Oakland Ballers EVP Don Wakamatsu talks tryouts, building a team from the ground up
Back in 1995, rapper Skee-Lo wished for many things in life. Right there near the top, he wanted to be a baller, just behind being taller. For local baseball players, you can live out his dreams and potentially join the roster of the Oakland Ballers. There is no guarantee that making the roster will make anyone taller, however.
Yesterday the Oakland Ballers announced that they'd be holding a local tryout for interested baseball players on April 6, so we caught up with EVP of Baseball Operations Don Wakamatsu to talk about what to expect from the tryout, what they're looking for, and some of the challenges of building a team from the ground up.
Here is the transcript of that chat:
Jason Burke: You have the tryout on April 6 from 10-3 at Laney College. There is a $161 entrance fee to try out. Is that basically to make sure that people are there to actually try out, sort of like a buffer, or is there another reason?
Don Wakamatsu: Well, it's two-fold. One, is obviously we have to rent Laney and pay the expenses of putting it on. That's not cheap. Number two, the Pioneer League runs a tryout which is $600 in Arizona, so you'd have to fly to Arizona if you're a Bay Area guy. So we try to make it as fair as possible. If you do an open tryout, you have no way of kind of organizing that. You don't know if you're going to get 500 guys or 100 guys, so we put it as more of a buffer like you said. Hopefully these guys are serious and that out messaging is clear that we have a couple spots available and we're going to take a good look at whoever wants to try out.
JB: So the way that I understand this, and correct me if I'm wrong, there are tryouts in Florida, Arizona, and this one in Oakland. So every team gets to draft two players and sign them to a contract, is that correct?
DW: Yes. If you take a player, and this is independent of that, so this doesn't count. If we sign a player out of Florida or Arizona Pioneer League tryout, we have the luxury of keeping that player as a 26th man. If we don't sign anybody, then we have to draft someone or else our roster would be at 25.
JB: How does the roster work, just in general over the course of the season? Because you're saying 25 and 26 [players], but is there a minor league team to draw upon in case of an injury?
DW: No, and that's what's kind of the luxury of this tryout, is if somebody impresses us, but maybe is not ready to make our Opening Day roster, we can recruit them at a later date. Say we need emergency pitching or outfield help or whatever. We'll have a database of guys that were right on the cusp of making our team. And then there will be players available coming right after the [MLB] Draft. There will be a bunch of players that come, college seniors that don't get drafted there, so we'll have to recruit or start to look at those guys for potentially any injuries.
JB: What are some of the challenges to building the roster? Obviously there's the roster construction and injuries occurring, but after managing in Major League Baseball and having the guys there and choosing from players that are roughly Major League caliber, what are some of the challenges in just finding guys and then making a pitch to get them to come to your team?
DW: I think the biggest challenge is we were kind of a little late to the game, being added in October/November. A lot of players were already signed at that point. We still feel like we have a pretty strong roster. The other challenge is getting a decent look at a player. A lot of these are looking at the statistics, watching some video, and interviewing them on the phone, so you really don't know until we bring 'em into spring training, like we do in Major League camp.
You take a look at guys, are they ready to play for the Ballers or not? From my personal standpoint, it's a learning curve. I haven't been at this level in 40 years, and don't really know the competition level. So when you're looking at players, I think you have to scale it back a little bit compared to where I've been for the last 20 years.
JB: Where do you think that the current group of guys that you have assembled right now is strong? Both in terms of tools, or position(s). Where do you feel like the roster is set right now?
DW: I think position player wise it's a little bit easier. Most guys are hitting this time of year and have a lot of video. Less guys are throwing to video. They're doing the Driveline and things like that. I think also that numbers are a little easier to reach. Like if you look at the players that play in this league, I think the league average last year for hitters was over .300. If I take a kid that's hit over .300 you know he's good, but how do you evaluate a pitcher that has a five earned run average? It's very difficult.
There's challenges, but I think things we've built our team around from a position player standpoint is very athletic, versatile with speed. So we're hoping that plays, and then I think bring in a couple of veteran hitters [would] I think give us a pretty strong offense right now.
JB: Is there a certain tool that you want to add to the team? Whether it's velocity in your pitching staff, or more control or command?
DW: Two things. I think in this league you have to have the ability to throw strikes. You can't afford to walk a bunch of guys and then give up a three-run home run. The other thing for me is the ability to throw off-speed pitches behind in the count or have good secondary stuff. Most kids that are throwing 95-96 will probably get an opportunity to sign--if they're strike-throwers--there's a chance to sign in affiliated ball. Most of our guys are maybe low-90's, high-80's range, so you have to say ok, pitchability is a big one.
JB: I saw that the Arizona tryout is going to be using Yakkertech and Baseball Cloud to collect some of the analytics. Are you guys going to be using that for the tryout as well, or will it be more traditional scouting?
DW: Most of the players nowadays are all indoctrinated into that. I think we're at an age now where everybody's used to it. We use Trackman data. That's the league-provided service. We actually hired someone, a graduate student, that's going to come and start to build some of our analytical programs. We're open to using anything. I think you have to weight the ROI on what you bring in right away. I think the Pioneer League is a little bit different. It's a development league . On the same point, these kids have to come in and play right away, and produce. It's not like affiliate ball where you've got three or four years to develop players, so we use as much as we can, and we'll continue to grow it. I think a lot of these guys they pretty much know a lot of their numbers. It's up to us to try to go through those, decipher 'em, and see if we can add some advice to it.
JB: You've been heavily involved in everything Ballers related since the team's unveiling. What's been the most rewarding part of this entire process in building up the Ballers from the ground up?
DW: For me, two things. One is, I took this job after I met with Paul and Bryan, the ownership group, and loved the idea of being involved in a start-up from the ground up and being involved in everything just to have the experience. Number two, I listened to their vision early, and then going to an event like Fans Fest, and seeing fans really being excited about what we're doing. Just excited about baseball in general in the Bay Area, knowing that we're making the right decision.
We have a lot of responsibility ahead of us to put a product on the field that will make fans want to come and feel comfortable bringing their family. It's been a great experience for me. We've got a lot of work ahead, like I said, but I think it's going to be pretty exciting.
JB: Is there a mandate from ownership to really take it to the Yolo High Wheelers when you face them, or do they want you to back off a little bit because they've had even less time to prepare?
DW: We're taking no prisoners.