And just being excellent. A lot of it came from Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, the guys who had been there a long time. And I mean, they signed guys who not only were very good, but also cared about the team. So it was such an incredible experience. We’d go on the road, the games would be sold out. It would be depending on where we were, other than Boston, it would be at least 50% Yankees fans. Pittsburgh was a better place for me to get to develop as a pitcher and get more opportunities but the memories from the Yankees were really cool.
Noah: So you get dealt again in 2008 to the Pittsburgh Pirates. You come here to the North Shore with Jeff Karstens, Daniel McCutcheon, and a guy that I really want to hear about Jose Tabata. What was your relationship? Do you have any memories or stories about him, because I look back at him as one of the more interesting guys in recent Pirate history.
Ross: I guess not too many. He was younger than me. We did play together some. I know the Yankees were so big on him. I think he was our number two prospect when he got traded. But I don't have too many. I have some stories about Daniel McCutcheon. He's still one of my good friends.
Noah: What do you have on him?
Ross: He's just, he's such a good athlete. One thing he had what I consider the best pitching performance I ever saw. We were playing the Braves in Atlanta. And it was, I think we went to it might have been 18 innings. So he was down that day. He had pitched a lot in the few days prior to that and wasn't supposed to pitch it all. I told him to put his turfs on. Well, we end up running out of pitching probably in the 12th. So they told him to go ahead and get his cleats on. He went in the game and he pitched parts of six innings and didn't give up a run until the umpire blew the call at the end. I mean, the guy was clearly out, you know, probably called him safe when we lost but just the fact that he wasn't supposed to pitch that day and he went in and just the heart that he had in that game was unbelievable. It was incredible to watch. The other thing is he is really fast. So that game, he almost beat out to ground balls but his athleticism is unbelievable. So there was a game, probably the year before. This was probably 2009 maybe 2010. I think we were playing the Brewers in Pittsburgh. And so he ended up getting hit. He was mad he got hit and stole second base just on his own. He didn't have a sign. He was just he was upset he stole second. Andrew McCutchen also stole second that game. The next day, we got to the stopwatch out and went and watched on video. From the time the pitcher broke his hands till Andrew McCutchen slid into second base was 3.3 seconds. And when Daniel did it on his steal it was 3.0 seconds. He also supposedly was faster than Adrian Peterson in college. Both went to Oklahoma.
Noah: You were the 40th pitcher in MLB history to strike out three batters on nine pitches. An immaculate ending. What's rare about this is all three of your third strikes were on bounces. Take me through that special moment.
Ross: I think that was the seventh inning. I had a really good breaking ball that day and when it was on it was throughout my career there were times where I had a really good slider. If it had been consistent, I think I would have been a better pitcher. It just wasn't something that was really consistent for me but that game it was really working. So that inning I threw one fastball and eight sliders. All three strike threes were bounced. But when it was on, I could throw that slider, I could bounce it and guys swung often. Luckily Ryan Doumit did a great job blocking them all and throwing them first. So I realized, I think when I got to strike two on the second batter, I started thinking about the chance to just strike out the side on nine pitches. I didn't realize how rare it was until after the game when the media were asking me about it. I should have asked Steve Pearce to save the ball but he came running in from first base and threw it in the stands.
Noah: So you have a really good first full season in Pittsburgh. You went 11-10 with a 3.92 ERA. Then the next year, your ERA of 4.07 is solid but you finish the season with a record of 1-11. How frustrating was that?
Ross: It was a frustrating season. The two goals that I had going in each game were to pitch deep into the game and get a win. Obviously, that only happened once that year. So it, it was frustrating. As we were going through the season, each start I had was just a new start. I was pitching especially well in the second half of the season. I didn't get off to a great start and was kind of up and down. But the second half of the season, both in 2009 and 2010, I pitched very well. So each time I was going out, I felt very good about our chances of getting a win. It just wasn't happening. So it and then I ended up getting hurt at the end of season two. So I guess I enjoyed the season before probably a little more.
Noah: So the final thing I want to get into is something that started from a first pitch being thrown at PNC Park. The head of the US Department of Agriculture, threw out a first pitch in a pirates game and it led to you getting a pretty big internship. Can you tell the listeners How about more about this story and how it all kind of played out?
Ross: So I often would volunteer at least if there was somebody interested in throwing out the first pitch. Tom Vilsack, had been Governor of Iowa, and at the time he was Secretary of Agriculture. So he was throwing out the first pitch and I thought it would be great to go out and catch it and just get to say hello to him. I did and just talked to him briefly. That was shortly before the all star break. Over the All Star break I was visiting friends in DC and started thinking, wouldn't it be cool to do an internship here. The Department of Agriculture would really interest me. I asked the Pirates if I could contact the person who set up Secretary Vilsack first pitch and they gave me his email. I emailed him, sent in my resume and told him things I was interested in. They said they'd be happy to have me do an internship. I ended up being there for about 10 weeks. I really enjoyed it. I felt it was a great experience. I had a lot of people that I went to college with who interned in New York City and finance during college in the summer, and then ended up going to work there. To me, being able to do an internship or a job in Washington, DC, I think is so much more interesting. There's so much going on there. One thing I noticed while I was on the Nationals, people are just in a better mood, I think. I think things are really important, but I think it's, it's less stressful and more interesting. I met some interesting people. There was a project called the National Animal Identification System. That was fairly controversial in the agricultural industry. At the time, it was something that was kind of a trade off. It was implemented to help with animal health and safety in the event that a disease broke out where they can more quickly track down animals that might have been infected. Which is a great thing. It came at a fairly high cost on the producers or that the people who would own the animals of different types that it impacted. So it was just a question of whether the costs were worth the upside or not.
Noah: Did I read that you got to play a pickup basketball game on the South Lawn on the court that President Obama had installed?
Ross: So I played in the Department of Interior. They had a court in there. The Supreme Court building has a basketball court up top and I went in there too. But that was kind of separate. I think that was when I was on the Nationals that I got to go up there. But that was when one of my good friends from college, clerked for the Supreme Court. He took me for a tour. But I played in a weekly game at the Department of the Interior when I was when I was interning.
Do you have any future interest in maybe getting into politics at all?
Ross: I don't think so. I think doing something in baseball is much more likely. Even though I'm not doing much in analytics right now with baseball, that's probably something that's fairly likely that I would do at some point. I don't think politics is very likely. I mean, things change as you grow and get older, but when I was an intern there it wasn't an interest of mine.
